Volume # 2, Edition # 5 February 13, 2002
THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF JELLICO AND IT WILL DETERMINE WHETHER WE RETAIN THE POSITION OF CITY ADMINISTRATOR OR RETURN TO OUR OLD MAYOR/COUNCIL FORM OF GOVERNMENT. AND THE DECISION NEEDS TO BE MADE BY THE LARGEST POSSIBLE NUMBER OF CITIZENS.
IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO REGISTER AND VOTE IN THIS ELECTION!!! EVERYONE SHOULD BE SURE TO VOTE AND TO ENCOURAGE FAMILY MEMBERS, RELATIVES, FRIENDS, CO-WORKERS, ETC. TO GO VOTE AS WELL!!! THE DECISION THAT WE MAKE IN APRIL WILL IN ALL PROBABILITY, DETERMINE WHAT TYPE OF CITY GOVERNMENT WE WILL HAVE FOR MANY YEARS TO COME!!!
(We will decide upon the dates for EARLY VOTING during this month's meeting of the city council and the dates will be announced immediately after the meeting!)
I have been asked several times to repeat the list of candidates for city council that I ran in Volume # 2, Edition # 2 dated January 23, 2002. Most want to be sure of how candidates for the council stand on the issue of city administrator. The article is reprinted:
"Candidates for the city council are CLARENCE GENE BECK, TONYA BROOKMAN, JEFF BROWN, JOHN DAVENPORT, JIM DOBSON, LISA ELLIOTT, ALVIN EVANS, JAMES HARMON, JOHNNY IVEY, CAROLYN LEACH, CHARLES LEACH, DWIGHT OSBORN, STERLING SMITH, SUE TIMMINS, CHARLES VIOLET………….'
"Some of the candidates for city council have been adamant for a long period of time as to their desire to return to the old city charter with its mayor/council form of government. Councilman JIM DOBSON has voted in favor of going back to the old charter every time that a proposal to that effect has been placed before the council. Councilman ALVIN EVANS has always insisted that he opposes the office of city administrator (CA). Non-incumbent qualified candidates who have expressed a strong desire directly to me to eliminate the position of CA include CAROLYN LEACH, CHARLES LEACH, CLARENCE GENE BECK, JIM HARMON, JOHNNY IVEY, DWIGHT OSBORN, LISA ELLIOTT (and there may be others with whom I have not personally discussed the situation.)"
Marvin and Betty Douglas, owners and operators of radio station WJJT, have indicated that they hope to have an open forum broadcast prior to the election. All candidates for both mayor and council will be asked to state their position concerning the retention or elimination of the position of city administrator as well as other important issues facing the next administration. That is an excellent idea!
We have had three suits filed either against the city of Jellico or involving the city of Jellico. The first of those three suits to be heard was filed by four members of council (Violet, Vann, Neal, Barton) and directed toward me challenging my right as mayor to appoint the member of council as a representative to the Jellico Utilities Board. The suit also requested that my past appointments of two different members (Neal and Dobson) be declared in violation of the city charter and making them in essence, null and void since no vote of the city council was taken to confirm those appointments. An attorney was hired by the four to represent them with fees charged to the city of Jellico. Since the Jellico Uitilities Department was also named in the suit, that body too was forced to employ legal representation.
I was determined to defend myself but not at taxpayer expense. So I personally presented a "Motion for Dismissal" to the court while acting as my own attorney. I also represented myself during the hearing.
Chancellor Billy Joe White began the proceedings by stating that my two appointments will stand and lengths of terms are up to the mayor. He agreed that the charter is ambiguous and open to interpretation concerning such appointments. He did recommend that future appointments to the utilities board be voted upon to prevent legal questions from arising and I was agreeable to having that requirement written into his judgment. Had the situation been different at the time I made the appointments (especially Dobson), I would have called for a vote of the council. (No other mayor's appointments are effected by the ruling.)
The case will cost the city of Jellico the attorney fees for the actions of the four councilmen; the Jellico Utilities Department will have to pay an attorney due to that same action; and the Chancellor ruled that all court costs are to be charged to the city (taxpayers) of Jellico. In actuality, it will cost our town several hundred dollars to just hear what anyone who has read the city charter already knows. That money could have been much better spent on a lot of badly needed projects.
The second legal case involving the city of Jellico actually applies to those same four councilmen who are alleged by some citizens to have violated the Tennessee Open Meetings ("Sunshine") Law. That case will probably be the next one to be heard. No trial date has been established to the best of my knowledge but depositions are currently scheduled to be taken on February 27th and 28th
And the third case is the one that by far has drawn the most attention - both in Jellico and throughout our entire area. The "firing" of Police Chief Ned Smiddy has people constantly stating their opinions as to what happened in that situation and why. And as I wrote last week, the vast majority who mention the case to me tend to side with Smiddy.
