Oak Ridge Today





History of death penalty in Tennessee to be discussed today

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Hemant Sharma

The history of the death penalty in Tennessee will be discussed in a lunchtime meeting today (Tuesday, May 4).

The meeting is hosted by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. It will be virtual (online). The speaker will be University of Tennessee Lecturer Hemant Sharma.

Along with John M. Scheb, head of the Political Science Department at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, and others, Sharma authored the 2013 study “Race and the Death Penalty: An Empirical Assessment of First Degree Murder Convictions in Tennessee after Gregg v. Georgia,” a press release said. Published in the Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender and Social Justice, the study analyzed 1,068 first-degree murder convictions in the state following the 1976 Supreme Court decision that ended the four-year court moratorium on the death penalty across the nation.

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Political redistricting to be discussed at Lunch with League

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Debby Gould

Political redistricting will be discussed at Lunch with the League in Oak Ridge on Tuesday, April 20.

The virtual meeting is scheduled to start at noon April 20. It is hosted by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge.

The featured speaker will be Debby Gould, first vice president of the League of Women Voters of Tennessee.

She will “share information on the League’s efforts to facilitate fair and equitable redistricting in our state and nation through its People Powered Fair Maps national redistricting program, which aims to create fair political maps nationwide in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” a press release said.

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Death penalty to be discussed at Lunch with League

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Marshall Jensen

The death penalty in America will be discussed during a Lunch with the League meeting at noon today (Tuesday, April 6).

The virtual meeting is hosted by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. It will feature Marshall Jensen, a federal public defender for the Middle District of Tennessee. His talk is titled “‘Spaces of Sorrow Only God Can Touch’: The Death Penalty in Modern America.”

“Most people think that those on death row must be the worst of the worst,” Jensen said in a press release. “But when we examine who ends up on death row in America, what they share is they almost uniformly tend to be poor, mentally ill, intellectually disabled, or suffer from some form of organic brain damage.”

Having served as a federal public defender for the Middle District of Tennessee in the Capital Habeas Unit since January 2020, Jensen represents people sentenced to death in their final, federal appeals before execution, the press release said. Prior to this work, he served as an assistant public defender at the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office, where he represented indigent individuals in Knox County criminal courts.

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CASA coordinator to discuss programs to help children

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Amanda Brackett

A CASA coordinator will discuss programs to help children during an online meeting at noon today (Tuesday, February 16).

The speaker will be Amanda Brackett, Program Coordinator for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Anderson County.

She will speak during the lunchtime meeting of the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. To watch the presentation, send an email to [email protected]. Later, you will be able to watch the recorded session on the League’s website at https://my.lwv.org/tennessee/oak-ridge.

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UT professor to discuss impact of COVID-19 on ecology, evolution

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Nina Fefferman

A University of Tennessee professor will discuss the effects of COVID-19 on ecology and evolution during an online presentation on Tuesday.

Nina Fefferman will be the speaker at the League of Women Voters event. Fefferman is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Mathematics at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Fefferman is the associate director of UT’s One Health Initiative, and she is a member of the Covid-19 Outbreak Response Experts (CORE-19) at UT.

The principle investigator at the Fefferman Lab at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville since 2008, Fefferman focuses on disease in the human population and how disease and disease-related behavioral ecology can affect the short-term survival and long-term evolutionary success of a population during and after a pandemic, a press release said. She has done extensive work with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on pandemic preparedness and has drawn on her expertise to develop models to shape policy to keep populations safe during and after pandemics.

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City manager Watson to discuss ‘state of city’ on Tuesday

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Mark Watson

Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson will present his annual “State of the City” during Lunch with the League on Tuesday.

The meeting will be held from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Watson has served as Oak Ridge city manager since August 2010. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration and city management from the University of Kansas. In 2019, he received his doctorate degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

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Family Justice Center to be discussed Tuesday

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Melissa-Miller-Dave-Clark
Pictured above are Melissa Miller and District Attorney General David Clark when Clark signed the grant acceptance form enabling Anderson County to establish the Family Justice Center. (Submitted photo)

The Lunch with the League program on Tuesday, February 18, will feature Melissa Miller, site coordinator of the new Anderson County Family Justice Center, and Detective Wendy Zolkowski of the Oak Ridge Police Department.

