Two seats on Road Board are filled

Bedford County Board of Commissioners appointed Andrew Robertson on Tuesday night to a vacant Eighth District seat and Ronnie Sudberry to a vacant Ninth District seat on Bedford County Road Board, but no one has yet been found to take the vacant Sixth District seat.

Since the board is primarily concerned with rural roads, it is often difficult to fill the seats representing the four commission districts (6, 7, 8 and 9) that lie mostly within the City of Shelbyville. 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 had been vacant for many months, with county officials unable to find any party from that district interested in serving.

In other action Tuesday night:

* The commission suspended its rules in order to consider restoring full pay for Sheriff Randall Boyce, who won a court case last October allowing him to be declared a certified law enforcement officer.

Tennessee Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission (POST) had sought to deny Boyce certification because he did not complete basic recruit training when he was elected sheriff in 2006. But Boyce argued that the training he received in 1976 was sufficient, and the court ruled that POST denied the certification without giving any legal reason for doing so.

The state pay scale for sheriffs requires higher pay for certified law enforcement officers, and Boyce has requested such pay effective in January 2010. He is not seeking any further back pay.

The commission voted 14-0 to grant the pay, with four commissioners absent.

* The county commission passed a resolution affirming that the judicial commissioner system is functioning properly, after no one asked to speak during a public hearing on the issue. Judicial commissioners, who in Bedford County are appointed and supervised by the General Sessions Court judge, are responsible for reviewing complaints from crime victims and, if appropriate, issuing warrants against the alleged offenders. State law calls for a hearing to be held each year on judicial commissioners' effectiveness; this is the first time Bedford County has held one.

* Commissioners confirmed County Mayor Eugene Ray's appointment of Brad Vincent to serve on the Bedford County Emergency Medical Services board of directors. Vincent succeeds Joe McCurry, who resigned from the board last year. In the meantime, there had been some discussions about the necessity for a separate board to govern BCEMS, but that issue appears to have been set aside.