Of the 2,619 cases accounted for on a list of 49 COVID-19 hotspots in Davidson County connected with 10 or more cases of COVID-19, 114 – or 4% – were tied to the six bars on the list.
The list of 49 case clusters in Nashville was released by Metro Public Health officials.
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Warnings of the possibility of coming meat shortages have left many Americans wondering whether we will see the meat and poultry cases in grocery stores just as barren as the toilet paper shelves.
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There’s a big stink brewing in northwest Tennessee. Whether that stink is an unpleasant odor or whether the stink is a figure of speech depends upon whom you ask. Residents of Haywood County recently assembled to discuss how chicken farms could pose health hazards to their community. These chicken farms are not in Haywood. They are, however, likely coming to the adjacent Gibson County. Haywood residents say chicken farmers in Gibson will sign contracts with Tyson Foods. Tyson already has plans to open a processing plant in Gibson. People in Haywood County told The Tennessee Star they suspect either Tyson or the chicken farmers eventually will want to set up shop on their home turf. If allowed, they say that will degrade their quality of life. “Gibson County gets the jobs and we get the manure,” said Haywood County Mayor-elect David Livingston, adding the indecent smell will waft its way down into his territory. “It’s true that these concentrated feed lots are not Tyson-owned. This is where the liability is. Every one of these (chicken) houses produces a tremendous tonnage of manure.” Haywood County residents, he went on, have protested and made it clear they want neither Tyson nor the…
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When he was governor of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011, Phil Bredesen set the state up to receive a dramatically higher number of refugees – an increase well into the thousands – bringing with it significant financial benefit to federal refugee contractors like Catholic Charities of Tennessee and World Relief. Early into Bredesen’s second term as governor, he withdrew Tennessee from the federal refugee resettlement program writing to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) that “refugee-specific service providers” could better meet the needs of arriving refugees. By taking this step, Bredesen created the opportunity for the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to hand over running of the state’s program to Catholic Charities of Tennessee (CCTN) but without any accountability to the state legislature or the state budget. The first full year during which CCTN administered the program in Tennessee, refugees arriving to the state increased from 847 to 1,492, despite a decline in refugee arrivals on a national level. By 2010, with the new designation from the U.S. ORR and more federal funding, CCTN expanded its refugee operations and established its Tennessee Office for Refugees (TOR). This department was set-up to coordinate all refugee resettlement agencies operating in the state. CCTN’s…
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From the inception of the federal Refugee Admissions Program in 1980 until 2003, the first year of Phil Bredesen’s first term as governor of Tennessee, only a handful of Somali refugees were resettled in Tennessee by the federal government. That all changed in 2003. Between 2003 and 2011, Bredesen’s last year as governor, 1,866 Somali refugees were resettled in Tennessee by federal resettlement contractors. During that same time period over 9,000 refugees of multiple ethnicities were brought to Tennessee by federal contractors. The numbers do not, however, account for secondary migrants who are first resettled in other states or other parts of Tennessee but then relocate to follow friends, relatives or jobs and join the growing ethnic enclaves in a different location. “[T]he simple action of offering hundreds of job openings at the local chicken processing plant” according to former Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter Brian Mosely, explains in part, what drew Somali refugees to his hometown. Increasing the supply of Somalis and other refugee workers was facilitated by then governor Phil Bredesen’s treatment of Tennessee’s refugee resettlement program. In 2007, Mosely wrote a five-part, award-winning series about the arrival of Somalis to Shelbyville. One of the stories connecting Somalis to the town’s Tyson Foods plant…
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Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who also served two terms as mayor of Baltimore, has endorsed Karl Dean in the Democratic primary for Tennessee’s next governor, as The Tennessee Star reported on Monday. The possibility has been floated that O’Malley will campaign in Tennessee on behalf of Dean. O’Malley, like Dean, is into the “big chicken industry” which in Maryland is considered to anchor the state’s agri-business: The 300 million chickens produced in the state rank ninth nationally, and the nearly $1 billion in sales they account for makes up 41 percent of Maryland farm cash receipts. On top of that, much of the nearly $300 million in corn sold here is linked to chicken farming, as feed. The chicken business is credited with employing about 7,000 people in the state. Dean is the Democrat’s gubernatorial “big chicken” cheerleader in Tennessee, who spent time hobnobbing with Tyson Foods CEO Tom Hayes at the Tyson Foods ground-breaking ceremony in Humboldt last week. Anne Davis, Dean’s lawyer wife left her position as managing attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center which has opposed chicken slaughterhouses just in time to avoid potential conflicts of interest for Dean should he become governor. O’Malley like Dean, has focused on…
