There is a petition that has been started by a local Kingsport citizen to protest the City of Kingsport spending $450,000 on ‘wayfinding’ signs.

Read the following article and the comments for more information on the out of control spending proposed by our elected leaders.  Kingsport to spend about $450,000 on ‘wayfinding’ signs

If the City of Kingsport has extra money to spend that comes from the hotel tax, then how about using it to pay for the money losing convention center and golf course at Meadowview.

Maybe it is the BMA that is lost and can’t find their way to make good sound decisions.  Maybe we should have a petition to recall the current BMA members?

Kingsport, TN’s Signs

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View Current Signatures

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To:  Kingsport TN Board of Mayor and Alderman

Kingsport has recently decided that we need more signs showing how to get to random places around Kingsport. I believe we need to work on fixing the roads that we travel on to get to these places. They are trying to spend $450,000 on these signs. The money is going to a Michigan based company, at that. If you have ever got a headache from the pot holes in Kingsport or waited in traffic downtown due to the lack of turn lanes, sign the dotted line and tell our BMA we don’t need their signs!

Sincerely,

 

The Undersigned

 

Click Here to Sign Petition

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Comments are welcome

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In the table below are the top nine largest populated counties in Tennessee.

The table shows that the Sullivan County death rate is 1,228 more than the birth rate.  Sullivan County had a Total Population Change of 850 people over an eight year period (April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008) whereas Washington County that adjoins Sullivan County had a net gain of 11,441.

The data below is from U.S. Census and you can download the data set for any state at the following link.  The data is in XLS spreadsheet format. County Population Estimates

If you want to see just the Tennessee County data, go to the link below.

http://www.census.gov/popest/counties/tables/CO-EST2008-04-47.xls

Using the data set from the U.S. Census and sorting all Tennessee Counties on the Natural Increase column shows Sullivan County as having the largest decrease for Natural Increase in the state.  Shown below are the top ten Tennessee Counties that had the largest Natural Decrease. (more deaths than births)

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The comments of citizens in the Bristol Herald Courier link below might be of interest to you.  Some great comments concerning the King Medical School.

There was one lone commissioner that voted against the resolution  to support the medical school.  Thank you Commissioner John McKamey for using good logic in your “no” vote.  It appears that the remaining commissioners are more concerned about money than they are about understanding the area’s problems.

Sullivan County’s resolution, approved in a 21-1 vote, also included no money for the project.

Commissioner John McKamey of Piney Flats cast the lone dissenting vote. He said the county has a shortage of doctors because it hasn’t done anything to keep the ones who graduate from programs like the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn., from leaving the area.

“Over half the people who graduate [from Quillen] leave the area,” McKamey said as he challenged one of the reasons for supporting the school. “The solution to this thing is to keep the doctors here.”

McKamey said if the county supports the medical school now, it would commit itself to paying $100 million in taxpayer money. He said the $50 million in local taxes and $50 million in state taxes would be too large a burden for the region’s residents to bear.

Read more via Sullivan Commission Supports King College Med School | TriCities.

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Sullivan County Commissioners voted on July 20, 2009 to support the King College proposed medical school.

There was one lone commissioner that voted against the resolution  to support the medical school.  Thank you Commissioner John McKamey for using good logic in your “no” vote.  It appears that the remaining commissioners are more concerned about money than they are about understanding the area’s problems.

Sullivan County’s resolution, approved in a 21-1 vote, also included no money for the project.

Commissioner John McKamey of Piney Flats cast the lone dissenting vote. He said the county has a shortage of doctors because it hasn’t done anything to keep the ones who graduate from programs like the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn., from leaving the area.

“Over half the people who graduate [from Quillen] leave the area,” McKamey said as he challenged one of the reasons for supporting the school. “The solution to this thing is to keep the doctors here.”

McKamey said if the county supports the medical school now, it would commit itself to paying $100 million in taxpayer money. He said the $50 million in local taxes and $50 million in state taxes would be too large a burden for the region’s residents to bear.

Read more via Sullivan Commission Supports King College Med School | TriCities.

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It was announced on July 6, 2009 that Apple Computer will build a $1 billion data center in Maiden, NC. North Carolina had recently changed its tax law to lure Apple and guided Apple in its site selection areas.

Maiden’s population is around 3,439 and is located in Catawba County, NC and is south of Hickory, NC and is in the Hickory-Lenoir MSA area.

What is amazing about this deal is that the Catawba County Economic Development Corporation went after the data center business.  They marketed the area as a data center area and even had their own website promoting their data center sites. www.datacentersites.com.  They were able to provide the details that a data center would need and offered many locations.

Lenoir, NC, was able get a $600 million Google data center that opened last year that will employ over 200 people.

The area was once known for furniture making, an industry that has taken a hit because of low-wage competition from overseas.  I am very familiar with the Lenoir-Hickory area and have seen the reduction in furniture making and the effect that it had on the local economy.  I have seen the major impact that it had on retail stores as they closed their doors.  Now I see a renewed retail environment with new retail stores opening up.  See link, Google, Lenoir try to adapt to one another

In June, 2009, Ethan Allen, a furniture maker announced that it would add 302 new jobs to its existing 540 employees that it has in Maiden, NC.

