The Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board’s long-awaited Climate Action Plan is available in draft form for public review — download it here. The plan describes recommended measures for reducing energy consumption (and thus emissions of greenhouse gases) by city government and by the community at large. I missed last Tuesday’s public meeting about it [...]
Posts under ‘Oak Ridge Issues’
YES to household energy efficiency, NO to imposters taking advantage of TVA program
It’s great news for local homeowners that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is promoting home energy efficiency through in-home energy evaluations and rebates for certain kinds of energy improvements. Details are on the TVA website (and there are also tax credits available for work done this year). I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that unscrupulous [...]
What’s next now that the “Orange Route” is dead?
It’s true — as the Knoxville News Sentinel predicted Friday morning, TDOT killed the Knoxville Beltway project! This means it’s now up to the region to find creative solutions to congestion on the highways — but it should mean that money that might have gone to the road project will now be available to help [...]
AMSE’s flattop evokes memories for an Oak Ridge visitor
This piece on the Roane Views website is a nice feel-good story about preserving little bits of local history: Number 68 Comes Home
The author lived in a flat-top house on West Outer Drive around 1950, and was able to visit the flat-top that’s now on display at the American Museum of Science and Energy, apparently [...]
Are license-plate readers in our future?
The PBS website has an article about automatic license-plate reading devices, a new technology being offered to police departments. The vehicle-mounted device scans the tag numbers on passing vehicles, records the GPS location and time, and runs a check against a database of Amber Alerts, cars reported stolen, etc. — all fast enough that the [...]
Signs too soon and signs too flashy
Traveling around Oak Ridge, I’ve been seeing two disconcerting trends related to signage, one temporary (“signs too soon”) and one more permanent (“signs too flashy”).
The temporary trend is political signs going up too soon. Oak Ridge’s sign ordinance (part of the zoning ordinance) specify that political signs can’t go up until 30 days before the [...]
“Bemused” or “amused” or “upset”?
I can’t choose the best word to describe my thoughts on media reaction to the City of Oak Ridge comments on the draft request for proposals (RFP) for DOE’s Oak Ridge environmental management (EM) contract (the successor to Bechtel Jacobs). OK, I’m tickled to see that Frank Munger likes my own main addition to those [...]
Budget passed on first reading
City Council passed the budget unanimously on first reading at our meeting Monday night. Discussion was lengthy, and many amendments were proposed, but the only actual change in expenditures from the proposed budget was a $3,500 increase in funding for a social services program operated by Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties (ADFAC). The [...]
City budget time
It’s FY 2011 budget time for the Oak Ridge City Council. Although I’ve attended myriad meetings of the Council Budget & Finance Committee, I face a stack of budget reading: City budget and Schools budget — and audit report for FY 2009. The Council audit committee meets Monday at noon, and Council meets that same [...]
Use traffic enforcement camera money for one-time traffic-safety-related improvements
Knoxville News Sentinel reporter Bob Fowler asked Oak Ridge City Council members for our views on use of the revenue from those controversial cameras that enforce speed limits and red-light compliance. His article on the answers that he got from five of us is in Friday’s paper. My full answer didn’t make it into the [...]