As I had explained in a previous story, when a vacancy occurs in an elected office, especially through death, the intent would be to appoint someone to fill the seat who would have similar political views of the former seat holder. In the case of replacing Commissioner Duff, an appointee should be a conservative republican with fiscal responsibility, a person of high moral character and one who listens to his constituents.  

If the May election was about anything, it was absolutely about over development. Commissioner Duff and I both, have long opposed the mass over development taking place in our district caused by failed Lenoir City policies. Mr. Duff has voted for every policy passed by commission that would put controls on planning and zoning policies to prevent over development in the county like has taken place in the city. Running on the platform of controlled growth, both Commissioner Duff and myself were overwhelmingly re-elected.

Commissioner Duff had two opponents in the May primary election, David Ball and Pat Hunter. Both of the losing candidates state in the News Herald story they feel they have some claim to the seat simply because they ran in the election. As I've said before, Elections are not NASCAR races, there are no second or third places.

When it comes to the views and platforms of the candidates, David Ball, a realtor who works for a developer, ran on a platform of pro development which could not have been more opposite from commissioner's Duff's positions. Ball was opposed to all measures the commission had taken to control over development, PUD moratorium/elimination, lower development densities and so on. So the question would be, why would commission consider appointing Mr. Ball, who held the exact opposite views of commissioner Duff when it comes to development? The voters already made their decision clear on the matter in the election. Ball received $4,000 in campaign contributions from developers for the May election. This included the owners of Turner Homes, John Cook of Cook Brothers Construction and the Home Builders Association of Knoxville. 

How about voting records? Mr. Ball was nearly removed from ballot for his scant voting record which included voting as a democrat. He himself told me was a Bernie Sanders supported in 2016. Ball didn't even vote in this past August election. Ms. Hunter took a middle of the road approach on development and also has a long record of voting democrat. Neither candidate appears to have the conservative qualities commissioner Duff displayed throughout his long, successful political career. 

If you combine all the numbers from the May election, Ball actually lost by a 69% margin and Ms. Hunter lost by 82%. Obviously, not the candidates the voters in the fifth district wanted.

I'm not sharing this information to be disparaging to any of the former candidates. I just simply want to get all the facts on the table. 

Finally, let's take the, second place should win, philosophy on out. Heaven forbid, but if something should happen to 7th district commissioner Henry Cullen, would that mean the commission should appoint a democrat to his seat? That's who came in second in that race. What about 6th district commissioner Adam Waller? If he left his seat for some reason, should we appoint Mark Matlock? Ask the folks in the sixth district if that's what they would want. Lastly, if second district commissioner, William Jenkins, were to vacate his seat for any reason, would that mean commission would have to consider appointing Julia Hurley to the seat? Think about that one.

Can you see why the idea of "second place gets a seat" really makes no sense?