On today’s Dailies, Diana and I covered the following:
An elderly woman is dead, and three more were injured in a Church Hill apartment fire. Church Hill police say two men acted heroically during a fire at The Landings apartments in Church Hill Sunday afternoon, saving one man from a burning apartment. The men, both neighbors at The Landings, were attempting to rescue another woman from that same apartment when the victim’s oxygen tank exploded. We showed video from timesnews.net.
The Kingsport Farmers Market will be opening this week at its new home on the old Quebecor property, a location the farmers are excited about due to the high visibility of the site. The farmers market for years was located in the parking lot behind the Kingsport Public Library. Now, city staff have been working to relocate the farmers market to the old Quebecor property — specifically, the corner of Center and Clinchfield. The farmers market will open this Saturday, April 18, and as usual will be open Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
In other area news, Jessica R. Adkins was charged in Johnson City with first-degree murder in the death of her 2 month old daughter, Kaylie Adkins. The child’s father, Russell D. Long, was previously arrested and charged with first-degree murder on March 13. State senator Mike Faulk is pushing for a “Repeat DUI Offender†registry similar to the state sex offender registry people can check out on the Internet, and fund-raising efforts for the rebuilding of the High Knob Observation Tower that was destroyed by fire on Halloween of ‘07 have topped $108,000.
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Kingsport police say a Fall Branch man was killed yesterday afternoon when the motorcycle he was riding struck a pickup waiting at a red light. Traffic was stopped for the red light on Wilcox Drive at the Meadowview Parkway intersection when Brian Davenport approached the intersection at a high rate of speed and was unable to stop. He was killed when his motorcycle struck the rear of a pickup hauling a utility trailer. We showed video from times news dot net.
We had another accident video to show from the times news, as one person was extricated from a car and transported for treatment yesterday following a five-car crash on Fort Henry Drive.
In other area news, Pastor John F. McCarroll of the Trinity Life Center in Coeburn was arrested Wednesday after allegedly exposing himself to an undercover Kingsport police officer at the public restrooms at Riverfront Park, Erwin Fire Chief James D. Bailey said authorities still had not determined a cause for the fire at the old Town Hall building earlier this week, and three men, Ashton Philip, Aldean Bowman, and Patrick Camp, are headed to trial on charges alleging they bound and gagged a Kingsport teen, assaulted and robbed him, then left him to die. All three are charged with first-degree murder, especially aggravated robbery and especially aggravated kidnapping in the death of Derick Kesse nearly one year ago.
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A longtime employee of Alladin Plastics at the Phipps Bend Industrial Park was killed Tuesday night when he was reportedly crushed by a machine that molds plastic chairs. According to an Alladin employee who asked to remain unnamed, 61 year old supervisor Lonnie Mowell was attempting to free a chair that had been jammed in the machine when the machine engaged. The employee said a door was open on the machine, which is supposed to prevent it from engaging, but in this case it apparently malfunctioned as Mowell crawled under the machine to free the chair. Mowell had been employed at Alladin Plastics for nearly 40 years.
Hubert Lee Scruggs of Johnson City man will serve 12 years in prison for shooting another man four times at Kingsport’s former LimeLight nightclub in October of 2007. Scruggs accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty yesterday to attempted second-degree murder and a merged count of aggravated assault before Sullivan County Criminal Court Judge Robert Montgomery, who sentenced Scruggs to a dozen years in prison. Police said Scruggs shot DeShannon Bradley of Kingsport four times in the face, abdomen and leg on Oct. 28, 2007, outside the former LimeLight.
In other area news, the 86 years old former Erwin Town Hall building erupted in flames last night, sending smoke billowing through downtown and forcing the evacuation of the Unicoi County Jail just a few feet away, Theodore Roosevelt “Teddy†Markham, of Rogersville, is facing felony charges for allegedly stalking another well-known member of the Rogersville community who has reportedly been dating his ex-wife, a judge has sentenced Bristol’s Frankie Steelman to nine years in prison for repeatedly raping a juvenile female over a period of several years, and congratulations go out to Sullivan South High School senior Dalton Miller, who is headed to the Air Force Academy this summer, making him the third student in the seven years of the school’s Air Force Junior ROTC program history to get an appointment to a U.S. military academy.
All this and more, in one short video burst.
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On today’s show, the following stories were discussed and bandied about:
Sullivan County District Attorney Greeley Wells says he demands higher professional standards than were displayed in an October traffic stop by Kingsport Police. As reported in the times news on Friday, a Kingsport officer seized $2,675 during the traffic stop in question from two Mexican citizens. Though they were driving without a license and possessing drug paraphernalia, Officer Bryan Carter allowed the duo to drive away without placing charges against them. Carter provided the subjects with a Tennessee Notice of Property Seizure, indicating money had been seized. However, the paper did not identify the officer or agency, and no incident report was filed at the Kingsport Police Department. Wells says he is disappointed in how the entire incident was handled, and has been told such errors won’t occur again.
