The Upper Cumberland Camera; 119

Good evening and welcome to the upper Cumberland camera. Later on tonight show we'll see coverage of this week's legislative tax hearing held at Tennessee Tech. But first tonight this story rumbly everyone has been horseshoes at the family reunion or a July 4th picnic. But serious or Few players have never had a local court in which to play. Until now a tournament level horseshoe court is now in place behind me all good community center Ron been there to help in the construction of the new arena tells us how it came about. Well about a year ago we started. Looking around and talked to Betty McCormick of the parks and County Parks and Recreation. We took the idea to her and she. Was interested in the idea. We started looking. For ways of getting the cord built. Talked to it went to a few meetings and. When things were sort of slowed down and

as far as getting things done through the parks and recreation we. Got together with the City of all good. Miss McCormick arranged a meeting with. City of all good city council. And Mr Poynter and Mayor Brown and in a couple days the we can go ahead and build this facility. And when they give us the go ahead we started road than we had to cut about five feet in this area back here to about a foot here I guess and got a city of all good graded it and. Bulldozed it. And then we started we got a contractor to do the concrete work. In a local contractor to build a fence. Then the city of all good came back in and put the grass in. And

run the lawn for murder. And I put the pegs in the Colombian. And here we are at we started in March or April and we finished it sometime in July. I keep saying over and over that the pounding the stakes in the ground of the picnics and I've done it myself but probably has done. Some damage to the game in that when you throw over the peg it may be 35 36 38 whatever. You don't you're not pitching in a standardized peg. And you may be pitching on hard ground. You may end up an inch from the peg and then a roll of 20 feet. With these court standardized the men pitch 40 feet. Women pitch 30 feet. Children under 17 feet 30 feet. We pitch into a clay pit. When you go to another.

Regulation court you find the peg slanted the same angle usually have clay in them much the same as this. And you can get better at the game it would be like with Cookeville had a basketball court and they made theirs 10 feet and they went to Smithville and played at 12 feet. And you know you just when you have a governing body you need to standardize things and this the governing body started back in the 20s in horseshoes. Not many people are aware of that. But the game has evolved to what it is today. National or stupid pitching Association has about 15000 members across the United States. They have a world tournament every year. This year it was in Huntsville Alabama last year was a stage Hill North Carolina. And next year it's going to be in Springfield Missouri. In Alabama this year there are approximately 800 pitchers to see who is the best

in the game and women and children. The visions. It's a very organized form at last over a two week period. This is going to call picnic picnics you. Know this is a two pound. Two pound shoe. There's a great difference between this and this is called a pro shoe. Everything on this pro shoe those shoes are probably. $14 for a set of four plus two pegs. These shoes run about $30 up to about 70 dollars a pair. Everybody everything on this shoe has a reason for being there. This right here is contoured and I want to stand with her. So that if it catches the peg which is one inch it'll rotate around the peg and work down whereas that will probably just sling off. This point right here. Is what they're calling a break. We've all seen at the.

Picnic where she will go straight on and come straight back. This gives a slight deflection so that turns when a car tries to come back off set into this hook here. These are cleats to catch in the club and make it stick where it lands. No really a shoe really won't slide. There are also waited for balance the cleats are balanced on the bottom so that. The one in a quarter shoe. Will go from this to the quarter way around and supposed to be open to the peg. On a one and three quarter the other Sure talked about. You have a three quarter. And then a 1 rotation. That should be open to the peg. I said those are the two my most popular shoes and competition play. I don't know of anybody. This year that pitched in the. A B C D. E or F class that threw anything no one in the quarter. There were no

flips no flip shoes at all that I know of in those classes this year in the world tournament which included. About. Three hundred fifty men. Pitching on court. This is Jackie Connors from Alan's town and what he's doing is he's pitching what they call one and a quarter shoe. That shoe should turn one and a quarter times and be open to the stack when it gets there you can see on this pitch you've got one on and one little short of being on. That would count as four points a rigorous three as you with N Sync's six inches is a point. And is a cancellation. And tournaments the game is 40 points. As I said Where is being 3. Anything within 6 inches being a point that is cancellation only one player can score.

