Though turnout was low at a pair of town hall meetings in Carter County’s 1st District Friday and Saturday, commissioners in that district plan to have more of the meetings in the future and hope the event will grow.
The first meeting was held Friday at 6 p.m. and was followed by a second at 9 a.m. Saturday. Both meetings were held in the cafeteria at Hunter Elementary School.
A dozen residents turned out for Friday’s meeting, but only one stopped during the Saturday morning session.
The two meetings were organized by Carter County Commissioners Robert Acuff, Willie Campbell and Buford Peters, who serve as the three representatives for the 1st District (Stoney Creek) on the county’s governing body.
On Friday, the meeting largely focused on funding and other issues surrounding the Carter County Rescue Squad, but residents also posed questions about such topics as job growth and education. The sole constituent who came by on Saturday spoke to Acuff about a road issue.
The commissioners said they were pleased to have the chance to meet with the constituents, answer their questions and hear what they had to say on the issues affecting the county.
“We would like to do this occasionally through the year,” Acuff said, adding he would like to host the meetings quarterly. The commissioners may try different days and times to see what works best for the citizens they represent, he said.
Campbell would like also to see the citizens become more active in their county government. In order to make a difference, the people of Stoney Creek will need to make their voices heard, he said.
“We need you here, but we need you at the Commission meetings as well,” Campbell told those in attendance Friday. “We all need to join together and be there.”
Campbell cited recent activism by residents of Roan Mountain that ultimately led the Commission to appropriate additional funds to the Carter County Rescue Squad to prevent the closure of that agency’s Roan Mountain and Hampton substations.
When residents discussed education and school needs, Peters said a new school is still needed in the Stoney Creek community.
Last year, the Carter County Board of Education proposed constructing a new middle school in the Stoney Creek community. The proposal would have moved the students from grades 5-8 from Keenburg, Hunter and Unaka Elementary to the new middle school.
Moving grades 5-8 to their own school would have helped to ease overcrowding at the three elementary schools and allowed the school system to eliminate nearly have of the modular classroom units currently in place, Peters said.
However, the proposal failed to get enough support in the full Commission to secure funding for the project.
If a new school is to ever be built in Stoney Creek, Peters said the residents would have to band together and show their support for the project to the Commission, much like the residents of Roan Mountain did.