Morristown Mayor Sami Barile sent the above 2-page letter to Hamblen County School Board Chairman Janice Haun on December 28, 2007.In her letter, Mayor Barile asks the School Board to please, please, please come out in favor of increasing the sales tax. And she wants the Board to state "publicly how it plans to spend the money" because she thinks that would give the referendum a better chance of passing. Barile is saddened that the Board has not taken a position on this issue.
According to Mayor Barile, the City "wants to support education" and is very concerned that if the School Board doesn't come out for the tax increase, then the School Board will have little or no credibility with the County Commission.
The Mayor indicates that she has been talking to county commissioners, and she quotes "several" of them saying, in effect, "If the School Board won't help itself by supporting the referendum, they'd better not dare to come to us asking for money for a capital program."
The School Board and Dr. Lynch responded to Mayor Barile's request, calling a special meeting on January 8 to give their stamp of approval to higher taxes for all Hamblen County citizens.
Although the School Board finally endorsed the tax increase, it ignored one part of Barile's request, refusing to state how it would spend the money. And how about the $5 million extra BEP dollars that the Hamblen County schools received last year? Does Barile know how that was spent?
Click on the images and you can read the entire letter.
If the City is so concerned about education, maybe the Mayor and City Council need to realize that they can appropriate or donate part or all of their portion of the sales tax to the schools any time that they want to.
And don't forget this interesting tidbit that gives insight into who really makes the decisions, "Over the past several months, a small committee made up of representatives of the City, the County, and the School System, along with the attorneys for each body, has met to discuss the matter. Representing the County were Mayor David Purkey and Commission Chair Stancil Ford. Representing the School System were Dr. Dale Lynch and Mr. Hugh Clement. City Administrator Jim Crumley and I represented the City." Did School Board Chairman Haun and other Board members not already know about this "small committee"?
If the three attorneys (Dick Jessee- city attorney, Rusty Cantwell -county attorney, and Scott Reams -school board attorney) attended even a few of those meetings, those were some mighty high-priced meetings.
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