By Karen Hall

Editor

The city council will be asked to accept the property on the south side of the square formerly known as "Bob's hole" at its monthly meeting Tuesday.

Mayor Barbara Woods announced this at a council work session Wednesday.

"The deed has been prepared," she said. "The price is $10."

Woods went on to say former mayor Bob Phillips would like the property to be named Public Square Park. He has placed no restrictions on the use of the property, except to state he wants no additional plaques placed there, except one with the name of the park.

"He's got quite a bit of money in it," Woods said. "It's really, really nice of him to give it to the city."

Phillips took the design by O'More College of Art students for a "ghost building" and had the steel frame made and erected. What was a gravel-covered vacant lot has been transfored into a grassy lawn, bordered by a brick walk. Unsightly pipes along the back wall have been concealed, and the whole area looks 100 percent better than it did one year ago.

In other business at the non-voting work session, the council discussed the transition to Waste Management's collection of trash and recycling. The week of June 24, Allied Waste will pick up their blue garbage bins, and about the same time Waste Management will be putting out two bins: one for trash and one (with a yellow lid) for recycling. City workers will be going around picking up the green bins residents have been using for recycling.

Also up for discussion was the continuing problem with streets in the Lincoln Park area, Councilman Robin Minor's ward. Pavement was cut to allow installation of new pipes, but the cuts have not been repaved, only filled in with gravel.

"The first subcontractor picked up and left," reported Minor.

"The state money didn't come, so the contractor couldn't pay the subcontractor," Woods said. "We've gone four years with no money spent on paving, and the worst streets have become very bad."

"This is fixable if we just communicate with each other," said Councilman Steve Thomas. "The city could front the money to fix the streets, and the contractor could pay us back later."

"I rode out to Lincoln Park twice with Mr. (Kenneth) Carr, and he assures me it will be corrected by the end of May," Minor said. "It's not been a pleasant situation. People have been coming to my house to complain, and they're iller than hornets. I've been as patient as anybody can be. If those roads are not done by the end of May, it'll be time for this council to take some action!"

Moving on to the next topic, Dana Deem of the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service reported 13 people have applied for the job of city manager of Lewisburg.

"We have six people with experience as a city manager," Deem said. "There are two without direct experience as city manager, but they could also be successful because they have extensive experience in local government."

"I haven't been real good at picking," exclaimed Minor. "I think you all have more idea." Councilmen requested Deem to cut the list down to a manageable number of applicants.

Deem said he would go through and score the candidates in a logical way, and present his results to councilmen by Friday.

"Score all eight and we'll know where to draw the line," suggested Thomas.

The final vote on who will be city manager will be made by the newly elected council which takes office in June. Its members are Artie Allen, Trigg Cathey, Odie Whitehead Jr., Minor, and Thomas.

The new council will also have to make decisions on a problem with the Lewisburg Downtown Alliance revealed by discussion Wednesday.

City Manager Eddie Fuller reported a business on the square didn't want 1st Avenue and Church Street closed off for Second Saturday, as the LDA proposes to do, starting tomorrow, May 11, and continuing the second Saturday of every month until September.

"We have Rock Creek Park," said Whitehead. "It makes better sense to have the Cruise-In in the park, where we have everything. We should promote Rock Creek Park."

"I don't want to close streets, if a merchant doesn't want them closed," said Minor. "It would have helped it they'd run some of this by us." No LDA members were at the council work session, and no councilmen attended the last LDA meeting.

"Let's say OK for this Saturday," said Thomas. "Tell the merchant we need more time to work on this with the LDA. Let's back up and look at making decisions for June. Communicate with them (LDA) that we want to sit down with them."

"It's a matter of meeting together and getting it worked out," said Woods.

The question of painting numbers on the square's pavement to mark where vendors will set their booths was also discussed after Public Works Director Kenny Ring reported an LDA member had already picked up paint from him to do this.

"I don't want numbers painted on the square," exclaimed Whitehead.

"We'll get that fixed," promised Fuller, without specifying how he intended to get this done.