Information from WYSH Radio
Early voting for the November 4 general election in Anderson County begins Wednesday, October 15, and runs through Thursday, October 30.
Early voting hours Monday through Friday will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon at the Clinton Community Center, the Midtown Community Center in Oak Ridge, and at the North Anderson Government Office in the Anderson Crossing Shopping Center in the Norris/Andersonville area. [Read more…]
Image courtesy National Weather Service in Morristown.
A line of strong to severe thunderstorms will move across the Cumberland Plateau and into East Tennessee and southwest Virginia this evening, forecasters said Tuesday.
The biggest risk from the storms is damaging straight-line winds of up to 60 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Morristown.
“Locally heavy rainfall and frequent lightning will also be possible with the strongest activity,” the NWS said.
The Weather Service issued a significant weather advisory at 7:09 p.m. for Anderson and Union counties and southern Campbell, central Morgan, and southeastern Scott counties until 8 p.m. [Read more…]
Note: This story was last updated at 2 p.m.
Ten candidates have qualified to run for Oak Ridge City Council in the November 4 municipal election, and there are nine candidates for Oak Ridge Board of Education—a total of 19 candidates.
It’s the largest field of candidates in recent memory, and it’s not immediately clear when, or if, there has been a field as large.
The deadline to qualify as a candidate in this fall’s municipal elections in Anderson County was noon Thursday.
There is a mix of incumbents and newcomers in Oak Ridge, Clinton, Rocky Top (Lake City), Norris, and Oliver Springs.
In Oak Ridge, two incumbents, including Mayor Tom Beehan and Mayor Pro Tem Jane Miller, are not seeking re-election. Meanwhile, the other two incumbents whose terms expire this November, Anne Garcia Garland and David Mosby, are running for another four-year term.
In addition to Garcia Garland and Mosby, the other Oak Ridge City Council candidates are:
Thursday is the deadline to qualify for municipal elections across Anderson County, and so far, there appears to be a mix of incumbents and newcomers in Oak Ridge, Clinton, Rocky Top (Lake City), Norris, and Oliver Springs.
Eleven people, including the four incumbents, have expressed an interest in running for four seats on Oak Ridge City Council in November, and seven candidates have qualified so far.
Meanwhile, three people, including one incumbent, have qualified to run for three seats on the Oak Ridge Board of Education. A total of nine potential candidates, including the three who have qualified, have picked up petitions to run for Oak Ridge school board.
The November 4 election is the last in a series of three elections this year. The deadline to qualify is noon Thursday, August 21. A candidate needs 25 verified signatures on a nomination petition to qualify.
Those who have qualified to run for Oak Ridge City Council are: [Read more…]
Submitted
The August 7 ballot for the state primary and local general election will be an important and complex ballot. You will find three main sections to the ballot.
First will be the state and federal primary, second will be the county general election, and third will be the retention questions for Tennessee Supreme Court judges and appellate court judges.
The first eight offices on the ballot are the contests for the state and federal primary election. They are governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Tennessee Senate, Tennessee House of Representatives, and state executive committeeman and committeewoman. These eight offices are the ones a person must declare whether they are voting in the Democratic or Republican primary.
After these eight offices come the candidates for the Anderson County general election. It does not matter which party primary you selected to vote in, Democrat or Republican, you are now free to vote for the candidate of your choice no matter to which party you belong. The county general election offices are: [Read more…]
The Anderson County Commission is pictured above during its Monday night meeting. (Photo by Sara Wise)
CLINTON—The property tax rate will remain unchanged in Anderson County in the fiscal year that begins July 1, officials said.
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank and the Budget Committee had both presented a no-tax-increase budget, and on Monday, the Anderson County Commission set the property tax rate for the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
The tax rates for the new fiscal year will stay the same as the rates for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. Property owners within the city of Clinton will pay $2.50 per $100 of assessed value on their property, Oak Ridge property owners will see a tax rate of $2.347 per $100, and property owners in Lake City, Oliver Springs, Norris and unincorporated areas of Anderson County will pay $2.529 per $100 of assessed value.
While Anderson County Commission voted to approve the tax rate resolution, the legislative body has not yet approved an operating budget for the new fiscal year, the Anderson County Mayor’s Office said in a press release. [Read more…]
Anderson County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Mark Lucas is pictured above at right during a special County Commission meeting in November. Also pictured are Anderson County Commissioners Rick Meredith, center, and Jerry White.
To All:
(Tuesday) evening was very, very busy. From 3 p.m. until 11 p.m., our communications center received 589 telephone calls, of which 143 were on 911. The overwhelming number of calls were between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., when 365 calls came to our dispatch center. Of these 365 calls, 109 were on 911.
Comparing to last Tuesday from 3 p.m. until 11 p.m., we received 156 total telephone calls, of which 20 were on 911. The two-hour period from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. last week was only 41 total calls, of which five were on 911.
