Just driving by the candidates a few times during early voting in Lenoir City, nearly every time, one or two of them felt the need to shout things at me. The last time was was when, now vice mayor Jennifer Wampler, called me a "piece of s**t" but without the asterisks of course. And yes I have them all on video.
But Election Day controversy's actually began a couple days before the election. Lenoir City council incumbent candidate, Eddie Simpson, took it on himself to cover over a handicap placard in the parking lot across the street from the voting precinct. This was in an attempt to secure himself a front row spot for election day. According to Simpson, the handicap parking space he covered over and parked in is on private property, therefore he had the right to cover it up. Just curious, all the handicap parking spots at Walmart are also on private property. Does this mean Mr. Simpson thinks he can cover up and take over any handicap spaces there if he wants to? This wasn't Simpson's only handicap violation. He also set his campaign tent in a handicap space at Eaton Elementary School on election day. What is Simpson's beef with handicap parking spaces?
But one of the uglier events took place on election day. It all started when Teresa King, founder of Beauty For Ashes women's rehab facility, went by Lenoir City mayor's campaign tent just making small talk. In the course of about two and a half minutes, Aikens and several of his family members just unloaded on Ms. King. I'll be honest, I've never heard anything like it. In that short time, Aikens called Ms. King the devil eight times and satan seven more times. This while all the other family members were berating her and threatening her. Fortunately, the whole thing was caught on camera and can be heard on Teresa's Facebook page. All this hate and anger was directed at Ms. King simply because she was supporting Aikens opposition.
Like I've said before, I've been in a lot of elections and I've never seen or heard any candidates act like most of the Lenoir City incumbents acted in this election. Very shameful.
Well, the election is over and 3 out of 4 of them got back in office. Guess we'll see how they will respond to the dissatisfied city voters. Probably no different.
