Wed
Sep 30 2009
10:34 am

The Knox County Election Commission will meet this afternoon at 4 pm to review the petition from our Lockett Recall Initiative (LRI), as well as the petition from the citizen group attempting recall of school board member Bill Phillips. The meeting will be held at the EC's office in the Knox County Courthouse, likely on the third floor. Because we at LRI have sought the EC's guidance in preparing our petition, we expect that it will be certifed without issue later today (I'll confirm here).

Meanwhile, LRI's website, (link...), has become a bit out of date! Look for updates to the site later this evening and be sure to sign the certified petition there. The site also solicits the help of interested citizens in LRI's effort to collect nearly 50,000 petition signatures total. Your efforts, no matter how small, are very welcome.

Finally, may I interest you in a yard sign? These measure 18 x 24 inches on wire stands and they'll be available Friday afternoon for distribution starting this weekend. Please contact me at dennishepherd@comcast.net to arrange delivery.

Thanks bunches.

Bird_dog's picture

I'll take one!

If you run out, I'll just make my own! And I have a pick-up truck and a couple of folding tables if we need them.

SnM's picture

good luck with the petition review

In the mean time, snark bites:

"Total Recall" of Law Director May Prove Costly
Less expensive replacement of defective parts only said to be "not an option"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Replacing the Knox County Law Director's defective conscience, malfunctioning moral compass, and other faulty parts is not an option and only a total recall and replacement of the entire unit will satisfy regulatory concerns reports the Knox County Recollection Commission, the organization responsible for explaining such regulations.

Greg Mackay, Knox County Recollection administrator, said, "It's all or nothing - you can't just keep law director parts you like and send the rest back. You can't treat an expensive piece of law direction machinery like Mr. Potato Head."

Thus, the law director's resale retailer, Knox County Voters, Ltd., will be on the hook for the entire cost of recalling and replacing the misfiring device. The total expense of replacing it may climb upwards of $270,000 - times two.

John Q. Citizen, a spokesperson for Knox County Voters, Ltd., expressed regret over the flawed law director, but defended its acquisition of the instrument and blamed both the manufacturer and the device itself for any breakdowns in its performance.

"That thing is supposed to have a 'self-reporting' feature that immediately detects and reports mistakes in judgment or lapses in character," said Citizen. "Never once did an alarm go off in all the time this doohickey was defalcating in the firm where it was previously installed. Why didn't the manufacturer, Tennessee Bar Associates, Inc., catch that?"

"How can we possibly be expected to monitor what every one of these items is doing when we're churning out thousands of them each year?" responded Tennessee Bar Associate Shia Steer. "That's why we install the self-reporting piece. But the function of that device, in turn, depends on at least one of several redundant systems functioning correctly: the moral compass, the gut checker, the character referencer, the vice inhibitor and finally, the look-yourself-in-the-mirror test. But they all failed at the same time."

Asked how redundant systems could fail simultaneously, Steer was at a loss.

"We can't explain it," he said. "This is not supposed to happen. In this unit, those systems seem to have just gone kablooey and experienced massive moral spasms - like it experienced total systemic failure and all ethics centers were compromised or inhibited. That's unheard of. You expect little things to go wrong, but not this - not spasmodic moral fluctuations, simultaneous with inhibited ethics centers. Nobody expects that."

"Ha-ha! I get it! No one expects the spastic inhibition!" exclaimed the reporter.

"You try an allusion that weak again, and I'll sue you for impersonation of a real comedy act," advised Steer...

R. Neal's picture

What happened at the

What happened at the meeting?

Tamara Shepherd's picture

We need to resubmit the petition...

...and I'm not displeased to learn it.

Greg pointed out that the spaces we allowed on the petition for signers' printed names is awfully small, to the possible aggravation of the folks later verifying their sigs. We agree.

Also, our petition text referenced "35 instances" of Lockett's defalcation at KMF, but since that count came only from an "eyeballing" of the BPR's Petition for Discipline (that is, the BPR's text did not specify "35 instances" per se), we're smart to re-word that section of the text in a less numerically-specific manner. We agree again.

Lockett Recall Initiative has up to 15 days to make these changes, but we'll likely make them sooner than that. Then, the EC will have to meet again within five days of our resubmittal (which we do regret, since their time is valuable).

Meanwhile, those yard signs are in Friday midday, so we'll begin planting them this weekend. We also have multiple planning meetings scheduled this weekend with community groups, to begin scheduling our events. The update to our website will still take place tonight, too, minus the certified petition for now.

We're committed to doing things right on the front end. Especially since we have nearly a year to get this done, we're not concerned for a delay of just a few days.

Please hang with us!

Tamara Shepherd's picture

About that snark, Scott...

...or about the KNS story it spoofs, anyway, I hope folks caught my comment on the subject of culpability for any potentially costly special election to replace Lockett? It was as follows:

From the KNS article: “The language about the primary and a general election … was not in the original citizen group’s proposal,” (local attorney Mark) Siegel said. “It initially came from the (Knox County) Law Department.”

Yes, thank you very much. The problematic language was NOT in the original text of our citizens' group, nor was it the work of our group's attorney, Siegel.

Instead, it was the handiwork of former Deputy Law Director Mary Ann Stackhouse and it was approved by former Law Director John Owings.

That point being clear, it may not cost taxpayers in the end, if County Commission can correct the charter amendment's text in the nearly one year remaining before any special election for Lockett's replacement is needed. Let's hope so.

If Commission can't correct it, though, the real cost comparison to be made is that of any special election for Lockett's replacement, approximately $270000, versus the cost of keeping him around for four years to order the Law Department's paper clips, $600000. Still a no-brainer, don't you think???

Tamara Shepherd
Recall Amendment Drive (2007)
Lockett Recall Initiative (2009)

(link...)

SnM's picture

re: cost culpability

Hi Tamara,

I'd like to think the snark did not convey the idea that the recall movement is responsible for the cost. But if it did, then it seems to me the tapayers should accept responsibility. :-)

Tamara Shepherd's picture

No prob w/Snark

Oh, no, Scott--Snark Bites didn't make any such allegation. I really appreciate that today's KNS story by Hayes Hickman set the record straight, too.

I guess I'm touchy on this question of who is culpable for any potentially high special election costs since reading comments at the WBIR site suggesting our 2007 citizens' group should be. I just wanted to share my KNS post here, too, to make doubly sure folks know the problem didn't arise due to any error our citizens' group made.

Sheesh...we spent some $$$ out-of-pocket to get this thing done, only to have the Law Department come along behind us and screw it up.

redmondkr's picture

Thanks, Tam!

Recall Bill Lockett

Tamara's been here - or maybe one of her elves.


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JCW's picture

That is AWESOME!

That is AWESOME!!!

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