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Tyson CEO and President Tom Hayes was the BMOC (big man on campus) at the Humboldt plant ground-breaking on Wednesday when he promised a $500,000 kickback grant to Gibson County. But it’s not really a no-strings unconditional gift, nor is it really money from Tyson Foods’ pocket, is it Tom? First, the ever paternalistic Tyson leadership that has come to rescue Welcoming Witherspoon – who is now out of favor with his Democrat party – has not agreed to just let Gibson Countians decide on their own how to spend their new found wealth. Nooooo. A steering committee “of community leaders and Tyson Foodsteam members” will decide how to spend the money. Any chance the “community leaders” will be same ones that worked the deal that could possibly “fowl” some of the already threatened nearby waterways? The same leaders like Welcoming Witherspoon who has said that, like Randy Boyd, he welcomes Muslims and immigrants to come work in Gibson County: Randy, like me, isn’t afraid of a Muslim coming to the county and maybe seeking a job, or a legal immigrant coming to the county. He’s not afraid of that; neither am I. If somebody wants to come here legally, and seek employment and…
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Anne Davis, wife of Democrat gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean, left her position as the managing attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) to help her husband run for governor. Davis, who helped establish the Nashville office in 2012, left her position in 2017, just in time to avoid potential conflicts of interest for Dean should he become governor. The SELC’s regional work challenging the environmental impact of chicken slaughterhouses and processing plants places Dean at best, in an awkward position running for a state-wide office in Tennessee where a fifth Tyson Foods operation is being launched and another is expanding. While Dean was hobnobbing with Tyson Foods CEO and President Tom Hayes at the plant’s ground-breaking ceremony in Humboldt on Wednesday, his Democrat opponent, Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, was busy pointing out the project’s flaws to Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery. Fitzhugh is seeking answers to the concerns raised by constituents in his rural county who are likely to be impacted by the Humboldt plant and the estimated 600 new chicken houses that will supply the chickens to be slaughtered and processed. In addition to the Tennessee office which Anne Davis recently left, the SELC staffs offices in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia…
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While Democrat gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean was cheering “big meat’s” newest location at the Tyson Foods ground-breaking ceremony in Humboldt on Wednesday, his opponent State Rep. Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley), was busy trying to address concerns of his constituents in adjacent rural counties that may be negatively effected by Tyson’s new operation. Dean proudly noted on his campaign’s Facebook page that he was hobnobbing with Tyson Foods CEO Tom Hayes at Wednesday’s event in Humboldt: But on Wednesday, Fitzhugh, the Tennessee House Minority Leader, was busy pointing out the project’s flaws to Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery. In a letter obtained by The Tennessee Star (embedded below) dated May 30, 2018, signed by Fitzhugh, to Attorney General Herbert Slatery, Fitzhugh has asked for a “legal opinion with regard to the interpretation of state statutes concerning the authority of counties to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations [CAFOs].” The Tennessee Department of Agriculture defines a CAFO as “large-scale animal production facilities where many animals are raised or maintained, where feed is brought to the animals, and where wastes accumulate in a small area.” Tyson Foods utilizes a vertically-integrated operation meaning they control every aspect of poultry production from growing the chicks to distributing the end product.…
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The Partnership for a New American Economy (renamed to New American Economy (NAE)), views giant commercial operations like Tyson Foods as connective tissue between NAE’s drive to increase cheap labor pools through immigration and the revival of economically depressed rural communities: Sturms found that when towns embraced immigrants, dying communities were brought back to life, the wheels of commerce began to turn again, and everybody felt the rewards. This is true for small towns across the state, including Columbus Junction, Storm Lake, Denison and West Liberty, the first Iowa town with a majority-Latino population. NAE also justifies its push for increased legal and illegal immigration in part by featuring stories about immigrants like the Karen Burmese working in chicken processing plants and insisting that they are doing the jobs that Americans won’t do. Burmese immigrants generally arrive in the U.S. through the refugee resettlement program which the NAE supports along with amnesty for illegal aliens as part of its 15 key economic issues. Democrat gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean, like his Republican counterpart Randy Boyd, is also a named member of the big-business-cheap-labor Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE) lobby. Shortly after the announcement was made by Gibson County Mayor Tom Witherspoon that Tyson Foods…
