Knoxville Tennessee Blog

The Knox County Commission meeting from 3-26-07 as broadcast from Community Television of Knoxville under contract from Knox County Commission can be viewed in its entirety on Google Video.

This is a 2 minute clip of R. Larry Smith in the 3-26-07 Knox County Commission meeting on YouTube.

This is a 10 minute video of the Knox County Commission meeting 3-26-07 on Metro Government (Part I).

This is the second 10 minute video of the Knox County Commission meeting 3-26-07 on Metro Government (Part II).

That is a list of most recent Knox County Commission clips, but this link is a must watch clip of Alonzo Montgomery. While Alonzo may not be the most elegant speaker he has a lot of guts and says some things that a lot of us are probably thinking. I think his comments could make for a good commercial sponsored by the folks who are looking to run for county commission seats in the next election.

For other videos check out 9’s YouTube channel.

Most of you missed the West Knox Republican Club Meeting and consequently didn’t hear Mayor Haslam so I’ll recap the meeting for you. Notables in attendance were: Sherry Witt, Barbara Pelot, Jean Teague, Jimmy Jones, Fred Sisk, Scott Moore, Brian Hornback and a few others. I want to thank Brian for introducing me to a few of the folks at the meeting and I hope that he will write something up from this evening. Update: Brian made a great post here.

Mayor Haslam spoke for a few minutes and then allowed for a question and answer time. Haslam noted 4 reasons why he was seeking re-election.

1. He loves doing his job, which essentially is helping the community.
2. It takes a long time to get things done in government
3. Every project is good and it is unclear where to spend the limited money
4. Continue working on projects he started, i.e. South Waterfront, Downtown, I-275 Corridor

I have to agree with the Mayor on the first point. There is something about Knoxville that gives you a desire to dive in and be a part of helping better the community.

Some of the questions that were asked by those in attendance were as follows (The questions and responses by Mayor Haslam are from my notes and are not direct quotes):

The South Waterfront has been controlled by the TVA, which hasn’t allowed any development. How did the city become responsible for the area now? The TVA has been working with the South Waterfront committee and has been very flexible.

The Knoxville Convention Center is running in $150 million in debt, what’s the deal? Basically Mayor Haslam said Knoxville inherited the debt because of poor planning (no hotel) and bad timing when the Convention Center was being built among other factors like 9/11. He has been working to lower the operating cost debt, which he has done successfully from $2 million to $1.3 million a year. The cost/loss for the convention center is about 5 million per year and there isn’t much we can do about it.

What are you thoughts on Metro government? It is cheaper for taxpayers and it makes it easier to work together. In some cases, he said, we may be paying 3 or 4 council members to lobby against each other on the same issue.

Is the location of the Knoxville Transit Center a settled issue? No, but the Church Avenue location is the preferred location if American Accessories will agree upon moving their business.

When will the Downtown Regal Cinema Theater be open for business? The 8-screen state of the art theater with stadium seating will be open by the end of June or early July. He also emphasized the free parking in City garage’s nights and weekends.

Mayor Haslam is doing a great job operating the city and I am grateful that he was willing to share these insights with those of us at the meeting. Knox County Republican Club meetings are held on the second Monday of every month at the Copper Cellar.

WHAT: Knox County Republican Party Meeting
WHEN: Monday APRIL 9, 2007
TIME: Meeting 7:00 PM - 7:15 PM Speaker - 7:15 PM - 7:45 PM
WHERE: Copper Cellar Restaurant, 7316 Kingston Pike
WHAT ELSE: Please come for dinner NO LATER than 6:15 PM
WHO TO CALL: (RSVP required by March 9, 2007 for dinner - Phone 693-3004 or 675-6673)
SPEAKER: MAYOR BILL HASLAM, Mayor of KNOXVILLE.

The Knox County Republican Party needs to find someone to keep up their blog since it looks like BH won’t be doing it anymore. I received the newsletter and lookie there, Mayor Bill Haslam is going to be speaking which means I’m going to have to re-schedule my Monday meeting so that I can attend. I’ll be sure to blog the meeting and maybe BH will do the same as well.

Any of you Knoxville blogging Democrats want to attend this meeting with me to hear Mayor Haslam?

My good buddy Jed over at http://tennessee-jed.blogspot.com/ thought I might be intersted in reading Julie’s letter to “The Rep”. Jed was right, I am interested in this story that appeared yesterday but I didn’t bother to blog about it as VV, Newscoma, and NIT already had done a fine job covering the news.

I wouldn’t be writing about this now, except for the following: When I clicked the link this morning from Jed, the post was gone. That’s right, Julie took the email thread down and replaced it with “I have taken this post down in an effort to work through more diplomatic channels… Thanks for the support everyone!”.

Unfortunately, Julie’s blog was not in my feed reader otherwise I would repost the contents of the email conversation here. If you have an old copy of the post cached in your feed reader please use the contact form to notify me.

The question we all get to ponder is why Julie would take this post down so quickly?

Ben over at Taxing Tennessee does a great job of keeping tabs on our elected officials. He recently highlighted on a great resource that can be used to keep track of our House and Senate representatives, opencongress.org. We all need to continue to pursue opportunities that make available the details of local, state, and national government.

I created two feeds from the data at opencongress.org, one for Tennessee House representatives and one for our two Senate representatives. You can use these links to quickly get an idea of what Tennessee politicians are doing in Washington.

