Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett presented his Budget for FY 2014 today at 9 a.m. and then went on the road. the first stop was at the Carter Senior Center.
A source pic text messaged me a couple of twitter screen shots. One is of print photographer for a weekly throw away community paper saying the crowd with non government people was a mere handful. Mayor Burchett tweeted out a big crowd at Carter Senior Center. The source asked, who is right?
Shock And Awe made it out the Halls Senior Center meeting later in the afternoon and yes there were a lot of government folks there. State Rep Bill Dunn was in attendance, although he emphasized that he was there as a citizen. Folks from the Mayor’s staff and the staff of the Mayor’s Finance Department led by Casual Chris Caldwell were present.
I came to the conclusion, that the disparity in the two tweets is do you look at anything as half glass full? That is what the Mayor was doing, in my opinion. I like to remember and remind myself what Author Alex Haley would say, “find the good and praise it” I believe the journalist was viewing it as a glass half empty. Sadly his interpretation is that county employees do not count and are not worthy of being considered.
Dwight Van de Vate Director of Engineering and Public Works for Knox County and Mayor Burchett took the opportunity to meet with a county resident that has flooding issues on his personal property. I would think that to that man, the event was good. It was bringing the government of the man, to the man.
A small community crowd? That shows the community is content and satisfied with how Burchett is running things. County govt is usually low on people’s priority list anyway. National politics is where most of the attention is, unless they have a problem that they think the county can help them with.