Michael Kane, an environmental engineer who resides in Fountain City, has been appointed to serve on the Metropolitan Planning Commission.

 Mayor Bill Haslam nominated Kane for the MPC position and he succeeds Susan Brown, whose term expired. Kane's term on MPC runs until June 30, 2011.

The MPC is responsible for countywide planning and administration of zoning and subdivision regulations in Knoxville and Knox County - with the exception of the Town of Farragut.

The commission is composed of 15 members, seven appointed by Knoxville's Mayor and eight appointed by the Knox County Mayor. They are confirmed by the state's Local Government Planning Advisory Committee and serve four-year terms. The commissioners do not receive any compensation for their work on MPC. Kane, who earned a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, works as an engineer in Oak Ridge.

He has been active in community affairs for several years and has served as chairman of the Fountain City Town Hall, a very active neighborhood organization, since 2000.

Among his accomplishments in that role are helping raise more than $80,000 for improvements to the Fountain City Branch of the Knox County Public Library and leading a task force to select a site and develop a conceptual design for a proposed skateboard park in Fountain City.

Kane is also a member of the Knoxville Utilities Board's PACE10 Council, which advises KUB on its 10-year, $500 million sanitary sewer collection upgrade program.