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Good things are happening in Cotter; it's a great time to be here! |
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Happy Birthday,
Cotter!
Centennial Steering Committee To Meet
February 18th
The next meeting of the Cotter Saturday Club
will be held at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, February 21 at the Spring House. The
program, which will be presented by Anne Ramey, will be on the early
history of the area which would become Cotter and its earliest Native
American inhabitants. We hope you can join us for this very special
Literacy Council Volunteers Needed in
Cotter As a Cotter literacy council volunteer, you might provide one-on-one tutoring in math or reading at the Cotter schools; teach an adult to read; help a Cotter teenager with algebra homework; teach a new American how to speak English or help an adult get his GED diploma. The Twin Lakes Literacy Council provides free training and materials for tutoring. In fact, we’re having our next training at Gassville Community Center on Saturday, February 21st from 8:30 to 5:00. Please call Nancy Tester at 425-7323 if you’d like to help someone else - or if you know of someone who needs a little help.
Cotter Volunteer Fire Department Activities First, I would like to praise all of our dedicated volunteers. Already in January, we have responded to several calls including two "house saving" fire calls. Four of our firefighters are currently attending the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) class. This is a big commitment on the part of these people. The class is 160 hours of instructional time over five months. Training includes 36 hours of clinical time spent either in the hospital emergency room or on one of the ambulances. At the January City Council meeting, John & Lucy Urban and Jan Halligan were honored for their service to the fire department and/or Auxiliary. The inside of the station is being cleaned up and spruced up. A few of the firefighters and auxiliary members have donated time along with some community service workers to clean and paint the interior of the fire station. The Auxiliary has met and set the date of our annual supper for March 20th. Mark your calendars, and more details will follow in next month's news. The grant monies awarded this fall have been put to good use with the purchase of four new sets of SCBA's (self-contained breathing apparatus) and some additional sets of protective gear (turn-outs). And finally, we are joining the 21st century with the addition of a computer. This will be used to report all our fire and rescue calls online to the NFIR's system (National Fire Incident Reporting). In addition, we will be able to receive notification about training classes throughout the state and to keep updated inventory and personnel records. Great Cotter Trout Festival Is April 30-May 1st Plans for the third annual "Great Cotter Trout Festival" are rapidly taking shape. New events are being added, and the trout festival should be bigger and better than ever. The festival will open Friday evening, April 30th with an authentic White River Shore Lunch fish fry and music at the pavilion at Big Spring Park. Saturday will be filled with great food & entertainment, trout fishing and other attractions for the whole family. A major addition this year is the "White River Shore Lunch Cook-off." Fishing guides will compete for bragging rights for the best shore lunch on the White River. Details are being worked and the competition will include other surprises.
Another addition is the "Antique Tackle River
Show." Patterned after the popular television series "Antiques Road Show,"
festival visitors can bring their old fishing tackle to the event and have
appraisals done by experts. Collectors are invited to set up tables and
have fun in an old fashioned swap meet. This event is especially
appropriate during Cotter’s Centennial Year. A river boat show and sale will be featured, and multiple boat builders are expected to display their latest designs. For festival information contact Festival Chairman, Gary Flippin, at 870-435-6144 or Sonny Sharp at 870-492-4483. Lodging and other information about the Cotter area can be found at http://www.cotterarkansas.com.
