Recently I’ve gotten involved in planning for an Earth Day event in Oak Ridge. On Saturday afternoon, April 12th, at the Oak Ridge Civic Center, there will be exhibits, speakers, a “kids’ village,” and live music from some of the region’s best-known bands. The theme of the event is Planting the Seeds of Change, and the event goals are “to educate, encourage, and empower the citizens of Oak Ridge and surrounding communities to create a sustainable community.” The people behind this event have a lot of energy and a lot of good ideas, so I’m looking forward to a fun (and free) community-based festival that will help make Oak Ridge a greener community. See OakRidgeEarthDay.com for details and updates. (Note: It’s not too late to volunteer to be an exhibitor or to help out on the day of the event, and the organizers are still looking for financial sponsors.)
The week before the Earth Day event, on Friday evening, April 4th, folk musician John McCutcheon will be performing in town, thanks to the efforts of up-and-coming local impresario Allen McBride. In years past I’ve enjoyed hearing McCutcheon perform at the Laurel Theater in Knoxville and at the Children’s Museum in Oak Ridge, but this will be our first chance to hear him in the new performance space in the former Grove Theater. All profits will benefit wheelchair accessibility at the
Children’s Museum. Check out Allen McBride’s website for details.
On the subject of festivals, Oak Ridge’s annual Secret City Festival is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, June 20 and 21, 2008. I’m told that this event brings a lot of people to town who wouldn’t come here otherwise, and that many of them go away with a favorable impression of our city. (Based on conversations I had last weekend at the Children’s Museum’s International Festival, it has the same type of effect, but on a smaller scale.) The “big name” musical entertainment on Friday will be the ’60s-’70s rock throwback The Turtles and Saturday night’s entertainment will be by Mary Wilson of the Supremes, of Motown fame.
I guess it’s Oak Ridge bashing season again. It’s a peculiar phenomenon.
Today’s News Sentinel has a business-page story about Roane County’s recent successes in attracting industry to the county, particularly to the Roane Regional Business and Industrial Park.
In the middle of the upbeat story about Roane County’s success in getting itself onto industrial prospects’ radar screens and bringing in jobs and capital investment, there’s a classic bit of Oak Ridge bashing:
Roane County’s willingness to understand the needs of business has made a difference in recruiting development, according to Steve Kirkham, who served as chairman of the county’s Industrial Board until January.
Kirkham, who owns and operates a chain of Rocky Top Markets, brings a business professional’s perspective to the challenge of recruiting companies.
“If somebody builds a plant and they need an electrical inspector out there on a certain day to make sure the work doesn’t stop, we will accommodate them,” he said.
Kirkham said he has faced similar situations in building new stores in other communities that have not been as accommodating.
“If you ask for an electrical inspection on a specific day in Oak Ridge they’ll tell you the guy only gets out to that part of town every other Thursday,” Kirkham said. “I probably would not build in Oak Ridge if they gave me the real estate.”
I can’t know what Mr. Kirkham’s company has experienced in Oak Ridge, but I do know that the city staff attends monthly meetings with area developers at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce to hear about their concerns, and city manager Jim O’Connor told me today: “We have same day service and have been known to inspect at night. All inspections will be done within a 24 hour period.”
While I’ve observed or been told about (by people who talked to me in person) too many situations in which residents felt the city staff went too far on behalf of developers, as well as situations where city inspection staff were inconsistent or placed seemingly unreasonable requirements on restoration and remodeling projects, the people who (like Mr. Kirkham) make blanket allegations that the city is impossible for developers to work with never seem to come forward with particulars, and they do not deliver their criticisms in person. I guess that East Tennessee still holds so much left-over animosity toward Oak Ridge (dating from the Manhattan Project days) that people are prepared to believe these allegations (and print them in the newspaper) without even thinking to ask for facts.
Rocky Top Markets has four locations in Oak Ridge (according to its website) — more than they have in any other single city. Their long-time locations on Oak Ridge Turnpike have some of the busiest gas pumps in the city. I doubt that the company officials would be willing to tell their loyal Oak Ridge customers that the company can’t stand to do business here…
Update (first posted as comment March 3, 2008 @ 9:52 am)
More follow-up in a message from city Code Enforcement staff (the following is a quotation from the message, edited for brevity and to remove staff names):
[Before September of 2005] inspections were being performed at almost a “will call” basis. At times the contractors (electrical, plumbing and building) called the inspectors direct to request an inspection.
In September of 2007, in order to be more efficient and cost conscious (because of the rising cost of fuel) regarding routes driven by the inspection staff, [a new policy was initiated] that all inspections (except emergency ones or ones where weather was a factor) must be requested by 4:00 PM and the inspection would be performed the next day. …We try to accommodate people who “forget” to call in the day before or the ones that need an inspection due to weather or other factors.
