Palace Sidewalk "Walk of Fame" Stones to be moved indoors

The City of Crossville plans to move the Palace Theatre sidewalk stones out of the weather for their protection according to information given out by city manager Greg Wood at the Council's Thursday special called meeting.

The announcement explained that "Over the years, the commemorative stonework in front of the Palace has taken a beating, including drivers coming over the curb and breaking stones."

Damaged stones in front of the Palace Theatre showing

cracks and damage from weather and salt used

to de-ice roads and sidewalks

The stones, originally put down in 2001 were a fundraiser for the restoration of the Palace while work was going on and many thousands of dollars were raised with the stones and engraved tiles in the lobby.

Exclusive Jim Young Reporter photo of Palace Sidewalk

stones being installed July 18, 2001, by students of

the then Vocational School now Tennessee College

of Applied Technology.

The stones were a potential problem in plans for redoing sidewalks in the downtown area a couple years ago and once the stones are removed, a new regular sidewalk will be laid in front of the Theatre. They have been cleaned and sealed several times since they were put down 16 years ago but quartzite sandstone is not as resilient as other types of stones for this type of use.

The work is expected to start in February, weather permitting.

On again, off again, Downtown Crossville sidewalk grant application OKed by the city council.

After returning a similar grant award when the downtown Crossville improvement plan was abandoned several years ago, the Crossville city council approved submitting a grant application that could help pay for $1.5 million in downtown sidewalk improvements during a special called meeting.

Downtown Crossville sidewalks

City council has talked about improving downtown sidewalks for some 15 years, originally as part of the multi-million dollar downtown project, but little has been accomplished towards it during that time.  The cost has been a factor in the decision not to proceed.  The currently proposed grant will pay for 80 percent of the approved work.

The grant, called the Transportation Alternative Program, is a program of the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT). The deadline to apply is October 3 this fall but awards will not be announced until around this time next year. If the city is successful, the bids are expected to be put out in November of 2019 and the construction phase runs from March to November 2020. Previously it was announced that TDOT planned to pave Main Street through Downtown sometime during 2020.

Crossville city manager Greg Wood, left, tells council about

the details of the proposed TDOT TAP grant project.

L-R: Wood, council members J.H. Graham, Danny Wyatt,

Mayor James Mayberry and Scot Shanks.

Because the project is essentially identical to the one that the city previously planned most of the design and right-of-way work is already completed but TDOT will still have to review the project once again. The project starts at the Lantana Road intersection of Main Street and continues to the north side of Neecham Street. The main work will include sidewalks, ADA compliant intersections, and additional improvements. The city will pay from some of the work that the grant won't cover from tax funds. 

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The total estimated cost of the project is just over $1.5 million and the city's match of 20 percent is around $316,000. In addition, the cost of lighting materials that city crews will install is $295,000.

Evan Sanders of grant consultant Community Development Partners told the council that because the design work is mostly complete that TDOT should look on that favorably and the city has an excellent chance of getting the project funded.

During the discussion before the vote, city manager Greg Wood asked council for permission to pursue a possible partner to install fiber optic cable along Main Street in the conduit the city will be installing for streetlight power and traffic light controls. Wood said that that would protect the lines from ice storms and strong winds.

In addition, the city will be meeting with a company that wants to make a proposal concerning saving enough energy costs to help pay for the new street lighting the city is looking at installing.

The motion to approve the submission of the application and necessary budget amendment was made by councilman J. H. Graham and seconded by Councilman Scot Shanks. An additional $43,000 was added to the grant request to fund pedestrian signals that TDOT requires according to Mr. Sanders.

Councilwoman Pam Harris could not attend the meeting but the remaining four council members voted in favor of the motion and the application will be submitted.

An additional 7 items on the agenda were handled in a single vote. Additional readings of previously approved ordinance readings. One action was to apply for funds to help defray costs of replacing the K-9 police dog Cain.   

Crossville council to consider approval of Downtown sidewalk grant in Wednesday Noon called meeting.

The Crossville city council will meet in special called session Wednesday, September 27 at noon in Crossville city hall.

Current state of Downtown Crossville

sidewalks.

The main reason for the meeting is for the council to do a final review and vote on the Transportation Alternatives Program grant that the city is hoping to use to make improvements to the downtown sidewalks. The total estimated cost of the project is just over $1.5 million and the city's match of 20 percent is around $316,000. In addition, the cost of lighting materials that city crews will install is $295,000.

Crossville city council members L-R:

J.H. Graham, Danny Wyatt, Mayor James Mayberry,

Pamala Harris and Scot Shanks.

