Metro Pulse/Cover/County Elections 2002

Rags to Executive
Unopposed for county executive, Mike Ragsdale sets the agenda that most Commission candidates tend to follow

Bean v. Quist
A simple court clerkship can stir up quite a political stew

Tim v. Them
Sheriff Hutchison's got a race or two on his hands this time out

Commission candidates nearly all stand for economic development plus education

by Barry Henderson

The face of County Commission will change somewhat, following the 2002 county elections, even though at least eight incumbent commissioners are running unopposed.

Even if the other incumbents should all win reelection, it will be a different Commission without Frank Leuthold, Frank Bowden, Pat Medley and Larry Stephens, all of whom are departing.

Leuthold, especially, will leave a void to be filled. As the long-time chairman of the finance committee, who sometimes seemed the only Commission member to understand the entire county budget and tax structure, he has had inordinate influence and respect within and without the legislative body almost since his first election in 1980.

Who will fill that vacancy will be decided in the May 7 primary election. One of the two Republican candidates vying for his Seat B in West Knox County's 5th District is Craig Leuthold, the commissioner's 38-year-old son.

The younger Leuthold, who is the supervisor of the Farragut satellite office of the Knox County trustee, says he's been champing at the bit. "I never felt it appropriate to run for anything while my father was in office," he says. "But I've been active in Republican politics, and I look at this as another step in community service. I understand what the job entails, and it interests me."

His priorities for the county—recruiting businesses and industries to bring in more and better jobs and providing the necessary land and zoning requirements for those enterprises, and working for a top-notch educational system, are the same as those of his opponent, Joe Ford, a 57-year-old Realtor.

Ford says he's in the race because he sees "things in our county government that need to be changed." Among those things, his top two involve improving business recruitment and settling dissension between the Commission and the school board—in other words, jobs and education.

Those themes, which have been the cornerstones of Mike Ragsdale's unopposed run for county executive, ring throughout the Commission district races, leaving little to be debated among most of the candidates.

In the 7th District in North Knoxville, incumbent Republican and Commission Chairman Leo Cooper is defending his Seat B against two Republican candidates, each a 35-year-old businessman and each concerned with communication and cooperation among the county, the city and the school system and each calling for controlled economic growth and new jobs.

"I think to a degree some county commissioners have worked to facilitate a separation of the city from the county. I think we have to work together," says Eric Arnold, senior director of a medical technology firm.

Scott Moore, president of a property management group, says he's in the race for much the same reasons. "We're getting a new CEO in Mike Ragsdale, and he needs a new board of directors," says Moore, who ran against state Rep. Jim Boyer four years ago and came close to unseating the veteran legislator.

Cooper says they seem to be "fine young men," but he also says, "If one of them is elected, he'll have to learn fast." The "paramount thing," Cooper says, is the financing of ongoing services in the face of reductions in funding from Nashville. "I'm afraid we may be looking at a tax increase," he says. A retired school principal first elected 16 years ago, Cooper says he decided to seek another term because, "I just believe, with the transition coming on [to a new executive] and the knowledge I've acquired...and Frank Leuthold leaving, I thought I could help."

There is no Democrat running in Cooper's District, so the primary will settle the election there.

Likewise, the 8th District's Seat A election will be decided May 7. John Mills, the incumbent, who once served South Knoxville on Commission but switched to East Knoxville after a 1990 defeat, has a different, perhaps more traditional approach in his responses to interview questions: "I don't know what the leading issues are, but I know I'm here to help the people of the 8th District get the services they want and need." He says it twice.

Mills is being challenged by Karns High School Principal Tommy Everette, who has lived in the Gibbs area all of his 54 years and who ran for the other 8th District seat once before. He was defeated by Mike McMillan in a special election called in 1993 after McMillan's father Joe died in the office.

"This district and the county as a whole are undergoing some real changes, and I think a new perspective is needed," Everette says. "Politics and representation in the 8th District have been perceived as negative. I want to offer a positive approach."

To any inference that he's running as a school Superintendent Charles Lindsey candidate, which every educator in the race must field, Everette says, "I've never been anybody's 'yes man,' and I ran for Commission long before the superintendent arrived on the scene here."

Two more educators, a retired school teacher and a principal are campaigning for Seat A in the 7th District, which Commissioner Mary Lou Horner has held since the Commission was formed out of the old County Court in 1980.

