No WhiteWash!

In another story that ticket camera companies will insist is an isolated incident (despite a new incident seemingly surfacing each week), a Peoria, Illinois woman was sent a ticket that should have gone to another driver.

A Chicago traffic camera could cost you hundreds of dollars. It did for Peorian Casandra Davis, who wrote ‘We Hear You’ after getting tickets for something she says she didn’t do. Her ticket charged her $100 for running a red light in Chicago. The only problem is Davis was in Tennessee.

A red-light camera caught a picture of the car in action. The license plates look almost identical, with the exception of one letter. Plus, Davis drives a silver Impala, and the car in the photo is a red Buick.

Surely if she presented the city with proof of their mistake, they would immediately remedy the situation and apologize, right? Maybe not:

Davis says she called Chicago’s Revenue Department and sent proof, but instead of correcting the problem, Chicago increased her ticket to $200. Now Davis is worried she’s driving around with a bad driving record that’s not hers.

As usual, pressure from the media is the only thing that seems to force cities to fix their errors:

After we called the Department of Revenue we got Davis’ ticket overturned. Representatives say they confused some letters on the license plate.

via Red Light Camera Wrongly Tickets Woman Who Was Out Of State.

Thanks to an excellent piece of investigative journalism by David Goldstein of Los Angeles television station KCAL, motorists are getting the real accident numbers at Los Angeles camera-enforced intersections.

The city has claimed that the cameras reduced accidents by 34%, but a little fact-checking proved this assertion wrong:

Is it money or safety? We wanted to know actual numbers of accidents at red light camera intersections to see if they really went down.

When we asked, the LAPD became very defensive. The sergeant in charge told me in an e-mail, “The city would hope that it is the goal of KCBS/KCAL to discuss the positive aspects of the photo red light program.”

So we filed a public records request. The department charged us more than $500 for a computer run. When we got the numbers back, they told a different story.

We looked at every accident at every red light camera intersection for six months of data before the cameras were installed and six months after.

The final figures? Twenty of the 32 intersections show accidents up after the cameras were installed! Three remained the same and only nine intersections showed accidents decreasing.

Read more via Los Angeles Red Light Cameras Lead To Increased Accidents.

Permanent closures to reduce IP’s North American capacity by 2.1 million tons

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Oct. 22, 2009 – International Paper (NYSE: IP) today announced plans to close its paper mill and associated operations in Franklin, Va., and its containerboard mills in Pineville, La., and Albany, Ore. The company also announced it would permanently shut down the previously idled No. 3 machine at its Valliant, Okla., containerboard mill. The Valliant Mill’s other two machines will continue to operate. These permanent shutdowns will reduce the company’s North American paper and board capacity by 2.1 million tons.

“We recognize these are very difficult decisions affecting our employees, their families and the communities surrounding these mills,” said Chairman and CEO John Faraci. “We have concluded that we have excess capacity in our North American paper and packaging businesses, and these decisions will better match our supply with our expected customer demand.”

Since the onset of the global recession, the decline in demand for International Paper’s uncoated freesheet in North America has accelerated, and consequently the company has decided to further reduce its uncoated freesheet capacity.

In its containerboard and coated paperboard businesses, International Paper expects demand to resume growth as the economy rebounds. However, the company’s demand is not expected to return to 2008 levels in the near future. Therefore, permanent IP capacity closures are necessary.

The closures, which will impact about 1,600 employees, will result in permanent North American capacity reductions as follows:

via International Paper to Shut Down Three Mills

This blog was started in February 2007 with the title of “Kingsport, TN Government”.  The name was later changed to “No WhiteWash!”, a name less focused on one local government.  We are still focused on Kingsport, TN Government and have expanded into issues that affect Sullivan County, North East Tennessee area, and the State as they are in a lot of case interrelated.

The direction of this blog for the future will be for the average citizen and not the elites who choose to run things for their own self-interest.  There will be no favoritism toward a political party in this blog.  WARNING:  If you are a elected official or running for office and make statements that you can’t back up or not exactly telling the full story, then this blog will expose them.  If you are running for office or an elected official who wants to use this blog for political advantage, then I would suggest you go elsewhere to peddle your story.  This blog is for the people!!

This little blog now has readership that is around 1,000 visits per day and that number could be much higher because other blogs re-publish this blog posts to their blogs.  There have been over 1,700 posts written in this blog since inception and the posts are not forgotten as they slide down the page as newer post take their place on the first page.  The search traffic coming to this blog is very large because this blog posts are indexed on all of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc).  All of the posts go into a RSS news feed where readers can read the posts without having to visit the blog.  The folks using the RSS feed amounts to many hundred per day.

Over the last few years I have seen more local people become more vocal about expressing their views concerning how the local governments operate.  They express their views in the comments areas in the local newspapers, blogs, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc)  There have been many local blogs that have been started in the North East Tennessee area in the last few years and I think we will see more of it.

