No matter what, taxpayers get the bill

We at Screams from da Porch sometimes like to provide all two readers with some insight on a story. The most recent one ran Saturday, called “Trustee’s Office mistake to cost taxpayers $12,500.”

You can read that bad boy by clicking right smack here.

Now, this post isn’t really about the “reporting error” (or whatever they’re calling the screw-up over at the Trustee’s Office); it’s just a little inside baseball about what happened during an interview.

OK, so I’m talking to county Mayor Tim Burchett about an email from the county’s auditor, KPMG, and how officials want to bill the county some additional coin for what they say was extra work on their part to complete the audit. (The audit was completed on time by the way.)

The mayor tells me that he’s going to ask the Trustee’s Office to pay for it. He was very, very adamant about this. When I asked if it really mattered who paid (the Trustee’s Office turns over additional money it collects to the county, so technically it’s all county money), Burchett said that yes, it would be “symbolic.”

Anyhoo, I write that down and later I’m talking to Emperor Dean Rice and he’s going on about something that I can’t recall and at some point I tell him that the mayor wants the Trustee’s Office to pick up the tab.

Rice is kind of surprised. I think. That’s how I took it anyway. About 20 or 30 minutes or so later, the mayor calls, letting me know that he misspoke about wanting the Trustee’s Office to pay the bill. I asked if he had talked to Dean about this. He had. I asked Dean later if he had talked to the mayor about this. He did.

Strange.

Like I said: It doesn’t matter which office pays for it. Cause it’s really your coin.

But, I don’t expect this to be the last time the tab is mentioned.

The Audit Committee meets in late January. It’s going to be brought up again.

Too tired for a fancy headline today

Miss me? Didn’t think so. Figures.

As you probably know, the paper laid off four employees. They were good people. That’s all I’m going to say about that, other than a lot of the speculation, the blah, blah, blah, I read yesterday on the message boards, blogs, whatever, is not accurate.

If I didn’t return your call yesterday, then that’s my bad. I’ve got a few days off and I was still recovering from hanging out with the original porch screamer. That and I was catching up on my latest read: The Astounding Wolf-Man by Robert Kirkman.

Good stuff.

I’ll be back later with some more posts.

(By the way, what did you think of that headline? Heh.)

One week left to qualify for county office

Folks now have one week to qualify for the county offices up for re-election in the March 6 primary. I know: joy, joy.

The obvious, so far, is incumbent Law Director Joe Jarret facing off against former county Commissioner Bud Armstrong (both have already returned their petitions); and incumbent Property Assessor Phil Ballard against former assessor John Whitehead. (Both have announced but neither has turned in a petition yet.)

Steven Sword is seeking re-election for criminal court judge, division I.

The other four county races are for school board seats. Only incumbent Karen Carson has returned her petition, but others have picked up one, so we could have a few contested races.

Here's the breakdown so far:

• 2nd District: incumbent Indya Kincannon
• 3rd District: Elaine Davis and Bobby Edington
• 5th District: Karen Carson, Brian Bruce
• 8th District: Mike McMillian and Conley Underwood.

Flu mist running low, no school visits

Not sure whether this merits posting on the ol' blog or not, but since most of the stuff doesn't what's one more. Heh.

Soooo, it seems some county officials expressed brief concern Wednesday that the health department didn't have enough money to give kids a second dose of the flu mist.

Not sure if this was just misinformation or what. But, Martha Buchanan, head honcho at the health department, told them that the first dose that the kids received awhile back is 90 percent effective. So, they should be OK.

However, the department doesn't have enough coin to visit local schools, so that's out for this year. You want the mist, go to the health department. (Drop my name, too. Might get you somewhere. Heh.)

Next year also could be an issue. Apparently, the federal dollars to support the misty program has dried up. (I'm not sure if this expense is included in the $7 million that the county will lose or not.)

Buchanan and Superintendent Jim McIntyre are expected to meet at some point to figure out a plan. They're supposed to look at “creative funding, grants or even corporate sponsorships.”

I like that last idea. Get your “Good Year” flu mist. Or whatever.

Corporate sponsorship.

Maybe Big Bill over at Pilot will get involved.

Naw, I doubt it. Too busy figuring out how to not get involved building local schools more like it.

Yeah, I went there.

Kincannon to kick off campaign tonight

As usual, I get no love from a school board member. Although that probably has more to do with me calling all of them "Lord McIntyre's disciples" all the time.

But, I digress.

Anyhoo, Knox County board of education Vice Chairwoman Indya Kincannon wrote a letter to the hippies over at R. Neal's blog - click right smack here - letting them know that she's kicking off her re-election campaign.