To let you know that we are not only concerned, but are doing something about the stray animal problem, we are working on hiring a trained and licensed person to patrol the city, looking for stray, unlicensed dogs and cats. Several years ago, we had a person that not only patrolled, but also responded to calls about problem animals. It worked very well and within a short period, the problem was almost eliminated. Very soon I hope to report that we are able to start the same type program. We will of course, announce in the media that dog and cat owners need to start obeying the leash laws and get annual licenses for their animals. In this imperfect world, your neighbors are not always in love with your pets and are truly bothered when their trash containers are upset and garbage strewn all over, and their gardens and yards are fouled by animals free to roam. I will keep you posted. The weather has certainly been good to us so far this winter. Ronnie and Richard started sanding the streets before dawn when we were to get at least one inch of snow. The streets were so cold that the sleet/snow just blew off. They parked the sand loaded trucks and waited. The snow never developed, so they reported that we had dodged the bullet again and went back home. We are lucky to have a team that will do anything necessary to make it possible for us to get to work on time following a winter storm. People have asked why it takes so long for us to start working on a water leak. One reason is that we cannot start digging until the other utilities have been notified and respond to mark the location of their pipes or cables. This is called: “Arkansas One-Call”, and a fine is levied if the other Utilities are not notified that we need to dig in a certain area.
Recently a leak was noticed and reported by a citizen about 4:00 PM. I
went with Richard to check the condition of the leak. We determined that
it was small enough to wait until morning to repair. He volunteered to
check later that evening, and found the dirt had washed away and allowed
the leak to become a serious one that was affecting the pressure in the
area and would soon have a affect on the storage tanks. Had this been on a
state highway like Denton Ferry Road, Harding Boulevard, or Cotter Road
(345) we cannot dig until we get permission from the state, and post a
$500.00 bond to complete the job to their satisfaction. It is not always
possible to fix a leak as quickly as we would like.
Judging from the looks of the new railings and other new concrete parts on
our Ruthven Bridge, I am anxious to get it back into service. It will be
nice to drive west without going around to the new bridge.
Also please volunteer to help with our other festivals.
City Supports Economic Development;
Honors Fire Dept Retiring fire chief, John Urban, was honored by the city with kind words of appreciation and a commemorative plaque. Mrs. Urban was presented with a bouquet of red roses. The Cotter VFD honored their retiring chief with a fire axe with plaque mounted on a decorative wood backing. Judy Wells presented an album of pictures that chronicled Cotter’s firefighters during this past year. Also, Jan Halligan was honored for her service as training officer and Captain of the EMT’s. Special thanks were given to Debbie Simmons recent supervision of community service work in the fire station. In other matters:
During public comment, Beverly Pence, new President of the Cotter Area Chamber of Commerce, announced that the Chamber will make Cotter’s Centennial the theme of this year’s fall festival. Mayor Jennings appointed Councilman Gil Stammer, as point of contact for the City to help coordinate and support Centennial Celebrations during 2004. Cotter 2025-Progress Action Task Force Presents Results For some months, a group of volunteers have been meeting to formulate a plan for “a unified community approach to accomplish our common goal of restoring and revitalizing Cotter to make it an even more attractive place to live and do business.” The group will use the Cotter 2025 plan, developed in the summer of 1999 by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, as a roadmap. The report is online at http://www.cotter2025.com and progress reports on the projects will be added soon. Listed below are the current ongoing projects in Cotter, as identified by 2025-Progress. Many of these projects already have volunteers doing the work on them, but others need people or groups to take responsibility for their completion. If your group has other projects not mentioned here, please contact Carolyn Gill, co-chairperson of 2025-Progress.
The group, in an earlier “brainstorming” session, has come up with another group of projects it proposes. They call this their list of Dreams & Things.
The Cotter 2025-Progress group meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m. at the Spring House. All residents of the city of Cotter and others interested in the restoration and revitalization of the community are urged to attend.
Saturday Club and Care Crew to
Undertake
The Cotter Saturday Club, the oldest club in
Cotter, was founded in 1911 or earlier by a group of women who met weekly
as an embroidery or “fancywork” club. The Saturday Club and the Cotter
Care Crew have chosen to undertake project #34, placing markers at
Cotter’s historical sites, in the list prepared by Cotter 2025-Progress.
This list is preliminary and not meant to
exclude other sites or buildings. Suggestions from the public for other
sites are highly encouraged. |
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Saturday
Club Presents Early Area History:
Mayor's
minute