Dobyns-Bennett High School softball coach Jerry Higgins has been suspended from his coaching duties, but he remains on the job as a D-B math teacher. D-B Principal Earl Lovelace said the suspension occurred Monday because of an incident — under investigation by the school system — that occurred with Higgins and a D-B player during a softball tournament Saturday evening in Kingsport. Lovelace said he would not detail what occurred until he presented the school investigation’s findings in person to Superintendent Richard Kitzmiller later this week.
In other area news, the city of Kingsport has made a $190,000 offer on the Lynn View Middle School property, Johnson City police’s problems in questioning a first-degree murder suspect and gathering his clothing as evidence led to a lesser plea to second-degree murder in exchange for a 17-year prison sentence, the two women responsible for the deaths of three others in a high-speed traffic crash in Johnson City more than two years ago went to jail Tuesday, and Surgeons at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville successfully completed the hospital’s first separation of conjoined twins Tuesday. The twins were born in Johnson City this past January.
All that and more on today’s Dailies - more than you ever would have thought!
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On today’s show, we got some bad news to start things off.
Some 300 Eastman Chemical Co. employees — including 200 in Kingsport — are being notified this week that they no longer have a job. The Kingsport-based company announced March 9 it would cut 200 to 300 positions worldwide in four to six weeks as part of a plan to trim $100 million from its expense line in 2009. Monday marked exactly four weeks since that announcement. The majority of layoffs are occurring mainly in non-operations areas, including management. Those affected will get severance packages, which include two weeks of pay for each year of service up to 52 weeks; four months of continuing medical benefits; and outplacement services to help them find other employment.
The city of Kingsport plans to make an offer on the old Lynn View Middle School property during its meeting tonight. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen plans to vote on a resolution outlining the conditions of how the city could possibly acquire the Lynn View property. If approved, the resolution will be sent to the Sullivan County Commission for its consideration later this week. As reported many times already on Dailies, Sullivan County sold the property to TCCS in mid-2005 and has the first right of refusal to buy back the property.
In other area news, Rogersville’s popular Pig & Chick restaurant is moving into Church Hill, with a new location planned on Silver Lake Road, the Wise County school consolidation projects have been estimated to carry a cost of 91 to 100 million dollars if the current plans are carried through, a proposal that would limit written driver’s license tests in Tennessee to English and four other languages has passed the Senate despite arguments from opponents that it’s unnecessary, and the House also passed a bill yesterday to allow people with handgun carry permits to bring their weapons into establishments that serve alcohol.
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The appraised value of real property in Sullivan County is up more than $1.87 billion, compared to four years ago, based on a countywide reappraisal. Property owners will soon be receiving reappraisal notices in the mail, as postcards will be mailed for each of the nearly 89,000 parcels of property in Sullivan County. These cards will notify each property owner of their current property value according to a countywide reappraisal conducted over the past year. On average, appraisals for individual parcels are up 23 percent since the last reappraisal in 2005.
Plans for a new Cultural Arts Center in Scott County are in the works. The nearly 20,000-square-foot building, which will be called the Clinch Mountain Performing Arts, is projected to seat up to 350 people and cost about $5.2 million to construct. The center would be located on Water Street, directly behind Main Street in downtown Gate City. The land was donated by the city to the Southwest Virginia Community Foundation, a Scott County-based nonprofit heading up the project.
Also, surviving family members of Cpl. Samuel C. Harris Jr. can now have closure, nearly six decades after the Rogersville native was reported missing in action during the Korean War. Harris’s older sister, Doris Feathers of Piney Flats, said the family was devastated by news of Harris being reported missing in North Korea on Nov. 27, 1950. The news was especially hard on their parents, Samuel Carson Harris Sr. and Maude Bates Harris. The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced Friday that the remains of four U.S. servicemen missing in action from the Korean War had been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors. Harris will be buried April 10 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
All that and much, much more in one tiny, little show - hope you like it. Here’s the video:
What looks like a loophole in federal law will allow Eastman Chemical Co. to bypass notifying the state of Tennessee of its upcoming layoff. Eastman is expected to layoff between 200 and 300 people this month. It has been four weeks since Eastman announced it would lay off those employees in four to six weeks, and as of yesterday, Eastman had not notified the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development of any employee reduction. It appears that Eastman will not have to comply with the WARN notification law, however, as the law is only called into effect in the case of a mass layoff, or a reduction in staff of more than 33 percent.
All of the 24 new homes being built along Sherwood and Hiwassee will be under contract by the end of the month and will be ready to occupy by May, according to Kingsport housing officials. The Kingsport Housing and Redevelopment Authority held an open house for three of the new houses Thursday afternoon and announced the near completion of this first phase of the HOPE VI redevelopment project. We showed video from timesnews.net.
According to state officials, Exide batteries complied with “everything under the letter of the law†in notifying employees and the state of layoffs at its Bristol plant, the International Playing Card and Label plant in downtown Rogersville was sold at auction Thursday morning for $260,000, or less than 10 percent of its assessed property value, and a federal judge has refused to give the TVA more time to install pollution controls on a coal-fired power plant under a lawsuit brought by North Carolina.
