Perspective

A lot of how you see a situation depends on where you are
looking from. I’ll illustrate that in a moment, but my current focus is
on County government. There are people in office who have been there
for a while and I feel they are looking at things from a different angle
than those of us who are governed.
I recently heard that there is nothing to worry about with the
county budget, that quite a bit has been accomplished in the last four
years, and overall things are better than they were in 2006 when the
last elections were held. I don’t agree with all of that. My taxes are
higher, and the county spending has gone up, the county debt has risen,
and only now are auditors and advisors being looked at to figure out how
to sort the mess out and get some financial stability for the residents.
When we look at the national scene, we can’t help but worry
about growing deficits and what it is going to mean for our children and
grandchildren. As we strive to elect representatives who will cut
spending, foster job creation, and use a little common sense when
governing on a national level, we need to take care of our own backyard
first.
What needs to be done in Blount County, what direction to take,
depends on your perspective. I’ll give you some of my history. I grew
up in a farming community in Florida, worked for Metal Container Corp
for two years after high school, and then joined the navy for six years.
I saw half the world, from the east coast to the Persian Gulf, and lived
in Chicago, Philly, and just outside of New York City. I was married
and divorced while living the life of a prodigal son. I discovered that
if I wanted to have a stable life and raise a family the navy wasn’t the
place for me to do so.
I also learned I didn’t want to do so in a city with millions of
other people. That is why I came to Blount County in September of 1996.
I married my wife in October of 97, and we live a few miles outside of
Maryville in the shadow of the mountains. I wanted a life that wasn’t
filled with the complications of big cities. Things are more relaxed
here, not so rushed, where I can show my kids the magic of what has been
created for us to enjoy. It is similar in many ways to my childhood.
God and family, and friends and neighbors are the things that fill our
lives instead of freeways, crimes, and thousands of stranger’s faces.
I hear people talk about sustained growth and I wonder what they
want us to grow into. I don’t want to be Knoxville. It’s a short drive
away, but only on rare occasions. We have a way of life here that is
shrinking, and I don’t want to see it lost. I think we need to be
careful about the choices we make as a county, and protective about what
changes will occur due to them. I’ve seen rampant growth in Illinois
and New Jersey. I’ve watched neighborhoods get swallowed up in the name
of progress and advancement. I’m not advocating hiding away in our
little corner of Tennessee while the world moves on around us. I do
think we need to be careful in what we allow to grow in our midst. We
have something very special here, something lost in a lot of the places
I have been.
Maybe it’s because I left a similar place some twenty-five years
ago and entered the fast paced world of selfishness and greed for a
little while that it is dear to me, that I’m able to recognize the
swallowing of farms and the growth of subdivisions, the overcrowded
roads, the cars backed up at red lights in town. I see the beginning of
changes in our county that have slowly destroyed the tranquility of
other parts of the world. We need to hold onto what we have. This is
why I am running for county commission. I’m not setting out to change
the world. I’m hoping to help protect it, to save the things we, as a
community, want saved.
What growth we need as a county, and where it needs to be are a
matter of perspective, and my travels around the world give me the
experience to see it differently, to cherish how magnificent it is in
many ways.
And perspective matters: Three men stood at the gates of
heaven. Peter explained that God was all Knowing, but he was not and
asked the men to explain their individual deaths. The first says: “I
was sure my wife was having an affair, so after leaving home this
morning I waited an hour and returned. I found my wife in skimpy
lingerie and tore through the house searching for her lover. I found a
man in his underwear hanging from the rails of our balcony on the eighth
floor. I beat upon his hands until he lost his grip and fell. However,
he hit the awning on the front of the building, rolled onto some boxes
and survived the fall. I pulled the refrigerator from the kitchen and
shoved it through the bedroom and over the balcony railing, had a heart
attack, and died.”
The second man shook his head and looked at Saint Peter. “I
lived on the ninth floor of an apartment building. I work second shift
and often sleep in ’til 9 or 10 o’clock. When I arise I often do some
stretching exercises and yoga on my balcony, often in my underwear since
most people are at work. This morning I was stretching, lost my balance
and fell over the railing. I was able to grab the railing of the
balcony just below mine. Hanging there, a man came out, began screaming
and began beating on my hands. I fell and hit the awning of the
building, rolled onto a new tenant’s moving boxes and survived. I stood
there in utter amazement that I was alive, and was killed by a falling
refrigerator.”
The third man looked at Saint Peter for a moment, then at the
other two men sadly. Finally he began his tale: “Okay, picture this
for a moment, I’m hiding naked inside a refrigerator…”
See, your perspective makes all the difference in the world. I
hope we can discuss both of ours sometime.

