Emergency Management

Property tax stays the same -- for this year (05/23/12)
Bedford County Financial Management Committee, meeting Tuesday night, recommended a county budget and a school budget that won't require a property tax increase. But those budgets spend more than they take in by eating up the county's fund balances, and they have very small fund balance amounts to rely on as cushion...

E-911 sues for return of $76,000 (04/26/12)
The Bedford County Emergency Communication District filed a federal lawsuit against BellSouth (now known as AT&T) last week, demanding the recovery of $76,000 in service charges. The suit claims the phone company has billed the ECD "far in excess" of the number of phone lines for which BellSouth reported and remitted 911 charges...

Com Center interim chief to continue (04/19/12)
Jim Miller will continue as interim director of Bedford County Communications Center for the time being, according to action by Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) board on Wednesday night, and the center will contract with County Finance Director Robert Daniel to handle its purchasing and other finances. The county had already been doing payroll for com center employees...

Com Center draws close look (04/05/12)
Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) board voted Wednesday night to name administrative assistant Jim Miller as interim director of Bedford County Communications Center, and also to secure the center's financial records during the transition period...

E-911 director resigns (03/29/12)
Bedford County Communications Center director Cathey Mathis has announced her resignation and that she has terminated her daughter, com center employee Lisa Cook. According to Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) board chair Mark Thomas, Mathis announced the resignation and termination by way of e-mail...

Landfill 'sale' just a transfer (03/23/12)
The site of the closed Quail Hollow Landfill near Raus appeared in local real estate listings to have been sold last week, catching the attention of neighboring residents, but in fact it was just an internal transfer from one division of Waste Management Inc. to another...

Gift cards violated IRS policy (03/22/12)
Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) board will self-report to the Internal Revenue Service that on two or three occasions, it used pre-paid gift cards to award employee bonuses or service awards, without deducting any tax payments or reporting that income...

Most of E-911 board skips regular meet (02/16/12)
Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) board, which has been involved in a dispute over personnel issues, failed to hold its regular meeting Wednesday night, with six of the nine board members absent. Five of the six absent members called Bedford County Communications Center director Cathey Mathis earlier in the day to say they would not be attending, and someone -- it's not clear who -- posted a notice on the door of the meeting room saying that the meeting had been cancelled...

E911 board committee humbled (02/14/12)
Members of the Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) personnel committee heard an earful of complaints Monday over an unsuccessful attempt to have a communications center dispatcher fired without going before the full board. The board does not have the power to directly hire or fire personnel...

Quake drill is critical (01/19/12)
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency is encouraging schools, families and businesses to participate in an earthquake drill next month. Registration is open for the second annual Great Central U. S. ShakeOut earthquake drill, scheduled for Feb. 7 at 10:15 a.m.. Last April, more than 3 million people in 11 states, including 250,000 Tennesseans, took part...

CodeRED system to be tested Friday (01/11/12)
Expect a call Friday afternoon. Bedford County 911 Communications Center will use the CodeRED Emergency Notification System on Friday to call more than 15,000 land-line telephones in Bedford County. The calls, which will be made during the afternoon on Friday, are meant as a test of the CodeRED system, but will also serve to promote the system to local residents, whom officials say can benefit by registering themselves at the CodeRED website. ...

Code Red ready to go if disaster strikes Bedford Co. (11/30/11)
A new notification system gives local emergency departments a variety of new options for notifying the public in case of a disaster, and members of the public can opt in to receive notices related to severe weather. Bedford County Emergency Communications District (E-911) has signed up for the Code Red program, which gives departments options for making automated calls or sending cell phone text messages, according to Bedford County Communications Center director Cathey Mathis...

Only 1 bidder for nursing home (10/26/11)
Bedford County received only one bid for its nursing home and former hospital facility on Union Street -- from the company which is currently leasing the nursing home, Johnson City-based Care Centers Management Consultants. CCMC has bid $3,040,520, less $240,520 it claims the county owes it for improvements which had to be made to bring the building in compliance with state law, for a net cash bid of $2.8 million...

City takes closer look at safety (10/06/11)
The city of Shelbyville is intending to "step up safety" following two critical state audits that have resulted in the reactivation of its employee safety committee. In May, the city received an inspection from the Tennessee Municipal League's Risk Management Pool, followed by a state Occupational Safety and Health Administration check in August, with both groups citing several relatively minor issues...

Johnson had close call during attacks (09/11/11)
In September 2001, Scott and Alice Johnson were living in Washington, D.C. Scott was working as an agent for the U.S. Air Force, while Alice taught at a local elementary school. Their two children were in high school in northern Virginia...

