A couple of weeks ago I commented on plans for the “Oak Ridge Gran Prius” and its relation to Toyota safety issues. At this point, it appears that the Gran Prius event might not happen, due in part to nagging safety concerns. Now, however, there’s an op-ed piece in the New York Times telling how many past instances of “sudden unexplained acceleration” were actually due to people pressing down (hard) on the accelerator pedal when they thought their foot was on the brake! Hmm…
No, I don’t believe that everyone in Oak Ridge wants to keep chickens, but Peggy Hanrahan’s Realty Center seems to be open to the idea — their business sign is advertising a free chicken coop with every house sold…
This is in keeping with the goals of the Oak Ridgers who would like to keep backyard chickens — they are thinking in terms of pets that lay eggs, not full-scale poultry farming. Not everyone would want backyard chickens, but not everyone wants a pet dog, either. If Oak Ridge doesn’t make it explicitly legal to keep chickens — under certain rules designed to protect the neighborhood, I have a hunch that people will keep them anyway, but without rules.
Following up to my earlier post on chickens… Today’s Oak Ridger reports that the 5 Planning Commission members who attended last week’s work session were negative about the idea of allowing chickens in residential neighborhoods. I wasn’t able to attend the meeting and I haven’t yet seen what staff presented to them. However, I do know that there was no advance publicity of the meeting’s topic (unless you count this blog) so there may have been no interested citizens at the meeting, and it’s apparent from the article that staff presented the idea in negative terms (saying it was supported by only a “handful of people” and raising concerns about the workload for enforcement and licensing and permitting).
If chickens are going to come to Oak Ridge to roost or lay eggs, people with interest and knowledge of chicken-rearing are going to have to sit down for a two-way discussion with the planning commissioners and staff. The newspaper says the topic will be addressed by the full Planning Commission at its February 25th meeting (5:30 pm in the City courtroom); based on what I know of the subject and what I read in the newspaper reports, I think it’s premature for the Commission to take any final action on this.
Follow-up (written on Wednesday): Community Development staff provided me with a copy of the written material provided to the committee; it included copies of the text of a couple of e-mails I had received from citizens. Staff say that there were several interested citizens at the meeting. It appears that discussion at the meeting dealt mainly with broad concepts.
One event planned for Earth Day 2010 in Oak Ridge is the “Oak Ridge Gran Prius.” This will be a rally event challenging participants to get the best gas mileage driving a Toyota Prius across town on a defined course — thus letting people (particularly public officials who make decisions on buying vehicles) find out what it’s like to drive a hybrid car. I think it’s a great idea, but lately whenever Toyotas come up in conversation, somebody mentions the safety recalls on various models. My household’s Toyota Prius isn’t subject to either the accelerator-pedal issue or the braking problem, but those recalls (not to mention the media attention they’ve gotten) are still troubling for just about anybody who drives any kind of Toyota — and is likely to discourage some people from adopting energy-saving hybrid auto technology.
One thing that’s been missing from the U.S. media is advice on what to do about these problems (other than taking the car to the dealer for a repair). The BBC website, however, has some good advice: How do you stop a car with a jammed accelerator? advises drivers to put on the brakes, shift the car into neutral (of course!) — and if those measures don’t work, switch off the ignition (but keep the key in place to avoid locking the steering wheel). We need more of that kind of common-sense practical advice…
Chickens were the main topic in the waning minutes of Monday evening’s City Council meeting. There’s been public interest in allowing backyard poultry-keeping (mostly for eggs — and in support of sustainability, the locavore lifestyle, and connecting kids with “nature”). Oak Ridge’s zoning ordinance doesn’t allow “livestock” (including fowl) except in the RG-1 zone, so poultry-keeping is illegal unless we change the ordinance. The Planning Commission is taking up the issue — and Charlie Hensley says it’s on their policy work session agenda for this Thursday, February 11 (5:30 pm in the Municipal Building Training Room).
Urban chickens (and other fowl) are “in” these days, and many jurisdictions have been changing their zoning laws to allow them (for example, here’s a news story from last year on Durham, North Carolina, legalizing backyard chickens).
