I'm Ellen Smith, member of the Oak Ridge City Council. Thank you for visiting my blog and reading my views on public and private life in and around Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This website is my own; content here does not represent the official policies or views of the City of Oak Ridge. To add your own comments, click on the topic title to open a comment box. To read posts about a particular topic, scroll down to "Categories" (in the sidebar) or use the "Search" box in the sidebar. Look under "Archives" to see collections of past posts organized by date.
This is “to all Tennessee voters” from the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge:
A new law passed by the Tennessee State Legislature requires that registered voters present a GOVERNMENT ISSUED photo identification in order to vote. There are about 500,000 Tennessee citizens who do not have a valid photo ID and will [...]
I’ve been trying to let the Local Oversight Committee (LOC) rest in peace and not to dwell on the matter, but I continually find myself dealing with fallout from the demise of the LOC. It was terminated once and for all last Monday afternoon (January 9). This was the fourth in a series of “special [...]
Here’s the guest column that I supplied to the Oak Ridge Observer this week. It’s in the print edition, of course (along with a few items that the dailies didn’t carry) and on the Observer website, but you can read it here, too:
As we move into another new year, I propose a resolution for everyone [...]
At this time of year, I’m often concerned about storm drain grates getting clogged with leaves, since that can add to problems from snow and ice storms. Now a City press release reports a rash of thefts of storm drain grates! Here’s the text of the release:
Recently, the City of Oak Ridge has had numerous [...]
Lately I feel like the airport is my second home, but I may finally be getting a chance to catch my breath after my most recent trip, to the National League of Cities meeting in Phoenix. I returned home with my bags stuffed with handouts and new knowledge and ideas on topics including managing and [...]
The City is upgrading its internet services this weekend, but websites and email (including messages to the City Council addresses on the cortn.org domain) are likely to be offline most of the weekend. Anticipating that people will be wondering what’s going on, I’m posting an excerpt from the announcement I received from Oak Ridge City [...]
Lately I’ve been very distracted due to my mother’s final illness and death. I spent a few days with her as she faded away from me, and I’ll be returning to Connecticut soon for a memorial service. I miss my “Mommy”. Here’s how she wanted to be remembered to the world (she drafted her own [...]
This has been a long time coming, but it’s finally here: There’s now a nice information sign in front of the Oak Ridge Welcome Center (located in the historic Midtown Community Center on Oak Ridge Turnpike at the corner of Robertsville Road), complete with brochures and maps for after-hours visitors to take away.
I’ve been asking [...]
People who get all of their local news from Oak Ridge’s daily newspaper still are unaware of the effort by some city and county officials to terminate the Local Oversight Committee at a meeting this afternoon (September 9, 2011), but yesterday’s issue of the Oak Ridge Observer has fairly in-depth coverage and Frank Munger has [...]
With school starting up for the year, everywhere I turn somebody is talking about standardized testing in schools. Oak Ridge schools are making TCAP test scores count for a fraction of kids’ grades (not the school board’s idea — it’s a state mandate!), Tennessee is requesting a waiver from the No Child Left Behind requirements, [...]