Blogs do get a lot of readership.  The Tea Party protests got their start from blogs and with very little help from local media.

The Show blog is another local blog that has come online and also has it own local talk radio show on Monday and Thursday from 6-8pm on WMCH AM1260.  Local issues are discussed in this radio talk show and in many cases the posts from this blog are discussed and the radio talk show does allow callers to phone in and express their views. 

I have learned much about the City of Kingsport government on how they operate.  The research that I have done has me very concerned about how the “elites” control the city and do things that are in their self-interests.  I do have a concern about their lack to fully understand the problems the area has such as low median wages, declining population, high unemployment, lack of good paying jobs, and young adults leaving the area to find work, etc.

I also have a concern how the mayor selects political appointees to serve on different committees so he can be assured that he get what he wants.  The reporting in the Kingsport Times-News is almost always, in my view, protecting the city officials.  One has to understand that if they reported anything negative about the city, then it would reflect on the upper management at the Kingsport Times-News.  This is because there are many of the top management at the Times-News that are Mayor Dennis Phillips’ political appointees.

We could go on about how certain people decide who should run for political office and then campaign for them and put up the money for them to get elected.

We could talk about the Ridgefield County Club elites or look at the details of the spending of city money by the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, but these could be posts for another day.

There have been many that have sent this blog information concerning the operation of our local governments and I want to say thank you.  Please continue reporting as you have in the past.

If you have anything to report concerning the below areas, feel free to use the email icon below to report it. The source of the information will be kept confidential.

• City of Kingsport, TN
• City of Bristol, TN
• Sullivan County, TN
• North East, TN
• Tennessee Government

Issues such as wasteful spending, local elections, annexation, ethics, crime, conflicts of interest, backroom deals, open government, abuse of taxpayer money, etc., are examples to report, but not limited to those listed.

Update: This blog has sent the post below to 83 people via email or U.S.Mail that are in the list below.

Kingsport Board of Mayor and Alderman
Mayor of Sullivan County
Sullivan County Commissioners
Bristol City Council
Bluff City Mayor and Alderman
Kingsport Chamber of Commerce
Tennessee Legislators for North East TN
U.S. Congress Legislators for North East TN
Commissioner Matt Kisber- TN Economic & Community Development
Governor Phil Bredesen
Tennessee Candidates for Governor
NETWORKS Sullivan Partnership Board of Directors and Members

I am sure that the past and current elected leaders will want this graph and the facts below to disappear because it reflects on their lack of response to address the problem with Sullivan County and its cities in its declining population and other problems in the Sullivan County area.  This blog will continue to expose the facts and there will be ”No Spin” and “No WhiteWash! of the data presented on this blog.

Top Eleven Largest Counties Population – 1980 to 2030

Data for the graph and the table below is from the following links State and County Population and Population Projections for the State of Tennessee

