August 25, 2014 Morristown City Council Spends Taxpayer Dollars for 2-day Workshop Get-Away in Gatlinburg

The Morristown City Council met at the Edgewater Hotel and Convention Center in Gatlinburg on Friday, August 22 and Saturday, August 23.


Lots of interesting discussions and comments from the Mayor and councilmembers.


Zero "press" present.


For some reason, the local "news"paper chooses to give the councilmembers privacy in these retreat meetings--even though these meetings, called strategic planning workshops, are public meetings in which public business is discussed.


It is a shame that the council often chooses to meet away from Morristown for these workshops. Mr. Cox has previously scheduled overnight workshops at the Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City and at the Meadowview Resort Center in Kingsport.


There will be more on the "retreat," but here is a starter video where the council--that has been condemning and demolishing substandard houses for several years now--discusses two downtown eyesores that have been ignored.  


Click on the link for the video of LeBel discusses giving TIFs (tax increment financing) to the owners as an economic incentive; Chesney proposes new city "Belk and Bradley's" city ordinances; and Garrett mentions the city condemning and tearing the buildings down.


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68-1HR9vyZk&list=UUC_cDe1XLFQo1ytNNoF1nxg

June 22, 2012 Developer Pulls Masengill Springs Development from City Agenda

The Masengill Springs Development and Rezoning was pulled from the City Council agendas at the beginning of the June 19th meeting.  Developers Don Bunch and Mike Bunch are proposing moving the current Food City on West AJ Hwy across the street along with other development in the area of the old tobacco warehouse.

The proposal met with considerable opposition form residents in the North Economy Road area at a previous Planning Commission meeting where the development was sent on to city council on a 4-2 vote with one abstention.

Even though the proposal was pulled from the agenda at the start, many residents from the area were at the City Council meeting and spoke about their concerns about drainage problems and traffic problems in having an exit from the development onto North Economy Road.

There will be more discussion at a future date.

January 28, 2012 CFA (Citizens for Accountability) Pushes To Protect Voters and the Integrity of the 2001 City Referendum on MUC

The letter is in the mail...Click on the image to enlarge, read, copy...

Morristown-Hamblen Citizens for Accountability recently sent letters to Morristown voters with history, background, and current information on the effort by five Morristown City Councilmembers (Paul LeBel, Kay Senter, Bob Garrett, Chris Bivens, and Claude Jinks) to overturn the votes of the 3,202 people (72%) who voted for a series of changes to the Morristown Utilities Commission in a 2001 referendum.

The Five have set in motion their plan to do an end-run around the MUC appointment process that  3,202 voters put in place with their votes FOR the  2001 MUC referendum question!

These Five have decided that they don't like the MUC appointment process that was among the MUC changes put in place by 3,202 VOTERS in 2001. So...the Five have decided that THEY will overturn the voter-approved MUC appointment process all by themselves---without going back to the people in a referendum to see if the PEOPLE want to leave the current appointment process in place or want to make a change.

The Five apparently don't care about the integrity of the referendum as the voice of the people. The Five think that they are justified in overturning the votes of the PEOPLE and changing the MUC selection process to what they want because...well...just because they can and they want to...

And because George McGuffin is sitting on the sidelines and oh-so-quietly cheering them on.