Don Akers, curator of education at Blount Mansion and retired teacher of American government and history, is running as a Republican in the primary. Bearden High School Principal Mary Lou Kanipe is the lone Democrat on the primary ballot, meaning she'll meet the surviving Republican in August.

Akers, 69, is the uncle of Archie Ellis, the unsuccessful City Council candidate last fall. Akers' sister, Archie's mother, owns property that was rezoned to allow a liquor store in Halls last year, and Commissioner Horner's backers say her position in the zoning dispute led to Akers' candidacy. "That was none of my business," says Akers, who says Ellis and his mother had nothing to do with his decision to run, nor did Superintendent Lindsey, although Lindsey has said he is asking school employees to back Akers as an alternative to the sometimes recalcitrant Horner. Akers says he intended to run for school board until board redistricting moved his home into a district not up for election this time.

A third challenge to Horner was filed on the Republican side by Bill Lunsford, who appears to be a protest candidate inflamed over Horner's position in a dispute over uses of his property in Halls. He isn't running a traditional election campaign, unless using a legal technicality to place hogs on his land at the entrance to a subdivision is the traditional path to public office.

Kanipe will be running on the education funding/economic growth/intergovernmental cooperation platform she shares with many Republicans.

Horner agrees with them that the lack of money from the state, "especially for education," is the most pressing issue. She's running again, she says, because:

"I've got the experience...the knowledge...the time, and I care, and I can get things done. Not everybody agrees with me every time," says the chair of Commission's education committee and political gadfly, "But I do what I think is best for the district and the county."

In the eclectic East Knoxville and downtown area District 1, Seat A is up for grabs with Bowden's retirement. The Democrat candidates are Thomas "Tank" Strickland, community relations director for the city of Knoxville, and Robert Minter Jr., senior buyer and supplier diversity coordinator for the county's purchasing department. Ann Dingus, a TVA retiree, is the only Republican seeking the post.

Strickland and Minter, not surprisingly, place economic development at the top of their issue list. Strickland, who ran for City Council in 1989, says, "It's been a dream of mine to be elected to help people and their government reach sound decisions."

Minter, who ran third in the last County Commission primary in the district, says, "I think I can make a difference as an advocate for the people." Both have been active in civic and community organizations. Strickland is 49, and Minter is 59.

Mark Cawood, the Democrat who has represented District 6 Seat A since 1986, has one Republican opponent on the primary ballot, so the two will square off in the August general election. Jimmie Shelton, the 55-year-old owner of a wholesale company and a remodeling firm in Cawood's northwest Knoxville district, says he "got to grumbling and decided to do something about it" four years ago, when he lost in the primary. He's back this year to try to "get people to stop finger-pointing and start working together." He says he'll "take care of the 6th District first."

In District 1, Diane Jordan has held Seat A since 1994, when she was the first African American woman elected to Commission. She is unopposed this year in the primary, but has general election opposition from Clarence Cash on the Republican ballot. Cash is the husband of Ann Dingus, the Republican candidate for Seat B in District 1. Cash did not return telephone messages.

Wanda Moody, the commissioner for District 3 Seat A since 1986, has a Democrat challenge from Leon Daugherty, a 43-year-old Bearden High School social studies teacher, whose district residency was challenged. His candidacy wasn't immediately certified by the county Election Commission, and his appeal will be reviewed by the commission today at 8 a.m. in Room 212 at the Knox County Courthouse.

Only one other commissioner or candidate for Commission has opposition. That is Larry Clark, the first-term Republican who holds District 9 Seat A in South Knoxville. He has attracted a Democrat opponent in August: Martha Olson, 46, a landscape architect and real estate investor, is a first-time candidate with education and intergovernmental relations as priority issues, along with creating a "government that's accessible and responsive."

In District 3, Seat B, where Medley is departing, former City Councilman Ivan Harmon, who was term-limited out of office but is well-known throughout that northwest Knoxville Commission district, is running without opposition. And in District 6, also northwest, Seat B has been handed to Rob Sanders, the 34-year-old Knoxville branch manager for an Atlanta land surveying company. Incumbent Commissioner Stephens withdrew from the campaign after both the filing deadline and the deadline for removing his name from the ballot. He is backing Sanders, whom he encouraged to run, he says. The maneuver left Sanders unopposed as a Republican. No Democrat filed for the post.