I would like to begin by thanking Billy Milliken for serving on the city commission. His insight and knowledge has already reflected into our city government and community. Also, I would like to thank Jeff Campbell for bringing the issue of term limits on boards to our attention. I know of Fulton citizens who have served on the same board(s) for years, many years. Change is good. Change is necessary for new thoughts and ideas. Without change boards can become tunnel visioned in their own ideas. I know there are many who would serve on boards if they knew when an appointment was open. We read the appointment in the paper after the fact. There may be an opening on a board that is a perfect fit for the right citizen. We are all passionate concerning the things that we view as good or bad and see the need for change. Using our citizens to benefit the will of the people of Fulton is what government should be. We have many great people in Fulton to serve. Let's not tunnel vision ourselves into a select few.
Thank you,
Karen Worley Dean Fulton, KY 42041
To the Editor:
Like the students in the
Fulton Independent School District, the members of its Board of Education must
do their homework. This means sifting through complicated test data and
financial reports while keeping abreast of the latest requirements handed down
from state and federal governments, to name just a few “subjects.”
Our board members conduct
business at one or more meetings monthly, but you’ll often find them at ball
games, school celebrations and civic events because they are the link between
the school system and the community.
The five members of the
Fulton Independent Board of Education oversee a multimillion-dollar budget and
make decisions to ensure that the individual child gets what he or she needs to
successfully learn in school and beyond. All this is done in the face of
shrinking state and federal dollars for education and tough economic times
locally.
These responsibilities and
others are the reason Kentucky and other states set aside the month of January
to thank local school board members during School Board Recognition Month.
So I hope the community as a
whole, and individual parents, students and school staff will take a few
minutes this month to acknowledge the critical role and responsibilities
carried out by Mrs. Debbie Vaughn, Dr. Lee Seng, Mr. Bill Robertson, Mr. Sam
Hancock and Dr. Josh Whitledge.
Sincerely,
Tamara Smith
Superintendent
Fulton Independent School
Dear Editor,
Someone brought this to my attention. The
fire dept response to vehicle accidents and vehicle fires. Have the
owners of these vehicles "paid to spray"? Who pays for this????? What
if its a "out of towner" or someone that lives out of state? Do they
get their vehicle put out??? Ummm... Think about it. Someone who works
and lives in this area and spends their money in the twin cities but
yet the city fire dept will let their house burn to the ground? I pay
my fire subscription...but just because someone dont, I have a hard time
believing they deserve to lose everything, especially when people are
there to put it out and refuse. Thanks,
John Hutchens
Dear Editor,
While my
heart goes out to the family effected by the recent fire which
destroyed their home, I am still amazed that people outside of the city
limits STILL are not paying the fire protection fee in order to insure
they have fire protection.
A $75.00
fee per year, or $6.25 per month, or $0.2083 per day is not a great deal
to pay to safeguard a home in areas of the county that do not have
dedicated fire protection.
I know times are rough,
but most people spend more on coffee at McDonalds in a month than it
would cost to do something that we all know we should do.
Many
people here in Indiana ask me about the situation in South Fulton since
they know that I lived there for some time. County property taxes up
here fund your local area's, or township's as they called it, volunteer
fire department. This is similar to other areas of the country. Why is
South Fulton having this problem and other communities in TN are not?
My question is this: Can this fee be added to the county tax bill??????
If not, then why not?
It's time the problem is solved before this happens again.
Derrick T. Wells
The Mayor, City Commissioners and
especially the fire department should be ashamed of themselves for
allowing homes to burn down. I think the federal government needs to
step in and put a stop to this. I thank God that I don't live in South
fulton tn.
Cory Wallwork North Dakota
I am a ten year veteran firefighter and am
writing regarding your sister communities so called fire department.
These so called firefighters are a disgrace to firefighters, they have
no right to wear the uniform. For a second time these embarrassments
have stood by and watched as a families home burned. Everyone of them
should lose their jobs and never be allowed to wear the uniform again
and the worthless local politicians who defend these actions should be
re-called. Twice now these disgraces have humiliated your community
internationally with their cowardice, when will you end this stain on
your community and firefighters everywhere.
Dean Counts
Recently, our
truck broke down in Fulton. We were in serious trouble until many of
the residents of your area went out of their way to help us. We would
especially like to acknowledge the kindness and generosity of Darrell
and Lisa, who took us and our 5th wheel camper home to central
Illinois. It is heart warming to find a community with so many
wonderful folks willing to help two strangers in town!
