Carter County Budget Committee won't recommend aerial photography proposal

ELIZABETHTON — A narrow vote over changing the length of time for reappraisal led to confusion in the Budget Committee of the Carter County Commission that was not resolved until the next morning. The vote was over whether or not to enter into an agreement to obtain high resolution aerial photography to help the property assessor's office keep more accurate information on improvements to private property in the county. In the past, the county has gone through a property reappraisal on a 5-year basis. The problem is that some property development might not be included for as long as five years. That would result in higher property taxes for property owners who had not improved their property during that time. To make the property tax fairer, it was proposed to have a flyover of all property to highlight all changes that have been made in the past year to two years. Carter County Property Assessor Shane Simerly said such flyovers have been approved for Washington and Sullivan counties. The committee took a vote to recommend to the full commission that a contract be approved to conduct the flyover once a year and have the property reappraised annually. The vote was 4-3 in favor of the recommendation, with committee members Keith Range, Charlene Thomas, Jerry Stout and Lesley Hughes voting in favor of the measure. Committee members Brad Johnson, Gary Kemp and Julie Guinn voted against the measure. Committee member Todd Smith was ill and absent. Simerly left the meeting after the vote, thinking the vote to recommend it to the full commission had passed by a 4-3 vote. Later in the meeting, County Attorney Josh Hardin told the committee that the rules require that a majority of committee members must vote for a measure for it to pass. There was a discussion to simply inform the county commission of the service, without a recommendation. Some opponents argued that the additional property added to the property tax would not be enough to pay for the cost of the annual flyovers. After this discussion, another motion was made that the committee would simply introduce the proposed flyovers to the county commission without making any recommendation. The vote on that motion was 3-4. Committee members Charlene Thomas, Jerry Stout and Lesey Hughes voted for the motion. Keith Range, Brad Johnson, Gary Kemp and Julie Guinn voted against the motion. In other matters, the committee also voted to reinstate the honor guard to provide funeral salutes to veterans. This had previously been provided by the county, but ceased a few years ago. As part of the recommendation to the commission to restart the honor guard, National Guard Post Commander Andrew Wetzel said there would be a need to provide money to reequip members of the reformed honor guard with appropriate uniform and equipment. Carter County Sheriff Mike Fraley said he would be able to take $10,000 from his department's reserve funds to fund the cost of equipping the honor guard. The annual cost of the honor guard detail would be funded as it had in the past as a County Commission donation to outside agencies. The committee also approved a proposal to form a partnership between the Elizabethton-Carter County Chamber of Commerce and Northeast Tennessee Tourism to promote tourism in Carter County. All funding would come from a tax on motels, hostels and other tourist accommodations. No property tax or other county revenue would be included. The taxes on motels, hostels and other accommodations are required to be spent exclusively on the promotion of tourism.