GOVERNMENT/POLITICS A4 | FEATURES A6 | YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS A9 | BUSINESS A10
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powell
VOL. 50, NO. 39
SEPTEMBER 26, 2011
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HPUD celebrates 5 years violation-free
Catching up
Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett asks a question of plant manager Nick Jackson during his tour of the Hallsdalle Powell Utility District’s Beaver Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. County commissioners Ed Shouse and R. Larry Smith also attended the luncheon with HPUD officials and staff that celebrated the district going five years without a violation at the Beaver Creek plant. Photo by Greg Householder
with the Powell Panther receivers See Greg Householder’s story on page A-9
End is near for Emory Road ‘cow path’ in Powell Haslam Administration sets funding for 5-lane to Clinton Highway See Larry Van Guilder’s story on page A-3
9/11 reminders The Emory Road DAR heard from a local company that worked with cleanup at Ground Zero. See story on page A-3
Arrested in the pulpit Wendy Smith writes on the colorful past of Knoxville’s First Presbyterian Church See story on page A-6
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Emory Road ‘cow path’ completion scheduled By Larry Van Guilder Construction could start next summer on the long-awaited widening and rerouting of Emory Road in Powell. State Rep. Bill Dunn calls the current road “five lanes leading into a cow path.” BRINK (Better Roads in North Knox) president Clark Hamilton prefers “an old wagon trail.” By any name you choose, improvements to this final segment of Emory Road are due. Dunn and Hamilton were among a group of citizens and East Tennessee lawmakers who met with Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner John Schroer in Nashville last week. Both came away highly pleased. “It was a very positive meeting,” Hamilton said. “We’re very encouraged.” He added that the meeting brought “good news” for Powell, Halls and Union County. In addition to the Emory Road project, work on state route 33 (Maynardville Pike) from Temple Acres Drive to the Union County line should begin by summer. Dunn expects contracts to be let on the Emory Road work as early as February or March. Although the project is entirely funded by the state, uncertainty about Tennessee’s share of federal funds factored into the timing of the project. The design calls for construction of a fivelane road on the south side of Beaver Creek, joining Clinton Highway beside the new Walgreens. The new road will bridge the railroad tracks and eliminate the low spot that fre-
Meet John Schroer TDOT Commissioner John Schroer was appointed by Gov. Bill Haslam. An Indiana native, Schroer received a bachelor’s degree in business from Indiana University. After graduation he moved to Tennessee and subsequently received an MBA from UT. He spent 10 years in the commercial real estate financing business before beginning a real estate development business. He was elected mayor of Franklin in 2007. John Schroer Schroer will be in Knox County this Thursday, Sept. 29, on one leg of a bus ride styled TDOT Project Tour 2011. Scheduled stops are 12:15 p.m. at Litton’s in Fountain City; 1:45 at CVS pharmacy on Emory Road near I-75; and SpringHill Suites at Turkey Creek in Farragut at 4:30. The day concludes with an open house hosted by Schroer at the Farragut Town Hall from 5:30 to 7 p.m. quently floods. The existing road will serve local traffic to downtown Powell businesses, residential areas, and the high and middle schools. Hamilton praised Dunn, state Sen. Randy McNally and state Rep. Steve Hall for their efforts, and he sees more improvements coming to the area soon. He noted, for example, that traffic routinely backs up for more than a mile at Emory Road and Callahan exits from I-75. “The commissioner agreed that’s not acceptable,” Hamilton said.
Linda “Snuff y” Smith, Commissioner R. Larry Smith (no relation) and MPC planner Mike Reynolds discuss land use maps at the North County Sector Plan forum at Halls Senior Center. Photo by S. Clark
North Sector Plan matters By Sandra Clark Come on, people. Let’s outnumber the planners at today’s (Sept. 26) meeting from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Powell Library on Emory Road. That wasn’t the case last week when MPC officials including the executive director, Mark Donaldson, came to Halls to discuss the North County Sector Plan. Fewer than five non-government folks were present. Sector plans set land use boundaries for 15 years. Property owners should care whether the land next door or down the street is developed for commercial or apartments. The days when developers just waved a rezoning past a favorable County Commission are no more. State law has put teeth into sector planning, and it’s harder to obtain changes. Planner Mike Reynolds is heading the north sector study, which includes Powell and Halls. The area has grown from 32,391 residents in 1990 to 42,557 in 2000 and is expected to top 52,261 by 2009. MPC is taking comments and will come with a concept plan, Reynolds said. If you can’t attend tonight’s meeting, contact Reynolds at 215-2500 or mike.reynolds@knoxmpc.org/.
Dawson Hollow disaster victims ‘just hanging on’ fered limited reassurance about “What’s going on with the de- the future. “We will always do our best to velopment on Childress Road?” ensure that all applicable gradCounty Commissioner Tony Norman wanted to know about the ing, construction and stormwater June 28 detention pond collapse at management regulatory policies a development atop Copper Ridge are strictly observed,” Van de Vate that sent a wall of contaminated said. He added that while new polwater rolling down onto the property below. It destroyed the home lutant discharge elimination stanof Gary and Marsha Carter, dam- dards will reduce the likelihood of aged Patty and David Dowling’s pond failures, there is “no plausihouse and eroded their front yard, ble way” for the county to guarandrowned wildlife and contami- tee failures won’t occur. nated a pristine lake on Chuck and Norman didn’t disguise his disMandy Parrott’s property at the satisfaction with Van de Vate’s refoot of the ridge. sponse, even after Commissioner Norman wanted to know why R. Larry Smith announced that it happened and how such catas- developer Rufus Smith Properties trophes can be prevented in the has agreed to build the Carters a future, so he asked Public Works new home. and Engineering chief Dwight Van Gary Carter, who has been livde Vate for answers at last week’s ing in a motel room with his wife commission workshop. Van de for three months, says that Smith’s Vate absolved the county of re- announcement is news to him, and sponsibility for the past and of- he agrees with Norman that the
By Betty Bean
TITAN A SELF-STORAGE
Gary Carter. Photo by Ruth White county should do more to protect homeowners. “Ma’am, I have not heard that statement from anybody except R.
Larry Smith when he showed up out here one day. Since that I haven’t heard anything about it,” he said. “This has been about the most miserable time of my life. Having to come home twice a day to take care of my animals and then leave it behind and go to the motel and spend the night – it’s just destroyed the way I think, the way I do and the way I act,” he said. Carter also takes issue with Van de Vate’s contention that drainage problems at the Rufus Smith site are under control. “It rained on Labor Day, and I was out on the back porch, reading. Water started coming down and I had to get off the porch or my feet were going to get wet. By noon, I couldn’t walk on the porch without walking in running water. … We’ve been dealing with this since June and we’ve got no future in sight.” To page A-2
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