Friday, February 28, 2025
Happening Now

Spencer Partners With State to Boost Tourism

The city of Spencer, the first of four Tennessee Communities selected for a new initiative to promote tourism in the community.

Spencer Mayor Alisa Farmer said the Tennessee Department of Tourism will partner with a company that specializes in community improvement. Farmer said the initiative will help focus on economic development, driving more funding for city projects.

“The more revenue we have the city and the county, the more that we can spend to support the emergency personnel,” Farmer said. “To better our city’s roads, and the county departments, stuff like that.”

Farmer said the project will take total community buy-in to reach its full potential. Farmer said the town stands in the early stages of the process. She expects to see things heat up toward the end of the year.

“We’re on the beginning stages of that and that’s what Chandlerthinks is going to be working with us for about six months to a year. They’ll create us a new logo, they’ll give us ideas on our website, they’ll just give us helpful direction in the future for how we want to promote Van Buren County.”

Farmer said upgrading tourism will help in more ways than one. Farmer said Spencer does not have a real estate tax. With that, She said other cities have to raise their real estate tax to pay for city improvements, something Spencer can not do.

“Well if we can get the ball rolling on focusing on tourism and get more money dropped in Van Buren county, by these people that’s passing through or whatever, this will offset that cost,” Farmer said.”

In other business, the city is still accepting applications for a new Municipal Judge. The deadline is February 8.

The city is allocating an extra five hundred dollars this year for Fourth of July fireworks.

The city has also updated three policies: the Personnel Rules Policy, the Information and Cybersecurity Policy, and the Drug-Free Workplace Policy.

Share