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Reader photos: 500 attend ‘Standing in Solidarity’ event hosted by AC Democratic Party

Posted at 10:30 pm February 2, 2017
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

About 500 people attended the "Standing in Solidarity" event hosted by the Anderson County Democratic Party at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church on Jan. 21, 2017. (Photo by Ellen Smith)

About 500 people attended the “Standing in Solidarity” event hosted by the Anderson County Democratic Party at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. (Photo by Ellen Smith)

 

Organizers said they expected about 70 people. Instead, roughly 500 people showed up.

It was the “Standing in Solidarity” event hosted by the Anderson County Democratic Party at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church on Saturday, January 21.

The purpose was to show support with the worldwide protests of President Donald Trump, said Scott Julius of the Anderson County Democratic Party. He said there were tables from 20 different progressive organizations at the January 21 event.

Several readers have sent photos from the event. Here are some of them. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Federal, Front Page News, Government, Top Stories Tagged With: Anderson County Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, Pat Fain, Scott Julius, Standing in Solidarity, Woman's March on Washington

Guest column: Becoming a healthy community

Posted at 9:35 pm January 14, 2015
By Pat Fain Leave a Comment

Stability and growth of that complex system called a community depends on honesty, equality, fairness, balance, foresight, continuity, healthy relationships, maturity, safety, common goals, and recognizable successes shared among all community members and good leadership.

Industry and government facilities were having great difficulty attracting highly educated and qualified professionals to Oak Ridge despite competitive salaries in the new millennium. One of the attractions that might help this problem was thought to be the existence of superior schools for the children of those professionals, combined with attractive, upscale housing.

As is so typical in Oak Ridge, many bright minds saw only their need and targeted the solution they hypothesized would make it work. Also, as so often happens with brilliant focused minds, the complexity of the economic and social organization, its influence, and the needs of the whole community were not factored into the equation. There was an assumption that the hypothesis of good schools, combined with an abundance of attractive housing, would solve the problem. So, $67 million was spent on building and equipping a state-of-the-art high school with amenities usually limited to high-priced, private, college prep schools. This, despite the critical need for a new preschool facility having been very high on the official city list of capital needs for over a decade. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Education, Guest Columns, K-12, Opinion Tagged With: early education, education, Head Start, housing, Oak Ridge, Pat Fain, preschool, schools, taxpayers

Battling cancer but planning to help build 59th home for Habitat

Posted at 9:45 am June 18, 2014
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Tim and Teresa Myrick Home Build

Habitat for Humanity of Anderson County is building a new home on Valley View Lane in Heiskell in honor of longtime volunteers Tim and Teresa Myrick, pictured at right. A family of five will live in the four-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot home. From left, they are Alexia, Amanda Cook, Edward Brown (back), Eddie (front), and Ethan.

 

HEISKELL—He’s worked on all 58 homes built by Habitat for Humanity of Anderson County during the past two decades. If his health allows, he’ll work on No. 59.

Tim Myrick, 60, is known for his community involvement, charitable contributions, and key role in the renovation of the Oak Ridge High School and modernization work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. But now he’s battling prostate cancer. His doctor said it’s the fastest-growing he’s seen. Myrick said it spread to his bones and elsewhere within three months. In December, he was given a year to live.

“I told them that’s not going to happen,” Myrick said during a Habitat for Humanity groundbreaking ceremony this month. “I told them I have too much work to do.”

Habitat is honoring Myrick and his wife Teresa by building a home in their honor on about 1.5 acres on Valley View Lane near East Wolf Valley Road in Heiskell.

“We can’t think of anyone who has worked harder for us for a longer period of time,” said Pat Fain, HFHAC board president. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Community, Nonprofits, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Slider, Top Stories, U.S. Department of Energy Tagged With: Amanda Cook, Anderson County, cancer, Edward Brown, groundbreaking, Habitat for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity of Anderson County, Heiskell, HFHAC, Jim Hardy, Mary Ann Hardy, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge High School, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL, Pat Fain, prostate cancer, Randy McNally, Teresa Myrick, Tim Myrick, Valley View Lane

Letter: Let’s have a design contest to paint three sewer system holding tanks

Posted at 1:47 pm August 31, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Letters 8 Comments

Emory Valley Road Sewer System Holding Tank

A draft image of what a sewer system holding tank could look like on Emory Valley Road. The proposal could change based on input from Oak Ridge City Council members. (Image courtesy City of Oak Ridge)

To the Editor:

Having attended many meetings (City Council, EQAB, budget), I understand the rationale behind building the holding tanks proposed for the city. I have heard about gravity, clay soil, pumps, federal fines, tax increases, rate increases, rate increases, and the following year, rate increases. I have looked long and hard at the giant holding tank in Knox County on the road leading from Middlebrook Pike to Sam’s (it’s on the right) and looked at maps of the city to ascertain alternate locations. I also picked up a copy of the rate study at the Council work session Monday night.

