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 […]
By Steve Hunley First District Congressman Tennessee voters will likely be electing a new congressman from Tennessee’s First Congressional District in a matter of days. The First District is upper East Tennessee, running basically from Sevier County all the way to Mountain City. To be sure I had everything straight in my head, I checked […]
By Steve Hunley Déjà vu All Over Again There is a move by the Charter Review Committee to once again place a referendum on the ballot to make the law director’s office appointed, rather than elected. That reminds me of the last attempt some ten years ago, which was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls. If […]
Clerk’s Loan Needed I don’t think there’s any doubt our county, state, country and world have changed a lot since the advent of the COVID-19 virus. It’s almost impossible to find anyone or anything left untouched by the coronavirus. Charlie Susano, Clerk of the Circuit, Civil Sessions and Juvenile Courts, is asking the county […]
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