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Wlaf1450By Charlotte Underwood
JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- At Monday’s County Commission workshop, Commissioner Dewayne Baird asked for a resolution to be placed on the agenda next Monday to dissolve the solid waste board and return the solid waste to what it was before. Baird also asked to have any funding set aside for that board to be rescinded.
Baird started out by saying that “This is never easy, but I want to tell people that reached out to me last month about some of the things the last commission done at the last meeting and they reassured me I had done the right thing,” Baird said.
TOP PHOTO: County Mayor Jimmy Jeffries (left), and current commission chairman, Johnny Bruce at Monday’s workshop. Jeffries said he wanted to put an end to rumors that he was going to fire any county employees.
He explained that he wanted a resolution “to dissolve the solid waste board and return solid waste to what it was before, and I want to rescind any funding set aside for that board.”
During the citizen’s input portion of the meeting, Sanitation Director and former commissioner David Adkins addressed the board specifically regarding Baird saying he wanted a resolution to rescind the solid waste board.
Adkins said he wanted to address the rumors that he had heard “both before the election and after the election” that his job was at risk.
Adkins said that as an elected official, that there are “very few times you get to make a positive impact,” and that he felt he had made a positive impact at the sanitation department.
“After I reluctantly took that job and took that department and I saw the positive impact that was beginning to happen and it was rewarding and it reminded me why I had wanted to be a commissioner to begin with. I didn’t take the job for myself, and I am not here tonight for myself. I am here tonight for the employees and the people, but I like what I do, and I have made a difference… So, this animosity from some of you all to me and some of my employees is uncalled for. Since before the election, I have heard that my job was in jeopardy, and since the election I have heard that my job is in jeopardy,” Adkins said.
He also said the waste management board had been created for the simple reason to keep politics out of the sanitation department.
Commissioner Baird responded to Adkins and said he was not against him or any of his workers.
“I think you have a great job. I am against the board because of the way it was done. If this was done two years ago or even a year ago, I would have said it was a great idea. But what I said at that meeting was that this commission should not be making this decision, it was a lame duck commission. You said the act was to take politics out of it but doing it two weeks before the new commission took office was dirty politics,” Baird said.
“Mr. Baird there is no lame duck law in the state of Tennessee, commissioners are held by law to conduct business as usual until their last day of service,” Adkins responded.
He also encouraged commissioners to “talk to any of the staff and they will say it has never been this good before.”
“There was no dirty politics in it. The three-panel board was picked by the mayor, when that term is up Jimmy Jeffries, the new mayor will pick the next members. You all didn’t lose any control; the mayor did not lose any control. The only thing you can’t do, is fire me, you can for cause, but you can’t for politics and if you are upset about it, then you had an ulterior motive to begin with,” Adkins said.
I didn’t make this personal, I am here tonight to put the rumors at rest.
Commissioner Chris Stanley asked Adkins if “during the time of rumors” if he had tried to contact any of the new commissioners or the new county mayor.
Adkins said he had called Jeffries and reached his voice mail and also reached out through a third party to get in contact with the county mayor.
Jeffries said he had not heard from Adkins. Jeffries also said he has no intention of firing anyone.
“But I do want to see the sanitation department go in a bit of a different direction but with multiple departments, I want to see things go in a different direction. My intentions are and this is the way I have done things since I was a supervisor. When you come in, you tell everyone the direction you want to go in and from that point, everyone gets a clean slate unless they don’t want to go in that direction. I have no intention of firing a bunch of county employees, I want to go in a different direction of the ambulance service as well, my first days in office have been pretty busy, but that’s my intention, you have to let people know what the expectations are and everyone gets a clean slate, and if you do your job, the only thing you will hear from me is good job,” Jeffries said.
Adkins said that was what he wanted to see as well, and that the sanitation department wasn’t perfect, and that he has ideas for improvements.
“I am willing to work with any of you all. You don’t have to be my boss, for me to work with you on it. The only obstacle that we have in what you are saying Jimmy is the finances, our budget is what it is,” Adkins said.
He said he does the math every two weeks on his budget, and the “math doesn’t lie.”
“I am here tonight, standing up, because I still want the job,” Adkins said.
Commissioner Rusty Orick said he felt the best fix was to leave it like it is.
“Under that state law, with that three-person board, it didn’t take us out of the loop, the commission still funds that, we’re not out of the loop. When it was brought to the table, I was for it four years before and I don’t want it to be back in that shape it was back then,” Orick said, referring to the sanitation department. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-09/15/2026-6AM)