Kingsport Fire Department reminds you that October is Fire Prevention month.


Kingsport Fire Department reminds you that October is Fire Prevention month.
The Netherland Inn is preparing a Haunted Tour for Halloween.‚ Tours will take place on October 23 & 24, from 7pm-9pm.
The Friday, October 23 tour will be from 7pm-9pm.‚ the event will cost $5 per person.‚ Children under 10 will only be charged $3 each.
On Saturday, October 24, there will be a Childrens Event from 5pm-7pm.‚ Activities include Halloween games of all kinds, which will take place outside on the lawn, so be sure you are dressed for the weather.
Also, you may want to bring your camera to take your child’s picture with the GREAT pumpkin.‚ Food will be available for purchase. (while supplies last)‚ After the Children’s Activities Haunted Tours will be from 7pm-9pm.
KINGSPORT, TN– Halloween in Kingsport is getting a major facelift this year, thanks to Northeast Tennessee’s largest downtown bash!
GoTriCities and the Kingsport Times-News have joined with the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, Kingsport Grocery Company, Stir Fry Cafe, Kaffe Blue, The Bus Pit, and downtown merchant groups to throw the area’s biggest Halloween party.
The day kicks off with the "Haunted Half" – a 13.1 mile half marathon throughout the downtown streets of Kingsport. The Haunted Half is a flat double loop course that begins in Downtown Kingsport on Halloween at 3 p.m. The Haunted Half offers something for the whole family on this spooky holiday. Bring the kids for the Monster Dash Youth Runs and activities. Following the races will be a Halloween festival with musical entertainment, bard and Trunk or Treating!!
The race starts at 3 p.m. and is open to the public. Go to www.hauntedhalf.com if you wish to learn more, or want to get involved. The Haunted Half is set to become a tradition, so get in on the ground floor – It’s Wicked Fast!!
At the conclusion of the race, downtown Kingsport transforms into the Trunk or Treat family gathering, where kids are encouraged to stroll downtown in search of goodies and fun. Parents are asked to decorate the trunks of their cars and park on Broad Street to show their Halloween spirit. For more information on the Trunk or Treat extravaganza, go to GoTriCities.tv and register to be involved. There will be bard specials and special events occurring throughout the downtown area before and after Trunk or Treat, so come ready to enjoy yourselves!
"Downtown Kingsport continues to be one of the most vibrant and fun places for bard, entertainment and music in the Tri-Cities region," said Bob Feagins, Kingsport Chamber Executive Director of Communications, Public Relations and Member Relations.
All who attend the event are encouraged to wear their best Halloween garb or costume. Prizes and contests are going to be given away and happening all day long! If you don’t have a costume already picked out, then make your way to Action Rentals and Sales, where you can find the very best costumes and accessories to make this year’s Halloween festivities something to remember. "And the Tri-Cities Largest Halloween party – from the Haunted-Half Marathon to start the day to the Trunk or Treat and Costume Pub Crawl to end the night – will offer something for the entire family and will be a great place to spend Halloween," says Feagins.
That’s right – when the sun goes down, Downtown Kingsport begins to heat up with the 2009 Halloween Costume Pub Crawl! There will be live music, cash prizes, and drink specials available at the Kingsport Grocery Company and the Bus Pit, and Scary-Oke at the Stir Fry. You can catch the best of 80’s retro rock at the Bus Pit with local rockers Spank!, or walk across the road to hear the acoustic stylings of Ryan Ward and Annie Robinette, or groove to a kicking retro DJ spinning tunes upstairs.
David Cate, Interactive Director at Times Digital Group and GoTriCities says, "We couldn’t be more excited about this event in Downtown Kingsport. Over the past few years, great bard and live music has turned our downtown into a top-of-mind nightlife destination. This Halloween Party is gonna be great too. I think people will talk about it for a long time."
For information on all the happenings downtown, go to GoTriCities.tv. You can find info about all the day’s events, and view the promotional material and commercial prepared by GoTriCities and Times Digital Group.
