What I'm Prepared to Do.

I've bee giving this a lot of though and doing some research and I have come to the conclusion that the best service I can offer this city (besides not taking friends to Regas on a P-Card) is to vote myself out of a job. Meaning, I support moving to a unified metropolitan government in Knoxville.

I realize that few candidates for commission are talking about this, probably because it is a hot button issue and there is really not a consensus on how to proceed with this idea throughout the county. I had resisted saying anything, not wanting to polarize any potential voters, then realized how incredibly silly it was for me to behave that way.

I decided to get into this race in order to:
1. Offer people a choice different from what I see as the status quo.
2. Bring up topics and ideas that otherwise might not be brought up.
3. Show the people in this district that the new group of residents in downtown have a voice and a desire to be deeply involved in the development and direction of the community.

I wanted to talk about this topic and I brought it up, so let me make a few comments of why I believe that a Metro Government is right for Knoxville.

First there are only two (2) counties with metro governments in TN, can anyone name them? One is easy, Davidson (meaning Nashville of course) the other being Trousdale. Trousdale Co. includes the city of Hartsville, which if you have never been to you are missing out, I spent many a day there as a youth tagging tobacco (seriously it was a job) and watching sports (they tended to beat my high school football team).

Both of those counties have consolidated governments and have benefited greatly. Nashville is obviously the powerhouse city in TN. The fact that the government is one, and working towards a steady unified goal of growth and revitalization is reflected in the city's growing strength.

Many of the upcoming cities around the country have metro governments as well. Indianapolis, Louisville, Lexington, and Kansas City all have metro governments and have seen great amounts of growth in the past few years.

Buy why for Knoxville? It's not enough that other cities do it to make it right for us, so why? Well Knoxville is the East TN economic hub. We sit in the middle of a number of growing counties that look to us for leadership, direction, and stability as they plan on how to grow their own counties economically. A metro government would signal to them and to companies that have watched our recent shenanigans that Knoxville was ready to turn the page. That we have thrown off the old trappings of our divided government and were ready to become a leader in the region.

It's time for a change in Knoxville, new leadership, a new direction, a new government.

Write in Spellings.