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.
After much waiting, our new Nissan Leaf is finally here. I picked it up this afternoon. It’s definitely a new kind of car — not only is it fully electric, but in many respects it seems a bit like a computer on wheels. It goes faster than any computer, though. Driving on Oak [...]
After a few years of fireworks over the water at Melton Hill Lake, this year’s City of Oak Ridge July 4th fireworks display will be shot from A.K. Bissell Park (the park area surrounding the Oak Ridge Civic Center) in the middle of town. The press release came out today and I figure I’d better [...]
A City of Oak Ridge press release today reports that our trash collectors are going to start taking holidays — basically, joining the rest of modern workers. Until now, Thanksgiving and Christmas have been the only weekdays when trash wasn’t collected. Starting with July 4, they are also going to get a day off on [...]
Phew! The last 5 days were a whirlwind of activity that concluded with the completion (well, almost) of the new Cedar Hill Park playground. Some finishing touches remain: hooking up a few more swings, installing the waves around the new pirate ship (you’ll have to see it to understand), hanging some plaques in the castle [...]
More 2010 Census statistics are available. The Census reveals that as Oak Ridge’s population grew 7.1% between 2000 and 2010, the increase in the city’s average age pretty much leveled off. Our median age in 2010 was 43.5 — well above the state average of 38.0, but (after years of continually increasing) just 0.1 year [...]
It wasn’t exactly crowded, but on Sunday afternoon Cedar Hill Park playground entertained several families visiting for the last time before it closed on Monday to be torn down and replaced.
It’s been a wonderful play space since 1988. My family is one of many that have fond memories of good times there.
However, it’s showing its [...]
Census data have been slow trickling in. I posted earlier about Oak Ridge’s total population and housing occupancy data, which were the only statistics available. I’m very curious to see the neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdowns (they are available to computer techies, but haven’t been output in a user-friendly form yet). However, there’s information on ethnicity.
Oak Ridge’s minority [...]
I got e-mail suggesting that Americans should find out where their water comes from in honor of World Water Day (today, March 22) and to help us watch out for our families’ health. It seems that many people don’t know. I do know where our water comes from — the Clinch River. The intake is [...]
The first 2010 Census data for Tennessee have been released — and they confirm that Oak Ridge is no longer “about 27,000 people.” The total population as of 2010 was 29,330 — an increase of nearly 2,000 people since the 2000 census count of 27,387. After decades of stability (the official population was 28,319 in [...]
For quite some time now, my household has been looking forward to acquiring a Nissan Leaf — the first mass-market plug-in electric car. On Saturday we finally had our first chance to see, touch, and drive one, when Nissan brought 14 cars to World’s Fair Park in Knoxville.
This car is an exciting opportunity for our [...]