DeKalb County landline telephone subscribers can expect a rate increase for 911 services within sixty days.
The DeKalb County Emergency Communications District has received approval from the state board to implement the increase and to notify telephone service providers within the ECD.
In a letter dated May 24 to Director Brad Mullinax of the local ECD, Lynn Questell, Executive Director of the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board, wrote that “this letter concerns the DeKalb County Emergency Communications District’s application to increase the 911 services charge on landlines in DeKalb County. On May 19, the Tennessee Emergency Communications board approved this request pursuant to (state law). Accordingly, the Board of Directors of the DeKalb County ECD may increase the emergency telephone service charge within DeKalb County to the following effective May 19, 2011:
The new rates will be $1.50 per month for residence-classification service users (up from the currrent rate of 65 cents) and $3.00 per month for business-classification users (up from the current rate of $2.00 per month).
You are hereby authorized and encouraged to immediately notify the telephone service providers delivering landline service within your ECD of the rate increase. Such service providers shall implement the new rate classification within sixty calendar days of receiving notice of the increase,” wrote Questell
Mullinax told WJLE Friday that he has sent notification to the telephone service providers by certified mail.
The state (ECD) board will review the rate again with three years. According to Questell’s letter ” Within three years of the date of approval, DeKalb County ECD shall submit a financial report to the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board consistent with TECB policy at which time the TECB will consider the propriety of maintaining the rate”.
DeKalb County landline telephone subscribers have been paying the same rates for 911 services since 1994..
Facing ever increasing costs and declining revenues due to fewer landline telephones, the DeKalb County Emergency Communications District (911 board of directors) decided several months ago to seek an 85 cent per month increase for residential lines and a $1.00 increase per month for business lines. The proposed increase is expected to generate more than $88,000 per year.
Mullinax said the rate increase is needed “We have seen a decrease in the number of landlines over the years. That’s not cell phones but the telephones you have in your house. It is and has been the basis of our funding since 1994 when 911 was first set up in DeKalb County. But over the last several years, people have been dropping their landlines and going exclusively with cell phones because its cheaper for them. The problem is it affects 911 services because that’s where our funding comes from. For at least the past three years we’ve seen about a seven percent decrease in our funding from our landline 911 rates. Our revenue is going down but our costs keep going up.”
Mullinax adds that while the local 911 operation does receive funds from cell phones, it has no control over those rates. ” We do get money from cell phones and there’s often times a misconception about that. You are paying a dollar surcharge on each cell phone you have. If you have three cell phones then you’re paying a $3.00 911 surcharge. The problem is that the State of Tennessee keeps 75% of that money and we are allocated only 25% of that wireless money based on our population. Even though just about everybody has a cell phone, we don’t get anywhere close to receiving the amount of money we need from cell phones to support us. From my understanding, it would take a change of state law to change the way the money is allocated or the fee that is charged on a cell phone.”
In March, the DeKalb County ECD Board adopted a resolution seeking approval from the Tennessee ECB to enact the rate increases.
Members of the board are Chairman Ron Rogers, Billy Adcock , County Commissioners Wayne Cantrell, Marshall Ferrell, Elmer Ellis, Jr., and Jerry Scott, Smithville Alderman Steve White, and County Mayor Mike Foster.

