Well, I guess I've opined a time or two already that I don't think much of it.

As for Joe's comment here...

And an audit by the state comptroller’s office found that (former Sevier County Clerk Joe Keener) made $121,000 in payments to eGov on an improper basis.

...the 2010 Comptroller's audit of the Sevier County Clerk's office did say this, and it also said that Padgett had been paid a total of $407,534 over the five years prior, all of it "bypass(ing) the county's budgeting and purchasing processes (see pdf page 222)."

Also, the 2009 Comptroller's audit of the Sumner County Purchasing Department chided them for "not perform(ing) the purchasing functions...as provided in the private act since each general government department performs its own purchasing functions (pdf page 221)."

It appeared to me, then, that Padgett's clients in both these counties were the result of improperly bidded contracts (if they were bidded at all) and that he was improperly paid--definitely in Sevier and likely in Sumner--by both clients, too.

I'm speaking more here to ethics than to experience, I suppose, but I just have a distaste for this kind of approach to business in anyone running for public office.

Let the sun shine.

Well, what can you say. This Padgett candidacy is one of the strangest thing I have ever seen. This guy would has never showed any interest in any issue, never attended a neighborhood meeting, never voted in a city election. He waltzes into town and claims to be qualified, not for council, which would be a stretch, but for mayor. There is nothing there but this business. And there is nothing there to suggest any ability to lead and manage a city. He does not have many employees and does not have many clients. Hey,I am glad the guy is working on his business and hope he someday makes it work for him and his family. But mayor, now? oh wait. He has this wad of money and some talking points. I am looking to spend the next couple of months hearing about how Madeline is "anti business" and other such nonsense or that she wants to have striking firefighters. Would somebody who plans on actually voting for this guy explain how that would be anything but irresponsible.

There is nothing there but this business.

Where'd you find it?!

No offense. You've been on such a rant that I completely missed the joke.

Glad to know you know the location.

No offense. You've been on such a rant that I completely missed the joke.

No offense taken. But what you call a "rant," I just call a "close examination."

Here is a candidate running solely on his "business acumen," because, as others have pointed out, he lacks any record of public service or public involvement. Or voting in the city, even.

What can we gauge except the viability of this business he touts?

HOW can we gauge its viability except by "closely examining" the income it produces (which those prior years' tax returns shot up), the number of clients it serves (which Joe shoots up here), or maybe the manner in which he delivers his product and/or the quality of that product.

My comments above speak to the manner in which he delivers his product, which in those two settings appears to be "through the back door."

I have previously spoken to the quality of his primary product, namely his software to allow online payments of motor vehicle registration, to point out that in another Sevier County Clerk audit (for 2009, pdf page 240) comptrollers issued a finding specifically titled "The motor vehicle software did not have adequate controls."

That's not MY opinion, you understand, that's THEIR finding.

The business isn't profitable. It serves few clients. It appears--in these two cases, at least--to rely on avoiding real competition in the manner required by statute. And the quality of its primary product, this motor vehicle software, was called into question by this independent authority, the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury.

For the life of me, I can't see anything insidious in simply pointing out these things.

I suppose that leaves us relying on Governor Bill Haslam, who now serves on UT's Board of Trustees, to communicate to his peers his oft-quoted opinion that "running a city isn't much like running a business," eh?

And possibly young Mr. Padgett will catch wind of it.

Ah, thanks for that clarification, Bill.

Maybe I learned about this new Masters in Public Policy and Administration more recently, then, at the Baker Center's site.

My son and I were reading there this past spring, to see if he might have any interest in the Center's high school internship program.

Anyway, sorry to have taken us off-topic on my original point, which was simply that Madeline is better prepared for the job of mayor by virtue of both her prior academic training and her continuing vocation.

From Joe's article:

Padgett: "...and if you’ve never created your first job how are you going to know what that looks like?”

I'm just hoping any new jobs headed into town don't "look like" those few Padgett created...

I was thinking last night about his brand of "job creation" relative to that of former Mayor Victor Ashe's.

