By Steve Hunley Jacobs Chief of Staff Investigated Bryan Hair, Chief of Staff to Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, is under investigation, along with Paul White, Director of the county’s Parks & Recreation Department. That is according to a press release issued from the mayor’s office. Hair had no experience in running much of anything […]
By Steve Hunley One of the more interesting local races is that between State Representative Gloria Johnson and challenger Elaine Davis in the 13th House District. Johnson served one term in the House, beating Gary Loe in 2012, before losing reelection two years later to Republican Eddie Smith. Johnson ran again in an attempt to […]
By Steve Hunley Health Board Hijinks A couple of County Commissioners have taken the position favored by County Mayor Glenn Jacobs that is less “Republican” than “Libertarian.” Commissioners Justin Biggs and Kyle Ward are pushing along a resolution that backs up some of the regulations passed by the Knox County Board of Health, including […]
By Steve Hunley Who’s Doing the Misleading? Mike Arms, former Chief of Staff to Mayor Mike Ragsdale, was to good government what Colonel Sanders was to the welfare of chickens. Arms has been on a tour of public offices peddling the notion of making the law director’s office an appointed office rather than elected. Arms […]
By Steve Hunley Bought Jim Haslam’s Book Last Wednesday night, on the way home from the office, I stopped at a Pilot store and bought my personal copy of the book Jim Haslam has written, “Co-Piloting.” The forward, written by Mr. Haslam’s son, former governor Bill Haslam, was awesome. I spent the weekend reading the […]
By Steve Hunley New County Commission Chair Congratulations to Larsen Jay, the newly elected Chairman of the Knox County Commission! It was a victory for the new over the old, with Jay winning the chairmanship over veteran commissioner Randy Smith. While Smith had already served one stint as commission chair, perhaps the biggest point of […]
By Steve Hunley Welcome Jimmy Duncan! The Knoxville Focus is extraordinarily proud to welcome former congressman Jimmy Duncan as a regular columnist. We already have, in my opinion, the best line-up of columnists of any local newspaper and Jimmy’s column will be something for our readers to look forward to every week. For thirty years, […]
By Steve Hunley It Doesn’t Work? Really? Mike McMillan. East Knox County’s member of the Knox County Board of Education, wrote a letter to school administrators perhaps two months ago suggesting the school folks ought to look into technology available for sanitizing classrooms and buildings using UVC technology. I asked about this as a member […]
By Steve Hunley Interesting Factoid… New York governor Andrew Cuomo is begging for wealthy folks to return to the Empire State, which was ravaged by the coronavirus. Why does the guv want wealthy New Yorkers to come back home? “A single percent of New York’s population pays half of the state’s taxes,” Cuomo said, “and […]
By Steve Hunley Election Results The election results are in and there were several big races decided last Thursday. For you political junkies, we’ll take a deep dive into the results. Bill Hagerty is the Republican nominee for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Lamar Alexander. Hagerty began the race as the overwhelming […]
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