TO: City Manager,
City Commissioners,
CC: President, GGF:
Reference today's The Mountain Press headline "Opinion: Change takes leaders"
Being permitted to do anything one wants to do with ones property has never been as American as apple pie. Being a good neighbor is as American as apple pie. Robert Frost wrote in his poem The Wall "Good fences make good neighbors." Good neighbors do not place a garbage dump next to their neighbor's house and your right to burn trash ends where my nose begins. As leaders, I presume you received a preliminary report and challenged the apple pie comment.
What encourages you to believe you are different leaders now than you were before the report? Leaders do not need to hide behind consultants telling them what they already know. Leaders would have been following the consultant's recommendations before they were recommendations because they are just common sense.
Geoff Wolpert is quoted in today's article, "If we're going to make our community a certain way, we have to require it to be that way." OK, now what does that mean?
Jim Kennedy is reported to have said "the priorities of the project would require that city officials resolve to deal with the issue of public improvements versus private ownership." You did not already know that? What we know is that neither you nor your predecessors have shown a willingness to do so.
The reason downtown Gatlinburg is the way it is, is unrealistically high lease prices subsidized by underpaid employees and taxpayers. Geoff Wolpert is reported to have said a detailed plan will get everyone onboard. Did anyone check his breath? Mayor Mike Werner is reported to have said, the key will be showing (the land and business owners) there is a benefit in going along with the plan, even if it requires an investment or a sacrifice to making it happen. You needed a consulting firm to tell you that? Why haven't you already shown the benefit?
If you want anyone to believe you are serious, and want business owners and land owners to compromise you can begin by removing the Hard Rock Café guitar that extends over the sidewalk. That is an example of how the old boy/girl network works. Show us the network is a thing of the past and the granting of variances is dead. My guess is the people are watching to see something change....
Regards,
John Jenkins
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@yahoo.com
Email: jrjenki@yahoo.com
Hyperbole is the Best Thing Ever.
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