Area not immune to terror (09/11/11)
Shelbyville may seem like an unlikely place to find terrorists, but that doesn't eliminate the need for vigilance or homeland security, according to Scott Johnson, director of Bedford County Emergency Management Agency and a terrorism liaison officer for the state...

New leader joins Christian Care Center (09/02/11)
Christian Care Center welcomed new administrator Mike Rabuka this week. A registered nursing home administrator, he recently transferred to the area from Clarksville. Rabuka will be responsible for the overall operations of the building, management of staff, the center's budget and day-to-day operations...

'Everyday heroes': Ambulance workers devote lives to saving lives (05/17/11)
National Emergency Medical Services Week is May 15-21, and this year's theme is "Everyday Heroes." To mark the occasion, two long-time employees of Bedford County Emergency Medical Service spoke to the Times-Gazette about what they do. There are two major training levels for ambulance workers: emergency medical technician (EMT) and paramedic. ...

A 'smarter' 9-1-1 (05/13/11)
Bedford County has joined the Smart 9-1-1 program, and while it will take two months for the equipment to be installed at the local com center, director Cathey Mathis has urged citizens to go ahead and enter their personal information at the Smart911.com web site so that the information will be ready when the com center is...

Healthy response hoped for test (04/03/11)
Bedford and 11 other counties will participate in a drill April 14 to test state and local responses to a public health emergency. The scenario for the exercise involves the release of a nerve agent affecting a limited number of people, and how to deploy medical countermeasures for treatment...

Smart 9-1-1 could save lives (03/22/11)
Bedford County Communications Center is considering joining the Smart 9-1-1 program, which supporters say allows users to voluntarily and securely input personal information which might be useful in case of an emergency. Com center director Cathey Mathis said the Emergency Communications District (E-911) board has funds available to subscribe to the service but would first like feedback from citizens about whether or not it would be used...

Storm causes little damage (02/25/11)
Scott Johnson of Bedford County Emergency Management Agency said the county experienced "sporadic power outages, downed trees and some temporary flash flooding" as the result of Thursday night's severe weather. "As the strong squall line moved into Marshall County from west to east about 10 p.m., it had some indications of potential tornado activity," wrote Johnson in an e-mail to the Times-Gazette. ...

Juvenile center loses $400K (02/23/11)
Figures presented Tuesday night to Bedford County Financial Management Committee by county finance director Robert Daniel document that the county's juvenile detention center, once touted as a moneymaker for the county, now costs the county more than $400,000 a year to operate and may house only one or two juveniles at any given time...

City firefighters may respond to medical calls (02/17/11)
An agreement formalizing the use of Shelbyville firefighters as first responders in certain medical emergencies was placed on Bedford County Board of Commissioners' March agenda by the commission's rules and legislative committee, which met Tuesday night...

Storms spring up; be prepared (02/16/11)
In order to survive severe weather, you need to do two things: know, and act. You must know when there is a danger of severe weather. The most-recommended tool for that is a NOAA weather radio receiver, widely available at a variety of local stores...

Old Med Center lot to house seized cars (02/09/11)
Bedford County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to turn a parking area at the old Bedford County Medical Center campus on Union Street into a lot for the storage of vehicles seized from drug offenders, DUI offenders and driving-on-revoked-license offenders...

Nursing facility attracts interest (01/20/11)
After hinting last month that it might be interested in selling the county-owned nursing home facility, the county has begun receiving inquiries, according to discussion at Tuesday night's meeting of Bedford County Board of Commissioners' courthouse and county property committee...

Deadline nears for trash decision (12/12/10)
With no place for the county's trash to go after the first of the year, the county's solid waste authority is recommending to the county commission that they ask to join the Interlocal Solid Waste Authority. Approval was given on Wednesday by the ISWA that both Bedford and Moore County would be allowed to join the group, which could bring a considerable savings to the county in the cost of trash disposal...

County must find new disposal site - fast (11/28/10)
Bedford County has until the first of 2011 to find a new place to dump their trash. Cedar Ridge Landfill in Marshall County is closing temporarily due to a delay in its appeal for permission to expand, and also because space is running out for more garbage...

Tornado forecast creates 'a momentary scare' (10/26/10)
Bedford County Emergency Management Agency director Scott Johnson said that local officials had "a momentary scare" when the county seemed likely to fall victim to a tornado. "We did have a momentary scare this afternoon from the storms," stated Johnson in an e-mail to the Times-Gazette....

