Bike friendly?
Tb- I've sponsored legislation but cyclists need to follow rules  
Th-  PSAs can help

Criteria for chief of staff?
Th- experience with county business
Tb- qualified, but the door needs to be open to all citizens

Changes to HR processes
Tb- eliminate pcards
Th-  only 6 cards were unlimited and caused problems. The good ones saved money

City buildings, courts, schools- allow guns?
Th- no
Tb-no

Should exec level county employees have side jobs
Tb- no
Th- if it doesn't interfere with their jobs 

Change PBA?
Th- yes, more open bids
Tb- more transparent 

Pension obligations and budget pressure
tb- pension should go to rank and file, not part-time lawyers
Th- people voted on it, mayor didn't raise taxes as required.

Metro Gov't?
Th- I oppose, I've fought against it
TB- eliminate silly duplication of services

I'd like to hear someone ask them what they would do to implement the recommendations of the Hillside/Ridgetop Task Force.

Also, what qualifications they would look for in MPC appointees.

Library cuts?
Tb- reduce hours if needed, look at new tech
th- we overbuilt branches, close some

homeless?
Th- oppose to neighborhood shelters. Keep them near downtown infrastucture
tb- the issue is mental illness, it's a bigger and growing problem like returning vets

your strongest professional accomplishment?
Tb- passed tough crime laws, protecting children.
Th- made split second decisions as police officer. Decisions on where to put limited police officers

3 measuable goals?
EM- unify govt / less bickering, reduce debt, attract business
MM- afterschool programs, reduce crime, restore trust

create jobs?
Mm- reduce entertainment tax
EM- keep businesses here, build community based businesses, support local entreprenuers

Secret chamber meetings?
Em- more transparency
Mm- same

how to improve. transpoarency?
Mm- post online
Em- hire staff with integrity

3 measuable goals?
EM- unify govt / less bickering, reduce debt, attract business
MM- afterschool programs, reduce crime, restore trust

create jobs?
Mm- reduce entertainment tax
EM- keep businesses here, build community based businesses, support local entreprenuers

Secret chamber meetings?
Em- more transparency
Mm- same

how to improve. transpoarency?
Mm- post online
Em- hire staff with integrity

Ranks arts in economic development and quality of life
Mm- high, we need things that stand out
Em- high, but sometimes we waste money, many people don't stop on way to pigeon forge

Public health initiative
Em- teach kids about healthy living, AIDS
Mm- Adults as good examples 

Environmental initiative
Mm- use local braintrust for ideas
Em- green / solar  

How to tap young people with fresh ideas?
Em- need to keep them from leaving Knoxville
Mm- agree, need to promote new entreprenues starting up

Criteria fir chief of staff
Mm- loyalty, we will take pay cut, be available 24 hrs
Em- experience is more important than loyalty  

Ranks arts in economic development and quality of life
Mm- high, we need things that stand out
Em- high, but sometimes we waste money, many people don't stop on way to pigeon forge

Public health initiative
Em- teach kids about healthy living, AIDS
Mm- Adults as good examples 

Environmental initiative
Mm- use local braintrust for ideas
Em- green / solar  

How to tap young people with fresh ideas?
Em- need to keep them from leaving Knoxville
Mm- agree, need to promote new entreprenues starting up

Criteria fir chief of staff
Mm- loyalty, we will take pay cut, be available 24 hrs
Em- experience is more important than loyalty  

Eliminate city/county duplication
Em- against metro but there is duplication and waste
Mm- I am for metro Gov't.

What will you do to help young people?
Mm-  we can personally engage and encourage them
Em- be role model

Execs with a side job?
Em- off the clock, ok
Mm- no

Air/water quality
Mm- use braintrust for ideas
Em- car inspections. 

How would you hold public officials accountable?
Em- realistically it's hard to do, but hire good people.  Fire people not doing job
Mm- be a strong manager, more transparency

Guns in courts/schools?   No and no.  

