Dickson Community

Rover’s Playpen brought the proposal for a dog park in White Bluff before the City Council in June, but it was tabled for more investigation of the proposal and the proposed site. The group wanted to use the area in the back right corner of Veteran’s Park ( less than 1/2 acre), behind the ball fields.

The Park Board was consulted, and in the City Council Meeting on July 7th,   Dixie Kerr reported the board’s opinion was that some kids don’t know how to stay away from dogs and may wander off from their parents and get too close. In this case, the Park Board didn’t think that kids and dogs would be a good mix. Although they are not against a dog park, they just did not see the area in Veteran’s Park as a good place for dogs with all the kids already using the park for ball games.

Vice Mayor, Jeff Martin, countered with the fact that if we are enforcing a leash law, we are sending the wrong message if we do not try to accommodate the request for a dog park and that the park would be an improvement to that piece of property. Mayor Linda Hayes desired to be fair in  that everyone in town pays taxes but do not all have the same interests ( such as using the baseball fields).  She and  Martin agreed that the park should be a multi-use facility.

Other areas under consideration for the park were beside the Field of Dreams and behind the new library.

Despite the Park Board’s objections, the City Council voted  (3 yes, 1 no, and 1 abstention) to allow the Rover’s Playpen Organization use of the land in question in Veteran’s Park. It is the organization’s intention to fence in the area to allow dogs the freedom to run off their leashes and play. The money for the improvement to the land and the fencing will come from private and corporate donations.

In respect to the concern that the 5 and 6 year old kids that practice in the field closest to the dog park can be distracted by a slushie, Buford Woodard, Chairman of Rover’s Playpen, suggested that they could plant a hedge around the park to keep the distraction to a minimum.

The idea for a dog park is not a new one, it was brought up about 2 years ago and has been discussed on and off since then.  Misty Johnson, Treasurer of Rover’s Playpen, shared with me that statistically 41% of households have dogs, and that they have witnessed huge successes in dog parks in Kingston Springs and Nashville, however, locally, White Bluff, Burns and Dickson do not yet have dog parks.

Although there are some health and safety regulations and governing rules, including that all dogs and puppies must be properly inoculated and all poop must be scooped, the park will be regulated by signage on the honor system. Both  Johnson and  Woodard were adamant that most people who take their dogs to such parks are responsible dog owners and that the dogs are very well socialized.

So, good news for local dog owners and bad news for the neighbor with all the cats.

No dates were set for the opening of the park, however, for more information contact Buford Woodard @456-2036.

In part 2 of my interview with White Bluff Mayor Linda Hayes and Vice Mayor Jeff Martin we discuss about a potential for a higher education facility in Dickson County and why they think White Bluff is the best place to build the campus. First part of my interview was getting to know Mayor Hayes and Vice Mayor Marting. And the third part? Well you’ll just have to come back.

Sean: What really initiated the higher education center being in White Bluff?

Jeff: About two years ago in the Fall of 2006, Linda and I were both invited to participate on the county three star strategic planning committee. And that committee was comprised of about forty-five individuals from across the county. It represented every community in the county. It represented every walk of life in the county. There were professionals, there were elected officials, there were homemakers. . .it was a cross section of the county. And the purpose of that group was to come together and develop a five year, rolling strategic plan for the county.

And out of those discussions, one of the initiatives that we discussed was the need for higher education in Dickson County. We in turn took that concept of that county wide strategic plan, we brought that back to White Bluff and we put our own community leadership group together and we went through the same process at the town level. It was amazing to me how the town goals dovetailed into the county goals. And higher education also came up in our White Bluff strategic plan as a desire from the citizens of the community. At that point, Linda approached Mayor Stone in Charlotte and inquired as to what would be the next step to bring higher education to Dickson County. His first priority was to see if they could acquire donated property and Linda approached Richard Bibb, who has been a strong community advocate and has done a lot for White Bluff as well as Dickson County. After some contemplation, Richard came back with the desire to donate the ten acres of property in White Bluff. We approached Mayor Stone at that point and it’s taken off from there.

S: When did you approach Mayor Stone initially?

