By Steve Hunley
Knox County Mayor-elect Betsy Henderson has announced the top picks for the mayor’s staff prior to taking office on September 1. Chris Caldwell has accepted Henderson’s offer to serve as Knox County’s chief financial officer, a role he has held for years. Anyone familiar with Caldwell knows him to be eminently able, industrious and more than capable. There is no one anywhere more knowledgeable about Knox County’s finances than Chris Caldwell. It was a good pick.
Henderson’s chief of staff will be Evan Newman, the state director for the Freedom Caucus in South Carolina. Newman’s most recent campaign activity was running the gubernatorial campaign of Congressman Ralph Norman, who will be in the runoff for the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s seat.
Lastly, Henderson has selected Doug Harris as her chief operating officer. It is an interesting choice as Harris served as chair of the Knox County Board of Education, which is where the mayor-elect served for eight years. That is exactly where the similarity ends, as Henderson was a staunch conservative while Harris was a vocal advocate for then-superintendent Jim McIntyre, who grew the Knox County School System bureaucracy by leaps and bounds. McIntyre was always pushing for more money to expand the budget, as bureaucracy is expensive.
The multiplicity of assistant, vice and executive principals proliferated significantly throughout McIntyre’s imperial superintendency. Harris and his colleagues on the board, except for the late Mike McMillan, were solidly behind McIntyre, who created his own Leadership Academy. Its sole achievement was to run through those aspiring to be assistant principals and administrators, all taught by McIntyre himself. Naturally, they needed a place to land and land they did in every elementary, middle and high school in the county. The school budget has continually risen with a bureaucracy still thick with McIntyre appointees.
Henderson ran well to the right of her competitors, flatly pledging no tax increases. It’s worth noting that during his own time on the board of education, Harris was anything but conservative. This newspaper in 2014 christened Harris as Doug “High Tax” Harris during his time on the school board. During his time as superintendent, McIntyre spent tax dollars prolifically. Not happy with what the county commission allocated for the schools, McIntyre proposed the largest increase in Knox County’s property tax ever sought by anyone. Tim Burchett, renowned for his penny-pinching and careful spending, was the mayor at the time. McIntyre stomped into Burchett’s office once to remind the mayor that he had not consulted him on providing a raise for county employees. Burchett sent McIntyre packing.
McIntyre had the full support of the media at the time; WBIR-TV shilled loudly for the tax increase, aided and abetted by the Knoxville News Sentinel, which featured multiple editorials in favor of the tax hike as well as favorable stories daily. The local Chamber of Commerce raised and spent $50,000 for an advertising campaign. The business community’s usual suspects tried to pressure and bully Mayor Burchett with political reprisals. They had seriously underestimated Burchett, who bravely refused to buckle under, nor did he make himself scarce. One of the loudest and most passionate advocates for the largest proposed property tax in Knox County’s history was, of course, Doug “High Tax” Harris.
The millionaire businessman amply funded the campaigns of like-minded individuals, including opponents for Mike McMillan. Harris maxed out his contributions for McMillan’s opponents; McMillan was easily the only member of the board who was critical of McIntyre. At some point, there was talk of increasing BOTH the sales tax and the property tax.
Mayor Burchett recorded a call urging folks to contact their county commissioners, and a robocall went out. The response stunned the then political establishment. The deluge of telephone calls from irate and hardworking citizens caused the City-County Building’s telephone system to literally collapse, as did what served as the internet at the time.
Doug “High Tax” Harris and McIntyre tried to get all their pro-tax people to fill the Large Assembly Room in the City-County Building. Despite the parade of elites marching down to the microphone to tell the commissioners to increase the tax rate, Mike Hammond, then a county commissioner, told those gathered and those watching the proceedings on television, “We got the message.” No commissioner made a single motion to put the matter to a vote. The largest proposed property tax increase in Knox County history died a quick death at that moment, despite all the king’s men having moved heaven and earth to pass it.
The huge, proposed tax increase was not mourned by any working family. The special interests and elites were shocked to the core. It was the shining example of the people taking hold of their government and standing up for themselves, and the politicians did get the message. They all failed to reckon with the fact Tim Burchett could not be threatened, bullied or moved from his own pledge not to increase taxes.
Mayor-elect Betsy Henderson is apparently expanding the leadership role of her office, and the local government has grown. Knox Countians should believe Henderson will keep her pledge and perhaps Doug “High Tax” Harris has had an epiphany and come around to common sense and reason since McIntyre departed for Nashville. Time will tell if “High Tax” can convincingly become “No Tax” Harris.
