Our Jellico Cemetery was again in great condition for the Memorial Day observance. Helen Ruth Sharp remains always faithful in voluntarily donating her time and efforts to keep the cemetery looking so good. Helen Ruth, Faye Lewis, Jo Siler and all those who have helped in any way with that task down through the years deserve the thanks of everyone who has relatives and friends interred there.

Our downtown Veterans Monument also looked great for the weekend thanks to Herman Heath and others. And I was asked to make special mention of the condition in which Jerry Hyslope maintains Veterans Park. Someone commented that he keeps the grass there "looking like a golf course".

And following a long, long standing tradition started after World War I by Clarence Lay and carried on for years by Frank Zecchini, the American flags were placed on the graves of veterans in area cemeteries and I want to be sure to thank military veterans Herman Heath, J.L "Sarge" Collins, Gary "Boo" Leach, Bobby Loudin and all who helped with that task. We must never forget those who have served our country in defense of our liberty and placing of the flags each year to honor them is one way to insure that we do not forget.

The City Council during a special call meeting last Wednesday night filled the vacant position on the Council by electing Elsie Crawford. (Vacancy created when Jeff Brown resigned the seat.) Elsie has a business background that should contribute to the Council. And she will certainly get her feet wet in a hurry as we are now in the middle of our budget hearings.

The City Council did not overspend its budget last year although there were some highly justifiable non-budgeted expenditures including $ 12,000.00 as our contribution toward having the Indian Mountain State Park swimming pool open for our young people this summer; $ 9,500.00 for an emergency generator for our municipal building including the jail to bring us into compliance with state regulations (our old generator could no longer be relied upon in case of emergencies); an emergency tornado relief donation; a participation fee for the Campbell County Economic Development Board; the cost of Chamber of Commerce advertising in an attempt to attract business and industry; and various other such purposes designed to benefit our town. And as everyone knows, the economy has slowed and there is less revenue coming in from several sources. That situation is common to most municipalities right now. And it is certainly a problem for many states including Tennessee that has been dealing with a massive revenue shortfall for some time now.

But even with the situation as it is, we will not know definitely if we are short in our current budget (or possibly even under budget although that is unlikely) until both May and June figures are in and all revenues received. But we always figure on the worst case scenarios when we are dealing with budgets. Then if expenses are less than expected or revenues more than projected, so much the better.

While we are winding up this year's finances, we are working on next year. I am now involved in the preparation of the eighth budget since I was appointed to the City Council seven years ago by then Mayor Forster Baird and so far this has been the toughest job yet in attempting to balance a projected city budget for 2003-2004 due to all of the uncertainty. Employee wages, insurance and other benefits rise. As always, we must be prepared for those above mentioned non-budgeted but beneficial expenditures that almost always develop. Coupled with the minimum of a nine percent (9%) cut in state funds, we face a serious short fall in revenue to support projected expenditures for next year.

We are looking to make cuts and to find additional sources of revenue while we await final approval of the Tennessee state budget to learn just how deep the cuts may be in our revenue from Nashville. (But they are not now expected to exceed the previously announced nine percent.) In the meantime the Council has voted a "continuing resolution" to allow us to operate under our present budget until some of the questions are answered that will better allow us to project revenues for our next fiscal year.

We do have recommended reserve accounts popularly known as "rainy day" funds. But we prefer not to utilize those funds since a real emergency could hit our town and we would need that money. However the Council may eventually be forced to take some from those accounts to fill in the shortfall. But council members want to utilize those funds only as a last resort.

I was recently contacted by the office of Governor Bredesen concerning an article that I had published on March 28, 2003. That article outlined the provisions of Public Law 1101 dealing with possible annexation and what has been done in Jellico; in municipalities all over Tennessee; and in all counties in Tennessee to comply with the provisions of that law. The governor's office had apparently received quite a number of protests, criticisms and comments, etc. pertaining to what I had said in that article about possible annexation. (Some of the quotes concerning the contents of my article may not have been totally accurate.)

So I gave the governor's office the Internet location (www.jellico.com/jellic/jellico.htm Link: Mayor's Column, Link: Archives Link: March 28, 2003) and invited them to read my article for themselves to learn exactly what I had said. I also faxed them a copy which I am sure was then given to the state's legal department. But everything in the article according to someone who is very familiar with the law is "Correct in every respect". I am sure that the state legal department will agree after reading and studying it..

Public Law 1101 was drawn up by the Tennessee State Legislature years ago and thousands of folks from throughout Tennessee spent even more thousands and thousands of hours in complying with its requirements. As I understand the law, only the state legislature would have the authority to overturn or even modify its requirements. And I am sure that the governor's office is well aware of the contents of the legislation..

The combination of cooperation from the weatherman, the holiday observance, the Trailkeepers Mountain Ride, family reunions and get-togethers for other groups. etc. all led to the largest crowd of visitors, campers, picnics, outings, etc. that I have ever personally seen in Indian Mountain State Park. There were tents erected in areas where I had never previously seen them placed and there were vehicles parked in areas where I have never seen them parked before.

The Memorial Day weekend and the Trailkeepers of course had an awful lot to do with the greatly increased number of visitors from out of town as well as from local areas. But it is obvious to everyone that we are beginning to have more people and activities in Jellico on a regular basis than we have had for many years. The remarks of one infrequent visitor back to Jellico was really music to my ears. According to him, "The ole town seems to be coming back to life again". Or as Teddy Alsip put it one evening after a very good day at a local business, "Jellico is getting to be a busy place"!

