Oak Ridge Today

Council approves 10 percent pay raise for city manager

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Mark Watson

Mark Watson

Note: This story was updated at 10:10 a.m. Nov. 12.

After two attempts to give him smaller raises failed, the Oak Ridge City Council voted 4-3 on Monday to award City Manager Mark Watson a 10 percent salary increase.

Council rejected two separate proposals to lower the pay raise to 4 percent and 1 percent, the same salary hike given to other city employees this year.

The 10 percent increase raises Watson’s pay from just under $137,000 to $150,321.60, and it is effective Aug. 8, 2013.

The salary boost, which has generated much opposition online, had been recommended by a three-member City Manager Evaluation Committee. The committee had compared Watson’s pay to other city managers across Tennessee and in other U.S. Department of Energy cities. The recommended raise would keep Watson’s pay competitive, and it was based on his performance during his three years in Oak Ridge and evaluations by the seven City Council members, committee chair Chuck Hope said. [Read more…]

Council gives schools $250,000, school shutdown avoided

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Bruce Borchers and Mark Watson

During a special meeting Tuesday, Oak Ridge municipal officials agreed to give the city school system an extra $250,000 to avoid a potential loss of millions of dollars in state funding and avert a possible Oct. 1 school shutdown. Pictured above are Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers, left, and City Manager Mark Watson, who recommended the extra funding on Tuesday. (File photo)

In a short special meeting Tuesday, the Oak Ridge City Council agreed to give the city’s schools $250,000 to allow the system to avoid a potential loss of millions of dollars in state funding and avert a possible Oct. 1 shutdown.

The one-time transfer will come from higher-than-expected sales tax revenues in Roane County.

The vote was 4-1-1. Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan, Mayor Pro Tem Jane Miller, and Council members Chuck Hope and Charlie Hensley voted in favor of the extra funding, which had been recommended by City Manager Mark Watson. [Read more…]

Council approves locations for sewer system tanks, county donates land for one

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Emory Valley Road Sewer System Holding Tank

An earlier draft image of what a sewer system holding tank could look like on Emory Valley Road. (Image courtesy City of Oak Ridge)

CLINTON—The Oak Ridge City Council had already taken steps to move the planned sewer system holding tanks farther back from major roads or make them less visible, and on Monday, the Anderson County Commission agreed to donate a small parcel on Emory Valley Road for one of the tanks.

Oak Ridge officials have said the tanks are needed to help comply with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order that requires the city to end all sewer system overflows by September 2015. [Read more…]

Council approves water, sewer rate increases

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Oak Ridge City Council

The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday approved water and sewer rate increases that will take effect January 2014 and January 2015. (File photo)

There was much opposition online, and in phone calls to city hall, but few public objections to back-to-back utility rate increases at a Monday night Oak Ridge City Council meeting.

The Council voted in two separate 6-1 votes to raise water and sewer rates in January 2014 and again in January 2015. The increases range from 8 percent to 15 percent.

The new rate hikes, which will be considered on second and final reading in October, would result in water bills that could go up by a minimum of $1.35 per month in January 2014 and then another $1.19 per month in 2015. Sewer bills would increase a minimum of $2.78 per month next year and then rise another $2.13 per month the following year. [Read more…]

Guest column: Council member proposes alternatives to raising water, sewer rates

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Trina Baughn

Trina Baughn

On Sept. 9, your Oak Ridge City Council will likely vote to approve additional water and sewer rate increases. When combined with the last two increases, the average user’s bill will have spiked 62 percent in just 34 months. Subsequently, should council adopt the fully proposed schedule through 2019, most residents and businesses will be paying double what they were paying prior to the initial increase imposed in May 2012.

These increases are to pay for the $33 million of debt that the city incurred in the last two years in addition to a projected $15 million more that Public Works says is still needed. We are continuing to borrow without limits and without regard for your ability to pay such astronomical bills.

Much of this debt could have been reduced or avoided all together had your city government taken the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency up on the many opportunities they gave us to make corrections. (See my Feb. 24 post at trinabaughn.com entitled, “The Rest of the EPA Mandate Story.”) Unfortunately, we’ve screwed up so many times that we were too fearful to pursue leniencies that are now being afforded to many cities across the nation. So, while others have 20-25 years to comply and can spread out costs to minimize the hit their ratepayers will take, Oak Ridge has just five years and is forcing the entire burden on its residents and businesses. [Read more…]

Council approves pedestrian safety projects, Chamber contract

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Oak Ridge City Council

During a special meeting Monday, the Oak Ridge City Council approved pedestrian safety improvement projects on Oak Ridge Turnpike and at Jackson Square, and approved a contract worth up to $175,000 with the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. (File photo)

The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday agreed to use more than $500,000 in red light camera money to improve the city-owned parking lot on the north side of Jackson Square and make eight Oak Ridge Turnpike intersections safer for pedestrians.

Council also approved a $175,000 contract with the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, an amount that was down significantly from previous years but higher than what City Manager Mark Watson had originally proposed earlier this year. [Read more…]

On first vote, Council prohibits animated videos, scrolling messages on electronic signs

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Oak Ridge High School Electronic Sign

The electronic sign at Oak Ridge High School is pictured above. (Photos courtesy City of Oak Ridge)

The public debate gained notoriety in December with a dispute over an electronic sign featuring an animated Santa. After months of meetings and hours of discussions, it could be close to being resolved, although the community appears to remain divided.