Both Apple and Google will pay much higher wages and this should have a impact on the local economy and the house price appreciation rank for Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC is 35 in the nation while Kingsport MSA area is 44.

I might add that Apple and Google did not wait for a Higher Education Center to be built and local people have gone back to school on their own to get the education in hopes to land a job at Google or Apple.

This is great news for North Carolina, but what have our Tennessee elected officials done to spur economic development in East Tennessee? North Carolina and Virginia are both going after the data center business and have incentives to attract data center projects.

MAIDEN – Weeks of speculation ended Monday as Apple Inc. announced plans to build its new $1 billion East Coast data center here.

The California-based technology giant will build the 500,000-square-foot facility at the 183-acre WestStar Mission Critical Business Park off Startown Road near its intersection with U.S. 321.

The data center will employ at least 50 people in full-time information technology positions.

Mike Foulkes, Apple’s director of state and local government affairs, said the company will fill those positions with local people if possible.

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s office has estimated the data center could generate another 250 jobs for people providing services to the plant and more than 3,000 related jobs for the region surrounding the site.

Grading on the project could begin in August, with construction completed and the first employees hired in late 2010.

Read more via Apple to build $1 billion data center in Maiden.

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The 2008 Estimated Census numbers have been released and we find the following for North East Tennessee cities.

Johnson City and Morristown had the most growth while Kingsport has less population than it had in year 2000.

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In association with P R E S E N T S Striking the Root: The Economy, the Fed, and Sound Money with special guest speaker Glenn Jacobs Glenn Jacobs is the professional wrestler better known as Kane with the WWE.  Jacobs is also an actor, appearing as the star in See No Evil.  Jacobs writes about his political beliefs on his website The Adventures of Citizen X.  He is a noted liberty activist, Campaign for Liberty member and Ron Paul supporter Do you want to know why we are experiencing this current economic mess? Do you want to know how we can fix it? Bring your family and friends. Don’t miss this important event. Thursday June 25th at 6:30pm Kingsport Public Library Auditorium 400 Broad St ● Kingsport TN (Click here for map)

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The real estate house prices in the Kingsport area appears to have stopped its rising trend.

Kingsport area had one of the largest 1st quarter 2009 house price decrease of all of the cities in United States that are listed in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index (HPI report.

Kingsport’s first quarter house prices were down –2.9 percent.  This gave Kingsport a rank of 288 out of 294 MSA’s ranked on the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index (HPI report. There were six other MSA’s that had a lower 2009 first quarter than Kingsport and they are:

Much has been said about the housing values in the Kingsport area. It seem that Kingsport is not doing as well despite what the local politicians have stated.  While it is true that Kingsport did beat other Tennessee areas with its one year growth of 1.27 percent, but, one needs also to look at what has happened in the first quarter of 2009 and also look at the 5-year growth.

There are other areas of Tennessee that did not experience the loss that Kingsport had in the first quarter of 2009 and the other areas have an equal or better 5-year growth.

The table below show other Tennessee areas that are not ranked in the home price index report.

(Estimates above use all-transactions HPI which includes purchase and refinance mortgages)

**Note: Rankings based on annual percentage change, for all MSAs containing at least 15,000 transactions over the last 10 years.

The graph below shows the last nine quarters for the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA MSA.

Data below is used for above graph.

++ 28700 Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol, TN-VA Metropolitan Statistical Area
Principal Cities: Kingsport, TN; Bristol, TN; Bristol, VA
Hawkins County, TN; Sullivan County, TN; Scott County, VA; Washington County, VA; Bristol city, VA

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The Chicago-based owner or operator of more than 200 malls in 44 states, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, after spending months trying to work out deals with its lenders.

Read more via General Growth files for bankruptcy protection | Reuters.

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The City of Kingsport apparently has lost its clout with the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce with the Chamber having their 17th Annual Golf Scramble at the Ridgefields Country Club instead of at the city owned Catskills Golf Course.

The taxpayer funded Catskills Golf Course located at the MeadowView Resort and Conference could use money since it barely breaks even.  The City of Kingsport owns the golf course, convention center, and Eastman Chemical owns the hotel.

Parking would not be a problem because the parking lot almost always has a lot of empty spaces.

Kevin Harmon, Kingsport Chamber Golf Scramble chair and Kingsport Town Center general manager stated. “Ridgefields is one of the best golf courses in the state and always does a superb job of hosting the tournament.”

But, the Cattails website states that the Cattails Golf Course is “recognized as one of the top golf courses in a Tennessee region and was recently named the second best golf city in America by Golf Digest magazine”.

It is obvious we have a difference of opinions on which golf course is better.

The taxpayers have spent $25.7 million for the current MeadowView Convention Center and Cattails golf course.  The City of Kingsport is Investing another $15.3 million to expand the MeadowView Convention Center.  This make a total of $41 million that the taxpayers have invested (plus interest on bonds) and history has shown the City portion of Meadowview does not make money.  This is certainly not a good return on taxpayers money.

Since the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce gets funding from the City of Kingsport, the least it could do is to support the city.

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