Will Governor Lee's final 'State of the State' include ice storm?

Описание: On Monday night, Governor Bill Lee is scheduled to deliver his final state of the state address to a joint session of the Tennessee Legislature.

Lee is expected to include money to expand Education Freedom Scholarships, which gives Tennessee residents more than 7-thousand dollars to apply toward private school tuition, in his budget ask.

The current budget includes $144 million for that . It's enough to fund 20-thousand scholarships. The governor has said he'd like to double that this year, but informed observers aren't sure the legislature will go along.

"They had to twist a lot of arms to get the voucher bill that he did get passed....There was a lot of unhappiness about that behind the scenes. So I think he's going to have a harder sell this time," said Debra Maggart, former Tennessee House Republican Caucus Chair.
State Democrats have been critical of the program's lack of transparency. The law that created the scholarships didn't require the state to tabulate how many of the recipients were already enrolled in private schools, the cities and counties in which they live or well the schools that receive the money are performing in comparison to regular public schools.

Democratic strategist Jasper Hendricks, who is chairman of the Nashville Fair Board, believes the governor's final budget address will include something about the ice storm that left more than a half a million middle Tennessee residents without power. Hendricks believes the governor should have deployed the Tennessee National Guard the day of the storm to help clear fallen trees so line crews could better access downed power lines.

"I think that the storm is actually going to change the conversation a little bit now with the, but because there are so many other promises that were made that have been made before," Hendricks said.
Governor Lee Gov. Lee released a statement Friday critical of the Nashville Electric Service response to this Winter storm.

"Tennesseans are facing an extremely challenging recovery process as a result of Winter Storm Fern, and they need a clear timeline for power restoration, transparency on the number of linemen deployed, and a better understanding of when work will be completed in their neighborhood. I have shared my strong concerns with NES leadership, as well as my expectation that both communication with their customers and power restoration efforts must improve. We will continue to track progress, and have further discussion about how to ensure efficient local response going forward. Mayor O’Connell and I speak daily, and the state will continue providing Nashville with every resource available, including TEMA, TDOT, Tennessee National Guard, TDEC and others," Lee's said in his statement.

Conservative tv and radio host Steve Gill was even stronger in his assessment of the utility's response. "Their failure is both in the preparation before the storm, in the low numbers that they had prepared to respond. Then when they saw Saturday how bad it was, they did not immediately respond appropriately and throw hundreds and hundreds more. They've now done it later in the week," Gill said.

Gill is also critical of the NES general manager's directive to endeavor to "preserve the urban canopy" as it relates to the utility's tree trimming effort, which is designed to reduce the number of outages caused by trees falling on power lines.

"Well, we're seeing the value of those trees versus the value of power today. And there are still tree limbs, overhanging power lines that could still fall in the next coming week. So they have failed before, during and after, and they all ought to be held accountable," Gill said.

The Nashville Electric Service is governed by a five member power board. It's members are appointed by Nashville's mayor and confirmed by the Metro Council. This unpaid board sets NES policy which is carried out by the utility's CEO.

Governor Lee's eighth and final "State of the State" address will be delivered Monday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. CST.
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