Only County Commissioners Allowed to Appoint PAB Members

City of Manchester leaders have been told by the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) that Coffee County commissioners are the ones with authority to appoint members of the Public Building Authority (PBA), the board that oversees the Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center.
As we reported earlier, the County Technical Assistance Service CTAS issued an opinion late last year that also said only the county commission is authorized to appoint members to the PBA.
According to CTAS, the Manchester City appointments of Jewell Noblitt and Richard Dix to the PBA without the approval of the county commission are not valid.
MTAS Legal Consultant Elisha Hodge states that Manchester City is not entitled to representation on the PBA board of directors.
Coffee County and Manchester City split the losses on the center, but county officials say they do not equally share the benefits, as Manchester receives the bulk of them through sales and hotel taxes.
The only control the two entities have over the operations of the conference center is through the decisions made by PBA members representing their interests.
The county commission voted recently to delay selecting any new board of directors until citizens wanting to serve go through an application process.