What are parents most concerned about?
Em- safety/crime
Mm- safety and good education

Use arts to increase tourism?
Mm- promote it better
Em-  

Eliminate city/county duplication
Em- against metro but there is duplication and waste
Mm- I am for metro Gov't.

What will you do to help young people?
Mm-  we can personally engage and encourage them
Em- be role model

Execs with a side job?
Em- off the clock, ok
Mm- no

Air/water quality
Mm- use braintrust for ideas
Em- car inspections. 

How would you hold public officials accountable?
Em- realistically it's hard to do, but hire good people.  Fire people not doing job
Mm- be a strong manager, more transparency

Guns in courts/schools?   No and no.  

What are parents most concerned about?
Em- safety/crime
Mm- safety and good education

Use arts to increase tourism?
Mm- promote it better
Em-
---
Homeless?
Em- rehabilitation and supportive community.  Use baptist south perhaps
Mm- communities should have input.  Need more energy expended

Raising taxes?
Mm- no.  People overpaid in county Gov't. 
Em- can't rule out, but don't want to.  Must preserve bond rating.

Nepotism policy?
Em- against it, my wife said so
Mm- 

Pension obligations?
Mm- review it 
Em- sheriffs pension was handled badly.          

How do we speed slow criminal court?
Mm- expand hours to open on Saturdays
Em- entend hours in day

Changes in HR?
Em- more specific and realistic review process?
Mm- same, improve who is doing reviews?

Biggest Accomplishment?
Mm- running for mayor to help people
Em- minister, changing lives

Good job, Steve.

Important debate, strong questions. Enjoyed it. Had to get back to type up R's, but Larry V G covered D's last Tuesday in Powell.

Maize drove a Rolls to Powell.

Tonight he drove a Lexus with a "Jesus" vanity plate.

Nice work, Steve. Thanks.

(link...)

150 people out of 400,000 plus in Knox County attended the Knox County Mayoral candidate forum tonight.

Do you think if the forum was reported in the stupid daily paper more people would have known about it?

Unbelievable.

Expect a record low turnout this time.

However, KnoxViews did report the forum time and place today and Steve did a great job above live blogging. Apparently the daily paper does not have that technology. Tell us Steve, how do you do it?

Is this why so few people read the Knoxville News Sentinel? I think so.

But it is so nice of Georgiana Vines to report the story no one knew about after it doesn't matter. Nice work Georgiana.

One other thing, it could have been televised. But Steve didn't have the equipment. I guess we need to pass the hat and buy Steve some cameras.

Because clearly CTV and/or the stupid daily paper couldn't ever televise something this important.

I guess they think people will flip a coin or something. Or trust them to make the decisions for us. The more likely outcome is people will forget there is an election.

So what do you think? Will the county election top 18% of registered voters? Put up a poll R. Neal.

Nine, we reported the debate was coming up in a story that appeared Wednesday.

(link...)

This article from Sunday mentions it too, though it doesn't include the time.

(link...)

Scott Barker
KNS

This is a fair synopsis of what happened. However, I do not understand why the continuing criticism of the type of vehicle Reverend Maize drives has anything to do with his qualifications or his reasons for seeking this office. I do not see any mention here of one GOP candidate's ability to borrow $2 million for a business that is now defunct. Also, the question posed to all 4 candidates about their strongest accomplishment, the best response was Rev. Maize who talked about his pride and personal joy in serving as a Pastor for over 18 years, his leadership in helping and mentoring his church families.
And I did get the feeling from the GOP answers that, yes, the network of the 'good ole boys' is still alive; guess that is why they were NOT asked what they thought of Nepotism in government! And while none of the candidates mentioned the elephant in the room of the worst air quality here,caused by coal fired and nuke power plants,(he did mention his son and many children here with asthma), Rev. Maize did stress his interest in green energy AND boosting use of solar power...with new businesses here that can be a source for this cheaper, cleaner environmental power.

Yes, Steve, excellent job! Thanks.

