JOHN COFFELTEditor

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen couldn’t garner enough votes during the Aug. 1 meeting to establish the PBA Working Committee designed to establish lines of communication with the Public Building Authority.

The move for additional communication between the BOMA and PBA, the board that oversees the Manchester Coffee County Conference Center, was suggested after the BOMA narrowly passed the city’s 2023 budget due to a contested line item that allocated funds for the conference center.

Mayor Marilyn Howard proposed the committee, with the caveat that it would function as a liaison and hold no oversight to the autonomous PBA.

“Basically what we want to do is open up communication,” Vice Mayor Mark Messick said. “Since we’ve taken over (completely funding the center) there hasn’t been a lot of two-way communication.”

He called the conference center a valuable asset to the city.

“Maybe next year when we vote on it, we won’t have this animosity,” Messick said.

“I think the answer is almost never more government, especially when it’s a committee that has no teeth,” Alderman Julie Anderson said.

Anderson instead called for the replacing of members that were not communicating with BOMA.

City Attorney Craig Johnson was not up to speed at the meeting on the process of recalling a PBA member. Anderson, citing information from the state comptroller, said that the process of recalling a member of the PBA would follow the same process of mayoral recommendation and confirmation by BOMA in which they were initially appointed.

Alderman Ryan French called the issues cited by the other aldermen “pretty subjective.”

Johnson said that replacing members would likely require an ethical complaint.

“I don’t know that as the board you have the authority to dismiss somebody because you don’t like what they did, unless it’s an ethical (complaint)– or created a conflict of interest,” Johnson said, reminding the board that he would have to confer with the comptroller for clarification.

“I feel like I have all the information I need to make a decision,” Anderson said. “The minutes are online, the audits are online. For me it’s not a project that’s defensible,”

“If we have members that we feel aren’t doing their job, or putting forth an unrealistic budget or accepting tickets for Bonnaroo – things we feel like are a conflict of interest, we would address it by reforming the board,” Anderson said.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.