Category Archives: Local Government

Note to Candidates

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Before you plant a yard sign in an obviously residential area, you might want to check with the homeowner first… especially if one of your opponent’s signs is already present.

When I headed out to the store about 6:00 this morning, I found four (!) new Rodney Archer signs in my yard. Now Rodney seems like a nice young fella, but I’m a longtime fan of Patsy Stair and after meeting John, I think that his experience and knowledge (combined with Patsy’s support) will be an asset to the Trustee’s office.

That, and several of Archer’s votes on commission were not exactly to my liking. That has nothing to do with his qualifications for Trustee, but any candidate with a record of doing, saying, or voting for things that are anti-Oak Ridge will have a tougher time earning my support.

That’s just the way it is.

I’ll contact Rodney today and tell him where he can pick up his signs; after all, they are expensive, he needs them, and I bear him no malice. In fairness, that particular corner of my yard gets excellent exposure to traffic, and could be mistaken for a vacant lot because it is heavily wooded.

It’s not the first time this year it has happened, and it generally tends to be candidates who are new — at least to Oak Ridge. The signs may well have been put up by a volunteer, and he may not even know that it happened.

Still, a prudent policy for political signs would be to just not plant them except with permission.

Debating the Debate

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Planning for a weekend in the woods last Thursday, I set my tv-gadget to record channel 12’s replay of last Tuesday’s League of Women Voters’ Forum between the candidates for DA, Chancellor, Judge, and Sheriff. However, in a monumental technological error, I set it to record on the wrong day (it should have been Friday), which yielded instead an hour of Chad McNabb on Inside Anderson County (the program, not the e-zine of the same name).

Thursday’s guest on the show was independent DA candidate Ann Coria, one of those whom Beauchamp is said to be advising. A few clips were played from the forum, and there seemed to be a little piling on of Coria and Hunt supporters against Dave Clark, the clear frontrunner in the race by most observers.

It was a weak piling on, in my opinion, but a three-way race can yield close margins: it’s the only way that Ramsey stayed in office 16 years ago, when just a sprinkling of votes separated the republican, the independent, and the then-democrat Ramsey. Without a third candidate, he would have been defeated by a two-to-one margin.

Coria is bright, experienced, and a solid citizen. Watching her respond on the program, however, yielded a couple of concerns: she does not seem to share the other candidates’ commitment to reducing the number of plea bargains (an issue due to Ramsey’s long-standing practice of plea-bargaining everything), and she seemed to give a couple of different answers to gun-control questions. Most disturbing to me was her statement that she did not plan staff changes in the DA’s office.

Since Ramsey hasn’t tried a single case in this county in decades, the assistant DA’s are an issue. I’ve experienced firsthand the frustration of plea-bargaining when ADA Sam Lee wanted to edit the theft of my vehicle down to “joyriding.”

Joyriding would have been appropriate had my prized mustang convertible, a Mother’s Day gift from a few months before, been returned to my driveway. When I had to go out and hunt it down — which I did — it’s THEFT.

In another case where a friend of mine was the victim of a notorious scam artist, Lee wanted to dismiss the case altogether, even though there was sufficient evidence to put the guy away. Fortunately, Judge McNees recognized the con man from his previous infractions, and declined to go along. Con man did time.

Thank God for good judges! Which is why, for those who don’t quite make the connection between why a bad DA would make for a worse judge, Jim Ramsey should not be elevated to the bench where he can dismiss cases at will, or impose his own strange brand of justice not only in criminal trials, but also in the sensitive family law and civil matters handled by the Chancery Court.

A few years ago, hubby served as a jury foreman in a case where the accused’s real crime was that he hosted a website that was critical of Jim Ramsey. He was guilty of the minor offense with which he was charged, but the real villains in the incident were never brought before the court at all.

Neutral, objective, and independent? That’s not what the record shows for Jim Ramsey. We need a competent and assertive District Attorney, along with a neutral, objective, and competent chancellor.

This August 3 election can bring real change to Anderson County. Think hard, and do your homework before voting.

Heat is On

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The heat is on for one Anderson County Probation Director, who was angry enough about my two previous posts that he headlined me on his little e-zine (which I will neither name nor link, since he declined to name or link to this blog).

Sometimes the truth is hard to take; Alan Beauchamp seems to have broken out in a rash over it.

MushroomCloud has taken the discussion to the Oak Ridger Forums; not exactly what I would have expected, but this has been a season of surprises.
* * *

At right, Gamma enticed a flock of half-grown goslings to eat from her hand, and one allowed her to pet it. I love Summer!

