City to deliver 60K new trash carts

In two weeks, contractor crews will start delivering the first of 60,000 new wheeled trash carts at no additional charge to Knoxville residences.

The new standardized carts are a key component to modernize and improve the City’s household garbage collection.

“Going to a citywide system that uses standardized trash receptacles increases the efficiency, safety, health and aesthetic aspects of residential garbage collection,” said Chad Weth, the City’s Public Service Director.

“The standardized carts translate into a nearly $2 million-a-year savings to taxpayers on garbage collection. Additionally, the carts allow our contractor, Waste Connections, to utilize trucks designed to hoist the receptacles and dump the trash into the back of their garbage trucks. This significantly cuts down on injuries and improves the quality of work for garbage collectors.”

The new 95-gallon trash carts are similar in size and appearance to the City’s existing curbside recycling receptacles, but the two carts will be differentiated by color to avoid confusion. The recycling carts are brown; the trash carts will be charcoal gray.

Rachel Butzler, the City’s Solid Waste Manager, said most U.S. cities have moved to collection systems with standardized carts.

“Residents should set out the new carts for garbage collection beginning Monday, Jan. 2, 2017,” Butzler said. “We think that people will find the wheeled carts to be easy to maneuver and large enough to hold a family’s weekly garbage.”

The day of garbage pickup is not expected to change, and residents should continue to take the cart to their usual collection location, with the handle toward the residence. It is critical that garbage carts do not block traffic, mail service or sidewalks or cause a safety issue. The new garbage carts will come with a flyer attached to the handle that will explain how to use the cart, how to handle bulky waste and what to do with old garbage cans.

The City’s back-door garbage service will not be interrupted. Back-door service is offered to those 75 years of age or older or those with a medical need. For a back-door garbage service application, residents should call 311.

For more details, call the City’s 311 Call Center or visit www.knoxvilletn.gov/garbage.

Also, a new blog – CartSmart – has been created on the City’s website. Visit www.knoxvilletn.gov/CartSmart for updates on the collection of garbage and recyclables.

Forks of River waste center closing

Knox County will close its Forks of the River Convenience Center, located in the eastern part of the county, on April 30, according to Solid Waste Director Tom Salter.

The county will move equipment from the center to the John Sevier Center in the next two weeks, and will “likely stop taking metal, tires and auto fluids” at that time.

The county maintains eight centers and the state requires it to have at least three, according to Salter.

The Forks of the River center is apparently the lowest performing convenience center in terms of vehicle traffic and weight collected, he added. The other two low performing centers are in the Carter and Karns communities, although the Forks center handles half the weight of those.

Officials said they will upgrade the John Sevier Center to help with the impact from closing the Forks operation.

Here’s some background on the Forks center, provided by Salter:

It was originally constructed as a temporary site to handle traffic during the construction of the John Sevier Center.

The Forks of the River Convenience Center takes up 1.8 acres (14%) of a 13.1 acre site.  86% of the site was not being used for any mission-related activity and the property is not on the tax rolls.

Later, the County used the portion of the site not used as a Convenience Center as 1) a waste tire collection site, 2) the site for the County’s yard waste contractor and 3) as storage for unused equipment.  One of the ongoing concerns has been that 11.3 acres of prime industrial park land was underutilized, especially after closure of the yard waste facility.  Sale of the land would allow it to return to a higher and better use and return it to the tax rolls.  The possibility of selling just the unused portion of the site was explored, but the Convenience Center is in the center of the site and essentially splits the land into two sections, making it impractical for a buyer to properly utilized the whole site.

Medication collection on June 8

Looks like the city and county are doing another dump-your-drugs-day event.

Members of the East Tennessee Regional Medication Collection Coalition will be on hand to collect and properly dispose of unwanted medicines Saturday, June 8 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Fort Sanders West, according to the latest spin release.The empty plastic and paper medicine containers will be recycled if left with event

Medicines can only be dropped off at this location during the event. At all other times, Knox County residents can bring old or unused medicines to the Knoxville Police Department Safety Building at 800 Howard Baker Jr. Ave. The Safety Building is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The event is sponsor by: the Knoxville Police Department, Knox County and City of Knoxville Solid Waste Offices, Knox County Health Department, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and some other people, organizations, whatever.

Reeves nominated for U.S. judge gig

Pam Reeves

Not sure if you've seen this one, but President Obama nominated local legal eagle Pam Reeves for U.S. District judge for East Tennessee. If confirmed by the Senate, she would replace U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Phillips, who retires this summer.

