| In the medical sense of the logic, if Rhea County was classified as a “Brain” then the county commission would be classified as a “brain cancer”. Never in my life have I heard of such bullcrap like commissioners now wanting to tax dirt!!! I read the Editorial in the Herald-News and realize that they are “just writing another story” but surely to goodness the newspaper should bear some of the responsibility for the political makeup in which they seem to support and promote. A political makeup of the same OLD fossils that has continued to drain the county dry of resources for years. Well folks, NEWS FLASH. The esteemed Crakston Cryler, has turned over the reigns of “editor” to me. Whoa boy, how happy that makes me…NOT. Mr. Cryler forwarded me an e-mail. I read it and said, “hey Crakston, you have another fan!”. The contents of the e-mail was basically straight forward and to the point which read: Do you just publish ONCE a month?? Get head out of ass and publish! It was then I realized he forwarded it to me because in some strange way I have evolved into the "editor" and he the "publisher". I mean, it is hard to write the kinds of articles that we write on this website. It takes a whole lot of research PLUS a whole lot of intestinal fortitude to write this stuff. Remember, Rhea County is a county full of people that seem to be good people that have been beat down over the years. A majority of the people fear telling things they know are true or otherwise "bucking" the system out of fear of retaliation. Hell, I know exactly how the feel...In fact, I have been the victim of such many times. More on that saga later. Mr. Cryler has sort of decided to name himself the PUBLISHER of this website and who am I to argue with that? After all, Cryler has allowed me to reach out and send messages all throughout the world. Even allow me to pedal off my book… It sickens me to perceive what I see as the blind leading the blind, and here I try to present them with a torch of light to help people fully see just who in the hell is leading them, they seemingly allow the torch to go out. Only until that next news or gossip event which sparks another torch bearing light, and so on, and so on, and so on…That is one good reason how a person can tell the same story over and over again and it will sound new to people who may have never heard it, or in the case at point, read it. In many cases, the story will sound new to those people who had already heard or read about it. We all tend to forget things... It sickens me to see the likes of GOOD PEOPLE stand and be trampled by other people who are more than likely much smaller, much older and much dumber than they. Oh now I will get all sorts of e-mails jumping my butt because I purportedly called YOU PEOPLE DUMB. Nothing is farther from the truth. YOU are not dumb. YOU are allowing DUMB people to persuade you, to lead you, to piss on your leg and swear to you it is raining. YOU chose to not do anything due to fear factors. I know that any man breathing air does not personally fear someone like "SpongeBob" Vincent, Fossil Frank Welch or a host of other old out of shape white men with money and assets they would never possess if not for the elected positions they hold. Naturally, people may fear what these kinds of people could have done to them by the legal system for example. In that regard, who can blame them. These dudes shuffle the cards, deal the cards and call the winning hands. YOU lose either way. That is the way they expect YOU to think and as long as you think inside the bubble then they will always win. Imagine if 1,000 of YOU sent me 1,000 different stories on some of these jack legs, then what? Would they get mad? Certainly they would. Then again, there are no cowards in heaven. Read Rev. 21:8. (or order my book) But when you think about it, if any person conducts an illegal act against you, whether he is acting as a law man or not, then such act is illegal, period. So it is then one must do the exact same thing to them. Remember folks, this "terror" word is thrown around like candy to scare you into voting one way or the other, or even forcing you to act one way or the other. With that said, do YOU choose to have callouses on your knees? I think not. I will go one step further in my assertion. Answer this one question and if the answer is NO I will quit this website altogether and become a monk in Italy, or somewhere else that’s less hostile. QUESTION: Is Ronnie Raper still an elected public official of Rhea County? Friends, I don’t think we here at RCN need to formulate a question/answer session at the “Wizard” section of this behemoth enterprise of a online newspaper. In any event, I recently read an Editorial in the Herald-News about the Rhea County commission wanting to tax clay from a company that has just barely broken ground. Naturally, the company I am talking about is General Shale in Spring City. For all you folks that read this online newspaper who do not live in Rhea County, Spring City is the second largest city in Rhea County, Tennessee. (in case you haven't figured that one out yet) Think about it folks. Spring City has historically been the black sheep in Rhea County. I am not trying to be a smart azz either. The fact of the matter is that Rhea County has only three incorporated cities. 