Former Louisville Mayor and attorney Tom Bickers said residents have complained about hearing thousands of rounds fired each day.
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Now the firearms company wants to build a Lodging Facility... "much to the chagrin of residential neighbors who fear the move will only increase activity at the site’s already noisy training facilities.

Smith & Wesson is not a good fit for Blount County.

Tennessee Dept. of Transportation willing to step up efforts to extend the Pellissippi Parkway, if local municipalities fork out funding.

Who Pays What:

- Alcoa: $2,070,000 total ($517,500 annually)
- Maryville: $3,900,000 total ($975,000 annually)
- Blount County: $5,000,000 total ($1,250,000 annually)
- Blount County Industrial Development Board (IDB-BLOUNT): $6,029,700 in donated land (right-of-way)

Alcoa and Maryville have already voted yes.

Luckily, Blount County Commission tabled a resolution to use local tax dollars to start the Pellissippi Parkway Extension project sooner.

"This has been the most controversial project in Blount County for half a century now. And the way that this has been done has absolutely been pushed through under the radar by the mayor’s office and the Blount Partnership. And the 21 county commissioners had no idea this was happening until we called them,” said Jay Clark, the President of Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension."

The Election Office totals for early voting ... showed 9,335 votes as compared to ... the previous early voting high in 2022 of 4,983.
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the Republican ballot has been the most popular with 8,292 votes cast (with many contested tickets) while Democrats have seen 1,043 votes cast on a ballot that contains one contested primary — county clerk.

A property owner in Louisville, TN, is proposing to make their 33 acres of land a town center for Louisville, TN. The land is at the intersection of Topside Road and Louisville Road. A meeting was to be held in Louisville last night, Apr. 21, 2026, with the developer showing plans for the property.

Wonder how this will turn out as compared to the City of Alcoa plans for a town center starting in Sept. 2017. To this day there is no town center. There is development of restaurants and restaurants and restaurants, with apartments, hotels, and soon to come a health care facility. It is not walkable. There are side walks but no trees and no assistance to cross streets.

UPDATE: A presentation was given "describing the Louisville Village Commons as a “village-oriented” center rather than a town or city center."

“This is a one-of-a-kind solution. It’s fairly village-oriented in scale — it’s not urban scale, not a town center at all, really — because we believe that’s more consistent with the character of Louisville,”

It was "proposed dividing the parcel into thirds: one each for residential, commercial and open-space uses. Because Louisville does not currently have a mixed-use zoning ordinance, developers would either need to have a portion of the land rezoned to build the proposed 40 residential units or wait to complete that portion until an appropriate zoning designation is introduced."

Sounds good.

On Wednesday, April 8, 2026, the Blount County Industrial Development Board finalized a land sale and use agreement with Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., a Delaware-based corporation managed under the Siemens Healthineers umbrella. Board members voted unanimously to approve the contract selling approximately 11.61 acres between Jackson Hills Drive and Clayton Drive for $1.875 million to Siemens Medical Solutions.

"This investment by Siemens represents a major win for Blount County. This is the largest research and development project the Industrial Development Board of Blount County and the cities of Alcoa and Maryville have secured, (and) it’s also one of the largest in the region,” said Jeff Muir, director of communications for Blount Partnership."

"Construction is anticipated to last roughly 18 months and will be split into two phases. In the first, developers will focus on constructing a production facility expected to measure roughly 66,000 square feet."

In the 2nd phase, "Developers expect to use the remaining 22,500 square feet to craft a limited-use R&D space."

Siemens has an existing production facility in the Stock Creek Industrial Park just down the road near the Knox County line. There appears to be plenty of space available at the Stock Creek location.

Pellissippi Place is "a research and development park, a technology hub, a business park and a live-work-play destination, all rolled into one."

Why is it Siemens has elected to build a production facility in an R&D park? It has been 15 or so years that there have been efforts to develop Pellissippi Place with only one business 11 years ago. Are there unreported incentives influencing Siemens' decision?

3rd Thursday - A Celebration of the Arts
The Downtown Maryville Alliance is thrilled to kick off our second season of 3rd Thursdays throughout downtown Maryville! 3rd Thursday is a new take on an art walk with demonstrations, live music and live painting in many of our downtown establishments. Make an evening of it with dinner, shopping and catch a live show!

Scheduled for the third Thursday of each month, our 2026 events will begin on April 16th and run through October 2026 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. We can’t wait to see you downtown!

Blount County Democratic Party and the campaign of Michaela Barnett for Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District will host a joint day of events on Saturday, April 18. Barnett's team is organizing a canvass event at the pavilion at Springbrook Park in Alcoa.
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Following a morning of canvassing, the Blount County Democratic Party is hosting a candidate Meet and Greet at its headquarters, 523 W. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Suite 14, Maryville. The event is open to the public.

Michaela Barnett is a good candidate for U.S. Congress. Don't forget to vote now and in August and November.

