Thursday, February 24, 2005

We got a call today from Kay Edwards of Crossroads Electric Company in Halls.  We thank Kay for what she and her company have done and encourage other groups to do the same.  They have adopted a section of McCloud Road and a little section of Andersonville Pike as part of the Knox County Adopt-A-Road program.  Anyway, Kay received an anonymous letter criticizing her company for not doing a good job on their cleanups.  (For the record, McCloud Road and Andersonville Pike are heavily littered roads and could accumulate new litter soon after one of the twice-a-year required cleanups).  We say this anonymous letter is outrageous.  I am going to assume the letter writer has not participated in a litter cleanup.  Unless you have done a cleanup on a busy road you have nothing to say about whether or not someone is doing a good job cleaning up.  Hang in there Kay.

- posted by KKB staff at 10:45 PM  

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

This morning I toured the target cemeteries with Robert McGinnis.  They are Shieldstown in East Knoxville, Flenniken in South Knoxville and Longview in West Knoxville.  The work on March 19th will consist of light cleanup at Shieldstown, significant brush removal at Flenniken and a major litter removal at Longview.  Longview has a significant number of discarded tires, roofing shingles and litter.  Here are some images from the tour:





After the cemetery tour, Emily Ditty and I met with Doug McGill of Waste Connections.  Doug is a former board member from back in the Beautification Board days.  We hit Doug up for a Great American Cleanup™ sponsorship.  He told us some great stories of Keep Knoxville Beautiful back in the early 1980's.  

- posted by KKB staff at 2:30 PM  

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Today was a pretty long day. The Cemetery Preservation Association (actually a group of interested people who are trying to form a Cemetery Preservation Association) met today at Knox Heritage and discussed plans for the three cemetery cleanup on March 19th.  Keep Knoxville Beautiful is committed to getting some trash containers, volunteers and equipment donations.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.  Pictured below is Robert McGinnis, Knox County cemetery information guru who brought a slide show of the cemeteries targeted for the cleanup.

 

After that meeting I returned to the KKB office at The Emporium to get ready for the donor renewal and new donor phone banking.  We got five cell phones donated by US Cellular and lots of prospect lists from our own database.  Board members participating included David Collins, Gary Loe, Mary Lou Horner, Page Pratt-Greene, Terry Faulkner and Cassandra McGee.  Emily Ditty and Tom Salter also made calls.  We've gotten about $1,500 in pledges from about 3 hours of phone calls.  Pictured below are Gary Loe, David Collins and Mary Lou Horner.

- posted by KKB staff at 9:30 PM  

Monday, February 21, 2005

After a long weekend of sitting around the Dogwood Show, we got to attend Mayor Ragsdale's Education Summit.  My table was about 200 feet from our booth at the Knoxville Convention Center.  I got to sit at a table with Mary Kerr, Marty Iroff, Donna Deichart of United Way and Jamey Dobbs of Our Community Schools.  It was a very encouraging meeting.  Several substantial gifts were made to a new education foundation. 

- posted by KKB staff at 9:30 AM  

Thursday, February 17, 2005

We had the meeting today with Mayor Ragsdale and Law Director Mike Moyers.  It looks like the tarp law will be modified a little but the biggest discussion was about a County trash container law.  Right now, you don't have to keep your trash in a container in Knox County - by law.  If you look around you can tell this is not a law (please excuse the cynical editorializing).  This should make it easier to get people to clean up dirty commercial and residential properties.

Today was the start of the annual Dogwood House and Garden Show and Keep Knoxville Beautiful has an information booth in the Community Activities Section.  It is always a lot of fun and you typically see a lot of people you know.  Mary Lou Horner volunteered and she sees more people than anyone.  Other KKB board members included Sarah Surak (pictured below with her boyfriend Eric), Edythe McNabb, Terry Faulkner, Gary Loe and Susan Rudell.  Other volunteers included Tom's wife Joyce Hausman and daughter Larissa.  Larissa brought her boyfriend Ryan Justice.  (What's with all these boyfriends?)  We also saw Ken Eckert of Natural Resources Recovery and a bunch of other people.  We were right between the booths for Knox County Solid Waste and the City of Knoxville Recycling Office.  Rodney Rockett and Mr. Solid Waste John Evans hung around with us for a while.  John Homa of City Recycling took pity on our tip jar for Don't Throw Down stickers and threw us a nice bone.  Sarah's boyfriend Eric invented a new logo for EarthFest (see below).  Here are some pictures from the event:

- posted by KKB staff at 11:15 PM  

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Mr. J.C. Lay dropped by the office today to review what we are going to say to County Mayor Mike Ragsdale on Thursday.  Mayor Ragsdale called us both to a meeting with him and County Law Director Mike Moyers about Mr. Lay's litter ordinance recommendations and what needs to be done to clean up litter in Knoxville and Knox County.  Mr. Lay believes (correctly) that much of the roadside litter is escaping from private and commercial trucks and that if they were tarped properly the amount of trash would be drastically reduced.  We reviewed a model ordinance from Sevier County and talked about ways to get more citations written.  We think we are ready for the meeting with Mayor Ragsdale.