Because the project is nearly identical to the one that the city previously planned most of the design and right-of-way work is already done but the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) will have to review the project once again. The project starts at the Lantana Road intersection of Main Street and continues to the north side of Neecham Street.

The grant is submitted this fall but will not be announced until next October. The bids are expected to be put out in November of 2019 and the construction phase runs from March to November 2020. Previously it was announced that TDOT planned to pave Main Street through Downtown sometime during 2020.

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Also during the called meeting council will also consider a grant application to the Stanton Foundation for $10,000 toward the purchase of a K-9 dog and bulletproof vest. The grant is specifically for departments that have lost a dog in the line of duty.

Additional agenda items for the called meeting are ordinance readings that have previously been approved including water plant improvements, closing Municipal Avenue, budget amendments and a change order for the Meadow Park raw water pump generator.   

Council gives OK to move forward with application for sidewalk grant-final approval pending details

Crossville city council approved moving forward with applying for a TDOT grant to help with the costs of upgrading downtown Crossville sidewalks.

The Transportation Alternatives Program through the Tennessee Department of Transportation provides 80 percent of the funding with the city providing a 20 percent match to pay for the project. While the project the city had previously planned totaled some $2.6 million the typical funding for this grant is about $1.1 million.

Crossville city council members discuss

sidewalk grant 

According to city manager Greg Wood, he and city engineer Tim Begley have been looking at ways to reduce the cost of the plan including taking out the section of the sidewalk in front of the Courthouse that is in good shape. In addition, the city is looking at other possible grants to pay for street lights.

Wood told the council he would like for the council to approve allowing them to continue working on the grant and to bring back the final proposal tot he council for their final approval. The grant application is due on October 3.

Council member Danny Wyatt made a motion to approve the recommendation of Mr. Wood and Mayor James Mayberry gave a second.

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Council member Pamala Harris said she still had some concerns about the timeline conflicting with plans to pave Main Street in 2020. Wood said they had talked to consultants and said that a conflict of a month or two would most likely not create a problem.

The motion was unanimously approved.  

August CIty Council agenda includes sidewalks, Chamber, airport committee, city manager and depot.

Crossville city council will take up a number of items at their regular August meeting Tuesday August 8 at Crossville city hall.

Items on the agenda include a public hearing and possible action on a TDOT grant to pay for sidewalk improvements in the downtown area. Council will also consider the contract between the city and the chamber of commerce and the scorecard the chamber has developed to report their work and progress to the city. Other items for discussion include the possible reestablishment of an airport committee, the evaluation of the new city manager Greg Wood's first six months, and a revised street closing policy.

The evening starts with the monthly audit committee meeting at 5 PM followed by a closed executive session concerning legal matters with city attorney Will Ridley. A public hearing on the TDOT transportation alternative program grant takes place at 5:30 and the council meets as the beer board at 5:45. The regualr agenda starts at 6 PM.

Downtown Crossville sidewalks

It seems that the council has talked about downtown sidewalk project for years, and they have. The council has made decisions and changed their mind over and over again. The last decision was to have TDOT come and do the corners they would do and the city would use the street department sidewalk crew to do the rest of repair and patch work over a lengthy period of time. Recently the city discussed a grant now called the transportation alternatives program, a different name but a similar grant that had been part of the downtown redevelopment program canceled about three years ago.

The current grant program will fund 80 percent of the costs of the project with the city paying the remaining 20 percent. The total estimated cost for the sidewalk work is just over $2.6 million. The city's portion would be almost $530,000.

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The project was discussed during the council's recent work session and the time line of environmental work, approvals and bidding pushes the construction completion of project back into the time frame of late 2020 when TDOT plans to repave the downtown area after delays from the previous attempts to complete the sidewalk projects.

The council needs to make a decision as the grant is due to be submitted on October 1 this year but the grant awards are not expected to be announced until October 2018.

A draft of a contract between the city and the Chamber of Commerce will be considered by the council. The contract has been under consideration as part of the city's funding to the chamber. During the recent work session, council member J. H. Graham asked that the contract address the inclusion of the city manager and marketing director in the process of industrial recruiting. Also discussed was the need to have agreements ready to go on property purchase credits for new jobs. This has been used for previous businesses with a lease and a purchase agreement.

Chamber of Commerce office

Council member Scot Shanks has brought up a proposal to reestablish an airport committee after a business that uses the airport brought some concerns to his attention. An airport committee made up of local pilots and airport supporters was abolished by the council in 2007 after some 50 years of existence. Discussion on the matter at the work session did not indicate support for the proposal but Mr. Shanks was unable to attend so the matter will come up on the agenda.

