City Council comes to agreement on downtown car show

The Elizabethton City Council considered  three different amendments to the Carter County Car Club’s request to host car cruise-ins on Elk Avenue before returning to the original proposal that would allow the club to host the event every Saturday starting in May and running through October with the exception of Saturday, September 23 which is Covered Bridge Days weekend.

 

After nearly an hour of discussion and voting, the original request was ratified 4-3.

 

Before the voting began on the event, Elizabethton Mayor Curt Alexander said, “We do not want the car show gone but we do want some changes because the bottom line is that the downtown area is growing and evolving. The car club has done a tremendous job of growing the downtown area over the years. However, we need to realize there are other merchants that have aspirations as well."

 

The Council made it known that it was never the intent for the event to be stopped in the city as Councilman Wes Frazier stated, “We need to be working on this together,”.

 

Councilman Jeff Treadway added, “The negative stuff on social media needs to stop from both sides because it doesn’t achieve anything."

 

The car club had submitted to council a compromise in which they would not start the event until May instead of the normal April starting timeframe.