- posted by KKB staff at 12:00 NOON  

Friday, February, 11, 2005

The biennial conference of KTB and TDOT wrapped up today with some very informative sessions on Cigarette Litter Prevention presented by Carrie Sussman of Keep America Beautiful and other sessions on current trends in recycling and solid waste disposal.  The finale was a magic show and waste free lunch.  

- posted by KKB staff at 5:30 PM  

Thursday, February 10, 2005

More than 100 Litter Grant administrators from across Tennessee joined us today for more sessions and the awards luncheon.  The first session was an overview from TDOT staff on the billboard control program and the highway beautification program.  TDOT's Shawn Bible and Rod Boehm addressed the group.  This was followed by an awareness session on the extent of meth labs in Tennessee and cautions about how contaminated material used in the production of meth has been found during roadside cleanups.  Cleanup workers and volunteers should be alert regarding cold medicine packaging, cylinders, thermos bottles, glassware, tubing, odd "camping gear", coffee filters (without coffee) and ice chests - especially if these items are found together and in significant quantities.  More meth labs have been discovered in rural areas, but can be found virtually anywhere.  Residue from the meth making process can remain on these items and could be harmful if touched or inhaled.  If you discover anything like this during a cleanup you should alert local law enforcement officials.



Next we went to the 2005 Awards of Excellence luncheon.  Keep Knoxville Beautiful won three major awards from KTB and TDOT.  They were: First Place for Litter Prevention involving the Media for the Mayor's Radio Campaign, First Place for litter prevention involving Higher Education for development of the "Don't Thrown Down on K-TOWN" campaign and First Place for the Most Comprehensive TN Great American Cleanup™.  Our speakers included TDOT commissioner Gerald Nicely, TDOT administrators Ed Cole and Shawn Bible and Keep Tennessee Beautiful executive director Edith Heller.





Following the awards luncheon I attended a breakout session called Myths and Realities of Community Development presented by Jim Howe, executive director of the Central & Western New York Chapters of The Nature Conservancy.  He talked about ideas from his book that dispel myths about development and the environment.  He provided concrete examples of how communities have prospered when putting greater controls on growth (planning, orderliness, etc.), how communities have come back after major plant closings by focusing on natural and cultural resources and more.  One myth is that the property taxes collected from new housing rarely cover the increased cost of infrastructure needed to service those new homes creating a net drain on the tax base.  Mr. Howe was introduced by Diana Fedinec of Keep Tennessee Beautiful.



The last session was a "roundtable" sharing where the Awards of Excellence winners answered questions about their winning projects.  Below: Allison Teeters of Keep Sevier Beautiful and Rod Boehm of TDOT, Green County KAB coordinator Candy Adams explains to Tom Leonard, Allison Teeters and Bryon Fortner of Keep Sevier Beautiful how to properly run a local KAB affiliate, Kristi Falco of Keep Blount Beautiful, and John Evans of Knox County Solid Waste with Jennifer Brewster from Keep Loudon County Beautiful.





Finally, the day was topped off with a great dinner and a super presentation of the play "The Wartville Wizard".  Members of the audience were tapped to participate in the play.  It was a lot of fun.




- posted by KKB staff at 11:15 PM  

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Today is the start of the Keep Tennessee Beautiful/Tennessee Department of Transportation biennial conference in Nashville.  It was held at The Preston Hotel near the airport.  It was a pretty nice hotel.  Edith Heller opened the meeting followed by a Great American Cleanup™ update from KTB staff Gordon Wilson.  



Brad Gray, trainer with the Center for Nonprofit Management led a session on Power.  He first had us differentiate between "management" and "leadership".  In a nutshell, you "manage" things and you "lead" people.  He then took us through the various types of power we possess starting with "coercive" power - the only inherently negative power and that leadership is the WISE use of power.   A theme through the entire presentation was that we only have power because the people we lead give it to us.  Other forms of power include: connection power (who we know), legitimacy power (the job we hold), reward power (our ability to give promotions or recognition), reputation power (self explanatory), ability power (self explanatory), direction power (being goal directed and having a strong, internalized sense of purpose), confidence power (having positive self-esteem and self-confidence) and relationship power (people accept power to continue a relationship).  Pretty interesting!

