It must be “Oak Ridge bashing” season again

I guess it’s Oak Ridge bashing season again. It’s a peculiar phenomenon.

Today’s News Sentinel has a business-page story about Roane County’s recent successes in attracting industry to the county, particularly to the Roane Regional Business and Industrial Park.

In the middle of the upbeat story about Roane County’s success in getting itself onto industrial prospects’ radar screens and bringing in jobs and capital investment, there’s a classic bit of Oak Ridge bashing:

Roane County’s willingness to understand the needs of business has made a difference in recruiting development, according to Steve Kirkham, who served as chairman of the county’s Industrial Board until January.

Kirkham, who owns and operates a chain of Rocky Top Markets, brings a business professional’s perspective to the challenge of recruiting companies.

“If somebody builds a plant and they need an electrical inspector out there on a certain day to make sure the work doesn’t stop, we will accommodate them,” he said.

Kirkham said he has faced similar situations in building new stores in other communities that have not been as accommodating.

“If you ask for an electrical inspection on a specific day in Oak Ridge they’ll tell you the guy only gets out to that part of town every other Thursday,” Kirkham said. “I probably would not build in Oak Ridge if they gave me the real estate.”

I can’t know what Mr. Kirkham’s company has experienced in Oak Ridge, but I do know that the city staff attends monthly meetings with area developers at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce to hear about their concerns, and city manager Jim O’Connor told me today: “We have same day service and have been known to inspect at night. All inspections will be done within a 24 hour period.”

While I’ve observed or been told about (by people who talked to me in person) too many situations in which residents felt the city staff went too far on behalf of developers, as well as situations where city inspection staff were inconsistent or placed seemingly unreasonable requirements on restoration and remodeling projects, the people who (like Mr. Kirkham) make blanket allegations that the city is impossible for developers to work with never seem to come forward with particulars, and they do not deliver their criticisms in person. I guess that East Tennessee still holds so much left-over animosity toward Oak Ridge (dating from the Manhattan Project days) that people are prepared to believe these allegations (and print them in the newspaper) without even thinking to ask for facts.

Rocky Top Markets has four locations in Oak Ridge (according to its website) — more than they have in any other single city. Their long-time locations on Oak Ridge Turnpike have some of the busiest gas pumps in the city. I doubt that the company officials would be willing to tell their loyal Oak Ridge customers that the company can’t stand to do business here…

Update (first posted as comment March 3, 2008 @ 9:52 am)

More follow-up in a message from city Code Enforcement staff (the following is a quotation from the message, edited for brevity and to remove staff names):

[Before September of 2005] inspections were being performed at almost a “will call” basis. At times the contractors (electrical, plumbing and building) called the inspectors direct to request an inspection.

In September of 2007, in order to be more efficient and cost conscious (because of the rising cost of fuel) regarding routes driven by the inspection staff, [a new policy was initiated] that all inspections (except emergency ones or ones where weather was a factor) must be requested by 4:00 PM and the inspection would be performed the next day. …We try to accommodate people who “forget” to call in the day before or the ones that need an inspection due to weather or other factors.

…The only times that anyone has had to wait a day or so on an inspection was if [the inspector] had been on vacation or the interim period when we were using [another employee after an inspector resigned]….

Since I have been here, never to my knowledge has anyone been told “inspectors only work an area on certain days or every other Thursday”. It is a fact that some State of TN contract electrical inspectors (independent contractors, who set their own schedule) do work certain areas on certain days. This is due to the large geographical area they have to cover. If an inspection was failed on Tuesday, it would be the next Tuesday before a reinspection could be made.

Speak up for K-25 preservation!

Tuesday, February 19, is the day when local residents can tell DOE that we want the K-25 North Tower (a big structure, but a small part of the massive K-25 building) preserved to help tell the story of the Manhattan Project to future generations.

A meeting to get public input on the future of K-25 is being held Tuesday from 5-8 pm at the New Hope Center at Y-12 (that’s the fancy new building on Scarboro Road). The meeting, cosponsored by the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board and the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, is being conducted for the express purpose of telling DOE what the public thinks. If you can’t make it to the meeting, you can express an opinion online at K-25 Historic Building Questionnaire — fill in the questionnaire and hit “Submit”; an email message containing your responses will be generated, ready to send to DOE.

Oak Ridge has a Barnes & Noble store!?!

In the midst of Oak Ridge’s continual community gripefest about the dearth of retail, I discovered today that there’s a Barnes & Noble outlet right here in the Atomic City .

OK, it’s “just” the bookstore at the Roane State Community College campus, but it’s still a Barnes & Noble store…

Upcoming: Council’s Night Out

The next City Council “Night Out” will be held this coming Tuesday evening, February 12, 6 to 8 pm, at the Oak Ridge Civic Center, in the A/B and Club Rooms.

These “nights out” are intended to be an opportunity for citizens to meet informally (and one-on-one) with City Council members and City staff.

I’m pleased that the staff will bring copies of TDOT’s plans for the upcoming widening of West Oak Ridge Turnpike (formally called “State Route 95/58 Road Project”) so residents can learn more about what’s planned and discuss concerns about the project.

If I remember the details correctly, this project is supposed to add a 5th lane between Illinois and Jefferson Avenues, a grassed median (with cuts for turning access) from Jefferson west to the gatehouse at the west end of the Turnpike, sidewalks for the whole distance from Illinois Ave to the gatehouse, and curbs and gutters (to replace the existing roadside ditches) for the entire project length.

Although this is talked about as a highway project, a major focus of community interest has been on sidewalks and bicycle facilities. Also, there’s been concern about how it will affect properties along the route, especially the maple trees in front of the Rolling Hills apartment complex (a.k.a. Garden Apartments). The last I heard, the maple trees were going to survive, but there has been conflicting information around town about matters such as the fate of the trees and whether or not there will a dedicated bike lane on the shoulder (the answer seems to be that there will be a fairly wide paved shoulder, but not a marked bike lane). I asked staff to use this “night out” as an opportunity for the public to discuss this project, and I hope that people interested in trees, greenways, pedestrian safety, bicycle commuting, drainage ditches, etc., will be there.

As always, though, citizens are encouraged to discuss any topic.

PS – Unfortunately, it seems that this event conflicts with meetings of the Board of Zoning Appeals and the Highland View Advisory Committee. I wish that weren’t the case, as both of those bodies will be dealing with important matters on Tuesday.

Super Tuesday robot phone calls

If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, somebody needs to explain early voting (in Tennessee and an increasing number of other states) to the robots that dial phone calls on her behalf.

I voted in the primary last week, on the very last day of early voting. The day after early voting had ended, the robot phone calls from Hillary (and occasionally calls from Bill) began. I didn’t count how many times their voices turned up on our home phone or answering machine, but there were at least a half dozen calls in total, over about 5 days. A direct mail piece –the first one in a long time — arrived in today’s mail, too late to be useful to the campaign.

Absurdly, the last phone message was recorded on the answering machine less than 1/2 hour before the polls closed this evening — that would have been a useful campaign message if the message had said “the polls close at 8 pm — don’t forget to vote,” but it was just another generic “vote for me” message. Sigh…