Other Facts

• In 1980, Sullivan County was the fifth largest county and it is estimated that in 2030, Sullivan County will be the eleventh largest county.
• The population of Sullivan County is an older population and the median age for Sullivan County is 42.9 years, Tennessee is 37.2 years and Florida is 39.8 years.  The Percent 65 Years and Over for Kingsport is 20.1%, Bristol is 19.5%, Sullivan County is 17.8% and Florida is 17.4%.
• Sullivan County and its cities, (Kingsport and Bristol) have a large number of young adults leaving the area.
• The death rate for Sullivan County is more than the birth rate.
• Sullivan County birth rate is low as compared to the state.
• Sullivan County only gained 852 people between years 2000 to 2008 which gave a net gain of 0.56 percent growth.
• Average Household median income is low for the area.  Kingsport is $34,391, Bristol is $36,454, and Sullivan County is $37,559. Two people in the same household making the new Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would make $30,160 per year.
• The percent of poverty for those 65 and older in Sullivan County, TN is 12.2%, Kingsport is 11.6%, and Bristol is 16.2%. These percentages are 2007 numbers and could be higher due to the recession.  The household median income for 65 and older in Sullivan County is $28,070.
• The poverty level for Kingsport is 18%, Bristol is 14.6%, and Sullivan County is 15.8%.  These percentages are 2007 numbers and could be higher due to the recession.  Poverty level for 2009 is defined for a person’s income to be $10,830 per year.
• Kiplinger’s Personal Finance survey rates the Kingsport MSA as having the highest cost of living, low median income and the worst job growth out of 10 major cities/metro areas in Tennessee.
• The area unemployment is high with Kingsport having the highest unemployment – See link for more details Jobs/Unemployment
• The Republican Party has continuously controlled Tennessee’s 1st Congressional District since 1881.  It appears for the most part that most of the new jobs are going to the more Democrat Party area.
• Kingsport has publicly stated that they would like to make Kingsport a destination city for visitors to the area while not addressing the real problems the area faces.  Spending the tax payers’ money to obtain a short-cut to generate revenue, in my view, does not help the average citizen. Spending money for a conference center expansion and aquatic center will not solve the area’s problems.  The aquatic center will not make any difference when one needs a job and there is not one available locally.  By the same token, if a job exists in the area and you need it badly, then the aquatic center does not enter the picture.
• The area has one of the largest employers (Eastman Chemical) in the state and a major tourist attraction (Bristol Nascar Race).  It appears that the elected leaders have become complacent about finding new good paying jobs because these two businesses have not increased the population and/or stopped the exit of young adults leaving the area.
• Kingsport is the largest city in Sullivan County and is proud of its reputation for having good schools.  Dobyns-Bennett High School has been named by Newsweek magazine as one of the top high schools in the country.  Having great schools apparently is not enough to keep the young adults from leaving the area in search of good paying jobs.
• Kingsport has built a Higher Education Center, but I have a concern that there will not be the needed jobs in the area for those who finish their education.  I am for education, but with the large number of students, and with nothing major coming in as far as jobs, many will leave to look elsewhere for jobs.  Increasing the percentage of college graduates in the area is good, but the percentage of college graduates might be skewed because of the number of college educated young people leaving the area and the fact that the large percentage of older folks that do not have higher education.
• It appears that local cities are striving to get new retail business into the area as an easy way to increase revenue.  Having retail is a quick way to get revenue, but as retail increases in a given city, then the share that retailers gets decreases because they have to share retail sales among many retailers.  I think a better approach would be to increase the flow of money into the area via good paying jobs, which would  provide for longer term stability for these retailers and this will also increase the standard of living for city/county citizens.
• Because of declining revenues or increased spending, cities in Sullivan County have chosen to annex new areas for the tax revenue, increase their population, and to enable the city to borrow more because of the increased asset value.  This helps the cities, but decreases the already low standard of living for the citizens.

Conclusion

The facts presented above may concern some that bringing out these issues will cause folks or businesses to avoid the North East Tennessee area.  The facts presented above are available to anyone who desires to do research.  I am sure that any large company would do their research before deciding to invest in Sullivan County.  I also feel that “enough is enough” and the issues need to be up-front and center stage to be addressed.  No more hiding the issues….deal with them head on so the region will begin to respond economically. Good paying jobs in my view is what is needed to restore what has been lost.

There must be lots of jobs and a few hundred will not do.  It should be a broad mix of jobs that would be attractive to different types of workers who have different skills or educational training.

We need elected officials that will not cater to special interests groups or use get rich quick schemes to get revenue into the local government.  Get the money flowing into the area via good paying jobs and then the region might become attractive to those job seekers. The current and past economic development efforts are not working and efforts need to be stepped up and action is needed now.  If the economic development people are not capable of delivering results, then they need to be replaced.  If local politics are hindering the economic development efforts, then that needs to be exposed and addressed.

If you are an elected official or economic development person and your views or lack of vision is holding up the region from rebounding, then you need to step aside.

What you can do?

• Go to BMA and Sullivan County Commissioners meetings and make your views known.
• Talk to your BMA or Sullivan County Commissioners individually.
• Talk to your neighbors and friends and get them involved.
• Send this post via email to your friends and neighbors.
• Talk to your U.S  Congress Legislators. and Tennessee Legislators
• Vote in the next election for those that can address the area’s problems
• Keep the pressure on the elected officials.
• Write letters to the editors at the local newspapers (Kingsport and Bristol).  Let this blog know if your letter to the editor is refused and provide a copy via the “You Report It! menu item at the top of the this page.
• Participate in local talk radio shows to express your views.
• Start your own blog.
• Now is the time to voice your concerns before taxes are raised in the future

Comments are Welcome

Please feel free to add comments via this blog

Now there are three states trying to get a Harley-Davidson motorcycle assembly plant.  It appears that Sullivan County is not in the picture for jobs that could help the declining population, young adults leaving the area, and high employment rate in the Kingsport area.  Where are the Sullivan County economic development people and what are they doing?

Indiana is trying to edge out Kentucky and Tennessee and land a Harley-Davidson motorcycle assembly plant that could employ at least 1,000 workers.

Economic development leaders in Indiana have met with executives of the motorcycle company and touted the state’s pro-business tax climate, a state official confirmed Wednesday.

Read more via State vies for Harley-Davidson site | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star.

This makes two chemical spills at Eastman in the last two weeks!!  What is going on over there?  They were fined $48,000 back in April, 2009 by the Department of Environment and Conservation.  See Eastman Chemical fined by TDEC for many violations

Another chemical spill at Eastman Chemical Company on Wednesday morning.

Eastman officials say there was a brief accidental discharge in the South Fork Holston River due to the over-pressurization of a process reactor.

