Outside auditor praises Rocky Top for ‘great’ year with ‘no negative findings’
Rocky Top City Hall is where the City Council meets the third Thursday of every month. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
“The year was very great,” he said, noting that Rocky Top ended the period with $11.9 million in assets, and the city’s general-fund revenues were up $700,000 from the previous year.
“There were no negative findings” in the audit, said Cates, who works for the Knoxville accounting firm Mitchell Emert & Hill, P.C.
All of the city’s financial reports were submitted to the state on time, as well, the auditor noted.
The audit showed no negative findings or recommendations for the sixth year in a row.
In other business Thursday:
• The water/sewer rehabilitation project now underway is scheduled to be completed by March 27, Tyler Rutherford of project engineers Cannon & Cannon told the City Council.
In relation to that, the council approved two change orders for additional work that resulted from problems detected during the ongoing project.
Repaving of some of the roads affected by the project work was delayed or canceled because of cost overruns for asphalt, Rutherford said.
• The council approved on first reading Ordinance 598, which revises the Municipal Personnel Policy manual.
No details were given about what changes are being made in the policy, but it still must be approved on second/final reading at a future council meeting for it to take effect.
• City Manager Mike Ellis said that a contract to purchase the former Martin Funeral Home building and property at 225 S. Main St. is now being drawn up by the city’s attorney.
The owners of the property last year agreed to accept the city’s offer of $125,000 for the property, which the city intends to use for a public parking lot in the downtown area.
“We will never see development until we have dedicated parking downtown,” Mayor Kerry Templin told the council in March, just before the council voted to make the $125,000 offer to the property owners.
“There is no public parking [downtown] now; all parking is privately owned,” he said.
Plans are to remove the building, which has been vacant for several years.
Templin believes the area where the building is now, along with the vacant lot next to it, would provide parking for a variety of new businesses in the area.
He said part of the property was once the site of a downtown gasoline station, so there are still “at least four old fuel tanks in the ground” that would need to be removed, which is an environmentally necessary operation.
