The first edition of this column was issued on May 15th and 1000 copies distributed. That seemed like far too many so I cut down to 500 for the May 22nd edition. I lived to regret that.
Several contacted me saying that they could not find a copy and one lady made a point to find me to get a copy. She said she enjoyed the first edition so much that she would pay for all postage if I would start mailing them out.
My work schedule will not permit me to do that but I sure appreciate her offer. And if blessed to re-retire sometime in the future, I may start doing that and a lot more toward getting out the news in Jellico.
(In the meantime, two or three have told me that they have printed hard copies of my article from the Internet and distributed them to relatives and friends.) www.jellico.com/jellico/jellico.htm
Sometimes I think that nothing that takes place in our city council meetings can any longer shock me or even surprise me. But that is simply not the case. I never fail to be amazed at some of the issues that are raised.
The recent flap over two city service departments being overspent in their budgets in spite of the fact that we have been constantly banking money is puzzling enough. But the councilmen who raised that issue are the same councilmen who hired the former city administrator and placed him in virtually complete control of both formulating and administering the budget. And they are among the councilmen who recently voted in my opinion, to waste three or four thousand dollars in Veterans Park Annex.
And although I did not often agree with the former CA during the past year, I did support him when he was spending taxpayer money for the benefit of our citizens. As I have said many times during the past three years - if we can bank money on a continual basis in excess of what we need in reserve - then we simply are not providing enough services or we are over-charging our citizens.
"The meeting held by the four councilmen to hire that CA is being challenged in the courts as an illegally called meetiog. Eventually the legal process will decide if his hiring was proper. And it goes without saying that a lot of Jellico citizens strongly insist that it was not
But in the meantime it bordered on the ridiculous for those who hired him to stone him at this late date. The time for questioning what he was spending was while be was still in office. He is not at the meetings now to defend himself and I just don't believe in kicking anybody when they are down.
Another good example was the question of whether to mow the median strip on the four-lane highway. We have been informed on numerous occasions that out insurance will not cover city employees or city equipment being utilized on private property.
We have always understood that the section of four-lane within the city limits is the responsibility of the city of Jellico to mow with the state assuming responsibility for all other areas of state highways and the Interstate (state and/or federal). This year the grass became so high in the median leading into town that it actually had seeded. I called and asked that our city crews get it mowed as soon as possible and certainly before the Memorial Day weekend and the "Jeep Rally". That request was brought before the council in the adjourned session on May 22nd.
Someone compared our mowing that area to the recent controversy when city crews were ordered to take city equipment on to Interstate property. But there is nothing even remotely similar between the two situations. The state cleariy has the responsibility to take care of the Interstate where they have men trained and equipment safety designed for that task. To say that we can not mow the four-lane within the city limits led one spectator to comment that based upon that reasoning that we would then also need to stop our police and fire vehicles from going past the traffic light at Fifth Street/Sunset Trail. That made great sense to me.
Hopefully somehow the grass did get mowed in the four-lane prior to the holiday weekend but it had not by the time that this column was printed and it sure looked bad at that time.
The question that then arose as to whether to mow the area around the Jellico Cemetery prior to Memorial Day is even more puzzling. Councilman Alvin Evans insisted during the meeting that we have mowed the parking area next to the Jellico Cemetery for something like twenty years although the parking area belongs to the Church of God, Mountain Assembly. I pointed out that it has always been my understanding that as long as we are involved with a "quasi" or unofficial arm of the city such as the Cemetery Association, Rescue Squad, Senior Citizens, etc. or any organizations designed for the public good including schools, churches, scouts, etc, and have council approval - that the insurance would cover us. We clearly cannot aid individuals, businesses, or any for profit private endeavors. But it appears to me that we have an obligation to help those who are attempting to make contributions for the common good. If our insurance will not cover those functions then we need to look toward improving our insurance coverage.
And as I also pointed out to the council and the audience that there are few of us living in Jellico that do not have relatives and/or friends buried in the Jellico Cemetery. It would seem to me to be both irreverent and neglectful on the part of the city to fail to help in the effort to maintain the cemetary and to keep it accessible to everyone.
Once the issue was placed before the city council for a vote, only the fact that Councilman Jerry Neal departed from the usual majority forced the issue into a tie. (For: Jimmy Dobson, Alvin Evans, and Neal. Against: Bill Barton, Lonnie Vann, Charles Violet). I then had the authority to break the tie, and of course I voted with Dobson, Evans and Neal to approve mowing the area with city personnel and equipment.
At times I have had to agree with those who insist that less has gotten done in our town with a city administrator than was done with the mayor/council. In fact I agree with that argument most of the time.
I cannot adequately thank Helen Ruth Sharp and all those who volunteer their time and effort to the Jellico Cemetary. Some of us can still recall a period of years when the cemetary was virtually left unattended except for those who cleared their own lots and graves. That certainly is not the situation now.
Last weeks' comments concerning the upcoming city election in April has struck a responsive cord. In the words of one citizen, "It can't come to soon for me! " And as I stated in that column, that is virtually the consensus of opinion among those with whom I have opportunity to meet and to talk with.
