DeKalb Countians Urged to Help with Local Cleanup

June 15, 2020
By:

Although there will not be an official DeKalb County Clean Up Day this year, the Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce and the DeKalb County Mayor’s office would like to encourage residents across the county to participate in helping to keep DeKalb County looking nice by picking up litter around your neighborhoods, parks, ballfields, and other community gathering places. Beautiful, clean public and residential areas positively impact the lives of its area residents, visitors, and businesses.

County Mayor Tim Stribling says, “We invite people to help clean up around our communities and highways. This year, folks are welcome to pick up litter at places of their choice at their own convenience.”

Suzanne Williams, Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce stated, “Even with the recent changes and challenges, like our events being canceled or postponed due to the recent pandemic, we still hope that everyone will do their part to keep our county looking beautiful and ready for the visitors who are already starting to come. Whether you’re cleaning up around a street, a highway, park, ball field, stream, or your own home, what a difference we can make through working together to make our communities safer, healthier and more livable!”

We all have a role to play in the prevention of litter. It takes just one person, one school, one business, one organization to positively impact the behavior of others in their community.

Everyone is invited to post your DeKalb County Clean Up pictures on the Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber FaceBook page. So, Don’t Just Sit There…Do Something Beautiful!

June 14, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

Members of the DeKalb County Board of Education Thursday night got their first look at a preliminary schematic site plan for a proposed new pre-kindergarten to 2nd grade school to be located on North Congress Boulevard near Northside Elementary.

Site Plan for New School

Brian Templeton of Upland Design Group, the Board’s architect, gave a general overview of the project and the issues that must be addressed going forward.

The board plans to buy 24.6 acres for the new school and has budgeted $500,000 for the 2020-21 fiscal year using its own funds to cover the purchase subject to approval by the county commission. There will be additional costs for site preparation.

In an effort to save money, Templeton said the proposed size of the building has been reduced from an earlier plan but the layout would be similar.

“We looked at a quick re-modification of the floor plan that we generated initially. Originally we were looking at a 900 pupil school and the square footage that was around 128,000. For this plan we have reduced the classroom count and brought the square footage down to 118,524. That is classroom space for 800 students,” said Templeton.

“The school would have a traditional look. We kept the core essentially the same from the original plan with the gym, cafeteria, administration area, library, and support spaces all located toward the front with classroom wings on either side of the building. Each wing would also have its own outdoor playground area”.

The plan includes a car drop off lane for students at the front of the building with a bus drop off and turnaround at the rear of the school. A special parking- drop off area and car turnaround would accommodate pre-k students and parents.

The new school would have its own entrance just south of the Family Medical Center property.

Although a more in-depth traffic study will have to be commissioned by the Board, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has already been contacted about the site.

“We reached out to TDOT to get their reaction and opinion on what a new school would have at this location, what it would do to traffic, and what they would require as far as stack space, etc. (entrance, drop off and pick up lanes and parking),” said Templeton.

“There is an existing roadway just below the parking lot of the doctor’s office. TDOT wants us to use that (as the entrance to the campus). The response we got back from TDOT was that they didn’t see an issue with building on this site and having access for a school population of 800. We need more information to get specifics out of them (TDOT) but based upon the numbers and the actual site TDOT told us they didn’t see the need for adding a turn lane or doing anything (to Highway 56/North Congress) to be able to handle capacity right off the road on this (school) site. It would just be a matter of meeting the stack space requirements. Our recommendation is to do the traffic study. That would be beneficial in that the traffic engineer, after taking into consideration the new load from this school plus Northside, would be able to tell us specifically what is needed to be done and if we have that (study) TDOT will follow it because they are generally looking for an expert to essentially have a plan to say this is how we are handling traffic. Long story short, this site could accommodate a school. Its just a matter of meeting the stack space requirements. We are currently showing a lot of asphalt and stack space. Once we have the traffic study then we will be able to go back and refine it. This is a complicated site in that you are trying to get traffic from one school to the other but I think this plan is right for you because it enables you to provide an opportunity for parents to stack and drop students off and then be able to get over to Northside without getting back on the highway,” said Templeton.

Core drilling results also reveal that the site is suitable for a school.