Thank you everyone,
Alan and Gayla Erlenbusch
Dear Editor,
I
am writing to correct a major oversight in my recent letter on our
Let's Paint the Town program. In my letter, I laid out many statistics
of our program, but more importantly I thanked some of the invaluable
people involved in the success we've had to date. Any time you start to
thank people by name, you run the risk of leaving someone out. And
that is exactly what I inadvertently
did. My blunder was failing to thank Mrs. Nancy Fossett for her
tireless work with our program. Nancy answered my call for help to take
on the major task of selecting all the paint colors for our LPTT
program, and has spent untold hours for the last two summers doing just
that. Each week Nancy would take pictures of
the buildings. She would them carefully hand sketch renderings of the
buildings in their new proposed colors. She met with building owners,
paint vendors and others until she felt she got the colors just right.
Can you imagine any of us trying to pick out 3 colors for each building
and doing that 46 times? Well that's exactly what accomplished, as we
completed painting 46 buildings during our two summers of work. Whether
it was accent stripes or colorful polka dots on buildings or some
accent trim color to make a building "pop" and grab the eye, it was
Nancy who orchestrated it all. So if you've seen buildings in town you
admire, next time you cross paths with Ms. Nancy, be sure and tell her
how you feel. I now playfully call Nancy the "queen of color."
Regards
Jeff Campbell
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Dear Editor
Today a remarkable milestone was achieved in our community,
and I doubt most of our citizens even noticed.
What am I talking about? Today
our “Let’s Paint the Town “ (LPTT) program completed building number 46 in the
Twin Cities! Just think about what an
unbelievable achievement that would have seemed just 20 months ago.
On May 18, 2010, we kicked off the LPTT idea at a town hall
meeting at the Pontotoc Community
Center. That night nearly 200 people
attended and almost $4,000 in donations was raised. We had our first LPTT day two weeks later on
June 5, 2010. We painted buildings in June through October
last year, and again this year May through October. 46 buildings completed in just 11
months of painting, over $9,000 raised
to date, with only $5,000 in expenses.
Community volunteers have clocked nearly 5,000 volunteer hours on our
town. Who would have ever believed that
could happen? I certainly never dreamed
we could accomplish as much as we have.
It just goes to show how many people in our town wanted to see positive
change. How many people wanted to be
proud of our town again. And how many
people were tired of seeing a town in decay.
Who made this possible? Mothers,
fathers, Mayors, a Police Chief, Public Works employees, visitors, grandmothers
and grandfathers, Fulton County inmates, kids, and volunteers as close as Union City, Martin, Memphis, Nashville, and
as far away as Fort Smith, Arkansas, and a young man from Hungary. I have never been involved in any volunteer
program where I felt more needed, driven, more happy, or proud of our
collective accomplishments. The last two
summers have literally been the most fulfilling in my life.
I would like to first and foremost thank Thea Vowell. For a small part-time salary from the
Chamber, Thea has spent untold hours on the LPTT program, and has been my
“rock” through this entire program. To
Thea, I say I thank you from the bottom
of my heart, and to say I love you for who you are and what you manage to get
done for our town. She told me before we
started this that she would be there with me every step of the way….and by God
she has! Next, I want to thank our
prolific painters in town. To the ladies
who are painting almost every Saturday.
Laura Spadafino, Carol Boyd, Lynn Napier, Linda Barclay, Amelia Prater,
and certainly Sandra Joyner. We could not have done this without the
unsung and unseen heroes of our power washing team, Joey Hall, Sam Miller, Ben
Mullins, Bradley Nanney, along with Tim Britt and Jordan Barnes. The few times Joey and crew were not
available, Randall and Steven Barns were there to wash the buildings. To Mike, Cara, and Jordan Lynch, I am so very
grateful for your unseen volunteer hours picking up our used brushes and
rollers each week, then cleaning them in your spare time and making sure we had
clean painting tools for the next building each week. The Lynch family has been cleaning our
brushes and rollers for two summers! We
could not have done this without Mike Cash and Jerry Joyner giving us their
lifts at no charge. Our thanks to the
Color Corner, Builders Supply and Fulton Decorating for agreeing to sell us
paint at discounted prices. And finally,
to Pat Frasier for last summer, and to Sharon Newton for this summer, I want
you to know my very much I appreciate your efforts to make sure our crews were
well fed and hydrated each and every Saturday.
And to so many ladies of our community who have cooked and made sandwiches
for us, I want you to know how much we all appreciate your work and volunteer
hours.
