I have mixed feelings about crossing over, too. I was thinking the same thing about voting for Park Overall. Troy Gooddale will already be on the ticket against Duncan, so that's not a consideration until the general.

On the other hand, we have a state senate race that will be decided in the R primary in which I am seriously considering voting out of self defense against a tea party nut who has old school R support.

My thinking is that a) Park Overall will probably get the D nomination regardless, b) she recently tried to withdraw because of health problems but it was too late, so she is soldiering on but only half-heartedly, and c) there's no chance in hell any D will beat Corker anyway. (The KNS says he will be president someday!)

The state races may pose a more immediate threat to my sanity and wellbeing, and since there aren't any D's on my ballot I'm torn about crossing over and voting for the lesser of evils.

I probably won't decide until I sign in to vote.

Not sure about the ballot initiatives. Seems like a pretty weak outcome from the charter review committee. And for the most part they are so poorly worded that voters will have to get out the charter and cut and paste to know what they mean, which they won't do. But I haven't followed it because I'm in Blount. Co.

I thought Rikki Hall was following it, though, and maybe he can give us a voter guide.

I started a Word file to examine the four proposed Charter amendments yesterday, but ran out of time and saved it/set it aside before completing it.

Below is just my cut-and-paste of how the Charter's text reads before and after the changes proposed in Questions 1 - 3.

I have not yet checked how the text reads before and after Question 4, nor given even a minute's consideration to the implications of these proposed changes, so please have at it.

And if anyone has a minute to copy-and-paste into this thread a comparison of this sort for Question 4, by all means take the task off my hands. I'll be curious to peek back in later.

Note that new text is in bold/italics.

Question 1 (existing text):

Sec. 1.02. - Private and local affairs.
With regard to private and local affairs, all lawful powers are vested in the Executive of Knox County and the Commission of Knox County, except those powers reserved to the judiciary. This investment of legislative, executive and other powers and duties shall be as full and complete, and the authority to perform or to direct them as broad, as is possible to delegate or confer, it being the intent to invest in the government of Knox County every authority, power and responsibility for the conduct of the affairs of the government of Knox County, including the powers to adopt and enforce resolutions, ordinances and emergency ordinances.

Question 1 (amended text):

Sec. 1.02. - Private and local affairs.
With regard to private and local affairs, all lawful powers are vested in the Executive of Knox County and the Commission of Knox County, except those powers reserved to the judiciary, Board of Education, and elected Charter and Constitutional Officers as defined by the Constitution of the State of Tennessee. This investment of legislative, executive and other powers and duties shall be as full and complete, and the authority to perform or to direct them as broad, as is possible to delegate or confer, it being the intent to invest in the government of Knox County every authority, power and responsibility for the conduct of the affairs of the government of Knox County, including the powers to adopt and enforce resolutions, ordinances and emergency ordinances.

Question 2 (existing text):

Sec. 2.02.I.
By resolution, the Commission may appoint members of the following boards and commissions: Knox County Board of Adjustments and Enforcement; Knox County Agricultural Extension Committee; Knox County Air Pollution Control Board; Knox County Ambulance Review Commission; Knox County Board of Construction Standards and Applications; Knox County Board of Equalization; Knox County Board of Health; Knox County Housing Authority; Knox County Jail Inspection Committee; Knox County Library Board of Trustees; The Public Building Authority of the County of Knox and the City of Knoxville, Tennessee; Knox County Old Records Commission; Knox County Sheriff's Department Merit System Council; and two members of Knox
County Personnel Board. All such appointees shall be residents of Knox County at the time of their appointment and at all times while serving on said board or commission. The Commission shall have the authority, by resolution, to remove and discharge all such members for good cause shown.

Question 2 (amended text):

Sec. 2.02.I.
By resolution, the Commission may appoint members to those boards and commissions the County Commission deems necessary in the furtherance of its duties and responsibilities under this Charter or as provided by state law. All such appointees shall be residents of Knox County at the time of their appointment and at all times while serving on said board or commission. The Commission shall have the authority, by resolution, to remove and discharge all such members for good cause shown.