Forum or Brawl, part ii

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The Oak Ridger’s coverage of the forum is up. Looks like one of the more interesting punches was taken by Don Layton, regarding his

…lack of adequate oversight of Anderson County Probation Services, and his closeness to Alan Beauchamp, probation services director.

Layton said it isn’t his job to supervise Beauchamp, but Rex Lynch’s guest column from December 21, 2000 indicates that Layton certainly had a hand in setting up the program, even giving Layton and Murch “most of the credit.”

Anne Phillips’ letter to Lynch from November 2003 says, in the next to the last paragraph,

Judge Layton told me that he had created that department so that Alan “would have something to do” if you were ever voted out of office.

That site has a number of interesting documents, and the URL has been circulating via e-mail this week according to the person who told me where to find it.

Forum, or Brawl?

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I really regret missing the League Forum for local candidates last night; I hear that it got very interesting.

However, BBB Communications did record the event, which will be aired on Channel 12 Friday evening at 8:00 provided that the sound and images are of sufficient quality, according to General Manager Brad Jones.

I do wish I’d been there, but it will be interesting to see how the local papers cover it, especially the Observer (which comes out Thursday at noon, and is available at these locations).

Political Thermometer

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The heat of political races, both for the county general election and the state/federal primary on August 3, is rising right along with the temperature outside.

Other political news is getting hot too: former County Commissioner Bubba Scarbrough is in trouble again (and still). Shelby County poll worker Verline Mayo was running from the law, wanted for her role in a Memphis election fraud case (see Ophelia’s Fine Mess for older links).

Locally:
The League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge is hosting two candidate forums next week. On Tuesday, candidates for Chancellor (Lantrip and Ramsey), General Sessions Judge Div. 1 (Stuart and Layton), Juvenile Court Judge (Meldrum and Hess), District Attorney (Clark, Hunt, and Coria), Trustee (Stair and Archer), and Sheriff (White v. White) will face off in the Roane State auditorium in Oak Ridge (across from Home Depot and the new National Fitness Center).

On Thursday, candidates for Anderson County Commission and School Board from the three Oak Ridge districts will go through the same process, at the same place.

* * *
Not long ago, I ran across some interesting statistics on the number of court cases in Anderson County, which is the entire 7th Judicial District.

The courts have no backlog of criminal cases. Only three criminal cases went to trial between July 1, 2004 and June 30, 2005, the last full year in which records are available. The courts have no need to increase the number of days available for criminal trials.

The office Chancellor Lantrip’s opponent now holds, that of Anderson County District Attorney, brought only three criminal cases to trial that year. Why is he urging that the days available for criminal trials increase?

Excellent question. Of course, since we’re going to have a new DA, it seems possible that we might actually have a few more criminal trials after this election… and that’s a good thing.

* * *

In the US Senate primary, Bryant, Hilleary, and Tennessee Right to Life are piling on Bob Corker, saying he’s misleading voters by calling himself “pro-life” because he would make exceptions for rape and incest.

Anyone who would not make such an exception is a heartless monster. Somehow it seems that Republicans have lost their way, forgetting the third basic principle of their own philosophy:

Government activities should be limited to those things that people cannot do at all, or cannot do so well for themselves.

Check back: I’m tracking down something very interesting on the local scene.

County Pay Hike?

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Bob Fowler has an interesting story this morning, but to me, the most shocking news is old news.

County elected officials in Tennessee are paid according to a state scale based upon population ranges, and officeholders in Anderson County are seeking to be reclassified to the 150,000 to 175,000 population range to close the gap between the pay of those offices and that of the County Mayor. The County Mayor is paid based on the salary for counties having a population of 200,000 – 225,000, or $92,648.

Anderson County has a population of 71,330 according to the 2000 Census.

According to the article, the change in the County Mayor’s salary was made “years ago.” I’m not sure when, and I’m not sure why, except that it does seem plausible that a lower salary would attract few really qualified candidates. As it is, it seems tough to entice attractive candidates.

Looking at the census tables, there isn’t any county in the 200,000-225,000 range; after Shelby, Davidson, Knox and Hamilton, the largest is Rutherford Co. at 182,023. Anderson is 15th in population ranking.

However, this response is the one that nearly made me choke on my coffee:

Lynch on Monday voiced objections to any pay hike request that doesn’t include the county mayor, calling such a move “discrimination.”