All this and much more on the Dailies. Hope you like it.
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Today’s Dailies covered the following:
Media sources are reporting that Exide Technologies may have violated a federal law designed to protect workers and their families when the firm announcedd it was cutting nearly 600 jobs at its Bristol battery plant. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires that companies provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of plant closings or mass layoffs. But, workers at Exide were not told about the layoffs until they arrived at work on Wednesday, violating the law. Bristolk Tennessee Mayor Joel Staton was not available for comment yesterday, but City Manager Jeff Broughton said the city was notified shortly before the announcement and that Exide “did what they were supposed to do.â€
According to a report by the Bristol Herald Courier the raid of a Bluff City house yesterday morning might be connected to alleged attempts by active duty Marines to sell stolen military night-vision scopes in Hawaii. Linked to the home on Jonesboro Drive is Lance Cpl. Ronald Abram, who faces federal charges of conspiring to sell eight scopes to a Hong Kong buyer for $20,000. His father, Ronnie Abram, lives at the house, according to directory listings. So far, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has refused to discuss the raid, which took place at 9 am yesterday, and involved more than 20 officers from several governmental agencies.
In other area news, police formally charged a Church Hill woman Tuesday in connection with a Jan. 25 vehicular accident in which she was allegedly huffing aerosol cleaner before passing out behind the wheel. Her 14 year old passenger was injured during the accident.
Tennessee lawmakers on Wednesday moved ahead on proposals to allow handguns to be carried in state and local parks, but stopped short of allowing faculty and staff to pack heat at public colleges and universities, and Quick-acting, clear-thinking students from Marion High School averted disaster on Interstate 81 Tuesday morning, jumping to action when their bus driver became ill and faded out of consciousness.
All that and more, all in one quick show.
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These are the topics covered today on the Dailies:
Breaking News: The Exide plant in Bristol has announced that the company is laying off more than 500 employees today, and scaling back their operations to a single work shift The plant had been producing more than 18 to 20,000 batteries a day , but now plans are to to restructure and produce less than 6,000 per day during the one remaining shift on the floor. The plant will continue to employ about 250 workers, and many of the plant’s higher level management have moved into the now-vacant middle management positions.
According to data provided by the Kingsport Police Department, there weren’t as many fatalities or crashes with injuries on the Model City’s public roads last year compared to 2007, and there were three or fewer T-bone crashes at seven of the intersections outfitted with red light cameras. Police Chief Gale Osborne attributed the declining numbers to his department’s issuance of 19,390 citations — in addition to the 16,238 mailed out by Redflex Traffic Systems. What was not taken into account in this report, however, is that accident numbers were down nationally, as fewer people were on the roads due to the exorbitant increase in gas prices.
In other area news, authorities in Elizabethton raided a house on a drug warrant and came away with more than just the 1 pound of marijuana at the residence, they also found a large cache of weapons and survival gear.
A Johnson City tow truck driver who allegedly hauled off a car he saw on the side of the road in November was charged Monday with selling it to someone, according to police, and a Blountville man who is a convicted felon has been charged with several felonies after he allegedly threatened his stepson with a loaded shotgun, attacked his wife, hid the shotgun at his mother’s home, and then called police to report his stepson had assaulted him.
All that and more - hope you enjoy it. Here’s the video:
We touched on the following topics today with Dailies, watch and let us know what you think:
The Board of Mayor and Aldermen kicked off this year’s budget process Monday with a discussion on Kingsport’s five-year capital improvement plan. The BMA held a special called meeting for nearly two hours yesterday afternoon to discuss the capital improvement plan. Every year the BMA approves a five-year plan that contains a number of projects — some are fully funded within one of those five years, while others are funded over a number of years. City Manager John Campbell said this year’s plan maintains flexibility and does not include any new major projects. The $84.6 million plan runs from fiscal year 2010 through 2014, and you can find details of the plan at timesnews.net.
If you are a smoker, then you know what’s coming April 1. You have already felt the effects of a price increase from most cigarette manufacturers in advance of the upcoming tax increase, but it will surely get a little worse tomorrow. Cigarette prices will increase by 62 cents a pack tomorrow after the new tobacco tax goes into effect, with most of the proceeds going to fund children’s health care. While I’m sure most smokers want to see children’s health care improve, most accounts show that they don’t want the improvements to come at the expense of their habit. If you have an opinion on the matter, log on to timesnews.net and leave a comment to let us know.
In other area news, a Bluff City man who pleaded guilty to shooting at his former psychiatrist’s unoccupied house was released Monday to begin serving 10 years on probation, one of the latest gun bills coming before the Tennessee General Assembly will decide if handguns should legally find their way onto Tennessee college campuses, allowing full-time faculty and staff member with a valid permit to bring a handgun to work, and an investigation into pollution of Powder Branch over the weekend that apparently killed crayfish and a snake led to littering charges being placed against William A. Miller, who had dumped his used motor oil into the river.
All that and more. Hope you like it.
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