(Indya by the way once wrote a letter to the paper about me, but it wasn't very nice. Funny, though.)

Here's the kickoff info:

Dear Knoxviews Readers,

I'm running for re-election to the Knox County School Board and would appreciate your support. You're invited to a kick-off reception tonight, Wednesday November 30th, from 5-7pm, at the Whetsel Home, 1015 Luttrell Street, 37917.

Blah, blah, blah.

Indya also has a campaign website.

The election is March 6. The qualifying deadline is set for noon on Dec. 8.

There, that's my good deed for the day.

Finance department honored for its math

The Knox County Finance Department continues to add and subtract big numbers correctly and make it all look pretty.

The Government Finance Officers Association for the 16th year in a row – see, Screams from da Porch can count, too – honored officials with the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the FY 2011-12 budget.

In a spin release, issued from the Deathstar's 8th floor of evilness, Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett brags about finance director John Troyer, saying the honor is well-deserved because it makes him look good.

In return, Troyer brags about his staff cause they make him look good to the mayor.

“No, you're the best,” the mayor says.

“No, you are,” Troyer counters.

“We both are,” they say at the same time.

(Yeah, I made that up.)

To qualify for the award, the finance department needed to . . . . Well, I'm not exactly sure. The spin release doesn't really say, other than satisfy some national guidelines. Whatever that means.

Anyhoo, good job.

Now, get back to work, cause you've got next year's budget to do.

(Must be a slow news day or something.)

County hot line good thing, needs work

I’ll have a story in tomorrow’s paper about the county’s audit hot line, which I affectionately call the tattletale line.

I’ve posted about this thing before. No clicking right smack here cause I’m too lazy to look for the initial posts. Anyhoo, the focus of the story is mostly on some of the silliness and the potential for abuse that can come out of these things.

Now, granted it’s tough to tell what’s frivolous and what’s not. Especially with Knox County’s colorful political history. But, there is potential for abuse.

For instance: Say candidate “A” is running against an incumbent. “A” gets some of his buddies to call the line a few hundred times. Every call generates a report. Say the callers claim that the incumbent has stolen a bunch of crap. Or has some illegal sexual tastes. Or whatever.

Yeah, sure, county officials might not find anything. But once the investigations are done, all that information is public record. There is nothing stopping the candidate from releasing a mailer a week before the election that says: “(Insert name here) has been the subject of more than 300 tips, linking him to (insert whatever BS accusation here).”

And yeah, that will happen. Here.

So, the issue is going to get discussed. Again, I write about this tomorrow.

What I didn’t get to in the story, however, is that there is some good that has come out of these reports. Mark Jones, the county’s director of risk management, has been charged with going through them, referring them here and there and wherever. I’ve seen them. And although a lot of them have nothing to do with fraud or wasteful spending (the real reason the state asked counties to create these things), he has referred the reports to the proper departments. And from all indications the issues were corrected.

In addition, there could very well be some minor troublesome reports that officials substantiate. Initially, Jones was asked to go through the complaints and refer them to the proper official. The audit committee recently expanded his scope and now he’s checking to see what’s happened with some of them. So, we’ll know more soon.

(All too often, folks - myself included - lose track of some of the good that gets done and we forget to mention it. Believe it or not, most county employees do work. But I digress.)

In the meantime, I’m going to call the audit line and make up some stuff.

Cause I’m mature that way.

Mayor-elect Rogero announces spin team

OK, this sucker just came out of left field.

At first, anyway.

Jesse Fox Mayshark, former Sentinel reporter, former New Yorker and now former beer-drinking-hell-raising Metro Pulse editor, has taken a job with Knoxville Mayor-elect Madeline Rogero.

As I think about it, however, the whole thing makes sense. Hippies hire hippies.

Heh.

Although he might not be looking the part much longer.

According to Wild Bill Lyons (who has lots of new job titles but still pretty much runs city government): "There might be a different look."

Anyhoo, no word yet on how much coin traitor Jesse will make. (Lyons said he didn't know at this point.)

In addition, Rogero hired Angela Starke. I don't know her. I heard she used to work for the Sentinel and served as a reporter at WVLT-TV. I don't read the paper and I do not watch TV news, so . . . . Never heard of her.

UPDATE: Benedict Mayoral-Shark just wrote, saying he will get a haircut and there are rumors that he'll go on a tie-shopping expedition. Personally, we must be vigilant on reporting who pays for the ties. There is ample opportunity for graft here.

Here's the official spin job released by the city earlier today:

Mayor-elect Madeline Rogero announced today that she has appointed two experienced Knoxville journalists to communications positions in her new administration.