1) Dayton (the county seat) 2) Spring City (out of sight out of mind) and 3) Graysville (a clear reason why city charters should be revoked and remain a simple town). Spring City has always been over looked by the county as a whole, regardless of what anyone says. Spring City has some of the most prettiest landscapes in the county. It has a gentle, fertile mountain on one side, a river with resorts and lake properties on the other and is vastly rural, green and prime for development. One top of that, Spring City has a brand new 4 lane highway blasting right smack in the middle of it. People, just how long do you honestly think it will take before Spring City officials will be faced with a task that the city has not had to address in years -- the placement of a traffic light--. Okay, how many red lights does Spring City have on that new 4 lane? Is it 2? How many? Perhaps Spring City can converse with the Dayton Special Chief of Police about red lights. Remember, as we all know, Special Police Chief Chris Sneed did one of those famous “red light studies”. Sneed was authorized to do a “study” of red lights in Dayton back when they wanted to rape the average driver even more by Sneed wanting to place red light cameras at red lights. Anyways, Sneed does his study and presents it to the council and interestingly, where is the study? In any event, thanks to me and my attending the council meetings "rambling" as they say, I defeated the red light issue. As of now, I could care less if they place cameras on every pole in the city. They can stick cameras up their (_*_). I no longer care about it, but YOU people should. Apparently, the study was simply him and his Uncle Frank sitting in an idling SUV (you pay for) and watching how many cars went by. I am even going to go as far to say that these two jack legs didn’t even county the cars because between them they could probably only count to 22. Well, if a person were to subtract things that look like a 75 year old fossilized noodle and something carted out of the Hong Kong blue balled regions of the tropical rain forests, then I think one could safely say these dudes could only count to 20, literally. Now I do not want to pop off subject here and use this article as another slap in the mouth to a special needs person. I am also not even going to mention how the council gave him almost $40,000 to buy a flashing sign that tells motorists how fast they are going. Hell, I thought that is why they put speedometers in cars...Gezzz Usss. I also will not go into they how need to buy more cameras for police cars and justify the reasoning of… Wait a minute!!! I have veered way off topic. So I need to hop back onto my subject line before I get tired. This stuff can get hard to write because there just is so much of it. Maybe I need to just flop down and write another book. Book writing sure allows me to write articles on here for FREE so we all may as well have some fun with it. I am going to write another editorial on Special Police Chief Sneed, his rationale in convincing the council to stand good for $34,400 is completely laughable. I was blown away how Special Chief Sneed, under the guise of the Dayton city police department obtaining a Governor's Highway Safety Grant in the amount of $68,800. Remember folks, this dude all but flunked math in school. Hell, for that matter he all but flunked altogether!!! Remember folks, I am more than willing to publish (or have published) ANY evidence to the contrary. Also, I want to be clear that I hold no animosity against "special needs people". One last thing before I jump back on my original subject of how Spring City is about to get screwed out on any future new businesses due to the Rhea County commission trying to jump on the “Break Your Already Broken Back Tax Wagon”… If Curtis James Jackson III can become a rap singer using the name “50 Cent” then Chris Leon Sneed could easily become a rap sensation using the name “1.98” Remember, I am not intentionally trying to raise Sneed's blood pressure. I figure he does a rather good job of raising his own blood pressure all by himself in having to always trying to dodge my spotlight. As for Uncle Frank, well since I doubt anything has risen from him since Teresa Ballard (what’s her last name again…) got pinched on the (_*_) costing the city thousands. Hey, there is another story. Perhaps the infamous fan of Mr. Cryler will remind him so he can remind me. Then again, it isn’t much fun to tread out where the angel’s dare not tread when I am treading out there alone…Ya’ know, who can blame me right? Then again, 100 years from now I simply want give a damn. Back to my long drawn out story. I think I will not have to ellaborate too much about how Rhea County wants an Attorney General opinion as to whether clay is a rock or a soil. First of all, who exactly will seek this opinion? I am not an expert but I thought that only select persons could solicit an attorney general opinion. I remember when I was constable, I was all but cussed out for me even asking. So it stands to reason that if a state official cannot get an opinion then every under-educated elected county official in Tennessee sure as hell couldn’t get one. With that said, and the poker player mentality that I have, I am going to wager that only a state representative or a state senator or an elected district attorney are the only ones permitted to seek a state attorney general’s opinion. I may be wrong. Once again, using my old poker instincts, along with the “poker tell” of the Herald-News not mentioning the name of who or how these dudes are going to obtain such an opinion… I am going to go out on a limb here and wager that non other than state representative Jim Cobb will be doing the asking. Hey, if someone reminds me, I will check and find out for you guys… After all, I do not like for any person to portray himself as “Moses descending from the damn clouds” acting as though he loves the world only to watch him shuffle tainted charter changes for his crony political friends up to Nashville. Or to have his picture taken at what seems to be every event or happening in and out of the county. I mean come on folks, for the life of me…just how in the world does Jim Cobb always end up in the picture looking as though he was there using a shovel clearing a creek, doing on sight management of road construction yada, yada, yada. On top of that, not only is Cobb in such particular location, a Herald-News reporter (usually Chester Smith aka Max Hackett) is always around the area available to snap a picture. Geez Uss, I am almost ready to barf… Anyways, BACK to the subject of Rhea County wanting to now try to tax the DIRT on the DIRT POOR… I am going to insert some history to this topic just in the event we all forgot it. You know, that is a prime reason people never learn from things. We tend to forget. It is simply human nature, I guess. It is said that if a