City pool and sales tax on this month’s agenda

 

The city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen was faced with a tough choice at their May meeting on Tuesday; whether or not to open the pool this year. After a lengthy discussion, they reached their decision.

Because of safety issues and loss of revenue, the board voted in favor of not opening the pool. Instead, a committee will investigate grants and other means of funding an indoor pool, which could be open year round. Alderman David Timbs said, “We are closing it in preparation of doing something better.”

Later in the meeting, Timbs relayed information he learned at a recent ‘Leaps’ evaluation meeting at the community center.

“The person who conducted the evaluation was extremely complimentary of Director Flo Bellamy,” he said. “She praised both Flo and the town on the program. We should be thankful for Flo and the work she does.”

At the request of Mayor Kevin Parsons, City Recorder Terry Reece presented information to the board on increasing the city sales tax from its current 1.5 percent to the maximum of 2.75 percent.

As explanation for the proposal, Reece said the state is facing a shortfall in its budget and state officials could increase the tax themselves, taking all the money generated by the raise (1.25 percent). If the city initiated the increase first, the money would stay local (of local tax revenue, 50 percent goes to the school system). 

Before taking any action, the board decided to talk to [city] business owners first, and to have Reece compile figures of how much revenue would be raised by the increase.

Mayor Parsons announced the creation of the Jeffrey Shaw Memorial Scholarship Fund, sponsored by the Town of Mountain City Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

“This [fund] was established for the purpose of helping students who are interested in pursuing a career in emergency medical services fields.” said Parsons.

Applications and guidelines for the two scholarships of $500 each are available at the Johnson County High School counselor’s office.

Terry Reece’s office will be the contact point for anyone wishing to donate to the Jeffrey Shaw Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Representatives of Across Festivals requested permission to use Ralph Stout Park on Labor Day weekend for a family oriented, faith based festival. The board approved their request. For more information on the event, visit www.acrossfestivals.com.

Bobbi Lane, an applicant for the city’s advertised job of [water] meter reader, questioned the board as to why the job was filled without interviews being conducted.

Collection and Distribution Supervisor Jerry Horne explained he misunderstood directions from the board during the April meeting and thought he had been given permission to fill the job from applications, without interviews.

Both Horne and Mayor Parsons apologized to Lane (who was one of the top three applicants chosen for consideration), and Parsons assured her, “We’ll make sure this will never happen again.”

Later in the meeting, Vice Mayor Lawrence Keeble made the motion to ratify Horne’s hiring choice. The motion passed with Alderman Willis Walker and Mayor Parsons voting against.

City Fire Chief Gary Stout presented a lease agreement between the City Fire Department and Neva Volunteer Fire Department for the board’s approval.

Last month, Stout asked the board to consider allowing his department to enter into an agreement to use a three-story wooden training structure in Neva for training purposes. Stout said all the county fire departments currently utilize the facility, which belongs to the Neva Volunteer Fire Department. There is an up-front fee of $500, with a $500 per year fee for use.

The agreement was approved, as was the budget amendment for the $1,000.

Mayor Parsons asked for a motion from the board for approval of this year’s Town Walk, which should be held the first week in June. The motion was approved unanimously.

Before closing, Alderman Timbs asked that a memo be distributed to all department heads in reference to hiring procedures.

In other business, the board approved a resolution showing support for restoring football to ETSU.



City pool may be open on a limited basis

The Town of Mountain City Mayor’s office announced today that preparations for opening the city swimming pool have began with a projected opening date of May 27. A re-evaluation of the decision made in last Tuesday’s city council meeting to not open the municipal pool was made by Mayor Kevin Parsons.

“I believe that we as a council were doing our job to look out for the best interests of the town when the decision was made,” said Parsons. “When looking at an operational loss of $5,600.00 last year, moneywise, to not open the pool was certainly a financially responsible decision. However, we sometimes must look past the numbers and realize what the service will provide to our citizens.”

The mayor plans on making sure tighter control is placed on the pool manager, lifeguard and employees to help get the pool operation back in the black. Vending machines will be placed on the grounds to provide snacks and drinks in place of the traditional concession stand, which lost over $1,400.00 last year alone.

“This is just an unacceptable amount by any standard,” said Parsons.

Public works director Bob Eller hopes the necessary repairs will be enough to pass state inspection requirements.

Parsons also stated that, “My decision to open the pool came after several offers from various organizations to help in the operation this summer. The ultimate goal will hopefully lead toward a year round indoor aquatic center for the town in the very near future.”

The mayor must now have the issue placed on the June city council agenda as required per town charter. The charter does provide the authority by the mayor to make this decision until a ratification vote on the previous motion can be made.



Truckers continue plans for shutdowns on delivering goods across America

 

By Margaret Hodapp

 

The trucker shutdown on April 1, 2008 was a drastic step designed to try to fight the rising cost of diesel fuel that is seriously reducing the income of American truckers.

