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• KNS is live blogging.

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• Lisa Starbuck is live blogging here at KnoxViews

• Steve Drevik is live blogging at his Reform4 blog.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has comments from several County Commissioners regarding the criteria they will use to appoint interim replacements for twelve county offices vacated first by a term limits lawsuit then again by a subsequent "sunshine" lawsuit over the first appointment process.

The special County Commission meeting to appoint interim replacements will be held Wednesday, Feb. 20th at 9AM in the City County Building Main Assembly Room.

Following are the applicants for interim replacements according to the KNS, with links to KNS profiles or resumes submitted by the applicants where available. (Please let me know if this list is not accurate.)

As an editorial comment, I find it interesting and disappointing that none of this is mentioned on the Knox County Commission website.

It's great that they adopted a more open process and conducted a series of public forums for the replacement appointments (prompted by the "sunshine" lawsuit, I'm sure). But there's no announcement of the date, time, or place of the special meeting that I can find on the Knox County website (apologies if I missed it and if someone can find it please let me know), there's no listing of applicants or background information, no minutes or reports from the public forums, no explanation of the process, and no agenda for the meeting. They are leaving it all up to the media to communicate this to the public.

This is pretty lame given the concerns about more "open government" in Knox County. They shouldn't expect the local media (or bloggers for that matter) to do their job for them in terms of outreach and communication, just like the KNS shouldn't have to take them to court to make them do their job out in the open.

(Again, apologies if this information is somewhere on the Knox County or County Commission website. I just wasn't able to find it.)

The Swear Them In and They Vote Them In proposal on filling the County Commission vacancies is just a horrible idea. Who came up with it? I had first heard that it was in a footnote in Chancellor Fansler opinion. This is untrue. It is NOT in Chancellor Fansler's opinion.

For one thing, people would be sworn in and start voting who had not been preparing themselves for such a vote, but trying to win such a vote for themselves. Mostly likely, they will not be reading resumes of various other candidates, talking to various other candidates, etc. If they do start talking among themselves, will they start to lobby each other and cut deals among each other? This presumably would not violate the Open Meetings law, since they are not yet elected to the Commission, but is this a good thing to encourage?

And how would such interplay work out when the candidates start interacting with the Commissioners?

Most importantly, such a procedure will place a premium among the existing commissioners on controlling the order in which seats are filled. We will start to see the same kind of pushing and shoving we saw last time. John Valliant will become involved.

If anyone wants to maximize the "raw politics" we will see in County Commission trying again to fill these vacacncies, by all means, let's do this.

Word has it that Billy Tindell has filed his petition for the County Clerk seat he was supposedly "keeping warm" for Scoobie! Here we go...

Jack McElroy has an update on the KNS lawsuit. He says he hears through informal channels that County Commission might like to settle. McElroy says the KNS is pressing on and discovery will commence any day now.

The topic on WBIR's Inside Tennessee this week (Sunday, WBIR, 9:30 am) will be the KNS lawsuit against Knox County Commission.

KNS Editor and Plaintiff Jack McElroy, Frank Gibson from the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, and County Commissioners Scott Moore and Lumpy Lambert will be the guests. Robin Wilhoit will be moderating.

From KNS Editor Jack McElroy's blog:

As I've mentioned here before, the News Sentinel felt obligated to sue because of the impunity with which the commissioners ignored the Sunshine Law when they picked 12 replacements for term-limited office-holders. This law is one that has no real provision for enforcement other than citizens going to court. Based on the way the Commission behaved on Jan. 31, we figured we either had to sue or acknowledge that, in Knox County, the Open Meetings Act was meaningless.

Read the whole thing, including threats by Moore to go after KNS phone records and reporter's notes when Knox County Law Director John Owings suggested that County Commissioner's phone records and e-mails could come out in discovery.

Say what you will about the KNS, and I've said plenty and had plenty of differences of opinion on their editorial policy (from a political and unfortunately personal standpoint), but the KNS and McElroy are fighting the good fight here, for whatever it's worth.

Maybe it's all for show to sell papers. Or maybe it's symbolic and won't amount to anything in the end. But I'm sensing it's for real, at least on some level. Some stuff is so outrageous that it transcends KNOXGOB business as usual, and there's no more ignoring it or going along because even the most casually informed citizen can tell something is wrong.

OK, then.

The Knoxville News Sentinel explores the Knox County Commission family tree. Plus there's a handy chart. This was in the "local news" section. Maybe it should have been in the "lifestyles" section.

From Scott Barker's KNS article referenced earlier in Disclosures VII regarding newly appointed County Commissioner Richard Cate: "Cate said they've paid their tax bills. "I have a clean bill of health with the IRS and the state tax people and the county tax people," Cate said.

It appears, however, that one of his companies involved in a bankruptcy mentioned in the article (Blaze Fence, listed as administratively dissolved by the Tennessee Secretary of State) owes more than $4200 in unpaid property taxes to Knox County and the City of Knoxville. (Details here, PDF format). There are also unpaid taxes on another piece of property owned by Cate.

