Ducktown residents are welcome to dump their garbage at the Polk County Convenience Center in Grassy Creek, but the city truck will be turned away starting May 1.
The gloves came off over the City of Ducktown’s refusal to sign an interlocal agreement with Polk County when commissioners held their regular meeting Thursday, April 15, at the Copper Basin Community Center.
Several rounds later, at the final bell, commissioners delivered the knock out punch and suspended Ducktown’s dumping privileges.
But Commissioner Greg Brooks was adamant when he said, “Everybody in Ducktown is welcome to take their garbage to our convenience center.”
Commissioner John Pippenger explained to Ducktown Mayor Doug Collins, “When you pick it up, that’s when it changes...We’ll take it from your citizens all day long.”
The statements were made during an exchange between commissioners, primarily Pippenger and Brooks, and Collins over the agreement sought by the county.
The county has asked the city to pay $340 a month to dump garbage.
Collins brought a check to the meeting, which he said was to cover the fee, but refused to sign the agreement.
That refusal arises from a claus that says if Ducktown fails to make the payments as required, then their dumping privileges would be suspended.
Collins said this was an unfair power play on the part of the commissioners. He said he would not sign the agreement as long as that claus remained.
Collins told the commissioners there are many elderly citizens who rely on the city to pick up their garbage, that they have no other way to get rid of it.
Brooks told Collins the city can still pick up garbage, they just have to find somewhere else to dump. “You can take it to Georgia,” he said. The city is getting “a sweetheart of a deal” from Polk County, Brooks told Collins.
Collins debated the legalities of Ducktown being charged for using the convenience center, but the commissioners presented Tennessee law allowing them to do so.
Collins said he had state advice saying the opposite.
There was also concern the commissioners and Collins were looking at different copies of the agreement. In regard to the claus in question, Collins had a document saying one thing while the commissioners’ latest version said another.
Commissioners and Collins all blamed Eric Brooks, who serves as both the county and city attorney, with not properly communicating with all parties over the matter and providing similar copies. Eric Brooks was not at the meeting.
Greg Brooks, when he finally received a direct “no” from Collins over signing the agreement, made a motion to suspend the City of Ducktown’s dumping privileges for 60 days starting May 1. If within those days Ducktown was to sign the agreement, and pay the back fees to January 1, their privileges would be restored. That motion failed when commissioners Jeremy Kimsey and Samantha Trantham passed and Commissioner James Woody voted no. Commissioners Brooks, Pippenger, Dewey Esquinance and Debbie Davis all voted yes.
Pippenger then made the same motion, but reduced the suspension to 30 days. That motion passed with five yes votes. Trantham again passed and Woody repeated his no vote. Kimsey agreed with the other four yes votes.
Conversations between the county and Copperhill, Ducktown and Benton all started last December. Similar inter-local agreements have already been signed by Copperhill and Benton. They give the cities the right to dump the garbage they collect at the convenience centers. In return, each city is to pay the county’s approximate cost for one pull (one load) of garbage to be transported to the landfill.