Regional leaders rank community issues during a recent PlanET forum at the Flatwater Grill in Oak Ridge.
Union County Mayor Micheal Williams wants the county to withdraw from a regional planning organization that recently held a series of public forums and drew some opposition from property rights advocates, including in Oak Ridge and Anderson County.
Named PlanET, the five-county organization includes Anderson, Blount, Loudon, Knox, and Union counties. Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan is chair of its board of mayors.
“Union County is a rural county and is much smaller, as far as demographics are concerned, than the other counties which make up PlanET,” Williams wrote in a May 1 letter to the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization. “I feel that Union County would be better served if we promote ourselves as an individual county instead of grouping with the larger ones and being left behind.”
