Randy Myers
Randy Myers, a candidate for Anderson County sheriff, will hold a fundraiser at the Comfort Inn in Oak Ridge from 5 to 7 p.m. March 14. All are invited to attend.
Comfort Inn is located on the corner of Rutgers Avenue and South Illinois Avenue in front of Walmart. Food will be provided, and door prizes will be given away, a press release said. A $20 donation will be received at the door.
Visit www.randymyersforsheriff.com for more information.
Information from WYSH Radio
The deadline to qualify as a candidate in any of the races on the ballot for Anderson County’s May 6 primaries is at noon Thursday.
Here is a look at who has qualified so far:
The Anderson County Courthouse on Main Street in Clinton is pictured above.
So far, there are five potential candidates for Anderson County Juvenile Court judge, four for sheriff, and three for chancellor.
An independent has picked up a petition to run for county mayor, possibly opposing Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank, and Tennessee Rep. John Ragan has an opponent in the Aug. 7 Republican primary.
The five candidates for Anderson County Juvenile Court judge are Victoria “Vickie” Bannach, a Clinton Republican; Lauren Biloski, an Oak Ridge Republican; Victoria Bowling, a Heiskell Democrat; J. Michael Clement, a Clinton Democrat; and Brian J. Hunt, a Clinton Republican. They are candidates in the May 6 county primary.
The current juvenile court judge, Brandon Fisher, a Clinton Democrat, is running for Anderson County chancellor in that election. The other two chancellor candidates are Phil Harber, a Clinton Republican, and Robert Warren Wilkinson, an Oak Ridge Republican. [Read more…]
Randy Myers
Oak Ridge Police Department Officer Randy Myers has announced he will run for Anderson County sheriff in the May 6 Republican primary.
Myers is the second Republican candidate to announce he is running for the seat now held by Sheriff Paul White, a Democrat, in the 2014 election.
In a press release, Myers said he has been a law enforcement officer for 24 years and has worked as a patrol officer, criminal investigator, domestic violence officer, hostage negotiator, Crisis Intervention Team officer, and public relations officer. [Read more…]
Lynn Byrge, back left, spokesman for a new political study group in Anderson County, watches above as Brad Heun, right, commander of Oak Ridge Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Leon Jaquet, director of Anderson County Veterans Office, raise the flag on a new flagpole at the General Sessions Courthouse in Oak Ridge in September.
A new community organization formed to study contentious political issues in Anderson County will be modeled after the PolitiFact fact-checking website, a spokesman said Monday.
The group of Anderson County residents is called Friends of Anderson County Taxpayers, or FACTs, spokesman Lynn Byrge said in a press release. The release said members are concerned about county spending, debt, and the threat of property tax increases.
The formation of the new group comes just before the start of what is expected to be a busy election year in Anderson County, with candidates already announcing they’re running for election or re-election on county commission and for various seats ranging from juvenile court judge to chancellor to sheriff.
Byrge, who helped lead the effort to install “In God We Trust” signs on the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton, said FACTs has already organized study groups around specific areas of concern, including county commission’s legislative process, the sheriff’s department’s burgeoning budget, the role of the county law director, and the responsibilities of the county mayor. [Read more…]
Anthony Lay
An Anderson County man who is a state highway patrolman and former federal deputy U.S. marshal has announced he is running for sheriff.
Anthony Lay is seeking the Republican nomination for Anderson County sheriff in May 2014.
Lay is an officer with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, a press release said. He has served as Scott County sheriff, and when he was 33, was appointed as a federal U.S. marshal in Atlanta.
Lay returned to Anderson County to help his parents after his father suffered a health event, the release said.
“I am announcing my candidacy out of my love for public service and the people who live here,” Lay said in the press release. “Anderson County is a wonderful place to live and work, and the people of Anderson County deserve a safe community and leadership they can trust.” [Read more…]
The salary dispute between the Anderson County mayor and sheriff focused on the spending to hire up to 36 new jailers to staff a 212-bed expansion that is still under construction at the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton.
CLINTON—He had reserved comment until a judge signed an order resolving a staffing dispute, but then Anderson County Sheriff Paul White accused Mayor Terry Frank of using a lawsuit agreement to try to settle perceived political scores—and he came to the defense of the two county officials that Frank attacked Friday.
“Sheriff White regrets that Mayor Frank has used the settlement of the salary suit, which (she) could have used as an event to set a more civil tone in Anderson County politics, as an opportunity to attempt to settle perceived political scores with Law Director Jay Yeager and Anderson County Commissioner Myron Iwanski,†the sheriff said in a Monday afternoon press release, after the lawsuit order had been signed by Knox County Circuit Court Judge Dale Workman. “Sheriff White cannot express how much he believes that Director Yeager and Commissioner Iwanski are decent and selfless public servants and that the people of Anderson County are lucky to have such competent and dedicated individuals working for the efficient operation of their government. [Read more…]
The salary dispute between the Anderson County mayor and sheriff focused on the spending to hire up to 36 new jailers to staff a 212-bed expansion that is still under construction at the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton.