Back in the day, we weren't much happy with those low-paying call centers Victor brought to town in the name of "economic development," but if our choice is between Padgett's brand of "job creation," namely project-oriented contract labor, and Ashe's, I'll take the latter.

At least Ashe's new jobs were permanent in nature, offered employee insurance and benefits, paid into our Social Security accounts, and afforded us the cushion of unemployment benefits, should the work dry up!

From the MP column:

Padgett acknowledges that eGov has yet to turn a profit, but insists that’s because he’s elected to pour all its revenue (beyond the meager $29,092 in compensation he took last year) back into enlarging and enhancing the firm’s software product line. ...

So, if I understand correctly, Padgett's business has a different primary objective than making a profit. The questions then would be "what is(are) the primary objective(s)? What are the successes of which Padgett speaks? Would he bring these arbitrary definitions of success to the mayor's office?

Perhaps as Joe S intimates, a bit more seasoning and experience would be appropriate.

On that note, and since we've spent so much time scrutinizing Mark Padgett's seemingly shallow business credentials, I'd like to recognize for a moment the courage it took this young Democrat to jump headfirst into 1) an innovative small business venture and 2) the big tent of Democratic politics.

Weeell, I know some of you--maybe all of you--think I've beat up on the kid unmercifully, but I just don't see his political or professional style either one as "courageous."

To me, it just looks "overly confident" at best, or "arrogant" at worst.

I mean, we have all questioned that he presumed to run for mayor before ever having tried to run for a council seat, right?

Along those same lines, I am questioning that he presumed to launch a software development company before ever having worked for one!

Given the age difference between us, it's not that difficult for me to look on Padgett's political and professional aspirations and reflect on them in terms of the counsel I would give my own kids in these matters.

I would--and do--teach them that for everything we hope to accomplish, there are certain "rites of passage" we have to move through, sequentially.

I'm speaking to this "apprenticeship" each of us has to serve in our youth, no matter our political or professional goals.

With no mean-spiritedness intended, I just don't get any sense that this kid was ever taught it.

And yeah, I'm put off by that.

Let me try to fill in the math for that observation I just made:

I think KNS is now reporting Padgett's age as 33, but that they reported he was 32 at the time he threw his hat into the mayoral ring.

Counting backwards, he has been out of college no more than 10 or so years, or since around 2001.

I don't know how he spent the two or so years between college graduation and 2003.

In January of 2003, though, he got a politcal patronage job, surely with the help of his dad, within the Bredesen administration's Department of Safety.

He formed C. P. Liberty in September of 2004 and left the Department of Safety a month later.

By 2005, he was again seeking his dad's aid in securing that no-bid contract for online motor vehicle registration here in Knox County, ultimately to no avail.

He secured the no-bid contract in the Sevier County Clerk office, the only one he'll soon have left among Clerks, in 2006, per that reference the Comptroller makes to the number of years he was paid there.

Furthermore, it appears that Blake Bookstaff might have had more to do with his securing that one than did Padgett himself. Blake's dad, Jim, owns 28 properties in Sevier County and sits on the board of the local bank.

I don't know, either, how many of Padgett's clients were obtained "through the back door" with these no-bid contracts, but that I've already confirmed two of them were--Sevier and Sumner, it looks like--is unsettling to me, given how few clients he has total.

So I'm asking: Where is the chutzpah, the daring-do?

I see only two years in which this young man could have possibly--but not undoubtedly--stood on his own two feet.

And I see nearly a decade of his being propped up by his daddy and possibly a business associate of whom we yet have questions.

I realize he sports a "D" by his name, but I'm having some difficulty contrasting his life experiences to date from Lumpy Lambert's...

Maybe I should have bolded this observation, Toby:

I see only two years in which this young man could have possibly--but not undoubtedly--stood on his own two feet.

He is 33 now. That's young, but also old enough to try to get some kind of work fairly, and by oneself.

Anyway, I've had my say and won't belabor the point.

Talk to you folks later.

"What makes someone suspect is when they use the advantage their surname gives them, but then also seemingly exaggerate their level of experience in a given area, offering that as a core credential"

As in Nancy Sinatra trying to sing.