Engineering fees gain committee's support (08/25/10)
Bedford County Financial Management Committee gave its recommendation Tuesday evening to a schedule of engineering fees which will be passed along to the developers of major subdivisions. The county is contracting with Smyrna-based Dempsey, Dilling & Associates to provide engineering services. The developer of a subdivision will still hire his or her own engineer to draw up plans, explained county commissioner and planning commission member Linda Yockey...

Emergency communications exercise held at fire academy (03/11/10)
Emergency communications units from local, state and federal agencies operating in Middle Tennessee gathered this week at the Tennessee Fire Service and Codes Enforcement Academy for an exercise designed to improve inter-agency communications in the case of a major disaster or other emergency...

Severe weather season nears (02/25/10)
This is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Tennessee, and Bedford County Emergency Management Agency director Scott Johnson says that every family, every business, and every church or non-profit organization should have a plan for coping with severe weather...

Uncertainty reigns as officials prepare for snow, ice and sleet (01/28/10)
A winter storm continues to bear down on Tennessee, and forecasters are scrambling to figure out what form of precipitation is likely to fall where. A statement from the National Weather Service office in Memphis early Thursday said icing of up to a half inch was possible along the Interstate 40 corridor from Memphis to Jackson. Forecasters cautioned that it wasn't clear what form the precipitation would take...

EMS board may be eliminated (12/09/09)
Bedford County Board of Commissioners, meeting Tuesday night, asked its rules and legislative committee to study doing away with the Bedford County Emergency Medical Services board and placing the ambulance service under control of the commission's own law enforcement committee...

Flashing lights can save lives (11/26/09)
In some types of medical emergency, the faster an ambulance can arrive, the better chance the patient has of survival. But a rural neighborhood sometimes poses challenges for ambulance, fire and law enforcement personnel. Homes may be located some distance from the road. ...

Committee leaves compensation up to individual members (09/23/09)
Bedford County Financial Management Committee members said Tuesday night that it should be an individual decision, not a county policy, if members of county boards and committees want to give up their pay. Earlier this month, Bill Lewis of Bedford County Solid Waste Authority repeated his challenge to members of county boards and committees to give up their compensation due to the tight economy and its effect on county budgets...

Johnson tells Patriot Day crowd of close brush with Sept. 11 (09/13/09)
Everyone can remember exactly where they were on Sept. 11, 2001 when they heard news of the attacks on America. Whether you were at home, work, attending school or commuting, it's hard to erase that day from memory. For Scott Johnson, director of Bedford County Emergency Management Agency, the day has special meaning. He was supposed to be at the Pentagon for a meeting on that day...

$21 million is possible cost of Normandy project (04/26/08)
With one eye on the current drought and the other eye on future flooding, the Tennessee Duck River Development Agency will soon be requesting feasibility studies for solutions -- one of which could be raising the pool level at Normandy Dam 5 feet -- which would mean construction work to raise the actual dam and replace the spillway gates...

Planners address church, cycles, waste treatment (04/25/08)
A new church building, a motorcycle dealership and an improved treatment plant for Tyson were some of the items addressed by the Shelbyville Planning Commission Thursday. A public hearing was held concerning Shelbyville's new subdivision regulations before the commission meeting began. No one spoke about the new rules and the commission approved the regulations after that...

Tyson says it has corrected sewage issue (03/27/08)
Problems with Tyson Foods' sewage treatment facility at its chicken processing plant in Shelbyville have been corrected, according to company officials. Last Feburary, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) issued a notice of violation to Tyson Foods' environmental office in Shelbyville, stating that the plant's sewage treatment facility discharged effluent into the Duck River with levels of ammonia greater than allowed by the plant's permit...

Tyson CEO says ethanol will lead to higher food costs (03/27/08)
When Dick Bond says that the price of food will soon go up due to increased ethanol production, you'd best listen to him. He should know: he's the president and CEO of Tyson Foods. Bond paid a rare visit to the Shelbyville poultry complex Wednesday to tour the facility and meet with plant management as well as officials from around Bedford County...

Cost control emphasized to county officials (03/21/08)
Cost control and record-keeping were stressed during a meeting Thursday of the county's department heads. The quarterly luncheon meeting was held Thursday at the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency building on Railroad Avenue. It included the presentation of bonus checks to the staff of Bedford County Zoning Office for their cost-saving measures...

Two churches step up for disaster relief (03/20/08)
Last year, Bedford County Emergency Management Agency began working with area churches to provide short-term shelter locations where people could ride out a severe storm in safety. But those shelters are only meant for a few hours, until severe weather has passed. What happens in the event of a major disaster, like the tornadoes that struck Tennessee in February, when a substantial number of people lose their homes all at once?...

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