Shortly after the election last April, I, along with the members of City Council, committed to a long term goal of making a positive change in the appearance of our entire town - to include the downtown area - during our four years in office.
We established a short term goal to make at least some visible progress by Memorial Day of this year and we feel that we are currently on track to reach that objective. We have contacted property owners, business operators and residents and have asked for them to get involved in the project. And we have continuously pointed out that we have to have everyone's participation if we are to succeed in reaching our goal of making significant improvement.
To encourage widespread participation, we announced several months ago that we would have a special week of emphasis prior to Memorial Day of this year. We designated the week of May 3rd - May 8th as "Clean up, paint up, fix up week" in Jellico and we are presently attempting to get out as much publicity and to create as much interest as possible concerning that upcoming special week.
Having such a period for special emphasis is certainly not new or unique. Cities, towns and communities all over the country schedule activities designed to improve appearances and to build community pride. In fact our neighboring county, Whitley County, Kentucky, is having a "Pride Week" that has widespread support. County officials, City(s) officials, organizations, clubs, schools, church congregations, etc. all appear to be involved in the Whitley effort.
The activity was deemed to be of such importance to Whitley County that Congressman Hal Rogers nd other dignitaries were on hand to kick off the event.
And our own Campbell County officials have declared April as "Anti-Litter Month" throughout the county and we hope that everyone gets involved in that drive.
But we need to have similar participation in "Cleaning up, painting up, and fixing up" Jellico. Those types of activities can - and should - be done throughtout the year but sometimes special emphasis is required in order to stimulate wide spread intrest. and the actions of an individual or small group(s) can often inspire others to join in the effort and we hope that this year's inaugural event becomes "contagious" and spreads throughout the entire Jellico and surrounding areas. And we also hope that is such a success that we will want to schedule it on an annual basis.
Everyone can do something ranging from new construction to renovations and repairs to painting to planting flowers, shrubs and trees to doing yard work to cleaning up neglected areas to accomplishing any number of things.
We plan to again contact as many individuals, businesses, property owners, groups and organizations as possible prior to May 3rd to ask for their help. Some have already committed to participate and to develop plans for that week:
We know that we have a long way to go in getting everyone contacted prior to May 3rd but we are going to keep working toward that objective.
In the meantime we are asking everyone to help us in making those contacts. Please ask your family, friends and neighbors to get involved and to encourage others to participate in this project.
If everybody works together, we can attain our goal of making a big improvement in Jellico's appearance (and surrounding areas) by Memorial Day.
Last fall we had a special week to plant "flowering trees" in Jellico and some questioned how that would help the appearance of our town. Others even expressed their opposition to the plantings.
Those same individuals needed to drive through LaFollette last week and they would have seen first hand just what flowering trees and other flowering plants can add to appearances.
Bradford Pears were planted several years ago all along Central Avenue (main thoroughfare through town). Bradford Pears were used on that street because the sidewalks are much wider (Dogwoods were planted on side streets with more narrow sidewalks).
The trees are quite large now and were in full bloom last week - so full of white blossoms that they gave the impression of being covered with snow.
And several businesses had installed spot lights to brilliantly illuminate the trees at night. The once extremely drab Central Avenue has been transformed into a beautiful avenue running through the center of LaFollette.
We can have the same success in renovating (and revitalizing) our town if we can get everyone involved and follow through on our plans as we did with our solid waste recycle program that has been so highly successful to this point.
Final Note:
I have been asked several times during the last week why the Utilities Board voted during their last meeting to purchase a new truck with boom and bucket at a cost of somewhere around $ 79,000.00.
I was not knowledgeable enough to answer the questions but I later met with some members of the Board and also taked with supervisor Willie Singleton. They gave me the following information pertaining to the truck presently in use.
The old truck is now fifteen (15) years old and has had to have numerous expensive repairs within the last few years. More work is badly needed and estimates range up to as much as $ 20,000.00 to make it totally operational and completely safe for use by crewmen. And even if that work had been authorized, the system would still have had an old and worn out vehicle to contend with and one that could have become non-operational at any time. The point of diminishing returns had been reached!
But there was a more compelling reason for purchasing a new and fully equipped vehicle. The Federal and State offices of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) several years ago cited the vehicle as unsafe with a boom that could collapse and a bucket that did not properly insulate workers from high voltage lines. Other inspections reinforced the unsafe conditions surrounding the vehicle.
Had the Utilities Department ignoredthe safety concerns, any accident to a worker that could be tied to the warnings would have placed the Utilities at risk of immense liability. Insurance coverage was also at risk!
Singleton said that the system had pulled the vehicle from service - meaning that high voltage lines would have to be shut down with the resulting loss of power to homes and businesses while any required repair work was conducted.
One Board Member told me that he did not like the idea of having to vote for the new vehicle but felt compelled to do so after the situation was made painfully clear to the Utilities Board. In his words, "That is a lot of money to spend for a truck but it is a small price to pay if it prevents one worker from serious injury or death. We simply could not take a chance of a tragedy occuring after we had been made aware of what might happen".
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