Hamilton County Commission meetings will stay at 4 p.m. temporarily after commissioners voted to extend the meeting time’s trial period, again.
The commission’s meeting time for years has been 9:30 a.m. The commission voted in September to shift the time temporarily to 4 p.m. to see if that made attending more accessible for the public. About a dozen residents over that trial period have spoken up, asking commissioners to not only keep the time later, but move it further into the evening.
Some residents have said that it would be easier for those working regular 9-to-5 hours to attend the meetings. The commission votes primarily on county spending — including the budget that goes toward schools — and makes the final decision on other issues like planning and zoning.
Changing the time, a proposal spearheaded by Commissioner Jeff Eversole, R-Ooltewah, since last summer, has been met with mixed reactions from other commissioners.
Some were concerned about a later time running into evening church events. Others pointed to the financial costs of keeping the Hamilton County Courthouse open past its usual closing time of 4 p.m. — an estimated price tag of about $76,000 extra a year, according to estimates from county Chief Operating Officer David Roddy.
The vote on extending the 4 p.m. time period, proposed by Commissioner David Sharpe, D-Red Bank, passed 8-3. The commissioners who voted no were Gene-o Shipley, R-Soddy-Daisy, Greg Beck, D-North Brainerd, and Mike Chauncey, R-East Ridge.
The commission originally voted on a resolution proposed by Commissioner Chip Baker, R-Signal Mountain, to cut meetings to twice a month at 5 p.m. It failed 7-4, with Beck, Chauncey, Joe Graham, R-Lookout Valley, Warren Mackey, D-Lake Vista, Sharpe, Shipley and Ken Smith, R-Hixson, voting no.
Permanently changing the time will come back on the agenda March 11.
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Sharpe also originally proposed meeting four times a month at 5 p.m. but withdrew his suggestion after several commissioners echoed worries that they didn’t have enough information about cost and increases in attendance to vote confidently. Sharpe has been in favor of officially changing the time to the evening.
“It appears that there is still a certain level of uncertainty,” Sharpe said, “which admittedly is rather frustrating to me.”
Beck has been the most vocal advocate against changing the time, staunchly opposed since the beginning. The general public is indifferent to the issue, he said. If people care, they will come, he said, and commissioners should not be “afraid of a few emails” from constituents upset about the meeting time.
“I think we’re trying to fix something that’s not even broken,” Beck said. “I think we’re just barking at the moon.”
One resident from Sale Creek, Rebecca Day, said she’d prefer a later meeting time regardless of the cost to the county.
“Don’t worry about the money, because it’s our money,” Day said. “Spend that money on whatever you need to to make an evening meeting.”
During a committee meeting before the official commission meeting, county officials ran through several options. Moving meetings to twice a month, rather than four times a month, to put less strain on county employees and finances while keeping the time in the evening came up several times. Graham said he’d be open to shifting the time to 3 p.m. but was uncertain about a later time.
Brooke Weaver, the county’s chief deputy clerk, said during the meeting she’d prefer to keep the time no later than 4 p.m. County employees have to finalize the minutes of County Commission meetings by Friday, she said, and with the current late afternoon meeting time, it takes up all of Thursday to do so.
County Attorney Janie Varnell would prefer an earlier meeting time because it would make it easier to do legal meetings with the commission during the afternoon, rather than late in the evening, she said.
Discussion of a different day than Wednesday has crossed the dais in the past, but Graham and several others said it could clash with neighborhood association meetings and other city and town meetings.
“The county has done theirs on Wednesday for so many years that all these neighborhood associations that have formed for the last 20 or 25 years, they have built their schedules around our schedule,” Graham said. “If we change too much, we will upset that applecart across the county and we’ll ruin a lot of people’s meetings.”
Contact city and county reporter Siena Duncan at sduncan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.