letters to the editor
Beware of ‘mayoral appointed’ stance, ‘core group’
The 2020 Knox County Charter Review Committee concluded this past week on Aug. 12, and here is the final update to the 5th District and the Town of Farragut.
In short and as expected due to Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs through his appointees and the “public sector” members of the KCCRC, the “Mayoral Appointed” Law Director Amendment will be coming to the November ballot along with another amendment per financial transparency.
Again, the entire political spectrum of organizations and all Knox County community groups are against the “mayoral appointed” law director. Only one person spoke of supporting this amendment in all of the public forums and public hearings, and it was an elected member of the Knox County School Board (who is not of our district).
This type of amendment was on the ballot in 2012 and Knox County voters overwhelming rejected the political move of a “mayoral appointed” law director. It is my hope and encouragement that voters will do this again in November, as I believe this amendment is “dead on arrival” based on the outrage seen to date per Mayor Jacobs’ desire to eliminate an elected office, remove the people’s “check and balance” on the executive branch and build a bigger bureaucracy.
I will make a citizen update in mid-October per the coming amendments. I also would like to thank the entire 5th District and Town of Farragut residents and Knox County Commissioner John Schoonmaker for letting me represent our interests on the KCCRC.
Lastly, I would like to state an important personal and professional perspective. For the past 30 years, I have probably been in over 20,000 “meetings.” I have also served well over 400 committees, boards, professional association activities, strategic councils, community groups, entrepreneurship initiatives, etc.
I have been employed by the executives of a “Global 1” company and other “Fortune 100,” sold to/consulted for most industries and companies of the “Fortune 500” and spent plenty of time with “Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Madison Avenue” among other things in my journeys. I have also had the privilege of working with many military, intelligence, law enforcement and national security organizations on very “cool stuff.”
I also am one of the few people in the country that holds accredited graduate degrees in both business (MBA) and public (MPA) administration along with an undergraduate (BA) degree studying political science, criminal justice, etc. I have visited over a thousand communities and spent a good portion of time supporting some of their missions.
With all that being said, let me state the following: although I served with some excellent Knox County Commissioners (including John Schoonmaker) and equally incredible Knox County citizens on the KCCRC, I regrettably have to report to the public that there was a small but “core group” of the mayoral appointees and Knox County Commissioners that are unethical and are a disgrace to the professional standards of public administration (serving the public/citizens).
I have never in all of my professional experience served on a “public sector/community” type of committee that had a small “core group” that was so transparent in their conduct, pure cronyism, conflicts of interests, desire to build a bigger bureaucracy, disdain for “We the People” and disregard to following the processes of conducting a meeting and/or ignoring the advice of its Law Director.
Simply stated, I am deeply saddened to see Knox County citizens and stakeholders being screwed by elected bureaucrats, self-serving political hacks and the dupes/pawns that support them. Please become aware of what is happening in Knox County and hold your representatives fully accountable. Thank you.
Bill Johns, MBA, MPA, Farragut