…The only times that anyone has had to wait a day or so on an inspection was if [the inspector] had been on vacation or the interim period when we were using [another employee after an inspector resigned]….
Since I have been here, never to my knowledge has anyone been told “inspectors only work an area on certain days or every other Thursday”. It is a fact that some State of TN contract electrical inspectors (independent contractors, who set their own schedule) do work certain areas on certain days. This is due to the large geographical area they have to cover. If an inspection was failed on Tuesday, it would be the next Tuesday before a reinspection could be made.
Tuesday, February 19, is the day when local residents can tell DOE that we want the K-25 North Tower (a big structure, but a small part of the massive K-25 building) preserved to help tell the story of the Manhattan Project to future generations. 
A meeting to get public input on the future of K-25 is being held Tuesday from 5-8 pm at the New Hope Center at Y-12 (that’s the fancy new building on Scarboro Road). The meeting, cosponsored by the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board and the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, is being conducted for the express purpose of telling DOE what the public thinks. If you can’t make it to the meeting, you can express an opinion online at K-25 Historic Building Questionnaire — fill in the questionnaire and hit “Submit”; an email message containing your responses will be generated, ready to send to DOE.
In the midst of Oak Ridge’s continual community gripefest about the dearth of retail, I discovered today that there’s a Barnes & Noble outlet right here in the Atomic City .
OK, it’s “just” the bookstore at the Roane State Community College campus, but it’s still a Barnes & Noble store…
The next City Council “Night Out” will be held this coming Tuesday evening, February 12, 6 to 8 pm, at the Oak Ridge Civic Center, in the A/B and Club Rooms.
These “nights out” are intended to be an opportunity for citizens to meet informally (and one-on-one) with City Council members and City staff.
I’m pleased that the staff will bring copies of TDOT’s plans for the upcoming widening of West Oak Ridge Turnpike (formally called “State Route 95/58 Road Project”) so residents can learn more about what’s planned and discuss concerns about the project.
If I remember the details correctly, this project is supposed to add a 5th lane between Illinois and Jefferson Avenues, a grassed median (with cuts for turning access) from Jefferson west to the gatehouse at the west end of the Turnpike, sidewalks for the whole distance from Illinois Ave to the gatehouse, and curbs and gutters (to replace the existing roadside ditches) for the entire project length.
Although this is talked about as a highway project, a major focus of community interest has been on sidewalks and bicycle facilities. Also, there’s been concern about how it will affect properties along the route, especially the maple trees in front of the Rolling Hills apartment complex (a.k.a. Garden Apartments). The last I heard, the maple trees were going to survive, but there has been conflicting information around town about matters such as the fate of the trees and whether or not there will a dedicated bike lane on the shoulder (the answer seems to be that there will be a fairly wide paved shoulder, but not a marked bike lane). I asked staff to use this “night out” as an opportunity for the public to discuss this project, and I hope that people interested in trees, greenways, pedestrian safety, bicycle commuting, drainage ditches, etc., will be there.
As always, though, citizens are encouraged to discuss any topic.
PS - Unfortunately, it seems that this event conflicts with meetings of the Board of Zoning Appeals and the Highland View Advisory Committee. I wish that weren’t the case, as both of those bodies will be dealing with important matters on Tuesday.
If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, somebody needs to explain early voting (in Tennessee and an increasing number of other states) to the robots that dial phone calls on her behalf.
I voted in the primary last week, on the very last day of early voting. The day after early voting had ended, the robot phone calls from Hillary (and occasionally calls from Bill) began. I didn’t count how many times their voices turned up on our home phone or answering machine, but there were at least a half dozen calls in total, over about 5 days. A direct mail piece –the first one in a long time — arrived in today’s mail, too late to be useful to the campaign.
Absurdly, the last phone message was recorded on the answering machine less than 1/2 hour before the polls closed this evening — that would have been a useful campaign message if the message had said “the polls close at 8 pm — don’t forget to vote,” but it was just another generic “vote for me” message. Sigh…
Today’s New York Times health section has an article about the teaching of anatomy in U.S. high schools. The article features Oak Ridge resident and Anderson County Commissioner Harry “Whitey” Hitchcock, who teaches science at Clinton High School. I knew that Whitey’s biology students often get to study animal bones and assemble wildlife skeletons as part of their anatomy and physiology lessons, but I learned from the article “Teenagers, Scalpels, and Real Cadavers” that some of his classes also include dissection of real human cadavers.
Experience with human dissection probably doesn’t help much on AP biology exams, but it seems to me that Whitey’s students are receiving an exceptional educational experience — the type of positive experience that can set the pattern for a lifetime of achievement. And it’s not every day that a Tennessee public high school teacher gets featured in a major publication (way to go, Whitey and Clinton High School!).