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Despite lacking mandatory permits from the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC), Tyson Foods went ahead and broke ground yesterday for its new chicken processing plant in Humboldt. After reviewing Tyson’s application for a permit to discharge storm water from the Humboldt plant construction site, a letter dated May 18, 2018, from the TDEC Division of Water Resources informed Tyson that the company’s “Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) “was deficient so no permit could be issued. TDEC’s letter cautioned Tyson’s Senior Project Engineer Larry Jackson, that “[n]o discharges of stormwater associated with construction activity are authorized by the general permit until the completed NOI [Notice of Intent] is submitted and Notice of Coverage issued by the division.” The NOI submitted by Tyson Farms, Inc., as referenced in the May 18 TDEC letter was “submitted to obtain coverage under a General National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit for Storm Water Discharges Associated with Construction Activity.” Jackson was also directed to review “the enclosed checklist for deficiencies in the SWPPP that must be addressed before permit coverage can be issued.” You can read the May 18, 2018 letter from the TDEC to Tyson’s Jackson here: [pdf-embedder url=”https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/DWR-TNR122070-Notice-of-Deficiency-18-MAY-18-2366.pdf” title=”DWR-TNR122070-Notice of Deficiency-18-MAY-18-2366″] …
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After publicly endorsing GOP gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd and welcoming Muslims and immigrants to take jobs in Gibson County, Mayor Tom Witherspoon, twice elected as a Democrat, will run for re-election as an Independent. Witherspoon credits Randy Boyd for helping “Gibson County stay in the race to land the Tyson Foods plant” and on several occasions, has suggested that his vote for Boyd is payback for that assistance saying, “[t]hat man kept his word with me and I’ll keep my word with him.” Witherspoon also says that like Boyd, he welcomes Muslims and immigrants to come work in Gibson County: Randy, like me, isn’t afraid of a Muslim coming to the county and maybe seeking a job, or a legal immigrant coming to the county. He’s not afraid of that; neither am I. If somebody wants to come here legally, and seek employment and be productive and work hard, God knows we need more of that, not less of it. Meat processing and packaging companies, including Tyson Foods, employ a steady stream of arriving refugees in plants across the country. In the case of the Tyson Foods plant in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the company justified bringing Burmese refugee workers to supplement…
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Noted in the Governor’s 2018-2019 Budget is an $18 million dollar FastTrack grant for Tyson Foods that may be part of a deal to bring a chicken processing plant to Humboldt, Tennessee after plans for a similarly described project in Kansas met with “staggering” opposition from citizen activists. This year’s money for Tyson Foods is not currently listed in the FastTrack project database maintained on the Department of Economic & Community Development (ECD) website. As part of Governor Haslam’s “Transparent Tennessee” initiative, ECD launched an interactive online platform called “Open ECD,” intended to provide a “comprehensive look at TNECD’s initiatives,” including, FastTrack, community and rural development grants. Haslam’s “Transparent Tennessee” was intended to help create a “customer-focused, efficient and effective state government.” This initiative was supposed to provide greater transparency and accountability in how the state government operates by enabling taxpayers to see how different departments are performing as well as how taxpayer funds are spent. The only reference to date for the $18 million dollar FastTrack grant for Tyson Foods is on page xix of the Governor’s 2018-2019 Budget released with a cover letter dated January 29, 2018: General fund supplemental appropriations in the current 2017-2018 fiscal year total $46 million, $38 million of…
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Gibson County Mayor Tom Witherspoon has defended “as very open and transparent” the process that culminated in a November 20, 2017 announcement that Tyson Foods would be building a new chicken processing plant in Humboldt, a small city with about 8,300 residents in Gibson County. With regard to public meetings being held about the Tyson plant, Witherspoon, a Democrat who has endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd, was asked in a Facebook exchange whether the “open meetings with the media were before or after the decision was made and was the public informed of the meetings ahead of time?” Witherspoon responded: Media was involved before, during and after. All public meetings were properly advertised, conducted and closed. He also stated that: I can assure you that many, many community leaders along with the media and public were involved in multiple meetings. I don’t know anyone in Gibson County that wasn’t aware of Tysons coming weeks before the official announcement. (Editors’s Note: The Tennessee Star has screenshots of these Facebook exchanges.) On January 23, 2018, The Tennessee Star emailed the Gibson County Director of Economic Development asking for the specific dates of the public meetings, how they were advertised and where they were…
