Cookeville To Consider Independent Party For City Employee CDL Training

Cookeville City Council will consider an agreement for Commercial Driver’s License training Thursday.

Several of the city’s utility departments require some personnel to have CDLs. These include individuals to drive dump trucks, individuals to transport heavy equipment, and more.

Human Resources Director Carl Sells this comes as part of new regulations enacted by the federal government for new CDL holders. Sells said his department has researched several different avenues of training.

“None of which was inexpensive,” Sells said. “She continued to search and she found a local person, in fact, he may be a retiree from the city of Cookeville, and his name is James W. Smith. He has the wherewithal and the certifications to be able to train and provide this particular type of training to our new CDL holders.”

The council will consider approving Smith to perform range and behind-the-wheel training. Smith is set to train approximately 15 city employees a year.

“Guys running the garbage trucks have to have CDLs, dump trucks have to have CDLs,” City Manager James Mills said. “So that’s kind of the stuff we’re talking about that we just have to have.”