The council and I would like to thank all the citizens who turned out in the down pour on Election Day to voice your opinion. The election was very successful and the citizens of Carbon Hill were ready for a change. As you know we have several departments that have lost funding because of no more bingo, we are hoping that with the sale of alcohol we will not miss a beat on giving funding to these departments.

When the State done away with the electric bingo they also done away with funding to our Fire dept., cemetery board, senior center, and our park and rec. so for the past few years these departments have been Funded by the bingo now the city has to step up and start funding them again.For those of you who wonder where the money that comes in form the sale of alcohol is going to be going, myself and the council have decided to set up a account for this money and if a certain department needs money it will be brought before the council and voted on, otherwise the money will set in this account and draw interest.

The city swimming pool will not be open this summer because of the construction and rehilibation of the existing pool will be going on at that time. We were awarded a $250,000 grant for this project and we will be bidding this grant out very soon for construction.

This year brings new opportunities for the changes that we have made, some things that we will be trying to do this year will be applying for more grants to improve our infrastructure in paving roads, fixing outdated water pipes and looking for ways to improve the overall safety and appearance of our city, we had success last year in cleaning up old houses and overgrown lots, we plan on starting the nuisance abatement letters up again as soon as the weather clears up some and I believe we can have the same success as last year if not more, also in September we will be having a homecoming celebration for past and present citizens of our great city, we will have a dedication ceremony for the unveiling of our history monument, along with games, arts and crafts, car show and lots more we will be putting more information on the web site as it becomes available.

I would like to thank you for allowing me to serve you as Mayor of this great city for this past year and I look forward to serving for the next 3 years and making the necessary changes to move Carbon Hill forward. Thank you for your support and kind words of encouragement, by standing together and encouraging each other we CAN accomplish our goal of a better, safer and more beautiful Carbon Hill .