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Gibson County Mayor Tom “Welcoming” Witherspoon and Humboldt Mayor Marvin Sikes claim that only positive impacts will result from the arrival of the Tyson Foods chicken plant, first rejected in Tonganoxie, Kansas, but now being relocated to Humboldt, Tennessee. The plan to put the plant in Tonganoxie was defeated by citizen-led opposition because of concerns of Tyson’s history of environmental violations, impact on infrastructure and potential to attract refugee workers. Opposition to the Kansas plant also focused on the secrecy surrounding the plan for Tonganoxie and withholding of information from public scrutiny. Twilight Greenaway, reporting at Moyers & Company, the website operated by far left journalist Bill Moyers, described the citizen-led opposition in Tonganoxie as “staggering” and fueled in part by the secrecy in which the deal was arranged between Tyson executives and local officials until information was finally made public. As Greenaway reported: The Tyson plant was also a long-kept secret with the code name Project Sunset. Local lawmakers were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements when considering welcoming it to town, and the company is said to have worked through intermediaries when negotiating with the landowner over the 300-acre lot it would occupy. But once the deal was done and…
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The announcement in November that Humboldt, Tennessee is getting the Tyson Foods plant that was rejected by citizens in Tonganoxie, Kansas, raises legitimate questions about whether the new plant will attract refugee workers to the area. In their press release, Tyson Foods said the company had “accepted the invitation of city, county and state leaders to build a new chicken production complex in the City of Humboldt, which is part of Gibson County in western Tennessee,” and included words of praise from Humboldt Mayor Mavin Sikes, Gibson County Mayor Tom Witherspoon, a Democrat who has endorsed Knoxville businessman Randy Boyd in the Republican gubernatorial primary, and Gov. Bill Haslam: “This is an historic day for Humboldt, Gibson County and West Tennessee,” Humboldt Mayor Marvin Sikes said. “I want to thank Tyson Foods for their commitment to our community and region. The significant job creation and capital investment that will result from this project will have a positive impact on our community that will last for many years, and I could not be more excited about the future of Humboldt and Gibson County.” “Many years of dedicated work from countless Gibson County citizens and volunteers have laid the foundation for the…
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The decision by Tyson Foods to open a meat-packing plant in Humboldt, Tennessee, welcomed recently by Gibson County Mayor Tom Witherspoon, came only after the facility was rejected by citizens in Tonganoxie, Kansas. The “big meat” company would have created approximately the same 1,500 jobs there that it says it will bring to rural Gibson County. Witherspoon, elected as a Democrat in 2010 and 2014, is one of 45 county mayors who have endorsed GOP gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd, the Knoxville businessman and former commissioner of the Tennessee Economic and Community Development Department. Reuters reported in November 2017 that the decision by Tyson Foods to switch over to Humboldt came only after “the No Tyson in Tongie” citizen-led opposition defeated a proposed Tyson plant in Tonganoxie, Kansas, a town not much smaller than Humboldt. Several Kansas state legislators also committed to opposing the proposed Tyson plant. Citizen opposition in the “Tongie” area was described as “staggering,” Twilight Greenaway reported at Moyers & Company, the website operated by far left journalist Bill Moyers. That opposition was fueled in part by the secrecy in which the deal was arranged between Tyson executives and local officials until it was finally made public in September, Greenaway reported:…
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Tyson Foods will open a new facility in Humboldt in West Tennessee, creating more than 1,500 jobs, Gov. Bill Haslam announced last week. Haslam made the announcement along with economic development commissioner Bob Rolfe. “The new facility will be Tyson’s fifth location in Tennessee and it means a great deal that a company of this magnitude continues to grow its footprint in our state,” Haslam said in a press release. The facility will produce pre-packaged trays of fresh chicken for grocery stores across the country, according to a Tyson Foods press release. The chicken production complex will include a processing plant, hatchery, feed mill and related operations. The company will contract with local farmers to raise chickens. Tyson Foods’ investment of more than $300 million in Humboldt is the company’s biggest in Tennessee and the single largest investment in Gibson County’s history. Headquartered in Arkansas, the food processing giant sells various chicken, beef and pork products under the brands Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Sara Lee, Ball Park, Wright, Aidells and State Fair. Tyson Foods has been producing chicken in Tennessee for more than 45 years. The new facility marks the second major project the company has started in the…
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