Great meeting tonight with the Mayor Canidates speaking. Got to say, Mr. Mitchell is really impressive. Such a delight to have such a good canidate running. The Republican Party is blessed. From the front roll the stress of Mr. Cunningham could be seen during the event. Hope is is OK beacuse he really didn’t look good. The County employees are happy to have Mr. Mitchell as a canidate.

Tonight (Monday Feb 22)

Joe Hultquist, interim Executive Director of East Tennessee Quality Growth, is the featured speaker at CAPPE’s Annual Meeting in the Sharon Lawson Room of the Blount County Public Library.
Refreshments at 6:30pm, Mr. Hultquist’s presentation at 7pm. CAPPE’s business meeting will follow the speaker. The public is welcome.

This is a little excerpt from a letter to the editor in the February 21,2010 Daily Times;

…why you have columnists by Raasch, Garrison Keillor, Andy Rooney and Dwayne Hickham, all of who are left of center, along with Jules Witcover, who is on the far left and writes two columns a week. Kathleen Parker is somewhat balanced, but George Will must feel really lonely on the right. Does this not seem a little odd here in Blount County?

My question is what if that is “balanced"?

What if the closing quote from Walter Cronkite “and that’s the way it is” really was the way it is and some people just don’t like it.

Here is the entire letter;

http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20100221/OP02/302219980/-1/op

A libertarian from Texas who has railed against spending and the Federal Reserve, Paul won the Saturday contest at the Conservative Political Action Conference with 31 percent backing. He has sought the presidential nomination in the past and attracted a following among a segment of voters frustrated with Washington.

Participants cheered as their favored candidates’ names were announced. Some members of the audience cheered while others booed loudly when event organizers announced Paul as the winner.

Full the full story click here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022002773.html

Tonight Bill Moyers will be talking about the recent decision our Supreme Courts made on corporate campaign limits and contribution timing. What we all should fear is the part of the article that gets into: “Ninety-eight percent of all the lawsuits in this country take place in the state courts. In 39 states, judges have to run for election – that’s more than 80 percent of the state judges in America.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/what-are-we-bid-for-ameri_b_469335.html

Anyone remember this from the Mike Meares election? - from the link: “…And why has his opponent accepted more than $5000 in donations from local elected officials, including $1000 from Judge Dale Young, $1000 from Blount Sheriff James Berrong, and $500 from Blount County Mayor Jerry Cunningham, not to mention $5000 from the Blount County Republican party? Why does the local Republican party feel it necessary to control the Blount County courts?…”

http://www.blountviews.com/node/531

Hundreds and hundreds of protestors rallied at the University of TN earlier today. In a gathering that would make August Spies and his descendents proud; students, staff, & faculty rallied in support of saving the estimated 300+ jobs earmarked for termination by our Republican Governor Phil Bredesen.

In related news, the TN legislation met recently to modify the job requirements for UT President to be more in line with the Republican Governor’s qualifications. The 200 un-touchable jobs that will be created from laying off over 1,000 state employees; have yet to be filled, but the Seed Money given for these positions smells very Food Mart’ish & Oily.

Check back on this post as more skeptic-pallatable-datum becomes available, and watch WVLT tonight for the news reel.

This from Wikipedia regarding how debates have come to take their current form nationally;

Control of the presidential debates has been a ground of struggle for more than two decades. The role was filled by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters (LWV) civic organization in 1976, 1980 and 1984. In 1987, the LWV withdrew from debate sponsorship, in protest of the major party candidates attempting to dictate nearly every aspect of how the debates were conducted. On October 2, 1988, the LWV’s 14 trustees voted unanimously to pull out of the debates, and on October 3 they issued a dramatic press release:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates…because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

The fact Ross Perot got 1 in every 5 votes cast in 1992, is one of the reasons we have seen very little of third parties the last two decades. It was too close. Since Democrats and Republicans have taken over the debates, very little conservatism has penetrated DC. Remember, only Perot was against NAFTA. Bush and Clinton both campaigned for it.

We’ve all heard the terms from Obama like global economy, globalization or as Bush liked to call it, a “new world order". Thomas Friedman wrote “The World is Flat". With NAFTA, we took two countries, China and Mexico, out of their economic valleys. Who was the mountain between them? Who has been “flattened"?

It’s time both Parties, nationally and locally, answer to people other than those that are in their own Parties. We need the focus back on the people of this country. Commerce and charity can both be found in abundance when the people have the power. Both have suffered under the Parties.

