Early voting starts next week. Who will make the run-off for mayor?
Michael Andrews
Fletcher Burkhardt
Indya Kincannon
Eddie Mannis
Calvin Skinner or
Marshall Stair

Betty Bean again has it first

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Superintendent Dr. Jim McIntyre just proposed a budget that eliminates TAP and APEX bonuses and gives certified personnel such as teachers a 3% raise and non-certified personnel a 2% raise.

Elections matter.

Betty Bean has this breaking news ...


The driver who crashed a bus loaded with 26 Green Magnet School second graders on a field trip to Safety City Thursday, March 10, has been arrested and charged with DUI. No children were injured, but the bus crashed into an entrance gate

Knox County Democrats will field a candidate for County Commission in District 4 -- the seat now held by Jeff Ownby.
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And Tamara is speaking first. She's got five minutes.

A humorous look at the free-content-on-website debate:
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Enjoy!

Hey, folks. We've resumed posting political columns online on Sundays at 6 p.m. even though the papers don't come out until Wednesday.
We'll see how this works out. (link...)

Just got home from Union County where the board of education voted unanimously to keep those 626 students who had enrolled for their first year in the Virtual Academy. It was the right and honorable thing to do.

Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman penned a bombastic letter to the BOE before caving, but BOE attorney Mary Ann Stackhouse said it best: "He seems to be stating the law."

Yes, it'd an idle threat to close a school next year -- when it's already set to expire without a legislative extension ... and when it's very like that Commissioner Huffman won't be sitting in his swivel chair anyhow.

Background three items deep at (link...)

Former U.S. Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. has died. He birthed the Republican Party in Tennessee and lived long enough to regret what it has become.

Our webmaster, 74, is bicycling across Virginia. Honest. So here are our links until we find her or she finds Wi-Fi.

Bean has produced 1,200 words of the best hard-news story we've ever had. And she's writing a follow-up for July 2.

Betty Bean: (link...)
Sandra Clark: (link...)
Marvin West: (link...)
Victor Ashe: (link...)
Larry Van Guilder: (link...)
Lynn Pitts: (link...)

Shopper-News reporter Jake Mabe is (perhaps the only one) at R. Larry Smith's 10 o'clock press conference. We will update with the thrilling announcement.

UPDATE: Smith is dropping out of the race for school board....

The state Supreme Court has just declined to hear Shelly Breeding's appeal. She can't be on the Knox County ballot. -- s.

Check Wendy Smith's interview with Michael Kaplan at
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-- s.

Knoxville's first council member with a ponytail. -- s.

Carpe Librum owners announced today that they will not renew their lease in 2011. The wonderful store is closing after 6 years. Bummer. -- s.

Dropped by Tim and Allison Burchett's Christmas event today (looking for GOV art on a slow week). Interesting collection of folks, including Democrats Mark and Mike Padgett (Mark's got a 5-day old baby girl).

Best surprise was Tim's pet, a huge rabbit named Flop, who lives in a cage in the living room.

It got me to wondering about the pets of other county mayor types.

Somehow I don't see Tim Hutchison with a rabbit ... unless perhaps he trapped it in the woods and is skinning it for dinner.  -- s.

In a thoughtful article about Sarah Palin hacker David Kernell, Frank Cagle writes:

(Given the number of reported misdeeds in county government in recent years, one wonders if District Attorney General Randy Nichols could recognize a crime if it bit him in the butt.)

Weird events at Halls Republican Club tonight.

Andrew Graybeal showed up and sat in the back corner.

Former county chair Gerald Turner called him out, challenging him as a Democrat basically to sign a loyalty oath or leave the meeting.

Graybeal said he had resigned in writing from the Democratic Party last month and wanted to be welcomed into the GOP. He received tepid applause.

Later Turner jumped on the Republican county commissioners (present were R. Larry, Dave Wright and Michele Carringer) for electing Democrats rather than Republicans. Republicans hold a 15-4 majority on the commission.

Turner said Tank Strickland is a "nice guy," but "he's a Democrat." He also alluded to the recent selection of Mark Brown as a judicial commissioner.

Former commissioner Scott Moore won a door prize from Ted Hatfield -- a script in English of Slumdog Millionaire. Someone in the back (not Graybeal) yelled, "Who says there's no justice!"

Club president Wally Welch ended the meeting with a joke: Seems he had discovered a classified ad selling a tractor with no seat or steering wheel.

"It's for people who have lost their ass and don't have a clue which way to turn," he said. "Congress."

Gotta love the Halls Republicans. -- s.

Anne Hart (new reporter at Shopper) breaks the news that the state will not accept applications for liquor licenses following Knox County's successful referendum. No one seems to know why, but lots of folks are mad.

Betty Bean suggests Leo Cooper as a caretaker replacement for Scott Moore.

Larry Van Guilder revisits "the forgotten man," Chuck Bowers, and finds one more mulch business running and gunning in an "ag" zone.

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