Dwight Van de Vate issues an official response from the County Mayor's office regarding the use of county purchasing cards for personal medical expenditures:

It has come to my attention that a story will be published in the Halls Shopper News regarding a charge on the Mayor’s p-card. The gist of the story is that the Mayor charged the co-pay for a medical procedure on his card. Although this may be new information to the Halls Shopper News, it is not new anywhere else. The Mayor discussed this with WBIR last month. Apparently they didn’t believe this particular matter merited public discussion.

[..]

We readily acknowledge that serious, substantive issues regarding the p-cards have come to light. At the core of these issues are serious allegations of misconduct over the use of these cards by three former employees of Knox County. An attempt to confuse an honest mistake by any employee of Knox County, including the Mayor, with these other issues is both ridiculous and reprehensible.

Memo to County Commission attached [1] (PDF format).