Representatives:
Rep. David Davis [R, TN-1]
Rep. John Duncan [R, TN-2]
Rep. Zach Wamp [R, TN-3]
Rep. Lincoln Davis [D, TN-4]
Rep. Jim Cooper [D, TN-5]
Rep. Barton Gordon [D, TN-6]
Rep. Marsha Blackburn [R, TN-7]
Rep. John Tanner [D, TN-8]
Rep. Steve Cohen [D, TN-9]

Senators:
Sen. Lamar Alexander [R, TN]
Sen. Bob Corker [R, TN]

Get your feed readers loaded so you can keep track of these folks and don’t forget to check out opencongress.org and Taxing Tennessee.

Almost every blogger in Tennessee has commented on the recent news that Fred Thompson may run for President in 2008. Michael Silence has been in a Fred Funk for some time now and his blogging nemesis has jokingly countered the Silence attack with Al Gore propaganda. A.C. Kleinheider even threw a few blows at Silence saying the following:

Well, you’ve certainly done your part now, Mr. Silence. The blogosphere can act as an echochamber and a reinforcement of one’s previously held beliefs. There very well may be a groundswell for Fred — but there is also one because you are looking for one and because you are participating in the manufacture of one.

I have to confess that I was convinced this excitement for Thompson was limited to Tennessee, but It seems as though this may be more then just a “groundswell for Fred”. Consider this poll from Hannity.com where Fred has more than 50 percent of the votes. It looks like this excitement may be reaching further than just Thompson’s home state. I don’t plan on following this story as there are plenty of people covering Thompson.

If you are interesting in finding out more about Fred visit one of the links above and check out the Official Draft Fred Thompson Website and this Draft Fred Thompson forum.

Update: Hot off the N-S Press: ‘Draft Fred’ presidential bid gains steam
All three GOP U.S. House members from East Tennessee are backing the new “Draft Fred Thompson” for president committee, and Bank East in Knoxville will handle its campaign fund.

Mayor Haslam announced his plans to run for a second term as Mayor today. I think Mayor Haslam has done an excellent job, especially when you compare him with likes of Scott Moore and some of the other elected officials in Knoxville. In general, City Council operates much more effectively then Knox County thanks to the leadership of Mayor Haslam.

He (Haslam) also emphasized the cooperative spirit he advocates in government. The Republican incumbent made the announcement at the Knoxville Museum of Art before hundreds of supporters.

Mayor Bill Haslam’s website can be found here along with the Host Committee list.

Thanks to Rob’s Post today I was made aware of the West Knox Republican’s Club meeting. I decided that since I live in West Knoxville and I am in fact a registered republican I should make an effort to attend.

I sat in the back anonymously next to Brian Hornback and on the other side of Brian was Bobby Waggoner (Chief of the Detective Bureau for the Knox County Sheriffs Department). Office holders in attendance were Sherry Witt (Register of Deeds), Fred Sisk (Trustee), Frank Leuthold (5th District Commissioner), Brian Hornback (Knox County GOP Chairman), and representatives for Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Bob Corker.

The meeting was short and sweet with Fuad Reveiz providing the attendees with a bit of humor and a good message about working hard and being a minority. The highlights of the speech were his comments on minorities (and any other person for that matter) receiving handouts. “Don’t give people fish, give them a net to catch the fish”. I also enjoyed listening to his humorous stories from his DIY network shows.

I am hoping that Brian will provide some more insight into the meeting on his blog. I would say there were approximately 50 people in attendance at the Copper Cellar. I would be interested to know if there were any other bloggers in attendance.

UPDATE: Brian did a much better job blogging this event. His post on the meeting is here.

Governor Phil Bredesen presented his 2007 State of the State Address to the 105th General Assembly in the State House Chambers at 6 p.m. today. If you didn’t get an opportunity to watch Governor Bredesen you can view the address in the Tennessee video archive here.

The focus of the governor’s speech was education. In particular, he had quite a bit to say about the surplus money that is currently in the Tennessee Lottery fund. I agree with most of the points he made about education in Tennessee but I disagreed with his statements with regards to taking money out of the lottery fund for uses other than education scholarships.

This has always been my argument against state sanctioned gambling. Once the elected officials realize how much money is brought in through the lottery their eyes get big and they start thinking about all of the different projects they could fund with the money. Using the lottery money to fund education is entirely different then using it to fund random projects.

I do however whole heartedly agree with finding funding for these projects from other places like a $.40 cigarette tax. Although, I noticed he found much less applause from the members on the floor when he discussed the details of the tax then when he discussed taking money from the lottery surplus.

Update: Transcript of Address

This will be a short post since their has been quite a bit of coverage and commentary on term limits, but I have compiled some information regarding Monday’s forum to discuss the candidates for the 12 county positions ordered vacant because of term limits.

First, it is worth noting that there will be an hour-long simulcast with Channel Ten TV and FM-100 WNOX Monday at 7PM to discuss the forum. My only question is why not just let the officials finish their current term. I would rather have an out going official in office then a puppet in the form of a wife, brother, son or second cousin 4th removed.

From Mark Harmon, County Commissioner, District Two via Knoxviews.com

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
A quick note that the candidate forum scheduled for Monday at 6pm is still on, but the location has moved to Whittle Springs Middle School’s auditorium, 2700 White Oak Lane (the corner of Whittle Springs and White Oak).
Great thanks to Whittle Springs Principal Benny Perry who responded quickly and favorably to house the event when Fulton High officials forgot to include the academic banquet on the auditorium calendar and did not notice the conflict until this morning.
The schedule of events will be:
6pm to approx 7 pm, County Commission, District Two, all candidates seeking appointment asked to give a three-minute statement, followed by audience questions.

Approximately 8pm to 8:30pm, any candidates from other districts, same format.

A list of candidates has been compiled at http://knoxcounty.org/commission/candidates.php

Update: For more information on Knoxville Term Limits see my Best Of Knoxville Links Post.