The Christmas season becomes more and more commercialized with each passing year. And that concerns a lot of us traditionalists who still remember when the main focus of Christmas was to have family and friends together and to remember that humble birth that occurred 2000 years ago that was truly the greatest event in the history of mankind.. As someone once wrote, no kings that ever ruled; no navies that ever sailed; and no armies that ever marched have even minutely come close to equaling that one solitary event - the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

But now there are much greater concerns for members of the Christian faith. There currently are areas where nativity scenes can no longer be displayed on public property; where a teacher reportedly substituted the word "winter" in place of Christmas for her school's choral group; where the words "under God" in our pledge to our country's flag are under attack; where the Ten Commandments can no longer be displayed; and the list could go on and on.

And in spite of all of the well wishes from everyone for a "merry Christmas", we all know that there is human suffering all over the world at Christmas time just as there is at all other times. But the important thing about Christmas is that that immaculate conception brought hope to a troubled world - hope that we would not otherwise have. And thankfully, Christmas exists in the individual's heart and it can never be banned or removed from there unless we allow it to be.

We had a very nice Christmas dinner and get-together for our city employees and I want to thank everyone who helped to organize and participated in that affair. And during the activity, we recognized an individual who will soon leave city service and it will be no small loss. Mrs. Dorothy Potter is retiring as our Jellico librarian after many years of faithful and extremely competent service. Mrs. Potter always exhibited a thorough knowledge of her job and a willingness to serve the needs of everyone - regardless of what those needs happened to be.

I am sure that she doesn't recall the incident, but many years ago when I was principal at Jellico High School (and we had never even thought of the Internet let alone have access to it), I needed some information that I actually did not expect to find. But I stopped by the library and talked to Mrs. Potter concerning my problem. Not only did she locate what I was searching for but she had it for me within a couple of days. It goes without saying that she will be missed!

We are now ready to start a new year and I was recently contacted by a member of the media and asked as mayor, what I hope to see accomplished in Jellico during the upcoming twelve months. I constantly keep goals in mind for our town but I still had to take a few minutes to think over exactly what I personally would like to see happen in 2004 and according to what priority.

Attracting new businesses and creating new jobs must always be the top priority but it is also the toughest possible goal to attain. Hopefully the Rarity Mountain project will reach the point where it will employ some local folks in the upcoming year and that other new businesses such as the Town and Country Bank will decide to locate in Jellico. New businesses have a way of attracting other new businesses and it will be great for our entire area if that ripple affect does develop. (But it is extremely discouraging when we read the local papers and watch the local news on television and see the announcements of small industry closings that seem to be ever increasing in our area. A recent story in the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported the closing of a plant somewhere near that city that was announced right at Christmas time.)
Solve some of the budget problems brought about by declining revenue while at the same time financing ever increasing expenditures.
Continue to renovate and revitalize our downtown to include implementation of some of the recommendations of the "Task Force for Downtown Revitalization" which can serve as an added incentive in attracting new businesses.
Continue with our program of road and street repairs according to established priorities based upon usage and other considerations such as possible emergency routes.
Continue to work in cooperation with the Rarity Mountain developers in dealing with their concerns and our combined desires to see Jellico become "town" to the future residents of that projected community.
Continue the very active program of activities conducted by our Tourism Commission and community groups in our efforts to "revitalize" our town and our area.
Move closer to a Council decision concerning the annexation issue.
And most importantly, continue our efforts to develop an attitude among all of our citizens - and especially our young people - that we can improve our situation through our own initiative and efforts.

I was also asked as to what I feel needs to take place with our City Council. And without any hesitation I repeated comments made to me by two different members of Council following our last meeting. According to those individuals, the Council needs to concentrate much more on the multitude of major problems facing our town and to greatly decrease the amount of attention and energy spent dealing with minor issues. I cannot agree more and I believe that it has been a custom down through the years to neglect the major problems that has helped lead to our decline.

