Four of this year’s Knox County candidates for the August 3 election joined us in the May 9 meeting at Charlie Pepper’s on Cumberland Ave.

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These included former Knoxville mayor (from the Knoxville World’s Fair era) and successful write-in candidate for sheriff, Randy Tyree. Mr. Tyree explained that his motivation for entering a write-in candidacy were to conjoin his former careers in law enforcement (Mr. Tyree served as a narcotics officer prior to serving as mayor) and politics. Mr. Tyree cited the abuses of power of Sheriff Hutchison need for change. Examples of such abuses include Sheriff Hutchison’s tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars (about $300,000 taxpayer dollars spent to avoid a personal contempt of court fine of $300 levied on him by a judge), and the way the sheriff’s dept. is being run is as a political organization instead of a professional organization. Officer morale is generally low in a climate ruled by intimidation and lacking a career path for officers.

Jim Andrews, who ran for sheriff in the last election and made an impressive showing, has succeeded in attaining candidate status for Chancery Court III. Mr. Andrews recapped a recent talk radio appearance and gave us something of an overview of this year’s elections. He offered some suggestions for a winning strategy against the Republican interests. One truism Mr. Andrews said the Democrats need to keep before the voters is that it was mainly an entrenched Republican power structure which successfully resisted implementation of the term limits enacted by referendum in 1994 until this year when a court order forced the issue. The Democrats must emphasize following the will of the people which Republican officeholders ignore at both the national and local levels. Following a six-year stint in the Army, Jim Andrews became a District of Columbia police officer, then a desk sergeant, a trainer and a federal agent. He did contract research on patrol effectiveness for the Department of Justice. Mr. Andrews held bachelor's and master's degrees from American University, both in administration of justice. You can read more about Jim Andrews and his 2002 campaign for sheriff in an article written by his campaign manager in that race, Mark Harmon, himself a candidate for County Commission in this year’s 2nd District Race, HERE

Amy Broyles, longtime Democratic Party and DFK member and community organizer, thanked us for our support in her successful 2nd District write-in campaign. Several members pitched in some time to call voters in Amy’s district. Long-time incumbent Democrat Billy Tindell garnered the most Democratic primary votes in the district, as did incumbents generally (which seemingly indicates the majority want a term-limited officialdom, but will continually re-elect the same people anyway?). At any rate, in this confusing year for many, Mr. Tindell is term-limited by law, so it remains for the Democratic Party to formally nominate a candidate for the general election.

Joan Wagner, successful write-in candidate for the 4th District and the fourth candidate to meet with us this month, solicited ideas to help wage a campaign centered on educational improvements.

For more details on May's Democracy for Knoxville Meetup, including plans to implement the discharge petition of HR 543 to force a debate on Iraq in Congress - and to find out about Democracy for Tennessee's Candidate Training School on May 21, visit the DFK website.