It’s been politely pointed out to me that I let the blog slide… To be candid, I wasn’t completely sure if anyone was reading. Now I’ve been told otherwise… One person wrote to me: “I have missed your blog over the last few months. Reading your comments on the issues that Oak Ridge faces helped bring your perspective on your voting record, as well as giving an alternate viewpoint on pending change. Just reading about a yes or no vote does not give as much satisfaction as reading your rationale behind it.”
That gentle poke has helped convince me to get back to blogging. Hello, again. 
Ironically, my hiatus was largely due to the large number of topics that I needed or wanted to post about. (Which one should I write about first? Will my choice of topics be misinterpreted as an indication of my priorities? If I delay commenting on something, when is it “too late” to weigh in?). Also, it was partly due to other time commitments. Further, it was partly due to a period of being out of town — not only did I have limited internet access, but I was wanting to post about my travels, while not wanting my blog to post an invitation to burglars, telling them “there’s nobody home at our house!” 
Also, being a for-real city official does make me a little bit more circumspect than I might have been previously (I don’t want to create unnecessary enmity with people I need to work with).
The longer I waited, the harder it got to restart.
I’ve started posting again, not necessarily with the most urgent topics, but with material that was already half-written. If I slack off again, please poke me.
A recurrent topic of discussion in Oak Ridge is the economy — and what should or could be done to improve local tax revenues.
There are plenty of ideas, of course, but it seems to me that the single most positive thing that could and should be done is to gain fairer treatment for the retirees of the contractors that operate the local Department of Energy (originally Atomic Energy Commission) facilities.
People who devoted their working lives to the local atomic energy facilities during the Cold War (and their surviving spouses) have been watching the purchasing power of their pensions dwindle away. Meanwhile, the pension fund that pays them enjoys a huge surplus (the balance is $800 million more than the actuaries say is needed to pay all current and future obligations to past and future retirees) and their former employers have not paid one cent into the pension fund since 1984, but Department of Energy officials have said publicly that it would be irresponsible to increase Oak Ridge retirees’ pensions to compensate for inflation.
Retirees aren’t asking for much — they only want their pensions increased to provide 75% of the buying power they retired with, and to make the “surviving spouse” pension arrangement for past retirees the same as it is for future retirees. As the retirees have been eloquently (and patiently) pointing out in various public forums (for example, in this Oak Ridger guest column that Joanne Gailar wrote last year), these changes would restore a modicum of fairness and would provide a windfall for individual retirees — and the communities where they live.
Our Oak Ridge contractor retirees must be treated better. Although it ought to be in DOE’s and the contractors’ best interest to do so (who would want to be recruited to work for an organization that treats its pensioners so poorly?), it appears that a political resolution is necessary.
I hope something happens soon — for our local retirees and for the local economy. The matter appears under “other issues” on the City’s State and Federal Legislative Agenda for 2007, but I think it might be the single most important federal issue for Oak Ridge right now. (What does the rest of the community think?)
