At six different meetings between July and September, Sumner County Commissioners have refused to adopt a resolution making a good faith commitment that they would not condemn private property for the purposes of a greenway.
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At a Sumner County School Board meeting on June 18, one day after Sumner County citizens overflowed the County Commission chambers of the legislative body to criticize a plan for a new Sumner County school campus that requires a paved greenway and sewer line cutting through landowners’ properties by an act of eminent domain condemnation, Sumner County School Director Dr. Del Phillips ridiculed those citizens and County Commissioners supporting them. Phillips, who has held his Sumner County position since 2011, complained to the School Board members in attendance about the length of the June 17 County Commission meeting and the objections to his plan that may cause a delay in the new school campus opening. Dr. Phillips minimized the number and called attendees “really, really, really mad folks,” made reference to a County Commissioner being an “armchair civil engineer” and “untrained,” said it was a “glorious discussion” and “it was a fun, fun, fun, fun time.” The property to be taken by eminent domain, if an easement agreement can’t otherwise be reached with the 19 landowners by the public utility, White House Utility District, will be for a sewer line to serve Sumner County Schools new 265-acre elementary-middle-high school campus…
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GALLATIN, Tennessee – More than 200 citizens turned out for the regularly scheduled meeting of the Sumner County Board of Commissioners Monday night to have their say on a planned greenway and sewer line as well as a property tax increase included in the budgets proposed for fiscal year 2019-2020. Two major and contentious issues on the Sumner County Commission’s meeting agenda – a greenway that would sit atop a to-be sewer line that will cut right through the properties of several owners and a tax-increase for the upcoming fiscal year – have driven citizens to action. As reported by The Tennessee Star, in the picturesque and rural Upper Station Camp Creek area north of Long Hollow Pike, County Executive Anthony Holt planned to use eminent domain to install a sewer line to a new 265-acre elementary-middle-high school campus right through the properties of residents in the area. The sewer line would have a sidewalk of sorts on top of it, creating a new section of greenway to connect to the existing Lower Station Camp Greenway. Residents in the area only recently found about the condemnation of their property for the sewer line and attached greenway, even though the…
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As budgets for the operation of Sumner County government and schools are set to be approved by the Board of County Commissioners at the regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Monday, June 17, the proposed spending plan will require an increase in the property tax rate. While the amount of the property tax increase has not yet been established, it is clear through discussions by several of the County Commissioners as well as the County Finance Director that an increase is imminent. A property tax increase would be the second for Sumner County in less than five years, with the last set into place in November of 2014. Both times, the property tax increases coincided with a property reappraisal which happens every five years in Sumner County. All of Tennessee’s 95 counties are on a four-, five-, or six-year reappraisal cycle. Upon the completion of the appraisal of all properties in a county, no matter the length of the reappraisal cycle, the county’s Assessor of Property determines and certifies a property tax rate that provides the same revenue for the County as was levied during the previous year. This is otherwise known as a certified tax rate (CTR) or revenue-neutral…
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