Question 3 (existing text):

Sec. 2.02.A. - Other powers.
The Commission is vested with all other powers of the government of Knox County not specifically, or by necessary implication, vested in some other official of the County by the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, by this Charter or by law not inconsistent with this Charter. However, neither the Commission nor the Chairman(woman) of the Commission shall exercise any powers or perform any functions of the County Government which are vested, by the terms of this Charter, in either the Executive Branch or the Judicial Branch. Whenever any statute of the State of Tennessee purports to authorize the monthly or quarterly county court (or county chairman[(woman)] or county judge), the county commission (or chairman[(woman)] of the county commission) or the county executive to perform any administrative or executive act or function, then such act or function shall be performed by the Executive of Knox County except as otherwise provided in this Charter.

Question 3 (amended text):

Sec. 2.02.A. - Other powers.
The Commission is vested with all other powers of the government of Knox County not specifically, or by necessary implication, vested in some other official of the County by the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, by this Charter or by law not inconsistent with this Charter. However, neither the Commission nor the Chair of the Commission shall exercise any powers or perform any functions of the County Government which are vested, by the terms of this Charter, in the Executive Branch, Judicial Branch, Board of Education, and elected Charter and Constitutional Officers as defined by the Constitution of the State of Tennessee. Whenever any statute of the State of Tennessee purports to authorize the monthly or quarterly county court (or county chairman[(woman)] or county judge), the county commission (or chairman[(woman)] of the county commission) or the county executive to perform any administrative or executive act or function, then such act or function shall be performed by the Executive of Knox County except as otherwise provided in this Charter

Joe Jarret did a good job making the Charter Proofreader's Convention look like they did more work than they actually did, what with the allegations of deleting and replacing entire sentences. What he fails to mention is that the new sentences are almost exactly the same as the deleted sentences.

Questions 4 and 5 change the district residency exemption from "the first general election following redistricting" to "the first year after redistricting". This is a good idea, because it is more clear and discrete and could prevent shenanigans that might arise if a general election falls, say, a year and a half after redistricting. Unfortunately, the proofreaders left pointless and grammatically orphaned remnants of the old language in place that corrupt election officers could use as a pretense for excluding a citizen from the ballot. This weakness exists in the old wording as well, so I'd vote Yes on these questions because a trivial advance in clarity is better than no advance at all.

Question 2 is a Yes. It eliminates a long list of boards and committees and replaces it with the tidy "boards and commissions the County Commission deems necessary." Much better. This means Commission can create or dissolve such boards without having to amend the Charter. An overarching document like a county charter should not get bogged down in details, and this is the one change where the panel truly lived up to the title "Charter Review Committee."

Question 6 is stupid, and it makes no difference whether you vote Yes or No. If your brain broke when you were taught fractions in grade school, you may enjoy tormenting yourself over the meaning of two-thirds.

Question 7 extends the maximum length of the independent auditor's contract from 4 years to 8. Hooray for cronyism! What a proud step for this visionary committee.

Question 8 seems utterly pointless. Vote Yes if you are worried about the self-esteem of our brave proofreading brigade.

Questions 1 and 3 are dangerous and reprehensible. While most of us were hoping the committee might turn one or more of the elected administrative positions into appointed seats, this is a step in the opposite direction. It actually undermines the Charter and the purpose of adopting home rule. The phrase "constitutional officers" is the poison that kept term limits from being enforced long after they were adopted. It should be excised from the Charter, but these questions would double the number of times it appears. A Yes vote is a vote for hardening the fiefdoms of the Trustee, County Clerk, etc. Vote No on 1 and 3.

Thanks, Rikki--and please forgive my having implied above that only four proposed charter amendments would appear on the ballot.

I see now that it was my having stopped work in the midst of "proofreading" that fourth proposal that led me to the mistaken recollection on posting here that my work was "almost done." It wasn't!

Your suggestion that we vote "no" on Questions 1 and 3 is reasonable and duly noted, given that our "no" vote would reject the committee's own implicit suggestion that these Constitutional offices deserve autonomy under local law.