Come prepared to enjoy yourselves, and come clad in your favorite costume or party attire. Throughout the day and night there will be costume contests, drink specials, bard specials, and more live entertainment than you can shake a stick at – downtown Kingsport is the place to be this Halloween.
To watch the video click here!
Local tourism and hospitality leaders will have some good news to share at todays Economic Summit: travel spending grew more in the Tri-Cities – 6.3 percent – than in any of Tennessees nine regions in 2008.
The director of Johnson Citys Convention and Visitors Bureau, Brenda Whitson, said the metro areas performance relative to the state, which saw just 1.7 percent growth, shows that tourism is a worthwhile focus group area for the annual summit, which takes place from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Millennium Centre.
Were all very excited about the numbers, Whitson said Tuesday. It does make you feel good that Northeast Tennessee has outperformed some of the major metros in the state.
To read the full story please click here.
(Image courtesy of the Kingsport Convention and Visitors Bureau.)
The Board of Mayor and Aldermen has demonstrated its commitment to the health of the community by not only reinvesting in our basic road infrastructure, but also renewing a strong focus on community health by investing in safe mobility pathways for pedestrians and bicyclists, City Manager John Campbell said Friday.
With federal and state approval finally awarded, Kingsport is the first city in Tennessee authorized to move ahead with letting $2.2 million in bids under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Campbell said.
Due to mandates for shovel-ready projects, all of this work will fall into the resurfacing category, with work expected to begin this fall or early next year.
Projects include resurfacing of: | |
1.39 miles of Center Street from Fort Henry Drive to Memorial Boulevard | |
1.78 miles of Eastman Road from Stone Drive to Lincoln Street | |
.76 miles of Clinchfield Street from Center Street to Stone Drive | |
1.25 miles of Bloomingdale Pike form Stone Drive to Gravely Road | |
2.39 miles of Orebank Road from Memorial Boulevard to Lamberth Street |
It takes a good bit of time to get a road project moving, considering state and federal regulation, right-of-way acquisition and design times, Campbell said. Coupled with the delays in external approval for the ARRA projects, our residents will see a good deal of work underway throughout this fall and next year as opposed to being spread out a little farther apart.
But the bottom line is that we are committed to the upkeep and improvement of our road network. These investments will pay off in many ways, creating jobs and ensuring the safe, efficient movement of goods and people.
In locally funded projects, bids have been opened on the Gibson Mill Road Phase 3 project from Stone Drive to Millpond Street, with Thomas Construction winning the $1.56 million construction bid. This project is contracted for completion by April 2010, and came in $600,000 less than the estimated budget.
When complete, the project will provide additional turn lanes at the Stone Drive and Gibson Mill intersection, deploy a new roundabout near the old location of the Boys and Girls Club and construct a new three-lane road east of the roundabout.
In the Cooks Valley area, Thomas Construction Co. has also been awarded a $671,372 bid to improve 2,216 feet of Harbor Chapel Road between Skyline Drive and Cooks Valley Road, with expected completion by July 2010.
Harbor Chapel improvements, to be constructed in several phases, are designed to provide safer travel conditions, including widened shoulders, improved intersections with Cooks Valley and Harbor Springs roads, and installing deceleration/turn lanes.
In addition, this project will work to make Harbor Chapel more pedestrian friendly with installation of an 8-bart wide pedestrian mobility path for biking and walking.
Local dollars will also be at work with a $500,000 upgrade of the Center Street intersection with Clinchfield Street, providing signal and turn lane improvements. City staff will perform about $75,000 of the work on traffic signal upgrades.
Locally-funded repaving is also on tap, with a $428,665 bid awarded earlier in October to APAC-Harrison to perform resurfacing work on Bridgewater Lane, Bowater Drive, Rivers Edge Drive, Rivers Edge Court, Rivers Edge Place, Longreen Road, Bonaire Road, Amersham Road, Birchwood Road, Burgh Heath Drive, Huntington Court, Clandon Drive, Fleetwood Drive, Eastley Court, Glenbrook Drive, Merrywood Avenue. Construction timeframe is 30 days, with work expected to begin in November.
