Oak Ridge Today

2014 Election: Constitutional amendments, wine in groceries, a candidate’s record

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League Women Voters Constitutional Amendment Forum

Corinne Rovetti, co-director and family nurse practitioner for the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, second from right, discusses Amendment 1, which is on Tuesday’s ballot, during a forum in October. Also pictured are moderator JoAnn Garrett, right; Judy Cornett, second from left, distinguished professor in the College of Law at the University of Tennessee, who discussed Amendment 2; and Sherry Davis Kasper, professor of economics at Maryville College, who discussed Amendment 3.

 

Many voters remain confused about the four proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot in Tennessee on Election Day, Tuesday, November 4.

Three of the amendments were discussed during a League of Women Voters forum in Oak Ridge in October, and you can find a guide to the four amendments here.

The first amendment, Amendment 1, is related to abortion, and it appears to be the most divisive.

Here’s the full text of the proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution:

“Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”

[Read more…]

Three speakers to discuss three proposed constitutional amendments

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Corinne Rovetti

Corinne Rovetti

Two college professors and a co-director of a reproductive health center will discuss three proposed constitutional amendments that will be considered by Tennessee voters in the November 4 election.

The proposed amendments will be discussed during a Tuesday evening forum in Oak Ridge.

Corinne Rovetti, co-director and family nurse practitioner for the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, will address Amendment 1, which deals with reproductive choice and privacy, a press release said. [Read more…]

Vinyard named chief of Payment Services Branch at DOE Oak Ridge

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Lynda M. Vinyard

Lynda M. Vinyard

Lynda M. Vinyard was recently named chief of the Payment Services Branch in the Oak Ridge Financial Service Center within the Oak Ridge Office of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Vinyard’s responsibilities include directing a staff of accountants, technicians, and support contractors in developing, administering, and planning DOE’s consolidated payment activities through the DOE payment center, which processes more than 150,000 invoices and payments totaling approximately $12B per year. She also ensures the ORO payment center maintains a prompt payment percentage rate greater than the 98 percent target set by the United States Office of Management and Budget. Her responsibilities also include overseeing the ORO payments system, travel and payroll office, and the Internal Revenue Service tax reporting requirements.

Vinyard’s DOE federal career began in 1984 when she was a student aid in the badging office in the Safeguards and Security Division for ORO. Since then, she has served in various positions within the ORO including accounts maintenance clerk, systems accountant for travel, financial systems, data and payroll branch, and most recently senior systems accountant in the Payment Services Branch. [Read more…]

Guest column: Tax hike will hurt city’s ability to recruit DOE workers

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The Oak Ridge Schools are requesting a substantial property tax increase to fund items they see as essential to their future.

Yet an Oak Ridge tax hike will markedly reduce our city’s ability to recruit new U.S. Department of Energy workers. According to the latest DOE report, Anderson County is losing over $300,000 per week to Knox County in DOE payroll. That loss rate is increasing, and a tax hike would make this serious problem worse.

Unfortunately, our city has a DOE “isolation fence” around it. In most cases, new workers are sent by the DOE system directly to Knox County—mainly to Farragut. And as a result, their important housing decisions are made without talking to an Oak Ridge realtor. They never get an opportunity to find out how wonderful it is to live here.

The new Kroger store won’t affect this uneven playing field. A property tax hike (of any size) will simply make the problem worse—giving Farragut an even greater advantage over us. [Read more…]

New Y-12, Pantex contractor website includes employment information

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Jim Haynes

Jim Haynes

The transition website for the new contractor at the Y-12 National Security Complex and Pantex Plant was posted online on Thursday afternoon. The new website for Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC is available at http://www.cnstransition.com.

CNS is the new managing and operating contractor at Y-12 in Oak Ridge and Pantex in Amarillo, Texas. The contract award, worth up to about $23 billion over 10 years, was first announced in January 2013 but delayed by a series of protests. The U.S. Government Accountability Office denied the third and final protest on Thursday, Feb. 27. On Monday, officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration said the transition to the new contractor had started and was expected to last four months.

On Thursday, CNS spokesman Jason Bohne said the company would be adding much more information to the transition website during the next few weeks and months, including more details on the senior management team, proposed organization, messages to employees, and more.

The transition website includes a message from CNS President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Haynes, who has been senior vice president and deputy general manager for the current Y-12 contractor, B&W Y-12. Other members of the CNS leadership team include Michael Jones, transformation; Darrell Graddy, mission support; and Carl Strock, project director for the Uranium Processing Facility. [Read more…]

Guest column: Selling Oak Ridge to the DOE workforce

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Change in DOE Payroll Chart

by David Stanley

Our city urgently needs to market Oak Ridge to the local U.S. Department of Energy workforce. That workforce brings a billion dollar payroll into East Tennessee each year. Unfortunately, the Oak Ridge economy sees very little of this money.

Over the last two decades, the erosion of DOE residency has cost the City of Oak Ridge a great deal of payroll. The problem looks even worse when one considers the concurrent payroll increase of our city’s competition. For example, over those two decades the gap between the annual Oak Ridge and Knox County DOE payrolls grew by $130 million dollars. That’s just the growth in the gap. The total gap in DOE payroll between Oak Ridge and Knox County is now approximately $270 million dollars per year.

No wonder Turkey Creek and so many new housing developments have gone over there. That’s where the DOE payroll went! [Read more…]

Guest column: Changing the economic development game in Oak Ridge

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There’s no nice way to spin it: The results of our city’s bad decisions for the past decade are catching up with us.

In addition to having high debt and property taxes, our sales tax revenues continue to decline, we are exporting more than $727 million per year in U.S. Department of Energy payroll (1), and we have a comparatively stagnant population growth. Even with all the new restaurants opening, these projects won’t fully replace the revenue we’ve lost from the countless businesses that have closed up shop or left town for greener pastures.

Continuing down this path is not an option. Thankfully, our city manager understands this and wants to strategize a more competitive position for Oak Ridge. He is proposing that we change our approach to economic development (2) by finding other uses for the $1-2 million we’ve been spending annually on nearly 20 different external organizations like the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.

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