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.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the City Council Budget and Finance Committee, fire chief Mack Bailey shared some statistics that reminded me why it makes sense to live in Oak Ridge. Per capita fire losses per capita in our city are only about 1/3 of the average in the southeastern U.S. (just $15 to $25 per [...]
Good news for families or communities with older drivers — and good news for all of us who expect to get older. It seems that the higher rate of auto accident fatalities for older drivers is not because they are bad drivers, but because they are more frail. This suggests that the number of senior [...]
Oak Ridge’s traffic camera program hasn’t started yet, but it’s never too soon to be forewarned about things that can go wrong with camera-based traffic enforcement. It seems (based on this article) that teenagers in Montgomery County, Maryland, are playing some elaborate pranks with speed-enforcement cameras. First they use a computer and printer to create [...]
It seems (according to this article in the New York Times) that Santa Monica, California, has a problem with people conducting fitness classes in traffic medians and other public places. The exercisers make noise and annoy the neighbors, especially when they have outdoor classes during hours when many people are trying to sleep. To control [...]
There’s some great news this morning! The state has announced that the city of Oak Ridge will receive a Safe Routes to School grant totaling $239,079 for sidewalk and crosswalk improvements, traffic devices, and signage near the Robertsville Middle School campus. The grant will also fund educational programs and promotional activities for middle school children, [...]
It seems you can’t open a newspaper or turn on a TV without hearing about traffic enforcement cameras. I’m still scratching my head over the news that Knoxville is terminating its contract with RedFlex due to late delivery of the company’s bid on a contract renewal.
Meanwhile, WBIR-TV has a report that the Oak Ridge police [...]
If you were hoping the red-light camera issue would be resolved soon (one way or the other) so that other public concerns could get attention, you will need to wait another month. City staff does not have a proposed contract ready for City Council consideration this month, so the next vote on the subject is [...]
Two public meetings are coming up on the topic of camera-based traffic enforcement.
The first is this Thursday, May 15, 2008 — a “Citizen’s Red Light Camera Informational Meeting” sponsored by the “Tennessee Liberty Alliance” (additional website), at 7 pm, at the Midtown Community Center (Wildcat Den) on the corner of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Robertsville [...]
There’s a lot of conflicting information “out there” on the results of traffic cameras. Whatever conclusions you want to support, you are sure to be able to find a study that supports that conclusion. Oak Ridge (and any other community considering cameras) needs to “proceed with caution” in making a decision.
I haven’t sorted out all [...]
The proposed ordinance to authorize use of automated cameras in traffic enforcement was passed by Oak Ridge City Council on first reading. Several citizens made thoughtful comments before the vote. Among other things, they commented on the “Orwellian” aspects of this monitoring, the difficulty in slowing a semi-trailer in order to stop it before a [...]