CORRECTED: EMS board gains backing from county committee

In the story below, it was reported that all Road Board seats are up for election in 2010. That is incorrect; only the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th district seats are up for special election, due to the fact that vacancies have occurred. Also, the qualifying deadline for candidates for those seats is April 1, not the February date stated Tuesday night by several county officials. The Times-Gazette apologizes for the error and is happy to set the record straight.

Bedford County Board of Commissioners' rules and legislative committee, meeting Tuesday night, recommended keeping the Bedford County Emergency Medical Services board in place and asking County Mayor Eugene Ray to appoint a member to fill the one vacancy on the board.

Discussion of the vacancy last month led some commissioners to question whether the five-member board was necessary, saying it might make more sense to place BCEMS under the jurisdiction of the county commission's law enforcement committee, especially since the county's financial reforms over the past few years have taken away some of the purchasing and financial powers once held by the board.

BCEMS Director Chad Graham appeared before the committee on Tuesday to defend BCEMS having its own board. He said the board, which is unpaid, promotes community involvement. He said the board has a clear focus on emergency medical services and its needs. He also said the board's meetings are open and its minutes and reports are sent to the county mayor's office. Graham himself reports quarterly to the county commission along with other county department heads.

Commissioner and rules committee member Jimmy Woodson noted that the BCEMS board once included county commissioners, but the county commission made a decision to increase community involvement by allowing the commissioners to rotate off, replacing them with private citizens. He said placing BCEMS under the law enforcement committee would be a step in the opposite direction. He said the BCEMS board is an advisory board and, being unpaid, operates at no cost to the county.

"I personally don't see what's wrong with it," said Woodson.

Commissioner and rules committee member Jimmy Patterson agreed.

Commissioner Linda Yockey asked whether the commission could keep the BCEMS board in place but also ask Graham to report to the law enforcement committee each month. Commissioner Mark Thomas, who is also chief of Bedford County Fire Department, said he didn't see the point in that and said Graham is already submitting reports to the county on his operations.

Commissioner and rules committee member Tony Barrett, who is a deputy with Bedford County Sheriff's Department, said that even so it would be good for the county to have closer supervision of BCEMS.

Woodson moved to recommend that the BCEMS board be left as it is and that Ray be asked to appoint a new member to fill the vacancy created when Joe McCurry resigned from the board last year. The motion passed.

Road board

Unlike the BCEMS board, Bedford County Road Board is a publicly-elected body as provided for by state law. In Bedford County, the road board has nine seats, one for each commission district. But since the board is primarily concerned with rural roads, it is often difficult to fill the seats representing the four commission districts from within the City of Shelbyville. Right now, three of those seats are vacant. The sixth district seat is vacant due to the death of member Jim O'Dell, while Rayburn Sudberry had to resign from his ninth district seat when he was appointed to the Shelbyville Power Board. The eighth district seat has been vacant for many months, with county officials unable to find any party from that district interested in serving.

The rules committee voted to place all three vacant seats on the full commission's February agenda. Prospective board members have already been identified for the sixth and ninth district.

Anyone appointed in February would serve until the end of the current road board terms on Aug. 30. A new slate of nine road board members will be elected in August; Feb. 18 is the qualifying deadline for candidates who want to be on that August ballot.

Bridge naming

The rules committee deferred action on a request to name a bridge on State Route 130 in memory of Ronald E. Green Sr., a horse trainer and Vietnam veteran who is buried nearby. Green's widow Diane Green appeared at the rules committee meeting and presented a petition requesting the bridge be named in Ronald Green's honor.

Commissioners recently passed new guidelines governing road and bridge names, but rules committee members were unclear on some aspects of how those new rules apply to state highways, so they deferred action on the request in order to study the matter further.

The county would need to ask the state to name the bridge, since it is on a state highway.