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.
Grumble, grumble, grumble… Just about everybody who lives or works in Oak Ridge knows about the growing problem of traffic congestion at the Solway bridge and Solway around 5 to 6 pm weekdays. This could be resolved, of course, if more of the people who work in Oak Ridge also lived in Oak Ridge. The [...]
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 [...]
I’m tickled about the news that the big cuts in DOE’s 2011 Environmental Management (i.e., environmental cleanup) budget for Oak Ridge that were rumored to be in the proposed budget have been averted. Frank Munger’s blog tells about Representative Lincoln Davis’ role in restoring funds to the yet-to-be-announced budget. Three cheers for Lincoln Davis!
Cleanup budgets [...]
E-mail from State Representative Jim Hackworth’s office urged me to read the proposals that Governor Bredesen presented to the General Assembly yesterday (here’s the press release) and give him my views. Education is not one of the topics I typically contact my legislators about, but the governor’s proposal to transform the state’s education system has [...]
Good news from Kristin Olsen of the Humane Society of Anderson County:
Due to the overwhelming response and concern for continuing our neuter/spay program, we have met and revamped our program to help those in need.
We will continue to offer financial assistance to Anderson County residents. Requests will be made in person on the last [...]
Two bits of good news in a row: (1) The Oak Ridge Revitalization Effort now owns the Alexander Inn and (2) an additional trail segment has opened on the Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement in westernmost Oak Ridge. Hurray for the people whose volunteer efforts are making good things happen!
On the Alexander Inn, Kate Groover [...]
Wow… Frank Munger’s blog post “Who’s making the big bucks in Oak Ridge?” is attracting a lot of attention today among staff at ORNL. I have a hunch that the information that the top managers of certain local government contractors are receiving annual compensation on the order of half a million dollars or more is [...]
“Solar 101”: Solar Basics for the Oak Ridge Homeowner will be held Saturday, November 14th, 2009, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm, in the Oak Ridge Public Library Auditorium. Sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board and the City of Knoxville’s Solar America Cities Program, this workshop will provide an overview of the solar [...]
It turns out that DOE’s conference call (see previous post) was not really an “initial public outreach activity” (other than the fact that it was their first public outreach on this topic), but rather was a belated damage-control job: the Department wanted to see whether it would be a bad idea to follow through [...]
I don’t know whether to castigate DOE for thinking of this in the first place, or congratulate them for having the good sense to drop the idea — I’m talking about the idea of sending radioactively contaminated soil from New York state to the Chestnut Ridge landfill in Anderson County, documented in Saturday’s News Sentinel. [...]