All seemed to be going smoothly at last nights Crossville City Council meeting until the very end. That’s when things got a little shaky after questions were raised by CNF reporter Tony Perry over the recent 20 per cent tax increase to cover up to $400,000 in a  budget deficit considering the City has more than $8 million dollars in the bank; and why didn’t the City draw from the fund to reduce the deficit instead of raising taxes.   City Manager Rutherford told Perry that he would need to ask the Council about that.  Perry then looked at the Council and said “anyone with Council wanna answer that?”  Almost immediately efforts were made to shut down Perry and his line of questioning  by some council members and even the City attorney.  Council member Souza told Perry “I’m not entertaining  any questions from you Mr. Perry tonight or ever” then proceeded to get up and actually walk out of the Council meeting.   Council member Kerley quickly responded by asking Perry “Do you own any property in the City of Crossville?” with the implication of what right did Perry have questioning the Council if he didn’t own city property. Perry answered with “I own a business in the City”    At one point the City Attorney stood up abruptly and addressed the Council with “this time period is set aside for comment, you (Council) can answer the questions if you like, but this is a public “comment” time”.

Finally, after things settled a bit,  Council member Kerley said “that $8 million in the bank is borrowed money, why would you take borrowed money to pay the deficit?”.  Council member Pam Harris (who was one of two members, including Council member Danny Wyatt, to vote against the tax increase) spoke up saying “I did not support the tax increase and felt we should have used the money in the ‘rainy day’ fund to cover the deficit.”  During a public hearing on the budget earlier this year, Crossville Finance Director Fred Houston explained that a 10-cent tax increase would reduce the deficit amount for this budget by $400,000. Houston also said the general fund has approximately $8 million in reserve funds that could also be used to pay for all or part of the deficit.

During last nights Council meeting, Perry stated he was not only representing CNF in his line of questioning but also a local citizens group comprised of concerned business owners called PRIDE (People for Restoring Integrity, Dignity and Excellence) in Crossville.  PRIDE had submitted a question to Perry to ask the Council concerning the tax increases that were projected over the next two years by City Manager Rutherford.  In a document sent to the Council members in May of this year, Rutherford had projected more than $800,000 deficit for 2017 and over a million dollars deficit in 2018.  The question posed to Mr. Rutherford was “Since the city raised taxes 20 percent to cover a $400,000 deficit this year, how much would taxes need to be raised over the next two years…and what would the three-year total be in tax increases (which calculates to over 70% tax increases total during the three-year period).  Mr. Rutherford said his May projections were just that, projections, and that he would have to wait and see what happened over the next year to be able to calculate how much more taxes would need to be raised to cover the deficits if any.   Butch Smith, a local business owner, intervened during the questioning period stating that Perry’s questions were appropriate considering it appeared there was going to be a 70% to 75% tax increase over the next three years which would adversely impact city residents and businesses greatly. Mayor James Mayberry pointed out that on the night of the vote for the tax increase there were maybe 8 or 10 people in attendance and not one word was spoken against the tax increase.  It should be noted that meeting was a ‘Special Called’ meeting and may have not been publicized as ‘The’ meeting in which the Council would vote on raising taxes 20 per cent.

After all the dust had settled there were no clear answers to the tax questions.   A local businessman present at the meeting asked CNF’s Perry what he thought about Council member Kerley’s implication that he had no right asking questions of the Council if he owned no city property – Perry responded “Crossville News First has an average of 50,000 viewers each week who depend on us to inform them of important issues which may affect them, I’m a news reporter – that gives me the right”.