Forks of River waste center closing

Knox County will close its Forks of the River Convenience Center, located in the eastern part of the county, on April 30, according to Solid Waste Director Tom Salter.

The county will move equipment from the center to the John Sevier Center in the next two weeks, and will “likely stop taking metal, tires and auto fluids” at that time.

The county maintains eight centers and the state requires it to have at least three, according to Salter.

The Forks of the River center is apparently the lowest performing convenience center in terms of vehicle traffic and weight collected, he added. The other two low performing centers are in the Carter and Karns communities, although the Forks center handles half the weight of those.

Officials said they will upgrade the John Sevier Center to help with the impact from closing the Forks operation.

Here’s some background on the Forks center, provided by Salter:

It was originally constructed as a temporary site to handle traffic during the construction of the John Sevier Center.

The Forks of the River Convenience Center takes up 1.8 acres (14%) of a 13.1 acre site.  86% of the site was not being used for any mission-related activity and the property is not on the tax rolls.

Later, the County used the portion of the site not used as a Convenience Center as 1) a waste tire collection site, 2) the site for the County’s yard waste contractor and 3) as storage for unused equipment.  One of the ongoing concerns has been that 11.3 acres of prime industrial park land was underutilized, especially after closure of the yard waste facility.  Sale of the land would allow it to return to a higher and better use and return it to the tax rolls.  The possibility of selling just the unused portion of the site was explored, but the Convenience Center is in the center of the site and essentially splits the land into two sections, making it impractical for a buyer to properly utilized the whole site.

Email flap: Cox gone, Salter stays

Ever since David Cox was put on paid suspension for sending county Commissioner Amy Broyles some rude emails, folks have been asking about solid waste director Tom Salter, the funny man who supposedly created an email account and pretended to be his own arch nemesis, Brad Mayes.

I blogged about it right smack here. Funny, stupid stuff.

Anyhoo, internal auditor Richard Walls on Friday fired Cox for sending the emails although that wasn't the official reason. It something to do with not being able to maintain objectivity or something.

Rebecca Ferrar wrote the story. Click for the brilliance right smack here.

So, where does that leave Salter? Some folks wonder why county Mayor Tim Burchett hasn't done anything about him.

First off, Walls answer to the county commission – not the mayor. Second, the Salter incident didn't happen under Burchett.

It happened under then-county Mayor Mike Ragsdale (back in May 2008). So, really, it's his choice. Or was.

Here's Burchett's response when I asked him about Salter: “All that happened prior to me being in office. (Salter) just needs to continue doing the job that he's supposed to. It was under a different administration and the things that went on then, aren't permitted. now.”

Mayes calls out Salter. Again.

I guess county solid waste director Tom Salter thinks he’s a funny guy.

You know, supposedly making up email accounts, pretending he’s his own arch nemesis Brad Mayes, then sending a note to an attorney.

Funny stuff, I tell you.

Until you get caught.

And in one of the most ironic/dumbest ways possible (not that emails can’t be traced anyway).

You see, Brad Mayes, pictured above, talked (and still does) some trash about Salter. And Salter, I presume, got tired of it.

In fact, he got so tired of it, he decided to sue Mayes for slander. And therein lies the problem.

Lawsuits require depositions. And attorneys can pretty much ask anything in a deposition, even if it really isn’t that germane to whatever the heck the lawsuit is about. And you don’t want to lie in a deposition. Because then the opposing attorney gets you on the stand and – sort of – asks you the same question later on. And your answer better match up. (Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said if you never lie you never have to remember anything? But I digress.)

Anyhoo,Salter sues Mayes. Then Mayes' attorney turns the whole thing around on Salter.

Salter pretty much had to confess that he’s the one who sent out the email that was supposedly from Brad. It was back in 2008, under the fake account: brad@plumbcreek.com.

It was sent to David Draper, the attorney for Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee, the county’s mulch operator. Mayes, right or wrong, has been pissing off NRRT and solid waste director Tom Salter for quite some time.

So, Mayes during today’s county commission meeting turned over part of that deposition to commissioners. The one where Salter – when asked about the email – said “I just thought it was funny.”

Heh. Heh. Hahahahahahaha.

Oh man. That’s rich.

Here’s the email along with a page of the deposition. You can decide whether it’s funny.

In response to Brad’s presentation, commissioner and good doctor, Richard Briggs, said:

“(Brad) has been criticized by members of this commission as being inappropriate . . . and I’d like to point out that in the (Pam) Reeves report (which laid out all sorts of screw-ups going on in the solid waste department – albeit mostly under Salter’s predecessor) and the audit report we received April 26, we found almost 500,000 the county did not receive that was pointed out by Brad Mayes, and Brad is like a rock in your shoe if you work for Knox County because he’s pointed out a number of things people are uncomfortable with, but he pointed out that there was 500,000 that is owed to the county . . and I know a lot of people make fun of him, but that is a fact.”

Here’s a story I wrote about NRRT and the solid waste department. It details that fairly scathing audit. Most of which Mayes investigated and found on his own.

Also during today’s meeting, Commissioner R. Larry Smith – just as county Mayor Tim Burchett was approaching the podium to address the commission on an unrelated matter – said: “We’ve got some real hard evidence about some things and we’ve had some hard evidence (in the past).”

He then asked Burchett what he was going to do about it.

The mayor, who had nothing to do with this mess because it happened before he took office last September, said: “We’re not stalling and we’re not covering up for anybody, commissioner. I ran on transparency and we’re going to get it. We’re going to get it all resolved.”

Said Smith: “We need to send some messages out to county employees. We’ve had some other things happen during this past week and this seems to be a lot more damaging.”

Yeah. No kidding.