I worry, though, that our "no" vote would necessarily reject the committee's suggestion that the school board deserves autonomy under local law, too--and this latter suggestion is one I personally can support.

We have often observed Commission's propensity to try and "play in the school board's sandbox," and more recently our mayor seems to want to do the same?

And the need to reitterate in local law the autonomy of our elected school board is all the greater recently, given the incidence nationally of municipalities' moving away from elected school boards and toward mayoral control of schools via their (mayors') appointed boards?

I do want to give a bit more thought to these considerations beyond the ones you note...

Generally I agree with Rikki regarding the Charter Amendments:

Vote NO on 1, 3, and 7. One and Three give too much power to our fiefdom offices. Seven extends a contract too long for accountability.

The rest are okay. Four and Five could have been stronger, but are a modest improvement over current wording. Two is useful and good--commission won't have to change the charter to eliminate boards and committees.

Having watched all of two of these stupid meetings on the ctv I will vote against every single amendment and I'll tell you why. I spent 40 years in Oak Ridge at X-10 & Y-12 and I've seen meetings from hell more times than I can remember. This was the most unorganized group with the worst Chair I have ever seen.

If you can figure out what these amendments really mean you are a lot smarter than I am. Never again should Craig Leuthold Chair anything. He let this become a circus.

Rikki and Mark, I share your desire that the fee offices might be appointed, rather than elected.

You may recall that I previously volunteered with both Knox County, One Question and its subsequent rendition, Knox Charter Petition (KCP), serving on both the steering committee and the smaller coordinating committee of the latter group.

You may also recall that, during that campaign, former Mayor Ragsdale also appointed me to serve as vice-chair on an interim charter review committee tasked with potentially re-writing some of KCP's admittedly blemished ballot proposals.

County Commission declined to approve the interim charter review committee, though, and the voters subsequently declined to approve half of KCP's admittedly blemished ballot proposals, either of which action would have or might have made these offices appointed ones.

Now we see that this routinely-scheduled charter review committee has also declined to propose that these offices be made appointed ones.

However, that our shared desire to see the offices be made appointed ones has been a proposal thrice declined by parties able to make that happen is a point irrelevant to our review of Questions 1 and 3 on this sample ballot.

It appears that Questions 1 and 3 are simply intent on rectifying potentially confusing instruction now existing within the charter and relating to the autonomy of certain bodies/offices.

WRT Question 1, Article I Section 1.02 now reads (emphasis mine):

With regard to private and local affairs, all lawful powers are vested in the Executive of Knox County and the Commission of Knox County, except those powers reserved to the judiciary.

Similary, WRT Question 3, Article II Section 2.02 now reads (emphasis mine):

The Commission is vested with all other powers of the government of Knox County not specifically, or by necessary implication, vested in some other official of the County by the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, by this Charter or by law not inconsistent with this Charter.

Meanwhile, the potentially confusing instruction to which I refer regarding the school board's autonomy now exists at Article VI, Section 6.01, here:

There is hereby created the Knox County Board of Education. The exclusive management and control of the school system of Knox County (hereinafter referred to as the "School System") is vested in the Knox County Board of Education (hereinafter referred to as either the "Board of Education" or the "Board").

Potentially confusing instruction of this same sort regarding the autonomy of the property assessor, sheriff, register of deeds, county clerk, and trustee now exists within the charter, too, all of it within Article IV (Other Officers).

Whether we vote "yes" on Questions 1 and 3--and especially on Question 1--to remedy the potentially confusing instruction outlined above or whether we vote "no" on them in an ineffectual protest that the charter review committee did not propose that the fee offices be made appointed ones, the fact remains that the offices will not, for the present, be appointed.

I can't imagine, then, why we wouldn't want to vote "yes" on Questions 1 and 3 to better ensure the school board's autonomy.

This was the most unorganized group with the worst Chair I have ever seen.

I was afraid that the ordinance creating a committee size of 27 might result in an unwieldy group.

