Born and raised in DeKalb County, my heart stays fixed on what I can do for this community! This community is my friends, my family, and my people! There is nowhere else in the world I would rather be. This is my home, my neighborhood, and my county. I will fight for DeKalb County as long as I live. DeKalb County matters, and most importantly you matter. I will make DeKalb County the county that you DESERVE!
LIST OF ISSUES
ROADS
If you have lived in DeKalb County very long you know as well as I do we have some county roads that need a lot of work. This is a tricky situation for a Mayor. The Mayor does not have control of the roads, but the elected Road Supervisor does. The Mayor does not have the financial funding power over the roads, but the County Commission does. HOWEVER, as Mayor I will make a public recommendation of what needs to happen for these roads! I can stand with the Road Supervisor and the County Commission and work diligently with them in getting this issue resolved. I will make the initial engagement of implementing a team composed of all three working as a team to fix these roads!
SCHOOLS
Its clear that our schools are outdated and we need to be thinking about how we are going to address this problem. We need to think about the most precious thing the county has, our children! We need to make a plan of action that will take care of the generation of now, and the generations to come. As mayor I'd like to reach out to the school board and members of leadership to discuss what the needs are and what we can do about it. If the school board, county commission, city council, and mayors teamed up for a mass project of funding and development of a plan, I believe we can get some great work accomplished.
JAIL
Many may not be aware, but our Jail is also outdated. The jail has been threatened to be uncertified by the state of Tennessee because its to small and to old to accommodate the occupants inside. Why is this important? Uncertified jails can cause issues! It helps occupants of the jail have more of an opportunity to sue the county based on jail conditions. If a lawsuit isn't enough, it also is harder to qualify for grants that can largely impact the jail and the county. These grants can save the county and taxpayers thousands of dollars, in the long run millions of dollars! We must implement some course of action to prepare to build a new jail.
INSURANCE
I want to explore more options on our county insurance for our employees. Employees of the county can barely afford the insurance offered. Family plans cost so much, employees stay uninsured just because it would be cheaper in some instances to pay out of pocket.
BANKING / DIRECT DEPOSIT
This is something I tried to change many times as a County Commissioner, but the current Mayor would never comply. Our county employees deserve the ease of direct deposit. Our current situation is county employees only get paid by paper checks. Why is this a problem? A lot of the county employees don't live in the county, Believe it or not but here is a large number of people that live outside to DeKalb County, but love to work for us. These dependable employees deserve direct deposit. Even the employees that live here still have to come on their day off to pick up their hard earned paychecks. This should not be a problem, and should be an easy fix. Employees should have the option between paper checks or direct deposit. No more stuck in the past, its 2021 and we have more convenient options if we can just start implementing them.