Smith polls Trustee Dept on new boss

On Thursday, Knox County Commissioner Vice Chairman R. Larry Smith met with workers in the Trustee's Office and asked who they wanted to lead them.

He said he asked workers there to write down three candidate names. He also asked them to write down the person they would not want in the job.

"They were tickled to death - they were glad someone wanted their opinion," he told me, adding that he is still visiting the department's satellite offices and should finish the poll by Monday when the commission makes its pick.

Smith said that so far he hasn't peeked at the names, but he will by Monday.

(Here's the Rogue's take on the matter, right smack here.)

OK, couple things about this selection process:

Whoever is picked is going to need six votes. I'm assuming Ed Shouse will recuse himself since he's looking for the gig. Also Mike Brown will not be at the meeting. (By the way, the Mike Brown that applied for the job is not the same person as the commissioner.)

There's a good chance the board comes to an impasse, and has to redo the whole thing in August. (Right now the frontrunners are Shouse, Craig Leuthold and Bill Curtis.)

Another thing. Someone sent the local media and the commissioners a note, talking crap about Curtis, the office's former manager and a candidate for the position.

It's BS. I looked into it. That, however, doesn't stop someone from disparaging another candidate a few days before the "election." I'm not going to bother posting the letter here.

Knox Trustee applicants now up to 12

Well, it looks like 12 folks have now applied for the Trustee gig, including former Trsutee Fred Sisk and William "Bill" Curtis, who served a brief stint as the office's chief of staff before stepping down in mid-May to retire (again).

You can find the complete list of names and resumes (including all the new ones), right smack here.

I expected Fred to apply. He served as Trustee for a few years and worked in the office for a loooong time. He's also credited with tipping off the TBI (which took a loooong time to investigate) about office issues.

Curtis, who spent 40 years at Curtis Mortgage where he was president and CEO, joined John Duncan III's staff in September 2010. He's well-respected and was later tapped to serve as chief of staff after Joshua Burnett resigned.

When he Curtis, he told me it was to spend more time with his grandchildren. My guess is someone encouraged him to throw his name in, and he's doing it because he's a nice guy. I seriously don't expect him to run for office. He's a lot more low key than most of the top officials over at the Deathstar and would more than likely not want to put up with all the BS that comes with the full-time, fully-elected gig.