City manager Wood has been in his position for 6 months now and individual council members have provided feedback through an evaluation. The overall score covering 10 areas of work came in with an average score of 4 out of a possible 5 and council has provided additional written suggestions as well. The council could consider a salary increase.

Council will consider a change to a recently adopted street closing policy. Those changes could include no charge for joint or community events and a possible change in the location for cruise ins next year to the road behind the courthouse instead of Main Street.

With the C.A.T.S. Organization relinquishing the lease to operate the Crossville Depot there are two possible scenarios the city is looking at. One would let the local Crossville Model Railroad Club use the facility for their model train exhibit but that would not allow use of the facility for meetings. The other option is for the Palace Theatre to oversee the depot operation.  

Crossville Depot

CROSSVILLE FLASHBACK 2007: Council planning work session on downtown improvements.

Downtown Crossville in 2007

CROSSVILLE FLASHBACK 2007: Ten Years Ago

Crossville City Council hears about downtown improvement suggestions

Crossville city council will schedule a work session in the near future with representatives of Downtown Crossville, Inc. to discuss several proposed downtown improvements.

Downtown Crossville Inc. (DCI) representative Frances Carson addressed the council at their regular August meeting. Carson displayed a number of pictures that showed the kind of improvements they wanted to see in the downtown area.

“This proposal is just a starting place,” explained Carson who talked about three areas of initial concern including parking, truck traffic and cruising.

On parking, Carson said they hoped to get public parking areas in downtown better marked so visitors could find them more easily and they also hoped to find additional locations for more parking as well.


In order to reduce the amount of truck traffic through downtown, DCI had been working with the city street department to provide better signs including signs that would indicate trucks coming from Homestead could easily get to I-40 using the Milo Lemmert Bypass rather then coming through the downtown area. They also wanted to have signs indicating the optional truck route further back from the intersections in order to give the trucks more warning that the alternate routes are available and they connect back to 127.

Carson said the group had been working with the police department on the issue of cruising. She stressed that the problem was not local kids but those who were from out of county and also older. Some of the problems reported by downtown property owners and businesses included cruisers staying later, litter and other unsanitary activities.

Carson said the group “was not opposed to local cruising” as the local residents generally went home earlier and were much less of a problem.

Carson explained that the group had done a lot of research and they had looked at several other cities that had improved their downtown areas. Some of the ideas DCI looked at seemed right for Crossville while others might be less successful.

According to Carson, the group is looking to expand it's partnerships. A number of Main Street property owners and business operators are already involved and the group has been working to keep the existing businesses on Main Street while trying to find more businesses to put in currently empty buildings.

“We'd like to ask for a work session with the council,: said Carson, “and we'll be requesting some funding but we want to explain what the funding will do.”

A work session will be scheduled in the near future. Crossville Mayor J. H. Graham asked that the meeting be in the evening so businesses owners could also attend.

Council considering TDOT transportation alternative grants for sidewalk and depot improvements

After returning a similar grant several years ago, the Crossville city council is considering applying for a grant from TDOT to help pay for downtown sidewalks and possibly other improvements at the Crossville depot.

City Council members L-R: J.H. Graham, Danny Wyatt,

Mayor James Mayberry, Pamala Harris and Scot Shanks

While no action was taken during the July, the topic is expected to come up at the August work session and regular meeting to consider applying for 80/20 grants that could fund sidewalk improvements and other pedestrian/bicycle improvements for non-drivers as well as possible work on the Crossville Tennessee Central Railroad depot.

Full city council discussion on TDOT grants

A public hearing is planned for the August 8th city council meeting date and the matter on the agenda for council's consideration of the city applying for the grants that are due October 3 this year. The total estimated cost of the project would be $3.2 million dollars with the city's match portion at $640,000.

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Downtown sidewalk condition file photo

After some issues with fine print on some of the city's previous grants, the council said they want to see the completed grant before it is submitted.

Crossville Depot

Council work session to follow June 29 special called meeting on budget.

The Crossville city council has a work session scheduled for Thursday June 29 at 5:15 PM following the special called meeting to approve final reading of the 2017-18 fiscal year budget and other items.

Link to Special called meeting story

Because the regular day that the council would meet for its monthly work session is July 4th the council decided to move the monthly work session a bit earlier in order to celebrate the holiday and since a special called meeting was already scheduled council decided to go ahead and hold the work session.

Crossville City Hall

The work session will discuss items that may be on the regular July council meeting that will be held July 11 including the bid on solid waste collection for the city. With the contract expiring the council voted to rebid the service. The deadline to bid was June 6.

