Putnam Commission Wants Work Session With Cookeville

A Putnam County Commissioner wants a work session with the Cookeville City Council and county commission to move forward with the Justice Center expansion.

Commissioner Jonathan Williams said communication between both municipalities would benefit the residents affected by the project.

“Our jail is right in the heart of the city, and it is right up against the Capshaw Woods neighborhood, which is part of the district I represent,” Williams said. “I want to be able to address the concerns of the neighbors there regarding buffering, regarding school security, regarding the aesthetics.”

Williams said the project’s design and traffic flow are two areas that both the city and county have to address together. Williams said the county can not afford any delays on the expansion, but there is time to conduct a work session.

“We still need to finalize the design with the architects and we still have a little bit of time to make some tweaks to the plan,” Williams said. “I do not think we need to make a pause. The jail has been at crisis of overcrowding for some time. We need to move forward. The land has been purchased. We do not need any delays, but I think there is time built in where we can sit down and have some of these conversations.”

Williams said the county commission has been very open with its expansion plans with each meeting available to the public.

“Everything that the county has done is a matter of public record,” Williams said. “All of our meetings are public. I suppose there is always room for improvement regarding pushing information to the citizens, but we certainly have not been trying to hide anything.”