Repairs to the county owned Town and Country Shopping Center building from Thursday morning’s storm could cost as much as one million dollars. The county’s Insurance carrier has been notified of the damage.
County Mayor Mike Foster told WJLE Thursday afternoon that the powerful winds tore loose brand new central heat and air units from the top of the building and tossed them across the roof, causing even more damage to the structure. “The wind tore the deck and everything off the roof of the back corner (southeast corner). The central units that are on top (of the building), which are from five ton to ten ton units, several of them tore loose and rolled across the top and pretty much destroyed the new roof. A lot of the debris from the storm also blew into the front (of the building) and did some damage but that’s pretty minor. The big thing is where the roof was torn up. We also got a lot of water down through the sheet rock in the building. We’re trying to get the front cleaned up because there’s nails and screws everywhere and they (construction laborers) can’t work so we have to try and get this all cleaned up, run a magnet over it, so that they can get back to work,” said Foster.
“I would image the roof and the central units are probably (going to cost) about six hundred thousand dollars (to repair or replace) plus whatever damage there is to the front and the interior. It’ll probably be (total) somewhere between $750,000 to one million dollars,” said Foster. ” We have contacted our insurance carrier through the local government insurance pool. They told us to go ahead with cleanup. They’re going to come and do an inspection and we’ll go from there,” he added.
While the construction was far from complete, Foster said the portion of the complex where the UCHRA is leasing from the county, was to be finished within a few days. “I’d say it’ll set us back a month because if you see the roof, the units that are still in place are sort of turned sideways or blown over. They’re going to have to be done (removed) and I’m pretty well thinking they’re going to have to put a complete new roof on it. That will be the major thing. They’re trying to get some vacuums in now to get the water out. As long as they keep it fairly shallow, we probably won’t have any major damage to that part of the sheet rock except where (the water) really poured down on it. It (damage) is much worse on the south end (of the building) but it gets progressively better as you go down toward the north end.,” said Foster.
According to Foster, the Farmers Market shed also sustained some minor damage from the storm. “I think we’ll only have to replace three or four pieces of metal,” he concluded.

Clean-up efforts continue from a powerful early morning storm that destroyed one business and damaged several other structures, including homes, barns, sheds, Smithville Elementary School, and the county administrative building under construction, formerly known as the Town and Country Shopping Center.
South Congress BP Convenience Market Destroyed from dwayne page on Vimeo.
Many are still unsettled on whether the storm actually spawned a tornado. Officials who make that determination apparently have not made an evaluation but the high winds ripped apart the South Congress BP convenience market on Highway 56 south.
Click here to listen to Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Charlie Parker for the latest update on the storm damage.
Charlie Parker, DeKalb County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator, told WJLE that no one was injured during the storm which struck around 1:00 a.m. “It looks like a possible tornado. I know the weather service likes to make the official determination on that but it looks like it had a path. We went back and surveyed the damage. It started somewhere around Short Mountain Highway where Larry Summers’ barns and equipment shed are located. It did a lot of damage to his barn roofs. It went onto the BP station. Most of the damage between the two (locations) is where there are large trees and limbs that are broken out, knocked over, or twisted. It’s kind of a path from there onto the BP Station (on South Congress Boulevard) and then over behind the county building (Town and Country Shopping Center) and Smithville Elementary School,” said Parker.
“We had trees down on College Street, Meadowbrook and Green Acre Drive, Braswell Lane, and Jacobs Pillar Road. Green Meadow and Greenwood had some trees down. On Green Acre and Meadowbrook we had some trees that actually fell on houses. There was one on Braswell Lane also where a tree fell onto a house. It did a fair amount of damage to them. Nobody was hurt but it still did some pretty good damage to the house. At least three houses that we could tell had some fairly significant damage. There were other houses that looked like they had shingle and roof damage and maybe to some siding in the Bright Hill and Meadowbrook areas. Once it (storm) left the Bright Hill area, there was a building shed at the builders supply (Potter’s Home Center) that received damage. On past that, there were reports of trees that were down in the edge of the roadways but that was not very extensive. Most of the damage was in the city in the Congress Boulevard area,” said Parker.

City and county authorities are still assessing the damage from a severe thunderstorm that possibly spawned a tornado early this morning in Smithville.
The storm destroyed the South Congress BP convenience market on Highway 56 south in the city limits. Damage was also reported to the Peking Restaurant and the county owned administrative building, currently under construction, formerly known as the Town and Country shopping center. Smithville Elementary School, which was also in the path of the storm, received damage to the roof and a central heat and cooling unit on top of the building.
Click the following link for an update on storm damage from DeKalb County Emergency Management Agency Director Charlie Parker
High winds downed trees and power lines across town, especially on Bright Hill Road and the Sparta Highway.
A tree was reported to have fallen onto a home on Meadowbrook Drive.
No injuries have been reported as a result of the storm
Check back here for more details

