It was the small town feel and cost of living that attracted Rosemary Glass and her husband to Tallassee after retiring from the military.
They had been stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base and lived in Millbrook followed by a few more stations before retirement. Glass has now been in Tallassee for nine years and is campaigning for Tallassee City Council Ward 6.
“We had visited once and it was a good area,” Glass said. “We’d been to the Hotel Talisi and really liked the lake area. It's much less expensive than Lake Martin, much less expensive. In Alabama you can live like a king. It's really a very economical place to live. We like our beautiful property as it feels like you are out in the country but with the convenience of the city.”
Glass said she has always been involved in politics. With the retirement of Bill Godwin from the council, people started to inquire about her running for the open position.
“I do believe I could do a good job,” Glass said.
The retiree believes Tallassee is a great place for a family with big city conveniences up and down the interstate.
“It’s a good looking town,” Glass said. “It’s safe and economical. It has everything you need. You know, we have a Walmart and the grocery stores.”
Glass was pleased to see the city get grants to deal with the cast iron gas lines and improve the waste water treatment system. She believes the city needs to also bring up to date the city’s water lines and repair and resurface city streets. She was pleased to see the beginnings of cleanup of downtown with the demolition of the fire-gutted Hotel Talisi, the street and sidewalk improvements and the rebirth of the Mt. Vernon Theater. She is also happy to see movement on the old mill sites on the Tallapoosa River.
“They tried to clean up this area where the mill was,” Glass said. “I think that's prime property right there on the river, so I think that there's still more improvement.”
Glass is hopeful the industrial corridor along Highway 229 with the likes of Neptune, GKN and Hanil will continue to grow and bring jobs to Tallassee and the surrounding area. At the same time she wants to keep the small town feel of Tallassee, especially downtown.
“Those are really big industrial businesses, but they're out by the highway,” Glass said. “That’s OK. I just want to make sure we keep what makes Tallassee, Tallassee.”
If elected, Glass believes she can help move Tallassee forward by working with others.
“I'm a big believer in compromise,” Glass said. “Maybe we can't have everything. We don’t need an all or nothing mentality, but what we've been getting is the nothing. Sometimes there needs to be some creativity and some research. Let's be a team player, rather than all about what I want and how can we make everybody happy?”
Glass believes teamwork and compromise is the “essence” of politics.
“I don't mind going along with something, but I will all need to be educated on it,” Glass said. “I'm not just going to go along with it if I don't think it's the right thing to do.”
