Naming contest under way for new town park
Residents and visitors have until Aug. 2 to suggest a name for the new town park being created at the corner of Washington and Johnson streets.
Anna Hofstetter, a member of the Nashville Town Council and the Nashville Town Parks Commission, is asking for submissions to be about one paragraph long, emailed to Phyllis Carr ([email protected]) or mailed or brought to Town Hall, 200 Commercial St. Submissions should explain the name and why it would be a good fit for this new park.
Hofstetter also told the town council in June that it’s looking likely that the dilapidated log cabin at the corner of this park land will be able to be dismantled and reused in a different way at the site. Nashville Utility Coordinator Sean Cassiday said that one idea was to remake it into a shelterhouse. “It can be made nice — not at that location and not as that (current) structure, but it can be made nice,” he said.
Town Hall is still collecting plastic lids and bottle caps to be melted down and made into benches for the park.
What is a sign? Town leaders debate changes
The Nashville Development Review Commission is proposing a wording change to its definition of a sign so that more signs currently up in town will be in compliance with the rules.
Right now, in Nashville, a sign is defined as “any letters, numerals, symbol or trademark intended to attract attention to any place, subject, person, firm, corporation, public performance, article, machine or merchandise whatsoever and painted, printed or constructed and displayed in any manner whatsoever out of doors.” Exceptions are made for official court or public notices; or the flag, emblem or insignia of government.
DRC President Penny Scroggins asked the town council in June to support adding a couple words to that definition. She proposed adding “with the business name” to the description of what a sign is. “Otherwise, the entire town is in violation,” she said.
Businesses are only allowed two signs, she said. Several have more than that.
The town used to draw a distinction between “informational” signs that would say things such as “ice cream shop this way” or “parking,” but due to a Supreme Court ruling, a government cannot regulate the content on a sign, so it can’t draw a distinction between “informational” and other types of signs a business puts out. However, town leaders have been wary in the past of allowing businesses to put out an unlimited number of signs.
Town Attorney James T. Roberts has drawn up an ordinance. His version says that a sign has to have a business name or logo in order to be counted as a sign under the town’s rules. But it’s not certain if even that distinction would be allowed under the Supreme Court ruling.
The change will have to go before the Brown County Area Plan Commission first for a public hearing; then, it will go back to the town council. Roberts estimated it would end up on the August APC agenda and the September town council agenda.
Scroggins also told the council that apparently, the DRC and the council had created and adopted guidelines for temporary structures, like festival tents, in 2015, but somehow, DRC members didn’t have those guidelines. Petitioner Andrew Tilton came before the DRC in April to talk about his Brown County Market space at Foxfire Park, and he wanted to know if his vendors would be in violation if they had tents out for more than 60 days per year. DRC members didn’t have the temporary structure rules in their handbooks and they weren’t posted on the website either, Scroggins said.
Scroggins said she’d get a copy of what was passed and the DRC would reevaluate the rules.
Town to have own election board for fall
The Town of Nashville will be creating a board to run its own election this fall instead of passing the responsibility to the county election board.
Town offices are the only ones up for election in November. There are no county or state races on the ballot. In years past, when this happened, the town offices often had no opposition, so no stand-alone town election had to be conducted. But this year, both town council seats are contested, so an election will be taking place.
Town Clerk-Treasurer Brenda Young said that the town election board would be set up just like the county election board is. Young, as clerk-treasurer, is automatically a member. The other two members would be a Democrat and a Republican who would be appointed by the local chairmen of those political parties. Town election board members would have to live in town.
This year, the town will have to use electronic voting machines, which they’ve never had to do in their own election, Young said. Who would provide those machines hasn’t been determined yet.
The election will take place Tuesday, Nov. 5 at Town Hall.
Arts and entertainment activities approved
The Nashville Arts and Entertainment Commission will soon be executing a plan to paint a few downtown crosswalks with a leaf motif. It’s an idea that’s been discussed for more than a year.
The town council approved spending $2,000 from the town’s general fund and $2,690 from the town’s economic development income tax funds to paint four crosswalks in the Village Green area. The plan had been to paint 18 of them, but that was scaled down when a grant application didn’t come through, said Michele Wedel, president of the commission. The town bought a crosswalk stencil last year.
Two other grants the commission applied for, it received, Wedel told the town council in June.
- A $5,000 cultural district grant will help to fund the installation of a public art piece at Coachlight Square, in the area of Casa del Sol and the new Brown County Visitors Center. Its purpose will be to get folks to interact with the art piece, take photos with it and post them online, and learn about Nashville’s arts and entertainment history, Wedel said. What the piece will look like or who would be making it hadn’t been determined at the time of this meeting.
- A $4,000 project grant will bring in artists to do interactive sessions with the public, so locals and visitors can make their own art pieces. The first offering will be a barn quilt painting workshop on Saturday, July 27 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the Village Green Pavilion at Main and Jefferson streets.
Time no longer stands still in Nashville
The downtown clock at the corner of Main and Van Buren streets is keeping the correct time again.
The clock had been frozen in time for more than a year. Former town maintenance man Lamond Martin was working on it; former town council president Roger Kelso decided to take over that project when Martin moved out of state.
Kelso pledged at the June council meeting that taking care of the clock will be “his community thing” from now on.
Town switching to new notification system
The town is going to be switching to a new system to notify residents of emergencies, such as water line breaks and boil orders.
The Nashville Town Council voted in June to pay the county $750 to get in on the Everbridge system. Everbridge will be replacing Nixle, said Nashville Utility Coordinator Sean Cassiday.
He said the switch will save town employees time, because when there is a water line break, they can program in specific addresses or phone numbers and the system will automatically send them a notification, rather than staff spending “half a day” making individual phone calls.
However, people probably will have to sign up for it to get those notifications, Cassiday said. The town hasn’t determined yet how it’s going to gather those numbers and he wasn’t certain when the new system would go into effect.
