By Eric Beavers
VARNELL — Thomas Burnett says it’s easier to get things done if you skip the griping.
“I’m a little headstrong,” said Burnett, the incumbent in Seat 3 on the Varnell City Council who is seeking re-election on Nov. 6 against fellow incumbent Sandra Hewitt and newcomer James Caldwell. “I’d rather get something done than sit around and gripe about it.”
Hewitt, who currently holds Seat 4, at first decided not to run for re-election, then qualified for Seat 3. City Council positions in Varnell are elected at-large, meaning council members are not tied to the district in which they live.
Burnett’s background is in heavy equipment landscaping, but now he works at Mr. Transmission in Cleveland, Tenn., with his younger brother, Greg, who owns the store. Burnett didn’t have any experience in politics before he was appointed to the City Council two years ago.
“Politics to me is a whole new game and I’m still learning it but I’m trying to do the best I can with the knowledge that I have,” Burnett said.
Varnell’s history is important to Burnett, from the springs in the area to the heritage that dates back to the Civil War.
“I see a lot of potential here and I’m just trying to do the best that I can (to preserve it),” he said.
A lot of his time as a council member involves fielding complaints such as some residents’ dissatisfaction with how their neighbors’ care for their land. Some Varnell residents are “set in their ways,” Burnett said, and he believes a recently-adopted ordinance should help authorities police ugly yards. Those who fail to keep their yards up to code could be cited to court.
“If you’re going to own something, at least try to keep it up,” Burnett said. “We don’t want people thinking about moving in and driving by houses that look like junk. Your first sight of something makes a big impression.”
Burnett said the ordinance wasn’t written to single anyone out, but to improve the aesthetic quality of life in Varnell.
“It doesn’t matter if you have a $20,000 house or a $250,000 house,” he said. “The law is the law and it doesn’t discriminate against anybody.”
Besides cleaning up the city, Burnett wants to give Varnell residents something to do without leaving town.
“We’re going to put in a playground for kids and there is going to be a walking path,” he said. “We’re trying to make it something anybody in the community or surrounding counties can use.”
Burnett said he wants to begin planning for a new City Hall. Funding construction without raising property taxes could get a bit tricky, but Burnett said a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) is something city officials may be able to tap into in the future.
“We can’t just say, ‘Let’s sell off all this open property we’ve got here and get rid of a bunch of our history,’ just to buy some property and build a building on it,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.”
Burnett said even if the council chooses to sell “several small pieces of property” owned by the city, “it’s not going to make a dent” in the construction cost.
Burnett and his wife Kandice just celebrated their 15th anniversary. She is the cafeteria manager at Northwest Whitfield High School. They have two children at North Whitfield Middle School — son Brett, 15, and 13-year-old daughter Morgan — as well as a 9-year-old third-grader at New Hope Elementary, Blake.
Burnett hopes as a council member he makes the community a place where his children will want to stay when they grow up.
“If they decide they want to get married and settle in, I’m hoping the town will be to the point where they’ll be happy to stay here, that they’ll want to stay where they grew up,” he said.
