Lakesite City Commission receiving award. Pictured, left to right: Lakesite City Manager Kirsten Ert Acuff, Lakesite Commissioner Michelle Wilson, TML President Bobby King, Lakesite Mayor David Howell and Lakesite Vice Mayor Bobby Bishop.
The Cities of Collegedale, Lakesite, and Red Bank were recognized with two awards of excellence and two personal achievement awards at the Tennessee Municipal League Conference. The awards were presented on Tuesday at the TML 83rd Annual Conference held at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel.
Each year TML honors cities throughout the state for overall excellence, improvement, specific outstanding programs or department accomplishments. Collegedale, Lakesite and Red Bank received four of the 15 awards given statewide to municipalities.
The City of Lakesite was presented with an award for Excellence for Small City Progress honoring the city’s accomplishments over the past year. Incorporated on Jan.
20, 1972, Lakesite celebrated its 50th city anniversary last year and has gone from a population of around 500 to one of more than 1,850. This growth necessitated the city to grow from three to five commissioners and the hiring of its first full-time city manager, Kirsten Ert Acuff.
Under the current leadership, Lakesite has completed the city’s first ever strategic plan, conducted a community survey and is in the process of developing a Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which provides a comprehensive, long-range strategy for the creation, optimization and maintenance of the community's assets and makes the city eligible for parks and recreation grant funding opportunities.
Collegedale Public Works Department received the award for Excellence in Public Works in recognition of their outstanding concerted efforts made to respond quickly and efficiently to the Norfolk-Southern train derailment in December 2022. The department immediately went to work ensuring the safety of citizens and has continued to work to repair the damages sustained during the accident.
The City of Collegedale was recognized with a second award when Commissioner Katie Lamb was honored as the recipient of the distinguished Bob Kirk Leadership Award. The annual award is presented to the commissioner who is at least in their second term of service to their municipality and has shown themselves to be an outstanding public servant to both their municipality and their community.
The City of Red Bank received an award when their Public Works employee, Johnny Ledford, received the Murphy Snoderly award sponsored by the American Public Works Association. The Murphy Snoderly Award is given to a city employee who has proven themselves by continuing to do outstanding work. The recipient of the award must be an operations-level employee. Mr. Ledford has served in the Public Works Department for the City of Red Bank for 31 years.
All three cities actively participate in the Hamilton County Small Cities Coalition which aims to foster collaboration in legislative matters and idea exchange among member cities.
Members of Collegedale Public Works Department with their award