The use of the word debate is not appropriate for what was hosted at West High School last night. It was a forum not a debate. A question and answer session is not a debate. I attended and I saw no answers from any candidate that had much substance, just watered down answers with pandering and telling voters what they want to hear. Is no one of the candidates for Mayor of Knox County prepared to engage in real debate that most voters say they want to hear?

None of the four of these candidates are qualified to be the county mayor. I doubt any of them know the 14 duties of the mayor that is spelled out in the Knox County Charter. Ten of the fourteen duties of the Mayor are in the financial area.

Of the six who have submitted petitions to run for Knox County Mayor, here is the only qualified candidate with a business background and the institutional knowledge of fund accounting, capable of doing the job. From knoxvillechamber.com

(link...)

Personally, I found the answers to be a little empty from all four candidates. There was a lot of wishful musing about the importance of education, the homelessness problem, the arts, transparency in government, and even business growth, but very few concrete ideas. These candidates must have a load of pixie dust in their back pockets, or it will be another 4-8 years of the same nothing.

The only concrete answers I saw:
- pretty much all 4 candidates would end support for art programs that benefit us economically, like Dogwood Arts festival

- Hutchison would definitely close library branches

- Burchett would likely add a new program to address childhood obesity in the schools

- Maize would probably push the hardest for green industry initiatives.

- McBath would slash county employee salaries, especially at the highest levels.

- Everybody was opposed to guns in schools (duh!)

- Burchett would add a new position for energy efficiency in county operations. I thought this was probably one of the better ideas of the evening (but make it a one-term limited job, please).

That was pretty much it. All the other responses were unclear, unspecific, or unrealistic, IMHO. Or they talk about doing things we are already doing / have done for the last 10 years, without any suggestions of how to improve the process.

It will be interesting to hear from Cosby in the General.

Thanks for the link! To all, the main link (where you can also read Tim Burchett's responses) are at:

(link...)

Note that Cosby's responses are very detailed....

Were voters less informed before the internet? With local news stories available online almost instantly, do voters have a tool to become more educated on the issues as well as the personalities of people in political office or seeking a position in local government? The days of politicians debating face to face, with people seeking office personally explaining their positions on issues has turned into forums with pre-arranged questions and answers, with candidates groomed by PR firms and financed by PACS and big business interests. How can a voter learn who a candidate is and how he would represent the public?

It looks as if we have lost the interest of the local community when it comes to voting for the best candidate to hold office. There must be a better way of selecting qualified people to serve in public office. After years of very low voter turnout in Knox County Elections, there was an upturn after the Black Wednesday incident. Now we seem to be heading back to the past with lower voter turnout. People tend to just vote along party lines and don’t take the time to vet the candidates.

Is there anything that can be done to engage the public in the local County elections? Would a live debate with questions from the public stimulate the voters to become more involved with the voting process? Would voters being more informed make the more qualified candidates win the elections? The whole process appears to have become predetermined by partisan politics and the voters appear to just accept that fact.

An Independent Candidate for County Mayor has other less than equal issues with the election process in Knox County. Independent candidates for the most part are not invited to participate in candidate forums as these forums are segregated between Democrats and Republicans. In fact, it is worse than that. The Democratic candidates for County Mayor are not allowed to debate with the Republican candidates for Mayor before the Primary vote. Let’s think about this. A person who wants to understand what the Mayoral candidates stand for has to watch two separate candidate forums and try to remember what the candidates said. These forums are sometimes several weeks apart. How does that help the voters to understand the positions of the candidates? How does that encourage voter participation? Why not have all six County Mayoral candidates on one stage at one time with a moderator, and let the candidates each answer questions from the audience. How can there be an election for the chief fiscal officer of Knox County without having a public debate to let the voters see who the candidates are and hear their positions on issues? A forum is just not a debate. Segregating the political parties to different times to address the audience and answer questions skews the discussion and is too much of a controlled atmosphere.

