Clarksville, TN – The city council held its usual first of the month regular council session. It was an unusual meeting due to finishing in little over an hour.
Here are the results on the few major items we had.
Racetrack Noise Ordinance
This proposed ordinance would have had the track stop racing by 12-midnight. Within our ward this had not been a hot topic. However, I know people that live near the track and have heard some complaints. There are few businesses that don’t have limitations on noise or operating hours. An example is construction is not to start until 7:00am, bars have last call to meet time deadlines and we have beer sell restrictions on Sundays. These all affect business and consumers.
I did not believe it was unreasonable for residents to know when racing would stop so I was willing to support anything between 12:00am to 1:00am.
The ordinance was defeated by a 2-yes, 9-no vote. Councilman Redd was absent at tonight’s meeting. I was one of the “yes” votes.
Trash Pickup Noise Ordinance
The ordinance was postponed until the next council meeting. In the public comment period one of the local refuse business operators stated they had reviewed their area operations and driver schedules and stated they were starting pickups before their own stated policy. They asked to work with the city to try and reach a mutually beneficial policy. I believe this admission assisted Councilman Grubb’s request to postpone his ordinance and hold a meeting of citizens and refuse businesses. He will announce when the public meeting will be held in the near future.
As readers know, I had heard from a number of people on this issue related to other past concerns within our ward. After sending out my email on the topic, I received a number of inputs and appreciate those I received. The outcome was roughly a 65% for the ordinance and 35% against or didn’t care. The ordinance would not allow pickups before 6:00am and be finished by 6:00am.
Airport
The airport has taken over fueling operations. The prospect to actually make money on this procedural change appears to be paying off already. They are on track to make 20% of the profit they received from a whole year of contract operations within a couple of weeks. Construction of the new airport terminal is under way.
Other Ward News
Per resident requests I asked the police run radar on Powell Road several weeks ago. This was accomplished with nine drivers receiving speeding tickets.
I have received radar requests from the Holly Point/DeerTrail and Savannah West areas. I will be submitting those soon. Our police district covers several wards and they get many requests for many issues. I work to spread out our ward requests in order not overload police resources. We get excellent support from our police and I greatly appreciate their efforts to work issues in our ward.
For Savannah West residents that live by the drainage basin on Trelawny, the city street department is alert to the concerns on drainage and backup of water due to the heavy rains. I have been in communication with homeowners that contacted me. The engineers will have to wait until the water is gone to resurvey the basin for depth. The basin has likely filled in over the years, which would affect capacity. The relief rain pipe is clear and operational. However, heavy rain will cause water levels to rise to a high level before the secondary line starts taking water.
For West/East Regent homeowners the street engineers will be looking at a drainage/stream ditch that runs from one street to the other and under West Regent Drive. It was running over in the last heavy rains.
A note to all residents that live by drainage ditches or basins by their homes: Please do not dump leaves, limbs, dirt, rock or anything else on these areas. Normal runoff will fill them in to some degree over time and the Street Dept had dug out several areas in our ward where this has happened. However, anything beyond nature’s contribution speeds up the filling process and leads to the overflow. In many of our drainage basins we have sinkholes that drain the water buildup. Throwing extra debris into these areas may close the sinkhole and create major problems for homeowners and the city.
