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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
People are griping (for example, on the new Sustain Oak Ridge Google group) about the Hwy 95 widening projects (the ongoing one from Illinois Ave. to Westover Drive and the next phase from Westover Drive to the Hwy 58 interchange). These are not City of Oak Ridge projects, but are Tennessee Department of Transportation [...]
I’ve already heard from one citizen with a question about an item on the April 13 City Council agenda (the agenda was posted Friday), so I guess it’s high time to discuss some of the business items. There’s a rezoning, action on the Chamber of Commerce contract, numerous bids and contracts including purchase of new [...]
Michael Silence has a comment in today’s News Sentinel that (contrary to his intention) helps to underline just how difficult it can be for governments to make meaningful reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. He says that it would be silly for the state to require vending machines on state property to either [...]
The future of Oak Ridge recycling is now. Our new recycling carts have been delivered all over town, Waste Connections is collecting recyclables using a truck that is equipped to lift the carts and dump the contents into the truck, and the RecycleBank incentive program starts on Monday.
I’m hearing a lot of questions and comments [...]
If we thought that Oak Ridge should cut back on fuel use by city vehicles, consider Knox County, where it seems (according to today’s News Sentinel) that there are 136 county-owned take-home vehicles (not even including the sheriff’s department), including 52 SUVs, 46 pickup trucks (most of them 3/4-ton Ford F-250s), and 6 “vans or [...]
The process used at the Saturday forum was based on the process followed to elicit community input to Chattanooga’s climate action plan, which had been published two days before the Oak Ridge forum. Jim Frierson of the Chattanooga Green Team spoke at the forum regarding Chattanooga’s experience, helping to set the stage for our discussions.
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