I really hate to say it, but I think the city has gotten it right. It’s one of those “death and taxes” things. However, I would like to propose a solution to the “big, white, ugly blight on the landscape” inevitability. Let’s start out by painting all of them green. In Oak Ridge that is the best camouflage color. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Letters Tagged With: artists, contest, design, holding tanks, paint, Pat Fain, sewer system holding tanks

Guest column: Concept paper concerning a housing policy for Oak Ridge

Posted at 12:58 pm June 18, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 4 Comments

By Pat Fain and Leslie Agron

Today Oak Ridge has a default housing policy that begins and ends with two modest grants from Housing and Urban Development consisting of objectives decided internally by city staff. Input from the public has been minimal at best, despite HUD requirements to hold public input meetings. These were held, minimally advertised and sparsely attended. In the past, these objectives were then approved by Oak Ridge City Council without holding Council work sessions to discuss real needs or creative solutions for those needs.

This year and this month, Council will begin an open and (hopefully) far-reaching discussion for a well-thought-out response to community concerns and the need to protect the tax base of the city from further erosion resulting from the deterioration of a significant portion of the housing built before 1945. This paper is to offer ideas and alternate thinking as the City Council proceeds to contemplate the path ahead. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: blight, code violations, deterioration, dilapidated homes, funds, grants, housing, Housing and Urban Development, housing policy, housing strategy, HUD, Leslie Agron, maintenance, nonprofits, Oak Ridge City Council, Pat Fain, poverty, rehab, tax policies, wartime houses

Guest column: H.M.S. Carbon Fiber

Posted at 12:51 pm June 2, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 1 Comment

By Leslie Agron and Pat Fain

Anyone a Gilbert and Sullivan fan?

“When I was a lad I served a term / As office boy to an attorney’s firm. /
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor, / And I polished up the handle of the big front door.” (HMS Pinafore)

So, how does this go in Oak Ridge? Perhaps: Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility will revolutionize the choice of materials used in manufacturing. Major manufactures, such as auto companies, will be falling over themselves soon to locate here, so as to capitalize on the technical information to be transferred from ORNL (possibly, but it might be a few years out yet). They will all want sites in Horizon Center, next to the ORNL demonstration facility, to be closest to the technology (maybe, but remember that Nissan found a Middle Tennessee location adequate for transfer of battery technology they consider vital to their future).

Carbon fiber manufacturing is a high energy-utilizing process. ORNL’s demonstration facility could take most of the 10-megawatt energy capacity at Horizon Center (true, but Horizon Center was designed as a commercial park, not as an industrial park). So we need a large project to bring 20 megawatts of additional electrical capacity into Horizon Center right away to meet this pressing need (hmm…has there been someone knocking at our doors lately that they have not been telling us about? What we seem to need right now is an incremental project to put in a lesser amount of power, especially at peak load times, so that the one or two parcels we might sell soon at Horizon Center will have adequate power available—else they are correct that nothing might sell). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, electrical capacity, energy, Gilbert and Sullivan, Heritage Center, HMS Carbon Fiber, HMS Pinafore, Horizon Center, industrial development, kilowatts, land, Leslie Agron, megawatts, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pat Fain, power, power lines, solar facility, solar power, Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA

Guest column: Woolly housing adelgids invade Oak Ridge

Posted at 8:45 pm March 22, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 35 Comments

By Pat Fain and Leslie Agron

In Nimes, France, there is a 2,000-year-old Roman coliseum. For 500 years in the Middle Ages, thousands of people lived their lives within the walls of the coliseum, and in modern times it has hosted rock concerts and safely seated nearly 15,000 people.

Yet at less than 75 years of age, Oak Ridge has the blight. Woolly housing adelgids, no doubt. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: blight, code enforcement, housing, Leslie Agron, Oak Ridge, Pat Fain, wooly housing adelgids

Guest column: A tale of two cities

Posted at 11:26 pm March 12, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 10 Comments

By Leslie Agron and Pat Fain

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Oak Ridge is on the cusp of a renaissance; Oak Ridge is in its worst-ever financial shape. Despite the looming risk of the guillotine for questioning the conventional wisdom here, we want to examine where Oak Ridgers are coming from when they speak of our future. To do this we, conveniently, will compare these possible futures for Oak Ridge with two present day Tennessee cities: Farragut and Chattanooga.