The drivers, owner/operators in most cases, are not making enough profit to pay for the cost of operating their trucks. Just the cost of buying a big rig can exceed $100,000, without the added expense of maintaining the vehicle.

These drivers are facing a reduction in not only in their ability to have the funds to maintain their semis according to government regulations (of which there are many), but having the money left over to take care of their families. Many small trucking companies have already given up due to the inability to meet today’s higher operating costs.

In a report released by the Avondale Partners, LLC, it was said that the number of trucking companies who have gone out of business in the first quarter of this year rivals the record levels of failures reported in 2000 and 2001. This report stated that an estimated 42,000 trucks – which is 2.1 percent of this nation’s over-the-road heavy duty trucks – went out of business during the first three months of 2008.

Some trucking companies pay their drivers a fuel surcharge to help with the cost of fuel but the fuel surcharges paid are not enough to keep up with constantly increasing fuel costs. As of April 2008, 24.3 cents on the gallon are collected in federal fuel taxes on diesel. Some shippers are refusing to pay any fuel surcharge or, in the case of some brokers, collecting it but then failing to pass it on to the company.

However, even the best fuel surcharge programs recoup only about 80 to 85 percent of the additional cost of fuel that is used when a truck idles while being loaded, the out-of-route miles run while a driver searches for a place to park, or the deadheaded miles traveled with no paid load aboard.

In addition, most bills of lading are paid on 45-day terms. Even if 100 percent of fuel costs incurred at the time of the load were paid, the expense created by the rising cost of fuel while waiting on these payments forces truckers to need more cash on hand.

Americans are dependent on these men and women of the highway for delivering everything from the food they eat, to the clothes they wear, to the toys for their children. The increasing cost of diesel will eventually affect the price of all merchandise sold in the American market place.

Consumers may think that higher diesel prices will not affect them, but this is not true. These prices will not only drain a trucker’s wallet at the pump but will raise the prices an average person pays at the supermarket and at all retail stores, businesses that will have to charge more to cover their costs and will pass the charges on to consumers in the form of higher prices on their products.

Neil Bornstein of Sam Okun, OH, a food wholesale business that sells food to groceries and restaurants in downtown Toledo, reports “… lettuce that cost us $8 before is costing $10 now.  We are selling it for $10.50.  Higher fuel prices for delivery are affecting the price of the commodity that the customer is buying.”

Like the food business in Toledo, each American could soon be feeling the pinch of high fuel prices, not only at the pump but also at the dinner table. Higher food costs due to transportation price hikes are going to affect more people than just America’s truckers. Eventually, this fuel problem will affect everyone in one way or another.

An article by CNN’s Jack Cafferty says “… food inflation in the U.S. is at its highest level in 17 years and could get worse. The rising cost of everything from milk to eggs to chicken is hurting many Americans – especially the poor. It’s also tough on businesses, like bakeries and delis, that have to explain price increases to their customers. For many poor people, costlier food means having to give something else up in order to eat. The Food Bank of New Jersey says the sticker shock could cause some of the poorest Americans to go hungry. They say a family of four is eligible for a maximum $542 a month in food stamps. They say that never lasted the whole month before and now lasts for even fewer days. Although the price jumps for various foods are due to many factors, including higher commodity costs for things like wheat, corn, soybeans and milk, one of the main reasons for the jump are higher energy and transportation costs.”

The purpose of the continuing plans for trucker shutdowns are not to penalize fellow Americans; it is simply to focus attention on the importance of trucking to the American economy and to request help through some relief from the federal fuel tax for big rigs (Class 8 trucks) traveling the nation’s highways.

Dan Little, a livestock hauler from Missouri,  is using his web site, www.uscattlehaulers.com, to organize truckers to fight high fuel cost and other truck related issues. Dan says, “Over 80 percent of Americans who know of our problems supported the April shutdown.”

Some have asked Little, “Although the media called the event un-organized, was it in reality?”

“No,” responds Little. “Each area that had truckers sitting and not moving on April 1 was chosen especially to send a loud and clear message to Washington – but not damage the economy in any way. We, as owner/operators, understand our services are vital to this nation, but none of us wants to go bankrupt if we can keep from it. This shutdown, along with more possible in the future, are not intended to hurt but rather to help the economy. Everyone should realize that this action is ongoing and that April 1 was intended as a wake-up call for our government.  We want to get the ball rolling and find a real cure to the trucking industry’s problems.”

Little has plans for an organization that can assist truckers and has posted an open letter to anyone interested on his web site. The letter reads as follows:

Open Letter to All Owner Operators and Company Drivers:

We are starting a new organization to lead this fight. The name will be "Owner Operators United." We will incorporate as soon as donation funds allow us to cover the expense. Our goal will be to fight not only fuel costs, but also insurance costs, HOS laws, cross border drivers, and any law that discriminates against trucks and drivers.

