Webmasters Note: I have placed the minutes from the April 20 City Council meeting, as reported in the Jellico Advance Sentinel, in the News topic of the "Lets Talk Jellico" forum. Go to: http://www.delphi.com/jellico/
The name of Mr. Billy Bowlin was placed in nomination last Thursday night to fill the vacancy on the city council. Councilman Jim Dobson made the nomination and Billy would certainly have been a very good addition to the council.
He is a successful businessman who has never been involved in city politics to the best of my knowledge. But several months ago he saw real effort being made to develop activities designed to attract business and visitors to our town. And he offered to help Jim Dobson and myself to secure some activities this summer that would have done just that. He would have been exactly the type of councilman that our town needs so badly at the present time.
The motion by Councilman Jim Dobson and seconded by Councilman Alvin Evans to have a resolution prepared leading to the return to the old mayor/council form of government failed also. Voting against the motion were Councilman Bill Barton, Councilman Jerry Neal and Councilman Lonnie Vann.
I sincerely believe that the majority of our citizens want to change the charter back thereby eliminating the salary of a city administrator (CA) and applying the funds toward some of the real needs of our town. And it would have been so easy to do just that. But I fully expect the council majority to now hire our third CA in just the past twenty months or so.
I have heard many times in the past that if anyone really goes to work to try to make improvements in Jellico, that others will immediately go to work to stop them. I never believed those statements and I always considered them to simply be excuses for not getting up and trying to do something. But the past two years have taught me that there is more than a little truth to those statements.
I have been told by two different local business operators that a member of the council majority has made statements directly to them something along the lines that "Jellico is big enough, things are going good for him and he doesn't want to see it get any bigger". Another individual that I have always found to be truthful told me that he overheard a conversation in which another member of the council commented that "we will soon have his hands tied until he can't do anything". Whether the statement was made or not, that is certainly what some of them have been working to do and they have been very successful.
A person very familiar with the current impasse told me recently that the situation is only going to get worse and that the monthly agenda is studied carefully prior to our meetings basically for finding items that can be blocked or at least debated. Another person even closer to the situation, pointed out to me that the council majority has in effect already killed all the plans that councilman Dobson and I had for making additional improvements over the summer.
(I wish that the councilmen who have put up so much opposition to the improvements in our town had been present in my office a few months ago when a resident of the Elk Valley area stopped by the office to compliment me on the changes that have been made in Jellico over the past two years. He stated that four years ago some old friends who had never been to this area were travelling south and called him from a business place on the four-lane. They agreed to visit his family and he came to meet them and to take them to his home. But he led them directly through Sunset Trail because he did not want them to see the condition of our downtown. When they left he led them to the Interstate entrance at Pioneer).
Slowing and stopping the progress does not affect me personally but I think that it does hurt our town. The little salary that I receive has been placed toward purchasing the badly needed awnings for the new library, purchasing trees for planting downtown and other related items and paying city employees to work after hours without charging the city for overtime. (And our city workers have voluntarily worked additional hours free of charge).
The many hours that I have spent working for the city have only prevented my participating in other activities and I will now have time for other things that I enjoy doing. But I sincerely hope that some of the members of council will soon start working to bring about some of the things that need to be accomplished so badly.
We are only two months away from the close of the fiscal year so it was shocking to me (and to other people) who saw the financial sheets passed to councilmen before the meeting. As of the end of March we still had $46,495.46 in the "Street - General Fund", and $31,198.99 in the "Street Aid Fund", as well as any unused portion of the special "capital outlay funds" appropriated for street repairs.
And those figures do not include the $50,000.00 surplus property sale funds spent for the new backhoe, floor hoist and cleaning of the church that could have (and in my opinion should have) been applied to our streets and roads as I originally recommended. And when you consider that in addition to the above funds, that the financial statement indicated that we also have reserve funds totalling $605,874.44. No wonder that so many of our citizens question what is going on!!! Councilman Alvin Evans did propose working on some of the streets that I have brought up during so many past meetings and also often discussed in this column. Evans told me that he will again propose taking action during the next meeting. I hope that he can force some corrective action if necessary to get some work done on our streets.
