News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
City and county mayors in the UCHRA service area will now appoint consumer members of the UCHRA policy council.
The UCHRA Board voted Thursday morning to make the bylaw change. In addition, consumer representative must have consumed UCHRA services within the last year.
“As our attorney outlined today, much of what was being done here violated state statute and was inconsistent,” Cookeville Mayor Ricky Shelton said. “The processes were inconsistent and they actually violated each other within the agency.”
Following a decision to investigate Executive Director Luke Collins, the board found that many consumer representatives on its board were not people who UCHRA services. Some representatives were actually UCHRA business partners.
Many state grants require that citizens be a part of the governing council. This change should bring those portion of UCHRA procedures inline with state statutes.
The bylaw changes will now go before the policy council and full board for a vote next month. If approved, they will become effective July 1st of 2018.
“It’s a great step forward and hopefully we can have a set of rules and guidelines to follow so the agency can be ran correctly,” Shelton said.
The board also voted to give the UCHRA Executive Director the authority to spend up to $10,000 and to renew contracts for up to one year.
Attorneys for the board said that protocol similar to how county managers and executives govern, based on government by-laws.
