Long-time Trustee worker seeks head post
Biggs is also currently serving as Knox County Commissioner, at-large Seat 11, but decided not to seek re-election.
Instead, he decided to run for Trustee when he realized his boss, Ed Shouse, was term limited.
“Ed Shouse is one the smartest men I have ever met,” said Biggs. “I have learned a lot from him, and count him as my friend and my mentor.
“My plan is to provide the same top level of service he has provided for the next eight years.”
Biggs, who describes himself as a “sixth generation East Tennessean,” graduated from Karns High School. He went to work for a Fortune 500 company, until his parents, former Knoxville Police Department and Knox County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy Eddie Biggs and his wife, Pat, became ill.
“I came home to help take care of them,” he said. “I got an offer to work at the Trustee’s office, and just fell in love with it and never left.
“I love to help people, and that is what we do.”
One way the office already helps is through its five satellite offices, which Biggs said he would like to expand to include home visits for the elderly or disabled, if possible.
“I would like to see us bring that a little closer to home, to make paying their property taxes a little easier.”
Biggs currently works as the collections administrator in the Trustee’s office, and he said he has been able to help reduce the county’s delinquent tax list from more than 15,000 to just over 7,000 properties.
“Our focus on tax sales has helped bring in some really good money for our county, especially now that the real estate market is so hot,” he said. “It helps provide more housing opportunities, too, as well as helping to clean up blighted properties.
“Overall, it helps put millions of dollars into the General Fund.”
Biggs and his wife, Heather, have a daughter, Lilly Ann, who recently celebrated her 5th birthday.
He said when Shouse first mentioned he was term limited, he talked it over with Heather, who was “very supportive” of the move.
For more information visit www.electbiggs.com.