“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.” Abigail Adams

Be sure to give your third party candidates a good listen. Like the two parties, they may also have “high sounding words’, but at least there would be the hope true action would follow. The current climate would provide, “words” are about all we’re getting from the status quo.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35461747/ns/us_news-life

Link: http://www.tn.gov/comptroller/lg/map/blount/certified.pdf

Nashville press seems to think their audiences care about preserving farmland.

http://news.tennesseeanytime.org/node/4594

This new initiative could be largely fluff, but maybe there are things people could do other than talk about how we appreciate an agricultural component to Blount County.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/feb/17/blount-county-names-new-finance-director/

Link: http://www.blounttn.org/election/petitions_for_elections/20100504.PDF

All but 15 have acknowledged and are eligible for a spot on the May 2010 Primary’s Ballot.

Take a look at progress…..

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/recoveryanniversary

http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20100216/OP01/302169993/-1/op

Blount County Commission could take note. There are still ways to be a part of this partnership — consisting of Maryville College, the cities of Maryville and Alcoa, the state of Tennessee, the U.S. government, numerous companies and individuals, particularly the Clayton family — that promises to enhance Blount County culture with art and artists from these foothills and around the world for generations to come.

Perhaps County Commission one day will reconsider and find a way to participate in this worthy community endeavor. There’s lots left to be done.

I noticed that Mr. Folts has picked up petitions for District 7 Seat A & B. I also noticed there are a large number of people who have picked up petitions and have yet to turn them in. I know, I know the deadline isn’t here. Just curious I guess as to why someone would pick up a petition and not file it.

TheDailyTimes

Read this article. If the same thing happened in a local park and someone came to defend this man by pulling a gun thus stopping the ag assault, would you want the good samaratin prosecuted for possessing the handgun in the park?

I know politics are LOCAL but I think if you were to read this article for what it’s really worth - it IS local and could/would affect not only county but our state government.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1959029,00.html

Does anyone else wonder what Blount County might be facing come late 2010 and 2011 because of our involvement into derivatives? I wonder IF Blount County ever read, and if they did, follow the Tennessee’s Comptrollers outline for entering into the derivative market? here’s how it reads:

Derivative Management Policy Guidelines

Even the simplest Interest Rate Agreement is a complex financial instrument that requires a high level of financial sophistication. It is the responsibility of the Governmental Entity and its officials to insure they possess the skill, training and knowledge to evaluate the use of an Interest Rate Agreement and to manage the use of the Agreement over the Agreement’s duration. A derivative policy will set forth the amount, issuance process, and types of derivatives (within the constraints of the State Funding Board’s Guidelines) the Governmental Entity will permit.

To be compliant with this policy, a derivative policy must include the following:

* Introductory Section
o Purpose of policy and goals
o Purposes for which a derivative transaction may be entered
o Guidelines for integration of use of derivatives with debt management program
o Eligible types and forms of Interest Rate Management Agreements
* Legal authorization Section.
o State Laws, Rules, & Regulations
o Federal Laws, Rules, & Regulations
o Local
* Staff Qualification & Continuing Education Section
* Professional Services Section
o Defines professional services to be used
o Professional selection process
o Conflict of interest policy
* Execution section
o bidding procedures
o minimum benefit thresholds,
o terms of master agreements;
* Limitations on the use of Interest Rate Management Agreements:
o Risk limitations; and
o Limitations on exposure.
* Counterparty selection section
* Management and Monitoring Section
o After execution evaluation
o Continuing Disclosure Compliance
o Arbitrage Compliance
o Risk Assessment and Debt Portfolio Monitoring
o Termination Evaluation

This what the Daily Times reported was said; “Zoning laws, love them or hate them, were put in place to protect our property rights from willy-nilly development.” http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20100212/NEWS/302129988

This is what was said; “Zoning laws, love them or hate them, were put in place to protect our property rights from unplanned willy-nilly development.” see video above

I don’t care for reporters who publish quotes.

I don’t care for reporters who publish unverified quotes.

See the difference?

I didn’t mind that the Daily Times failed to mention the gift Commissioner Reeves is giving to the people of Blount County. In her speech, Mrs. Reeves stated she has collected and compiled all the commission videos and commission packets for the public. She gave this gift to the Blount County Public Library and will continue to do so.

The Daily Times can include or omit whatever it is they think is important, but to misquote a commissioner on what all of Blount knows is a hot topic, is not serving the pulic.

