Hamilton County commissioner slams report from wastewater treatment site search committee, 'anonymous' member

A Hamilton County commissioner said a recent report from a citizen's panel exploring alternatives to a wastewater treatment site is ''disingenuous, biased and not credible'' because of the lack of information about the committee members' qualifications.

"If I turned in a report like that to my supervisors who sign my paycheck they'd throw it in the trash. ... Where's the footnotes of where this information comes from, where's the bibliography?" Tim Boyd said Friday. "What credentials do these people have?"

Hamilton County Commissioner Tim Boyd

Boyd also took issue with one member whose identity has not been released. The person is listed as "anonymous" on the list of committee members.

Dean Moorhouse, committee chairman, said the member asked to remain anonymous because they have received threats since exploring an alternative site for a new wastewater treatment plan after the commission denied the Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority's request for a site on Mahan Gap Road in December.

The issue came to a head at a meeting Wednesday when the commission passed a resolution to start discussions with the Chattanooga City Council about consolidating wastewater treatment services with the city's sewage services at Moccasin Bend.

Moorhouse presented the committee's recommendation to commissioners. Boyd tore into the report during the meeting.

"I think the public needs to know that this report that was so publicized and given so much media coverage ... [the public] needs to know the committee members were so biased going into this report," Boyd said.

Boyd said a committee made up of people who advocated against the Mahan Gap site were not unbiased third parties "without a dog in the fight."

Boyd blamed District 9 Commissioner Chester Bankston, who sat on the committee, for not revealing who the anonymous member is.

"I think what one really needs to particularly focus on is the fact that there's a pattern from Commissioner Bankston of throwing out stuff and then never following up on who said what," Boyd said. "Now he's a part of a committee who has an anonymous contributor ... so to me [what is] coming out of his mouth is not credible."

Bankston said he supported the committee's recommendation and that he "knew the numbers and knew where [the committee] got them from."

"We've done what we were asked to do and the mayor did ask us to put that committee together, we've done our findings, now we've had our resolution," he said.

Moorhouse characterized Boyd's comments as an attack.

"We were volunteers. We are trying to do a good job. We presented information as accurately and as honestly as we could at the request of public officials and we were attacked," he said.

Moorhouse was appointed chairman of the committee at a Feb. 21 meeting by Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger. He said he was not aware of the plan for a committee until the meeting and then was asked to pick committee members.

The committee members were chosen from a group of folks who expressed interest in serving on the panel after that meeting based on their qualifications, Moorhouse said.

Boyd argued that by hiding the identity of a member of the committee it begs the question of what type of conflict of interest there might be on the panel.

Moorhouse said the anonymous member of the committee was not a city councilman or connected to the WWTA or the Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Though such a committee might not be open to open meeting laws, Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said anonymous parties should not be making recommendations to a county commission.

"I have never heard of a committee that was supposed to produce a report for a county commission having an anonymous member. ... That's really out there in left field," she told the Times Free Press. "There really shouldn't be anonymous members on committees making recommendations to county commissioners on big important public projects."

Now that the county has voted to move forward and study the potential of consolidating county and city sewage services, Moorhouse said he hopes the committee's job is done.

"I believe and so does our committee that once the [city-county] study is complete our actions will be meritorious, because basically they're going to come up with the same conclusion," he said.

Contact staff writer Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.