Road, bridge naming guidelines proposed

That's the question still being studied by Bedford County Board of Commissioners' rules and legislative committee, which on Tuesday deferred action on a draft of guidelines for naming roads and bridges.

Commissioner Linda Yockey, a member of the courthouse and county property committee, submitted the draft guidelines. Her proposal included the following:

* The honoree should have been deceased for at least a year.

* The honoree's family members should approve of the project.

* The honoree should have either been a veteran, a law enforcement officer, a firefighter, a government official or have been involved in community service. There was some discussion during the meeting that honors should be reserved for veterans, officers or firefighters killed in the line of duty.

* The honoree should have had "outstanding moral and ethical qualities."

Any proposed name would be submitted to the county highway superintendent and to the Emergency Communications District, which works with street addresses and numbering, to ensure that the name will not cause confusion by being too similar to an existing road or street name. Committee members debated whether this should be an advisory process or whether those departments would have the right to stop a renaming on their own.

Requests would be submitted to the rules committee but would ultimately need to be approved or denied by the county commission.

The rules committee voted to study the proposal and solicit input from constituents.

The issue was raised earlier this year in connection with requests to name two bridges for Civil War generals and another for the late banker and community leader Sydney "Bud" McGrew. Those requests were approved in March, but commissioners said the county needed a more formal policy on how and when to bestow that type of honor.

In other actions Tuesday night:

* The committee deferred action on the latest revision and compilation of the commission's rules. The rules call for members of the law enforcement, workhouse and fire committee to be appointed to staggered two-year terms. That does not reflect actual practice; in practice, the commission has reappointed all four commissioners on that committee at once, every year. Tennessee Code Annotated 41-2-104 calls for the staggered terms for the committee supervising the county workhouse; committee members did not have a copy of the code handy during Tuesday's meeting and were not certain whether or not the staggered terms were required by law.

Commissioners also discussed changes to state law which govern how and whether commissioners who are employed by the county can vote on budget items affecting their departments. Several commissioners are employed by the county school system, one is a sheriff's deputy and another is the county fire chief. In the past, state law has been that if the commissioner had been employed by the county at the time of his or her election, he or she could vote on the budget after reading a short conflict of interest disclosure statement. However, someone who began working for the county after their most recent election to office could not vote on such budgets at all.

According to discussion Tuesday night, a new state law tightens that rule, preventing new commissioners elected from this point forward from voting on their department budgets at all, regardless of when they were employed. Some committee members said Tuesday night that commissioners now in office are "grandfathered" by the law and would still be able to function under the old rules. Committee members voted to ask an attorney for definitive information about how the new law works and advice about how to word the commission rules to bring them in line with it.

* The committee accepted the resignation of Jimmy Patterson from his seat on the Emergency Communications District (E-911) board of directors. Bedford County Mayor Eugene Ray will appoint a successor after consulting with the two county commissioners from that district, one of whom is Patterson himself. The full commission can then confirm or reject Ray's appointment. The rules committee placed the vacancy on the commission's October agenda.