woman could remember the intense pain of child birth she would never give birth again. This same logic applies to tragedies, etc.. We simply tend to forget them because sometimes forgetting is much easier than remembering. But folks, when you see someone constantly digging deeper into your pockets for more money, YOU should never forget that. March 2006: "George Thacker’s planned $4-million hotel and shopping center for Spring City could get a major boost if Rhea County and Spring City decide to give him a new kind of tax incentive to help the project along..."Thacker made his request to the Rhea County Industrial Development Board Monday, and the board voted to endorse Thacker’s project and recommend to the county and city that it consider his proposal"..."Before the IDB could hear Thacker’s request, however, it had to take care of a little housekeeping matter"..."the board elected former vice-chair Buck Hardy to serve as chairman, and County Commissioner Ronnie Raper was elected vice-chair"... "Mark Mamantov, an attorney with the firm of Bass, Berry & Sims in Knoxville, said he was there at Thacker’s request to explain the Tax Increment Financing program"..."Under the Tax Increment Financing program, if Rhea County and Spring City were to vote to participate, each government would continue to receive the property taxes it currently receives on the approximately three acres in question. But after Thacker builds his hotel and shopping center, the taxable value of the property and the improvements will increase tremendously, and those are the tax dollars that would be diverted... tax dollars paid by Thacker would be diverted by the local governments to pay back money borrowed by Thacker to develop the site...Although the actual amount of the tax break can’t be decided until after the tax assessment is calculated, Mamantov estimated it could be about $300,000... County Executive Billy Ray Patton, who is a member of the IDB, made a motion to recommend that the IDB go forward and endorse Thacker’s project to the county commission...“If it’s legal and will save you money, I’m all for it,” Patton told Thacker...The IDB voted unanimously in support of Patton’s motion April 2006: Former Rhea County School Board Chairman John Mincy has been a member of the county commission less than a month...Mincy left the school board in late March to fill the District 1 seat on the Rhea County Commission that was vacated by J.C. Fugate on Feb. 8...Mincy objected to a Rhea County Industrial Development Board vote in March to endorse George Thacker’s planned $4-million hotel and shopping center for Spring City...Mincy said he had a question pertaining to the IDB... He said he had done research and learned that Tennessee law does not allow governmental officials or municipal employees to serve on the board...Thus, the board’s vote in March was illegal, he said, because two of its members (Rhea County Executive Billy Ray Patton and County Commissioner Ronnie Raper) are members of the board...Patton quickly responded, saying Mincy was correct about the legality of his and Raper’s membership on the board but that he had been told by an attorney at a meeting of the board that unless their membership was challenged, “there’s not a legal problem.”...Nevertheless, Patton said he would resign immediately and that he would be glad to do it because it would mean one less meeting he has to attend... Copies of the Economic Impact Plan that Tucker handed out to commissioners was very detailed and included specific information on how Thacker’s project would benefit Rhea County...It noted that “ad valorem real property taxes for the plan area for the year 2005 were approximately $10,283,” but after the project is completed, “combined annual property taxes payable to the city and the county are expected to be approximately $51,135.” ... May 2006: The Rhea County Industrial Development Board decided Tuesday morning that Thacker Corp.’s planned Howard Johnson hotel and shopping center for Spring City would be a great catalyst for economic growth, not only there but also throughout the county... Accompanying George Thacker to the meeting was Mark Mamantov..Mamantov briefly explained the project and emphasized the necessity of “Tax Increment Financing” to the success of the project...He stressed that Tax Increment Financing would help Thacker pay only a portion of the cost of “utilities and grade improvements.”...Industrial Development Board (IDB) members spoke out in support of Thacker’s project...“If George builds the project, then it costs nothing for Rhea County or Spring City. If he doesn’t build it, it’s going to cost $2.5 million to Rhea County because they’re losing out on $2.5 million of revenue,” Feb. 2007: "The Rhea County Industrial Development Board may be able to act as the governing board for the Spring City/Rhea County Industrial Park. The Rhea County Commission was expected to discuss taking that action at last night’s commission meeting"..."The commission was set to decide the issue after hearing comments from County Attorney Carol Ann Barron, who, according to County Executive Billy Ray Patton, has determined that the IDB can also legally serve as the Spring City/Rhea County Industrial Park Board"..."The commission’s decision came after Raymond Walker, executive director of the Rhea Economic and Tourism Council, informed commissioners that he had talked with the IDB about the park, and it agreed that it would serve as the board for the park and handle all financial matters..."He said a board for the park is needed mainly because of the property that General Shale recently purchased there for possibly building a manufacturing site"..."To make this whole deal work up there, we’re going to need the money ($250,000) that comes out of the 50 acres they have bought,”..."By using money from the purchase of the property, Walker continued, “we would not have to have any city taxes or county taxes to make the project work."..."Commission Chairman Ronnie Raper said that having the IDB serve also as the park board was fine with him as long as it can legally do so"...
