Red River Preserve: Business Feasibility Study

It is great to see this project being discussed in the news – these next couple of months will be critical for the project’s moving forward. The culmination of over two years work will likely be at a pivot point over the next two to three months.

Check out this discussion with County Mayor David McCullough of Cheatham County.

Cheatham County mayor David McCullough said officials should have the study sometime next month.

He said it will first be reviewed by the industrial development boards and Chamber of Commerce and ECD representatives in both counties as well as himself and Robertson County mayor Howard Bradley.

If officials believe the park is financially feasible, the goal is to get a copy of the study to county commissioners the first week of January.

McCullough said a joint meeting will be held the second week in January for Cheatham and Robertson officials, pending a decision to move forward on the park. The meeting would be held in Robertson County as Cheatham County previously hosted a similar meeting in July.

I really do not think folks grasp just what this projects means for Robertson County, but not just for Robertson County and Cheatham County – the entirety of Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

Our Own Growth Study?

I found this story out of Cheatam County interesting. Note: I am not passing this story along for the discussion brought up by Commissioner McCarver as much as I am illustrating that the school board is engaging in some kind of “growth study.” 

The study, which will be conducted by Hastings Architecture, will look at growth issues in the north cluster as well as adding a career and technical education center at Harpeth High School in the south cluster.

We all know that the Pleasant View area is a high growth area, and it appears that their school board is taking steps to have a consulting group study the growth to help provide them recommendations.

My interest is looking at a study for our County. It may sound cliché, but it is time we think “outside the box.”   

County-by-County: Comparing the Property Tax Rates

Many of you have asked me just what the tax rates are for our surrounding counties.

Of course, this question was sparked by the recent story in the Robertson County Times discussing the possible property tax increase.

The numbers I pulled below are the “base” property tax rates. I say “base” because they do not represent the entire tax rate. Municipalities within the respective counties have additional taxes on top of the respective county taxes. Some counties, such as Cheatam County have additional taxes for fire districts. I have not included those for comparison since it is hard to compare based on those separate taxes.

If you would like to investigate further, please follow this link to the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury – Division of Property Assessment. A link can be found here: 2010 PROPERTY TAX RATES:

County                      Property Tax Rate

North Middle Tennessee

Cheatam County              $              2.78                       

Sumner                               $             2.02.08 

Robertson                           $              2.61

Dickson                                $              2.85

Montgomery                     $              2.88

Trousdale                            $              3.00

Wilson                                 $              2.4327

Middle/Southern Middle Tennessee

Davidson                             $              3.56

Rutherford                         $              2.4652

Maury                                   $              2.59

Williamson                        $              2.26

Marshall                              $              3.09

Bedford                               $              2.27

Cheatam County Re-Districting

It looks like our neighbor, Cheatham County, has already initiated the process of re-districting.

I hope to personally initiate the discussion this Monday at our RCC Legislative Committee meeting.

County Health Rankings

If you are like me, you continued to hear about the county health rankings that were released this week.

But if you were like me, you may not have not known how they were compiled, or just what they meant in detail…

Robertson County’s own Scott Raynes (of NorthCrest Medical Center) has an op-ed in The Tennesseean that helps break these numbers down.

TCCA Executive Director David Connor shares some additional information, and also a link that has a county-by-county break down of the rankings themselves.

For those who are curious, Robertson County ranked 9^th.

Here’s how our neighbor counties fared:

Sumner                   - 2^nd

Wilson                   - 6^th

Montgomery         - 10^th

Davidson              - 13^th

Cheatam              - 21^st

Dickson               - 31^st