A public comment about possibly adding a concrete slab at the county demolition site escalated into a back-and-forth at the county courthouse and a verbal fight on N. Main Street Monday night.

Willie Grant came on behalf of Grant’s Construction Company in Elizabethton, asking if there was a way to get a concrete slab put in at the county demolition site because of the shrapnel and debris that damages his equipment.

“I have got a truck out there right now. It has got nails and screws in three of the tires,” Grant said. “Can we get some money to make a good place there at the dump?”

He said the matter had gotten out of hand over the past few days, based on Facebook posts circulating over the past week.

Among those Facebook posts include one last Wednesday, July 10, which read “Often I think we need a community cage to have a cage match to settle issues in a legal sort of way. Just saying…”

Another the following morning, July 11, read “If I made a few of youins mad in the last couple of days (and I certainly did)…I’m happy about that. Just saying…”

A final Facebook post from the company just an hour after that read “I’m hoping Benny and Ken are present at the next carter county commission meeting. I’m gonna be there. Face to face. Just saying…”

In regards to Grant’s request, Commissioner Sonja Culler said the demolition site is constantly moving, so adding a concrete slab would be impractical for their purposes.

Grant then accused Landfill Director Benny Lyons of personally issuing threats and attacks against him during the past week when he brought up the issue. Commissioner Ray Lyons attempted to de-escalate the situation after Grant attempted to give the floor to Benny Lyons after his comment was up.

“Listen to me. We are not going to have a back-and-forth,” Lyons said. […] There is going to be respect on this floor.”

Because of the nature of Grant’s comment, Lyons allowed Benny Lyons to give a brief statement in response.

Benny Lyons said he had been talking with Grant’s Construction during that time.

“Also, if I threatened you, bring your phone up here and play it for these people,” Lyons said. “Go ahead and bring it up here. […] If he is going to ruin my name and say I threatened him, I want him to play it for me.”

Lyons said Grant’s Construction came up to the landfill and started cussing out his employees in their frustration.

Other members of the public in attendance used their public comment to defend Benny Lyons.

Melissa Troutman, an employee at the landfill, said her job has lately become a “cuss session.”

“Mr. Grant has had people with a personal vendetta come and attack us,” Troutman said. “There has been no cursing or threats that came from us. It came the other way around.”

Around 7 p.m. that night, an hour after the commission meeting began, Michael Ward posted a video on his Facebook of Grant getting into an argument with Benny Lyons’ son, Wyatt.

“Have you ever been up there?” Wyatt Lyons asked him. “Because the way you are ***ing talking you have never been up there.”

As he was talking to Grant, Ward tells Grant to “knock him out. […] **** him.”

Benny Lyons then confronted Grant in the street.

“I’ll give you more than you’ll ever want,” Lyons said to him.

The video shows Ward encouraging Lyons into a confrontation.

“Do it. Bring it on,” Ward said while filming. “There’s not much between you.”

Benny Lyons later apologized for the way he acted in and out of the courtroom.

“I apologize,” Lyons said. “I lost my cool out there.”

Grant did not offer the same apology on his company Facebook, instead taking a swing at the commission itself.

“We need carter county commissioners with a set of balls and we just don’t have that,” Grant’s Construction posted at around 1 in the morning. “I look forward to showing the chairman tonight’s video. Maybe he will see it before I show up again.”

Grant said if the commission cannot stand up for people like him, then they need to step down and let a “real man take your place.”

The commission encouraged him to take his complaints and request to either the next Landfill Committee meeting or Budget Committee meeting, the former of which meets August 5 at 6 p.m.