Per. Pitch. Down this quarter. Freeman go from Richmond. He also pitches a one quarter through one in the quarter. Is the. Most popular shoe among the. Well in Huntsville Alabama the National tournament. Twenty two out of the top 24 players pitched to one in the quarter. The other one's pitcher one and three quarter. Next year we hope to have the Tennessee state tournament I've been in touch with the secretary of the Tennessee Orser pitching Association News Dexter Stallings in Powell Tennessee. And we had the state championship three weeks ago in Cleveland Tennessee it's a facility much the same as this except it's older and that's a little more beat up.

At that time we talked and we had a tournament here July the 18th or August the 18th and the pitchers rather came over they like this facility very well and everybody that I've talked to was hoping that they have the state championship here next year. We're having a tournament. September 29 on a Saturday. Some of these A and B players from East Tennessee Georgia and Alabama will be here. Invite everybody to come out will be starting probably 11:00 or 12:00 o'clock with this facility I mean it was built with the intent of getting the interested people in the community to come out and pitch. There have been a number of people who have come by and shown an interest. The gates are hopefully shut but they're not locked in any time anybody wants to come out. And pitch. Feel free. You have to supply your own horse

shoes the horse shoes are not not supplied. We rock and Freeman and Jackie and I are usually around here on the weekends. Friday nights and sometimes on Saturday. We're down here several evenings although we don't keep a regular schedule down here but if somebody is interested in the game I'd like to find out more about it. They can contact one of us or contact the Putnam County Parks and Recreation as a GM is McCormick down there will be glad to get the information to us. We got some names at the exhibition in the mall in January due to been tied up in building these we have not. We have not formed a club or done anything as far as an organization it's a little late in the season for that but we hope to get an EARLY START starting some time now so that

we have something ready to go in the spring. We started talking about this last November in hopes that we would have a completed in the spring so we could get going but it was mid summer before we got a complaint and just didn't have time to form the club. One more time to give give the credit. This is just a major league facility for just they just don't come any better than what this is there are songs that they just aren't any better. And it was made possible through the Putnam County Parks and Recreation supporter of the city and Mayor Brown the city. They've just been great to work with. This is a little bit of cooperation this is just the fun for the people there.

Earlier this week members of a special joint legislative task force set up to study the state and local tax structure in Tennessee and members of the General Assembly from the upper Cumberland region held a public hearing at Tennessee technological university to learn what citizens in the area think about Tennessee's current tax structure. President Arliss wrote welcome the distinguished visitors to the Tennessee Tech campus. Representative John Brennan. Murfreesboro is chairman of the committee explained to those present for the hearing what the duties of the committee are this committee was formed with seven members of the House and seven members of the Senate to

undertake a comprehensive study of the system of taxation in Tennessee including but not named to a thorough review of the history of the various taxes imposed by the state of a local government. The revenue resources current available to state government and the local governments the extent to which these resources are used for programming and the task force also shall consider any expanded revenue resources which may be needed and the revenue potential of each such new expanded revenue resource. The task force will also consider the interrelationship among state and local taxes and the effect of federal tax policy on state and local taxation. We were given two years to do this. We spent the first 18 months studying the tax structure Tennessee. We are now and in the process of holding public hearings to take recommendations about what this committee should do about the tax structure and I think we have not made any pronouncements.

We have not made any recommendations and we are waiting until the end of November to do that prior to the hearing. Representative Shelby Reinhardt of Spencer a member of the joint committee explained why the committee was. Formed at the onset of the General Assembly two years ago and waste year we found out that the revenue was not producing enough money to run the state of Tennessee and I after many meetings with the governor of the governor finally recommended a 1 cent sales tax which we paced. But at the same time we exempted food from the so you know steak starting July War in 1985. Which in essence will remove the 1 cent sales tax that we placed on everything one cent sales tax on food is about 300 million that's what the Senate will bring in about 300 million. So the governor and the speakers formed this joint committee resolution to come up with some means alternate means of funding the

budget after the loss of the 300 million dollars on food. Senator Tommy Burks of Monterrey who is also a member of the committee commented on what he thought the committee would accomplish. Well I hope there are some tax reform in Tennessee I know there's been a lot of discussion about a state income tax but I do not feel at this time that that will be. An outgrowth of this committee that it has stopped and that's been discussed many you know years in tennis am I going to be discussed a few more before it's ever adopted and. I liked one of the mind things that this committee might do this year and hopefully that. We can adjust the Howards income tax on for some of these senior citizens that are on fixed incomes and rise to the level of those exemptions in and help the roads and of course we've been in a lot of discussion about the amount of money that the sales tax on food.

