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.
Stan Mitchell of The Oak Ridge Observer asked the city manager and members of City Council for our thoughts on the year past (2011) and the upcoming year (2012). The responses he received (from the manager and 6 Council members) were published in Thursday’s paper. Here’s are his questions and my answers (to see the [...]
Lately I feel like the airport is my second home, but I may finally be getting a chance to catch my breath after my most recent trip, to the National League of Cities meeting in Phoenix. I returned home with my bags stuffed with handouts and new knowledge and ideas on topics including managing and [...]
On Monday evening, August 8, City Council is being asked to approve issuing $10 million in bonds for wastewater and water projects (see agenda). We absolutely need to borrow this money, but I have doubts about the staff’s plan for structuring the debt — that is, how we pay it back.
This is part of about [...]
Oak Ridge wasn’t the first city to distribute agendas electronically, but somehow the New York Times got the impression that Cornelius, North Carolina, invented the idea of issuing iPads to City Council members instead of sending out paper agendas. They didn’t invent the idea… Oak Ridge City Council members were issued iPads last year, and [...]
Tonight City Council has the wonderful opportunity of choosing 9 fine citizens to serve on the new Parks & Rec Board, but we also will have to “not choose” 51 equally fine applicants. I can’t vote for nearly everyone I have a high opinion of — so I’m thinking about how to harness some of [...]
The New Year is past, but Monday night’s Council meeting indicates that I need to make and follow a resolution for future meetings: Whenever I’m commenting on or asking questions about an agenda item, I should always mention (probably more than once) how I intend to vote on that item (unless, of course, I still [...]
They’re back (west Oak Ridge Turnpike speed limits, that is)! The Traffic Safety Advisory Board (TSAB) discusses them at its meeting Tuesday evening at 7 pm. The city engineer has conducted motorist speed surveys and is recommending that the city not make any adjustments to the state’s speed limits.
How we got to this point
In [...]
I was out of town for a couple of days, and I’m catching up with news. WATE-TV reported that the Tennessee Dept of Transportation didn’t recommend those speed limits, after all. A TDOT spokesman said that the Oak Ridge city government (not TDOT) has the authority to establish speed limits on this road. The most [...]
As Friday’s paper reported, City Council has been asked to approve new speed limits for west Oak Ridge Turnpike (SR 95) — to take effect after TDOT’s seemingly interminable widening project is finished. This portends an end to the construction that we west end residents have endured for the last 2-1/4 years (reportedly, TDOT has [...]
Phew! The Oak Ridge League of Women Voters will be busy this summer, holding a bunch of candidate forums before early voting starts on July 16 — plus a public forum to meet the finalists for the position of Oak Ridge city manager. Here’s the schedule:
June 22 – Roane County Forum
Candidates for County offices
Oak Ridge [...]