Guest Column: Don’t Be Fooled By Lies & Empty Political Promises
By Larsen Jay
Knox County Commissioner, Candidate for Knox County Mayor
Leaders lead and politicians lie. Betsy Henderson is a politician.
Betsy Henderson has continuously lied to you throughout her campaign for mayor, and she’s counting on you not figuring it out. Sadly, I’m not surprised. She’s a former Washington, D.C., bureaucrat who learned her tricks in the heart of the “Swamp.”
Don’t elect a Knox County Mayor who lies to you.
East Tennessee voters are smart, but she thinks you’re not smart enough to see through her deception. But I believe you are, and after watching her campaign using lies, misdirection, and hate, I’ve had enough. So let me shed some light on her deceit.
Mrs. Henderson says I (and our shared opponent) will raise your taxes. She wants to scare you into thinking that the mayor has a magic tax-raising wand to wave over your property. The truth is that only the Knox County Commission can raise taxes. Period.
Betsy Henderson lied to you.
Mrs. Henderson tells you I voted to raise taxes in hopes that you’ll believe I supported a property or sales tax increase. I didn’t and never have. In fact, Mrs. Henderson was nowhere to be found when I stood up against the City of Knoxville tax increase in 2022.
In her hateful mailers and social media posts, she hopes you don’t pay attention to the tiny footnote that tells the real story: I, along with my colleagues on County Commission, unanimously voted to increase the Mineral Severance Tax, which is a tax you probably have never heard of, because you don’t pay it. At least not unless you’re a corporation engaged in mineral mining. Mining companies pay this tax to offset the cost of the wear and tear their heavy trucks cause on our roads.
Mrs. Henderson knows I have never supported raising your taxes, but she hopes she can fool you into believing her lies.
Betsy Henderson misled you.
Mrs. Henderson likes to say she’s a “conservative Republican” who is going to “cut waste, fraud and abuse” and “look after your tax dollars,” but the hypocrisy of her rhetoric is in the seven years I’ve chaired the county’s finance committee, she’s never attended a single meeting. At this point, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to know she has also never bothered to show up at a single county audit committee meeting, where issues related to waste, fraud and abuse are discussed.
If fiscal conservatism were truly a core value for her, you’d think she would have stood up for those values long before campaign season.
She’s spent nearly seven years on the Knox County Board of Education and has even served as Board Chair. During that time, the Knox County Schools’ budget has ballooned from $515 million to over $700 million – more than 36 percent. During the same time, however, student enrollment has dropped by over 1,300 students.
Despite her rhetoric on the campaign trail, Mrs. Henderson has never personally proposed cuts to the School Administration’s spending or identified or called out a dollar’s worth of waste, fraud or abuse, even though she presided over the body that oversaw two-thirds of the entire Knox County budget.
Betsy Henderson is a politician.
Here’s the truth about Politician Betsy Henderson:
She has no experience beyond serving as a mid-level federal government bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. She’s never balanced a budget. She’s never created a job or managed employees. She has no experience serving the community except when it suits her political needs.
Although I am the candidate with the most extensive professional and community service experience, both I and the third candidate in this race, Kim Frazier, had extensive backgrounds in helping our neighbors well before either of us considered running for office. Mrs. Frazier has run a fair, clean race. But Betsy Henderson has run a campaign based on lies.
The sad truth about the state of politics today is that some candidates will say or do just about anything to win an election. Betsy Henderson sure has. However, she has no actual plan for governing. She’s never told the voters what she hopes to accomplish in order to have a positive impact on Knox County.
After serving two terms as your Knox County Commissioner, I’m proud of my accomplishments and can show the positive impact I’ve helped make on our community. I have a clear vision for my priorities as your next Knox County Mayor: Fix the roads and improve traffic; invest in our law enforcement and keep our neighborhoods safe; and ensure that our education system serves our students and prepares them to meet the demands of a thriving economy where great jobs and opportunities are available to them.
Don’t be fooled by a politician like Betsy Henderson, who will spread lies and deception, and offer empty political promises all in her quest for power in elected office. You deserve better. Knox County deserves better.
As your next Knox County Mayor, I’ll remain focused on being a public servant and I’ll lead the way I’ve always led: with honesty, integrity, and by focusing on the job at hand rather than future political plans.
Election Day is Tuesday, May 5. I encourage you to visit my website, LarsenJay.com, to learn more about me, and I humbly ask for your vote.
