The City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday night to take off the weeks before and after Christmas. Councilman Jack Benson and Councilwoman Pam Ladd voted against the measure.
Ladd led off her discussion by jokingly referring to a move to censure Department of Education, Arts and Culture Administrator Missy Crutchfield just a few hours before the council meeting.
"This may cause a censure from my fellow council members," Ladd said. "When we opted for a week this summer to attend National Night Out for our neighborhoods, I opted to take a week out of my Christmas to give constituents the same number of weeks of work. Am I officially censured now?"
Council members responded by pretending to move to censure her.
"I would like to officially move to censure Vice Chair Ladd," Councilman Andraé McGary said. "Seriously, I would like to make a move to cancel Christmas, if we can."
"Second," Ladd responded, laughing.
The council discussed the matter for several more minutes. Benson said he thought the City Council should be careful about canceling public meetings.
"When they voted for us, they expected us to be here every possible week," he said.
Haslam unaware of Bredesen business
Gov.-elect Bill Haslam, who met local leaders in Chattanooga on Thursday, said that in his meeting with outgoing Gov. Phil Bredesen after the election, the topic of the governor's business venture never came up.
Bredesen, who has recruited clean energy industries to Tennessee, is helping to start Silicon Ranch Corp., a private solar energy company headed by former Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr. State Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber also is a principal in the company. Bredesen is listed as its chairman.
Haslam said he learned of the venture from The Tennessean newspaper.
Asked if he would move to ensure the trio's company doesn't entangle itself with solar companies it may have recruited, he said, "I'll leave that to other folks for now."
"We'll make certain that everything we do in government is always open and transparent," Haslam added. "I have a great relationship with Gov. Bredesen. I don't really know anything at all about the outside business."
New trucks
Two new Chattanooga recycling trucks will be on display this morning at the Chattanooga Market in the First Tennessee Pavilion.
The 25,000-pound trucks will be wrapped with a new design specifically to encourage the public to recycle, according to a news release. The graphic wraps were funded by state dollars, city officials said in a news release.
The 2010 Kenworth trucks are fitted with Heil 20-yard capacity bodies and use new diesel emissions technology, the news release states.
The trucks cost $142,059 each.
Democrats, Republicans do lunch
The Hamilton County JFK Club, a local Democratic group, will have its lunch meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Monday at Blue Orleans Seafood Restaurant. Richard Wilson, a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, will talk about the results of the recent elections and what it means for Democrats.
The Hamilton County Pachyderm Club meets every Monday at noon for lunch at the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Chattanooga. Tennessee state Rep. Vince Dean, R-East Ridge, will speak at Monday's meeting.
Doctors protest the pork
The use of pigs for medical training at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga has brought a protest from a nonprofit health and advocacy organization.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine wrote to the dean of the medical school in Chattanooga requesting that the school stop using pigs in its training.
The school is "one of only seven medical schools in the United States and Canada -- among the 176 accredited schools -- using animals for medical student education," said the letter from John J. Pippin, senior medical and research adviser.
"Every medical school opened in the United States since 1980 has used only nonanimal educational methods in its student curriculum."
The office of the dean, David Seaberg, referred a request for comment to the UT Health Sciences Center at Memphis. Spokeswoman Sheila Champlin explained by e-mail that pigs are used to teach surgical and procedural skills to medical residents at the Chattanooga campus, and that there are no plans to change that protocol.
"We do use simulators in training and, in most cases, the simulators have proven adequate for teaching purposes; however, when they are not, we use what, in our opinion, are the best models for teaching," Champlin said in the e-mail.
County gets grant
Hamilton County commissioners on Wednesday accepted a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to build a homeless health care center.
According to notes provided on the commission agenda, no local match is required.
The city of Chattanooga is donating property at 730 E. 11th St. for the center.
Commissioners also awarded a $50,780 contract to Stuart C. Irby for LED exterior lighting for the Riverpark. The money will come from stimulus funds, and the 72 light fixtures will be installed by the county maintenance department on existing parking lot poles.
Staff writers Cliff Hightower, Dan Whisenhunt and Emily Bregel contributed to this report.