The City Council certainly selected a highly qualified individual to assume the vacancy on the Council when it named Bob Daniel to fill that seat. All surviving area coal miners throughout our area, many of their children and possibly even some of their grandchildren, will remember Bob's father Ed who served for many years as the District Representative, District 19, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and was active throughout the coal fields of Southeastern Kentucky and Northeastern Tennessee.
Bob is a Jellico High grad, took his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Tennessee and did his graduate work there. And talk about being politically correct for Jellico located on the Tennessee/Kentucky line and having connections to both states, he worked for several years for the University of Kentucky in the position of Risk Manager - a job that entailed evaluations of contracts totaling many millions of dollars prior to their awarding. He later successfully entered the insurance business in Nashville before retirement when he and his wife, the former Betty Skidmore of Harlan, Kentucky, returned to Jellico where he is an active member of the First Baptist Church. The Daniels have one son who resides in Lexington, Kentucky. (But Bob says his blood runs deep Orange.)
On behalf of the Council and our citizens, I want to thank Bob for his willingness to serve Jellico and we look forward to working with him for the remainder of our current terms.
(Although only mayors and/or city managers can represent their towns and cities on the Joint Economic & Community Development Boards established by the Tennessee State Legislature, I sure wish that I could appoint Bob to that position because we certainly could not find a more qualified individual to carry out those responsibilities due to his training and experience. But I sure plan to call upon him for his ideas and advice as we look toward to a potential period of growth and development for our town and our entire area.)
While making appointments, I also named Larry Meadows to fill the vacancy on the Beer Board created when former mayor and member of council Gary Owens moved outside the city limits and became ineligible to serve on that board. My thanks also to Larry for his service.
And I issued a list of appointments of members of Council to serve on the various city committees (no changes from the list issued at a recent meeting):
It's Christmas Parade time and we are scheduled to move out at 2:30 PM this Sunday. Popular WVLT Channel-8 sports announcer Rick Russo will be here to serve as our grand marshal and will be accompanied by his wife and two children.
At a recent meeting of the Tourism Commission, Tourism Director Jake Bennett explained plans for assembling the parade lineup that should make things much easier this year for units to find and assume their places within the parade line-of-march. The lead units (color guards, grand marshal, mayor, members of council, at least one high school band, etc.) will line up as usual on High School Lane facing the traffic signal at Hardees.
Other units will enter High School Lane at Rocky Top Arbys/Crouches Creek Baptist Church and be directed by city employees and volunteers to the parking lot in front of the main entrance to Jellico High. (After several years of requests, High School Loop has been opened up to allow traffic to come in on that particular side - although a gate remains that will only be open for such special activities as the Parade, JHS Homecomings, etc.) The first units to arrive from that section of the Loop will take the outside lane, followed by the next inside lanes, etc. until the parking area is completely filled. Other units will then fall into line leading back out High School Lane back toward the Church. And the parking lot behind the school will also be available.
Let's hope that other conditions are also much improved for the parade this year as compard to last year. The weather that Sunday was cold and with a blowing rain. To make matters worse, the influenza season struck early last year beginning in late November and was raging at the time of the parade. The combination of bad weather and the flu epidemic sure cut down on both the number of participants who had originally scheduled to enter the parade as well as the number of spectators in attendance. The flu even forced some of our most faithful workers to miss due to illness who are always right there on the spot helping to get things into place.
Although there are beginning to be reports of outbreaks of the flu around our area, the infection has not yet developed into the great number of cases suffered at this time last year (knock on wood). And the weather forecast on www.weather.com at the time this article was written (Tuesday) called for a mixture of clouds and sun on Sunday with temperatures in the low to mid-50's. But we all also know how fast the weather can change around here!
And it's for certain: Nothing adversely affects the success of the parade more than bad weather and/or widespread illness! So let's keep our fingers crossed!