Most prospective chicken-keepers suggest that the ordinance should allow no more than 4 to 6 chickens per household — and almost everyone seems to agree on no roosters (many people enjoy hearing “cock-a-doodle-doo,” but there are many more who don’t). One poultry proponent said in an e-mail that “What matters is … that the conditions are sanitary and that it does not stink, and it is not an eyesore.” The Planning Commission will also have to think about whether an ordinance would need to include specifications on things like setbacks from property lines, and whether the city can and should enact requirements on how these birds are housed. The Planning Commission can make a recommendation to City Council, and any change in the ordinance would require City Council action.
I expect that people interested in keeping chickens (or turkeys, ducks, guinea fowl, geese, pheasants, or quail) will be at Thursday’s meeting — and will be communicating their views to Community Development directory Kathryn Baldwin, Planning Commission members, and City Council. To help in reaching good decisions, we also need to hear the concerns of people who don’t like the idea — and I expect that we’ll hear from them, too. As issues go, this one should be an amusing one to discuss — already I’m hearing good stories about people’s personal experiences with fowl.
Angie Palau is amazing! Just a couple of months ago, she was instrumental in getting a RecycleBank “Green Schools” grant for a new outdoor amphitheater for Linden Elementary School. Now she’s come through a second time with a grant for an “educational wetland” at Linden.
To claim the $5000 grant for the wetland, RecycleBank members need to donate points. 100 RecycleBank points equals $10. Linden already received the 50,000 points needed for the amphitheater, but it is still possible for RecycleBank members to contribute to the wetland project at this link.
The Oak Ridge city staff and and the Knoxville Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) have been working quietly to get started on a process to update the city’s pedestrian and bicycle plans. City Council found out earlier this week that an advisory committee had been formed and several meetings have been held. Currently the city has a sidewalk plan for the center city and a greenways master plan, but neither of these is recent, and some sort of comprehensive pedestrian-bike plan is needed to qualify for certain grants.
A forum for public input will be held on January 5 at the Civic Center A/B Room. Here’s a classy announcement of the forum that’s being distributed.
The
Bicycle Pedestrian Technical Advisory Committee Invites
You to a Public Forum
January 5th, 2010 @ 6:00 p.m.
Oak Ridge Civic Center A/B Room
The City of Oak Ridge, the Bicycle Pedestrian Technical Advisory Committee, and the Transportation Planning Organization have joined forces to prepare a Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan for the City of Oak Ridge. During the first public forum we will be seeking input for establishing policies, programs, and priorities for the plan. If you have any questions you may contact the Community Development Department at (865) 425-3531 or the Parks and Recreation Department at (865) 425-3450. We look forward to seeing you there.
An e-mail from a resident reminds me that there’s lots of public discussion about tax rates, but little public/media attention when city electric, water, and wastewater rates go up — even though most of us pay more for city utilities than we do for city property taxes.
I think the resident was hoping that there was some terrible mistake in his bill when he wrote that since 2006 “my electric and sewage price per unit has increased by 25% and my water price per unit has increased by 50%.” His estimates of the rate increase are a bit high, probably because there are minimum charges built into each of those bills (currently $25 per month for water and wastewater and $7.70 for electric) that mean you can’t calculate the unit price by dividing your total bill for the month by your usage for the month. However, the reality is that the rates have gone up — a lot.
Having dug into the rate increases to respond to this citizen, I’m going to document the information here.
The increases are due in large part to the fact that the costs of many of the items that are required to deliver electricity, water and wastewater service (including natural gas, coal, electrical transformers, and electric cable) have gone up much faster than the consumer price index. The city is simply passing the costs along to us customers. Additionally, though, a portion of the increases is due to decisions the city made several years ago to subsidize part of the cost of extending utility service to remote locations such as Rarity Ridge.
