Oak Ridge Today

Guest column: City needs a return on public spending on Chamber, ORCVB

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By Leslie Agron and Pat Fain

This coming Monday evening, the Oak Ridge City Council and the city manager will hold a work session that has the potential to become the seminal discussion on the future growth and success of Oak Ridge. This discussion will probably begin with the question of the city contracts with the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce ($250,000) and the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau ($400,000) and, unfortunately, it may just end there. If this happens it could be another significant opportunity fumbled.

There are very legitimate reasons to question the continued expenditure of public dollars for the type and quality of results delivered by these two entities. The need for growth of revenue is real. Several years ago, without even a minimal public discussion of what kind of city we want to be in the future, the city and the Chamber entered into a series of open-ended contracts. That produced amorphous and inadequate results. The Chamber can well blame a lack of direction and vision on the city. The city can point to lots of sound and fury and fast food restaurants as being an inadequate answer to long-term financial woes and economic growth needs.

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Guest column: Housing strategy could include paint, marketing, tax breaks, plaques

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E=mc2 (E Equals MC Squared), or Energy Equals Many Citizens Working Together

There’s no doubt that Oak Ridge could use a facelift. I applaud City Manager Mark Watson and our Oak Ridge City Council members for recognizing and attempting to address this need with their “Not In Our City” initiative.

I think, however, that “Not In Our City” has some problems:

  1. It’s a whole lot of stick and not much carrot.
  2. It creates an adversarial relationship between the city and its residents and potentially pits neighbor against neighbor.
  3. It is piecemeal in its approach and lacks an overarching vision.

How about this as an alternative? It even has a catchy slogan. In honor of Einstein, let’s call it E = mc2, or Energy Equals Many Citizens Working Together.

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