When you run for the office of mayor with a large field of candidates for City Council, you never know who will be elected and you never know what areas of expertise that they will bring to the Council table.

One area that I have always been concerned about during my tenure as mayor has been that of "Director of Finance" and fortunately I have had capable and knowledgeable members of Council to appoint to that position during both of my terms. And the election of banker John Davenport to the present Council has certainly been a great help in that respect. - especially with all of the problems mentioned above that we have recently had to face (and will continue to face) with the reduction of revenues available to our town while at the same time having to meet ever increasing expenditures in most areas.

The same has been true of the position of Commissioner of Sanitation. Jeff Brown was doing a good job with the department when he resigned from the Council due to personal reasons. But fortunately we were able to replace Jeff with Elsie Crawford who is doing an equally outstanding job in carrying out that responsibility. And as I wrote following her election by the Council, her business training and experience will greatly benefit our town in a number of ways.

No individual of whom I am aware is more knowledgeable in the field of medical insurance than Elsie and it is certainly fortunate that we will have her on the Council when we must deal with employee insurance while developing our budget for the next fiscal year. We all must have some type of medical insurance coverage and no one knows that better than the Mayor and members of Council. Several of us have recently been hit with very large increases in the cost of our personal health insurance so we can certainly sympathize with city employees as more and more must be deducted from their pay checks for required employee matching. Often raises in pay enacted by the Council for our employees are more than absorbed by increased amounts that must be deducted for insurance.

But the high cost of medical insurance pales in comparison to hospital and other medical bills when we require such services. It is a Catch 22 situation for the employees and our town and one that we all want to help alleviate. We will soon start our budget development workshops, study the problem and deal with it in the best manner possible.

I hope everyone has noticed the new plantings of trees around the parking area at Indian Mountain State Park. As I have written many times in the past, I don't believe that we can have too many trees and I don't believe that we can start too early to get them in the ground. I plan to now begin watching closely for the availability of Dogwood and Bradford Pear settings and to set them out just as soon as they can be purchased. Although I received quite a bit of opposition when I began planting them five years ago, I feel very justified every spring when they bloom out. And it is a personal goal of mine to see many more of them added before I leave office.

And speaking of the park, the first attempt to reinstate "Christmas in the Park" has drawn an awful lot of favorable response and Director Jerome Cummins is encouraged that a "Friends of the Park" organization will soon become a reality to assist the park in a variety of activities.

Another year has come and gone and "father time" takes his toll on us all. Just to remind me of that fact, someone who shall remain nameless since he is my boss, sent me the following report of an incident that reportedly happened in Florida. (Wonder if he is trying to tell me something?)

According to him a senior citizen in that state called 911 to report that her car had been broken into. She was hysterical as she explained her situation to the dispatcher. "They've stolen the stereo, the steering wheel, the brake pedal and even the accelerator!" she cried. The dispatcher told her to stay calm and that an officer would be dispatched immediately to investigate the situation. A few minutes later after having arrived on the scene, the officer radioed back to the dispatcher to just disregard the call.. According to the officer, "There's been no break in or theft. She just got into the back seat by mistake".

And then he included another one that really made me think. It seems that a senior citizen was driving down the interstate highway when his car phone suddenly rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice frantically warning him, "Herman, I just heard a special news alert that there's a car going the wrong way on Interstate 77. Please be awfully careful and watch out for that car!" Unperturbed the man very calmly answered his wife. "Don't worry. That's nothing to be concerned about. Heck, it's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!"

And to top those off, he related the story of two senior citizens who were out driving in a very large car. Both even had difficulty seeing over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red, but they just went on through. And shortly they came to a second red light but again the driver made no attempt to stop. And after the third such incident, the passenger became very concerned. Turning to the other woman, she excitedly protested, "Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!" In a complete state of shock, Mildred turned to her an exclaimed, "Good Heavens, am I driving?"

Those stories don't seem as funny to me now as they would have about this same time last year. For some strange reason I just can't remember why! But maybe it will come to me!