Oak Ridge Today

Oak Ridge Public Library celebrates 70 years, offers Amnesty Week

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Oak Ridge Public Library

The Oak Ridge Public Library is pictured above.

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To thank our community for 70 wonderful years, we are inviting our patrons to enjoy our week-long birthday party by offering Amnesty Week, exciting public programming, a library staff cookbook give-away, and cake!

When you return an overdue item—either in person or in the book drop—between Tuesday, May 27, and Saturday, May 31, enjoy fine forgiveness on those items.

Not sure if you have any overdue items? Need more information about amnesty rules? Come by the main desk with your library card.

During our regular 10:30 a.m. Tuesday morning preschool storytime, we will offer a topic of “Classic Tales.” This program will highlight bestsellers through the years and some titles that have been in our collection since the 1940s.

On Thursday, May 29, we will begin giving away copies of our 2014 Library Staff Cookbook and serving our birthday cake at 1 p.m. in the Library Auditorium. Come in, get a slice of cake, and stay for the adult programs we are offering afterward. [Read more…]

Sewer rehab work continues this week

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More rehabilitation work of the city’s sewer collection pipes is scheduled to continue this week.

The work is being done by Hurst Excavating and Morgan Contracting under contract with the City of Oak Ridge. It includes rehabilitating sewer collection pipes within city easements in yards and in roadways, a press release said.

Residents should already have received color-coded letters and door hangers (orange for Hurst Excavating and purple for Morgan Contracting) providing general information and each contractors’ contact information. [Read more…]

Council to discuss Friendship Bell repairs, National Park designation

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Oak Ridge City Council

The Oak Ridge City Council is pictured above during an August 2013 meeting. (File photo)

The Oak Ridge City Council will discuss possible repairs to the structure housing the International Friendship Bell at Alvin K. Bissell Park as well as a potential National Park Service designation during a non-voting work session this evening (Tuesday evening).

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Multipurpose Room at the Central Services Complex on Woodbury Lane.

See the agenda here.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

City to use traffic camera money for parking lot work at Blankenship Field

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Red-light Camera at Oak Ridge Turnpike and New York Avenue

The Oak Ridge City Council agreed last week to use $180,000 in traffic camera money for improvements to the lower parking at Blankenship Field.

 

The Oak Ridge City Council agreed last week in a 5-2 vote to use $180,000 in traffic camera money for improvements to the lower parking lot at Blankenship Field, which is used for football games and high school graduation.

The request from Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan was reviewed at a City Council work session on April 28.

The work could include resurfacing work at the lower parking lot and access to the lower levels and visitors bleachers under the American with Disabilities Act. The project has been reviewed by the city staff, and it could include resurfacing, ADA improvements, handicapped parking, and new pavement and striping.

The work would complement a project to replace the demolished visitors bleachers at Blankenship Field, a $455,000 project that was unanimously approved by the Oak Ridge Board of Education in March. The bleachers had been deemed unsafe, and school officials are hoping to replace them before the first home football game on Aug. 29. The school board agreed to use the school system’s fund balance to pay for the replacement bleachers. [Read more…]

No garbage pickup on Memorial Day

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Waste Connections Inc. will not be picking up refuse or recyclables on Monday, May 26, in observance of Memorial Day. Monday’s routes will be picked up on Tuesday, May 27, and subsequent days that week to follow through Saturday. Please have all refuse and recyclables out by 7 a.m., the city said in a press release.

For additional information you can contact Waste Connections at (865) 482-3656 or visit www.WasteConnectionsTn.com.

Oak Ridge Land Bank to be discussed Tuesday

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Charlie Jernigan, board chairman of the Oak Ridge Land Bank Corp., will be the guest speaker at Lunch with the League at noon Tuesday.

The meeting will be in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church at 1500 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

The Oak Ridge Land Bank Corp. is a unique governmental organization in Tennessee that grew out of the need to address the problem of blighted housing in Oak Ridge, a press release said. The concept of a land bank was introduced in 2011 as part of the “Not in Our City” plan. It became a reality in September 2013 when City Council approved Ordinance 08-2013. The Land Bank Corp. will work to support economic revitalization through returning vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties to productive use, the press release said. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge city, schools have Wellness and Safety Fair on Wednesday

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Oak Ridge Wellness Fair 2011

Flu shots are given at an Oak Ridge Wellness Fair in November 2011. (File photo)

Oak Ridge Schools and the City of Oak Ridge Wellness Committee are co-sponsoring a Wellness and Safety Fair on Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Oak Ridge Civic Center.

