Friday Recap for December 6th, 2024

Hey all,

As you can see, I have upgraded my newsletter. Thanks to Dave B. for the help in setting this up! If you have any feedback about the new format, positive or negative, I'd love to hear it – we are always looking to improve.

December is the slowest month of the year. Neither the school board nor the county commission have full board meetings although county commission committees continue to meet and BOMA keeps a pretty full schedule.

Williamson County School District

There was nothing this week but next Monday the 9th (agenda video) is a very important meeting. I am passing on the information for this meeting that the Williamson County Moms for Liberty has put together because they give you everything you need to know. I encourage everyone to attend this meeting. We need to stand together and tell the school district that we don't want any child to be exposed to these types of books.

HOW WE GOT HERE

In August 2023, a group of WCS parents filed a lawsuit against the the school board for not following the TN Law, “The Age Appropriate Materials Act.” (TCA 49-6-3803). In October 2024, the school board learned that the judge in the case had ordered them to reevaluate and vote on five challenged books using the criteria set forth in TN state law.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Email the school board members now
2. Attend the Dec 9 school board meeting
3. Sign up to address the school board at the meeting

Ask the board members to follow Tennessee law to determine if the books meet the age-appropriate guidelines and the educational mission of our district. Let the board members know that the community supports them in setting parameters on educational literature for all our students to ensure they align with legal age-appropriate requirements and the educational mission. As always, be courteous, respectful, and thank the board members for their service.

tony.bostic@wcs.edu daniel.cash@wcs.edu dennis.driggers@wcs.edu josh.brown@wcs.edu margie.johnson@wcs.edu jay.galbreath@wcs.edu melissa.wyatt@wcs.edu donna.clements@wcs.edu claire.reeves@wcs.edu eric.welch@wcs.edu. tonja.hibma@wcs.edu drason.beasley@wcs.edu

ARRIVE EARLY. Start time is 6 PM. 1320 West Main, Franklin Auditorium at the WC Admin Bldg. The entrance is located on the right side of the building near the back. Steps lead up to entrance double doors. As always, be respectful of the board and the speakers. The public can address the school board at the beginning of the meeting for approximately 1 to 3 minutes (depending on the number of speakers).

The main points are age-appropriateness, the educational mission of Williamson County Schools, and protecting children (not so-called book banning). Please keep the message succinct and respectful.

We are here to help so if you would like assistance crafting your message, email us at secretary@momsforlibertywc.org.

You must preregister online to speak at the board meeting. Sign up is from 12 pm on Thursday, Dec 5th through 12 pm on Monday, Dec 9th. Email publiccomment@wcs.edu

Provide the following information:

• Your First and Last Name 
• Complete Address 
• Your Topic of Comment 
• Any Organization You Represent

After the district receives your email request to speak, you will receive a confirmation email. Please bring the email and a photo ID to the meeting. You should arrive no later than 5:50 to check in.

The purpose of the December 9th meeting is to determine whether each of the five library books listed below is appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the books in WCS libraries, and whether each book is consistent with the educational mission of WCS.

• Extremely Loud and Extremely Close
• Field Guide to the North American Teenager
• Speak
• Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Where the Crawdads Sing

Click this link to read the current school library policy.

Williamson County Commission

The Williamson County Highway Commission met on Wednesday agenda. Since this commission doesn't record their meetings, I don't know how the meeting went.

The Public Health committee met on Thursday and there is no agenda or video.

Next week looks like this.

Board of Mayor and Aldermen

The Franklin Planning commission met on Monday agenda, video and voted to recommend passage of ORDINANCE 2024-34 As Amended. The amended ordinance is 145 pages and has been worked on for many months. It is very detailed as to what is allowed and what is not with regards to building in city zones.

The Franklin Transit Authority met on Tuesday agenda. There was no video.

The Budget & Finance Committee met on Thursday agenda video. If you really want to get into the weeds, you can spend the next week watching the video and reading the 280 pages from the agenda packet.

Financial Highlights

• Net Position. The assets and deferred outflows of resources of the City of Franklin exceeded its liabilities and deferred inflows of resources at the close of the most recent fiscal year by $969,741,814, compared to $959,225,355
  in the previous fiscal year. Of this amount, $99,986,654 (unrestricted net position) may be used to meet government’s ongoing obligations to citizens and creditors.
  
