Our Term Limited Career Politicians are Getting Really Nervous

Apparently the Tennnessee State Supreme Court decision is going to be released any day now and the term limited career politicians in our county government are nervous to say the least. They know that our charter will be upheld which means term limits will be upheld as well. This petrifies them because they (the officials that have held the same office for more than two consecutive terms since Jan. 1, 1995) know full well they violated Knox County law this year by illegally running again for the offices they hold. According to an article in Monday's (11/27/06) edition of the KNS, the county commisioners who violated our term limits law, their lawyers, and our law director want to have a commission meeting in private to "discuss the ramifications" of the decision by the Supremes. Mayor Mike Ragsdale rightly contends that any such meeting should be held in an open forum as all other commission meetings are held. Dwight van De Vate, the mayor's spokesman, said that Mayor Ragsdale, " believes very strongly it's the public's government, and they have every right to know what's going on with it." Mayor Ragsdale is absolutely right. When the term limited law breakers say that they want to privately "discuss the ramifications" of the Supreme Court decision you can bet your money that what they really mean is they want to see if there is any loophole they can use to manuever around the courts decision and continue to keep their jobs. I think someone also needs to tell our law director that his job is to represent Knox County. His job is not to be the personal counsel for county office holders. Stay tuned friends, this is going to get interesting.