Phew! This year’s Secret City Festival was a big success but it’s a relief that it’s over, and a relief that we made it through last evening’s marathon City Council meeting.
We had a long agenda and a long meeting. Kudos to John Huotari for quickly spinning out reports on two of the major business items [...]
Posts under ‘Lobbyists’
Lobbyist contracts renewed
As the local newspapers have reported, on December 17 Council voted 6-1 to renew the Ferguson Group lobbying contract (I was opposed) and 7-0 to renew the contract will Bill Nolan Associates.
There was little discussion of the matter at the meeting, but it appeared that other Council members’ votes on the Ferguson contract were [...]
Council committee votes on lobbyists
The headline in the Friday, November 30 Oak Ridger said Lobbyists earn 2-1 vote of confidence. The article about the City Council Intergovernmental Relations Committee meeting the day before said that I voted against the “rehiring” of “the city’s federal lobbyist, The Ferguson Group of Washington, D.C., and the city’s state lobbyist, Bill Nolan & [...]
Lobbyists and TVA land — are Oak Ridge’s leaders tuned in to us?
This is a partially written blog post that I filed away last October and failed to finish — until now.
At its October 2006 meeting, City Council extended both of the city’s lobbying contracts for more than a year — through the end of 2007. That same evening, Council voted to lodge a strong [...]
Oak Ridge leads the region — but it’s a dubious distinction
Earlier this week the Knoxville News Sentinel reported on the phenomenon (discussed here earlier) of local governments employing Washington, DC lobbyists to give “extra muscle” in seeking targeted pork-barrel funding for local projects. The report indicates a new dubious distinction for Oak Ridge — we spend more on federal lobbying than any other local government [...]
Democratic takeover of Congress changes the environment for lobbyists who specialize in earmarks
Reports in the news (Pelosi Says She Would Drain GOP ‘Swamp‘) and on blogs suggest that the Democrats who are about to take control of Congress hope to rein in the practice of earmarking.
An article in the Washington Post last winter explained earmarking:
An earmark is a narrowly focused appropriation. …These home-state projects — which range [...]
The phenomenon of local governments paying lobbyists to seek “earmark” federal funding
I’m bothered by (and have commented previously on) the City of Oak Ridge’s lobbying activities in Washington, DC. An article earlier this year in The New York Times, titled “Hiring Federal Lobbyists, Towns Learn Money Talks”, describes the disturbing national trend in which Oak Ridge is eagerly participating.
This hot trend is for local governments to [...]