Knox County Engineering & Public Works will install 6,000 feet of sidewalk – over a mile – in the Carter community, linking Carter Elementary School, Carter Middle and High schools, the senior center and the library. EPW Director Jim Snowden announced the project at the May 24 county commission meeting.
Snowden also said minor improvements are scheduled for Tazewell Pike between the Gibbs schools, but his department needs grant funding to build a pedestrian bridge between the campuses, similar to the one at South-Doyle High School.
In other commission news, the vote was unanimous, 10-0, to whack the county’s legal notice advertising in the News Sentinel ($225,000 since March 2018) in favor of online ads plus a nod to the weekly Focus. This was a first reading vote, but I don’t think Cynthia Moxley and the ghost of Arthur Seymour Jr. could flip it on second reading in June.
Why are the commission’s two Democrats voting with Republicans on partisan votes? (See above; this was a partisan vote.)
Commissioners made frowny faces and some of them passed, but the majority gave a beer permit to the non-English-speaker who operates as DIYA Inc., Big D Food Store, 6501 Maynardville Pike, in Halls. He’s the same man who allegedly sold beer to a minor before he bought the store, causing a revocation of the previous owner’s license.
Otherwise, things were tame. The plastic shields between desks were gone. And folks acted like a pandemic never happened. Maybe we all just dreamed 2020.
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today.