I suppose you're aware that the committee size was formerly 18, I think it was?

It must be difficult to corral and keep on task even that many folks…

JCB:

With the disclaimer that I’ve known Jablonski for well over a decade—and shared a few motel rooms with her for PTA functions over the years—she is a long time parliamentarian by both training and (volunteer) vocation. I think what we observed was her performing that same function for Leuthold, whom you acknowledge wasn’t very good at it.

Rikki:

I’d say there’s less confusion likely WRT the current exception clause for 1.02 (cured by Question 3), but ample confusion likely WRT the current exception clause for 2.02 (cured by Question 1), as that latter exception is extremely narrow and pretty darned exacting. Because of it, I’m therefore having some trouble letting go of my support for Question 1, at the very least.

I agree that the committee really shouldn’t have exhumed that “Constitutional Officer” language (although the buck stops with Jarret for its appearing in the text), but then again it’s true that when we adopted the charter’s Article IV (Other Officers) text, we really did confirm our intention to include these same “Constitutional Offices”—by whatever name we might call them—in our local government. It’s a relatively minor error of semantics, then?

Neither do I harbor too much concern that this language may not be “robust to changes elsewhere in the Charter.” Sure, it’s ideal that it should be, but a concern that some administrative assistant may at some point in the future need to dump this puppy into a pdf file and use the “find” function to pinpoint all the document’s references to a given office by both the term “Constitutional Officer” and by that office’s proper name isn’t a concern so great as to cause me to reject the other protections that these two proposals—especially Question 1—would afford us WRT the school board.

One other tidbit on the subject of The Offices Formerly Called Constitutional Offices (TOFCCO :-) comes from a committee member I phoned this morning: This member anticipates that the committee will approve a single overarching amendment for the November ballot that will clarify at Article VI (Other Officers) that TOFCCO are “charter offices,” not “Constitutional Offices.”

The member explains that such a clarification—if subsequently approved by voters--would not result in the offices being made appointed ones, but would result in establishing the executive’s oversight of the offices and would change the manner in which those offices sought approval of their budgets. The member indicates general agreement on the committee now for an incremental change of this sort.

Also note that if such an amendment is approved by both the committee and the voters, it will assuredly make moot your concern to this reference to “Constitutional Officers” at Section 1.02.

Yes, I anticipate your observation that I’m placing a lot of confidence in this amendment that has yet to be approved by the committee or November voters either one, but on what grounds might it be defeated? How to dismiss out of hand a proposal that would establish necessary oversight of these offices, but would not take away from voters their “right to vote?”

My inclination is still to support Questions 1 and 3, then, but cordial hat tip to you and Mark both for your examination of their possible consequences.

Oh--and I'm told an amendment will be proposed to the committee for the November ballot that would downsize the next Charter Review Committee to exclude commissioners themselves and include only the citizens appointed by commissioners and/or the executive.

The rationale for such a proposal is one we've heard before, namely that commissioners already have the ability to amend the charter any month of any year (well, "any two months," really, since two readings are required for commission to pass any ordinance).

Meanwhile, the Charter Review Committee represents the executive's only opportunity to more directly introduce amendments and it represents the citizenry's more direct opportunity to do that (given the onerous requirements for their introducing amendments by petition).

Then and now, I like this notion of a smaller panel comprised solely of citizens. You?

Upon looking at Question 8 more closely, the actual change is turning "shall take effect on" (the 15th day after Commission approval) into "shall not take effect until" (the 15th day...). There is literally no change in meaning, just swapping out a positive phrasing and replacing it with a double negative.

They are forcing the election commission to print this on all ballots and expend effort tabulating the results and asking everyone in Knox Co to vote on it. We are characters in a novel about a society of nightmarish bureaucracy.

I'd like to keep this linked on the front page so I can read it before i go to the polls.

I'm bumping this because it's the last day of early voting and due to the recent excellent stream of productivity in this highly readable and informative blog, older posts are becoming harder to find.

There is a sample ballot in today's paper for codgers like me that need reading glasses and want to be organized when they walk in the booth.