I was first elected to county commission in 2002. To say I was politically naive would be an understatement. I just figured that most local officials were in it for the good of the citizens. I learned real quickly, that wasn't always the case. One case in point.

I had only been on commission a short time when city councilman Eddie Simpson approached me with an idea he wanted me to work on. He asked me what I thought about banning the sale of fireworks in Loudon County. At that time, Mr. Simpson was part owner of the largest fireworks outlet in the county. I was surprised at his question/request. I told him I, and I know others, enjoyed fireworks and didn't think that was a good idea. I asked him if he was getting out of the fireworks business. He said, oh no, the ban wouldn't effect him, his business would be grandfathered in. The ban would only apply to any new businesses that wanted to sale fireworks. The whistles and bells warnings were going off in my mind at this point. Ultimately, I rejected Simpson's request.

Shortly there after, it was brought to my attention that Mr. Simpson had used his position on the Loudon County Planning Commission, to pass regulations that made it all but impossible for anyone else to get a permit, in the county, to sell fireworks. After doing some research of the zoning regulations, I did find that lots of rules and regs had been adopted to do just that. The more I thought about the more I realized, Simpson had too many personal conflicts to be serving on the planning commission. So when his term on the planning commission came up for renewal, I replaced him with someone without conflicts of interest. So, since June of 2004, Mr. Simpson has not been a big fan of mine. Apparently, people like Simpson don't like having their perceived power taken away from them.

I'm sure there have been other issues since 2004 that added to Mr. Simpson's dislike of me, like reporting on his long, long voting record, but if the truth hurts, I can't help that.