Vote for Van Shaver for County Mayor

What I Will Do.

The Office: The Mayor's office will be staffed and open during all office hours. You will not arrive at the County Office and find my door locked with nobody home. I will be available to any resident 24/7.

Pay: I will not take the pay the current Mayor is receiving. Currently the County Mayor is in the $75,000.00 range. I will not take the state required minimum pay of approximately $65,000.00. I will ask the Commission to reduce the pay to $45,000.00 and apply the difference to the salaries of the lowest paid County employees to begin the process of salary equalization. If no legitimate process can be found to make this happen, I will donate all pay over $45,000.00 after taxes back to the County and designate it to salary equalization. I will not take any travel expenses or any other reimbursements. When a true need arises for travel, I will pay my own way.

I will not be soliciting nor will I be accepting campaign contributions in my bid for County Mayor with the exception of a very few close family members. I would request any considered contributions be donated to your church or special charity. I would challenge the other candidates to make the same commitment. I do however request your vote and support.

Work: I will be involved in all aspect of County Government. I will not depend on others to represent me or send someone to take my place.

County Attorney: I will hire a full time County Attorney. That may not sound like a good campaign promise but let me explain. Currently and for many years the County has used the services of a part time attorney paying an hourly rate. In years past this may have been an economical way to retain legal work for the County, but no more. For the last few years the Counties legal expenses have progressively increased. This year legal fees will far exceed $200,000.00. We can no longer afford part time legal help. The time has long since passed to hire full time legal council. The benefits of a full time attorney would be an immediate decrease in legal fees of 50-60%. A full time attorney would be available on site at all times of the working day to all county employees and department heads and would also be the County human resource manager. The County attorney will be located in the Mayor's office. I and the attorney will use the same secretary.

Officials and Employees: I will identify any and all elected and appointed officials and employees who do not have the County tax payers best interest at heart. Loudon County is blessed with many wonderful, hard working and dedicated officials and employees. However there are those few bad apples who have decided the County coffers are their own private funds. One needs only to look at the increase in some department's budgets or other pay above their salaries to find the users. This will stop.

Spending: In the last couple of years we, the Commission, have taken some big steps to reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending through out County government. But there are still a lot of areas where many more cuts in spending could be made. I will identify these areas to the Commissioners for any action they may want to take.

Education: I will immediately establish a committee to determine the feasibility of building a County High School in the north end of the County.

Recycling: I will ask the Commission to build a new Recycling and Convenience Center in Tellico Village.

More to Come.........................