Williams Wins!
As opposed to celebrating his election as Town of Farragut’s fifth mayor in any grand way, Alderman Ron Williams said he simply planned to “hit the sack.”
Winning his election against fellow Alderman Robert “Bob” Markli by less than 300 votes (3,028 versus 2,765 — 52.27 percent versus 47.73), “I got (to the polling places) at 8 a.m. this morning and I left there at 9 o’clock tonight,” Williams said in a phone interview around 10 p.m., shortly after final Knox County Election Commission vote totals were released on election night, Thursday, Aug. 2.
Williams will join re-elected Alderman Ron Pinchok (South Ward), newly elected North Ward representative Scott Meyer, and the Town’s other North Ward rep, Louise Povlin, on the new Board, which will be sworn into office Thursday, Aug. 23.
Williams and the Board will preside over their first meeting immediately that evening.
As for the South Ward alderman to take Williams’ place for the next two years, the Board will accept applications, which will be made public, before BOMA votes on the new representative “hopefully sometime before the end of September,” Williams said.
The new Board also will select one of its aldermen for the dual role of vice mayor.
Looking back on his mayoral campaign, “It was a lot more involved,” Williams said when compared to his only other contested elected office campaign push: a South Ward alderman race versus Pinchok in 2014, which Williams lost.
“I spoke at a lot of HOAs and political meetings,” he added about the mayoral campaign. “And I had to battle all the incorrect ads and articles that were written.
“Other than that it was just normal hard work.”
However, “It wasn’t harder than I thought,” said Williams, running for mayor in the middle of his first term as a South Ward alderman, about the campaign process.
“My goal was to run a gentleman’s race with absolutely no negatives,” he added. “And I did not put any negatives out there. I stayed very positive, and I did not respond to the negatives, other than I did correct them at that (Farragut) Gun Club meeting (in July).
In a tip of the hat, “I would like to thank the Farragut voters for their confidence in electing me their next mayor,” Williams said.
In deference to a recent tragedy in the Markli family — the loss of his grandson, James Albert Rhoads, who was born prematurely — farragutpress did not contact Markli for comment.
(Read more election information — including details on other races affecting Farragut — in our Thursday, Aug. 9, edition)
