Tree Lighting Ceremony, Meeting & My Opinions

La Vergne's official tree lighting ceremony is this Monday (December 4th) at 6:00 p.m. The monthly City Council will follow at 6:30 p.m. The meeting is earlier because the National League of Cities conference begins Tuesday. I am personally very pleased to see that our city officials (and hopefully administrators) attend this. It's a great opportunity to learn from our counterparts from across the nation and to bring home new ideas that will improve our own community.

Some of the sessions I think look interesting are:

• Keeping People in Their Homes: Foreclosure Prevention in Your Community
• Emergency Preparedness: Caring for the Children
• How to Achieve Economic Success in a Global Market (but the regional panel may be more appropriate)
• Creative Tools to Finance City Services
• Reinventing Affordable Housing: Use Community Building Strategies to Increase Home Ownership
• Electronic Engagement: How Local Leaders Can Use Technology to Interact and Communicate with Citizens

Yeah, I like that last one. A lot.

And one more suggestion if any of our city leaders are reading: Could you focus again on removing all those horrible yard signs that are polluting our community... home equity signs, anti-foreclosure signs, etc. As a realtor, I try hard to respect our city mandates, and other people need to observe the city's sign ordinance as well. If I have to keep looking at these signs everywhere, I'm going to positively throw up:



Thank you very much.

PS - Angie Mayes said the trip to France isn't "officially" off yet. Guess the dudes in charge have to call it.