OZARK — “Love where you live” and “Building Ozark together” are more than mottos printed on car tags and coffee mugs for the mayor of the city billed as the “Heart of the Wiregrass.”
“It’s our focus,” Ozark Mayor Mark Blankenship said. “We’ve got a great council that works as a team, great department heads and great city employees,” he said reflecting on progress in the city that is the county seat of Dale County.
Most recent plans are construction of a covered farmer’s market near the Ozark Shopping Center next to the Ozark City Hall. The idea for a farmer’s market was resurrected two years ago because such a market serves the entire county, Blankenship said. The market has been held at the amphitheater downtown but parking has been an issue so a covered farmer’s market at a larger space will allow for more parking and vendors.
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“This farmer’s market is really a county-wide event,” Blankenship said. “It brings farm and city together.”
Bringing people to Ozark is a priority, Blankenship said. With an estimated population in city limits of some 15,000, mobile data collection marketing research that uses cell phone “pings” indicates that the city’s daytime population is 29,645.
Economic development is a high priority, the mayor said. In addition to several new businesses located around the courthouse square in the last two years, Brittanie’s Thyme, an organic skincare company, announced in 2021 that it would move into the old Van Heusen building in Ozark that had been vacant for 15 years bringing some 50 new jobs to the city.
The city has a news conference set for Aug. 30 to announce a new industry coming to Ozark, Blankenship said. However, he declined to give any early hints of the business.
The city’s current administration took office in November 2020. The next month colorful banners designed by Carroll High School Art Teacher Kami Bolton featuring points of interest were hung from the decorative light posts downtown. That same month, renovations on the city-owned shopping center began.
The city-owned shopping center, with the public library on one end and Church With U on the other, includes a grocery store and an indoor pickleball court is coming soon. Plans are being finalized for a restaurant to join the lineup. The parking lot was recently re-blacktopped and striped as part of the facelift.
A game changer for the Ozark downtown area was the introduction of an entertainment district downtown, he said. In March 2021, the city council approved an entertainment district designation around the courthouse square.
An entertainment district designation allows customers to take an open container of alcohol outside of an establishment, as long as the customer stays within the limits of the district. The ordinance prohibits a consumer from entering a licensed premises with an open or closed container of alcoholic beverages acquired elsewhere.
Additionally, to leave a licensed premise within the entertainment district with an alcoholic beverage, the beverage is required to be in a shatterproof container.
“A great thing for businesses that are already established downtown and a recruiting incentive for new businesses to locate there” is the way Blankenship describes the entertainment district.
The city is also currently sponsoring a “Military Service Flag Program,” to honor citizens who have served in the armed forces. The flags will be posted on Independence Day and Veterans Day and displayed for a two-week time frame along designated roadways, Blankenship said, adding that more information on participating in the new program can be obtained through his office or via the city’s website. “This is an opportunity for people to pay tribute in honor or memory of their military person.
“Our city remains one of the best places to live and raise a family in Alabama,” Blankenship said. “We have so much to offer here in Ozark.”
Before being elected mayor, Blankenship served four years as president pro tem of the Ozark City Council and for eight years as the Dale County Commission chairman. In 2020, as commission chairman, he accepted a second Association of County Commissions of Alabama’s Efficiency and Innovation in County Government Award. The second award was because of the county’s partnership with the city to build the Ozark Amphitheater downtown.
“With a community united through hard work together, anything can be accomplished,” the first term mayor said. “Ozark deserves strong servant leadership with the vision to ‘build Ozark together.’”