The only bid received was from Waste Connections/Cumberland Waste Disposal, the current contractor. The current waste collection contract costs the city $360,929 per year and the new contract is estimated to be $239,846 with the city picking up yard waste and leaves. The bid for twice a year yard waste/leaf pickup by Cumberland Waste would be $152,683 and the city is recommending to the council that the city, not the contractor, do the yard waste/leaf pickup. The city has the purchase of a leaf vacuum truck in the new fiscal year's budget for the service.

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Council will discuss the plan with a decision expected to be voted on in the July regular meeting.

Downtown sidewalks and Main Street striping plans will be up for discussion. The item has been requested on the agenda by councilwoman Pamala Harris.

Several grants are on the agenda for discussion including the Transpiration Alternatives Grant. That grant could be used for sidewalks, streetlights and pedestrian signals for downtown. The grant pays 80 percent of the cost. Also on the agenda is a police vest grant and the airport maintenance grant

Road closing approvals are up for consideration for the August Friday at the Crossroads, a 70E block party July 14 and the Scarecrow Festival in October.

A contract with an engineering for for a study on the city's raw water supply for Meadow Park Lake is on the agenda. If approved the J. R. Wauford & Company will perform preliminary engineering on the project for $15,000.

Another engineering contract for work on the industrial site development project to create a pad for construction is up for consideration. Following a request for qualifications the selection committee selected TARE Engineering for the work at $60,000 has been recommended.  

Council fails to pass motion to move forward with bidding downtown sidewalk work

In a special called meeting Thursday the city council went back to downtown sidewalks but a motion again to put the project on a faster track and hire a contractor to do the work again failed in a 3 to 2 vote.

The matter was brought back to the agenda by councilman Scot Shanks who moved to rescind previous action from last July and authorizing the city manager to take bids on the downtown sidewalk project from Neecham St. to Lantana Rd. including the addition of new street lights. Shanks motion received a second from Mayor James Mayberry.

Council members discuss downtown sidewalks again.

L-R J.H. Graham, Danny Wyatt, Mayor James Mayberry

and Scot Shanks.  Council member Pamala Harris got to the

meeting just after this photo was taken.

City manager Greg Wood talked to the council about his meeting with TDOT and they told Wood that they felt the pavement in downtown was in relative good condition except fro the cuts and their priority was the pave the 4 lane section for North Main Street. TDOT said they would pave the downtown portion of Mains Street but that would not be until 2020. Wood added, “That gives us a whole lot of time to decide if either we want to do the work our self or contract that out.”

Councilman Shanks said he had explained the reasons for his motion during the regular meeting but added an additional comment the council had received in an email, “You don't get a second chance to make a first impression. I think we need to think about what our first impression is because that is what people see when they first come into Crossville.”

Council called meeting discussion of 

downtown Crossville sidewalks.

Mayor Mayberry read from an email he received from Bob Weber, the general manager at Fairfield Glade in reference to someone they were trying to get to settle here saying that in Crossville shopping and dining opportunities were lacking plus Crossville's downtown is not very attractive. The email said that Cookeville had a small but well kept downtown.

Councilman Danny Wyatt said he understood that the large restaurant chains would not come until you kept restaurants full until 8 or 9 o'clock.

Mr. Shanks countered that there were no chain restaurants in Cookeville's downtown as they were all out near the interstate. All the downtown restaurants in Cookeville are locally owned.

Mr. Wyatt said he thought there were only 2 restaurants in downtown Cookeville and Mr. Shanks said there were more then that. (A quick Google Search indicates 8 in the vicinity of the western downtown footprint.)

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Councilwoman Pamala Harris came in on the sidewalk discussion late and was brought up to speed on the motion. Ms. Harris said she could not support replacing all the sidewalks. She said she supports fixing the areas that need fixed and could even support bidding out the work but she would rather see spending $1 million instead of over $2 million to fix the sidewalks.

A brief discussion indicated contractors were busy now and there was no way to tell about what a final bid would be.

Council members J. H. Graham, Wyatt and Harris voted against the motion while Mr. Shanks and Mayor Mayberry voted yes. The motion failed.  

Special Called council meeting Thursday 5 PM on Garrison Park, splash pad and sidewalks. Budget work follows

Crossville city council meets in a called meeting followed by a work session on Thursday starting at 5 PM in Crossville city hall.

The called meeting will include discussions and possible action on at least two items deferred from the regular council meeting last week. One topic is moving forward with the plans to redevelop Garrison Park on Fourth Street and the other is another round of discussion on downtown sidewalks, a topic that has been around since plans were first put forth for downtown improvements 14 years ago.

