Fentress County Conducting Comprehensive Plan

The Upper Cumberland Development District (UCDD) will allow Fentress County residents to fill out a survey before creating a 20-year comprehensive plan.

Communications Coordinator Sarah Cunningham said the survey gives citizens a voice in the matter.

“So what we will do is, take the responses and give them out to their staff members,” Cunningham said. “And we’ll be able to look at the responses and see how we need to address those responses and address areas in the plan.”

Deputy Director Tommy Lee said citizens can comment on a number of different topics regarding the county.

“And that’s ranging from anywhere from jobs and economic development to public safety to health and welfare, parks and recreation,” Lee said. “All different types of areas and citizens are allowed to give us their input.”

Lee said the comprehensive plan will involve short-term and long-term actions.

The UCDD met with various offices at the county and city level. Lee said the local stakeholders were also involved.

“And we have gotten their vision. So what we are going to do is we are going to take their vision,” Lee said. “And we are going to give them a roadmap of how we think the steps of how to get there.”

Cunningham said the survey located on the UCDD Facebook will close on the last day of May.

“The end of the year is when we should be wrapping up the plan,” Cunningham said. “And again, at that point, we will go through a couple of months of distributing it to the public and getting the community involved in helping to get this started.”

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development has funded Fentress County’s plan through the ThreeStar Grant program.