City Enforcement of Property Maintenance Ordinance Getting Results

January 9, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

The City of Smithville is getting tough on those who don’t keep their properties cleaned up.

Under a city ordinance, landowners who don’t keep their property maintained according to the regulations are subject to civil penalties .

Mayor Josh Miller said the city’s enforcement is paying off and getting results.

“In the last few months nine letters have been sent out and I know there have been multiple people cited to court. It (enforcement) is working. We are not where we need to be but it is working. Pictures are taken (of properties in violation) and sent to court. I will say its better but we still have a lot of work to do,” said Mayor Miller during Monday night’s regular monthly city council meeting.

Another concern has now surfaced. Abandoned and junked vehicles.

“This is something that has come up and I hear it about vehicles parked everywhere. They are not tagged and have not been driven in five to ten years. It doesn’t look good. I think its time to do something about that as well. We don’t have an ordinance on that” said Mayor Miller.

January 9, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

The Upperman Lady Bees snapped the district winning streak for the DCHS Lady Tigers Tuesday night winning 46 to 29 in Smithville.

It was the lowest point production for the Lady Tigers of any game this season.

Upperman led 11 to 4 after the 1st period, 17 to 11 at halftime, and 34 to 23 after the 3rd period before winning 46 to 29.

Kadee Ferrell had 8 points. Mya Ruch, Emme Colwell, and Maddison Parsley each scored 7.
The Tigers fared no better losing 75 to 59 to the Bees.

DeKalb County trailed 28 to 10 after the 1st period, 48 to 35 at halftime, and 60 to 44 after the 3rd period before falling 75 to 59.

Nathan Atkins scored 16, Dallas Cook 11, Lucas Hale 9, Colter Norris 6, Brayden Howard 5, Josh Carlton 3, Noah Martin, Dakota White, Brayden Antoniak, and Jordan Young each with 2 and Luke Jenkins with 1.

The Lady Tigers slip to 12-5 on the season and are now 4-1 in the district. The Tigers are 1-16 overall and 0-5 in district play.

Girls District 8AA Standings as of January 9:
Macon County: 16-4 (5-0)
Upperman: 15-3 (5-0)
DeKalb County: 12-5 (4-1)
York Institute: 6-9 (2-3)
Livingston Academy: 9-12 (2-3)
Cannon County: 11-7 (1-4)
Watertown: 7-11 (1-4)
Smith County 5-9 (0-5)

Boys District 8AA Standings as of January 9:
Livingston Academy: 13-7 (5-0)
York Institute: 11-2 (4-0)
Macon County: 7-11 (3-1)
Upperman: 13-4 (3-2)
Cannon County: 9-10 (2-3)
Watertown: 12-6 (2-3)
DeKalb County: 1-16 (0-5)
Smith County 1-12 (0-5)

The remaining schedule is as follows:

Friday, January 11: Macon County*-Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 15: Smith County*-Away 6 p.m.
Friday, January 18: York Institute*-Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 22: Livingston Academy*-Home 6 p.m.
Friday, January 25: Watertown*-Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 29: Cannon County*-Home 6 p.m.
Friday, February 1: Upperman*-Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, February 5: Macon County*-Home 6 p.m.
Thursday, February 7: Smith County*-Home 6 p.m.
Friday, February 8: Monterey-Home 6 p.m.

By: Dwayne Page

Aimed at learning about how better to reach more potential customers and expand tourism locally, members of the Center Hill Business Association sponsored a social media marketing workshop Monday at the County Complex.

Sara Beth Urban, Middle Tennessee Division Manager for the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development, was the guest speaker and provided some helpful tips.

“DeKalb is ranked 32nd out of the 95 counties in tourism and that includes $48.02 million in tourism expenditures coming directly into DeKalb County. Considering the growth that you have from 2002 to this past year it’s amazing how much growth has come out of this county and your rankings have gone up and been phenomenal,” said Urban.

“We know people come to Nashville or to see the colors in the Smoky Mountains but with $48 million dollars coming to DeKalb County they are coming here too. We need to make sure we are creating a whole product and getting the word out about what businesses are here and what there is to see and do in DeKalb County,” said Urban.

“The main purpose of today’s workshop is to provide tips and tricks for social media marketing. Trying to improve everyone’s posts they are doing on facebook and instagram and trying to let them know the practices we followed to help get the word out to visitors about how wonderful Tennessee is,” Urban continued.

One way is by taking advantage of the free partner pages on the state tourism website www.tnvacation.com.

“We offer free partner pages on our website for any tourism business in the state. If you are running a shop, restaurant, coffee shop, etc. you qualify for a partner page. Go on line and add information and photos. It shows how you can start a partner page. This gives us the opportunity to look at your business and make sure when we are writing articles about DeKalb County events and Center Hill Lake your page will be linked with ours to expose your business to more traffic through our website,” said Urban.

“DeKalb County is doing wonderfully. We love the growth we have seen over the past 15 years here but there is a lot more to be done. I think you are on track to break the $50 million mark in tourism next year. Tourism is the number 2 industry in the state. The first is agriculture. We bring in $20.77 billion. That is direct dollars coming back to local businesses, gas, restaurants, lodging, shopping all of those elements,” Urban said.

Joe Brown, owner of the Button Willow General Store and Coffee Shop downtown Smithville and Vice President of the Center Hill Business Association, said the workshop was helpful.

“It was huge. I think social media is definitely a way we are going to reach out to our community that for some of us has been unavailable. Not a lot of us are social media savvy or have the time to do it but the things Sara Beth has said I believe are going to be keys for helping grow our businesses and to help promote each other which is what we are about. We have to promote ourselves and one another and let people know that our services and businesses are out there,” said Brown.

Tony Luna, owner of Lake Homes Realty and Marketing Director for the Center Hill Business Association, said the group of 20 members formed about four months ago. Luna said Urban’s workshop will help the local business owners think outside the box when it comes to marketing themselves.