Garrison Park entrance

The council put off action to move forward and approve contracts for grant administration and engineering for the Garrison Park project until they got a response from the Local Parks and Recreation Fund (LPRF) about keeping the fence around the park and keeping the larger baseball filed known as Field A. Plans remain to remove the old grandstand structure built around 1949 as it is in poor condition and not ADA accessible.

The redevelopment plan for the park includes a splash pad, playground, new restrooms, a walking trail, and redoing the basketball court. The city was awarded a 50/50 match grant of $500,000 for the project.

Example of Splash pad in Cookeville's Dogwood Park

A discussion is also planned on a splash pad proposed for Centennial Park. The project was discussed last year and a motion to have the then interim city manager negotiate a contract with engineers on such a project. No contract was ever brought back before council and current city manager Greg Wood is recommending the council seek a design/build contract on such a project.

Council will hear information about the city manager and engineers recent meeting with TDOT officials on the sidewalk and Main Street paving project. TDOT will correct some of the downtown sidewalk corners to bring them up to ADA standards and current plans are for the city to do the rest. At this point the city hopes to know which corners TDOT will fix.

Deteriorated sidewalks in downtown Crossville

Councilman Scot Shanks has proposed the sidewalks be repaired by bidding the project out, a scenario that is estimated to be a 9 month process versus having city employees do the work, a process that could take 3 years.

Additional items on Thursday's agenda include approving the replacement of the traffic light signal at Lantana Road and Main Street. The project will be paid for 100 percent by funds from Surface Transportation grant funds with no local match required.

And one of the air conditioning units at the Crossville airport has failed and the city is taking bids for its replacement. That action will also come before the council and budgeted funds are available.

Crossville Memorial Airport Terminal Building

Following the called meeting, the council will meet in work session to continue work on the 2017-18 budget.

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Downtown Crossville sidewalks continue to stymie council. city waiting for answers from TDOT.

The Crossville city council continues to struggle to make any progress on moving the downtown sidewalk project forward and again put off any new decision on the project waiting for details from a meeting with the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT).

It was also revealed at the council meeting that TDOT's timeline to repave Main Street through Downtown after being put off by the city previously could be even further delayed by around 18 months as it would not be included in the state's next fiscal years budget.

Council discusses downtown sidewalks 

In addition, the development of downtown is a consistent recommendation of the last several economic development reports including the latest report on targeted industry and workforce development prepared by Younger and Associates for the Chamber of Commerce. All of these reports indicate that the downtown is an important aspect of economic development and attracting industry to the community.

Downtown property owner Shirley Hughes

At the start of the meeting downtown property owner Shirley Hughes addressed the council on the sidewalks and expressed her unhappiness over the suggestion that property owners pay for the downtown sidewalks.  Hughes added, "I hope you all work together as I think it is important for a town to be attractive."  Hughes also told the council that her former Merle Norman store downtown would become a dinner restaurant.  

Shirley Hughes address council

Hughes reminded the council Crossville used to be known as "The top town for miles around" and she wondered what had happened to that.  

At Tuesday's regular council meeting, the item was brought back to the agenda by Councilman Scot Shanks who moved to rescind previous action by council on the sidewalks to do the work in-house and to authorize the city manager to take bids on the sidewalk improvement work including street lights as redesigned. Shanks motion was supported by Mayor James Mayberry.

City council sidewalk discussion

Shanks explained that the project would be finished faster by being bid out to a contractor rather then having city employees do the work. A contractor would take about 9 months to complete the work while using city employees is estimated to take up to three years according to Shanks. He added that this would also free up city employees to work on the other projects around the city adding, “If city employees do the downtown sidewalks I don't feel like any other sidewalks will be touched in anyway other then Main Street for that entire time.” “We need our sidewalks to ADA standards,” added Shanks, “which desperately needs to be done.”

“I don't think we realize how big perception is as far as potential industry, retirees, visitors, whatever, when people are driving through our town and we have a really attractive, vibrant downtown,” concluded Shanks, “something attracting more and more people to our downtown. I think if we have that and the perception is that all of our town is like that. And I think that it is just such a key that we take care of our downtown corridor.”

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Council went into a lengthy discussion of some of the previous actions and previous project estimates and came to questions about how TDOT would work on the corners that it appeared TDOT would fix. City manager Greg Wood and Tim Begley said that they had a meeting scheduled for Friday with representative from TDOT and they would find out more about what TDOT planned and their time line for fixing what they would work on.