• Fund Balances. At the close of the current fiscal year, the City’s governmental funds reported combined ending fund balances of $180,659,629. In the prior year, this amount was $184,681,627. There is a decrease in fund
  balances of $(4,021,998) due to several reasons, including accrual for the 27th payroll in FY2024, increase in contractual services across the city, costs incurred in Multi-Purpose Capital Projects Fund prior to bond issue in FY
  2025, and increase in construction expenses.
  
• General Fund. Fund Balance. At the end of the current fiscal year, fund balance in the General Fund is $86,659,905, or 78% of General Fund expenditures (including transfers to other funds) of $110,789,007. The fund
  balance increased $2,018,679 from the prior year. The increase of $2 million in fund balance was lower than surpluses in 2021 through 2023 primarily from increased wage and benefit costs.
  
• Budget. The City’s 2024 original General Fund budget had an original draw of $1,000,000 and final draw of $4,011,170 from accumulated fund balance. As increased revenues were seen during the year, no draw was needed.
  
• Capital Assets. The City continued working on several infrastructure projects including bridge replacement, adaptive signal technology, trails, parks, water and sewer line improvements, and wastewater plant improvements.
  
• Debt. The City’s bonds (excluding bond premiums) and SBITA decreased by $16,316,025 (from $252,532,650 to $236,216,625) during the current fiscal year. There was $288,695 in new SBITA in the governmental funds and
  $2,456,607 in new SRF loans in the proprietary fund. A total of $19,061,327 ($11,674,154 governmental and $7,387,173 business-type) in debt was repaid.

The Board of Zoning Appeals met on Thursday agenda video. I is interesting to see how the city manages and, in some cases, over manages buildings with regards to where and how they are built.

I hope you all appreciate how much detail goes into running a city or county. It is very difficult to keep up with everything that is going on in Franklin and if anyone wants to elaborate on my reporting, Please do at pettyandassociates@gmail.com.

Next week looks like this.

Williamson County Election Commission

The commission met on Thursday agenda. They spent the first hour or so going over an audit with 40 check points. There is no digital copy of the audit available yet, but when it is available I will publish it. Needless to say, they passed all 40 checks points.

After the audit, commission chairman Duda shared some feedback they got from pole workers:

• 70% of the pole workers rated the election process as excellent and 28% rated it good.
• 90% said they would work the poles again.
• 85% felt they were adequately trained.
• The length of the day, 7 am to 6;30 pm for early voting and 6 am to 7pm on election day was one negative issue.
• Commissioner Williamson suggested and all commissioners agreed, that we should start looking for part-time pole workers to help cut down the hours workers needed to be at the poling sites.
• It was suggested that a calendar of training classes be published for all workers.
• More training on provisional ballots is needed.
• Lack of consistent messaging from the commission office when pole workers called with a problem was brought up.
• Right now, we are not auditing municipal elections and chairman Duda suggested that we should be auditing them.
• Commissioner Williamson suggested and all agreed, that we should find a volunteer coordinator to help staff all of the voting sites.
• Commissioner Williamson suggested and all agreed, that we should call other counties in TN and around the country to see how they handle their elections.
• Chairman Duda wants to start storing ballot batches by precinct. Right now they are stored by district.
• Commissioner Choate suggested and all agreed, that there should be some sort of appreciation party for workers after each election.

There are no more meetings scheduled for December

Miscellaneous

As you all know, oral arguments over TN SB1 were heard in the Supreme Court this week. Kelly Jackson has written a great article about that here. Suffice it to say, this is a very important case. SB1 counters the insanity of the transgender movement and protects our children from life altering, irreversible medical procedures like puberty blockers, breast removal, genital removable and/or reconfiguration. The importance of this decision cannot be emphasized enough.

If not me, who?

If not now, when?

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1)

“We work hard with our own hands. When we are vilified, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer gently.” (1^st Corinthians 4:12-13)

Blessings,

Bill

pettyandassociates@gmail.com

Community resources

If you like Friday Recap, check out these other grassroots conservative projects!

• Williamson County Citizens is a volunteer network of local voters that elect grassroots conservatives to public office.
• TruthWire News covers a broad spectrum of political and governmental issues, from the actions of your local school board and county commissioners to the machinations of city councils and state government officials.
• Tennessee Voters for Election Integrity is helping restore confidence in Tennessee Elections.
• Williamson County Republican Party is one of the most active parties in the state and captures the conservative heart of Tennessee.

Help educate the citizens of Williamson County!

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