And although I agree that we do need recreational facilities, the $28,450.00 appropriated for tennis court(s) apparently has not been taken too well by some of our citizens who called to ask if that action had actually been taken by the council.
I have made it clear that I have not been involved in bringing about the proposed recall election. But I have made it equally clear that I strongly agree with the proposal. In fact I would personally sign petitions calling for the recall of any names placed on the petitions including my own. There is never anything wrong with our citizens making any decision. Since citizens have the right to elect a mayor and council, they certainly should have the right to remove them from office if their performance is unsatisfactory.
It is clear at the present time that we have a situation that has slowed, and in many cases, completely stopped, the progress that was being made. We now definitely have two "sides" with ideas and actions that are diametrically opposed and that situation is a detriment to our town. It is a situation that badly needs correcting!!! And since we no longer have elections every two years, a recall election now seems to be the only answer. Our citizens need an opportunity to decide which side they feel is in the right and which side is in the wrong. And I hope that we all get the opportunity to make that decision. As one lady commented on Friday after hearing an account of Thursday night's meeting, "a recall is now our only hope."
I have been contacted by some individuals working to have the recall election and they understand that a ruling on the legality of the recall will be issued in the next three or four days. If given the authorization, the petitions could begin circulating sometime late this week or into next week. The deadline for submission of the petitions (bearing the names of at least 232 voters eligible to vote in city elections) to the Campbell County Election Office would be noon on May 18th for the August election. (However the recall could be held in conjunction with the November election - or at any time the legal reqirements are met according to our city charter).
The Louisville, Kentucky Couier-Journal headlines for April 14th announced that the city of Louisville is kicking off a large improvement project for its downtown area. (As I have stated several times during past months, restoration of downtown areas ranging from very small towns to large cities is fast becoming a national trend. We got started very early on bringing back our downtown although there was criticism and opposition to our efforts to accomplish that.)
"Renovating" and "revitalizing" our downtown was a major goal for Jellico that I announced immediately after assuming the office of mayor two years ago. And improvements have been made!!!
I hope that our entire community and area will again get involved in our second annual "Clean-up, Paint-up, Fix-up Week" that had such great participation last year. Dates this year are May 22-27. And I want to thank Dwight Osborne for all the expressions of appreciation and support that he has given me in my efforts to bring about positive change in our town. Dwight was a candidate for mayor in the last election that has really responded to my call for our entire community to unite after the election to bring about the improvements that we would all like to see accomplished. That is the type of attitude that we must all take if we are going to bring our town back.
I think that I have been lost somewhere in the bureaucracy!!! For the past year I have been asking all of our area citizens to be sure to get counted in the ten-years Census presently being conducted. I personally waited for several days to receive and complete my form but it never came. However I did receive a notice in the mail that I needed to return the form that had been left on my front door. I searched thoroughly but could find no form on the front door or anywhere within our vicinity. I called the toll free 800 number and after listening to recordings for several minutes, I finally was able to talk to a real live person who assured me that he would immediately mail me a form. It has never arrived either!!!
I fully understand all of the problems involved with carrying out the massive task of counting so many millions of people and I figure that someone will get to me eventually (if they have not already done so by the time this article is published). But it does concern me that others may be awaiting their form also and we certainly do not need to have anyone left out of the Census. It is too important to our town and our area that everyone gets counted.
It is hard for me to put into words my appreciation for all of the statements of support and encouragement that I received at the Senior Citizens Center on Monday, April 10th (the "open house" is scheduled for this Sunday, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM). Although I arrived very late for the dinner at the Center, there were still several members there and almost everyone in attendance talked about the beauty of the Dogwoods in the downtown that were just reaching their peak blooming.
