It’s great news for local homeowners that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is promoting home energy efficiency through in-home energy evaluations and rebates for certain kinds of energy improvements. Details are on the TVA website (and there are also tax credits available for work done this year). I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that unscrupulous [...]
Posts under ‘Tennessee state issues’
Governor Bredesen’s education initiative
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 [...]
DOE radwaste to Tennessee landfills – next chapter
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 [...]
Guns in parks
The issue of guns in municipal parks has aroused a lot of emotion and is generating a lot of e-mail to City Council members. On one side are people are strong proponents of gun rights and residents who believe that having a concealed gun when they are in a public place helps to ensure their [...]
Oak Ridge and the downside of derivatives trading
After headlines earlier this year about Tennessee local governments suffering losses after getting involved in interest rate swaps for their municipal bonds (see New York Times on April 8 and April 10, the Associated Press on April 8, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal and Chattanooga Times-Free Press on April 10 ) people are talking about [...]
Corrections and update on next phase of Hwy 95 widening
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 [...]
The next phase of the Turnpike (Hwy 95) widening
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 [...]
Candidates, candidates, everywhere
Oak Ridge, we have some candidates this year — candidates for City Council and school board in the June 2, 2009 city election, and possibly even a local candidate for U.S. Congress in fall 2010.
Before talking about the candidates, I must stop and remember the two long-time public servants who decided not to stand for [...]
Turning off lights isn’t as easy as it looks
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 [...]
Tennessee: Please don’t take these two backward steps
I expected the state budget to be the main topic Monday morning at the League of Women Voters’ monthly Breakfast with the Legislators, and I was right (as Bob Fowler reported in the News Sentinel). I didn’t predict the discussion that occurred over reauthorization of the Tennessee Plan (the procedure that Tennessee uses to select [...]