Town not hiring new manager immediately
The Nashville Town Council won’t fill a vacancy on the town’s staff right away. Instead, council members delayed a decision until after the election on whether or not they’re going to hire someone for the town manager/economic development director job which opened when Scott Rudd went to work for the state.
Three town council members are running for reelection — President “Buzz” King, Arthur Omberg and David Rudd — and all of them have opponents on the general election ballot.
At a special meeting called to discuss replacing Scott Rudd on Sept. 6, council members came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be fair to the possible new council members if they made a decision without them. King remembered that when he and Omberg were elected 16 years ago, their first vote was to confirm the hiring of a new town manager when they hadn’t participated in the interviewing process. “I just trusted their judgment,” King said. “… In retrospect, we should have said, ‘Hey, we should look at this.”
Rudd was the town’s first manager in 10 years when he was hired in April 2014 and the first-ever economic development director for the town. He left that job on Aug. 17 to become the state’s director of broadband opportunities, a new, cabinet-level position in the office of Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch.
Omberg, who was the runner-up candidate for town manager in 2014, suggested at the Sept. 6 meeting that the town not fill the job, or at least not exactly as has been.
“I think we can cover in-house,” he said about the town manager portion. “I can see maybe having a part-time economic development manager.”
Council member David Rudd suggested it be brought up again in January. “That will give everybody a chance to do some homework, which I think needs to be done,” he said.
Town ordinances say that the town manager is the “administrative head of town government” responsible for recommending “actions he or she considers advisable” to the town council; hiring and disciplining town employees; administering and enforcing all ordinances, orders and resolutions of the council; preparing budget estimates; executing contracts on behalf of the town; and acting as superintendent of the public utilities and street department.
Much of what Scott Rudd did for the town was promotion and economic development-related, King said.
He also started the Broadband Task Force which worked to bring high-speed broadband internet to Brown County; encouraged the builder of Hawthorne Hills senior apartments to bring that project to Nashville; and represented the town at meetings of other county and town boards and committees related to utilities and economic development.
Council Vice President Jane Gore noted that Rudd “completely turned our finances around,” and she sees value in having a person in a position to do that. “Not that we’re going to go crazy, but that someone’s watching that … besides you guys,” she told the council.
King, Rudd and Omberg agreed, but Omberg and Utility Coordinator Sean Cassiday added that they don’t think the town will be going down that road again.
“We’ve trained our employees to watch what they do,” Cassiday said about spending.
For instance, a few years ago, crew members were routinely leaving work gloves places and buying “dozens of pairs every month” at Bear Hardware, King added.
Brenda Young, the town’s longtime elected clerk-treasurer, said that council members are now getting bank statements and financial reports every month, and they have to be more involved with finances because of new state laws, so the responsibility of keeping the town in the black is on their shoulders, too.
At the end of 2015, Rudd and Young reported that the town had made it through the end of the year without borrowing money for the first time since 2011, and had built up about $150,000 in cash reserves each in the water and sewer departments, meeting a best practice for utilities. Rudd had assumed oversight of the utilities’ finances in the spring of 2014.
Renovation plans for Dennis Calvin House approved
The house which was moved from a downtown Nashville lot earlier this year has the go-ahead to be remade into a tourist rental next door from where it used to stand.
The Nashville Development Review Commission approved plans for the Dennis Calvin house at its Sept. 18 meeting.
New owners Tonya Figg and Ted Deckard plan to put about $250,000 into the 100-plus-year-old house and add it as a rental option at Barnyard Treasures, 173 E. Main St.
The Dennis Calvin house will sit behind the Barnyard Treasures house, facing Schoolhouse Lane and the Brown County (Nashville) volunteer fire station.
Bruce and Pam Gould gave Figg and Deckard the Dennis Calvin house, but they had to move it off the Goulds’ property. Since mid-July it’s been sitting on wooden blocks next door.
Right now the house is open at the front and back after newer, non-historic additions were torn off. It has two small rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. Figg and Deckard plan to add an addition off the back so that the house will have five bedrooms, a kitchen/dining area, bathrooms and a kitchen. They also plan to add a porch over the front door and small balcony on the second floor where a large window is now.
Guests will enter the property off East Main Street, where a keypad-controlled arm will be installed, and drive around the Barnyard Treasures house to exit onto Schoolhouse Lane. Guest parking spaces will be added in the front yard and the sidewalk will be continued across the front of the lot.
Members of the DRC — who are in charge of keeping a consistent look among business-zoned properties in town — mainly questioned the couple and their architectural designer, Mark Daugherty, about the building materials that will be used.
They plan to use a concrete block foundation on the addition, a metal roof, concrete board siding and energy-efficient windows wherever possible.
A few DRC members suggested that they hide the concrete block with stone, retain or replace the original windows with historic ones, and preserve the pieces of original wood siding that remain. Member David Martin volunteered to donate more old wood siding to close any gaps. They also weren’t sure about adding the balcony above the front door, as they didn’t have photos of the front of the house showing whether or not it ever had a balcony.
They were basing their questions on DRC guidelines, which advise members to avoid adding elements to historic properties and to retain historic elements where possible, among other suggestions.
The DRC ended up voting to approve the couple’s plans as requested with the addition of a transom window above the front door.
However, several members wondered aloud how much of the house will actually be historic once it’s put together.
“As much as it goes against my historical preservation feelings, hardiboard would probably be an upgrade on this house,” said Peaceful Valley Heritage member Jim Schultz, who evaluated this house. Even if some of the poplar siding could be retained, it requires maintenance; Gould added that there is already termite activity on the house now.
DRC President Penny Scroggins said the DRC hopes to save more places from falling into a state of disrepair like this house was before the Goulds bought it. After this hearing, the board conducted one of several public meetings about establishing a new historic preservation ordinance that would apply to certain buildings and/or areas of Nashville. No decisions have been made on it yet; the next meeting at which it will be discussed will start at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16.
Hey, drivers: If the sign says, ‘stop,’ stop
Nashville Town Council President “Buzz” King issued another reminder to drivers about stop signs in his September “Notes to Note” announcement.
“Please remember that stop signs are there for a reason,” he said. They apply whether anyone’s watching or not.
“I’ve noticed an upsurge in running stop signs, and there’s dogs and kids around.”