On Tennessee This Week with Gene Patterson last Sunday the 11th we saw County Mayoral candidate Ezra Maize inform the public that the KCEA, the Knox County Teacher’s Union, allowed special privileges for one County Mayoral Candidate. The Teacher’s Union explained that the Mayoral candidates had to show up in person for the Teacher’s Union interview so they could select their endorsement for County Mayor. Except for Senator Tim Burchett. We were informed that the KCEA would interview Mr. Burchett in Nashville with their lobbyists. What makes Senator Burchett so special? Why was an exception made for him?

The Knoxville Chamber invited the candidates to a debate they were going to host. Several weeks later Garrett Wagley, Director of Communications & Government Relations for the Knoxville Chamber said there was a scheduling and logistics issue and so they were canceling the debate. Candidates other than Mr. Burchett were prepared to attend. Should an election revolve around any one candidate? If one of the other candidates had a scheduling issue, the other candidates could still debate, even with one empty chair. How can the public learn whether a Mayoral Candidate has what it takes negotiate county business if they do not see him face his opponents in public debate?

We should improve the interface between the candidates and the voters by having inclusive Mayoral debates with all candidates before the Primary vote. Why segregate these candidate forums and waste the voter’s time? It is much easier to remember what was said when all of the candidates are there in one place at the same time. Let each candidate for County Mayor answer the same question and give the voters some real information.

There are reasons why people don’t vote. Moreover, we should think outside the box to find ways to improve voter participation. We should look back to the past, before 24 hour news and the internet became the voter’s information source. A good old fashioned debate would be a good way to spark the interest of the voting public.

I suggest a candidate debate at the Knoxville Convention Center with all of the County Mayoral Candidates. Have it televised on local television. Have a good moderator like Gene Patterson and have the questions written down on cards as the public walks in. Let’s spend some time and give the people what they need. Real information.

Let’s encourage our voters to be part of this crucial representative process. We must find new and better ways to involve the community in their government.

It seems to me Mr. Cosby's name recognition is in need of improvement. In listening to the last debate I was caught by surprise by the former Sheriff describing the chief of staff he would hire, and perhaps it was meant to be a compliment to Mr. Cosby, but the qualifications seemed to be tailored to Mr. Cosby. Did anyone else have that feeling or notice it? I suppose I wouldn't have thought much about it had not Mr. Cosby been sitting in the audience with several of the former Sheriff's former employees.

Mr. Cosby seems to be planning several debates and I think Rachel is entirely right; such events need to be planned and carefully so. I am also sure it takes a lot of effort to successfully plan such an event. The respective candidates must agree and the voters must have selected the candidate during the primaries.

Nine, did I overlook your response to Barker's question about whether you were at Friday's forum? I didn't see you there.

You are arguing at cross purposes. First you say that Burchett is supported by Democrats. Then you predict that come August, Democrats will flock to Cosby, a Republican running as an Independent.

If Hutchison polls Scooby Moore/Lee Tramel numbers, there aren't going to be enough disgruntled Hutchisonites to swing a flyswatter, let alone an election.

Mr. Cosby's placing third in name recognition is hardly anything to crow about, given the relative obscurity of the rest of the field – although I suspect that the Rev. Maize's recent publicity offensive may have vaulted him ahead of Mr. Cosby for now.

I don't believe Google hits are the most accurate measurement of the opinions of likely voters, and I don't think you do, either

And of course the good Reverend is being shined on by Hutchison supporters who are suggesting that they will support him in the General Election, which is about as likely as me running the Boston Marathon.

It appears that your side has decided that the best you've got is vicious rumors about Tim Burchett and his family, and to date the media have turned their collective noses up at this spew.

So you didn't attend?

It would be nice to get a straight answer out of you for once.

Bruce Williams, for someone with a wife who is running for office, you are behaving in an alarmingly reckless fashion. I feel sorry for Lillian, from whom I bought several pieces of art and who seems to be a perfectly nice woman. She'd probably have a good chance of getting elected if not for you.

"Will Burchett play in North, East, and South Knox County?"

We'll find out in two weeks and two days.

Where is North? South of Fountain City?

Bwahahaha!
That's a good 'un, Nine. Everything south of I-640 at the Broadway interchange down to Henley Street is North Knoxville, and is represented by Burchett, which you of course already knew, dincha?

