Chamber looks at ways to grow Covered Bridge Festival

Every June vendors, entertainers and visitors descend on downtown Elizabethton to take part in the annual Covered Bridge Celebration.

[Elmer Gantry]

"Chamber looks at ways to grow Covered Bridge Festival

Every June vendors, entertainers and visitors descend on downtown Elizabethton to take part in the annual Covered Bridge Celebration..."

Simple enough...move up the covered bridge celebration to the week ending with July 4th

[Elmer Gantry]

I am thinking that the city should also follow the advice of the consulant who was hired to make recommendations for downtown Elizabethton.

(1) the city should remove all of those cheap plastic-looking lamp fixtures that someone in their infinite wisdom though would look better on the sidewalk canopy that was constructed during the early 1970s --- and remove that stupid looking plastic strip as well, and replease those original round globes;

(2) pressure wash all of the downtown sidewalks beginning during the spring and following up past the covered bridge celebration;

(3) remove all of those stupid (and at some intersections, dangerous) brick planters from downtown Elizabethton;

(4) the City of Elizabethton should develop a plan to conmdemn and/or buy older houses and buildings on S. Sycamore between city hall and the city garage whenever these properties are listing for sale within the local real estate market (including the old green house directly across the street from the Elizabethton City Hall...raze/demolish all of these downtown eye sores and put in more green spaces in and about the downtown Elizabethton area;

(5) construct and designate RV/tour bus parking pads in or nearby the downtown Elizabethton area and promote the cobered bridge events to tour bus operators;

(6) set up special parking areas in the downtown city park (near the baseball field and the Doe River) for Covered Bridge Celebration venders arriving in their own self-contained RVs;

(7) if the July 4th date might not pan out during the planning stages, then move the Elizabethton Covered Brideg Celebration to end during the same weekend as the August NASCAR races in Bristol (duh);

Finally, the downtown merchants should all get together and agree to some sort of unified and >>> voluntary downtown Elizabethton store front appearance plan where the property owners along Elk Avenue and parts of Sycamore would receive a nominal tax credit for painting or repainting their store exteriors of all the same color (a relatively inexpensive semi-gross white perhaps)--- a couple good coats of fresh paint will cover up a multitutde of appearance problems in the downtown area put soem locals to work painting in downtown Elizabethton.

[draftdodger]

If historic is the look they want the canopy needs to go allso it hides the historic store fronts they could be made to really look nice.Just my opinion

[June]

With the jail construction going on,there will be less parking. They need to think of a way to shuttle people in.

[Elmer Gantry]

The brick canopies are just as "historic" as most of the buildings downtown, just of a different area (many of the downtown buildings were built following the Rayon Boom of the late 1920s while the downtown canopy was build during the early 1970s)...

Removing the canopies will not likely make any significant difference in achieving sustained customer foot traffic through the downtown area businesses as changing customer shopping patterns strating during the late 1960s-through the 1970s (shopping malls and larger discount stores), coupled with the closure of the large rayon mills is what put the stake into the heart of downtown Elizabethton.

The Elizabethton City Council should be allocating resources toward downtown based on current consumer behavior and not trying to rebuild the sandcastles of the 1920s through the 1950s when rayon was king and downtown was the place to shop.

[draftdodger]

As allways Mr Ornduff and a select few will deside what will be done In my opinion

[HHS85]

Who the hell care about that damn covered bridge?!
We are not a toursit town! We need something besides restruarts and walmart in this town. Everyone complains about the school systems get some industry in here to pay the teachers what they deserve!!!

Parents get off your ass and do your job. Help your child with homework, take them to school and spend time with them!!!

Lets focus on real issuses!!

[ccresident]

HHS85 wrote:

Who the hell care about that damn covered bridge?!
We are not a toursit town! We need something besides restruarts and walmart in this town. Everyone complains about the school systems get some industry in here to pay the teachers what they deserve!!!
Parents get off your ass and do your job. Help your child with homework, take them to school and spend time with them!!!
Lets focus on real issuses!!

you've got the right idea!

[Elizabethton]

And it would probably go a long way to amend the city leash law and require dog owners to pick up after dogs by properly bagging and disposing of their canine's poop...and pass a city ordinance banning pets (other than seeing eye dogs or other diable-assist animals) from being brought inside of city buildings.