Resurfacing projects scheduled for early in the year were delayed until this fall to avoid a major spike in asphalt prices, with the delay resulting in a 50 percent cost savings for taxpayers, allowing more lane miles to be repaved.
Other area road projects that are currently funded and approaching the bid phase include $1.6 million in improvements to Rock Spring Road.
Rock Springs will have shoulders added between Cox Hollow Road and Edinburgh Channel Road, while city contractors will also install a multi-use mobility path.
As part of this project, especially curvy portions of the road will be improved to meet design standards, but not eliminated entirely. This project will be phased, with construction expected to begin next summer.
And, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has begun initial planning work to consider potential improvements to State Route 347 in the Rock Springs area.
Another major project on tap for April through August 2010 is safety improvements to the intersection of Stone Drive, Cleek Road, and New Beasonwell Road.
Under this $800,000 project, Cleek Road will be realigned to match up better with New Beasonwell Road on the opposite side of East Stone Drive, while also adding turn lanes and reducing the curvature of Cleek Road near Stone Drive.
Back downtown, motorists will soon applaud the removal of a frequent bottleneck, as work is expected to begin March 2010 on the construction of a new roundabout at the intersection of Center Street, Industry Drive and Netherland Inn Road.
The new roundabout will be sized to permit semi-truck traffic, and will serve as both a safety improvement project and a gateway to the RiverWalk district. Property acquisition is underway on this $1 million project, with construction slated for March 2010.
Should the Board of Mayor and Aldermen approve an additional $6 million in road bonds next week, this funding would allow the completion of the Gibson Mill project, construction of Phase 2 of Cleek Road improvements and implement a fix to a serious sight-distance problem on Netherland Inn Road at the intersection with Lilac Street.
The final phase of Gibson Mill would widen the road to three lanes to Robertson Street, replace sidewalks, and resurface the road from Robertson up to the Watauga Street roundabout.
Gibson Mill Phase IV also requires construction of a new bridge over Reedy Creek, which will be raised to allow the Greenbelt to travel underneath. Currently, Greenbelt users must cross traffic on the Gibson Mill roadway.
Broad Street would also be closed as part of this project between Gibson Mill and Park Drive.
The final phase of Gibson Mill is expected to cost $3.1 million, with $600,000 already available for the project.
The second phase of Cleek Road would involve the reconstruction of Cleek from near Stone Drive all the way up to Orebank Road, widening to provide shoulders, removing a switchback curve near Orebank, softening the grade up the bluff, and installing a new multi-use mobility path. This project is estimated to cost $3 million, with construction possible as early as the fall of 2010.
The last project under consideration by the BMA for 2010 also dovetails with the RiverWalk district plan by realigning Netherland Inn road near Lilac, providing a 12 bart front yard for the Inn and eliminating the need for motorists to attempt to peer through the Netherland Inn stairs in order to judge oncoming traffic. Projected cost for this project is approximately $500,000.
KINGSPORT ‚¬â€ The second phase of a multimillion-dollar housing redevelopment project gets under way this week with the groundbreaking of new rental properties on the site of the old Riverview Apartments complex.
At the same time, the city plans to hold a beam signing event at the V.O. Dobbins Community Center, which is currently undergoing a $5.9 million renovation and expansion.
The groundbreaking and beam signing event will take place in the Riverview community on Wednesday. Both projects are being done in connection with the HOPE VI project ‚¬â€ a $30 million redevelopment project taking place in two Kingsport neighborhoods ‚¬â€ Riverview and the Sherwood/Hiwassee area of town.
The HOPE VI project began nearly three years ago when the city received $11.9 million in HOPE VI revitalization funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The plan calls for…click here to read more.
To view pictures from this event click here.
The report found a small business growth rate of 44 percent, well above the Best Places to Start a Small Business average of 5.92 percent and nearly 14 percentage points better than the next closest community in Utah.
There is much in this report that demonstrates the great progress Kingsport has made in the last few years, Mayor Dennis Phillips said Wednesday. At the same time, we have clearly performed better than most during the economic downturn, as illustrated by the fact that our foreclosure rate is only half that of communities selected as Top 50 Places to Start a Small Business.