Farragut is a place most Oak Ridgers are fairly familiar with. It is mostly new and upscale. It tends toward sprawl and toward heavily developed strips, but has no real heart. It has low taxes, but is not a full-service city. Chattanooga is an older city with a downtown and outlying neighborhoods of varying ages. It is a full-service city with commensurate taxes. Chattanooga has done an outstanding job of revitalizing some of its older neighborhoods. The neighborhood in the vicinity of its Aquarium is particularly noteworthy in this regard.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: blight, buildings, Chattanooga, economic growth, Farragut, full-service city, homes, land bank, Leslie Agron, neighborhood, Oak Ridge, Pat Fain, two cities

Guest column: The velocity of money is 70 mph

Posted at 9:58 am March 5, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 34 Comments

By Pat Fain and Leslie Agron

The usual theory behind economic development for a community is that the local economy is too small. So, economic development experts seek to bring in new companies, especially industrial ones, to enhance that economy. The theory is that increased local purchases by new companies and their employees are multiplied several times as the money spreads throughout the community. Every additional purchase results in additional sales tax from the same original dollar that exited the new company. Companies that manufacture goods or provide services externally have the greatest value theoretically as they actually bring new money into the community. The rate at which this happens is called the velocity of money.

In Oak Ridge, however, the size of the economy that occurs within our city limits is enormous for our population. The problem for Oak Ridge is that much of that economy occurs within non-taxable institutions and the vast majority of their staff does not live in Oak Ridge. Thus, in Oak Ridge the velocity of money is 70 mph—the speed at which those folks are cruising down Interstate 40 on Friday evening as they take their paychecks home!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: economic development, economic growth, economy, federal facilities, Leslie Agron, Oak Ridge, Pat Fain, property taxes, residents, revenue, sales taxes, tax revenues, velocity of money

Guest column: Oak Ridge not an island anymore

Posted at 1:43 pm January 19, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 7 Comments

By Leslie Agron and Pat Fain

“This Island Earth” is a classic 1950s sci-fi flick. Its gifts to the popular culture include the “interocitor” (an all-purpose communicator and weapon) and the origin of the sound bite “They’re pulling us up!” In it we learn not only that we are not alone, but that we are not even remotely enough located to stay uninvolved in cosmic conflicts.

Oak Ridge in the early 1950s was a remotely located, somewhat self-sufficient compound. It had been built that way intentionally by Gen. Groves in the 1940s. Nearly everyone who worked here also lived here because the government had made sure to offer them suitable rental housing.

The seeds of change were sown in the mid-1950s with the sale of those government-owned homes and the enactment of Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. As the interstates were built and the region grew a little closer, a few people began to commute to jobs in Oak Ridge.

As the 1970s and 1980s progressed, West Knoxville blossomed, and Pellissippi Parkway was built.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: adjacent communities, commute, housing, Island Oak Ridge, isolated Oak Ridge, Leslie Agron, Pat Fain, population, workers

Guest columnists offer New Year’s resolutions

Posted at 10:16 pm December 29, 2012
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns Leave a Comment

By Pat Fain and Leslie Agron

In this column, we offer our New Year’s resolutions.

Most New Year’s resolutions are known more their breach than honoring. As we have dared to insert ourselves into the public dialogue for the past eight months, without invitation or expectation of embracement, we again dare the whimsical and promise to really try to keep the following resolutions as guest columnists:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: guest columnists, Leslie Agron, New Year's, Pat Fain, resolutions

Guest column: Holiday inn — Oak Ridge needs lodging for recreational visitors

Posted at 2:49 pm December 23, 2012
By Oak Ridge Today Guest Columns 1 Comment

By Leslie Agron and Pat Fain

Not so much the old Holiday Inn on South Illinois Avenue next to the Skyway Drive-In Theater (with movie sound piped into the facing motel rooms!), nor even our newest hostelry on Tulsa Road… We’re reaching back to the 1942 Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire flick called “Holiday Inn” in a blatant attempt to stretch a holiday tie-in. With terrific Irving Berlin music, including “White Christmas,” for which it won an Oscar for Best Original Song, they sing and dance their way through the plot: “At an inn which is only open on holidays, a crooner and a hoofer vie for the affections of a beautiful up-and-coming performer.”

Coincidentally, another 1942 event was the founding of Oak Ridge as a part of the Manhattan Project.

Often in our vision for “Something Else” for the economic revitalization of Oak Ridge we have mentioned that this city could greatly benefit from serious development of the visitor portion of our economy. This is a proposal for additional lodging in Oak Ridge to forward that end. We need to take a long, hard look at the characteristics of what is available now versus what it would take to appeal to people coming here simply to visit.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns Tagged With: cabins, campground, Clark Center Park, economic revitalization, holiday inn, Leslie Agron, lodging, Oak Ridge, Pat Fain, recreational visitors

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Public Notice: NNSA announces no significant impact of Y-12 Development Organization operations at Horizon Center

AVAILABILITY OF THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE OFFSITE HOUSING OF THE Y-12 DEVELOPMENT … [Read More...]

ADFAC seeks contractors for five homes

Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties (ADFAC) is a non-profit community based agency, … [Read More...]

Public notice: Draft environmental assessment for Y-12 Development Organization at Horizon Center

AVAILABILITY OF THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE OFFSITE HOUSING OF THE Y-12 DEVELOPMENT … [Read More...]

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