The last day of school before summer break is one students and teachers at Smithville Elementary School may not soon forget.
Due to Thursday morning’s storm and the damage it caused at school, no classes were held. While all other schools in the county held session on an abbreviated schedule according to the school calendar, Smithville Elementary School was closed.
Director of Schools Mark Willoughby has announced that parents will be allowed to pick up their children’s report cards at Smithville Elementary and other personal belongings on a specific day after the school building is determined safe to re-enter. In the meantime, Willoughby said structural engineers will be called upon to assess the damage to the building. “We feel like its going to be a lot more damage than what we first anticipated. The cafeteria roof, I feel will probably have to be totally replaced. It looks like it (wind) tried to pull up that part of the roof. There’s actually places that you can see the sky now through the roof. It (wind) rolled the rubber roof back several feet from one end. It also took (dislodged) two heating and cooling units and turned one of them over on the roof, moved the other one, and broke some (natural gas) lines. Those are things that’ll have to be fixed. It broke some windows out. Of course all of our trees behind the school and a few in front are basically destroyed,” said Willoughby
” We’re going to call a structural engineer to come in and do an evaluation of one part of the building to see if it is actually safe to come back into. Along the edges of the walls, we’ve noticed some cracks that we think are related to the storm so we’ll need a structural engineer to come in and advise us on that. Other parts of the roof away from the cafeteria are damaged. There’s places where there’s holes in the roof. Gutters were also damaged. Electricity is still off in the main part of the building and it may not be back on until next week. We’re still finding damage that we really did not anticipate. When you walk through the school, you don’t really see any damage except for the cafeteria area. But when you start looking , you can spot cracks in certain parts of the building. After we get the electricity back on, I feel like we will be able to further evaluate the conditions. Right now, I would say there is very significant damage to Smithville Elementary School,” said Willoughby.
” When we finish assessing the damage, get the electricity back on, and get it where we can allow people to come back in (to the school), we will send out a message through our call system to parents who might want to come in and pick up report cards. I know there are things at school that students were going to take home today (May 26th). We’ll have a day for the parents to come back, hopefully real soon. We hope it will be next week but we just want to make sure the building is safe before we let people come back in,” concluded Willoughby.

After defeating Polk County 5 to 3 in the TSSAA Class AA baseball tournament Tuesday night, the DeKalb County Tigers lost to the Lexington Tigers 5 to 2 Wednesday afternoon in the Blue Cross Spring Fling at Murfreesboro.
With the loss, the Tigers drop into the losers bracket and will face Christ Academy of Knoxville (CAK) in an elimination game tonight (Wednesday) at 6:00 p.m. at Blackman High School in Murfreesboro.
In the game with Lexington, DeKalb County scored one run in the third inning and one run in the fourth. Lexington scored one run in the fourth, three runs in the fifth, and one run in the sixth inning.
The Tigers scored two runs on seven hits and made two errors. Lexington scored five runs on ten hits and made two errors.
Cody Puckett suffered his first pitching loss of the season, going six innings and giving up five runs, two earned runs on ten hits. He struck out four, walked two, and hit four batters. His pitching record is now 9-1 on the year.
Hits:
Evan Curtis- double
Shane Salley- 2 singles and an RBI
Tyler Caldwell-double
Andrew Atnip- 3 singles

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development is making preparations to reinstate unemployment benefits for claimants in the Extended Benefit (EB) program. Tennessee triggered off of the federal extension of benefits in mid-April. On May 21, 2011, the General Assembly passed legislation to retroactively reinstate the Extended Benefit (EB) program back to April 16, 2011. The bill will become law upon signing by Governor Haslam.
The passage of the bill allows those who were in the last 20 of 99 weeks available to resume benefits while looking for work. This does not establish additional weeks for those who have utilized all of the available federal extensions.
Eligible claimants will be instructed to use an Internet application to update their work status since the week of April 16th, certifying that they have not returned to work. It will take additional time to complete and test the computer programming necessary to release the application.
“It’s important for claimants to understand that we are working toward restarting benefits as soon as possible,” said Commissioner Karla Davis. “We know from experience this process will take a few weeks, so we ask claimants to be patient and expect guidance by mail or updates on our Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development homepage.”
There are several categories of unemployment insurance claimants who would be directly affected by this new legislation.
1. If you ceased receiving EB Benefits on April 16, 2011, had a balance in your account at that time, have not returned to work and remain eligible you will be allowed to receive the remainder of those benefits. If you have returned to work, you may be eligible for those weeks in which you were unemployed.
2.If you exhausted Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) Tier 4 benefits on or after April 16, 2011, and have not returned to work and remain eligible, you will be transitioned into EB once eligible claimants have updated their back-certification information. You will receive a written EB Monetary Entitlement notification. If you have returned to work, you may be eligible for those weeks in which you were unemployed.
3. If you exhaust EUC08 Tier 4 benefits after the effective date of the new law, you will automatically be transitioned into the EB program without delay. You will receive a written EB Monetary Entitlement notification.
Once eligible claimants have updated their back-certification information, a payment will be issued to retroactively cover the benefit weeks since April 16, 2011. Claimants will then resume their weekly benefit schedule of certification and receipt of benefits.
The Extended Benefits program is scheduled to conclude at the end of this year. The last payable week for all participants in the EB program is January 7, 2012.

