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Daily Dose for July 18, 2008
Cooper Talks About His Early Obama Endorsement
Cooper Talks About His Early Obama Endorsement -- Congressman Jim Cooper talks about his early endorsement of Barack Obama in today's City Paper. Cooper, following his past experience with the Clinton's and initial meeting with Obama, was conviced to throw the "liberal" Senator his support, even though Cooper is a member of the Blue Dogs Caucus, a group of moderate, budget-hawk Dems. Cooper comments on the possibility of Obama accomplishing his long sought goal - reforming entitlements: "Well probably only a liberal and an African-American could reform runaway entitlement program spending. Now there’s no guarantee of that, but I don’t see a Republican doing it.”
Again - No Toll Road Unless Public Approves -- Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely drew a round of applause Thursday when he promised that the proposed Knoxville Parkway won't be a toll road if the public is opposed to the idea. TDOT officials had proposed that before, but in news media reports following a public forum in which opposition to the toll road was voiced, TDOT said they would listen a federally mandated highway commission, instead of the citizens forum. At the new forum, TDOT recognized there was more opposition to the toll road than support and if that kept, the toll road would not be built.
Knox Co. Commission Tries Message Board -- An new message board unveiled today allows Knox Co. Commissioners to "talk" to one another while the public can see their conversations. The message board idea was in response to a court ruling that Knox Co. Commissioners violated the State's Open Meeting Laws by holding conversations outside the commission meetings. State Rep. Bill Dunn proposed the message board idea as a work around for fatigued commissioners.
Adams Back on Job -- After resigning last week, East Ridge city manager Curtis Adams is back on the job. Adams had met with East Ridge Mayor Mike Steele and East Ridge City Attorney John Anderson and agreed to go back on the job. The city manager has now written a letter to him and to all members of the East Ridge Commission saying that his resignation will become effective when a new city manager is hired. The East Ridge Commission now turns to Adams' controversal budget, which prompted the resignation following a 47c property tax increase proposal.
Shelby Co. Trustee Race Sees Rare Campaign Finance Case -- The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports on the race for Shelby Co. Trustee. Ray Butler a Republican is running against acting Trustee Paul Mattila. Butler, who was former Trustee Bob Patterson's campaign Treasurer, unusually had control of his campaign account after Patterson died. After Butler directed all of the remaining money in the account to his own campaign, Mattila filed a complaint with the Registry of Election Finance, which says that while it is clear that Butler has control of the campaign account as Treasurer, he is limited to donating $1,000 to his own campaign - because that is the limit that campaign committees can give to each other. Butler disagrees with the interpretation - and the case could need to be settled in a lawsuit.
