Smoking, vandalism problems at Village Green

The Nashville Town Council took no action last week on two suggestions for the Village Green: To install security cameras in the new restroom building and to make the grounds nonsmoking.

Parking and Public Facilities Development Corporation President Lamond Martin told the council that people are vandalizing the building. Most recently, someone tore a urinal off the wall and disabled a flush valve.

“We can’t afford to spend money on things and have them torn up just out of viciousness,” he said.

Town council President “Buzz” King said this was the first he’d heard of vandalism in that restroom.

Martin also asked the council to make the entire Village Green area nonsmoking because it’s attracting so many people now, including children on the play elements and smokers on the grounds.

“If we’re going to make it accessible and available for children to play and parents to bring their toddlers, it’s not a place that should be filled with a haze of smoke when the kids are down there,” he said.

Nancy Crocker, president of the Nashville Arts and Entertainment Commission, seconded Martin’s nonsmoking suggestion.

The council did not respond to either idea.

Town council approves two rezoning requests

The Nashville Town Council approved two rezoning requests Feb. 15 which the Brown County Area Plan Commission had recommended last month.

The Village Florist building at 188 S. Jefferson St. has been rezoned from RB (residential buffer) to B1 (business), upon the request of a potential buyer. That motion passed unanimously.

The land surrounding Creekside Retreat at 2450 State Road 46 East has been rezoned from R1/FW (primary residential/partial floodway) to B2 (business) with a partial floodway overlay.

The owners had requested a change to open up their options for future use of the land, especially the highway frontage which had been filled and raised out of the floodway several years ago. A representative for the company said there were no specific plans for it yet.

The motion passed 4-0-1 with council member Alisha Jacoba abstaining; she is related to the retreat’s manager.

Town interested in sister city relationship

The Nashville Town Council is interested in developing a sister city relationship with Kamenin, Slovakia.

Tour visitors from the Eastern European country visited the Nov. 16 council meeting and exchanged gifts with the town.

Town Manager Scott Rudd said he had recently been contacted by the Slovakian embassy with an offer to help formalize that relationship. The council isn’t sure what that would look like yet but encouraged Rudd to follow up.

Council member Arthur Omberg suggested that maybe a deal could be worked out whereby every few years, a group of Nashville residents could travel to that city as “ambassadors for Nashville,” and a few years later, a group from Slovakia could come here.

Utility Manager Sean Cassiday suggested that maybe the intermediate school could get involved by having pen pals in a Kamenin school. “Because it’s a country that they wouldn’t necessarily know about … it would make it even more interesting,” he said.

Arts commission: New mural, sculpture maintenance

The Nashville Arts & Entertainment Commission plans to take the Nashville police up on their offer to put a mural inside their station on Hawthorne Drive.

Commission President Nancy Crocker asked the town council for ideas on what to put on the wall immediately inside the station. The answers to other questions, such as who will do the work, how it will be paid for and the timeline, aren’t available yet, she said last week.

Crocker also told the town council at their Feb. 15 meeting that the landscaping under the “Soaring” leaf sculpture at Main and Van Buren streets needs to be replaced. The metal sculptor who built it advised the commission that plants growing beneath it could deteriorate the bottom of the sculpture, she said.

In April 2015, the town’s landscaper suggested placing “prickly” plants there to deter people from climbing the piece, which is over a story high. The council didn’t want to see a fence around it, which would obscure part of the sculpture.

Crocker recommended hanging a “please do not climb” sign instead.