A number of issues and ordinances were tabled until next month at the May 13th meeting of the Red Boiling Springs City Council. Issues voted upon included approval for a tax rate of $1.32 for 2003-2004. Councilman Bilbrey questioned whether the amount was sufficient to run the city's government and growing expenses relative to water line and water treatment improvements, but Mayor Gregory insisted that he would not raise taxes. He said he would rather stay within the budget as much as possible, and make cuts to some services if necessary.

A $300 donation to the Shriner's Hospital for Children was approved, as was Resolution #5-13-04 regarding the change of leadership to the Macon County Chamber of Commerce for the Macon County 3-Star Program.

Representatives from Barge, Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon, who manages the RBS Waste Water Plant at Sabins Springs presented photos to the Council of the build-up of treated waste water in the main holding lagoon and plans for changing the way the waste water is released into Salt Lick Creek. Currently, Marvin Smith said, the waste is discharged as needed, when the lagoon is full and when the volume and flow of water in the creek allow it. He said the city needs to fund a system that would discharge continuously, independent of the flow of Salt Lick Creek. BWSC is exploring the mechanics of a continuous discharge of waste water and a computerized alert system that would shut down the plant and alert employees of the Water Dept. to any problems at the Spring, such as turbidity or operational issues concerning with discharge or excursion. George Garden, also from Barge, Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon, said that Sabins Spring has a tendency for inconstant turbidity, meaning that the levels change and need to be monitored. He said, "The bottom line, is we need to protect the city to have the Sabins Spring plant so that it when it is unattended or when it gets out of spec, that we shut the thing down."

"None of these things jeopardize public health," Garden said, "but are at the borderline and need to be monitored and fixed before they get worse. We need to do something about it." In a related issue, concerning security at Sabins Spring, the Council noted that federal Homeland Security grant funds were available to the city to fund new security measures, such as a fence and/or motion detectors at the cite, and should be taken advantage of.

Gary Blunt from Celina Cable spoke to the Council about replacing Comcast Cable Company in RBS with his own cable company. He offered the Council the opportunity to select the channels that would be made available and a price, based on their selection. Upon hearing the discussion of the various options for security measures at Sabins Spring, Blunt offered to share with the city of Red Boiling Springs the fiber optic network that he would install to run his cable network so that computerized monitoring of the site would be possible.

Regarding the annexation issue, the Council spoke of the possibility of changing the current Urban Grown Plan, which was completed in 1999, to accommodate their own plans. A public hearing on this as well as the city budget was planned for Monday, May 27th at City Hall. The budget will be discussed from 6: 00 pm to 7:00 pm. Annexation and the urban growth plan will be discussed from 7:00 pm onwards. City attorney Gary Copas said about the current Urban Growth Plan, "If we want to change it, we need to think seriously about doing it." He offered to bring to the Public Hearing a Nashville city planner, named Sam Edwards, to discuss modifying the existing Urban Growth Plan.