Expect an announcement that Samples will have oppostion for his commission seat by an Independent named Richard Hutchens. All I know about Huthchens is he is a strong constitutionalist and seems to be a nice fellow. Looks like we may have an interesting election process for once instead of the “nobody’s running” usual hum-drum of the past. I love politics. Do any of you know Mr. Hutchens?

Commissioner Graham, who has spent a lot of time and energy on County finances, laid out his assessment and analysis of Blount County’s debt structure. This from the analysis;

The success or failure of a variable rate bond subject to swap is measured in a couple of ways. First, does the bottom line of the swap reduce the variable interest rate of the variable rate bond to which it is contractually attached? Second, how does the variable rate bond subject to swap measure up to its first cousin, the variable rate bond and its distant cousin, the long term fixed rate bond? The following analysis of three quarterly variable rate bond subject to swap statements can in part answer these questions.

While the above sounds complex (and it is), Commissioner Graham has done good work in the piece with definitions and actual bank statements.

For the full analysis, click here; http://www.blounttalk.com/b2evolution/blogs/media/users/kanderson/Swap%20Analysis.pdf

FYI - I would suggest printing the 7 pages so you can lay them out for review.

Full story: http://www.wate.com/global/story.asp?s=11964121

I understand Jim Melton is about to announce for the commission seat being vacated by Joe McCulley. Those are big shoes to fill and I believe Melton may just be the right shoes to fill them!

Chris Hedges reports on how we misread who the real enemies of freedom are. Here is a scary story:

“The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_terror-industrial_complex_20100208/

Joe Hultquist of East Tennessee Quality Growth to address CAPPE Annual Meeting on Feb. 22
Public Welcome

Joe Hultquist will be the featured guest speaker at the 2010 Annual Meeting of CAPPE (Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension, Inc.). The meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 22, from 6:30-8:30pm in the Sharon Lawson Room at the Blount County Library.
“For several years we have designed our Annual Meeting as a community education event, featuring speakers who are knowledgeable about transportation issues relevant to our region,” said Nina Gregg of CAPPE’s Board of Directors. “We saw a need for education and civil discussion about transportation issues and decided to devote a portion of each year’s Annual Meeting to fulfilling this need.”

“This year we are pleased to welcome Joe Hultquist, Interim Executive Director of East Tennessee Quality Growth (ETQG) as our featured speaker,” Gregg said.

Mr. Hultquist, who was born and raised in Blount County, will be speaking about the future of transit in the greater Knoxville area, including the upcoming Regional Corridor and Opportunity Area Study; options for transit between the airport and Knoxville; the role of independent advocacy groups; and ETQG’s perspective on transit as a component of quality growth in the region.

Mr. Hultquist is currently serving as Interim Executive Director of East Tennessee Quality Growth, a new organization with representation from 16 counties of middle East Tennessee. ETQG’s mission is to “create a vision for quality growth through dialogue, research, and education,” and to “promote and facilitate implementation of this vision through regional cooperation and local action.”

Previous speakers at CAPPE Annual Meetings have included Rees Shearer from RailSolution, Cindy McGinnis from Knox Area Transit (KAT), Jeff Welch from the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) and Bill Dunlap from the Blount County Highway Department.

The public is invited to come hear Mr. Hultquist’s presentation, which will begin at 7pm. Refreshments will be served at 6:30pm. CAPPE’s annual business meeting will follow the speaker.

For more information, call Nina Gregg, CAPPE Communication Committee Chair at 977 7399.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-sirucek/did-palin-use-crib-notes_b_452458.html

That Sarah Palin is so much more polished than POTUS. SHE doesn’t even have to use a teleprompter!

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/04/govt-pay-half-health-costs/

Gov’t to Pay More Than Half of U.S. Health Costs

For all the hue and cry over a government takeover of health care, it’s happening anyway.

Federal and state programs will pay slightly more than half the tab for health care purchased in the United States by 2012, says a report by Medicare number crunchers released Thursday.

That’s even if President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul wastes away in congressional limbo. Long in coming, the shift to a health care sector dominated by government is being speeded up by the deep economic recession and the aging of the Baby Boomers, millions of whom will soon start signing up for Medicare.

“This does mark a pretty stark jump in the data,” said Christopher Truffer of Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which prepared the analysis published in the journal Health Affairs.

The tipping point is likely to come next year, Truffer said. For technical reasons, the report assumes that Congress is going to allow Medicare to cut doctor fees by 20 percent later this year, as required by a 1990s budget law. But lawmakers have routinely waived such cuts, and they’re not likely to allow them in an election year. So government probably will end up picking up most of the nation’s medical costs in 2011, instead of 2012.

