Dear friend of quality growth,

As an attendee of last year's Plain Talk on Quality Growth conference, I want to make you aware of an important event that is coming to East Tennessee next week. The Tennessee Department of Tourism has put together a first rate conference on sustainable tourism that will be held next Monday and Tuesday, April 28th and 29th, at the Knoxville Convention Center.

Do you think our Planning Commission will start addressing the concerns of the citizens on this issue? (from The Daily Times, March 26,2008)

The Blount County Planning Commission might end up taking a stand against the continuing strip commercialization of U.S. 411 South if a statement added to the draft county Policies Plan is ultimately approved.

The principle is a recommendation from the Hunter Interests Growth Study. County Commission Chairman Robert Ramsey expressed surprise that it wasn't being enforced.

Those are words on paper," Planning Director John Lamb said. "Nobody is following it. ... The Planning Commission has been recommending (the rezonings) and the County Commission has been approving them."

I've got a feeling that a lot of the people are not really happy with what's been done on 411," Planning Commissioner Bill Proffitt said.

Has anyone noticed that the County Government Web site is not being updated to keep the public informed?

The agenda for the Planning Commission meeting scheduled for this Thursday, February 28, 2008 is not posted on the county web page. As a matter of fact the last agenda posted is for their meeting that was held in January of 2008.

Another interesting note, is that the latest agenda posted for the Board of Zoning Appeals is the meeting of December of 2007. Nothing for the month of January, or for February, of 2008.

Although notices for these monthly meetings are being posted in the legal section of our daily newspaper, as required by law, they fail to appear on the couty web pages.

I notice that our local newspaper did not publish the results from their on line poll on 02/13/08.

This poll ask the following question:
SHOULD FARMS BE BANNED FROM HOLDING CONCERTS?

The results from 450 votes cast were 66.2% in favor of banning these concerts and 33.8 were in favor of allowing these concerts.

Note this poll did not indicate that our local zoning regulations do not list the use of concerts as an accepted use that is allowed, nor as a use that can be granted as a special exception. As a matter of fact these regulations state the following:
" All uses are prohibited except those uses permitted specifically or by special exception by the Board of Zoning Appeals."