“We issued an RFP (Request for Proposal) for bids to do sub-surface investigation and GEO Services of Lebanon was the low bidder. About 2 to 3 weeks ago they came to the site and drilled several borings. In four places they hit shallow rock roughly about 2 to 2.5 feet below the surface and as they moved further down the hill it got a little deeper,” Templeton said.

The site mostly also measured well as to the stiffness (shear strength properties) of the soil.

“The blow count measures the stiffness of the soil. The higher the blow count the stiffer the soil is. Anything above a 6 is suitable to do a spreads footing on for single story construction. This was very stiff soil. Two areas were a little softer but we are locating the building higher on the site anyway so we should not have any issues. We have tried to make the footprint of the building more dense so it would require less fill to be able to get everything on the same level,” said Templeton.

The board had anticipated $200,000 in costs for site preparation. Templeton said the actual cost should be half that amount.

“We did the math and probably about $100,000 in the whole scheme of things is what will be needed as far as additional costs (site prep) and that would allow us to be able to provide a buffer between the footings and the bedrock consistent across the course of the building and then also allow room for us to get the utilities out without having to get in and do rock excavations. Basically what the contractor is going to do is strip the top soil and bring it in to give us whatever clearances we need for foundations and utilities so we can build that pad but as far as remedial work, from what we have seen, as long as we stay out of those lower areas everything looks very stiff. From a soil bearing capacity, you have no issues here. There is no wetland in the areas we are looking to build on,” added Templeton.

After the traffic study is completed Upland Design will need to refine the plan with more specifics of the building project. However, the school board may have to ante up a little more money for Upland’s continued services.

“We were under contract to do roughly about $40,000 worth of work. I think to this point we have used all that time. If you move forward with this property there is some additional work that could be done. For a little bit more, maybe less than $10,000 we could continue to refine the design. It still needs to be worked on. It is not a complete finished product at this point but at least it shows how a building could be placed on the site and how to get the (traffic) circulation in and around it and how it (school campus) could interface with Northside. When you present this again to the county commission it would be good to show them the design, site plan, floor plan, square footage, rendering and estimated costs because people want to see what it is and know what they are investing in,” said Templeton.

Site Plan for New School

June 14, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

The Smithville Municipal Swimming Pool is expected to open Thursday, June 18.

Pool hours will be from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and from 1 until 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission remains at $2.00 per person.

Due to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, admission to the pool will be limited to no more than 50 people at a time. Pool patrons and employees must also have their temperatures checked and answer health related questions before they enter the gate.

“Normally we could have up to 200 swimmers in our pool but this year we can have no more than 50 inside the gate. We will check everyone’s temperature. We will ask questions and get their names. It will be the same for our employees. We will take their temperatures too. If anyone’s temperature exceeds 100.4 degrees we can’t let them in the gate,” said Pool Manager Jeania Cawthorn.

The pool will have no lounge chairs or picnic tables available this summer and the water slides will be closed but swimmers may use the diving boards.

Designated pool use times will be set aside for persons with disabilities.

“This year we are going to do something different for people with disabilities. We will open the pool from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. for them. That way its not noisy and chaotic for them,” said Cawthorn.

Patrons may also take advantage of other offerings including swimming lessons, water aerobics, and pool parties.

“We will do water aerobics on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. and swimming lessons will begin in July for those ages 3 and older. If children are afraid of the water and need assistance we will ask a parent to get in the pool with them because we can’t touch them this year. Normally we would hold them and the boards and noodles but this year we are not going to touch them (due to COVID-19). We will also be doing pool parties at night (2 hours for $200),” Cawthorn said.

The pool normally opens on the Memorial Day weekend but that had to be delayed this year due to COVID-19 and because of needed repairs to the pool and the lack of available lifeguards.

The pool has now been patched up and the needed chemicals added. Cawthorn also got a good response after issuing the latest plea for more lifeguards. She now has 19 lifeguards who have become certified and are ready to go to work.

The pool will stay open until school reopens.

“We will go by the school schedule. Usually we will stay open one week past the school reopening because all of our lifeguards go back to school too,” said Cawthorn.

The pool is not restricted to only local people as is the case in other counties.

“Everybody is welcome. We will take the first 50 people and then we shut the gate,” Cawthorn concluded.

Plans are to have a back to school bash at the end of summer in which children will be offered free admission.

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