Now Rhea County wants to plunge the ever growing tax knife into the back of one of the newest job creators in the county. Naturally, General Shale officials should be totally pissed off about how county commissioners, Billy “talk from both sides of the mouth” Patton pampered to them to apparently encourage them to buy huge chunks of land, invest millions of dollars into the Spring City area only now to attempt to tax the very clay they will be digging out of the ground. Heck, before you know it the county will want to ask the attorney general is they can tax top soil. Perhaps even tax your potting soil for your house plants, who knows. Naturally, Moses himself will run up to Nashville at taxpayer expense and flop down request after request, submitting idiotic bills that other than naming a dam, a bridge or a road after someone “special”, has absolute no positive impact upon YOUR over worked, over taxed life. Sorry for the downer folks, but that’s just the way it is… Where is the Herald-News during all of this? I mean, just because the Herald submits bids for county advertising dollars which are always granted (some think that the Chattanooga Times Free Press must not be good enough, okydoky) but H-N editor John Carpenter has said himself, “If General Shale Brick Inc. does open its brick-making plant in the Spring City/Rhea County Industrial Park in a few years, it will be important, not only because it will be the first industry there or because of the 80 jobs it will produce, but because General Shale is the linchpin to the development of the entire industrial park.” So even though General Shale is the obvious LINCHPIN for the entire industrial park, the county now wants to tax rape the company…Geeezz Usss, totally unbelievable. Maybe Carpenter should have used the term “LINCH” in some other compound fashion instead of the word “PIN”. And do you realize that these dudes think they make some sort of sense? The Tennessee General Assembly passed a law in 1984 empowering counties to charge a tax of up to 15 cents per ton on gravel, sand, sandstone, chert and limestone removed for commercial purposes. Rhea County naturally adopted that tax grabbing act in 1995, and since then local quarries have been paying the tax passing that cost right along to YOU, the consumer/taxpayer. The county expresses the need for taxing clay because they could use the extra $50,000-$60,000 in tax revenue. If the county needs money so bad, could they maybe entertain the thought of downsizing departments? I have no idea as to what the Rhea County Sheriff’s Department’s yearly budget is because it seems it has gotten so high that it has become one of those famous “Rhea County secrets”. One thing for sure, it is believed to have went from under 1 million up to 1.75 million up to a present 4 million dollars a year. Imagine that, Rhea Countians dishing out 4 million bucks for what…a department that seems to not be able to keep an employee? Maybe YOU guys would have been better off with FREE constables. At least you know what you get and what it will cost you, which is not much and nothing. With a paid department you tend to expect a degree of professionalism but times are very hard and YOU need to figure out new ways to deal with it. Pumping more money into anything means pumping more money into it. Money goes from YOUR pocket to theirs and if you have to go broke to feel safe and protected, well I won't comment on that one because that would be another 500 words on "chickenism". Couldn’t the sheriff sell of one of those two identical speedboats? Wouldn’t that help? Could the city of Dayton maybe re-think giving OVER one million dollars to a chief who must surround himself with incompetence in order to even look smart? After all, the county as a whole hasn’t grew much more than 6,000 people in almost 50 years. Keep on paying, keep on rowing that sinking boat people. General Shale is in a business of turning clay in to brick and operates with thin profit margins and the mineral severance tax could spell disaster for the company. Also, what kind of signal will that radiate out to other prospective businesses entertaining the thought of coming to Rhea County? Who in their right mind would invest money in Rhea County? Before you guys get all pissed off and fire me more of those hate e-mails, answer me this. Would YOU invest your money in Rhea County? It seems that the one‘s that have all the money want to keep it that way. Those people do not really need nor want competition to their interests. For example, would Rhea County even had gotten a Lowe‘s store if it wasn‘t for the land development of public officials building houses, apartments and sub-divisions? I seriously doubt it. It is said that all the money raised from mineral severance taxes goes directly to the Rhea County Highway Department. Although the highway department has been particularly hard hit in recent years due to the skyrocketing price of oil which has tripled its costs for fuel and road-building materials, no official including Snyder