Little plate. State government and we may have to come up with a program to offset that. But I like it. It's good to have these discussions where people can have their input and discuss new tax proposals but this really a person I don't feel now that people are already forced I didn't come today. Representative Brennan chairman of the committee talked about the public's attitude toward taxes mostly the the pain of the people is it the tax structure the state of Tennessee is not good. It's not simple. It's not fair and it's not adequate. And most of the people who testified want us try to come up with a fairer structure of taxes in Tennessee. They don't want to raise taxes and we have agreed we don't want to raise taxes either. We would like to see what the estimates of revenue are from existing taxes. So that we can restructure the tax system in Tennessee to bring in the same amount of revenue we would bring in under the present

taxes the sales tax that we now have is seven and three quarter percent mostly. And that's an obscene tax on bread and milk. We have found in some preliminary studies that we are exporting jobs to all of the states around us because we are exporting retail sales in Montgomery County alone we found that the addition of the 1 cent sales tax issue year cost Montgomery march and 18 million dollars in retail sales and cost them 4 percent of their retail jobs. Now in Tennessee we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to create new payrolls but our tax structure is exporting jobs faster than we can bring them in with the Department of Economic Community Development. It's time we took a hard look at our system in Tennessee. Our system is not fair to the lower and moderate income people. And for that reason we need to do something about it. I'm not sure what that will be but we'll have our recommendations the end of November. Representative bring it come a little the problems to see faces because it is surrounded by many

states with lower tax sales. And Kentucky there is no tax on food. In Kentucky the cigarette tax is 3 cents ours is 13 and Kentucky the liquor tax is about one fourth of ours and Kentucky the beer tax is about one fourth of ours and their sales tax is lower than ours. Now we know from the preliminary studies that people Tennesseans are going to cross the line into Kentucky and buying and buying and buying. We rank 17th in the nation in population we rank far to fourth in the nation in retail sales. Our retail sales are going to Virginia North Carolina Georgia and Kentucky. And those are jobs that we ought to have in Tennessee in sales we ought to have in Tennessee and taxes we ought to have in Tennessee. But we pay our people to pay in taxes in other states to escape our taxes. And it's just a pure economic matter that we've got to do something about it. Representative David Copeland of Chattanooga says he sees the sales tax problem every day. We're even seeing ads television ads run by the Georgia merchant on the

Chattanooga station seeking to entice Tennessee purchasers with the come on that our sales tax is less than yours it is having a rather significant impact. And I opposed an increase in the sales tax a sly session of the General Assembly because we are not on the understaffed here in Tennessee surrounded by many of the states that do not have a sales tax as high as we do and we are listed as one of the highest sales tax states in the nation and the thing that worries me personally in a lot of members of the committee is that if they do try to balance the federal budget and there's been polls within the Gallup poll and others that people favor sales tax more than they do an increase in their income tax on nationwide poll that there might be a move to add a nice sales tax and if they did then this would really put Tennessee and a financial bind because we would already be higher than anyone else around us and this would add to our burden.

These members of the committee also commented on what they would like to see his recommendations and what they expect will happen in November. I think that the recommendations I mentioned a little back to Howard's income tax would be one thing but I think it's too early to make a direct you know projection of what the recommendation of a baby because we're still gathering information about different types of taxes and the amount of money that I will bring in and then of. Course there's talk of you know a constitutional amendment if any tax were passed that it would be locked in and all of this is things that are down the road in the future and I really I don't feel like that this session of the General Assembly that's coming up that there will be a major. Change in the tax structure but there will be a lot of discussion about it. Well certainly in my mind before I was a poor member of the committee and I will know where we go from there and couldn't.

