RBS City Hires New Police Officer

By Misty Green

The Red Boiling Springs City Council approved hiring a new full-time police officer during the March 13, 2025, meeting.

“We have had to hire one because the part-time officer on that shift (night) has been sick, and it has been a struggle trying to get this shift covered,” Red Boiling Springs Mayor Kenneth Hollis explained.

“It’s going to cost us some money to hire a new police officer,” Hollis warned, “But we will have three full-time officers, and with the part-time officers, I think this will work.

He (Police Chief Jeffery Maynard) is actually looking at a grant (for the police department)… “Now he (Rice) lives pretty far away,” Mayor Hollis said, “And he may or may not stay… He lives down on 231 at the bridge, going towards Lebanon, and I will tell you upfront that he can not take the car home, but he could take it to the Trousdale County Sheriff’s Department if we work a deal out on that, but it is 45-50 miles away.

Justin Rice was approved to be hired as a new Red Boiling Springs police officer with a pay rate of $24 per hour.

Council member Trisha Grindstaff was absent from this meeting.

Reviewing the most recent audit from John Poole with the comptroller’s office, Councilman George McCrary shared that the mid-year report shows that the city has gone over the budgeted expenditures by $114,377.00. “Mr. Poole has a family-run business,” George McCrary said, “and his grandson is an English major, and he decided to take some of the statements that Mr. Poole made and make them a little more grammatically correct, but his mistake was that in the accounting world, when you put parenthesis around a number, you change the meaning of the number from a positive into a negative and the comptroller’s office, when they looked at that, they saw a negative number. Talking with Mr. Poole this morning, he explained that he has had to make several calls to the comptroller’s office and that we didn’t have to do anything to correct it.” “So it was his grandson’s mistake,” Mayor Hollis chuckled.

The City Council approved the new gas service fee charges on the second reading.

In the Sanitation Department, it was said by Mayor Hollis that, “TDS is costing us out the wazzou, charging $86.25 per ton, and last month’s bill was $7,900, so we are going to be calling around about rates.” Landfill services from Smith County, Tompkinsville, Scottsville, and Cookeville were discussed as possible options, with Mayor Hollis warning that they may have to travel to take the garbage off, double the rates billed to customers, or shorten the route to only service inside the city limits of Red Boiling Springs, but that something has to be done. It was shared that Lafayette was now taking their trash to Bowling Green, KY.

The City Council approved charging a $150 delivery fee for dumpster services, which were previously free.

The Spring Clean-up Day has been set for April 12, 2025.

It was discussed that the flowers that decorate the tombstones at Whitley Cemetery had been blown all over the ground and looked pretty rough last week.

The Water Department reported that they would run the mini-skid for 30 days starting next week and test it out for the state to go in the new water treatment plant.

“My wife saw the other day that we have been bad-mouthed on Facebook about not having bathrooms at the parks,” George McCrary told the council. “I can’t believe that a two-room bathroom is going to cost $230,000, and that was the bid.”

“I know that it is really expensive to build a new bathroom,” Red Boiling Springs resident Crystal Justice said, “But how expensive would it be to retrofit the bathrooms that we already have and winterize them so that we could keep them open all year?”

“We’re going to have to have a new one at the new park anyways,” Mayor Hollis said. “April 1 is what we have always done (opened the bathrooms) to make sure we are through the cold weather… We can open them if you want to open them, but I think you need to stay around April 1.”

“I was just telling you what was on Facebook,” Mr. McCrary said.

“There was one more recommendation about having a port-a-potty put down there,” Crystal Justice added.

“I don’t want a port-a-potty when we have got a million-dollar park sitting down there,” Hollis said.

“They make fancier port-a-potties, much fancier,” McCrary said.

“Yeah, they are on trailers,” Hollis agreed.

“That’s what I am looking into,” McCrary said, “And I talked to a lady today, and I asked her if we could hook our water, sewer, and electricity to it, and we pay a monthly rent to hook to it, and she said she would get back to me on that and the cost.”

“They are probably going to be expensive,” Hollis advised, offering to piece deal the bathrooms for much cheaper.

“When you start going through these bid contractors, they are going to make $75,000 before they ever touch it,” Mayor Hollis said.

“There was an estimate in that bid,” McCrary shared, “$44,000 just for the plumbing for three commodes, a urinal and sinks, and the piping.”

“You’re going to do better to piece it off,” Hollis agreed. I could have done it had it built, with one fixing this part and another doing that part, and be done with it.”

“Can we do that,” Mayor Kenneth Hollis and Vice Mayor Linda Carver asked of City Attorney Branden Bellar simultaneously.

“Without bidding,” Bellar replied, “Let me look at what you have got… anything over $10,000 must be bid out.”

“A lot of it will be under $10,000,” Mayor Hollis replied.