Two candidates seek District 4 council seat
By Mike Steely
Senior Writer
steelym@knoxfocus.com
Voters in District 4 will be selecting candidates to replace Lauren Rider on city council this year.
Jane George had been a candidate for the District 4 seat before leaving the race earlier last month and told The Focus: “Unfortunately, due to personal issues and unforeseen circumstances, I am withdrawing from the race. I will still be on the ballot, that cannot be changed.”
The Knoxville Focus asked the two remaining candidates, Matthew DeBardelaben and Jeff Talman, four questions and here are their answers exactly as submitted:
What qualifies you to seek the office?
Matthew DeBardelaben: I have personal knowledge of the character of Knoxville’s diverse neighborhoods. I understand the pressures and opportunities each faces. I have lived in several global cities and on a rural country farm.
I served for 6 years on the Downtown Knoxville Alliance, 3 of these years as board chair. The DKA is the Central Improvement District. Downtown Knoxville has flourished during these years. I am currently serving in my 6th year on the Design Review Board. This period has been a wonderful education in our infill housing.
As a commercial broker, I have the opportunity every day to bring new uses to buildings that have long been blighted. This year, my work has included a restaurant, an event space, and twelve new townhomes that will replace three blighted buildings and an empty lot.
As a project manager for the PBA, I also see how public policy becomes real, tangible results and services for residents. I have recently worked on the upkeep of our Civic Coliseum and Auditorium and the Old Knoxville Courthouse clock tower.
This has not been easy work. It has required tenacity, bravery, recovering from failure, and creativity. This is the same energy I will bring to City Council as the 4th District’s voice for progress.
Jeff Talman: I kept waiting for someone better looking and with a better argument for the future of Knoxville and the Fourth District to show up and nobody did. So here I am. I come from a family of civic minded people and I pay attention to the issues.
My particular knowledge and vision for Knoxville is informed by decades of hands on working with fellow citizens of every stripe and station. Some of my civic and community involvement in Knoxville over the years includes – two-time President of Fourth & Gill Neighborhood Association, Elected Empowerment Zone Governance Board, Initiating & Steering Committees for 9County1Vision regional planning initiative, appointed to represent the County Commission 2nd district on the Knox County Convention and Visitors Bureau, chaired that organization’s advertising committee, Elected Vice President of my Knoxville Police Department Citizens Police Academy class, member of Caswell Park Task Force, Inducted into the Southeastern Appalachian Whitewater Hall of Fame, member of Knoxville Volunteer Rotary Club since 1997, Knoxville Botanical Garden & Arboretum Board of Directors, Knoxville Preparatory School Community Advisory Board.
I know housing. As a mortgage banker for the last 23 years, I have opened the door to tens of millions of dollars to help people achieve homeownership, and helped renovate and revitalize some of the most challenging housing in our city. I am in fact renovating my own house at 616 Luttrell St in my beloved Fourth & Gill Neighborhood. It has been a challenge and I have gotten to know first hand just how difficult it is to do business in the City.
My late father and step-father were both attorneys who helped me understand the need for principled people to speak up and have courage. As examples my step-father’s brother was Joe Henry who had the courage when he was Tennessee Adjutant General to ride into Clinton, Tennessee in 1956, in an open jeep, to lay the law down that racial integration was to be the law of the land. He similarly rose above his partisan blue-dog democrat political views to swear Lamar Alexander in before outgoing Ray Blanton could sell additional executive clemencies out the back door of the governor’s mansion.
What is the district’s largest problem?
DeBardelaben: The Fourth District’s largest problem is also its largest opportunity—growth. Knoxville is growing, and there is no stop button. Consider these numbers— Between 1990 and 2005, Knoxville’s growth averaged 120 persons per year. Since 2022, we have averaged over 3,200 persons per year.
Our City government must serve us by building for responsive and proactive growth. Responsive growth is possible when the right tools and resources are in place as issues come before City Council. Reactive growth occurs when we lack imagination and the resources to address the same issues that come before City Council.
Talman: My view is that the biggest issue in the district is affordability of life. I will be a bulldog when it comes to honoring how hard people have to work to earn their money and will bring new discipline We have many older citizens and people of modest means in the Fourth District and they have been cruelly harmed by generationally government spending-fueled inflation, the result of Washington vote buying, leaving them with nowhere to run to afford life.
While not unique to this district we have mental illness and addiction with our homeless population. The State of Tennessee has a unique leadership role to play in helping create a facility where these fragile human beings can be cared for and given the attention they deserve. What we witness daily in Knoxville is neither humane nor therapeutic and I will be a bulldog here as well.
Make a statement about the outgoing city council person.
DeBardelaben: Council-woman Lauren Rider is an informed, thoughtful, and wise leader. Her expertise in Knoxville’s land use laws and ordinances is invaluable. Her integrity and temperament have helped build a wonderful city.
Talman: I am very fond of current city council woman Lauren Rider. I had the honor of getting to know her when she and her husband moved to Knoxville. I structured the financing as they did a ground up renovation on what has become one of the great houses in town. She immediately became a neighborhood leader who brought great energy and care for her community, and of course has won two terms to public office. While we have differing views on some important things I look forward to her being my constituent and working together where possible on continuing to uplift Knoxville.
Do you support the sales tax increase referendum on the November ballot?
DeBardelaben: If the people of Knoxville choose to pass the proposed sales tax increase, and I win my campaign to represent Knoxville’s Fourth District on City Council, I will hold our current City Mayor and Knoxville’s next City Mayor accountable to the will of the voters— investing in sidewalks near schools, greenways, affordable housing, maintenance of facilities, and public parks.
I think it is an opportunity to invest in infrastructure that stays in front of our growth. I think it is an opportunity to allow the most vulnerable of Knoxvillians to grow with Knoxville.
In November I will vote yes for the proposed sales tax.
Talman: Emphatically no. The manner in which the Mayor has brought the issue to the public demonstrates that the projects projected to be funded with the new revenue are discretionary – wanna dos. Yet we have neighbors and fellow citizens who are not affording life now and will be further pushed onto the margins and into government dependency. The city needs to be more disciplined in looking at wanna dos and gotta dos, and it needs to be more business like in generating additional revenue while keeping the rate of taxation low, if not lower.