The entire community is invited to attend between 3 to 5 p.m.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the fair will be open only to Oak Ridge School employees and City of Oak Ridge workers. There will be many door prizes and a variety of vendors, a press release said.

More than 60 vendors are expected to take part, and activities including chair massages, pain assessments, ear canal screenings, power tool safety, resistance exercises, blood pressure screenings, grip strength, mobile mammography, medic, healthy food choices from local restaurants, Tennessee Highway Patrol and safe driving, Jazzercise, outdoor sports, varicose vein ultrasound, and much more, the press release said. [Read more…]

Sewer rehab work continues next week

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More rehabilitation work of the city’s sewer collection pipes is scheduled to continue next week.

The work is being done by Hurst Excavating and Morgan Contracting under contract with the City of Oak Ridge. It includes rehabilitating sewer collection pipes within city easements in yards and in roadways, a press release said.

Residents should already have received color-coded letters and door hangers (orange for Hurst Excavating and purple for Morgan Contracting) providing general information and each contractors’ contact information. [Read more…]

Formall Job Fair joins Career Coach at Oak Ridge Library on Wednesday

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Oak Ridge Public Library Career Coach

The Career Coach will be coming to the Oak Ridge Public Library parking lot from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday to help with online job applications, sprucing up resumes, and more, a press release said.

In addition, Formall, a locally based family-owned and operated production company, will be hosting a job fair during the Career Coach event. Formall is seeking more than 40 machine operators and other positions for the facility at 1709 Lake City Highway in Clinton. Interested candidates are encouraged to bring a resume and apply online at www.jobs4tn.gov (search for job #51927). The starting pay is $9.50 per hour, with an additional $0.50 per hour for second and third shifts. [Read more…]

Sewer rehab work continues this week

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More rehabilitation work of the city’s sewer collection pipes is scheduled to continue this week.

The work is being done by Hurst Excavating and Morgan Contracting under contract with the City of Oak Ridge. It includes rehabilitating sewer collection pipes within city easements in yards and in roadways, a press release said.

Residents should already have received color-coded letters and door hangers (orange for Hurst Excavating and purple for Morgan Contracting) providing general information and each contractors’ contact information. [Read more…]

Lincoln’s to have beer permit suspended at least one week

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Lincoln's Sports Grille

Lincoln’s Sports Grille will have a one- or two-week beer permit suspension depending upon improvements made before a June 9 meeting. (File photo)

The Oak Ridge Beer Board voted on Monday to suspend the beer permit of Lincoln’s Sport Grille for one or two weeks, depending upon improvements made before the board’s June meeting.

Lincoln’s has met with the board four times within the past two years. Monday’s meeting was in response to an April altercation between two male patrons.

The motion to allow Lincoln’s the opportunity for a reduced suspension was passed in a 4-3 vote, with opposition from Theresa Scott, Barton Bailey, and Randy Tedford.

The vote requires that Lincoln’s provide proof that they have made efforts to improve their business before the beer board’s next meeting on June 9. If they can not meet the board’s requirements for improvement, they will face a two-week suspension.

Tedford, who is Beer Board chair, said Lincoln’s must provide “a more comprehensive plan” to fix problems involving over-service and the patio gate at the popular restaurant, and add eight surveillance cameras around the premises and at least two more staff members to make sure the patio is adequately monitored. [Read more…]

Former home of Oak Ridger, shops near Magic Wok could be demolished

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Wender Building

Most of a commercial building that once housed The Oak Ridger on Tyrone Road near Jackson Square could be demolished in six months under a plan proposed to a city board on Thursday. The Magic Wok restaurant, which is separate from the building, would remain, as would a small portion of the building.

 

Magic Wok

The detached Magic Wok diner would remain and so would the western portion of the building near the restaurant.

Note: This story was updated at 2:35 p.m. May 10.

Most of a commercial building that was once home to The Oak Ridger newspaper and other businesses on Tyler and East Tyrone roads could be demolished later this year, an engineer and surveyor told a city board on Thursday.

The western part of the building near the Magic Wok restaurant would remain, and so would the diner itself.

Roughly 26,000 square feet of the building, which has housed a wide variety of businesses since the 1940s, would be demolished down to the slab. The demolition of the property, which is also known as the Wender Building after a former owner, would include the space occupied for decades by Classic Cleaners.

Noel M. Peterson, owner of Coal Creek Surveying and Engineering of Lake City, briefly outlined the plans of the owners—Jia-Chao and Ming-Wha Wang—during a Thursday meeting of the Oak Ridge Board of Building and Housing Code Appeals.

Many of the details still have to be worked out with the Oak Ridge municipal staff, and the board gave the owners another 30 days. But it’s considered a last-chance extension. [Read more…]