Oak Ridge Today has uploaded a copy of the city manager’s budget presentation to Oak Ridge City Council. You can see a PDF version of the budget presentation here: City of Oak Ridge (Fiscal Year 2017 Budget).
Council received the PowerPoint presentation during a special meeting on Tuesday.
Here are a few highlights from the Tuesday meeting: [Read more…]
Mark LeNoir, right, a junior at Oak Ridge High School, is running for Oak Ridge City Council in November. (Submitted photo)
A 17-year-old junior at Oak Ridge High School is running for Oak Ridge City Council, and he said he wants to represent the city’s youth on the seven-member body.
Mark LeNoir, the first candidate to publicly announce a City Council campaign this year, at least to Oak Ridge Today, will turn 18 on October 5, about one month before the November 8 election.
On Wednesday, LeNoir said he kicked off his campaign a few weeks ago at a banquet for Youth Leadership of Oak Ridge at the DoubleTree Hotel.
“My biggest thing is that there is a lot of unrepresented youth in this town,” LeNoir said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. “It’s kind of stayed on the same path for the last 20 years. I want to get change happening.”
LeNoir said he wants more cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, including possibly having the city take over the American Museum of Science and Energy, or AMSE, and Clark Center Park. [Read more…]
Mark Watson
Note: This story was last updated at 10:30 a.m.
The proposed city budget presented to Oak Ridge City Council members on Tuesday would leave the property tax rate unchanged, but it could include rate increases for water, sewer, and trash collection.
If approved by Council, the budget would not increase the property tax rate for the ninth year in a row. After five-year reappraisals last year, the rate is now set at $2.52 per $100 of assessed value.
The proposed budget includes a 3 percent pay adjustment that would move employees along their pay scales, helping to separate those who have worked for the city for a while from those who have just started.
The trash fee would increase by $3.50 per month, raising it from $10.50 to $14 per month starting in October. The fee was raised to $10.50 last year. At $14 per month, the city would no longer subsidize part of the trash fee, as it has previously done. The city used to pay half of the $14 fee, meaning residents paid $7 per month and the city paid $7. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge resident Christopher D. Keever has proposed a craft beer market that could open in July in central Oak Ridge.
The business would be called Crafter’s Brew Market and Social. It would be located at 856 Oak Ridge Turnpike, which was a demonstration site for Waterworks Pool and Spa.
With approval, the site would be remodeled with a building and bathrooms, according to a beer permit application filed with the city.
It would be a craft beer market with on-site and off-site consumption of craft beer and international bottled beer. To enter after 9 p.m., customers would have to be 21 years old or older. [Read more…]
Mark Watson
Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson will present the proposed budget for the next fiscal year during a special meeting this evening (Tuesday, May 31).
Watson will present the budget to the Oak Ridge City Council in a meeting that starts at 7 p.m. today in the Municipal Building Courtroom.
Council is expected to consider approving the budget in two meetings in June. [Read more…]
Gashaw Duhamel, a senior at Tennessee School for the Deaf who ran cross country for Oak Ridge in the fall, finished second in the Class A-AA 3,200-meter run in the boys state track and field meet in Murfreesboro on Friday, May 27, 2016. (Photo by Kindell Moore)
Gashaw Duhamel, an Oak Ridge resident who ran cross country for the Wildcats in the fall, has been signed by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to run for the Volunteers, and he finished second on Friday in the boys’ state championship 3,200-meter run.
Duhamel attends Tennessee School for the Deaf in Knoxville. He’s reported to be the first athlete from Tennessee School for the Deaf to earn a Division I scholarship.
He finished second on Friday in the boys 3,200-meter run in the Class A-AA state track and field championship meet in Murfreesboro. Duhamel also finished second in the Class A-AA East Section Finals on May 19 at Christian Academy of Knoxville. The top runner in the 3,200-meter race at both meets was Johnathan Chavez, a Knoxville Catholic senior. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge boys 4×800-meter relay team finished 7th in the state track and field meet in Murfreesboro on Friday, May 27, 2016. Pictured above from left are senior Thomas Colburn, junior Reid Dukes, junior Jacob Etheridge, and sophomore Jose Villegas. (Photo by Wallace Bowden)
Here are photos by Kindell Moore and Wallace Bowden from the boys state track and field championship in Murfreesboro on Friday.
Oak Ridge senior Tyler Boullie finished seventh in the 800-meter run at the state meet, and the Wildcats’ 4×800-meter relay team also finished seventh. The Oak Ridge boys finished ninth in the state in Class AAA in the 4×100-meter relay.
Anderson County senior Derek Flatford finished second in the 110-meter hurdles, and senior Gashaw Duhamel, who ran cross country for Oak Ridge in the fall, finished second in Class A-AA in the 3,200-meter run, running for Tennessee School for the Deaf.
