I attended the Board of Mayor and Aldermen workshop this evening. Attendance was light, I guess everyone decided to go see Harry Potter or something. 😉 Most of it was a total snooze fest. The city needs to renew a copier contract. Um, some other stuff that I got bored and started stealing my neighbors’ iPhones through.

One thing is, it looks like there is going to be a greenway in La Vergne, finally. It will be somewhere Blakemoore (I could be spelling that wrong.) Drive. I think, west side of La Vergne. Apparently there was a grant given to us by (I think) the state umpteen bazillion years ago and they are finally getting everything approved now and if all goes as planned, it should be ready by November. That’s good because if it is not completed by December, the grant will be taken away and good luck ever getting another grant for a greenway or maybe even anything else.

Now, let me say that I was at the greenway meeting about this particular greenway, so I know a little bit more about it than was presented at the meeting. At that particular meeting it was brought up that the city had planned up this greenway and sent it to the state for approval and the state was basically like, “That’s cool, but you need a handy parking space for Americans with disabilities who get a handy tag.” The state then suggested we put an ADA parking space on the street (o.O) for these folks.

Of course, our city planner and city engineer had a massive coronary when they heard “parking on the street” because parking on the street is against ye olde law in La Vergne. So they went back to the drawing board and tried to find a space where they could put this parking space, and one other since it’s not terribly fair to have a handy space and not a regular space as well.

Luckily, the city owns some space between these two houses that would fit both spaces and could be accessed easily to the greenway, and it’s all within budget.

Except, of course, the homeowners who have the two houses on either side of the space are not too happy about it. Which is exactly how I would feel if I were either of those two homeowners. You’re going to make a parking lot in my yard? Really?

One set of the homeowners came to the greenway meeting I attended and spoke very politely and convincingly about how this would negatively affect her family. I completely understand where she’s coming from. It is a tough situation on both sides, I mean, we would really like a good greenway system in our town and this greenway NEEDS to get done if we want to build more. Alderman Broeker stated at tonight’s meeting that he had spoken with the homeowner and it may be that we can work this out with some fencing. From what I understand a solution is being worked out. Cool.

Now, let’s see, what else. They discussed Alderman Broeker’s plan to revisit the water and sewer rates with the people from MTAS. Which, by the way, in case you don’t understand the difference between workshops and board meetings, let me explain. In a workshop, they discuss the things they’re going to discuss at the meeting. It’s kind of a dress rehearsal. Nothing is voted on. It’s just discussed.

So, yeah, that was discussed and Alderman Waldron’s idea about a tax freeze for seniors was discussed. Mayor Mosley, Steve Mayer and, ummm…someone else (sorry, I’m tired and it’s late and I’ve been up since 5:30) met with a tax man from the county this morning to find out how seniors and other folks can get some tax relief. I have a whole page of information about that which I was going to type up tonight, but again, tired. So I am going to scan this tomorrow morning and put up a PDF link so this information is up there.

The short version of it is this: Senior citizens can get a tax freeze. It won’t roll back the taxes to 50 cents, but it can keep your taxes from going up in the future. There is also tax relief available which is for people who are 65 and older or totally disabled. That is a reimbursement for the taxes you have paid and can vary.

I have a whole lot of info about that and I’ll upload a scan of it tomorrow.

So come on out to the board of mayor and aldermen meeting next Thursday. They’ll vote then, and that’s always a slightly more interesting meeting. Normally they are on the first Tuesday of the month but because of National Night Out they are moving it to Thursday this month.

Good night, La Vergne.

EDIT: Good morning, La Vergne! Here is a scan of the sheet I was talking about last night: tax freeze-tax relief