Knoxify

Guber­na­to­r­ial can­di­date and Knoxville native Mayor Bill Haslam is off to a blaz­ing start with his cam­paign. For­mer UT star Pey­ton Man­ning has even tossed $2,500 his way.

As reported by the News Sen­tinel, Mayor Haslam has already raised close to $1.7 mil­lion; how­ever, only $283,275 has been dis­closed to date.

We are reminded every­day by our Chat­tarati neigh­bors that Mayor Haslam will face stiff com­pe­ti­tion from U.S. Con­gress­man Zach Wamp, also a Republican.

If Mayor Haslam makes it to the bal­lot, will you cast your vote for him as Tennessee’s next Governor?

Pho­tog­ra­phy by Stu­dioMo­bile

Accord­ing to StimulusWatch.org, $74,510,000 worth of “shovel-ready” Knoxville projects are seek­ing a piece of the stim­u­lus pie.

Here are the top 5 by cost:

1. SOUTH WATERFRONT PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS — $18,000,000
2. RESURFACING CITYWIDE — $12,000,000
3. FIRST CREEK DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS — $3,500,000
4. GAY STREET STREETSCAPES — $3,500,000
5. ADA IMPROVEMENTS TO CITY FACILITIES — $2,500,000

Because we all need new Gay St. streetscapes — rights?

Pho­tog­ra­phy by thou­sand­shipz

UPDATE: I’ve amended a sen­tence refer­ring to Knoxville plan­ners not allo­cat­ing shoul­ders or lanes for bicy­clists. It now puts the onus on county, city and state plan­ners. Also, I was made aware that new and expanded roads must include room for bicy­clists due to the 2002 Bicy­cle Plan’s accom­mo­da­tion policy.

Cycling sea­son is well under­way now that spring has sprung in Knoxville. But that doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean it’s safe to ven­ture out on the area’s roads willy-nilly.

Many Knoxville dri­vers are igno­rant of how to share the road with cyclists. This is a brief les­son on how to pass a cyclist safely.

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The Bai­ley Post, a local insur­ance agency blog, is report­ing that the Knox Char­ter Peti­tion group obtained 50,000+ sig­na­tures. See you in November!

We told you about Ryan Haynes. Now, we’re telling you about John Dun­can, III. With the announce­ment of Tim Burchett pos­si­bly run­ning for mayor, some­one informed us that Dun­can, a YPK mem­ber, is seri­ously think­ing of run­ning for Burchett’s Sen­ate posi­tion. Inter­est­ing news indeed. Any thoughts here? Looks like the new gen­er­a­tion of Knoxville pol­i­tics could be strong.…and inno­v­a­tive, but yet solid given their backgrounds.

In case you’re won­der­ing who’s a dud and who isn’t, give our County Com­mis­sion inter­views a read.

64 con­cerned cit­i­zens are push­ing a reform effort con­tain­ing nine char­ter amend­ments that will hope­fully make it to the August 2008 ballot.

Ans­ley Haman of the News Sen­tinel writes:

…the group wants vot­ers to have more direct influ­ence over a smaller com­mis­sion; wants to pro­hibit county employ­ees from serv­ing on com­mis­sion; and wants the next county mayor and com­mis­sion to select admin­is­tra­tors for tax col­lec­tions, motor vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tions and other func­tions that are cur­rently over­seen by inde­pen­dently elected officeholders.

The Knox­ify guys received a direct press release from Cort­ney Piper — inter­viewed here — stat­ing her sup­port for the Knox Char­ter Peti­tion reform.

Now we’re curi­ous as to other Knox County elec­tion hope­fuls that may be sup­port­ing this petition.

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Update: Eliz­a­beth Der­wort sub­mit­ted a more refined ver­sion of Mr. McMillan’s answers to us today. She stated: “For some rea­son I attached the wrong one and sent you the rough draft with spelling errors. I have attached the cor­rected doc­u­ment in hopes that you would be able to repost it. This is our error and not Mr. McMil­lans. We typed and sent the doc­u­ment for him, and failed to send the right one. I would hate for our error to neg­a­tively effect Mr. McMil­lan in any way. Could you please reply back or give me a call at the num­ber listed below to let me know if this is pos­si­ble?” The changes are reflected below.

Our 32nd inter­view has been con­ducted with Mike McMil­lan seek­ing your vote for Knox County Clerk.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Mike McMil­lan and I live in East Knox County on land set­tled by my ances­tors before Ten­nessee became a state. I have a degree in polit­i­cal sci­ence and a Mas­ters in Edu­ca­tion from The Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee Knoxville. I have taught at Gibbs High School for more than 30 years. I am a for­mer County Com­mis­sioner deal­ing with more than a decade of Knox County bud­gets. I have seen the leg­isla­tive side of local gov­ern­ment and decided that I would like to be a part of the admin­is­tra­tive side. Given the present cir­cum­stances in Knox County, the can­di­dates for the office and my qual­i­fi­ca­tions, it became even more appar­ent that cit­i­zens needed some­one who had a record of trust. I also believe I am the best per­son to improve employee morale while offer­ing the best ser­vices pos­si­ble. I will require proof of the wheel tax exemp­tion which is not being done at present. I am not a part of any pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion or any present polit­i­cal faction.

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The pub­lic has spo­ken and decided that struc­ture in Knox County gov­ern­ment mat­ters. Today, a let­ter was pub­lished in the News Sen­tinel signed by a Steer­ing Com­mit­tee to Knox County Com­mis­sion with sep­a­rate char­ter amend­ments attached ask­ing them to place the amend­ments on the bal­lot and inform­ing them that they are start­ing the process to cer­tify a cit­i­zen peti­tion drive in case they do not act.

Goal of Cam­paign will be to keep it sim­ple — focus on Reform Knox County

1. Elim­i­nate nepo­tism and con­flicts of inter­est — end­ing the back­room politics
2. Elim­i­nate waste, fraud, and abuse
3. Make the County Com­mis­sion more responsive
4. Make the County Mayor more accountable
5. Uti­lize $8.9 mil­lion in County fees more effec­tively each year

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U.S. Navy vet­eran Chuck Williams answers our Knox County Com­mis­sion ques­tions. Williams is run­ning for Knox County Com­mis­sioner 2B.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

I am Chuck Williams Knox County Com­mis­sioner can­di­date for Dis­trict 2B. I am hap­pily mar­ried with a daugh­ter Shaunni and son Chris and two beau­ti­ful grand­kids. I am an Ele­men­tary Edu­ca­tion major at the Mag­no­lia Avenue Cam­pus of Pel­lis­sippi State Tech­ni­cal Com­mu­nity Col­lege. I am also a sub­sti­tute teacher for the Knox County Board of Edu­ca­tion (I am mainly at Ful­ton High School). I am a very proud eight year vet­eran of the U.S. Navy. I am seek­ing the office of Knox County Com­mis­sioner because I feel that Dis­trict 2 is the for­got­ten dis­trict. Our roads are in sham­bles, when it rains a lot of our roads are flooded due to the poor sewage sys­tems in our area.
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