A recurring theme seems to be that we need to "take back our town" and that is well stated. I hope that I am wrong about things but it seems to be the opinion of a very few people in positions of influence that only a very few people in Jellico are competent to run their own affairs. Nothing can be further from the truth and I for one do not believe that for one moment I greatly resent that kind of attitude if it does indeed exist.
We have regular city elections for our citizens to choose who they want as our officials. But their wishes are now being thwarted with appointments that the voters never even dreamed of when they cast their votes in the last election. It is past time to get the authority to run our town back in to the hands of those chosen by our people. And the April election will be the perfect opportunity to bring that about.
The amount of opposition to us having a city administiator is even greater than I was aware. One long time Jellico resident took great issue with me on my statement in my last notes that I favor combining the position of mayor and city administrator. That was taken as an endorsement by me of continuing with the position of CA. And I can see how that statement could have been interpreted as such.
But my opposition to continuing with a city administrator in Jellico is as strong as it has ever been. My comment was intend to insure that we have an elected and not an appointed person running our town after the next election. And that elected person should be accountable to the citizens and not to just four (4) members of the city council as is presently the case.
The worst thing that the city council could do between now and the April election is to hire a city administrator for one or even two years and give him or her a buyout clause that will cost the taxpayers an additional several thousand dollars - not counting the equally unnecessary expenditure of several thousand for the CA's salary. Should they go ahead and hire another CA, the decision made by our citizens in the election won't matter and in reality there will be no real reason to even have an election. The very few could then just decide what is good for us and let it go at that - whether we like it or not. And that would be like spitting in the faces of every resident of Jellico. I don't believe that our people will take it very kindly if they do go ahead and hire yet another city administrator before we get the opportunity to vote in April. (At least one potential candidate for the council who is strongly opposed to the CA has reportedly said that if a city administrator is in place after the election * and if he is elected * that he would vote to buy out the CA's contract regardless of cost if required to eliminate the position.. That would be a waste of city money and very expensive for the taxpayers. But it may take that to solve the problem.)
JUST DONT HIRE A CITY ADMINISTRATOR BEFORE APRIL AND A BUYOUT WONT BE NECESSARY IF A MAJORITY OF MEMBERS OF COUNCIL ARE ELECTED WHO FAVOR RETURNING TO THE MAYOR/COUNCIL FORM OF GOVERNMENT. BUT LET OUR CITIZENS DECIDE THE ISSUE.
City Judge Tom Barclay was one of the names desiring the position of City Administrator when we were given six (6) resumes' during the adjourned session. Barclay is the brother-in-law of present city recorder and acting city administrator Stephanie Smith. Other resumes' at that time included Angela Allen, Panama City, Florida; Mark Manning, Clinton; Vicki Marston, Knoxville; Argus Moyers, Knoxville; and Anthea Toutges, Oak Ridge. More are expected possibly including Scott Collins, the former mayor of Caryville and city administrator of Oliver Springs.
The recent coverage of our last regular monthly council meeting by the Lafollette Press, that paper referred to Mrs. Carolyn Leach as a "relentless birddog". (Mrs. Leach later told me that she was not at all offended but would have preferred to have been labeled as a "watch dog". (Is anyone besides me old enough to remember Cas Walker's newspaper "The Watchdog"?)
I for one am glad that we have citizens interested enough to keep up with what is going on in our town. Had it not been for Mrs. Leach and a few other citizens like her, a lot of what has taken place in our town during the past twelve months would never have been made known to our citizens. And that is not good!
I want to close this edition of my column by thanking everyone for all of the congratulatory comments, phone calls, e-mails and even flowers that I received following the announcement that I had been named as the winner of the "Most Outstanding Principal of the Year 2000-2001 Award" for the Whitley County School System. It was an honor that I never expected to receive and in the words of Whitley County Superintendent of Schools Lonnie Anderson while making the announcement to the large audience in attendance at the awards ceremony, "This is the first time this year that I have seen John Clifton speechless."
I have been blessed to serve as principal at Boston Elementary School for the past twelve months where I have worked in a beautiful new building and have had the total support of Superintendent Anderson and his staff of outstanding professional educators; the Boston community, and a great staff of dedicated teachers and other personnel. But most of all I have had the great pleasure of working with a wonderful group of fine yung-'uns. It just doesnt get much better.
The Whitley County School System has improved so much over the past twenty years that it is a real honor just to be a part of what is taking place. Once ranked at the bottom of Kentucky school systems, the board of education and Superintendent Anderson and his staff have advanced the system until it is now rapidly increasing in its academic ranking. And with its steadily rising academic test scores and other indicators, it is considered by many as a model for other systems to emulate in several areas.
View the Archives of this column.
Mail any comments or suggestions, etc. to:
John Clifton
P.O. Box 533
Jellico, TN 37762
E-mail: jclifton@whitley.kl2.ky.us
or enter your comments here in the special forum that Interstate 2000, Inc. has created for response to and discussion of these Mayor's Columns.