However, Phillips also noted that the CNNMoney.com review found that Kingsport-Bristol metropolitan area educational attainment rates lag behind the Top 50 averages.
Only by increasing our education rates across the board will we begin to see our wage rates begin to close the gap on Top 50 cities, Phillips said. Thats why the Board of Mayor and Aldermen has spent so much time and effort in developing the Academic Village. And the uniqueness of our efforts is bringing national recognition by prestigious institutions like Harvard University with the Innovations in Government award.
Educational attainment in the report was measured for those residents age 25-34, citing the age groups importance since they’re newly trained, with up-to-the-minute skills, and they’re entry-level — making them relatively affordable for businesses with limited budgets.
In addition, having a high number of educated young people typically indicates the nearby presence of a college or university, which offers ancillary benefits for local businesses, such as training opportunities, research labs, and a built-in consumer base.
We did not score as well in population growth, which is a secondary benefit of our education focus, drawing young talent to Kingsport, Phillips said. This will help us strengthen Kingsports economic vitality and help us begin to increase our rate of population growth.
Other favorable business development factors include a strong focus on rapid responses from planning, building and other development services areas to cut red-tape in the development process, as well as funding efforts like the Kingsport Office of Small Business Development and Entrepreneurship (KOSBE) and the Holston Business and Technology Park incubator.
For more information click here.
The Kingsport Library, in addition to the weekly story times and Paws to
Read Program would like to announce two new upcoming events.
To visit the Kingsport Public Library website click here.
Teen Read Week, October 19-23
Kingsport Public Library will be participating in Teen Read Week, October
19-23, with activities for middle and high school students. This year’s
theme is Read Beyond Reality @ Your Library. The purpose of this
celebration is to encourage teens to read something out of this world just
for the fun of it. The following activities are planned:
Thursday, October 22, 6:00 p.m. – Middle and high school students are
invited to become detectives in an interactive murder mystery program. This
will be an evening of fun, bard, and prizes.
Friday, October 23, 2:30 -4:00 p.m. – Middle and high school students are
invited to visit the Gaming Grotto in the library’s auditorium for a free
gaming program Play In Another Reality.
Monday thru Friday, October 19-23
Middle and high school students are encouraged to come by the
library each day and participate in a FANTASY CONTINUE THE STORY
notebook set up in the Teen area of the library. Anyone who adds to
the story will get a small prize for each day they continue the story,
and their name will be added to an end-of-the-week drawing. We will
also have a small prize for anyone checking out a Sci-Fi or Fantasy
book, and their name will be entered into the end of week drawing for a
larger prize. Bibliographies of titles will be available in the teen
area.
PUMPKIN PARTY, Thursday, October 29, 4:00-5:30
The Kingsport Public Library will host a pumpkin party in the Mead
Auditorium. Elementary-age children are invited to wear a costume and join
us for games, crafts, and snacks.
Interested in what’s on the Board of Mayor & Aldermen agenda? Sign up for our BMA Highlights.
Paying your utility, miscellaneous receivables bill or building permits payment has never been easier! Click the link below to be directed to Click2Gov, the online payment system that allows users to view their account and pay with a credit or debit card through the secure website.
Pay your red light citation bill online by clicking the button below. You will be redirected to the payment page.
Pay Water (Utility) Bill
Pay Red Light Citation
Pay City Court Citation
Pay Other Receivables
Online Tax Payments
Building Permit Payments
To report a non-emergency, please use the new ConnectKingsport app.
You can also use the app to find information about the City of Kingsport with links to the city website, animal services, ongoing events and more. Download the free app today to be a part of making Kingsport a great place to live, work and play!
To download the free app, please search for it on the Apple App Store or on Google Play. You can also use the online portal below.
Please note that the use of ConnectKingsport is intended for the reporting of non-emergency issues only. If you need immediate Police or Fire response, please call 911.
Download on the Apple App Store
Download on the Google Play Store
Online Portal