Ironically, while the article identifies Clinton High School, it incorrectly names the school’s location as “Oak Ridge, Tenn.” Thus, Oak Ridge gets a little “extra credit” for something positive that is actually happening down the road in Clinton, while Anderson County Schools missed out on some deserved recognition for allowing their students to have this exceptional learning opportunity.
Today’s morning newspapers both had articles (Oak Ridger: 13-cent tax hike projected and News Sentinel: Stagnant development behind OR tax increase) describing Steve Jenkins’ presentation at yesterday’s meeting of the City Council Budget and Finance committee, and both reported (based on a table included in Steve’s handouts) that Oak Ridge has the 4th highest property tax of Tennessee’s cities, “trailing only Memphis, Humboldt and Knoxville.”
There’s no denying that Oak Ridge’s property taxes are high in comparison with most other places in Tennessee, but it seems to me that that comparative ranking of property taxes levied by municipalities is misleading. Because of differences in which unit of local government provides various services, a comparison of local property taxes is not meaningful unless it also includes the property taxes paid to counties, as well as to special school districts where those exist. Comparing tax rates in municipalities that operate school systems and police departments (to name just two areas where municipalities differ) with tax rates in municipalities that leave these services to the county is not like comparing apples and oranges — it’s like comparing the cost of a full-course meal at one restaurant with the price of the main course (or even just the appetizer) at another eatery.
When total local property tax burdens are compared, it turns out that Oak Ridge has more company near the high end of the list, and the smallish West Tennessee city of Humboldt drops even farther down the list. According to the state comptroller’s office, the cities and towns in Tennessee with the highest combined local property tax rates (equal to or greater than the rates paid by Oak Ridgers) are as follows:
- Memphis (Shelby County) - $7.4732
- Bartlett (Shelby County) - $5.63
- Germantown (Shelby County) - $5.63
- Knoxville (Knox County) - $5.50
- Collierville (Shelby County) - $5.37
- Chattanooga (Hamilton County) - $5.356
- Oak Ridge (Anderson County) - $5.33
- Millington (Shelby County) - $5.32
- Humboldt (the portion in Madison County) - $5.30 (most of the city is in Gibson County where the combined tax rate is $3.78)
- Arlington (Shelby County) - $5.09
- Oakdale (Morgan County) - $4.98
- Lookout Mountain (Hamilton County) - $4.954
- Henning (Lauderdale County) - $4.95
- Bristol (Sullivan County) - $4.95
- Signal Mountain (Hamilton County) - $4.929
- Oak Ridge (Roane County) - $4.92
Viewed that way, it seems that Oak Ridge has more company than those newspaper articles suggested.
Note that this is not a comparison of total local tax burden. Notably, it does not include local sales tax (which is at its highest possible rate in both Anderson and Roane counties) or the wheel taxes that are levied in many Tennessee counties (not including Anderson and Roane). For example, without the $55 wheel tax in Metro Nashville Davidson County, Nashville’s total property tax rate likely would be a good bit higher than its current value of $4.69.
For folks who are interested in following the city’s budget process for fiscal year 2009, here’s the schedule of upcoming meetings of the Oak Ridge City Council’s FY 2009 Budget And Finance Special Committee:
- January 15, 2008 – Policy/Budget Review
- January 29, 2008 – Police and Fire
- February 5, 2008 – Parks & Recreation, Library
- February 19, 2008 – Electric & Public Works
- March 4, 2008 – Community Development/General Government
- March 18, 2008 – Administrative Services
- April 1, 2008 – Oak Ridge Schools
- April 15, 2008 – Review of City Debt
All of these meetings are on Tuesdays; all are planned to begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building Training Room. Added January 12, 2008: Like all City Council committee meetings, these are open meetings; the public is welcome to attend.
I can’t answer my question “Can Oak Ridge adapt to the world of the future?”
Obviously, I hope the answer is “yes,” but I know there will be unanticipated challenges. (Life is like that.)
I do know that our city was largely built around the needs of American society in the middle decades of the 20th century. In particular, most of our street system was built around the private automobile as the primary means of transportation. I’m glad that we don’t have the incredibly narrow streets of older towns that were built when horses, donkeys, and human feet were the main means of transportation. However, I wonder how well Oak Ridge’s layout will adapt to a future in which people are trying to reduce their reliance on the private car — perhaps due to the scarcity of liquid transportation fuel or the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Karl’s observations on drive-up windows designed for SUVs (to the exclusion of sedans) suggest that design for the automobile may be more profoundly embedded than I imagine — if the Oak Ridge Starbuck’s is designed so that a person must drive an energy-inefficient SUV or a pickup truck to be able to conveniently buy coffee from the drive-up window, are we thinking clearly enough about the significant challenges of future adaptation?
