To the Editor:
The Planning Commission public meeting on the future of the ED-6 parcel was overflowing with support for conserving this beautiful area in the west end. The focus was “a discussion of the principles for the plans.” Dozens of attendees spoke about hiking, dog walking, trail running, biking, and simply being in natural areas. Not one supported housing or commercial development.
My personal involvement with city planning started in 1965, at the dinner table, where my parents, Bill and Lee Russell, discussed how to protect the entire city-length, top of the ridge from a proposed power line with a 200-foot-wide swath. A year later, at the same table, they birthed Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning (TCWP). The power line was re-routed, and then they sought “positive protection” by building a trail and encouraging Oak Ridgers to use it. With hand tools, my family and friends plotted and cleared the Delaware portion of what became the North Ridge Trail…