Hamilton County Commissioner Richard Casavant expressed some concern on Wednesday about rising prices for road-building materials, just before commissioners voted unanimously to approve contracts for road-building materials.
“There will be pressure on the prices,” he said. “Is there any way we can deflect this situation?”
Dr. Casavant said companies that produce road-building materials are looking to increase their prices as volume drops off.
County Finance Administrator Louis Wright said the county only has one option when it comes to getting the best deal.
“I’m not sure how, other than putting it out for bid, to do that,” he said.
Dr. Casavant, who is also dean of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Business, said previous possibilities of another quarry in the area would have brought more competition into the business.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of asphalt doubled between February 2004 and February 2008.
Commission Chairman Bill Hullander pointed out that the contracts the commission approved would last for six months each.
Economic issues colored much of the rest of Thursday’s commission meeting.
Commissioner Warren Mackey congratulated Mayor Claude Ramsey on a recent USA Today report that showed the Chattanooga area largely avoided the mortgage crisis that has affected the rest of the United States.
“It was an outstanding statement for us,” Dr. Mackey said. “I wanted to give credit to someone for that taking place.”
Mr. Ramsey joked that he would be glad to take the credit, but then attributed the economic situation to a number of factors.
“I think it speaks for the diverse economy we have here,” he said, noting manufacturing, tourism and the revival of nuclear power as growing business sectors.
Also, Mr. Ramsey said Hamilton County’s economy never reached the “full boom” that areas of Florida and California did.
“We didn’t have as big a glut as some of the other economies did,” he said.
Dr. Casavant said he was glad the market has not hurt the area more than it has, but said Hamilton County has seen some ill effects.
“There are some home builders locally who are hurting right now,” he said.
Still, Dr. Casavant praised the county’s business atmosphere. He said localities are in tense competition to attract business.
“We’re very competitive with Enterprise South” industrial park, he said.
I listened to a George Green lecture recently...from September of last year, it was entitled "the big picture". At that time, he said to find and hold onto all the silver and gold available -- he said that when Gold was $700/oz & Silver was $13/oz. Gold is already over $1,000/oz & Silver has eclipsed $20/oz...but George also said something remarkable that day. It didn't make sense to me then, but George mentioned that Asia was cornering the market on concrete -- and he predicted the prices would rise 3x to 4x very soon.
I could give many other examples of people who've called all this stuf correct. But my point is this, Americans have been dumbed down & too many of us are watching basketball, reality TV & other distractions instead of taking charge of this country. We've been dumbed down with fluoride here in Chattanooga since 1952! Why? The Nazi's were the first to use this stuff...they gave it to prisoners for STERILITY & to make them more DOCILE. There's a warning a poison warning on the tube of toothpaste, why? The ADA warns against preparing infant formala with fluoridated water, why? An Iowa study showed an increase in ostersarcoma (50%+) in boys exposed to fluoridated water. Ninty-eight percent of countries have rejected fluoridated drinking water...most call it "compulsory medication" and deem it a human rights violation.
We inoculate our children with dose afer dose of Mercury & NEVER wonder why Autism is found in 1 in 98 boys -- up from 1 in 2500 (in the mid 80's). It's the vaccines people!
Aspartame (nutrasweet) is 3 toxins but Rumsfeld wiggled it through the FDA in 1981, even whn it had 92 side-effects...they NEVER were fixed! Some of you really drink too much of that poison.
Bayer infected 1000's with HIV (knowingly) with their Factor8 medication -- nobody was EVER CHARGED!
THINGS DON'T JUST HAPPEN PEOPLE...WHAT YOU "SEE" GOING ON IN THIS WORLD IS A FARCE -- America's collective unconsciousness is being used to project our shadow of fear across the globe, why can't people wake up and see things for what they really are?
This election is NOT about electing a leader for our nation, we're simply electing a national Salesman -- this person will sell the ideas of the REAL MASTERS to us! Please see things for what they really are!
Look at the Stock Market in Canadien Dollars, Gold, Silver, Oil OR ANY OTHER BASKET OF CURRENCIES -- it's the DOLLAR getting devalued. Those NeoCons are doing this to us...they are using fear, patriotism, smoke and mirrors to facilitate this debacle.
Why hasn't the mainstream media EVER told you what Bhutt0 said about 0$AMA being murders a long time ago...she said it Nov 2nd, 2007...who showed it to you! Why?
We invaded Iaq and Afghanistan...where NONE of the 19 hijackers were from. We recently brokered billions in arms to Saudi -- Riyadh was the place where 15 hijackers received their passports! Nobody even thinks about this stuff!
Well, I for one found CriticalThinker's comment useful. I agree with him 100%
I want the sodium fluoride taken out of our city water supply. It is a known toxic sedative. Stop the implementation of eugenics policies against the people of this nation. It is criminally negligent in the least.
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