Publisher’s Positions
The City Election: Mayor Kincannon The Big Loser
The results of the City of Knoxville elections were about what most expected. The most interesting aspect of the election was the referendum on increasing the sales tax. That referendum was funded by donations from millionaires and billionaires, aided by friendly stories from the daily newspaper, which did its best to nudge people into voting for increasing the sales tax. That effort failed miserably with 62% of those Knoxvillians voting “NO.” That was a blow to Mayor Indya Kincannon. It was the third big loss of her administration in an exercise of liberal government failures.
The first loss was the moronic attempt to whitewash a pig, put it in a dress, and call it “Cousin Shirley” in an attempt to deny the people of Knoxville district representation and sneak back to voting for every city council seat city-wide. That losing effort was led ostensibly by Councilman Andrew Roberto and failed in a referendum, but it certainly had the backing of Kincannon and her minions. It was Kincannon who, taking the support of a majority of the city council for granted, proceeded to sell a portion of the Tennessee Valley Fair site to the Emerald Youth Foundation. Good decisions really do matter, whether the office holder is the President of the United States or a local mayor, and our very own little Mamdani did not do her homework and the result was a bad decision. Never anticipating pushback from the community or thinking the city council would ignore it, Kincannon watched that initiative go down in flames.
Poor decision-making was once again the root cause of the failure of the sales tax referendum. The truth is, Kincannon simply wanted more money to spend – and to spend it the way she wanted to spend it. There had been no detailed plan as to how the $47 million wrung out of the pockets of taxpayers was to be spent by the City of Knoxville government. Evidently, it never occurred to either Kincannon or her senior staff that people, including council members, might ask questions. There were questions, and the responses were mighty vague. Just like Zohran Mamdani in New York, Kincannon and her crew jumped onto the “affordability” bandwagon for a ride. The Kincannon administration has actually been hurting working families, and hurting them badly, all while trying to maintain and promote the fiction of “affordable” housing. Apartment buildings continually rise on every piece of scrub land inside the city limits, pouring out streams of traffic onto roads neither designed to carry nor accommodate that many vehicles. “Affordable” housing is a fiction as working families and the middle class bear the heavy tax burden required to subsidize the cost of housing for some folks. Kincannon and the city council had increased property taxes by 40% just before asking for an increase in the sales tax. Raising the property tax also raises rents and mortgages for working families, the elderly and everyone who does not live in taxpayer-subsidized housing. It isn’t free, nor is it paid for by the rich. It is the usual socialist con of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The sales tax referendum pushed by Kincannon won four precincts out of the 52 that comprise the City of Knoxville. It showed white liberal elitist guilt was showing like a drunk bridesmaid’s slip. Poor and working-class precincts turned down the sales tax increase by huge majorities while Sequoyah Hills and the Fourth and Gill neighborhoods, home to UT academics and wealthy enclaves, voted to increase the sales tax.
It was as interesting as it was revealing. District representation also enabled Doug Lloyd to win the Third District Council seat, which is a huge change. That seat, due to the citywide voting, was represented by Seema Singh, a self-described Democratic Socialist, went to a Republican.
Lloyd has the opportunity to bring to the Knoxville City Council a single element that has been missing for years: a member who is laser-focused upon representing his district, unafraid of the mayor and intent upon taxpayers getting a dollar’s worth of service for every tax dollar spent by the administration. There has been a complete lack of fiscal oversight for a bloated city government that continues to tax and spend with little to show for it.
While the daily newspaper agonizes over why the proposed sales tax increase failed, working people know exactly why. The city government was never intended to be a social justice engine. We are paying one of the highest sales taxes in the entire country on every vital need we have as human beings. Every bite of food, every piece of clothing, every item we use to clean our homes. Taxing working families and the middle class to subsidize the rents of some residents makes life less affordable for the people who already pay the bills.
Ray Hill Book Launch is November 20
The Focus will be cohosting, along with the East Tennessee Historical Society, the launch event for our own Ray Hill and his biography of Tennessee’s longest serving member of Congress, “Senator Kenneth McKellar: Feudin’ Son of Tennessee” on November 20 at the East Tennessee Historical Center from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. There will be a short presentation and reception and book signing. “Senator Kenneth McKellar: Feudin’ Son of Tennessee” is published by the University of Tennessee Press. Books will be available for purchase, and if you already have a copy, please feel free to come and bring it with you. The East Tennessee Historical Society is located at 601 South Gay Street in downtown Knoxville. For the many readers who enjoy Ray Hill’s column, please feel free to attend.