Nine's living the dream, Rachel. And he was actually real nice and polite to Burchett when he called in to the George Korda Show today.

We will soon know and my own guess is Senator Burchett will carry the city and county. And not by a little bit either and I'm sure the rhetoric will have to be changed, but the election returns will certainly answer that question.

Once again the good ole boys club - did anyone think to ask the Candidates if they received the Chambers Questionaire? The Maize Camp did not. It is interesting to note which two obviously DID receive it. Hmmmmmm

Sounds like this primary might be between the voters living within the city limits and the voters living outside the city limits. Is that possible? Anyone have any stats on voter counts for previous primaries like this one (e.g. how many voters live in the city limits, outside the city limits, how did they vote)?

Hutchison's biggest margins were in Gibbs,Halls,Karns,Powell & Farragut.

Hutchison won those wards,combined,by about 1300 votes.

The city went marginally for JJ except in Sequoyah Hills where JJ won 303-194.Fort Sanders voted JJ-19 Hutchison-1.

Also,in East Knoxville,1022 voted in the county Democratic Primary.153 in the county Republican Primary.

One key difference between 2002 & 2010.Contested Democratic Primary for county Commission.BTW,Tank won.

Remember,at that time,we could not separate early vote per ward.Futhermore,this total does not include early vote.

Hutchison-11,576
JJ-9,116

Knoxville News-Sentinal May 8,2002.

Hutchison has never done well in the city, historically speaking. City returns come in first on election night, giving his opponents a little bump and a lot of false hope. I recall that Jim Andrews had a pretty good lead until Halls, Powell and Farragut came rolling in with big Hutchison margins.

Last election, Hutch was not on the ballot, but I remember being told by number crunching friends that some of his worst wards were traditionally in the 4th District, particularly Bearden and Rocky Hill, and sure enough, his surrogate Lee Tramel got trounced there.

His attitude this time around reflects that divide, particularly on the issue of homelessness. He pretty much says he's for keeping the Mission District. There is little down side in that position, politically, since the 2nd District won't go for him anyhow.

Hutchison is generally popular in areas that were served exclusively by his department, and that stands to reason because he was a pretty good sheriff, law enforcement-wise. He was also a champion of the anti-annexation, anti-metro people, which served him well at the ballot box. It was when he tried to expand his power as a political boss that he got in trouble, and he did that more and more over the years.

It's humorous to hear him painting himself as a practitioner of transparency, criticizing the wheel tax and promising to open the CCB parking garage. These were not his positions or practices when he was in office.

Don't forget this is a Republican Primary not a general election.

2002 Republican Primary:

Belle Morris:
JJ-110
Hutch-104

Lincoln Park:
JJ-49
Hutch-37

Bearden Elementary:
JJ-99
Hutch-84

Rocky Hill:
Hutch-309
JJ-288

However,that was then & this is now.

And alot of water's gone under the bridge since then.

Bizgrrl ask if anybody had any returns from past elections.

I had been looking over some numbers from the 2002 county Republican primary.It was a contested county Republican primary.And Hutchinson was running vs JJ.

According to the N-S returns from 2002 Republican Primary.

I was suprised by the results.

In the 4th district,Bearden Elem,Bearden High,Bearden Middle(45),Deane Hill Rec & West Hills were all very,very close.

And as posted Hutch won Rocky Hill.

Plus I was also suprised how close Belle Morris & Lincoln Park were.

That was 8 years ago & alot has happened.Comparing the returns of the 2002 Primary to what might happen this time could well be a apples & oranges deal.

But these are raw numbers,from the only recent primary,that Hutch had opposition.

And do reflect a difference between Hutch's historical general election vote & his historical primary vote.

Again could be apples & oranges..but numbers crunchers can only crunch the numbers they have.

And the 2002 Republican primary is the only numbers we have on Hutch.

Burchett's never run in a Republican county primary.
Just state primaries.

And there is a bit of a difference.