seems to want to give up their nice LARGE gas guzzlers. Hey, who can blame 'em, right? It’s YOUR money people. So now you are probably sitting there saying to yourself, “just what in the heck does George Thacker, the IDB, the county, Billy Ray, Ronnie “hero-man’ Raper, red lights, special needs people and limp noodles have to do with whether or not dirt is clay or clay is dirt or dirt is rock or rock is clay? Well folks, I guess the reasoning is this: I think it is a shame that these same old under- educated people say this, say that and always with the assistance of some Herald-News publisher emeritus, editor or stoned reporter spoon feeding mud to Rhea Countians while trying their level best to convince YOU that it’s chocolate pudding. It simply amazes me as to why Rhea County choses to be down in the bottom of a sinking boat, rowing their butts off while certain ones sit high atop on the deck of the boat telling YOU rowers that the “boat ain’t sinking” and to just "shut up and keep on rowing". The facts are clear. Rhea County needs money because of all those dirty little deals that they each trade off to each other are now catching up to them. Sure, this is just the way things are in the world but they do not have to be that way where you live, do they? Isn’t there not enough of YOU people that can read things like this and not get at least semi-pissed off about it? If none of this is true, then why doesn't someone denounce it? The reason is, they can't. Sure, some people hate reading things printed within this website, but many more realize it is the sad truth. Do you enjoy paying 4 bucks for a gallon of gas? Could Rhea County road supervisor Tommy Snyder at least trade off that huge extended cab gas guzzling truck for a smaller Chevy S-10 or Ford ranger or something half ass’d economical? Of course he could, but will he? The answer to that my friends is NO. I asked him that question personally. Well, the real question that will have to be addressed is whether clay is covered by the law’s “gravel, sand, sandstone, chert and limestone.” Here is some information on that topic: Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired. Clay deposits are mostly composed of clay minerals (phyllosilicate minerals), minerals which impart plasticity and harden when fired and/or dried, and variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure by polar attraction. Organic materials which do not impart plasticity may also be a part of clay deposits. Clay minerals are typically formed over long periods of time by the gradual chemical weathering of rocks (usually silicate-bearing) by low concentrations of carbonic acid and other diluted solvents. These solvents (usually acidic) migrate through the weathering rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the weathering process, some clay minerals are formed by hydrothermal activity. Clay deposits may be formed in place as residual deposits, but thick deposits usually are formed as the result of a secondary sedimentary deposition process after they have been eroded and transported from their original location of formation. Clay deposits are typically associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lake and marine deposits. Soil (dirt) is the naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose covering of broken rock particles and decaying organic matter (humus) on the surface of the Earth, capable of supporting life. In simple terms, soil has three components: solid, liquid, and gas. The solid phase is a mixture of mineral and organic matter. Soil particles pack loosely, forming a soil structure filled with voids. The solid phase occupies about half of the soil volume. The remaining void space contains water (liquid) and air (gas). Soil is also known as earth: it is the substance from which our planet takes its name. Given this information, it makes much more sense to conclude that soil (dirt) is more of a rock than clay is. Dirt, soil, whatever you want to call it is broken down rock particles. Therefore, if a rock was not broken down then there would be no soil or dirt. So dirt is indeed a rock, just in fine particles. Clay is nowhere near what is considered a rock. I can't wait to see what an attorney general will "opinion" on this. You know what they say about opinions... everyone has one. (_*_) There you have it folks. If Rhea County commissioners get to tax clay then IF they wanted to, they could legally tax the very dirt in your front yard. In fact, they could tax the very dirt everywhere. The proverbial question then would be…Does dirt include the dirt under your finger nails, dirt in your drawers, dirt in your socks? Maybe one good thing about the taxation of dirt is that by taxing the dirt inside YOUR elected officials closets might just bail the county out of debt altogether, who knows. |
| DIRTY POLITICS LEADS RHEA COUNTY TO "TAXING DIRT" ~~~Is Dirt now taxable in Rhea County?~~~ Roy L. Denton, emendator |
| The Rhea County News Paper |
| "Rhea County's REAL Information Source" |