We shut down our LPTT program after today for the cold
weather months. We will be back in the spring
to paint a few more buildings, before we end this program for good and call
this a complete success. If you’re a
building owner in our Twin Cities, and reading this letter, and have not yet
signed up to take advantage of our program, I encourage you to do so. At no other time will you get a new looking
building, than with this program. It
will only cost you the price of paint.
All of our labor and supplies are free!
Finally, I could not be more PROUD of what our community has
accomplished in such a short time!
Warm regards,
Jeff Campbell
To The Editor:
I am going to step out on a limb, considering a small town and tell everyone my own personal thoughts, and probably very controversial
thoughts about the Fulton Tourism Commission Board. First and
foremost, I would like to thank Mike Smith and Kay Martin for their many
years of service to the Commission.
While many of us, like me, moved away from town for many years, they
held the banner and did the best they could to serve our community, with
the funds available at their disposal to encourage tourism in our town
Don't forget, the Tourism Commission
was formed on a hotel and restaurant tax to encourage others to travel
to the
Twin Cities. I am a restaurant owner, and gladly remit these taxes to
the city in hopes they will be well spent. But over these many
years, some of the Board of the Tourism Commission, have become tired.
If you've been to one of their meetings lately, some of the board
members either don't show up or if they do, they don't speak. The Mayor
appoints these board members. Many have not been rotated off the board in years.
Each
board has governance rules by which they are suppose to abide and are
chartered by. Board member terms, board attendance guidelines and
other rules which should guide the governance of the board. The Fulton
Tourism board is no different.
This past year,
the young people of the Twin Cities rose up, asked Tourism to bring back
the Banana Festival, and they
pulled it off....big time! This years event, the Banana Festival, was
the best event this town has had in years. And it was ONLY because
young people got involved again, pulling the majority load off Mike
Smith, Kay Martin, and others Board Members and began running a
festival they brought back called the Banana Festival.
So
to Mike and Kay, I say thank you for your many years of service to our
community. To Mayor Elaine Forrester, I courage you to see how these
young people have stepped forward and run our latest Festival and
look at the tremendous results. We unarguably
had the best attendance, the best weekend, and best parade our town has
seen in years. I would hope you can see what new blood, new ideas,
and what youth can bring to our town.
To all
members of the Fulton Tourism
Commission and the Mayor, I would encourage you to rotate the board,
keep it vibrant, keep new young people involved, and encourage a sense
of risk taking and entrepreneurship
by our young people, instead of letting the Fulton Tourism board stay
stagnant with members who have years of service, but have now become
tired or uninvolved. If you
don't see a need to change out board members, then give these young
people a full budget to run the Banana Festival without question from
the Board, but making sure at the same time they are held accountable
for their results. The board needs to quit micro managing the Banana
Festival committee, and give them a budget to run with. Or...bring in a new board.
Sincerely
Jeff
Campbell
To the Editor:
The Humane Way has a low cost spay neuter program for cats. Anyone interested should contact me at 731-479-3399 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting731-479-3399end_of_the_skype_highlighting. If no answer, please leave
a message, and I'll get back to you. The surgery is not free, but
approximately half the regular cost of alteration. We still have a
small amount of grant money for the
alternation of dogs.
Brenda Phillips The Humane Way 3995 Billy Jolley Road South Fulton, TN 38257
To the editor:
My family moved to Fulton a little over two
years ago from a much larger city, and to say it was a culture shock
would be an understatement! During our first weeks there, we visited a
local restaurant and when our waitress found out we just moved to town,
her response was, "I'm sorry." I immediately wondered what we had gotten
ourselves into! Over the next two years, I absolutely fell in love with
Fulton...the small town atmosphere, the ability to get anywhere in town
in less than 5 minutes, and the amazing people! I knew that Fulton was
where I wanted to raise my children, and where I wanted to live out the
days of my life. Unfortunately, things happened that were beyond my
control that made it necessary for my children and I to move back "home"
to my home state of Mississippi. But Fulton, KY, will always be
considered home to me, as well. Fulton residents - you are blessed to be
living in such a wonderful community,
and the people of Fulton are your greatest asset! May God bless you all
individually, and as a community.
With fond memories & love,
Laura Lovell
I would like to say that I appreciate the
pulling together of the City of Fulton, for the betterment of the city.
I love that the city also gets behind it's employees AND their
families. When you are an employee of the city, in any department,
there are huge sacrifices that are made to do your job to the best of
your ability. Weither it's Public Works, who have been out all night
with a water main break and such, or Fire/EMS, who have long distant
transfers to make, along with the other every day calls, there are also
countless hours of paper work that has to be done. Family support is
huge, especially if you still have city business to do on your days
off.