Council woman Pamala Harris expressed concern that if TDOT would not be able to pave for some 18 months that they would not fix the sidewalks until about the same time.

Councilman Danny Wyatt questioned the estimated costs of the work compared to previous plans and engineer Begley advised the council that there was much less in the current plan then in the original plan that was part of the full downtown redevelopment. Engineer Begley described the original design as “shiny” but added “what we have now is not.” He added that there were three traffic lights removed from the project, no benches or other items that were in the original project estimated at $9 million.

As the discussion wound down councilman Shanks asked to defer his motion until the city got additional information from TDOT.

City manager Greg Wood asked the council to move forward with authorizing him to hire two full time employees for the sidewalk crew as the council had previously discussed. Wood said that the city had tried to hire two part time positions but only got a single application. Councilman J. H. Graham moved to accept Wood's recommendation and was supported by Mr. Wyatt.

Wood said the employees would be used for other sidewalks until a decision is made on the downtown sidewalk project. Council approved the motion with 4 votes in favor and Mayor Mayberry opposed at the current time.  

Busy Tuesday for council. Discussions incldude sidewalks, Garrison Park and new animal shelter.

Crossville city council holds their regular May meeting Tuesday May 9 with a series of meetings starting at 5 PM.

Crossville city hall

The council will meet as the audit committee at 5 PM in the third floor conference room followed by a public hearing on the city's capital improvement plan at 5:30. Meetings starting with the public hearing will be held in the council chambers on the second floor at city hall. The council will meet as the Beer Board at 5:45 PM and a public hearing at 5:50 PM on the annexation of 6.3 acres at the Gardens. The regular council meeting starts at 6 PM.

Topics up for discussion on the council agenda include another run at the downtown sidewalk project following a lengthy discussion at their work session last week. (Link to story) In addition, council will take up the improvements planned for Garrison Park. The park redevelopment does include the removal of the old grandstand at the park as it does not meet ADA requirements and has other issues.

Vancienetta Wisdom discusses Garrison Park during

city council work session

The redevelopment decision has become a bit controversial and there are some in the community that would like to see the structure saved. Vancienetta Wisdom addressed the issue at council work session last week and talked about the history of the park seeking to convince the council to not tear down the grandstand. Crossville has received a grant to pay for the first phase of the redevelopment and the city has already signed the grant contract for the LPRF (Local Parks and Recreation Fund) money and it could be a problem for the city with future grants if they change their mind on the deal at this late date.

Garrison Park and grandstand

Contracts for the grant administrator and the engineering work must be approved for the grant to move forward.

The city continues to pursue a fuel truck for the Crossville Memorial Airport. The grant would cover half the $35,000 cost with the remainder coming from funds budgeted for the airport.

And council will discuss the request from county mayor Kenny Carey on the new animal shelter building. Carey is asking for the city to waive permit fees and to install sewer line to the location of the new building as well as providing a grinder pump to the project's contractor. The city has previously committed $90,000 toward the project and the cost of the material will come from that amount.

Sidewalks continue to plague council. Blind citizen tells council of difficulties he faces.

Discussion of sidewalks continue to take up a lot of the Crossville city council's time as they continue to try and figure out how to economically improve downtown Crossville sidewalks.

In addition the council heard from a Crossville resident who does a lot of walking but is blind and shared the difficulties that he has in trying to walk in the community. Ed Daszkiewicz lives just off of Cook Road and said as a blind person it was very difficult to walk to town as there are no sidewalks at all along Cook Road.

“I don't like to walk in the street, but I have no option,” Daszkiewicz told the council members during the April work session. He also told them that another problem with the sidewalks when he did get to them was some of the sidewalks are old and weathered. In addition, he said it was difficult to navigate downtown because there are no pedestrian lights with audio signals.

Downtown Crossville sidewalk

Because some of the corners are not up to ADA standards Daszkiewicz said he has found himself out in the traffic walking because he can not tell where he is. He said has has been trained by the Veterans Administration in techniques of walking blind but he said it was still very difficult here in Crossville. He also said that while most people don't think about it, the signs put out by downtown businesses are obstacles as well as trees and some sign posts set in the sidewalk as he has to walk toward the out side of the sidewalk where many of these items are.

Council members listen to Ed Daszkiewicz explain

the difficulties he has getting around on foot in

Crossville as a blind person.

Daszkiewicz said he walks between 4 and 7 miles a day and he had walked to attend the council work session that afternoon.