Linda: After we had our community leadership seminar, I talked to Jeff and we decided if Dickson County was ready for a college, there’s no reason in the world that it could not be right here in White Bluff. No reason in the world. So, I approached Mayor Stone and said, “If I could get you ten acres, ten or twelve acres, would you consider White Bluff for the foundation?” And that was based on the fact that Humphreys County has ten or twelve acres, so I thought that would work. I didn’t know at that time if it was the county or if it was the foundation, I really didn’t know what the next step was. And he was just ecstatic, so I said, “Well, I think maybe I can.” So, I went to our friend Richard Bibb and at first he was like everyone else, like, “Oh, gosh. A college in White Bluff. . .that’ll never happen.” The more he thought about it and after we had a couple of meetings and we showed him the transportation route, the commuter route coming in and how we were in a hole and the closest colleges around, and how it would fill a void for this region. Then he said, “You know, you might be right. It may make some sense. Yeah, let’s go for it. Let’s try it.” Then I went back to Mayor Stone and told him we got the land.

J: There were some other concepts that came out of the county wide strategic plan, and one of those was that we need to adequately use our limited resources. I mean, the county is a certain size, and we have a certain amount of land and road ways and those types of things. So, as we grow as a county, we want to make sure that we adequately use the resources that we have. There’s the consideration of road congestion and things like that, and we feel like the White Bluff location really solves a lot of the county issues of how to grow in the future. The other concept that we discussed was that there are certain things that have to be in your population center such as your Wal-Marts, Lowes, and larger chain restaurants. If you’re going to get those in your county, you’re going to get those in your larger population centers. A facility for higher education is not an entity that has to be in your population center. It can be in a more rural area, because people are going to come to that facility. And the other thing is where do you get the biggest economic impact for the county? If you put a facility of this nature in an area, what our position is that we can put this campus in a White Bluff location or for that matter another rural location and it will have a larger economic impact for the county than putting it in an area that is already basically filled out economically. So we feel like from a county perspective, and quite frankly from a town perspective, this would be the beginning of establishing a second economic center in your county. And we don’t see that as a bad thing. We don’t see this as taking away from any existing activities. We see this as really enhancing the county’s desire to grow. I think, of course we’re partial here, but we really see benefits at the county level by putting this facility in an area outside of your population center.

S: You mentioned that you have some resource limitations such as the road system. Anything else?

J: Now, don’t misunderstand. I said that county-wide you have certain areas that you will have resource limitations. You have a lack of large tracks of develop-able land in certain areas of the county. In White Bluff we have large tracks of land. You have congested transportation networks in part of the county. We do not have that congestion here, so we feel like this is an appropriate place to put a facility of this nature. We would never spend time trying to court a Wal-Mart or a Lowes. Those things would naturally go in your population centers. But this particular entity, the reason that we’re going to fight as hard as we are for this is we feel like it fits the bill for the county’s strategic direction.

S: Awesome. What type of education can people expect to get from this facility?

L: That really is more of a question for the board. I don’t want to be so presumptuous as to answer for them. From the meetings that I’ve attended so far and observed and different board members I’ve spoken with, it sounds like it would probably be wise to go for the two year college program with maybe certified courses available, maybe three month certified courses available. There will be a needs and assessment study and I know in that study and in that survey, they will be talking to all of the industries around here asking, “What do you need for your labor force? What kind of certificate so that you don’t have to go outside the county and outside the area to maybe try and get people to move in.” So, we’re looking right now probably, I would say, when it’s first built it would be like most other colleges have started out with a two year program that could be transferred on over to a four year university. Obviously, we would like for it to go into some four year degrees.

S: Okay, so we’re looking more at a two year college, hopefully eventually progressing into a four year, but this is not certain.

L: No. (in agreeing of uncertainty)

J: And I think Linda’s point is absolutely appropriate. That would really be more of a question for the Dickson County Higher Education Board.

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Thanks for reading and comments are always welcomed. By the way, the image at the top is a photo of the proposed site to be donated by Richard Bibb.

Linda Hayes

White Bluff Mayor Linda Hayes and Vice Mayor Jeff Martin, you’ve heard their names. You probably even see them around town. Now found out their inner workings.

I had a great conversation with Mayor Hayes and Vice Mayor Martin Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008. Now I’m here to share it with you. This will be a three part interview, so come back and check what else they have to say.

Sean: Okay, Linda could you tell us a little about yourself?

