Tragedy sparks action: main Russell incentive to enter political realm
Newly elected 5th District Commissioner
Having secured nearly 50 percent of the vote against her four Republican Primary opponents in March before earning almost 64 percent to win the general election culminating Tuesday, Aug. 1, first-time politician Angela Russell is ready to hit the ground running as Knox County’s 5th District County Commissioner.
Tragedy sparks action
For all of the issues she’s been tackling as a candidate-turned commissioner-elect, it was one road in particular that ignited Russell’s interest in getting involved.
She doesn’t talk about it often — it was a tragic episode that served as the catalyst to her political life.
Russell’s sister-in-law was killed in a car accident on Northshore Drive. She had one son whose face, the confusion and sadness crafting his countenance, is one that will never leave her.
“The look that I saw on his face, and the concern in his eyes, I would never ... want another family to have to go through that,” Russell said.
She blamed “over-crowdedness” in an area where the roads are narrow and vehicles are fast. “Northshore is just a dangerous road.”
Russell said she started taking action “to help make sure that Northshore got widened, got some attention, so other people didn’t go through that same situation.”
Multiple areas of focus
Russell — not “anti-development,” as she was prone to be labeled, but pro-smarter development, she said — gained a name in homeowners associations and as an early leading voice for road improvements and development concerns, such as the defeated Choto Landing proposal that just didn’t make sense in her and other area residents’ minds.
The former accountant now has her sights set on the county’s budget, with a heavy focus on simply keeping those in the 5th District informed, worrying now and prior that people haven’t been merely disengaged in elections, but also unaware of the goings-on even to bother trying to makes heads or tails of things on their own. And information, she feels, is the fuel that makes a good community better.
“I just want people to be informed,” said Russell, who fills the seat of term-limited Commissioner John Schoonmaker. “I think different opinions, different ideas, different thoughts make for a better product.”
As finances are concerned, she added, “We’ve got several issues going on with the budget that have nothing to do with the accounting stats of the county. It’s just decisions that’ve been made by the governing body over the many, many years that have kind of accumulated,” citing a growing concern over mounting debt “that we’re going to have to deal with in the next little bit.”
Federal funding and those supplied to non-profits are sticking points as well, she believes, which must be addressed before wells dry or taxes swell. “There’s going to be a lot of difficult decisions to be made,” she foreshadowed.
The daughter of a devout Baptist preacher, Russell was born in Knoxville and reared in Loudon County, graduating from Lenior City High School and University of Tennessee with a degree in accounting.
She later earned her designation as a member of the Appraisal Institute, which is like the cherry atop the ice cream cone of real estate appraising evaluation.
A 30-plus-year resident of the 5th District, she was a certified public account for many years. The commissioner-elect and her husband of nearly 30 years, Douglas Russell, are the parents of two children who graduated from Farragut High School.
“I’m just humbled,” she said, “that the people have put their trust in me. I’m excited. I will put forth my best effort to try to represent the 5th District first, but all of Knox County. ... I want to do the best job I can.”