Each State will have a member that will handle issues in that state.

A board of directors will be elected every two years to assure that we are fairly represented.

Bylaws for this organization will be voted on at the annual meeting.

At any time, a member can voice their issues.

We will work hand in hand with all members to assure our goals are met.

We have set up contact members in several states to start this rolling.

Little reports that since the April shutdown, he has had hundreds of calls from numerous independents and small trucking companies who have pledged to join him in a full-scale shutdown across the county.

“We have not given up; the shutdown is still active and growing,” he said.

 

Margaret Hodapp is an author who is currently retired, living in southeastern Indiana, where she and her husband farmed for over thirty years. When they sold the farm, she became restless and got a job as a truck driver,  traveling 48 states and Canada. Although she loved the life as an over-the-road trucker, once the grandchildren started coming, she missed the family and climbed out of the semi. She is the author of several novels and loves to write poetry. For contact information, visit her website at http://www.margarethodapp.com.

 



Report raises concerns that Italian waste may be too hot for EnergySolutions to handle

 

A nuclear engineer with more than three decades of experience in the field of nuclear waste and safety has raised fresh technical and safety concerns about EnergySolutions’ plan to import [to Tennessee] 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste that would largely come from Italy’s now-defunct nuclear power program.

Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, details these concerns in a March 31 memo entitled “Italian Radioactive Waste Classification.”

Until now, little has been said about the Italian waste except that it would constitute “low-level” waste by U.S. standards.  But using data on total quantity and total radionuclide content from the import request and making some basic assumptions, Dr. Makhijani finds that the waste stream as a whole could constitute Class C waste—a potent and dangerous form of low-level waste.

“The data indicate that some portion of the waste could be Class C,” Dr. Makhijani writes.  “Such waste could not be legally disposed of in Utah before or after incineration.”

For years, the radioactive waste company sought permission to dispose of Class B and C nuclear waste in addition to the Class A waste that EnergySolutions is currently permitted to receive. Amid significant public opposition to the hotter waste, legislators banned the disposal of Class B and C waste in Utah during the 2005 legislative session.

Plans to incinerate the material in Tennessee before ultimate disposal in Utah could exacerbate the problem by further concentrating the radioactivity, writes Makhijani:

“What can be said at present is that the concentration of non-volatile radionuclides in the waste, such as transuranics and plutonium, would likely increase after incineration. It is possible that some of the resulting waste stream may then be pushed into the Greater than Class C category.”

With up to 1,600 tons of radioactive ash and residues from the incineration process designated for EnergySolutions’ Utah site – which is only licensed to take Class A waste – Dr. Makhijani stresses the importance of implementing a more rigorous process before the NRC decides on the import request.

“Given that EnergySolutions only has a license for disposing of Class A waste in its Clive, Utah facility, a proposal to dispose of any part of the Italian waste in Utah is very troubling, to say the least.”

New concerns raised in the memo prompted Vanessa Pierce, Executive Director of the citizen advocacy group HEAL Utah, to demand answers.

"EnergySolutions claims that some of the Italian waste can come to its dumpsite in Utah, when the available data suggest this nuclear junk as a whole could be Class C or higher," said Ms. Pierce. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should demand EnergySolutions detail its plans and prove to the public no illegal waste will come to Utah, because the data suggest this waste is too hot for our state to handle.”

Based upon this preliminary analysis, Dr. Makhijani recommends that EnergySolutions provide detailed, independently-verified, and publicly-available data describing the characteristics of each waste stream.  He further recommends that a full Environmental Impact Statement be conducted to assess the environmental and public health impacts of the plan before NRC regulators sign off on the import application.

Until that process is complete and all alternatives, including management of the waste in Italy have been considered, Dr. Makhijani recommends that importation of the Italian waste be prohibited.

For more info: Vanessa Pierce, 801-364-5110 or 801-652-5151 cell; Arjun Makhijani, 301-509-6843 cell

 

 



Randy Allen Brown, received sentencing last week

According to Sheriff Mike Reece, 26, of Hancock Road, Mountain City, for the stabbing of Shantaye Thomas on March 24, 2007.

Brown was charged with attempted first-degree murder, especially aggravated burglary, especially aggravated kidnapping, intentional killing of an animal and the unlawful possession of a weapon.

Brown escaped from the Johnson County Jail after being incarcerated last year and was charged with felony escape and theft over $10,000 for a vehicle stolen during the escape.

Brown received 15 years on the attempted first-degree murder conviction, eight years for burglary, 11 months and 29 days for intentional killing of an animal, and five years for theft over $10,000. The kidnapping and unlawful possession of a weapon charges were dismissed.

Brown is being held in the Johnson County jail, awaiting transfer to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.