Post by mayoreva on Apr 25, 2008 21:49:26 GMT -5
April 2008 Newsletter
Happy Spring J
March was a very busy and enjoyable month for Town Hall.
The children’s Easter Egg Hunt and the Community Egg Hunt were enjoyed by everyone, young and old alike! Children received a nice prize for their participation. Many of the prizes were donated from the Veterans and Visitors Center in Kimball. A big thank you to Fred Rash for providing such delightful “Hints” for the Community Easter Egg Hunt. Many people came by Town Hall to pick-up a copy of the hints. They said they did not hunt the eggs, but liked to figure out where the eggs were hidden.J Charlie Haines family found one Egg in Pageton, which was hidden close to a railroad bridge; several members of the Johnson family hit the jackpot by finding three eggs. One was hidden across from the old Boys camp in Leckie, one was found in the hollow across from the Mayor‘s house, and the last one was found under the edge of a large rock close to the Trussle in Jenkinjones! The prize money was made possible through donations and a 50/50 raffle by members of the Beautification committee.
    
The Community get together during Easter Weekend was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time. Several mission groups came to visit and brought supplies for the schoolchildren, clothing, household items, furniture, and words of hope and prayer for our Town and the surrounding communities. The furniture was very nice and was given to those with a need. If anyone has a need, please call Town Hall at 383-2993 and we will place you on the needs list. We cannot promise we will be able to find everything you request, but through the many groups willing to help, we will do what we can.
There were many people unloading the furniture and helping with the clothing give-a-way and it is impossible to thank everyone so if you helped in any way, please know you are very much appreciated! We could not have done it without YOU.
A special THANK YOU to Donnie Farmer, Henry Paul Woolridge, Arnita Moore, Becky Grahovac and her daughters, Tammy Mitchel, Dorthory Montgomery, Robert Rash, Wanona Paul, and the Fire Department for their help with the activities. J.D. Rhodes, who was once a resident of Anawalt made donations including money, prizes, candy, and purchased Easter outfits for two young citizens of our town. He also brought flower bulbs and seeds for us to plant during our beautification project. Another previous resident, Bobby Rhodes donated money to help with prizes for the children. Dale Walker delivered Easter Baskets to many of the Elderly Citizens who are shut-in. Local volunteers donated food and assistance for the community get together on Friday evening. Members of the Denton Community Baptist Church and Archdale Faith Baptist Church from North Carolina treated the community to a scrumptious Spaghetti Dinner and provided beautiful gospel singing on Saturday. Bible Study completed the evening.
Beautification and Clean-up: Several circumstances caused the A.L.L. Club (Anawalt, Leckie, Little Creek) to have to postpone their clean up; however Delmar Winebarger brought the inmates to pick up litter along Peeled Chestnut Mountain. Thank-You!
It is often hard to schedule a time for people to get together so if you are interested in the beautification of a particular area and are willing to volunteer, then work on it as you find the time. This can be a “spot“, an area along the creek bank, along the roadside, or town property. Please let us know what area you plan to work on so a picture can be taken. A prize will be given to the person or group who makes the most improvement in an area.
Litter Getters to be in area: The Solid Waste Authority, the County Commissioners, Magistrates, Law enforcement agencies and Municipalities are joining effort to clean up our county. Clean up must start in our own yards before we will see our towns and our county move forward. Patricia Blevins from the McDowell County Solid Waste Authority is patrolling the towns as Officer Wendell Hatfield patrols the unincorporated areas. ALL residents of our county and towns are being asked to join the effort to “Clean It/Green It”. The county has stressed the fact that the “State Litter Getters” will arrive in April and travel throughout the county giving citations to those who are not abiding by the law. This is something we have been trying to address for years. We have tried having beautifications projects, community clean-ups, and educational meetings to discuss the important of keeping our property free of litter and trash. Many of you have participated and we have some very nice yards and beautifully landscaped property throughout the area. To those people, THANK-YOU! For the rest, it is now time to clean-up! If you have let garbage and litter accumulate on your property and it has become an eyesore, you need to clean it up before the litter getters arrive so you will not get a ticket. They have a “zero tolerance” policy. Everyone in our town is required by ordinance to sign up for the Town’s Garbage Service. Most towns in our county have this ordinance and the other towns are in the process of adopting it. The county landfill has a free dump day and bulky items may be disposed of at that time. If you need bulky items hauled off, several local people will be glad to provide that service for a small fee. Call town hall for names of people who may be able to help.