Local porch readers and those who keep up with county business have probably heard of Pam as she is the author of the eponymous “Reeves report.” (I do believe that is the first time I have ever used that word. Wonder if it was used correctly. Eh, whatever.)

Anyhoo, the 58-page report, released in March 2010 looked inot the Knox County Solid Waste Department and targeted former director John Evans, who is deceased, and Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee, the management firm formerly charged with operating the county's Solway greenwaste facility.

It also criticized Evans because he waived the revenue-sharing fees - about $311,000 - the firm owed the county. The investigation also chastised Engineering and Public Works Director Bruce Wuethrich for not disciplining Evans.

You can find that report, right smack here.

Get rid of your pills on Saturday

Members of the Knoxville Police Department, the county's solid waste department, the county's health department and the East Tennessee Regional Medical Collection Coalition on Saturday will collect and dispose of unwanted medicines at two locations.

Folks can drop off any unwanted pills, etc. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. either Tennova North Knoxville Medical Center or the South Knox Walgreens at Chapman Highway and Moody Avenue.

Folks also can drop them off at the police department at 800 Howard Baker Jr. Avenue anytime.

Knox County office closings set

OK, here's the breakdown for Knox County holiday closings:

The executive branch offices will shut down for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

The Knox County Solid Waste Convenience Centers will close at 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve. They'll also be down on Christmas Day and Jan. 1. Regular schedule is planned for all other days.

Libraries also will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and all branches will close at 5:30 p.m. on New Year' Eve. They'll reopen Jan. 2.

In addition, the county's senior centers, health department facilities and veterans service office also will be closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Mayes calls out Salter. Again.

I guess county solid waste director Tom Salter thinks he’s a funny guy.

You know, supposedly making up email accounts, pretending he’s his own arch nemesis Brad Mayes, then sending a note to an attorney.

Funny stuff, I tell you.

Until you get caught.

And in one of the most ironic/dumbest ways possible (not that emails can’t be traced anyway).

You see, Brad Mayes, pictured above, talked (and still does) some trash about Salter. And Salter, I presume, got tired of it.

In fact, he got so tired of it, he decided to sue Mayes for slander. And therein lies the problem.

Lawsuits require depositions. And attorneys can pretty much ask anything in a deposition, even if it really isn’t that germane to whatever the heck the lawsuit is about. And you don’t want to lie in a deposition. Because then the opposing attorney gets you on the stand and – sort of – asks you the same question later on. And your answer better match up. (Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said if you never lie you never have to remember anything? But I digress.)

Anyhoo,Salter sues Mayes. Then Mayes' attorney turns the whole thing around on Salter.

Salter pretty much had to confess that he’s the one who sent out the email that was supposedly from Brad. It was back in 2008, under the fake account: brad@plumbcreek.com.

It was sent to David Draper, the attorney for Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee, the county’s mulch operator. Mayes, right or wrong, has been pissing off NRRT and solid waste director Tom Salter for quite some time.

So, Mayes during today’s county commission meeting turned over part of that deposition to commissioners. The one where Salter – when asked about the email – said “I just thought it was funny.”

Heh. Heh. Hahahahahahaha.

Oh man. That’s rich.

Here’s the email along with a page of the deposition. You can decide whether it’s funny.

In response to Brad’s presentation, commissioner and good doctor, Richard Briggs, said:

“(Brad) has been criticized by members of this commission as being inappropriate . . . and I’d like to point out that in the (Pam) Reeves report (which laid out all sorts of screw-ups going on in the solid waste department – albeit mostly under Salter’s predecessor) and the audit report we received April 26, we found almost 500,000 the county did not receive that was pointed out by Brad Mayes, and Brad is like a rock in your shoe if you work for Knox County because he’s pointed out a number of things people are uncomfortable with, but he pointed out that there was 500,000 that is owed to the county . . and I know a lot of people make fun of him, but that is a fact.”

Here’s a story I wrote about NRRT and the solid waste department. It details that fairly scathing audit. Most of which Mayes investigated and found on his own.

Also during today’s meeting, Commissioner R. Larry Smith – just as county Mayor Tim Burchett was approaching the podium to address the commission on an unrelated matter – said: “We’ve got some real hard evidence about some things and we’ve had some hard evidence (in the past).”

He then asked Burchett what he was going to do about it.

The mayor, who had nothing to do with this mess because it happened before he took office last September, said: “We’re not stalling and we’re not covering up for anybody, commissioner. I ran on transparency and we’re going to get it. We’re going to get it all resolved.”

Said Smith: “We need to send some messages out to county employees. We’ve had some other things happen during this past week and this seems to be a lot more damaging.”

Yeah. No kidding.