DUANE SHERRILLEditor

Alderman Busch Thoma questioned the pace at which parking areas in the city are being fixed after saying the parking lot near Kroger still looks like a minefield.

“I’ve driven through there and it still looks like a minefield,” said Alderman Busch Thoma of the city’s initiative to work with business owners to fix up parking areas around Tullahoma. “Do we have any teeth in that?”

His comments came even as a paving initiative began at the Forrest Gallery Shopping Center where Kroger is located. However, Thoma’s concerns still extend to several other parking areas around the city that are rife with potholes.

The city attorney Brittany Hoskins said Tullahoma is in the process of working with the codes department to empower the city to issue citations. However, as the code is now the citation can only be issued to a private individual.

“We can’t issue those to business,” she said. “So we are going to bring you an ordinance to pass to give the power to be able to issue citations to the businesses and then maybe we can get their attention.”

She noted that several businesses have been reached out to concerning the degraded condition of their parking lots.

“That don’t seem to be working out very well,” she said. “So we are going to try to take action.”

Thoma agreed with the attorney. “I think we really need to beat that up,” he said.

The attorney said that presently the enforcement agency has its hands tied but a stronger code would allow better enforcement by citing businesses.

It was also asked of the attorneys if the city is required to pave areas like behind the mall.

“The mall is private property, that’s the owner’s responsibility,” city attorney Stephen Worsham said.

The attorneys did not say exactly when they will bring the proposed new ordinance before the board but it was understood it will be in the near future. In the past few months, the city has reportedly been contacting business owners in hopes of working with them to improve their parking lots.