JOHN COFFELTEditor

The chairman of the multi-administration Strategic Planning Commission, Lynn Sebourn presented a finished report at the Jan. 9 County Commission meeting that outlines several key perceived directions the county should take over the next five years.

The report involves over a year of bimonthly interviews by the commission compiled that assess 11 key Goals and 26 recommendations that the Strategic Planning Commission felt was critical to the needs of the county.

Sebourn started the briefing by recognizing a key author of the document, the late county Commissioner Claude Morse, who passed recently in office, had used his extensive experience in compiling similar reports for the Air Force at AEDC.

“We spent about a year looking at this,” Sebourn said. “This plan has been provided to produce a framework to anticipate a plan for needed public and private services to meet an expected population and commercial growth in Coffee County and to do so in an orderly manner.”

“This plan is just a plan for (the commission’s) planning purposes. There are a lot of things that have dollar amounts we are not voting to appropriate any money in accepting this plan. This is a construct for our purposes.”

The report foresees “very strong” job grown in the coming years. Sebourn cites interviews with Arnold Air Force Base Commander Randel Gordon who emphasized the billions of dollars coming to expand infrastructure for an expanded mission there. Final closing paperwork on transfer of the I-24 Industrial Complex (the Megasite) property to the state is nearing completion. While no industry is yet named for the site, state efforts in developing that property will be fast-tracked once ownership is secured.

Sebourn said that many partners interview expressed concern on the shortage of housing for employees moving into the area. A lack of childcare was a concern with Commander Gordon.

Listed goals for the county include a 10-year capital project plan to guide financial planning for buildings. Looking inward, the board saw a need for the county to expand its human resource department and to finalize a consistent pay raise plan.

The report suggests an update to the land use plan and zoning maps and the thoroughfare plan. The plan called too for preserving some key agricultural areas in the county.

Addressing tourism, the plan calls for creating a tourism council to promote tourism using lodging tax funds mostly untouched in current spending.

“We need to start thinking about how to identify pieces to tackle,” Sebourn suggested “We’re not going to do all 11 goals and 26 recommendations in the first year of a five year plan…”

Sebourn suggested tasking certain committees to take leadership on some of the goals and recommendations.

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.