Linda: I’ m Linda Hayes. I’ve lived in White Bluff all of my life I’d say about four or five generations back. I graduated from William James School. I married Kenneth Hayes and have three children and three grandchildren. One

is at UT Knoxville and was very sad last night at the Rose Bowl at UCLA when we lost by three points. I’ve had a corporate administrative background. My last longevity job was with Nashville Federation of Independent Business and we lobbied for small, independent businesses. The best way I know to describe it if people ask me what it is would be to say that it’s not a union, but a voice where all small businesses stand together and one person goes and speaks for them at the state level, at the national level. I worked there for twelve years as the executive assistant to, part of the time, the president, the CEO, the vice president and all the region managers. I retired from there in 2005.

I’ve been on the council for eight years and vice mayor for six of those eight years. And then I decided to run for mayor to see what I could do for our town. I’m really enjoying it. It’s such a challenge. We’re having to recreate basically some of the personnel policies, the charters, and the codes. We’ve recreated so much in the last two years on the way that we do things. And that’s just a part of our growth, an indicator of our growth and change.

S: And Jeff, could you tell me about yourself as well?

Jeff: My name is Jeff Martin and I’m the vice mayor in the town of White Bluff. I grew up in White Bluff. My family has been here, actually, since around 1800. I do a lot of genealogy work and I’ve traced it back to around 1800. My wife is Lou Anne. I have a daughter who’s sixteen years old and a senior at Creek Wood High School. My background is in software development. I left Health Care Management Systems in 2001 as the vice president of research and development and had an opportunity to come back to White Bluff. I had always had the desire to come here and serve the community and had an opportunity to do that in 2001. I opened a business here in White Bluff and then in 2006 was elected to the council and asked to serve as vice mayor. And the rest is history.

S: So you’ve been on the council for two years?

J: Correct.

S: Linda, what was your expectation on becoming the mayor of White Bluff?

L: My expectation was that I just wanted to carry on. I thought, in my mind, that we had had excellent leadership for the past two terms. When our existing mayor of the past two terms decided not to run again, being vice mayor I was hoping maybe I could step in if I was elected and carry on a lot of the changes and the visions that had come forth out of that tenure.

S: Have any of your expectations changed at all?

L:No, I’m very happy.

S: Excluding the higher education center, what are the city council’s goals?

J: Well, the goals are to enact and enforce codes and ordinances to better the community, to better the town. One of the things that Linda and I have both been active in, I believe, is the place of the leadership of the town to pro-actively do things to move the town forward. We’re actively soliciting business in order to generate sales tax revenue. We’re actively looking at opportunities for the town that would make it a better community for not only for the citizens of White Bluff but for Dickson County and the region. For example, the higher education campus that we’re trying to get.

L: I think maybe to wrap up what Jeff has said is we’re looking for a way to increase our revenue without having to raise taxes if that’s at all possible. Also, I think one thing that we’re doing is we’re establishing a program to educate our elected officials. We participated and are in the elected official seminar that TML conducts. Jeff and I have already gone through level one.

J: It was ten hours of classroom instruction.

L: And we participated with Kingston Springs’ mayor and some of their council and also there was a representative for Dickson. We’ve had eight or ten hours of course level two.

J: We’ve had eight hours of level two, which is fifty percent of the requirement for level two.

L: I think that we’re probably the first elected officials in White Bluff that have ever participated in this course. And that’s because we want to become pro-active and learn what we really need to do and how do we get our town on a ten and twenty year growth program.

S: That’s really interesting. What do the courses do, teach you how to better run the government or more historical types of information?

J: It goes over things like types of government. It goes over ethics. It goes over open meetings. It’s basically training to let you know how to be an effective community leader, town leader.

L: They discuss budgets, planning, vision. They update you on the latest policies and procedures that will be coming down mandated by the state. You can kind of look forward in the years to come and see what you’re going to have to deal with and that allows you the opportunity to start planning for it.

S: That really gives you an edge, doesn’t it?

J: Yeah, you get specific things. It goes down into specific departments:fire department, police department, public works, personnel.

S: That’s really cool. And you are the only ones doing this in Dickson County so far?

J: No, the only ones in White Bluff.

L: The statement I said was that as far as I am aware, we are the only elected officials that have ever in White Bluff participated in the leadership training.

S: I see. That’s really interesting.

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Well that concludes part 1 of my interview. Come back in a few days and read what Linda and Jeff has to say about the Higher Education Center. Also if you like my interview, you can let me know by submitting a comment.