I know that there are hardships also, just like every other city, and I
believe that this weekend of the Banana Festival, proved that the city
and it's citizens have the ability to pull together to make things
happen for the good of everyone involved.
With prayers for the Twin Cities to prosper,
Karen Wilds
To The Editor:
This past weekend the residents of
the Twin Cities experienced in part of what the Banana Festival was like some
30 years ago. The weekend was filled with excitement and expectations that were
fulfilled. I would like to congratulate and thank Christy Rogers for a job well
done, because without her and all her committees none of this would have taken
place. I also would like to thank all the many volunteers that were
involved. I would also like to recognize
and thank all the City of Fulton employees, Buba Nelms, Public Works Employees,
Chief Terry Powell, Fulton Police Department, Chief Mike Gunn, Fulton Fire
Department & EMS, David Moss and the Fulton Electric System Crew, Lisa
Morgan and the City of Fulton office staff, Ricky Parnell and the Fulton County
Detention Staff and inmates. I would also like to thank Kay Martin and her
staff for providing important information to the Banana Festival committees and
answering hundreds of questions for the Festival staff and the hundreds of
phone calls the Tourism office received leading up to the festival. We may be a
small town but as you have seen when we all work together we can succeed.
Hopefully plans will be underway soon for the 2012 festival which I’m sure will
be bigger and better. Again many THANKS to all involved and look forward to
2012.
Sincerely,
Mike Smith, Fulton Tourism Chairman
To the Editor:
Many of the
residents of the Twin Cities are experiencing a renewed sense of
nostalgia with the rebirth of the Banana Festival. For those of you who
are interested in the history of the cities, the Banana Festival and
other historic events, there is a book available that chronicles Fulton
and South Fulton's history. Beth Jones spent hundreds of hours
researching pictures gathered for the purpose of being included in the
book. The great citizens loaned us hundreds of their prized photos and
post cards to be scanned for the book. The result of this is a
collection of pictures of the history of the cities many of which are
hanging on the wall of the Keg.
We scanned over a thousand pictures, and Beth had the daunting task
of choosing those that best gave the reader the sense of the great
history of the cities. The book, "Images of America - Fulton, KY" is
available at Jeff's Barber Shop, The Fulton Public Library and the
Railroad Museum. All proceeds from the sale of the book are donated to
community events such as the Banana Festival.
While the title of the book mentions only Fulton, the history of
South Fulton is included in the book. The publishers, for some reason,
could not include the names of both towns in the title.
I urge any of you interested in history to purchase this book. It is a true pictorial history of the Twin Cities.
Lois Birk 406 Eddings Fulton, KY 42041
To the Editor,
Thank you to the Birks for
speaking to the F.E.S. I have called TVA, and so far have gotten no
reply, I have called Ed Whitfields office, and they were unaware of the
problem. I encourage all citizens of Fulton to call Ed Whitfields
office and seek an explantion for this arbitrary definition of what is a
commercial meter. I also encourage you to call TVA. Even if you do not
have a second meter that you're having to now pay a commercial rate
on, CALL , and complain anyway, as this impacts the entire community.
Thank you,
Irene Graham
To the Editor:
In response to Mrs.
Graham's letter regarding the second electric meter being charged at
commercial rates, we have learned that the blame for this lies entirely
with TVA. We contacted a Fulton Electric Board Member, and he told us
that TVA had insisted on this raise in rate.
We contacted TVA and learned through a spokesperson that this is in fact
their decision based on some faulty logic regarding fossil and
hydroelectric generated electricity. We suggest that all of the
residents of Fulton who are concerned about this arbitrary charge
contact TVA at 270-856-4576. Follow that call to your elected
officials, Whitfield, Paul, and McConnell.
Perhaps with enough complaints about this a change can be made. Sincerely,
John and Lois Birk 406 Eddings Fulton KY
To the Editor,
I am speaking to the
arbitrary ruling by the Fulton Electric Service that has deigned any
second meter as commercial. My electric bill on our out building has
more than doubled. It is now considered a COMMERCIAL meter and I must
pay a commercial rate. Every single home owner in Fulton with electric
on their PRIVATE shop, or building is now paying a commercial rate.
This is nothing but the service making up the definition of what
commercial IS. Never mind that your building is not in a zone that
allows commercial activity, never mind that you have never run any sort
of commercial enterprise out of that building. Clearly the electric
service believes it gets to define what commercial is or is not. If my
building is in a zone that does not ALLOW commercial activity, how on
earth can
one be charged a commercial rate? Class action lawsuit grounds?
MAYBE!