The Maryville Daily Times has maintained for the past year that the housing slump isn't happening locally. Dean Stone has written editorials stating that Blount County's housing market is "booming in spite of what's happening elsewhere." The newspaper even gave away countless pages of free advertising to local Realtors who were upset when The Daily Times ran a less-than-flattering national story about the housing market last year.

I wonder how many pages of free advertising they'll have to give away because of Joel Davis' story today (see complete story here) about the South Blount County Utility District? The story says:

Because of lessening demand for new homes, the utility district isn't making as much money from tapping fees, Stacie Keller, SBCUD spokeswoman, said.

"We haven't had as many people request tapping into the system as we anticipated," she said.

Demand has dropped by about half. In previous years, the utility averaged about 400 to 500 new customer tapping requests per year, generating about $500,000 in revenue annually.

"It's dropped off to about 200 to 250 this year," Keller said. "There's not as much housing construction ... People aren't moving into the homes. There's a lot of empty developments sitting. It's a huge cut in our revenues."

Can anyone say "reality check" ??!!