After voting Wednesday to approve $162,500 in new playground equipment at Orchard Knob Elementary School, Hamilton County commissioners said they may want to consider looking at putting up playgrounds and sports fields when building schools.

“Oftentimes we destroy playgrounds that already exist (when building a school),” said Commissioner Warren Mackey.

Dr. Mackey compared community efforts to help pay for the Orchard Knob playground to efforts over the summer to renovate Normal Park Upper School.

About $63,500 of the cost for the playground came from the city, the Benwood Foundation and the Community Foundation.

Gary Waters, assistant superintendent for auxiliary services for Hamilton County Schools, said the county does not usually pay for playgrounds when new schools are built.

“That’s been done either through community involvement, our Parks and Recreation Department or other entities,” he said.

Mr. Waters said physical activity for young children is an integral part of a school experience.

Commissioner Greg Beck said he didn’t see why playgrounds aren’t included in new school construction costs if such activity is important to the growth and development of a child.

“That may be something the commission and the school board would like to discuss,” Mr. Waters said.

Commissioner Bill Hullander called Mr. Beck’s suggestion “an excellent idea.”

conference revisited

The Chattanooga City Council voted 9-0 Tuesday night to allow the city police department to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department on the 17th Annual Homicide Conference.

Last week, council members questioned whether it should be called a “homicide prevention” conference instead.

Before the vote, Councilman Jack Benson said he did some detective work himself on the conference.

“I did some checking up on it and apparently they’ve been calling it that 10 or 15 years,” he said.

City Attorney Randy Nelson shot back the lack of prevention might be okay.

“If you don’t prevent it, at least you catch them,” he said.

inmate oops?

A line on the Hamilton County Jail’s booking report Friday read that Larry Jerome Evans was released accidentally. Under the “released to” category, the report states: “Release Error Oops.”

But Mr. Evans was freed on bond, not an error made by jail personnel, said Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Dusty Stokes. He said someone must have been unsure how to input information about the bond release into the computer, thus the release error mistake.

Cheney security holds reporters

Milling around Lovell Field awaiting the arrival of Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday morning, a handful of television and print journalists got a friendly warning from a young Secret Service agent.

The agent reminded reporters to stay in the designated press area, about 200 feet from where Air Force 2 would touch down.

When asked what would happen if a stray reporter ran at the vice president to get an autograph, the agent was evasive, but emphatic.

“I can’t tell you what would happen. But it wouldn’t be a good thing,” he said.

Reporters had held out little hope that they might be able to shout a question or two at the veep, who was in town to speak at the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga.

At 10:45 a.m. Air Force 2 landed, and the vice president exited the plane without incident. After some handshakes and a quick wave to the press squinting in the distance, Cheney got into a black car and drove off at 10:56 a.m.

EPB pops up rates, finance report

EPB electric rates aren’t the only thing popping up this fall. The utility’s financial report for 2008 released Friday includes three “pop-up” spreads that, when opened, display three-dimensional paper displays.

The 78-page report includes a pop-up bucket truck for electric service, a laptop computer for communications and a house to represent EPB’s planned residential fiber optic service set to begin next year.

“This is the first annual report I’ve ever seen that my 3-year-old grandson would want to read,” EPB Attorney Carlos Smith quipped.

The report for the fiscal year that ended June 30 was prepared before the 20 percent increase in electricity rates EPB is passing along from the Tennessee Valley Authority, effective Oct. 1.

WilLkommen VoLkswagen — Now pay the bill

The Tennessee Valley Authority helped recruit Volkswagen to Chattanooga with everything from free helicopter rides to a consultant’s designation of the Enterprise South industrial park as a “mega site.”

But two months after TVA helped recruit VW to town, the federal utility is raising the electric rates in place for such industry by 39 percent, effective Oct. 1. The rate increase reflects both higher energy and fuel surcharges for TVA.

When it begins vehicle production by late 2010, VW is expected to be Chattanooga’s biggest electricity user.

hammond in ’08 ... 1908

Exactly 100 years after Ford Motor Co. started production of the Model T, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department is wheeling one around town.

A Model T touring car painted like an old-fashioned police car sat outside Niko’s Southside Grill on Monday.

“We’re updating the fleet,” Sheriff Jim Hammond joked to the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club.

Sheriff Hammond said the car was awarded to the sheriff’s department’s narcotics division in a settlement and is a new way to build up the department’s public relations.

let’s not get it on

As council members gave reports Tuesday night, Chairman Linda Bennett asked Councilman Leamon Pierce if he had anything to report.

“I just sat here quietly,” he said. “Me and Mr. Benson did not get it on tonight.”

“I didn’t feel like fighting,” Mr. Benson replied.

Last week, while working on the traffic incident management ordinance, the two council members clashed. Mr. Benson at one point threatened to step down as chairman of the Legal and Legislative Committee. He then pointed at Mr. Pierce and told him, “You take it over.”

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