Councilman Scot Shanks has been walking with Mr. Daszkiewicz and said, “Downtown sidewalks can be very busy and it is very different walking with Ed.” Daszkiewicz said that the trees and garbage cans and benches at the courthouse are all hazards that he has to deal with when he walks. He added that the trees have branches that hang down and cause him trouble and he has occasionally removed lower limbs that have poked him in the face.

When asked if the proposed sidewalk ADA improvements would help him, Daszkiewicz said they would greatly help because that gives a consistent way for a blind person to line up to cross the street and he added that those improvements are also needed for people in wheelchairs.

A short time later in the meeting, council again discussed downtown sidewalks at the request of councilman Shanks who said he just didn't feel good about how the council left the sidewalk matter at the last meeting. Shanks said he understood that using city employees to do the sidewalk project would take quite a bit longer then if the work was bid out to a contractor. Bidding out the work would take about 9 months and the city employees could be up to 3 years.

Shanks said that while the city is working downtown there could be no other such projects done by the city and it would disrupt downtown for a very long time. Shanks said he would rather see the project bid out.

Council woman Pamala Harris said the city seem to be “always sitting on stall” when it comes to the sidewalk project. Council,man Shanks said, “I just want to see us move forward.”

Councilman Danny Wyatt suggested the sidewalk project be done using an abutment project that would require the downtown property owners to help pay for the sidewalks.

Shanks said that in order to attract industry and other business, “The perception of Crossville is downtown. If it looks good then we look good.”

With council at a stalemate, city manager Greg Wood said that he and city engineer Tim Begley would be meeting soon with TDOT and they would find out which of the corners TDOT would bring up to ADA standards and the city will do the other corners that TDOT doesn't plan to do.

Wyatt said that was good and asked, “Why should city taxpayers pay to fix corners that TDOT will fix?” Shanks added that he agreed with that.

The matter is on the city's Tuesday regular meeting agenda for discussion and possible action.  

Council work session Tuesday to talk sidewalks and possible road closing changes.

The Crossville city council meets for their monthly work session Tuesday May 2 at Crossville city hall and will discuss a number of items expected on the regular agenda coming up on May 9. The meeting starts at 5 PM and will be held in the third floor conference room at city hall.

Council plans to discuss downtown sidewalks during the work session once again and will hear from Crossville resident Ed Daszkiewicz who is blind and will discuss with the council what it is like to walk around Crossville.

The City of Crossville gets so many request for road closings for events and 5K races that they are looking at setting a standard 5K route that will reduce the time by city employees and cost to the city. If organizers use that rout there would be no charge but if they choose a different route they would need to reimburse the city for expenses. The council also plans to discuss the possibility of moving the cruise ins and other events to the block behind the courthouse and around the amphitheater.

Council will also discuss action on contracts for the Local Parks and Recreation Fund grant on the redevelopment of Garrison Park. Environmental work has been completed and certified by the state. The contracts under consideration are with the grant administrator Community Development Partners and Lose and Associates for final design and bidding services. The agenda points out that a number of public meetings were held on the project and public hearings on the adoption of the recreation master plan.

Plan for Garrison Park redevelopment

Garrison Park

The lease on the Crossville depot is up for renewal later this year and the city has been notified that the C. A. T. S. group that has operated the depot for the past 3 years will not be renewing or extending the lease. Council will discuss what to do next. The lease expires August 31.

Council will discuss a request from Cumberland Co. mayor Kenneth Carey on the work on the animal shelter. Carey is requesting that the city waive permit fees and city crews install sewer line from the tap to the location of the new building along with providing a grinder pump to the contractor. All material costs would be deducted from the city share of the cost of the building.

Council will discuss the city's capital improvement plan that is required by the charter to be approved by council. A draft of the plan is available on the city website here.

Crossville council remains stymied over sidewalks, votes to request TDOT pave Main St.

Crossville city council could not come to a consensus on downtown sidewalks again, leaving the project where it stood from a motion last July to do piecemeal repairs as the street department can get to it. 

A motion to follow a recommendation from city manager Greg Wood and engineer Tim Begley received 3 votes but failed as changing a previous action it required 4 votes to pass.  That recommendation was to bring all the corners downtown up to ADA standards and install new LED street lights including conduit.  Because the plan would include some "bump outs" into side streets and a few in Main St. that project would have to be done prior to TDOT paving the road through downtown. 

City engineer Tim Begley, standing, explains the

sidewalk plan to members of the city council.

