This year’s sales tax holiday in Tennessee started at 12:01 a.m today (Friday) and ends at 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
Among the items that are tax-free are clothing that is $100 or less per item, school supplies of $100 or less per item, and computers that are $1,500 or less. [Read more…]
Bill Haslam
NASHVILLE—Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam this week recommended 19 Appalachian Regional Commission grants, including $200,000 for Anderson County sewer improvements and another $200,000 for a Tech 20/20 project.
The grants are meant to help state and local agencies, governmental entities, local governing boards, or nonprofit organizations with infrastructure improvements, a press release said. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Community Band will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at the A.K. Bissell Park Pavilion. (File photo)
The Oak Ridge Community Band has a free Summer Concert at A.K. Bissell Park on Sunday.
The band will perform a program of swing, jazz, classical, movie themes, marches, and novelty pieces, a press release said.
The concert starts at 7 p.m. at the park’s pavilion at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike. [Read more…]
Lamar Alexander
Mark Udall
U.S. senators Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, on Thursday reintroduced a bipartisan plan to create an independent advisory panel to help Cold War workers from Oak Ridge and other nuclear weapons facilities get the help they need to treat cancer and other illnesses they developed as a result of exposure to radiation, a press release said.
“The panel would oversee the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, which has been plagued by procedural inconsistencies and delays, preventing former nuclear workers from accessing the benefits they are owed,” the release said.
It said about 600,000 workers were unknowingly exposed to radioactive and toxic substances while employed at U.S. atomic weapons program facilities during the Cold War era. Because of this exposure, thousands of Americans now have developed debilitating—and often terminal—diseases. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Civic Center Gymnasium is pictured above during a Christmas ceremony in December 2011.
The Oak Ridge Civic Center Recreation Building will be closed for floor and swimming pool maintenance from Saturday, Aug. 2, to Wednesday, Aug. 7.
The building and pool will reopen on Thursday, Aug. 8, but the gymnasium will not reopen until Monday, Aug. 12.
The Civic Center Recreation Building is at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
A black bear investigates a backyard grill in north Oak Ridge in May 2012. To encourage bears to move on, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency recommends trying to eliminate outdoor food sources such as dog and cat food, bird seed, and grease traps. (Photo by George Ostrouchov)
Oak Ridge and Knoxville are surrounded by very good bear habitats—including the largest black bear preserve in the world—and it’s not unusual to see up to a half-dozen bears come through the Oak Ridge area each year and at least that many in the Knoxville area, Tennessee wildlife officials said this week.
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Sgt. Roy Smith of Morristown said the bear seen in Oak Ridge on Monday was not the first in the area this summer, and there have also been a few in Anderson County.
“It’s not an isolated incident,” Smith said. “We have bears moving through Oak Ridge from time to time.” [Read more…]
Megan Rice, left, was convicted on two federal charges in May after breaking into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, and vandalizing a uranium storage building with two other protesters. She was temporarily released last week to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral. Rice is pictured above outside U.S. District Court in Knoxville with Michele Naar-Obed, wife of one of the other protesters, Greg Boertje-Obed.
U.S. and Georgia officials did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday and Wednesday on whether peace protester Megan Rice, who has been convicted of destroying government property at the Y-12 National Security Complex, returned to prison in the Peach State this week after a five-day release to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law in New York.
But on Tuesday, Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said he assumed Rice had returned to the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga.
“I assume she reported, or we’d have heard from someone trying to locate her,” Hutchison said in a Tuesday evening e-mail. “I know she was returning to Atlanta last night en route to Ocilla. That’s the last I heard.” [Read more…]
An aerial view of Anderson County north of Oak Ridge.
Anderson County property values are decreasing to less than about 85 percent of their appraised values, and Oak Ridge appears to have several types of property that are selling for much less than their state appraisals, including older, low-priced homes and high-priced, high-quality homes, officials said.
All land tracts in the county also appear to be selling for much less than their state appraisals, the Anderson County Board of Equalization told Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank and county commissioners in a July 15 letter.
The board said the Oak Ridge properties selling for much less than their appraised values include low-priced homes built during the Manhattan Project era in World War II and high-priced, high-quality homes that are now unaffordable for most working-class employees. The Oak Ridge properties, as well as land tracts in Anderson County, appear to be selling at about 70 to 85 percent of the state appraised values. [Read more…]
Gov. Bill Haslam, fourth from left, joins local residents re-creating a famous “War Ends” photograph in Jackson Square, but this time with an $800,000 state check for parking lots, sidewalks, benches, and bicycle racks. (File photo June 2012)
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam visited Oak Ridge about one year ago to announce that a state grant valued at roughly $800,000 had been awarded to the city to help revitalize Jackson Square, focusing on parking, lighting, landscaping, and benches.
Next month, Oak Ridge officials will have an open house to present three conceptual drawings for the project, which is in the city’s original town center. The public meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.
The Tennessee Department of Transportation Enhancement Grant awarded last year is to be used for the project’s first phase, which includes renovating the Jackson Square parking lot by adding handicapped parking and access, pedestrian lighting and circulation, landscaping and event enhancements, and bicycle racks and benches, a city press release said. [Read more…]
Chris Ahler
KINGSTON—The chair of the Roane County Chamber of Commerce board for the 2013-2014 year is Chris Ahler, who owns his own investment management business in Harriman.
Ahler took over July 1 from outgoing board chair Kenyon Mee, the facility manager of Diversified Scientific Services, a subsidiary of Perma-Fix Environmental Services.
“Our Chamber board this year is one of the strongest in recent memory. It brings youth and experience all at the same time to a board that already boasts a virtual ‘Who’s Who’ of Roane County business and community leaders,” Chamber President Leslie Henderson said. “I am so pleased and gratified that all of these folks have agreed to serve (or continue to serve) our Chamber membership and our community in this way.” [Read more…]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason, left, and Johnny Moore, center, site office manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, escort U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat from Tennessee’s Fifth District, on a tour of ORNL. (ORNL/Genevieve Martin)
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Nashville Democrat from Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District, toured Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Saturday.
Cooper was joined by his Chief of Staff Lisa Quigley as well as Helen Hardin. The group also spent time at the Y-12 National Security Complex before visiting the laboratory.
While at the lab, ORNL Director Thom Mason and Johnny Moore, site office manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, escorted the congressman on a driving tour of campus followed by a tour of the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source. They later joined ORNL Associate Lab Director for Global Security Brent Park for discussions on the lab’s national security programs, the lab said in a statement. [Read more…]
A black bear at a bird feeder on Lullaby Lane in Solway on Sunday night. (Photos courtesy Kayla Boone)
In addition to the black bear in Oak Ridge on Monday, there was also a bear in Solway on Sunday night. It’s not clear if it was the same bear.
The bear in Solway on Sunday was seen on Lullaby Lane, including at a bird feeder at about 7 p.m.
There were many sightings of a bear in the Woodland neighborhood on Monday. It was at The Manhattan Apartments on Rutgers Avenue at about 10:30 a.m. Monday. [Read more…]