The spill was a mixture of diethyl ether, the same type of spill that occurred on July 28, 2009, and tetraethyl pyrophosphate.

Representatives from Department of Environment and Conservation’s Johnson City field office conducted a site investigation Wednesday morning.

Eastman reports no employees were injured but approximately one dozen fish were killed. Eastman does not expect this release to have any further adverse impact on the South Fork Holston River. A team is investigating the incident.

via Eastman Chemical Spill In Holston River | TriCities.

Team Madison County, a regional economic development initiative led by the Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce, the Jackson Energy Authority, the city of Jackson, Madison County and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development lands over 400 new jobs in West Tennessee.

If report cards were assigned to industry recruitment efforts, Jackson’s Team Madison County would receive an A+, along with the notation “works well with others.” Working together is what Team Madison County is all about. Team Approach Draws Businesses to Madison County

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber today congratulated the board of directors and senior leadership of Carlisle Companies of Charlotte, North Carolina on the company’s decision to locate a new manufacturing facility in Jackson, Tenn. The facility will be operated by Carlisle Tire and Wheel, a subsidiary of Carlisle Companies and will manufacture tires, inner tubes and wheels for a variety of vehicles used in the agricultural, all-terrain vehicle, golf, industrial, lawn/garden and trailer markets. The project represents a multi-million dollar investment by Carlisle Tire and Wheel and is expected to create approximately 440 new jobs. The acquisition of the new facility is subject to confirmatory due diligence and is expected to close in late September.

“The people of Tennessee are very grateful to Carlisle Tire and Wheel for the company’s investment in the Jackson community and their confidence in the workers of West Tennessee,” said Commissioner Kisber. “The close collaboration between the state of Tennessee and Team Madison County is yielding results and I’m convinced we’ll continue to see additional investment in the region.”
Continue reading “Multi-Million Dollar Capital Investment to Create Over 400 New Jobs in West TN” »

Google has a neat way of plotting State and County population by just clicking on a state or counties within a state.  The public U.S. Census data is shown as in the graphs below and its quick and easy to see the exact population for a given year by moving your mouse over the plotted line.  The population data available for plotting goes back to 1980.

Below on the left is Sullivan County population and the right side graph shows nine of the largest counties in Tennessee.  Sullivan County population is not growing and has not shown any significant growth for some time.  Elected officials and economic development folks for Sullivan County and its cities should review so they can see the progress they have made in prior years.

The link is:  Graph other states and counties

The May, 2009 unemployment rate for the City of Kingsport was 12.6 percent.  Retail sales growth is not keeping up with the inflation rate and Kingsport has a declining population. The Kingsport area, in a recent report by Kiplinger, has the highest cost of living, the lowest household income, and the worst job growth in Tennessee. See the link Kingsport Facts

Kingsport, as I have said many times needs to get industry to locate here that offer good paying jobs.  More retail jobs aren’t needed.  Get the good paying jobs first and then retail jobs will open up.

After giving it much thought, I have come to the collusion that the City of Kingsport, Chamber of Commerce, Networks, and Sullivan County are not capable of getting the type of jobs that the area needs.  I’m sorry that I have to be blunt, but it is the truth and in my view these organizations are nothing more than a social/political club that cater to special interest groups.  Look at the facts!  Sure, there have been some gains, but these have been mostly in the retail/food areas.

We need the involvement of the State of Tennessee to help get jobs here.  The State was able to help Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Clarksville get new manufacturing firms to locate in those cities and North Carolina was able to woo Google and Apple Computer to locate to North Carolina.  North Carolina has changed some of its laws to make it easier for firms to locate to North Carolina.  Because of the changes made at the state level in North Carolina, they will get an Apple Computer $1billion datacenter that will be built not far from the Google datacenter in Lenoir, NC.  North Carolina also gave incentives to get these firms to locate to North Carolina.

Kingsport has relied too long on Eastman and it is time to get other firms here.  Get rid of the mindset that economic growth is retail and get new people in those organizations that can go after manufacturing and technology firms.  The economic development direction that the Kingsport area has been using is quite simple not working.  See the link, Best and Worst Cities in Tennessee

The Higher Education Center is good, but I get the impression that the city thinks that firms will come to the city in droves because we have a bunch of smart cookies here.  Upper Mississippi, I am sure did not wait to build a higher education center to attract car makers or did Lenoir, NC wait to have the type of employees that Google wanted trained before going after the Google business.

The time to act is now!  The population of Kingsport has declined.  Having more educated people trained at the Higher Education Center and the lack of jobs that would be attractive to them will insure that the declining population will get worse as they look elsewhere for employment.

Ask your state, county,and city elected officials what have they done to help spur economic growth for the area.  Ask them for specific results and then you can decide if they are helping the area with good paying job growth.