Rec Center Bonds Approved By Crossville Council

Crossville City Council approved the issuance of bonds for the $34.8 million recreation center in a special called meeting Tuesday.

Crossville Financial Advisor Larry Kidwell said he expects the writing of the bonds to be sent back to the city sometime in mid-October. With the approval of the issuance of the bonds, concerns expressed about how the city would pay for the bonds using sales tax dollars. Mayor R.J. Crawford said thanks to former Mayor James Mayberry the city is in a great position to take on the bonds.

“We have went from a negative net position to a positive net position,” Crawford said. “If I’m not mistaken based off the public records that can be pulled we went from a negative five million net position before Mayor Mayberry took over on average over the previous ten years. For these current ten years, we are at fifteen million plus in that position.”

Crawford said the expected timeline to break ground for the project is the end of October.

“It’s exciting folks we are about to break ground on something that has been discussed for what I could tell all the way back to 2006,” Crawford said. “That may be back any further but I could not find any more data on that. We are excited to work with the YMCA and I think we are excited to offer something to our youngins and our families that’s never been offered.”

Crawford said the interest for the municipal bonds will be around three percent. Crawford said the city will not raise the property tax to pay for the project.

“We have amazing revenue coming in predominantly coming from sales tax and our property taxes are one of the lowest in the state,” Crawford said. “I will say it again the property tax is off the table and we’ve got it down to that point where we can for it.”

Kidwell said there will now be a bond meeting on October 8th.