Citizen outrage on social media gets City's attention

Phone calls that went unreturned Thursday by the mayor at City Hall pushed an Edgefield property owner to call out the City in a Facebook post.

By Friday morning, the mayor, vice mayor and codes inspector were in her sister's driveway to hear their grievances.

For 20 years, Lori McKinney has periodically attended City Council meetings requesting help with street drainage along Edge Street. A subdivision, constructed in phases prior to City Codes, left homeowners with flooded yards and streets due to inadequate drains along the curbs.

McKinney's house sits at the lowest point in the subdivision.

Pleadings by McKinney resulted in a modification of drainage under the administration of former Mayor Bob Burklow, but the work did not totally solve the problem.

Four mayors and four councils later, the problem persists.

In January and February of this year the sisters, McKinney and Tammy Morey, writer of the Facebook post, and others from the neighborhood attended meetings of the Hohenwald Planning Commission in an effort to stop future construction until the drainage issues are addressed.

A social media post by Morey in January after she heard a rumor the commission would meet about an expansion of the subdivison, brought in a crowd to protest. An announcement for the meeting was posted by the City on social media after Morey's post began to receive attention.

During this January meeting, City Planner Jim Lech called the neighborhood the "Freddie Krueger of subdivisions," as it was built with little knowledge of how construction would affect drainage. Several builders built on the land through the years which has a fairly flat topography.

John Risner, a developer, who also serves on the Planning Commission, heard the public input in January and has begun addressing some of the drainage problems in plans he has for an addition on the east side of the subdivision.

In a meeting held Monday of this week, Risner reiterated his desire to work with property owners to make sure grading for the new development solves problems as well as prepares the ground for new construction.

During the Friday morning discussion in the McKinney driveway, both Mayor Danny McKnight and Vice Mayor Don Barber bore the brunt of the anger the property owners dished out.

Development of vacant land, 6.1 acres, at the top of Edge Street, was halted by the Planning Commission in January with the promise that "construction cannot start until issues are resolved," Vice Mayor Barber said January 6, 2020. Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission Eddie DeNicolais added during that meeting, "We won't vote on anything unless y'all are made aware prior."

In March, DeNicolais was out of the country, and the Planning Commission approved a "lot of record," not part of the 6.1 acres, nor the new development on the east side of the subdivision.

Anger erupted from property owners across the neighborhood who have dealt with flooded yards, water standing in crawl spaces and muddy concrete driveways.

"There are four lots in the subdivision that can be constructed on," Vice Mayor Barber explained to McKinney and Morey.

"My property is being destroyed by water that the builder and the City of Hohenwald should have taken care of 20 years ago," McKinney told the Vice Mayor outside her house Friday. I have done everything you guys have asked me to do, I fought water, I've done everything I know to do and y'all still keep letting people build and put more water in my doggone yard.

"Where is that water gonna go? It's freaking flooded," Morey added.

"What I'm talking about is [the 6.1 acres] and that over there [the east side], not an existing subdivision," Mayor McKnight explained.

"Nobody knew about what was to be discussed at the meeting in March," Morey told the mayor.

"You are accommodating one person and hurting a whole subdivision after you said you weren't gonna [allow more construction] and you guys all made that promise, knowing we were the Freddie Krueger of subdivisions, to accommodate a friend. That's what happened. And you guys got caught. So that's small town dirty politics. Cause you don't care what happens with us."

"I don't agree with that," Mayor McKnight told Morey Friday morning.

Both Vice Mayor Barber and Mayor McKnight walked the property with McKinney, listening to her and made the decision to call in an engineer to help.

By 3 o'clock Friday afternoon, Darryl James of James and Associates was on site with both Barber and McKnight and agreed to survey and come up with a plan, if the City Council would approve the work in a meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Monday, May 4, 2020, the Planning Commission convened for May and Vice Mayor Barber, a longtime member of the Commission, addressed Edgefield property owners in attendance.

"I didn't realize until Friday that [the permited property] is part of that plat that we said we would hold up. We might not could have held him up very long anyway. The entire issue relates to storm water runoff. The mayor and I concluded that the best way to solve this is to begin working on it," Vice Mayor Barber announced during the Planning Commission meeting.

Distrust of the City of Hohenwald was addressed by DeNicolais Monday.

"I think its important that we build confidence back, cause I've talked to you guys and you don't think much of the what the city's done through the years," DeNicolais stated. "And it is time to develop a better relationship. Because we are gonna do something. And we don't want to break our word to you."

Tuesday evening, the City Council unanimously approved a resolution to authorize the mayor to explore and recommend options to correct storm water drainage in the Edgefield subdivision.

Property owners from Edgefield were in attendance and expressed hope the problems will be resolved.