Then we had a presentation by Sue Smith, Keep America Beautiful's best trainer about "the promise of belonging".  Sue's presentation was so good I couldn't take notes.  Sue also brought us up to date on KKB's online Toolbox for Community Change.



- posted by KKB staff at 9:15 PM  

Tuesday, February 8, 2005

Judi Gaston, a super wearable art artist and one of our neighbors in The Emporium dropped in with an idea to do a recycled art exhibit as a fundraiser for KKB.  We discussed a bunch of ideas and I am sure these discussions will continue.

In the morning, Sarah Surak dropped by the office with two UT students who needed to evaluate a non-profit program.  We discussed the possibility of evaluating the Youth Advisory Board which is now in its 3rd year.  They will present the idea to their professor but this will likely be their project.  

Next, the Great American Cleanup™ committee met at our office.  Attending were Goldie Simpkins, Mark Cawood, Gary Loe and staff members Emily Ditty, Seed Lynn and Tom Salter.  2005 GAC™ will include: a litter enforcement awareness workshop for judges, DA's and law enforcement officials, a celebrity cleanup and graffiti abatement, a student poster contest, the Greek Challenge and of course lots of neighborhood cleanups.  It will all wrap up with a volunteer appreciation lunch.  The kickoff will be on March 11 with the workshop and the celebrity cleanup.  Posters will be due by April 15 and will be displayed the following weekend at Earthfest for public judging.  All neighborhood cleanup and Greek Challenge reports are due by Monday, April 25th.  The volunteer Trash Bash will be held either April 30th or May 7th.  Final date will be announced soon.

After that meeting Tom met with the Cemetery Preservation Association at Knox Heritage.  The cemetery cleanup demonstration projects will be held on March 12.

Finally, Tom met up with up Allison Teeters, executive director of Keep Sevier Beautiful and they headed off to Nashville for the biennial Keep Tennessee Beautiful/Tennessee Department of Transportation Conference: "First and Lasting Impressions".  When we got there we hooked up with Keep Tennessee Beautiful Marketing Coordinator Diana Fedinec, the new West Tennessee Developer for KTB Laura Marzahl and KTB staffer Stine Cooperwood and went out to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner.  Below: Laura and Diana at Ruby Tuesday's.



- posted by KKB staff at 10:00 PM  

Monday, February 7, 2005

This was a really long day - but a great day.  We had lunch with members of Rock-Tenn Recycling.  Present were Eddie Bales, Clark and Abby Blackburn of Rock-Tenn, KKB board member Sarah Surak and Tom Salter and Emily Ditty of KKB staff.  Rock-Tenn agreed to become a presenting sponsor of the 2005 Great American Cleanup™.

Later, Tom made a speech to 15 members of the Council of Involved Neighborhoods at the L. T. Ross building.  Of course we talked about litter, but there was also a discussion about how neighborhoods groups are adopting guidelines or checklists of how homeowners and residents are expected to maintain their property.  Such guidelines would cover vehicle storage, litter, grass height, etc.  Such guidelines would be developed by neighborhood leaders with input from residents.  They would be given to all residents with the expectation that this is what the neighborhood expectations are - not what the city codes department says.  Photo below is the C.O.I.N. meeting.



Finally, Tom gave a speech to the UT student group Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville (S.P.E.A.K.).  

- posted by KKB staff at 2:45 PM  

Saturday, February 5, 2005

Friends of the Fort (Fort Sanders) is getting back together.  They did a cleanup today in Fort Sanders with 16 volunteers who picked up approximately 45 bags of litter.  Thanks Friends of the Fort!

- posted by KKB staff at 2:45 PM  

Friday, February 4, 2005

Tom Salter met with Mr. J. C. Lay today at Amber's Restaurant in Halls to talk about more revisions to the County litter ordinance.  Later in the month Mr. Lay and Tom will meeting with County Law Director Mike Moyers and Mayor Ragsdale to "get to the bottom" of this litter ordinance issue.  KKB's position is that we need enforceable ordinances, but they are just part of a law enforcement "system" including officers writing citations, supportive DA's and judges who view litter violations as serious.  Here is a shot of an overflowing commercial dumpster behind Amber's.  With a good wind, a lot of this trash could easily get to other property and even onto Maynardville Highway.  

- posted by KKB staff at 2:45 PM  

Thursday, February 3, 2005

The KKB board had its regular monthly meeting.  What is significant about the meeting was the fact the board made a commitment to have a "telethon" after work at the Emporium on Tuesday, February 22.  We are thrilled and fortunate to have such committed board members.  They will be calling old KKB donors to ask them to renew and to brainstorm and call new donors.  We still have to raise about $8,000 by June 30 to make our budget for the current year.

- posted by KKB staff at 1:30 PM