presstalk 671-TALK
• I’ve been hearing gunshots in the Grigsby Chapel-Fretz Road area. (If you hear gunfire) please report to the (Knox County) Sheriff’s Office non-emergency number at (865)-215-2444. Maybe somebody needs to do an article on the gunfire every morning and evening in Farragut.
• Thank goodness the Hotel-Motel Tax failed thanks to (Farragut) Mayor Ralph McGill and (Alderman) Bob Markli. Once we start the taxing in Farragut, it won’t end until we have a (Town) property tax on homeowners and land. I don’t think the homeowners of Farragut want a (Town) property tax on their property. It’s been the history of the Town that we would never have a property tax; but once you have a Hotel/Motel Tax, the next step would be houses, people’s homes, and land in Farragut. So thank God that failed. We need to keep Farragut a no-tax Town, except for sales tax.
• I commend (Farragut Mayor Ralph) McGill and (Alderman Robert “Bob”) Markli for opposing the Hotel/Motel Tax. We are fortunate these hotels and motels are in our area and should welcome them and not single the nine out for a tax, especially when there are so many unoccupied business buildings in the Town’s limits.
• I wanted to comment on the responsibility of the Town of Farragut to build the roads in Farragut. It’s not the landowners’ responsibility. Landowners have rights to develop their property for residential or commercial, and they’re not supposed to build the roads. The Town of Farragut has that reversed: they try to put the road construction on the back of the landowner when they can, and that’s why we have some unimproved roads in Farragut. Farragut needs to focus first on roads for the safety of its residents and to allow landowners to build new houses and commercial. It is not the responsibility of the landowner to build roads. I think (Alderman) Bob Markli knows that. I don’t know how many other aldermen know that, but Bob Markli (as the next mayor if elected) will lead that direction for the Town to be responsible for roads, not the landowners. Everyone should know this.