I would go for a rebate program whereby the would receive a reboot of the amount of seriously actually played to food. You know the system that you do each year we have the problem that I mean you wouldn't mix recently. And so security Other been benefits less and maybe $500 a year recently read but you don't you're probably I would like to see that same thing happened so you know states that the lower income people the poor people receive the RIBA amount of tax they pay for food and let the rich go ahead and pay the sales tax. But I feel they should recommend what they ultimately do may not be that in the one in the same thing. My preference would be that this committee go through the process that is presently engaged and listen to all the people gather the information and the facts and then recognize that ultimately we all have to contribute to our system of government in some fashion and we attempt to measure that in different ways we measure it by the property we own by the income we have from certain kinds of sources by the

business which we engage in the profits that we make I think would be highly important and desirable if we could get to the bottom and eliminate all of the circuitous route for imposing the taxes our profits our income support all of us without income there wouldn't be a franchise tax an excise tax I wouldn't pay property tax because we can accumulate any of those things. So it seems to me that the direct approach would be to go for income and net income by itself probably won't be sufficient because the rate would be too high. I personally would like to see us recommend not an act by law but recommend for a constitutional amendment to be voted on by the people. A method in which we propose to eliminate every tax presently existing in the state whether it be for local use or for state use. Start with a clean slate with the purpose of building the fairest and most equitable reasonable kind of system that we can design and design it in such a way that every citizen in this state know who is and is convinced that every other citizen in the state is going to be treated like everyone treated alike with no exceptions

and for that purpose reimpose enough taxes on the basis of income and consumption to generate exactly the dollars that are now raised from all of those sources. I want to eliminate some taxes. I want to reduce the sales tax I want to. I want to eliminate the whole income tax. I wouldn't mind killing the amusement tax because it's not going to bring in as much money as it's as the trouble of trying to administer it and it's very difficult to administer. I might want to remove the inheritance tax completely and to do away with a lot of those taxes that people are now paying and that do not go across the broad scheme of the public in Tennessee and come back with a broad based tax so that everybody can pay somewhat inability to the profits they're getting out of the system. I am convinced. That whether we are rich or poor we get out of the system of government we have we get out of the a system of free enterprise we have and I think if I get a lot out of the system output a lot back into the system 12 persons

testifying before the committee it to Sea-Tac county commissioners John Houser of Overton County and John gentry of Putnam County were two of the elected officials who discussed some of the problems they handled with taxes you know we need some tax reform. Now you often you know are not. Easy to do that when you put it in one sentence layoff and promise everybody is going to take a long time to hand off the nonbelievers creep in minute. I sat her down four years ago I had three new car dealerships in my hand at 3am. I mean imagine a day you know them all with my. Man a man you want to buy a new car you know you dont about leaking a while ago I had a room want to pay for my own in Canada and 60 percent of the code and I don't have to raise your taxes on all or many of them down here say they were semi to my knowing

Cashman out of work and then create a major problem. But I'm not having you do it how do you compete with that if we don't have a private plan we don't have a new car fellow. So it's a big ticket item and we get our playoff back for. You know how much of our sales back to 40 percent or. 40 percent of our Face Off the back of the phone and you take that out what we're going to. Let me think about it and get it position right now. We have sales tactic to point to 5 percent. We have removed the sales tax. We do not have a we'll go back to but it's been discussed from. One county fortunately has been able to finance its budget and it's never going to do those things if that are mandated by the state in that we have mandated our sales and have felt that our sources to this point have been fairly adequate.

That sounds good but you know what the future holds. So what I want to emphasize here is whatever you do at the state level who are just packed in for whatever. It's important not only again a bit over again and all the other local governments are considered to inherit the divide urging you to seriously consider a graduated income tax. Sales tax legislation is what I can see taking sales tax off the bat is an extremely regressive measure. I don't know you are honest in what you're saying. Now the people and the sales taxes. That's just the nature of this way on the field and back.

The committee will continue to hold hearings throughout the state and make recommendations to the governor and the leaders of the General Assembly in late November. Although the tax structure is currently being studied by this task force Committee Chairman John Brennan made this comment about current taxation in Tennessee is not what anybody in Tennessee mind about you know her Governor this very morning right in the nation. And once they had a few dollars lower. So I think governor in Tennessee you know the bargain has been a bargain and a better bargain today than it was 15 years ago. And that's the upper Cumberland camera for this week next week Channel 22 will present a series of primetime programs on the important topic of child sexual abuse. We hope you'll join us for these important programs beginning Monday night at 8:00 here on Channel 22.