CLINTON—The Anderson County mayor and sheriff reached an agreement Friday that could end their five-month-old legal dispute over an annual salary agreement, possibly closing one expensive and contentious chapter in local government even as it opened a new war of words between top officials.
Knox County Circuit Court Judge Dale C. Workman could sign the agreement Monday morning.
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank and Sheriff Paul White said the agreement allows the sheriff to hire 15 full-time permanent deputies and additional temporary deputies when the sheriff deems appropriate as he prepares to open a 212-bed jail expansion. But the hiring must stay within the spending limit approved by the Anderson County Commission this year, and the temporary employees cannot work more than six months.
Terry Frank
Frank and White announced the agreement in a one-page press release distributed Friday. The case had been scheduled to be heard in Knox County Circuit Court on Monday morning. [Read more…]
Myron Iwanski
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank’s op-ed column submitted to the media last week questioned County Commission’s decision to expand the jail. It has some incorrect statements about the history of this decision that need to be corrected.
In 10 years, the peak daily population of the jail nearly tripled. In 2000, there were 120 inmates, and in 2010 there were 340. The jail had a capacity of 226 when the decision to expand the jail was made in 2011. The peak daily population this year has increased to 396.
Mayor Frank’s claim that the jail is not overcrowded in very misleading.
This overcrowding is causing major problems in being able to properly classify inmates based on risks and other factors. This was the major reason the state was about to decertify the jail in 2011. It also does not take into account that we have approximately 3,000 outstanding arrest warrants, some of which prosecutors and deputies will tell you are for criminals that need to be in the jail. These criminals are not being actively pursued because of a lack of jail space. [Read more…]
A legal dispute between the Anderson County mayor and sheriff largely revolves around funding to hire enough jailers to staff a 212-bed jail expansion at the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton. (Photo courtesy Anderson County Sheriff’s Department)
Information from WYSH Radio
After failing to discuss the ongoing legal dispute between the Anderson County mayor and the Anderson County sheriff last month, the County Commission will take the matter up during a special-called meeting at 6:30 p.m. today (Wednesday).
The meeting could include a closed-door executive session during which commissioners are expected to hear an update from Law Director Jay Yeager on the status of the salary suit filed by Sheriff Paul White against Mayor Terry Frank over her refusal to sign his salary agreement for this fiscal year. The salary dispute is scheduled for a hearing on Dec. 9 before Knox County Circuit Court Judge Dale Workman.
Some commissioners have publicly expressed their concern about the cost of the ongoing legal battle to taxpayers, as both sides have retained outside counsel. [Read more…]
Myron Iwanski
Note: This is a copy of an Oct. 9 e-mail that Anderson County Commissioner Myron Iwanski sent to the other commissioners and county officials. The sheriff’s salary lawsuit against the county mayor was not discussed during the Oct. 21 County Commission meeting, as Iwanski had hoped, but it is scheduled to be considered during a special meeting this evening.
I am very concerned that the legal battle between the mayor and sheriff has not been resolved. This battle will have huge impacts on our budget this year and in future years. I have asked that this item be placed on the agenda for the Operations Committee meeting, and I would like to see it discussed by the full County Commission at its next meeting.
Costs continue to mount in this legal battle. If the large attorney fees are included with the cost for staff time to prepare all the documents and evidence being demanded, I believe this case could end up costing the county hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More importantly, no matter which side prevails in this case, I fully expect we will be told by Tennessee Corrections Institute and/or the federal courts that we must fund the jail. As we wait for this legal case to be resolved, nothing is being done toward bringing in the federal inmates we need to help provide the funds we need to operate the jail in future. This will likely mean that we will be forced into a tax increase next year. This could have been avoided had this case been worked out and we instead focused on getting the revenue we need to operate the jail. [Read more…]
CLINTON—The Anderson County Commission endorsed a budget Thursday that lowers the property tax rate, gives employees a day off, and is supposed to provide enough money to pay for jailers hired in the past year while allowing the sheriff to hire new ones for a jail addition that could open later this year.
The budget would also restore some funding for the relatively new Alternatives to Incarceration program, which Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank had proposed cutting by 80 percent, and add money to cover the cost of increased health insurance premiums for county employees.
The budget was endorsed in a 12-1-1 vote during a special meeting Thursday, the second this week. It could officially be adopted during the County Commission’s regular meeting on Monday. [Read more…]