More detail here: http://www.usnews.com/mobile/articles_mobile/government-to-pay-for-more-than-half-of-us-health-care-costs/index.html

As jobless Americans lost private health insurance coverage and joined the Medicaid rolls during the recession, U.S. health spending jumped 5.7 percent to $2.5 trillion in 2009, government projections show.

That means that American taxpayers will foot the bill for more than half of U.S. health care expenditure by 2012, the report’s authors said.

Overall, health care’s share of the gross domestic product (GDP) – a measure of the value of goods and services produced in the United States – climbed 1.1 percentage points to 17.3 percent in 2009.

That’s the largest one-year increase since 1960, when officials began tracking total U.S. health care spending, analysts noted in a report published online Feb. 4 by the journal Health Affairs.

From the Wall Street Journal:

What is newsworthy, however, is another figure reported by the BLS: 52 percent of all union members work for the federal or state and local governments, a sharp increase from the 49 percent in 2008.[5] A majority of American union members are now employed by the government; three times more union members now work in the Post Office than in the auto industry.[6]
While the fact that the majority of union members are government employees is historic, the growth of government employee unions is hardly a recent development. Union membership has steadily grown in government and shrunk in the private sector since the 1970s.

Read the rest of a very interesting study here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704509704575019552907349936.html

I’m not sure how the forum is supposed to work or how a discussion is started, but thus far there seems to be little activity.

http://blounttn.org/forum/

As citizens, maybe we aren’t prompting proper discussions.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From WVLT:

MARYVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Law enforcement in Blount County created a program to fight crime through a teen’s love of texting.

Starting Monday, students at William Blount, Alcoa, Maryville and Heritage high schools can send anonymous crime tips via text.

Students will text their school code to 274-637 or “CRIMES.” Once the 911 center receives the alert, they will type a message back and ask the tipster questions regarding the situation.

The program is already getting positive feedback from students.

“We have a lot of drug use going on at school and a lot of students know about it and they’re afraid to tell,” Oliva Crowe, a William Blount High School senior, said. “A lot of students are really concerned about other students home lives. And that’s helpful too, because you don’t want to get parents involved.”

The Sheriff’s Department plans to extend the program to Blount Co. middle schools later in the year.

Link to WVLT : http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/83281202.html#

CNN Money has put out a list of “America’s Biggest Rip-offs". Number one is text messaging with a 6,500% markup. LINK

Didn’t the County Commission fund the SRO program an additional $1.2 million so they could be on all campuses? Don’t the county schools have shop classes?

Would it not be cheaper to make an anonymous drop box, one that could be checked frequently by the SRO we’ve paid to be there?

This would not only save parents money, it would also help kids who want to tell on somebody but don’t have a cell phone or text package.

Not to mention what could be saved to the taxpayer. After all, we are getting the bill for this program.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, have made an amazing new discovery in Mathematics. In his final State of the State Address in Nashville, last night, Governor Phil Bredesen announced the exciting new breakthrough discovered by Scientists at UT & ORNL.

By applying the formulas these entrepreneurs have designed, the University of Tennessee will be able to create 200 brand new tenured track full-tyme Faculty positions, by cutting their budget by over 6%! These new Faculty positions will remain on ORNL Federal soil, yet be funded by State monies!

When asked for comment, Governor Bredesen said, “Well, at least I ran as a Democrat.”

Here are a few constructive suggestions for the mayoral candidates to adopt in their platforms:

1 Greet people when you meet them: Bill Crisp was excellent at speaking to people and greeting them properly. A fine example to be followed.

2)Some people (like myself) have health problems (mine is thyroid) that make drinking floridated water hazardous to their health. About 50% of places now leave out the floride. We should consider this when making decisions. Everyone cannot afford to buy bottled water.

3)Let responsible groups use the courthouse at night. Every excuse I have heard does not hold water for not allowing us to use the courthouse. We paid for it and have used it responsibly for years. This action was clearly to keep Ms. King’s group out and she just moved her meetings elsewhere so Rep. Women, AA, the beekeepers, etc. have to pay and what has anyone accomplished except to deny us the use of the courthouse (which we have used responsibly for years).

4)Don’t get up and walk out on the commission meeting. It is your job to tolerate people whom you don’t agree with.

What constructive suggestions would you like to make to the mayoral candidates?

Today, the Obama administration will announce its 3.8 trillion dollar budget. It will include 100 billion US dollars for job-creating investments in small businesses. LINK

As taxpayers, we’ve been forced to give one company, AIG, over 100 billion dollars.

To recap, small businesses employee more than half the nations work force. AIG is one company. And this administration has decided to prop them up equally? Alrighty then.