Early voting for the Smithville Municipal Election begins one week from today.
The early voting period will be from June 1st-16th in the basement courtroom of the courthouse from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; from 2:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. on Thursdays; and from 9:00 a.m. until noon on Saturdays.
The city election day is Tuesday, June 21st. Three aldermen will be elected, each to serve a two year term beginning July 1st.
Candidates are incumbents Shawn Jacobs, Aaron Meeks, and W.J. (Dub) White and challengers Gayla Hendrix, Cordell Walker, and Danny Washer.
Voters may now apply for absentee ballots for the Smithville Municipal election through June 14th.
According to Dennis Stanley, Administrator of Elections, the requirements for absentee voting are as follows:
Absentee Voting by Mail
To vote by mail, a registered voter must fall under one of the following categories:
1.The voter will be outside the county of registration during the early voting period and all day on election day;
2.The voter or the voter’s spouse is enrolled as a full-time student in an accredited college or university outside the county of registration;
3.The voter’s licensed physician has filed a statement with the county election commission stating that, in the physician’s judgment, the voter is medically unable to vote in person. The statement must be filed not less than five (5) days before the election and signed under the penalty
of perjury. The statement must be notarized;
4.The voter resides in a licensed facility providing relatively permanent domiciliary care, other than a penal institution, outside the voter’s county of residence;
5.The voter will be unable to vote in person due to service as a juror for a federal or state court;
6.The voter is sixty-five (65) years of age or older;
7.The voter has a physical disability and an inaccessible polling place;
8.The voter is hospitalized, ill, or physically disabled and because of such condition, cannot vote in person;
9.The voter is a caretaker of a person who is hospitalized, ill, or disabled;
10.The voter is a candidate for office in the election;
11.The voter serves as an election day official or as a member or employee of the election commission;
12.The voter’s observance of a religious holiday prevents him or her from voting in person during the early voting period and on election day;
13.The voter possesses a valid commercial driver license and certifies that he or she will be working outside the state or county of registration during the early voting period and all day on election day. The request should contain the CDL number;
14.The voter is a member of the military or is an overseas citizen.
Requesting a Ballot
A registered voter may request a by-mail ballot by sending a written request to the DeKalb County Election Commission. The request must have the voter’s signature. The request may be mailed or faxed to the county election commission office. Upon receipt of the request, the local
election commission will mail an application for ballot to the voter. The application must be mailed back to the election commission and a ballot will be mailed to the voter. However, if the voter wants to expedite the application process, the voter may place the following information in the request for ballot:
1.The name of the registered voter;
2.The address of the voter’s residence;
3.The voter’s social security number;
4.The address to mail the ballot outside the county (this applies only when the reason for voting by mail involves that the voter will be outside of the county during early voting and on election day);
5.The election the voter wishes to participate in. If the election involves a primary, the political party in which the voter wishes to participate;
6.The reason the voter wishes to vote absentee; and
7.The voter’s signature. (If the voter is unable to sign his/her name, contact the Election Commission office for details.)
A request that contains this information will be treated and processed as an application for ballot, and a ballot will be mailed to the voter.
A registered voter may request an application for by-mail ballot no earlier than ninety (90) days before the election and no later than seven
(7) days before the election. In order to be counted the ballot must be received by election day.
The ballot must be returned by mail and not hand delivered.