The next Solid Waste Authority meeting will be on May 1, at 5:00 p.m. in the County Commission’s Office in Welch. The Public is invited to attend.
Rumor Groomer: A comment was made a couple weeks ago concerning the council meetings that I want to address in case anyone else has questions about your governing body. The comment was “that we were having council meetings without a quorum” and that is not true. The governing body is made up of the mayor, the recorder, and five council members; All seven are allowed by State Code to vote. Out of the seven, we must have five present and three of those must be council members. We have two council members who seldom come to a meeting, which they say is due to their work schedules. I believe those two council members attended four meetings last year and none this year; however, if the others are present, that constitutes a quorum. We have changed the meetings around several times to try and find a date the two council members could attend, such as evenings and Saturdays; however, they still have not attended meetings. If one of the three faithful council members cannot attend, we have to reschedule our meetings. We encourage everyone, especially Anawalt residents, to come to the meetings so you will know that business in our town is being conducted, as it should be. As you know over the past months, we have been audited by the State Auditor and by the West Virginia Public Service Commission and both have determined that we run our town properly. They made some very favorable comments about our town and both audits are on file in the Town Hall if you would like to inspect the documents. J
The Town HAS INSURANCE. We pay over $1,000.00 per month for that Insurance. The policy is on file at Town Hall if anyone should like to see it.
New Vehicles….well new to us anyway We just received money to purchase a dump truck for the Town! We contacted the County Commission and explained that our garbage truck was getting old and often broke down, which left us unable to provide garbage service to our customers. We felt that if we had a large truck to use in our town, it would provide back up for the garbage department and could be used for other needs as well. We will now be able to pick up gravel, mulch, and other items when needed instead of having to pay someone to do that for us. We often have to pay to have surplus items hauled off when groups bring in items for the people in our area and not all of it is used. Now we can cut some of those expenses, thanks to our County Commission!
As you know, the police car was “totaled” in a police pursuit; however, we have been able to purchase another car from the City of War. We are thankful that Mayor Hatcher made this vehicle available to us.
We have also been awarded two grants from the Governor’s office, which total $13,000 through the efforts of Senator Truman Chafin and Senator John Pat Fanning! We requested these two grants to help with the many expenses we encountered during the drought last summer and for some additional repairs we need to make. These grants will be “drawn down” as we send in invoices to be paid. This process is not done overnight due to the many steps we have to take to assure the money is spent wisely. We are thankful that our Senators and Governor continues to have faith in us and sees that we are doing our very best to continue to be a sustainable town.
I believe, as the economy improves throughout our county, we will see our town change for the better…IF…we prepare for it. We have already had inquires about housing for people working on the prison in Welch. We need to think about basic needs, such as facilities where people can stay, restaurants, service stations, and stores, if we want this to remain a viable community where people will want to live.
If you have a talent or a hobby, think about how you can turn that into a business. I recently heard some young adults say they would like to grow a garden but didn’t have any idea where to start…maybe you could teach others the skills needed for this and in the process, sell the produce or canned foods….fresh produce and canned garden foods…now how good does that sound? The Council of Southern Mountains has programs to help you start a small business. Classes are taught at the new Ashland project on starting new businesses. Sharon Walden at Safe can give you more information if you are interested.

We have a beautiful lake, which has been promoted for years. This has paid off, which is obvious by the people from other areas who come here to fish. A bait shop could become a great home business. Another venture could be selling drinks, snacks, sandwiches or hotdogs at the lake. There are many opportunities, but they will not come to you, you have to want to succeed in life.
Success = the achievement of something planned or attempted. Let us make some plans, attempt to do them, and then we will succeed!
A class on budgeting will be scheduled within the next few weeks IF anyone is interested. This is a very good class to show you some of the ways to make your money s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Call Town Hall to sign up. The class is free and will be taught at the community room.
Activities for April: Karaoke on April 26 in the Park from 3:00 until 7:00 featuring HONDO. If the weather is bad, we will move into the community room.
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." (Rabindranath Tagore)
God Bless,
Mayor Eva Sue Rash