I have not talked with Chief Smiddy in quite some time and I do not know what is presently taking place in that legal process other than the fact that the required hearing for Smiddy by the mayor/council had not been conducted at the time this article was prepared. But that case has some very serious implications and I tend to believe that it will require quite a time span due to all that apparently is to be brought out in one or more courts. It promises to be a very involved and highly interesting process.
I have written several times about how glad that I am that I did not allow the city council's refusal to give me a few hundred dollars to stop me from placing awnings and a community bulletin board on the Jellico Library/Office of Tourism/Community Conference Room (Tramell Building). And that is especially true of the bulletin board that has been used so much for announcing all kinds of community activities. Readers will recall that the council refused me one penny for either project and I had to get citizens to donate those items to the city. And then a councilman or two reportedly even questioned if I had the authority to erect them on the building without council permission.
I have been taking note for the past few weeks as I pass that bulletin board of the types of community activities that are announced. They have ranged from the Christmas Parade to the Childrens' Reading Program to a spaghetti dinner for the youth at the First Baptist Church to the JHS basketball team's "Senior Night", etc.. I do not know the number of people who have told me during the past three years that they have first learned of numerous activities just by checking that board on a regular basis. And the irony of the entire thing is that the awnings and bulletin board announcements, directly or indirectly, benefit some who were so bitterly opposed to my efforts to erect them in an attempt to provide a badly needed community service and to improve the looks of that building and our downtown. It did my heart good to see a couple of those same councilmen standing under the front awning one evening several months ago while they waited for the rain to slacken. I was glad that the awning was there for them although I could not help but remember how they had fought me in getting it placed there in the first place!
Several issues ago I wrote about the amazing success of the movie "Oh Brother" and the revival of the old bluegrass song "Man of Constant Sorrow" sung by the "Soggy Bottom Boys" that has become so popular around the country. Since that article, some have inquired as to who originally recorded that song. I could not remember the group although I had heard if for so many years. And I never got the opportunity to talk with resident bluegrass expert Winston Morgan of Branam Hill who most certainly could have told me that the Stanley Brothers recorded it fifty-five years ago. But someone learned that fact by hearing it from Ralph Stanley himself on a television show. (Winston Morgan is an old time "fiddler" who appeared for years on the regionally - and a few times nationally - broadcast radio program "Renfro Valley Barn Dance" from Renfro Valley, Kentucky.)
And the movie has other great oldies incorporated into its musical score including former Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis's "You Are My Sunshine", at least one A.P. Carter song and a version of "I'm in the Jailhouse Now" with yodeling that is reminiscent of the legendary Mississippi Brakeman Jimmy Rodgers himself. (I always preferred Webb Pierce's later 1950's version of that song that really started Pierce's great career in country music and he remains one of my favorites long after his death.)
I had a businessman to tell me the other day that he had seen "Oh Brother" ten times up to that point. I commented that there was no way that I would ever watch the same movie that many times no matter how entertaining. But that was before my daughter gave me a copy for my birthday. I immediately proceeded to view it three times over that same weekend not counting all of the times that I have seen the scene where George Clooney and the "governor of Mississippi" do their personal dances to that tune. (Jenny threatened to have me committed the other morning when I watched that scene at 5:30 AM before I left for work.) A person catches more and more of the subtle humor every time it is viewed and when it all comes together, it becomes even more hilarious. A wife in the Boston community declares that her husband has now watched it over twenty times and in his words, "It just keeps on hitting you!"
Since bluegrass music has now become so popular, I have arranged to have a couple of local groups to appear on our stage sometime this spring or summer. Mr. Joe Bailey, Supervisor of Mathematics for the Whitley County School System, heads up a bluegrass band and plays the bass fiddle. Others in his band are five string banjo pickers Penny Wilson, Director of the Bell-Whitley Pre-School Program and Chris Davenport, student at South Laurel High School; fiddlers Will Sears, Whitley County High School student who does a mean "Orange Blossom Special" and eight years old Megan Moore who also sings in addition to her "fiddlin"; guitarists Aaron Bunch, WCHS student and local picker Carson Payne. Twins Whitney and Haley Stark, also WCHS students, do most of the singing.
Our music teacher at Boston Elementary School, Mrs. Margaret Bowling, plays numerous such instruments including the Appalachian dulcimer. She too participates in a bluegrass band with her family members and friends including former Jellicoan Rayford Watts, professor of English at Cumberland College. Mrs. Bowling has already driven to Jellico, looked over our stage and is excited about performing for our old time blue grass lovers. Both groups have assured me that they know "Man of Constant Sorrow" and "Rocky Top". What else can we ask? What about "My Old Kentucky Home"? A lot of us love that song although it came along many, many years before bluegrass music.
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