On Monday night, the Oak Ridge City Council voted 4-3 to approve, in the first of two monthly votes, ordinance changes that would, among other things, prohibit videos or continuously scrolling messages on electronic signs, revisions that would presumably prevent an animated Santa.

The revised ordinance would require messages on the increasingly popular signs to be static and remain displayed for five seconds. The changes, which still have to be approved on second and final reading in September, would also govern signs used for sporting events, set maximum brightness levels, and require the displays to automatically dim through photo cell technology. [Read more…]

Schools have to report illegal activity, turn over dangerous weapons or drugs, agreement says

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Bruce Borchers and Mark Watson

Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers, left, and City Manager Mark Watson during a Monday evening reception for Borchers, who started working in Oak Ridge in June.

School principals have to notify the Oak Ridge school resource officer, or SRO, of suspected illegal activity, and principals or school staff members who locate dangerous weapons or drugs have to turn them over to the SRO, according to a renewable one-year agreement signed Wednesday by municipal and education officials.

School staff members must also provide the SRO with the names of people who are not allowed on school property, and the staff is required to notify the officer when they expect problems from parents of students who have been disciplined.

Meanwhile, the Oak Ridge Police Department is required to tell the school board of criminal gangs and associated criminal gang activity. It wasn’t immediately clear if—or how much—any of those requirements differed from earlier procedures.  [Read more…]

Oak Ridge officials reconsider residential rental inspections

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Rental Property in Manhattan District Overlay

Rental properties in the Manhattan District Overlay could be registered and regularly inspected under a proposal being considered by Oak Ridge officials. The rental properties are pictured in red above. (Image courtesy of Oak Ridge city staff)

Oak Ridge officials are reconsidering a proposal that would allow them to inspect rental homes as part of a program to combat property blight and substandard housing.

It’s been considered before and the Oak Ridge City Council has approved an ordinance establishing the program, but it’s never been implemented, Oak Ridge Community Development Director Kathryn Baldwin said Monday.

Now, the city staff has proposed expanding the program from the Highland View neighborhood to the larger Manhattan District Overlay, which includes Highland View and a swath of properties north of Oak Ridge Turnpike from East Drive in east Oak Ridge to Bryn Mawr Circle in west Oak Ridge. The MDO also includes properties in the Woodland, Scarboro, and Burnham Woods neighborhoods. [Read more…]

Guest column: Former superintendent rebuts Baughn’s school safety allegations

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Bob Smallridge

Bob Smallridge

The following is in response to a recent letter from Ms. Trina Baughn, which was published in The Oak Ridger on July 3 and subsequently reported in part by other area media.

I recently completed a six-month stint as interim superintendent of the Oak Ridge Schools, covering the period Jan. 1 through June 30. I will not attempt to speak to what might or might not have occurred prior to this time, but will comment only on events where I had some direct involvement during my period of service.

In assuming my role as interim superintendent, one of the things I felt was most important was for me to get out to the schools as frequently as possible. I was in the schools, on  average, twice a week, especially the secondary schools, because they are larger and it takes more time to visit all parts of the buildings. For the most part, my visits came at random times and were unannounced. I visited many classrooms and talked with both teachers and students individually. I saw students moving through the hallways and congregating in the larger assembly spaces in a causal, but controlled manner, enjoying a few minutes to converse with each other. Overall, I observed a very orderly environment based on caring and mutual respect between teachers, administrators, and students.

This is not to say that there are never problems that occur among students. Anytime you bring 700 students together as in the case of the middle schools or almost 1,400 at the high school you can expect instances of inappropriate behavior by a few students. Although most discipline situations are handled at the building level, there were times when it was necessary for me to get involved in reviewing a specific incident. For the most part, I was very comfortable that these situations were handled appropriately and consistently by school staff. [Read more…]

Guest column: Let’s face it, school safety is an emotional topic

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When it comes to keeping our children out of harm’s way, we parents get testy. I never realized how testy I could get until the day I drove my oldest home from the hospital. Not only did I check every buckle in his car seat fifteen times over, I don’t think I took my car over 25 miles per hour the whole way home. I threw a few sour looks toward drivers who passed me at a higher rate of speed.

It was illogical. It was emotional. But it was instinctual. I couldn’t stop what simply holding my baby boy was doing to me on the inside. I suspect I am not alone among first-time fathers and mothers. The feelings we have may wane over time or become more rational as we age, but they never fully go away.

Keeping composure in emotionally tense situations requires a degree of grace, and I find it doubly ironic that, as a former school-safety-coordinator-turned-minister,  grace would be the state of being I believe our community should adopt in this controversy. [Read more…]

Baughn criticizes school officials, school supporters fire back

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Oak Ridge Schools Press Conference Crowd

Oak Ridge City Council member Trina Baughn, third from right, and Oak Ridge High School Acting Principal David Bryant, left, and Superintendent Bruce Borchers, second from left, attend a Monday afternoon press conference at the high school where education officials rebutted Baughn’s allegations that there is a “culture of terror” in the schools, drugs are rampant, and students are at risk of being assaulted.

Oak Ridge City Council member Trina Baughn fired the first shot, writing a letter critical of education officials and alleging that the city’s schools have a “culture of terror,” drugs are rampant, and students are at risk of being assaulted.

On Monday, school supporters and students fired back in a barrage that started with an afternoon press conference at Oak Ridge High School and ended at a City Council meeting.

During the Council meeting, Chuck Agle, who serves on the Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission and is the husband of school board member Angi Agle, asked council members to express their disapproval by censuring Baughn. To imply that Oak Ridge Schools widely tolerate wrongdoing is wrong, Agle said. [Read more…]