Representatives from the Utilities Department and I met recently with an official from Nashville in relation to a grant application in the amount of $ 500,000.00 + with only a very small matching fee required on our part. The grant if approved will be used to finish the rehabilitation of our sewer system and to complete a massive project that some of us considered to be near impossible only a few short years ago.
When I was elected mayor, we were faced with completion of a water purification plant; construction of a state and federally mandated waste water (sewage) treatment facility to stop the pollution of Elk Creek/Cumberland River with its inherent danger to public health and the possibility of fines of $ 10,000 per day; and to rehabilitate our aging and badly deteriorated sewer system to eliminate massive infiltration of surface water into the system. However little money was available with which to take corrective action.
Many will recall that we agonized for an extended period of time over how we were going to fund all of those projects with their multi-million dollar price tag. But thanks to then Utilities Director Cheryl Tidwell, present Utilities Director John Leach, our former and present Utilities Boards, and our former and current City Councils, along with help from some state and federal officials who interceded on our behalf in view of the crucial situation that we were facing, we were able to work together and to obtain extensive grant funding for financing the improvements. Collectively we have achieved the near impossible.
Following a recent meetings with other in-county and out-of-county mayors, I was asked how we have been able to put our town in such good shape considering the financial demand only a few years ago upon our city government and Utilities Department. My answer to them was that we had a lot of folks cooperating with one goal in mind and we were extremely fortunate to receive the financial help from the appropriate funding agencies that we had to have.
My sincere thanks to all who have helped in any way to accomplish such a momentous undertaking that has gone virtually unnoticed by everyone except those who were - and are involved. All in all, the three combined projects when the rehabilitation of the sewer system is completed, has to constitute one of the largest - and quite possibly the largest - improvement project ever undertaken and successfully completed at any one time in the history of Jellico.
Only now are a lot of folks including developers, engineering firms, etc. beginning to realize the scope of the impact that Rarity Mountain can have upon Jellico and our immediate area. I have been involved in several meetings recently discussing that possible scope and just how we are going to be prepared to handle it. And we have the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) currently conducting a study to determine what additional services may be required.
One of the first issues that I attacked when I first became mayor and long before I had ever heard of Rarity Mountain, was the renovation and revitalization of our downtown which as it turns out, will in all probability, be "town" to the future residents of that development if we have stores, restaurants, recreational facilities, activities of interest, etc. And with an awful lot of help, we have made great strides in improving the appearance of our downtown (half jokingly and half seriously described by a World War II veteran a few years ago as resembling some bombed out towns that he had seen in Europe following that conflict. At that time we had a burned out building, a collapsed building, boarded up buildings, and few had not been painted or otherwise maintained for a lengthy period of time.)
And new life has been pumped into the area through the determined efforts of our very active Tourism Department. In fact a business owner told me recently that the crowds that are now being drawn to our downtown by our Tourism Department and other activities helps his businesss - even when vendors sell competitive items. It is very easy to dwell on the negatives and complain and criticize everybody and everything. But that never accomplishes anything constructive and can greatly damage our town. If I have any advice of any value, it is the advice given to me by an awful lot of our citizens, and that is to ignore the outpouring of negatives of which we are all now well aware and continue to put our town in the very best light possible. That's what I plan to do!
I don't know how the word spread so quickly but there seems to be another controversy brewing concerning our local radio station and a complaint that has been filed against its current location and operation. In fact the very next morning following our meeting of the Council, a concerned lady told me over the phone in no uncertain terms that "we need that radio station".
I mentioned our Christmas Parade above. Down through the years, it has become almost a tradition for Tim Zecchini to be our Santa Claus and he will fill that role again this year.
With all of the celebrating of Christmas, we sure don't want to forget our veterans - and especially our active service men and women - many of whom are a long way from home and in harm's way. And if you want to hear something that is really moving and something that will make you appreciate them even more, call up: www.ForMyCountry.info/ with link "Click Here for the Large File". (Speakers are required for the music.)
E-mail me at: mayor@jellico.tn.us
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Visit the City of Jellico's Web Site at: www.jellico.tn.us