Lynch’s salary is already that of someone in his position in a county three times the size of ours, and he thinks that it’s “discrimination” to bring the others up to wages set for counties twice the size of Anderson without raising his own? Does he really think he’s that much better than every other elected officeholder in the County?

I don’t care what he thinks, frankly, and I’m offended that we elected someone who is actually capable of expressing such a sentiment.

Politics: Local Judicial Elections

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For some weeks now, anyone who reads the dead tree edition of local papers has seen ads for a candidate running on the premise of “doubling days for criminal trials.”

Funny thing, for one who seems to have avoided putting criminals on trial at all from his current position as District Attorney.

I’ve seen it as a campaign gimmick for the most part, but some have asked, “why not?”

If you’re wondering, the answers to that question and more are posted here — in particular, click the Information link for a good civics lesson on the history of courts in Anderson County, why some things are done the way they are, and the difference between the different kinds of courts.

Most of us who have had little experience beyond a speeding ticket could learn something here. I did.

And yes, this is a candidate that I will vote for and support. Bill Lantrip is a class act, and one that we would do well to keep.

Calling Council’s Hand

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At the second reading of the City of Oak Ridge Budget on May 22, Council members stated that the School Board didn’t participate in their budget planning process, and that they didn’t know until the school budget was submitted on April 25 that there was a difference between the schools’ request and Council’s planned allocation.

Privately, some have said they didn’t know about the shortfall until reading it in the newspaper.

The March 20 Minutes (page 4) of City Council indicate that they did have forewarning:

Ms. Karen Splinter, Director of Business and Support Services for Oak Ridge Schools, spoke on behalf of the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Tom Bailey, who was unable to be present at this meeting. Her comments were:

“Dr. Bailey wanted to express his thanks to the City Manager and to City Council for allowing he and I to sit in on the Budget and Finance meetings that have occurred over the past several
months. He also wanted you to recall that we have always said that we would do our best to stay within the model that the City proposes. Over the past few years, in order to stay in that model, we have moved large sums of our nonrecurring fund balance to balance the budget and have said that at some point it will run out. We are very close at this point, after the FY 07 budget, for that to happen. In order to stay within the guidelines of the model that is currently being proposed, the Schools will have to diminish programs for ’07. Over the past few years, working within the guidelines of the model has caused us to develop budgets that are basically maintenance in nature with no embellishments or additions or improvements to programs. This year and in the years to follow, this model will not even allow us to have a maintenance budget. [emphasis added]

We have included all potential revenues known to date. We are using a figure given to us by the State for the BEP (Basic Education Program) funding; however, the qualification was “it could be off by $2 million so discount it by 95%.” So that gives you an idea of the uncertainty of the BEP funding. Of course, if it turned in our favor at a later date, that would be something where we
could adjust the budget. But the last word that I got is the official estimate will not be out until April, so it’s probably going to miss this whole budget cycle we are in.”

For the sake of clarity, a “maintenance budget” means keeping the programs we currently provide (which includes not only what we typically think of as maintenance — repairing and cleaning — but also everything else).

They did know in advance. I wish I could provide a link to minutes of the budget and tax committee meetings, but I haven’t been able to find any. Are there any? Note the first sentence of Karen Splinter’s quote:

Dr. Bailey wanted to express his thanks to the City Manager and to City Council for allowing he and I to sit in on the Budget and Finance meetings that have occurred over the past several months.

So, in addition to the status report on March 20, reference is made to their attendance at committee meetings in the preceding months. I attended at least one of those, cautioning that our state funding is in peril due to the efforts of the state’s largest school systems to have BEP funding reallocated in such a way that they would gain at the expense of smaller municipal school systems.

The budgets are set, with real cuts in services made by the school system in order to meet the Council’s allocation — set months in advance before all costs were fully known. It may not be fair, but as mortgage rates have risen, how many homeowners have had to allocate a larger share of their budget to the house payment? As fuel costs have risen, how many people have had to devote a larger share of the family budget to transportation?

Answer: all of us. It’s time to prioritize before we lose the house. Losing bus service was as bad a cut as I can remember in my lifetime acquaintance with the Oak Ridge Schools.

Rules of Governance

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An interesting item was brought to my attention this evening by former School Board Chair Ann McNees, regarding City Council’s “Budget and Tax Committee:”

From the City Charter (2004 revision), Article II, Section 8, Council Rules — Transaction of Business:

The last sentence reads,

There shall be no standing committee of the council.

So, is the “budget and tax committee,” comprised of just three members appointed by either the Mayor or the Council, an illegal committee?