Some like myself, enjoyed the white flowers while others preferred the pink. And as one lady pointed out, the Dogwoods have made such a vast improvement in the downtown that it is hard to figure out why they were not planted there in past years.
Receiving such a warm welcome and so many statements of appreciation and support certainly encouraged me. No matter how discouraged I might have felt when I arrived there, I could not have helped but leave feeling much better. I sincerely appreciate our senior citizens and all of the contributions that they have made, and are making, toward the betterment of our town.
But the supreme compliment may have come recently from Roberta Oaks and some of her young friends. I do not know if they are aware of some of the current controversy(s) or not but they stopped to tell me that "they can see the improvements being made, that I am 'the best mayor ever' and that they plan to reelect me."
I told them that I am greatly honored to be mentioned with some of the outstanding mayors that we have had in past years and that I would love to know that I could achieve just one-half of the successes that some of them were able to accomplish. I also told them that I could have had little success myself without the help from a lot of people including Councilman Jim Dobson. I pointed out that I currently have no plans to ever seek public office again (especially if the four objectives of solving our waste water treatment problem, renovating and revitalizing our downtown, attracting potential employers, and developing a positive attitude amoung our citizens are satisfactorily attained). But I greatly appreciate the pledge of support from our young people if I should ever decide to seek reelection.
And I made it very clear that receiving such a compliment from their age group had special meaning to me since it is their generation and future generations that will benefit most if we are successful in achieving the four objectives.
I love the comments on the www.jellico.com/jellico/jellico.htm "guestbook" from Becky Durham in Georgia concerning her father Mr. Herschel Gilbert. She wanted to introduce him to the Internet and apparently he felt that if the Internet were worth much, it would have something about Jellico. She typed in "Jellico" and my column came up. And by an almost unbelievable coincidence, it was the very article in which I had written about Mr. Gilbert. Needless to say, he is now an Internet fan along with his daughter.
I receive many more favorable comments on the guestbooks concerning the articles that I write that include historical events, locations, families, individuals, etc. than for anything else. A lot of former Jellico residents seem to enjoy those types of things according to their responses on the guestbooks and from the letters and telephone calls that I receive. Jellico now has three (3) "guestbooks" and I was recently given a complete print-out of all three. The comments totalled twenty-six (26 pages).
FINAL NOTE:
It was a proud moment for me (and other Jellico area people as well, judging from the crowd reaction) when Brad Sharp entered this year's Orange and White game. Brad has been moved to fullback and is now listed in the 2000 "Press Guide" as a full-pledged varsity candidate. (The fullback in the Tennessee offense requires a "bulldozer" who must be able to hit and Brad Sharp will sure do just that. Extremely personable and easy going off the field, he delivers the "slobber knocker" licks when the whistle blows). It is very hard to find a good blocking fullback and being moved to that position could possibly increase Brad's opportunities in the future.
I once wrote Coach Philip Fulmer about Brad and I assured him of two things: (1.) That Brad Sharp will never do anything but uphold the highest standards of our state university and our alma mater that we love so much, and (2) That Brad Sharp will definitely hit you in the mouth once the ball is snapped.
To the best of my knowledge, Brad is the first Jellico High School student/athelete to wear the Big Orange uniform since Earl "Moose" Singleton lined up at defensive tackle against Georgia Tech sometime around 1960 (I was there but I cannot recall the exact year). And of course J.H.S. produced one of the great players in Vol history - Billy Harkness who served as the captain of General Neyland's first team and "quarterbacked" the old single-wing offense utilized at that time. He later served as an assistant coach to the General. (There may have been others of whom I am not aware.)
I love to see Jellicoans such as Brad Sharp, and former Jellicoans, making positive achievements and I also love to report on those achievements. Jellico does not have to take a back seat to any other community in making positive contributions and that is the attitude that we all need to take.
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