Manager Wood said he hoped he was working on an objective that the council can all agree on.  Wood explained that for the last week he, Tim Begley and Kevin Dean had been working on "What will it take to get everything prepared to get the corners to ADA standards so that we can go ahead and get TDOT to get 127 paved."  For that plan to work, the city would have to do all of the corners, run the conduit and because in several places the existing street lights interfere with the proposed plan, installing the new LED street lights is included in the plan with street light material expected to cost $270,000.  

Looking over plans that did not pass.

The total project would cost about $1 million and according to Wood "would get this thing off of dead center."  Additional work on sidewalks that need repair between the corners could be done after the paving as well as paving work on the side streets that need paved due to the water line work done last year. 

Mr. Begley went over design items with council including bump outs into Main Street and side roads in order to make the ramps compliant.  The bump outs seemed to confuse some of the council.  WHen asked about the staff to allow the city to do the work, Mr. Wood said that the two part-time positions approved by council for the street department would have to be full time.  Wood said the city was not getting applicants for the part-time positions anyway.  

Mr. Begley, center, discusses plans with council members 

Wyatt, left and Harris, right.

Wood continued that once the current light poles were removed, they would be adapted and used to replace wooding light poles at Warner Park that have been attacked by woodpeckers.  Mr. Begley also said that the city would do the curb and gutter around any new bump outs that were built. 

"It's not going to be Nirvana but it's going to get us down the road and get the road paved," quipped Wood. 

The matter of budgets came up next with councilman Danny Wyatt asking about the 2017-18 budget.  Wood explained that $800,000 would be budgeted for the coming year and the balance in the following budget year.  A question from Mayor James Mayberry drew clarification for Wood that that was the cost of materials and the work would be done by city crews but that costs was not part of the estimated costs.  Mayberry also asked about the timeline and the discussion began to break down.  

The length of time to complete the work was not something anyone could estimate precisely.  Council spent some time discussing the project and other work that the street department has to do.  

Mayor Mayberry said that the recent report on Crossville from the Austin Group on how site locating companies look at the area and the report specifically said that the downtown area is vita to the impression companies get of Crossville.  Mayberry also shared a survey of 450 people by the Chamber, a high percentage who felt downtown revitalization was important.  

Cracked and worn downtown sidewalks and a

problem streetlight base near a corner. 

Councilwoman Pamala Harris asked Mayberry how many of them were in favor of a tax increase saying the original plan for sidewalks could have meant a 9 or 10 cent tax increase.  Harris talked about her own survey and was interrupted by Mayberry.

Is that how you got the answers to your survey?  Telling people it would be a 9 or 10 cent tax increase? Harris said "That's what it would be." Mayberry said, "That's what I thought."  Mr. Wyatt said it could even be higher.  "I've got three businesses (car washes) without sidewalks.   I'd love to have sidewalks in front of them."  Wyatt suggested a way to settle the matter was with a referendum.  

Mayberry responded, "How long have we been talking about this?  How long do you want to kick this down the road?  Vote your conscience people, that's all that I can say."

Councilman J. H. Graham moved that the recommendation as discussed be approved.  Ms. Harris supported the motion.  Because the action superseded another previous action by the council 4 votes would be required for the motion to pass.  Voting in favor was Graham, Harris and Wyatt.  Councilman Scot Shanks and Mayor Mayberry voted no and the motion failed. 

As council tried to figure out their next move, councilman Wyatt moved that manager Wood contact TDOT and tell them to come pave Highway 127.  Sidewalks would then be dealt with after that.  Graham gave a second.  The motion was approved with Wyatt, Graham, Harris and Mayberry voted in favor and Shanks voted no.  

It is estimated that TDOT would not do that work until sometime in 2018.

Crossville city council holds called meeting and work session Thursday evening

Crossville city council has a busy night Thursday with a special called meeting and a work session all starting at 5 PM at Crossville city hall.

Crossville city hall

The called meeting includes discussion and possible action on the city's downtown sidewalk project. The sidewalk project has been discussed as far back as 14 years when a complete makeover of downtown first was discussed. As the years went by and the costs grew, the council dropped much of the downtown improvement program leaving waterlines and sidewalks. Plans to bid out sidewalk work was changed and now appears to be most likely done by the city street department over a 2 year period.

Downtown sidewalk

Tied to the sidewalk project is a new traffic signal installation at the intersection of Main Street and Lantana Road at the bottom of water tank hill. The changes are needed to level out the corners to make ADA accessible sidewalks through the area. The city is seeking grant money for that part of the project.

Also on the called agenda is approval of a memorandum of understanding related to a grant from the Tennessee Fire Chiefs Association to assist with recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters and several budget amendments.

The work session to follow the called meeting is on the city's capital plan and the 2016-17 operating budget.