According to a reliable source, Robert Lawrence Smith, Knox County Commission Vice Chairman was on a segment with WBIR Anchor John Becker this afternoon. Becker asked him about not voting with his colleagues for the censure one of their colleagues that plead guilty to the crime of having inappropriate relations with another man in public.
Smith said that the week before there had been much media discussion about an NBA player coming out as gay. In addition, there was a lot of discussion about gays in the Boy Scouts. He was tired of the discussion. Becker pushed Smith by saying but he broke the law. Smith said and he will pay for that later.
Click here to see the video of Robert Lawrence saying “he had enough of gay issues.”
Smith did not explain what paying for the crime later means. In addition, you have to wonder. If the budget is just talked about too much in Robert Lawrence’s world just he just not vote for it? If a beer package store sells to underage children and there is a lot of talk will he not vote for it? If a zoning request or a run off water problem persist for too long and there’s too much talk will he just not vote? Or was he telling us something about his Fourth District colleague that we haven’t heard before?
In my opinion, if you want to see what is wrong with Knox County Government, R. Larry is the posterchild for inability to discern right from wrong, good from bad, up from down, and necessary from unnecessary. Last time I checked, the King of Cable Commissioner even voted to reprimand himself. Local leaders need to get some guts and recognize if they can’t determine right from wrong, how in the world can they determine what is in the best interest of the citizens of Knox County? What kind of idiot is R. Larry? This is why we spend $5 million on industrial parks in Blount County.
Government officials like R. Larry are reminders of why we need a smaller commision (smaller than what we have now) less government as a whole in Knox County, and an ongoing analysis of how our local government really operates day in and day out.
Maybe TLC will start a reality show in Knox County, monitoring the daily happenings at the City County Building, Here Comes County Boo Boo.