Senator Alexander’s Visit
According to the local news, Senator Alexander was in town this week for a couple of events: a ceremony at SNS and a panel discussion at ORAU. Did he meet with CORRE while he was here? One would think that he would be interested in the "pension deficit" in Oak Ridge.
September 1st, 2007 at 4:39 pm
CORRE has an active request in to Senator Alexander’s state director for a meeting with the Senator. The most recent request (reminder) went to Patrick Jaynes, Senator Alexander’s state director in August. Senator Alexander has not scheduled any meeting to meet with CORRE representatives as requested. CORRE has never had the opportunity to meet with him. It is, of course, difficult to understand why he cannot give CORRE 30 minutes of time when he is in Tennessee.
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
It is hard to believe that Senator Alexander would ignore the situation with Oak Ridge Contractor retirees. There are about 12,000 retirees, so counting friends, family members and neighbors there are upwards of 100,000 east Tennessee voters who have an interest. Is Senator Alexander not interested in these votes next year?
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:41 am
The local legislators (Alexander, Corker and even Wamp) seem to be taken in by the DOE party line and are hopeless. The Oak Ridge problem appears to be caught up in the general discussion of the national philosophy for pensions, i.e., defined contribution or defined benefit. I believe that the CORRE effort should be extended to all of the legislators having any DOE interest (Senate and House committee members, those representing other DOE sites, any others having a dog in the pension fight) making the point that the immediate Oak Ridge problem is a guestion of equity.
These E-mail addresses are available for the asking.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I have written to all the representatives and senators (and their aides) that will accept my letters (those that are “in my district”) with no response. I have been cordial and respectful. Perhaps it is time to change tactics and tell these folks that do not even respond that we will be voting for other candidates come the next election and will so advise our friends to do likewise. If they have bigger fish to fry on our behalf, they should let us know; if not, they should let us know that they have bigger fish to fry on the nations behalf. But “no response” is unacceptable.