Published March 6, 2008

Mayor asks homeowners to be sure 911 addresses

are clearly displayed
In an effort to make Jasper more of a weekend destination, the city council is working with the Downtown Merchants Association to bring a little life to Main Street on the weekends.
Beginning in April and ending with a New Years Eve party, the city will be hosting one outdoor event the second Saturday of each month to draw people into the downtown area.
“We want people to have a reason to be out in Jasper on Main Street on a Saturday or Sunday,” said Mayor John Weaver. “We also want to help out the restaurants downtown.”
The events, which are yet to be organized, will be centered around music and outdoor festivities, and a committee will be formed in the near future to hammer out specifics for each month’s theme.
Funding for events will come from local hotel/motel taxes, part of which can only be spent on tourist-related expenditures.
Currently, the city has approximately $33,000 from this hotel/motel tax fund to spend on tourism, and $10,000 (collected from the same tax) in undesignated funds that can be spent any way the council deems most beneficial to the city.
At Monday’s council meeting, $10,000 of the $33,000 designated for
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tourism was approved for use in the downtown entertainment project, the majority of which will be used for out-of-town advertising.
The council also voted unanimously to spend the entire $10,000 in undesignated funds on bands and event coordination, expenditures that are not considered to be related to tourism.
The council seemed hopeful the monthly festivities will help liven community life in Jasper, with Mayor Weaver also noting, “If this doesn’t work, we will have to revisit it.”

Emergency responders need clear house addresses––Mayor asks public for help

The City of Jasper is in the first stages of making commercial and residential addresses within the city limits more visible for emergency vehicles responding to 911 calls.
At Monday’s meeting, Chief Steve Roper of the Jasper Fire Department and Chief Harold Cantrell of the Jasper Police Department spoke to the council about the difficulty of finding residences when they are not numbered properly.
“It is just hard trying to find you when things are not marked well,” said Chief Roper. “Sometimes it is nearly impossible.”
A plan was outlined by the council that will increase the visibility of addresses for emergency service vehicles. The plan includes placing new street signs and enforcing residential and commercial addressing codes already on the books.
The mayor, who asked all Jasper residents and business owners to clearly identify their building by posting clear and visible address numbers, said, “We want citizens to understand that this is an attempt to make call times shorter.”
Currently, the fine for refusing to display a street address is $25.
New street signs will (in addition to the street name) display an address number and an arrow pointing in the direction of the number. For example, a street sign with a 200 and an arrow pointing to the right signifies that all addresses on that street from 200 upward will be to the right.
The new signs will help keep emergency service responders from taking incorrect turns and, according to Councilman John Foust, “If it saves a life and gets us there a little quicker, it’s worth it.”

Three-month
conversion audit completed
Edgar Land, of Land and Associates, presented the City of Jasper’s audit for the months of September through December of 2007 at Monday’s council meeting.
The unusually short audit, which covers only three months, was completed as the final step in moving the end of the city’s fiscal year from September 30 to December 31, the end of the calendar year.
Land gave a brief report of his company’s findings, recommending only that the city ask its department heads to “polish up the approval of time cards,” which means all city employees may be asked to have their timecards signed by a supervisor in the future.
Land complimented the city’s cooperation during the auditing process, saying, “This is the quickest turnaround we have ever done on something like this.”
Other topics on the agenda:
•The City of Jasper will soon be changing their employee health care plans and will be saving the city some big bucks – 15 to 20 percent, to be exact.
The city is moving from a straight PPO to a joint PPO and POS plan, which actually improves employee benefits.
The city will remain with their current provider Blue Cross Blue Shield. However, they will be working directly with BCBS, rather than working through the middleman company GMA as they do now.
Two insurance plans were presented to the council for consideration, but according to Financial Director Tacie Williams, “No matter what plan you go with, we come out leaps and bounds ahead of where we’re at now.”
• The council proclaimed the month of March 2008 American Red Cross Week in Jasper. Andy Thompson, Director of Community Services for the Red Cross, who accepted the honor, thanked the city for its cooperation and said, “We appreciate this very much.”
•The week of March 3, 2008 was proclaimed Ben Langley week, in honor of the life and service of Dr. Langley of Mt. Zion Baptist Church.