Now, Prisma/Blount Memorial Hospital is laying off 85 workers come May 1, according to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) Notice filed with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

It’s the home stretch for Alcoa officials working to secure a Costco on the outskirts of the Springbrook Farm downtown center.

Approval by the Alcoa Board of Industrial Development opens the City of Alcoa's pocketbook.

The City of Alcoa is asking the public to share safety concerns and opinions on how the city can make its roads safer as part of its Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan.

ALCOA SAFE STREETS survey and comment map - To identify and prioritize roadway safety improvements for all road users in the City of Alcoa, TN.

The City of Alcoa announced the Alcoa Safe Streets survey, which allows public input in two ways.

The first is a survey where those who live in, work in or visit Alcoa can share their experiences and what options the city could take to make traffic safer overall.

The second is a more specific public comment map, which shows where crashes have happened and has an “add comment” option for people to add concerns or problems they have experienced, such as crashes, accessibility issues, problems for pedestrians and bicycle issues

The City of Alcoa is working with a consultant to gather information for the safety action plan.

Alcoa’s Safe Streets For All crash dashboard also includes statistics on crashes that happened between 2019 and 2023.

We visited the Blount County, TN, No Kings event today.
Great turnout. Thanks Blount County residents. You've done well.
Check out what we saw.

County residents had a lot of questions this week as Lee’s Famous Chicken Recipe, a business that has been operating in Blount County for over 40 years, unexpectedly closed on Monday.

The owners said someone may buy the restaurant and reopen.

What are the odds?

The Tennessee Department of Transportation and City of Alcoa will host a public information meeting seeking input on the Hall Road Corridor Study.

The meeting will be:
Tuesday, July 30, 2024.
From 5-7 p.m.
at the City of Alcoa service Center
725 Universal Street
Alcoa Tn 37701

The meeting will present preliminary traffic and safety findings and seek public input for the corridor.

It will be an open house with a formal presentation starting at 5:30 p.m. The public will have the opportunity to give feedback through mapping exercises after the presentation.

The goal of this project, according to a release from the city of Alcoa, is to address the overall traffic and safety concerns along the 1.9-mile section of Hall Road between Associates Boulevard and the Alcoa/Maryville city limit.

For questions, contact Dakota Gentry by email at dgentry@cityofalcoa-tn.gov, or by phone at 865-380-4829.

A Maryville chef has been accused of shoplifting meat from a Knoxville grocery store to serve at his restaurant, according to court records.
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On Thursday, Clement Milanzi was taken into custody on a charge of theft of merchandise between $2,500 and $10,000, at the Kroger located on the 9500 block of Northshore Drive in Knoxville, a general sessions docket said.
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Milanzi then allegedly drove to Joe’s Italian Cuisine in Maryville where he was seen carrying the stolen items into the back door of the restaurant...

detectives discovered that there had been more thefts at an Aldi location, an Ingles store in Lenoir City and a Food City in Maryville

Hard times?

When Blount County and others bid to get a gun manufacturer to move to the pastoral community near Louisville, TN, they apparently promised better roads. However, they did not include the City of Louisville Mayor and Aldermen in the plans. Now that the plans are being made open to Louisville residents and administration, they are not finding the plans acceptable.

A resolution condemning the project, passed unanimously by the Louisville Board of Mayor and Aldermen April 9, claims the road work would negatively impact neighboring residential areas and eliminate access to businesses and the Louisville Post Office.
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Jeff Muir, director of communications for the Blount Partnership [chamber of commerce?], said the proposed work came from planning for trucks from Smith & Wesson to safely share the road with other traffic, and to accommodate the additional stream of employees.
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The problem, [Mayor Pugh] said, is Louisville has less than 5,000 residents. That means it doesn’t qualify for its own representation when planning transportation projects like this.

Wow, who knew local residents were not being informed of changes to their community? Hah, TDOT knew. Blount County administrators, City of Alcoa administrators, the county chamber of commerce all probably knew. They all seemed to not care how changes affect local citizens and the smaller communities.

There’s further confusion over who requested the improvements.

So far, nobody's admitting to requesting the changes. The Mayor of Louisville has to request a copy of the TDOT project application.

Jeff Muir, director of communications for the Blount Partnership [chamber of commerce?] Said, "TDOT has ownership of Louisville Road and the department can modify the road as it wishes", which is "part of the deal brokered to bring the firearm manufacturer to Blount County." "No one filed an application for the work, he said."

The previous Louisville Mayor apparently knew about some of these road changes.

The current Louisville Mayor, Ms. Pugh, would "like TDOT to conduct a noise pollution study and wants to know if an environmental impact study has taken place. She’d also like to see estimated traffic counts for the road."

Seems reasonable.

Does it seem like the local governments and chamber of commerce ran right over the small town of Louisville and its residents? I guess they really wanted a gun manufacturer in our midst.