The Anderson County Family Justice Center will open in July 2020, a press release said.

“Miller and Zolkowski are working together to set up a world-class center that will provide a combination of services and interventions available in one location to help victims of child abuse, elder abuse, and domestic violence,” the press release said. “The Center will help victims break the cycle of violence and become thriving survivors by providing access to onsite professionals who will assist them in making this transition. The Center will be a free and confidential resource for clients.”

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Voting rights to be discussed Tuesday

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Katie A. Cahill
Katie A. Cahill

Voting rights will be discussed in Oak Ridge on Tuesday.

The speaker will be Katie A. Cahill, associate director of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and director of the Leadership and Governance Program. Cahill has a courtesy post as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Her Tuesday talk will be to the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. Her talk is titled “Voting Rights, Laws and Trends: A Look Ahead to 2020,” a press release said.

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Proposed power lines at Horizon Center to be discussed Tuesday

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Virginia Dale
Virginia Dale

The power lines proposed at Horizon Center will be discussed during a Tuesday lunch in Oak Ridge.

The project, advocated by Oak Ridge officials for industrial development, has raised concerns among environmentalists and people who use the city’s greenways.

The guest speaker at Lunch with the League on Tuesday, January 7, will be Virginia Dale. Dale is a corporate fellow emeritus with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she worked in the Environmental Sciences Division. She is currently a researcher in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Tennessee, a press release said. Dale has been the author of 11 books and more than 250 published articles.

Her presentation on Tuesday will focus on the city’s recent action to seek authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy to build an electric transmission line along the DOE patrol road on the boundary between the Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement and the Horizon Center industrial park, or by cutting through other “natural areas,” the press release said. These “natural areas” are identified in mitigation conditions required for a federal finding of no significant impact, which allowed the subsequent development of the Horizon Center, the press release said.

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Cannabis in Tennessee to be discussed Tuesday

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Cannabis in Tennessee will be discussed at “Lunch with the League” in Oak Ridge on Tuesday.

The speaker will be Patricia K. Freeland, professor and associate head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, a press release said.

The meeting will be held from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, which is located at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

A long-time educator, Freeland has had an extensive and interesting career in all aspects of public administration and public policy, the press release said. She has written numerous books and articles on public administration, food policy, technology policy (drones), religion, and politics.

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Coal ash spill at Kingston Fossil Plant to be discussed Tuesday

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Kingston Fossil Plant Ash Spill Cleanup
Ash that spilled into the brown embayment pictured above had been removed by June 2013, and workers placed a black plastic liner over an ash containment cell in the background, preparing to close it late in 2014. The ash spilled in December 2008 when a storage cell failed at the Kingston Fossil Plant, back left. (File photo)

The 2008 coal ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant will be discussed during Lunch with the League in Oak Ridge on Tuesday.

The lunch will feature Jamie Satterfield, award-wining investigative journalist and podcast producer for the Knoxville News Sentinel and other newspapers, a press release said.

Satterfield won a Scripps Howard award for her investigative work into the effects on hundreds of blue-collar workers who cleaned up the massive spill, the press release said. This year, she was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers’ Hall of Fame.

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Felon disfranchisement to be discussed at Lunch with the League

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Pippa Holloway

Felon disfranchisement will be discussed at Lunch with the League on Tuesday, October 1.

The speaker will be Pippa Holloway, Middle Tennessee State University history professor and 2019-2020 president of the Tennessee University Faculty Senates.

Disfranchisement is not part of the sentencing of a person for a felony conviction, a press release said. However, it is imposed by certain states on all convicted felons regardless of their offense or the length of their jail time. In other states, felons never lose their right to vote, even while incarcerated. This presentation will help to educate attendees on the enormity of disfranchisement, the press release said.

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