Paul Pinkston said he wouldn't consider a nominee who owed back taxes. Did Pinkston vote for Cate? I don't recall. (UPDATE: He did not.)

In a totally unrelated disclosure, there's this from an October 1998 Knoxville News Sentinel article by Tom Humphrey:

The [Registry of Election Finance] is threatening to impose fines on two Knoxvillians for failure to file required reports on their 1998 lobbying activities.

Richard Cate, who registered as a lobbyist for the Downtown Organization of Knoxville, faces a civil penalty of $750. Bill Nolan, a veteran lobbyist who has represented several clients, faces a penalty of $400.

Cate still had not filed his required report, said Peggy Nance Williams, executive director of the registry. Nolan filed but did so past the deadline for doing so, she said.

The point of all this is not to pile on, but that County Commission did not perform due diligence on the nominees and that there were no public meetings to discuss possible issues with these unelected officials.

As a follow up to Disclosures III, the Knoxville News Sentinel's Scott Barker has the details on newly appointed County Commissioner Richard Cate's sexual harassment lawsuit and previous bankruptcies.

According to the article, several commissioners said they did not know about this before voting to appoint Cate to County Commission.

Bonus: bizarro quote from Lumpy Lambert:

"I don't know (Cate) extremely well, but he does not seem like the type to do something like that," Lambert said. "But Ted Bundy didn't either."

Which is why Lumpy is the media's favorite go to guy for commentary on county politics.

Jonathan Wimmer tells all about the secret back room deal he was offered by Lumpy Lambert for a seat on County Commission. There was no gunplay involved.

Scott Barker reports five possible violations of state mandated ethics rules adopted by County Commission.

Those contacted for the article have some great excuses. Scooby says: "I think a reasonable person that comes to commission every month would realize my wife works for the sheriff because y'all have printed it so much." Leuthold said he disclosed his job with the trustee's office in his campaign materials.

As mentioned in comments and elsewhere, Knox Co. Mayor Ragsdale has called for a special election to coincide with the citywide elections slated for September and November of this year.

At the same press conference, he announced nominations for the new ethics committee. He also made this interesting remark:

"it has become evident to me that more needs to be done to examine these issues throughout Knox County Government, including in my own office. I will be asking the Ethics Committee to evaluate the hiring practices of the executive branch first, and I will fully support their efforts."

Not computer literate enough to post link directly, so go to (link...)

ED. NOTE: Story here.

ED. UPDATES:

From the article: "The News Sentinel is seeking to void all the appointments made by commissioners, have a permanent injunction laid down by the court requiring that all future deliberations be made in public, and that the case be expedited."

The lawsuit posted at the KNS website (PDF format).

Jack McElroy has more at his blog.

I hate to pile on, and it's not as if Josh Jordan doesn't already have enough troubles, but here's another curiosity.

In his resume submitted to County Commission, Jordan lists his occupation as Owner/Licensed Contractor, M&M TN 1 CONSTRUCTION, LLC. August 2005 – present. Among his duties, he lists "Working with KCDC, Knoxville Urban League, City of Knoxville Community Development and other local companies and programs to find tenants for new and rehabilitated units."

According to the Tennessee Secretary of State, the Department of Revenue revoked the company's charter in November, 2006. There is no reason given, but it could be an indication of tax issues.

Sheriff Tim Hutchison gave out pay raises of up to 22% "just five days after learning that the state Supreme Court's term limits decision meant he would soon be forced from office."

But wait, there's more. The report confirms that term limited commissioner Mark Cawood was hired by newly appointed Sheriff J.J. Jones the day after Cawood voted to appoint Jones. It also says that Cawood first talked to the Sheriff's department about a position last fall, and that a Sheriff's department spokesperson says Hutchison hired him two weeks ago.

In 2004, a federal jury awarded $250,000 to a woman who "alleged she was fired after ending a consensual romantic relationship with the nursing home’s owner." The owner listed in the case is Richard Cate. Is this the same newly appointed Knox County Commissioner Richard Cate? Details of the case can be found here (pg. 7, "Sexual Harassment").

"At least two commissioners who voted for him said they didn’t know about Jordan’s past Wednesday but hope he’s put it behind him.

Here is the court document referenced in the article.

From a comment below, WBIR reports "New Knox County Trustee Fred Sisk announced Friday that [former Trustee Mike] Lowe will remain on staff as Deputy Trustee. Lowe will replace Sisk, who was making $75,000 annually for the same job."

Expect some news over the next few days regarding some commissioners appointed this week and back taxes, and maybe some other things. And don't forget Pinkston saying he couldn't support a nominee who had outstanding taxes.

It doesn't appear County Commission went to much effort to vet the nominees or do much in the way of due diligence. All of this would have been aired if there had been a special election, or at least an official series of public meetings.