Angela Starke, weekend anchor and reporter at WVLT-TV, will become senior director of communications, and Jesse Fox Mayshark, managing editor of Metro Pulse, will be communications manager.

“During my campaign, I promised an open and transparent administration, and these appointments will help me carry out that pledge,” Rogero said. “Angela and Jesse bring an understanding of what media organizations need to cover city government, and they share my commitment to openness and the public’s right to know.”

In their roles, Starke will help develop strategies to communicate the administration’s programs and initiatives, and Mayshark will be responsible for day-to-day relationships with the news media.

Before joining WVLT, Starke was a reporter for WJLA TV/ABC 7 News, the network affiliate in Washington, D.C., covering local and national stories. In 2008, she won an Achievement Award from the Time to Fly Foundation for stories on domestic violence.

She began her career at the Gainesville, Texas, newspaper and then reported and held editing positions for several newspapers, including the Washington Post and USA Today. She is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and has been active with the Society of Professional Journalists.

Mayshark is a former editor of Metro Pulse who returned to Knoxville last year to become managing editor at the publication. He first joined Metro Pulse in 1997 and became editor in 2000. He left in 2002 to become an editor in The New York Times news service department and while there contributed to the paper’s Arts section.

Prior to joining Metro Pulse, Mayshark was a reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

County might send residents to 'college'

Who knew commissioners actually brought something back when they attended those National Association of Counties (NACo) meetings?

OK, kidding. No, not really.

Anyhoo, county Commission Chairman Mike Hammond wants to implement a “Citizens' College” for local residents to learn about county government. (Yes, I know education isn't exactly a priority for many, but still . . . .)

Under the proposal, which he heard about at one of the conferences, commissioners select two people and the mayor's office picks three. They all meet up, hang out, drink beer, whatever, at a day long session over at the Deathstar.

Good stuff. And this time I'm not kidding.

The “college” give residents input into just how local government, and each branch, works. And a lot of people (just check out the KNS message boards) have no clue.

A session, for example, might include a presentation from the law director about ordinances; or the mayor about what he's responsible for; or a commissioner about monthly meeting agendas.

County Law Director Joe Jarret said he was involved in a number of these academies when he worked in Florida. Here's a copy of the plan that Polk County did. It includes reasons why someone would want to participate. Click right smack here for it.

And go get educated. (If the commission follows through with the idea.)

County mayor announces more meetings

In the latest of what county communications manager Michael Grider likes to call a “media advisory” but we at Screams from da Porch like to call “spin jobs” county Mayor Tim Burchett continues his never-ending quest to fist bump every man, woman and child in the county.

Click right smack here for the meeting dates.

Condolences to Co. Mayor Tim Burchett

My condolences to county Mayor Tim Burchett.

His mother, Joyce, passed away earlier today. She had been ill for quite some time and entered a hospice a few weeks ago.

I talked to Tim briefly earlier today and he told me that “she’s now in heaven.”

She was 87.

And she was really cool. I met her twice. A very nice lady and a career educator. She also knew how to fly a plane and did so in the 1940s!

She will be missed.

The mayor, understandably, will be spending time with his family.

In a released statement administration Chief of Staff Dean Rice said: This is certainly a sad time for the mayor and his family, as well as for the many people in Knox County who knew Mrs. Burchett. I hope the community will keep the Burchett family in their prayers in the days ahead.

Mrs. Burchett was married to Charles R. “Charlie” Burchett Sr., a longtime chairman of the old Knoxville school board and a retired dean at the University of Tennessee. He passed away in November 2008.

Mrs. Burchett was born Jan. 9, 1924 in Cheatham County and graduated from Cheatham County High School. She earned a degree from the University of Tennessee and later worked at TVA during World War II. But, she spent most of her career teaching at Young High School, Bearden High School and Knoxville College.

Mrs. Burchett, who married her husband after the war, was a member of Ossoli Circle, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Bearden Retired Association of Teachers and Grandmothers at Prayer.

She is survived by her daughter Joyce Burchett High and her husband; son, Charles Burchett Jr. and his wife; son, Tim Burchett and his wife; and six grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held in the sanctuary of Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church, 9132 Kingston Pike, on Monday at 7 p.m.

In lieu of flowers the family said donations can be made in her memory to:

Christian Academy of Knoxville

“Charlie and Joyce Burchett Tuition Assistance Fund"

529 Academy Way

Knoxville, TN 37923

Or donations can be sent to:

Salvation Army

“In Memory of Joyce Burchett”

P.O. Box 669

Knoxville, TN 37901