Mayor highlights progress, future challenges
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank gives her “State of the County” address at the Feb. 17 Anderson County Commission meeting. Pictured behind her are two commissioners: Vice Chairwoman Shelly Vandagriff, left, and Parliamentarian Sabra Beauchamp. (photo:Ben Pounds )
“As a community, this kind of progress, whether around nuclear advancement or the stability of fiscally sound local government, creates further opportunities for many of you in the room or at home, from housing and development to retail and recreation,” she said.
Frank told The Courier News that a commissioner in a strategic planning workshop asked her to start doing these speeches. She added that she’d done one for the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce last year.
Fiscal
Early in the speech, she spoke of the county’s fiscal achievements.
“I can proudly say we have taken a county that was upside down on the balance sheet with liabilities exceeding assets, that a little more than a decade ago had less than $150,000 in unassigned fund balance, was forced to enact a spending freeze, and was borrowing through Tax Anticipation Notes to pay the employees at the start of each fiscal year, to a county that is in a posture to build a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) focused Claxton Elementary School without generating new revenue,” she said.
She added that the county was also able to increase its employees’ wages by about 23% cumulatively over the past five years, in addition to two “retention payments.”
For the Sheriff’s Office, she said that was a little higher.
She said the county could “finally invest in its facilities and infrastructure without a tax increase,” and that the unassigned fund balance meets levels for emergency funding in case of downturn.
The fund balance also earns interest that the county can spend on services and infrastructure “instead of taxing more people,” Frank said.
She thanked the commissioners and the county’s Finance Department for these accomplishments.
Frank said the county had lowered the occupancy tax, but applied it equally across the county.
She acknowledged, however, that budgeting will be challenging for next year due to “post-COVID inflationary impacts with big pricing spikes in energy and food.” She also said she believed that wages for county employees the coming year needed to be competitive.
Industry
and energy
Frank spoke positively of Type One Energy’s plans to build a nuclear fusion power plant at the former Bull Run Fossil Plant site. She also praised Centrus Energy’s Jan. 23, announcement of a $567 million new investment and nearly 430 new jobs in the county.
“These investments bring prosperity to our families,” Frank said.
Seniors
Frank cited a partnership with the University of Tennessee for audiology, speech and pathology. She said the county took delivery of a new grant-funded senior van, and the county got grant funds for new automatic doors for its Senior Center.
Health, ambulance fire and emergency
Frank spoke of new patient room at the county’s dental clinic and other renovations to its Health Department buildings.
She said the county was building a new Emergency Medical Services training facility and a new Emergency Operation Center, working with the state and federal emergency management agencies.
Frank also spoke of the county appointing Jeremy Wade as its fire marshal.
Going forward, she said she wanted an additional 12-hour ambulance for the county.
Parks
Frank said the county won three grants for improvements to Lost Bottom Park, from the Tennessee Department of Tourism, the Natural Resources Damage Assessment Board of Trustees and the Tennessee Valley Authority. She said TVA also gave $50,000 toward a new park for Claxton. It will replace the one near the Bull Run Fossil Plant, which TVA closed.
Schools
The county is working on a new $35 million Claxton Elementary School. Frank also praised the excavation simulation program at the Career and Technical Center.
Population
Frank said the county had grown in population last year by around 1 percent, putting the total at about 82,555. The highest growth, she said, was in Oak Ridge.
She said as land in the county has posted higher sales values, property values from the assessor’s office have risen, which she said had helped some people but hurt others.
Frank said she wanted to “balance moderate growth with a preservation of our vital rural farms.”
Opioid Settlement
Frank called it a “critical advancement” for the Anderson County Opioid Committee to give $427,444 in awards from pharmaceutical company lawsuits to 12 different organizations supporting awareness, treatment, counseling, housing, transportation, drug disposal and peer support related to opioid addictions.
“We can’t take our foot off the gas,” Frank said.
“One of our ongoing challenges is addiction, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
American Nuclear
Another “critical advancement” Frank described happening last year was the federal- and state-funded cleanup of contaminants at the former American Nuclear site on Blockhouse Valley Road.