Electric rates have changed several times during the last few years, almost entirely due to changes in TVA’s charges for electricity sold to the city. (There also have been some modest increases by the city.) TVA rate increases have resulted mostly from factors such as big increases in its costs for the fuel it uses to generate electricity (mostly coal) and reduced hydroelectric generation due to drought. Fortunately, sometimes TVA makes downward adjustments in its rates. TVA adjusts its rates quarterly, and our rates change quarterly as a result. The most current Oak Ridge electric rates (from April) are on the web at this address. Those rates are lower than they were a few months ago.
Water rates have increased more than 40% since 2006. Those rate increases received final approval from City Council in May 2007 (the month before I was elected to Council), as documented here.
That increase was related to increased costs of delivering water, but a contributing factor was a big permanent drop in water use by Department of Energy facilities. The fixed costs of operation did not drop when DOE’s usage dropped, so the city now must to divide those costs across fewer gallons of water. (Also, a provision of the city’s contract with DOE limited the percentage by which the city can increase DOE’s rates, meaning that the rest of us are paying more…)
Wastewater rates last increased in May 2008 (see documentation on the city website). I don’t recall the percentage increase, nor the specific reasons for it, but I know that the costs of energy are a big part of the cost of wastewater treatment, so energy price increases are likely to explain a big chunk of the increase.
What to do about this? Well, most of us could reduce our bills by conserving. At my house, we’ve seen our electric usage go down a surprising amount because of (1) replacing light bulbs with compact fluorescents, (2) getting rid of the old refrigerator that we kept as a second fridge for convenience (for example, to hold “fresh” orange juice that we bought on sale), and (3) replacing our old chest freezer with a newer model that’s more efficient. Not only does that reduce our household bill, but if our society could significantly reduce its overall demand for energy, America would become less vulnerable to the price manipulation by the international oil cartel that causes energy prices to go up…
The widening of Hwy. 95 will help with future rates, as it will facilitate extension of water lines to westernmost Oak Ridge, which will in turn lower future costs of provding services there by eliminating the need to purchase water for Rarity Ridge. Economic development that adds more water users (ideally in areas already on the main water system) would help by adding more users to split those fixed costs.
Oak Ridge is now participating in TVA’s Generation Partners program that provides incentives for generating green electricity (something that should make a small contribution to reducing the influence of that international oil cartel).
And maybe we can find some ways to increase efficiencies in the utility systems.
City Council received a report the other day on what Tennesseans (mostly in Oak Ridge and Jefferson City) redeemed their RecycleBank rewards points for in April.
My household hasn’t redeemed any of our RecycleBank rewards points yet, and it looks like we’re in the majority — fewer than 1500 rewards were redeemed in April (some by households that got more than one reward).
It was interesting to see what other people are choosing, as it gave me hints on the most attractive “deals.”
After seeing that Kashi products (free items such as granola, granola bars, and pilaf) are the number one choice (more than one in five of the rewards ordered were from this vendor), I looked into their reward offers and decided that we need to use some of our points to try some of their products.
Ruby Tuesday was the second most popular vendor, with some “buy one, get one free” coupons that appealed to nearly 200 Tennessee households during April. Food City was high on the list of popular vendors with their offer to exchange points for reusable cloth shopping bags.
It was great to see Oak Ridge ice cream destination Razzleberry’s in 5th place with a couple of yummy offers to entice people into their Jackson Square store.
Several other Oak Ridge businesses were popular choices, including Moondollars Cafe in Jackson Square, Firehouse Subs, and Venice Pizza. (Do I see a food theme here?)
ADDED June 10: Several people commented on this item over at Facebook. Tom Beehan said he had used some points for the Epicurean, Kelly Ayers said Moondollars has been getting some redemptions, and Cyndy Bailes says she has redeemed points for Moondollars and Naturally Gourmet. That food theme is going strong.
There’s some favorable news on the turnpike widening project.
City Council members learned last evening that the project was not included as a stimulus project, but is instead expected to be funded in TDOT’s FY 2010 work plan. That reduces the urgency a bit and gives TDOT a chance to improve the design.
Also, Southwood residents who spoke at the City Council meeting got the Council’s and staff’s attention, and I expect that things will be done to determine the extent of the impacts on that subdivision and look for ways to mitigate the effects.