For the entire shift from 3 p.m. until 11 p.m., that was a 288 percent increase. For the two hours from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m., the increase was 790 percent.
We had four communications officers working (Tuesday) when the storm hit. A fifth came into work on her own to help out. Many of these 911 and non-emergency calls required dispatching of emergency personnel from law enforcement, fire, or EMS. Others required notifications to the state and county highway departments and the utility companies. It was non-stop for hours. [Read more…]
One of several pictures showing the storm damage Tuesday to the home of Mike and Wanda Marsh on Timbercrest Drive in Oak Ridge. (Photo courtesy Mike Marsh)
Information from WYSH Radio
The National Weather Service has confirmed the powerful storms that rolled through the area on Tuesday included an embedded tornado in Kingston.
Officials with the NWS office in Morristown assessed the damage and said an EF-0 tornado touched down along 3rd Street in Kingston. The winds of an EF-0 tornado are around 65-85 miles per hour.
The NWS said the widespread damage throughout East Tennessee was almost entirely from straight-line winds and down-bursts. Kingston is the only site suspected of sustaining tornado damage.
The Weather Service says straight-line winds estimated at 80 mph packed a destructive punch in Clinton, which appeared to bear the brunt of the damage from Tuesday’s severe weather. [Read more…]
The Anderson County Courthouse on Main Street in Clinton is pictured above.
There are six candidates running for Anderson County Commission in District 7 in Oak Ridge in August, and a Democrat has joined the race for Tennessee House of Representatives in the 33rd District.
Meanwhile, an Independent, Bradley S. Rickett, has joined the race for Anderson County mayor, competing against Democrat Jim Hackworth and the winner of the May 6 Republican primary, either the incumbent, Terry Frank, or her challenger, Commissioner Zach Bates.
Fourteen of the 16 Anderson County commissioners are seeking re-election to a four-year term. But Bates, from District 4 in the Lake City area, is not. And neither is Commissioner John Shuey. Shuey is one of two commissioners in District 7, which includes the Glenwood, Highland View, and Pine Valley precincts in Oak Ridge.
District 7 is the most competitive in terms of number of candidates. In addition to the incumbent, Jerry Creasey, other candidates include Jimmy Bouchard, Michael Marsh, Denny Phillips, Kevin Rice, and Theresa Scott.
District 3—which includes Andersonville, Fairview, Glen Alpine, and Norris—has five candidates, including the two incumbents, Steve Emert and Dusty Irwin. The other three candidates are Josh Anderson, David Farmer, and Philip Warfield. [Read more…]
The state of Tennessee is selling the award-winning “green” New Norris House in Norris. (Photo courtesy University of Tennessee)
KNOXVILLE—The state of Tennessee is selling one of the greenest homes in the state—the New Norris House.
Sealed bids will be taken through 1:30 p.m. (CST) on May 5. An open house will be held April 12, 2-4 p.m., at 143 Oak Road in Norris.
The New Norris House was completed in 2011 after a student-led team at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville worked for three years to bring the concept, first conceived in a classroom, to a modern and appealing home.
The house is a technologically advanced reinterpretation of the historic homes first built by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 as part of the Norris Dam project. It has become a nationally recognized model for efficient and sustainable living. [Read more…]
Note: Anderson County Emergency Management Director Steve Payne recently responded to a citizens’ question about safety measures the county has in place to protect drinking water in the event of a hazardous situation like that which recently occurred in West Virginia. Here’s Payne’s response, which was forwarded by the County Mayor’s Office, which had initially received the question.
Dear Mayor Frank,
Please forward to the citizen who asked:
What safety measures does Anderson County have in place to protect citizens’ drinking water in the event of a hazardous situation like that which occurred recently in West Virginia?
Anderson County is home to some 50 facilities that manufacture, process, store, or utilize quantities of hazardous radiological or chemical materials. The majority of these facilities are located in industrial parks in the county and cities of Oak Ridge, Clinton, and Lake City.
Facilities with quantities of hazardous materials that meet or exceed threshold levels established by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are required by federal law to file each year a Tier 2 Report stating the material(s) and quantity on site. In addition to the name and quantity of each material, the report includes Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), a site map showing location of material, type of storage container, type of storage conditions, and description of dikes, holding basins, and other safeguard measures. Tier 2 reports received in 2013 from private, non-DOE facilities identify 42 separate hazardous materials. [Read more…]
Tennessee officials last week announced $21.1 million in grants to Tennessee agencies to support highway traffic safety efforts, with more than $350,000 designated for local law enforcement agencies.
The grants include about $180,000 to the Anderson County District Attorney General’s Office for driving-under-the-influence abatement and prosecution, and roughly $40,000 to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department for reducing fatalities in the county. The Oak Ridge Police Department received about $25,000 for alcohol saturation and checkpoints. [Read more…]