Oak Ridge senior Tyler Boullie finished 7th in the 800-meter run in the state track and field meet in Murfreesboro on Friday, May 27, 2016. (Photo by Wallace Bowden)
Oak Ridge senior Tyler Boullie finished 7th in the 800-meter run in the state track and field meet in Murfreesboro on Friday, May 27, 2016. (Photo by Kindell Moore)
Duhamel, AC’s Flatford have second-place finishes
Oak Ridge senior Tyler Boullie finished seventh in the 800-meter run in the state championship track and field meet in Murfreesboro on Friday, and the Wildcats’ 4×800-meter relay team also finished seventh. The Oak Ridge boys finished ninth in the state in Class AAA in the 4×100-meter relay.
Anderson County senior Derek Flatford finished second in the 110-meter hurdles and fourth in the 300-meter hurdles. Senior Gashaw Duhamel, who ran cross country for Oak Ridge in the fall, finished second in Class A-AA in the 3,200-meter run, running for Tennessee School for the Deaf.
In other Oak Ridge finishes, senior Jordan Hardy, who battled a hamstring injury for much of the season, was 13th in the state in the long jump in Class AAA, and sophomore Jose Villegas was 14th in the 3,200-meter run.
Boullie, who had been the number two seed in the 800-meter run, had also been on the 4×800-meter relay team at the Section I finals in Johnson City on May 14. The relay team had been the third seed coming into the state track and field championship. But Boullie did not compete in the 4×800-meter relay at state because he wanted to have a fresh race in the 800-meter run. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge freshman Kate Hausladen finished 8th in the 300-meter hurdles and 11th in the 100-meter hurdles at the state track and field meet at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro on Thursday, May 26, 2016. (Photo by Wallace Bowden)
Note: This story was last updated at 9:50 p.m.
Oak Ridge freshman Kate Hausladen finished eighth in the 300-meter hurdles in the state track and field meet in Murfreesboro on Thursday.
Hausladen, the only Oak Ridge girl to make it to the state meet, also finished 11th in a field of 16 in the Class AAA girls 100-meter hurdles.
The Oak Ridge boys are competing today in the state meet, which is part of the 2016 TSSAA Spring Fling in the Murfreesboro area.
Ravenwood, Memphis Central, and Hunters Lane had the top three finishes in the girls 300-meter hurdles on Thursday, and freshman Caroline Lewis of West, who finished sixth, and sophomore Lizzie Davis of Hardin Valley Academy, who was seventh, completed the race ahead of Hausladen. [Read more…]
Cassen Jackson-Garrison (Source: TBI)
Note: This story was updated at 6:10 p.m.
CLINTON—A former Oak Ridge Police Department officer charged with aggravated statutory rape and official misconduct pleaded not guilty in Anderson County Criminal Court on Friday morning.
Cassen Jackson-Garrison, 31, was indicted on the two charges by the Anderson County Grand Jury on May 3. He was arrested May 6 by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Anderson County Sheriff’s Department in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.
At the request of Seventh District Attorney General Dave Clark, TBI special agents began investigating Cassen Jackson-Garrison, who was an ORPD officer at the time, on August 13, 2015, on a complaint that he was having sexual contact with a minor. During the course of the investigation, Agents developed information that Jackson-Garrison had sexual contact with the teen in July 2015, the TBI said in a May 6 press release. [Read more…]
Dave Clark
Note: This story was updated at 4:10 p.m.
CLINTON—Most of the defendants indicted in two cocaine conspiracies that were announced this month pleaded not guilty during arraignments in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on Friday, officials said.
Trial dates have already been set, Seventh District Attorney General Dave Clark said. The trial date for the defendants charged in a Knoxville conspiracy is July 2017. The trial date for those charged in an Oak Ridge conspiracy is September 2017.
Officials said there were 34 conspiracy-related arraignments scheduled for 32 defendants in Anderson County Criminal Court on Friday morning.
Almost all of the defendants scheduled to appear on conspiracy-related charges on Friday were indicted by the Anderson County Grand Jury on May 3 in two alleged plots to manufacture, distribute, and sell 300 grams or more of cocaine last year. They were also indicted on charges of allegedly conspiring to manufacture, distribute, and sell more than 0.5 gram of cocaine in a school zone. Each of those defendants is facing eight charges. One conspiracy allegedly involved 24 people, and the second allegedly involved 11. Two of the defendants were named in both conspiracies.
Some of the defendants are also facing more drug-related charges. [Read more…]
Ralpheal Cameron Coffey in 2014 (Source: Anderson County Sheriff’s Department)
One man is dead following the crash that occurred Wednesday afternoon on Central Avenue Pike in north Knox County after a two-county police chase, and a man wanted in both Anderson and Knox counties has been charged with vehicular homicide, authorities said.
According to the initial investigation, 26-year-old Ralpheal Cameron Coffey was fleeing from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department in a 2007 maroon Chevy Impala when he almost struck an officer with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in his cruiser around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday on Heiskell Road, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office said. The officer turned the cruiser around to pursue Coffey, but found the Impala had crashed into a 2007 white Ford F150 pickup truck on Central Avenue Pike at Callahan Drive.
Coffey and his passenger, Tommie Troupe, 44, as well as the driver of the Ford, Kevin Bradley, 27, and his passenger, Eric Kennedy, 26, were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville with incapacitating injuries. Bradley was pronounced dead at the hospital. [Read more…]
