Faces of the Montgomery County primary

February 13, 2008 |

We apologize that we are posting these so late, but here are the photographs we took during last week’s Presidential Preference Primary. Clarksville Online visited most of the Montgomery County Polling places, and these are representative images from that day.

On the Democratic side: Hillary Clinton took Tennessee with 54% of the vote, followed by Barack Obama with 41%. Even though he had already dropped out, John Edwards still took 4%.

On the Republican side: Mike Huckabee won with 34% of the vote, followed by John McCain with 32%. Mitt Romney garnered 24%, and Ron Paul, who has a vocal group of local followers, took 6%.

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Redevelopment firestorm still going strong

By David W. Shelton | February 13, 2008 |

Mayor Johnny Piper’s letter to affected residents attempts to ease concerns

The Clarksville Center Redevelopment Plan (CCRP) has been met with extreme opposition from residents in the affected area, who jokingly (or not) call their part of Clarksville “Blightville.” I’ve had the opportunity to attend a few of the meetings where the plan was discussed, and as a member of the Human Relations Commission, I’ve been on quite a few of the email lists where this topic has been the point of a lot of major contention. This has been so important that City Mayor Johnny Piper has distributed a letter to affected residents, which reads in part:

Recently, a group calling itself the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition has been distributing a flier that has false and misleading information about the redevelopment plan. I am particularly concerned with the allegation that the City desires to take property from business owners and residents and sell it to developers as part of eminent domain.

The flier states: “Your property can be condemned by a majority vote of the City Council and then resold to private developers.”

Please do not be frightened into believing what the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition is misrepresenting about the plan. The City of Clarksville has no intentions of taking your property. The redevelopment plan ordinance actually makes it harder for any government to exercise eminent domain. There are many layers of protection for property owners built into the ordinance that are not being revealed to you in these fliers distributed by the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition.

Note: the full text of the Mayor’s letter is provided at the end of this commentary.

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Recent storms deplete Red Cross funds

By Christine Anne Piesyk | February 13, 2008 |

The Red Cross works on the front line of disaster, providing assistance to victims and to the firefighters, police and rescue workers responding to all forms of crisis. The February 5 storms that raked through Tennessee communities were no exception.

The Clarksville-Montgomery Chapter of the American Red Cross opened two service centers last week to assist people in the Indian Mound section and in Houston County, offering assistance with food, rent, clothing, household needs, medical assistance and temporary home repairs that allowed families to return to their homes. The costs add up, and the local chapter is feeling the economic pinch. «Read the rest of this article»

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