MOSHEIM -- The Mosheim Board of Mayor and Aldermen took the first step Thursday evening toward adopting building and residential codes for the town.

The board approved the first of two required readings of two separate ordinances dealing with the adoption of a building code and a residential code for the Town of Mosheim.

These two ordinances would adopt basically the same building code already in use in Greeneville and the one recently adopted by Greene County. This code is the 2006 version of the International Building Code.

Prior to the regular board meeting, an open forum was held to allow any questions or concerns from the public to be aired on the building code issue.

During the forum, the town attorney for Mosheim, Keith Livingston, explained that unless municipalities in Greene County, such as Mosheim, Baileyton and Tusculum, adopted their own building codes, then those municipalities were bound by the codes adopted by Greene County.

"The question is whether Mosheim will adopt basically those same codes and then become the administrative office for enforcement and application of those building permits necessary under those codes," Livingston said.

By adopting these codes, it would mean that the administration, the inspection oversight and the issuance of building permits would "come through Mosheim Town Hall rather than through Greene County," he said.

The ordinances were drafted, Livingston said, to designate the mayor as the "building official." The mayor's office at Mosheim Town Hall is where persons would get their building permits, he explained.

"His office would also be the one to oversee the building inspector," Livingston said.

During the forum, Mosheim resident Bob Price asked, ""Would Mosheim have to have a building inspector?"

"Yes," Livingston answered.

Mosheim Mayor Billy Myers said one building inspector being considered by the town is Bulls Gap resident Jim Riley, who handles building inspections for Tusculum, Bulls Gap and Morristown.

The building inspector would be a contracted position, the mayor said.

Mosheim Alderman Harold Smith said he would like to meet with Riley prior to voting on the matter.

Myers said he would contact Riley and arrange for a called meeting prior to next month's regular board meeting.

In another action, the board authorized Mayor Myers to apply for a $487,772 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to be used for a water system improvement. The grant application must be submitted by June 1, the mayor said.

Also during the board meeting, Mosheim alderman Claude Weems, Jr., who also serves on the Greene County Board of Education, asked that the Town of Mosheim consider aiding the athletic boosters at West Greene High School in their effort to construct a new field house at the school.

Weems explained that the WGHS athletic booster club was financing the construction of the field house without any assistance from the Greene County School System or West Greene High School.

Six to eught people who are involved in the high school's athletic booster club have signed the loan note for the financing of the building, he said.

The boosters, he said, are "paying for it all."

Weems said he would like to see the Town of Mosheim aid with the sewer installation to the field house.

"We just need to help them somehow," he said.

"I don't see why we couldn't," Alderman Smith said.

It was decided to put the matter on the agenda for a future board meeting.

On another matter, Mosheim resident Ken Price asked the board about what steps, if any, are being taken to stop a continuing foul odor being emitted from the town's sewage pump station near Mosheim Town Hall.

Price, who lives nearby, has complained at previous Mosheim board meetings about the odor.

Alderman Smith asked the mayor if he could get an environmental specialist to conduct testing on the sewage. Myers said he would place a call soon about the matter.

"Somebody has got to be putting something in our sewage system somewhere to cause all of this smell," Smith said.

"Look, that thing was in there 20 years and we had no smell," Smith added. "Then, all of a sudden, it starts smelling. There is something going in it somewhere causing that."

Price said he has noticed the smell from his home for several years, and added that he was frustrated that town officials have not determined the cause of the odor and fixed it.

"We move at a snail's pace," Price said. "Everything gets done extremely slow. This entire valley right here smells like a sewer.

"I just want to get rid of the smell," he said.