The goal is to renovate and revitalize our town -especially our downtown - and we are slowly but surely making progress toward both objectives. And the catering of food for the Trailkeeper's meetings in Veterans Park Annex on Saturday and Sunday reminded me once more how good it would be to have a nice clean restaurant in the downtown with good food and a pleasant atmosphere. The Trailkeepers and all of the other groups now coming to Jellico would in all probability provide a good business during the times when they are here. And with so many more people now starting to consistently come into town for various activities, etc., and with the steadily increasing number of folks regularly eating out these days, there is good potential to support an additional restaurant in this area.

(I am going to try to talk with as many downtown business owners as possible before my next issue and print an update on the progress that is being made. Folks are getting involved and unquestionably things are looking up! But we need to keep at the task throughout the summer!)

Short-sighted people can sometimes really mess up a really good thing. Just ask the people of Knoxville! A few years ago some officials refused to build a new baseball stadium downtown because they didn't want to "waste the taxpayer's money". So they killed that project. (That almost happened here a few years ago with opposition by a few who yelled loudly against our new Library/Office of Tourism/Conference Room that continues to be utilized more and more with each passing day.)

However the city of Sevierville taking advantage of the situation, did build a stadium and the Smokies professional baseball team moved there from Knoxville. The stadium became an immediate and tremendous success and a large complex is now starting to develop around it. Folks come from everywhere to attend games and shop. (In fact it's pretty common to find several Jellico folks at the games there on summer evenings.) Both the city of Sevierville and private investors are benefiting greatly from the financial windfall brought about by the stadium. They cannot sing its praises enough.

Meanwhile many of the irate citizens of Knoxville are now again proposing that a stadium be built downtown at a much greater cost and even without a professional baseball team to occupy it. Reportedly estimates of lost jobs and revenue to both the city and private businesses already runs well into the millions with even greater losses expected in the future. And according to some of the talk shows on Knoxville radio stations, those same officials who spoke out so strongly back then against a new stadium to "save the taxpayer's money" are now very, very quite on the issue.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the new "Miss Jellico" link that has been added to the local Netlink site www.jellico.com/jellico/jelllico.htm. That new attraction is really gaining in popularity although it has only been on the website for a very short time. And another feature link that has been added to "Miss Jellico" in just the past few days, promises to increase interest to an even greater level. The new link is entitled "Faces of Jellico".

Jellico citizens, folks who have lived here in past years and visitors to our town can send their names along with their photos.. Once they have been verified as authentic, the photos are placed on the site for viewing. At the time this article was written, a photo of "James" from North Carolina could be seen. He indicated that he visits our town every year and stated that he considers Jellico a beautiful place.

When I was principal of our local high school I used to dread the last two or three weeks of school because I never knew what pranks our graduating seniors were going to pull - at school and/or in the community. Most of their shenanigans were harmless and even comical - although a very few were somewhat destructive and even obscene. In fact one year I almost had to expel a group of seniors just prior to graduation who insisted upon engaging in the latter type.

But I was told that some of the seniors at Whitley County High School came up with a new one this year. Boys drove farm tractors to school with their girlfriends and classmates aboard. There were reportedly all sizes and shapes of tractors that caught the school security guards completely off guard as they started arriving on campus. But the guards soon joined in the spirit of the thing and helped get everybody parked on the school parking lots.

One enterprising young man did not have a tractor so he drove his lawn mower. Others had huge tractors with the enclosures that include air conditioning and radios. In fact one fortunate young man had an elaborate rig with all of the amenities and even a very sophisticated sound system. He reportedly drew a crowd and lots of applause as he drove his tractor the entire length of that campus with a currently popular country song blaring from its speakers - "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy"!

When the Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA) was contracted by the Board of Education to do a national search for a new Superintendent/Director of Schools, the TSBA encouraged everyone to apply for the position and emphasized that applications from local candidates were welcome. That led several individuals in the county acting in good faith, to go to the trouble of preparing resumes' of credentials along with other required information and submitting them according to the deadlines. Following the application process, five (5) candidates for the position were selected - all from outside Campbell County. And according to a story in the Lafollette Press issue of May 15, 2003, Dan Tollette who headed up the TSBA search, announced that no Campbell County candidates had even been given consideration for the position. Again according to Tollette, the majority of respondents during the sparsely attended series of meetings indicated that they wanted someone from outside the county to be hired for the job. (It is true that the meetings were open to the public and those the reportedly small numbers that attend were those most interested in the search for a Superintendent/Director. But many of the same individuals reportedly attended all of the meetings thereby reducing even further the diversity of opinions. I dare say that if a referendum were held to decide whether to employee a candidate from outside Campbell County or to hire someone from within the county, the latter would win hands down.

The Board of Education needs to hire the best possible individual for the position no matter where he or she resides since the position is so crucial to the future of our children. And everyone needs to give their complete support to whomever is selected because he or she faces a tremendous challenge. It goes without saying that the individual will be under a microscope and expected to make some immediate changes and improvements in the school system.

If all applications were considered and the top five chosen from wherever, the TSBA would have fulfilled its obligation. But to state that no applicants from Campbell County were even considered for the job after being invited to submit resumes' is a slap in the face of a lot of dedicated folks who have devoted their lives to working for the children of Campbell County. And just because one Superintendent/Director may have received poor job performance evaluations does not mean that someone else would post that same record. It was simply very unfair to dismiss out of hand all applicants from Campbell County.

If there is not one capable individual somewhere within the 40,000 or so residents of Campbell County that is at least worthy of consideration for the job - then we are indeed in a bad state.