If Mayor Glenn Jacobs wanted to blow up The Development Corporation in order to save money, he may have missed the mark. The TDC board of directors met June 17 (8 a.m. and I didn’t make it), to hear Chamber president Mike Odom outline a plan to take over the work handled by Todd Napier (who quit) and Brenda Wilson Spence.
Odom proposed hiring three positions: director of site operations, manager of site and IDB operations, and director of financial operations. The business recruitment functions would be handled by folks already working for the Chamber.
According to a couple of folks at the meeting, some of the TDC board who had not read this column acted shocked. One noted that the TDC board would have no reason to exist. Uh, yes, but those folks are not paid.
Jacobs is treating TDC volunteers like he treated the voluntary members of the Board of Health. “Thanks for your (free) service; go away.”
Here’s who now serves on the TDC board:
- Carolyn Fairbank
- Charles Morris
- George H. “Buddy” Heins III, chair
- Glenn Jacobs, county mayor
- Indya Kincannon, Knoxville mayor
- John Schoonmaker, county commissioner
- Justin Biggs, county commissioner
- Larsen Jay, county commission chair
- Louise Rodgers Frazier
- M. Douglas Campbell Jr.
- Nancy Barger
- Ron Williams, town of Farragut mayor
- Terry Mosley
- William F. Fox
“Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency” is a solid read by two veteran political writers, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. What struck me was the absolute closeness of the race between Biden and President Donald Trump. Did you know:
Raw votes: Trump actually polled more votes in 2020 than in 2016 – 74 million – the second highest vote of all time, topped only by Biden’s 81 million votes.
States: Biden and Trump split the states right down the middle. Each carried 25.
Electoral College: Trump won the 2016 EC with 306 votes to 232 for Hillary Clinton. Biden won the 2020 EC 306 to 232. Same total. Biden flipped five states that Trump had carried in 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
What keeps Hillary Clinton up at night? Trump outpolled her by 1.2% or less in four states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Had she carried these four states, she would have won the 2016 Electoral College 307-231.
What keeps Donald Trump up at night? He lost the three states that would have given him an Electoral College win (Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin) by a total of just 42,918 votes. Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes (or less than 1/3 of a percentage point), Georgia by 11,779 (less than 1/4 of a percentage point), and Wisconsin by 20,682 (less than 2/3 of a percentage point).
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn wore a cap with a black clover on election day. A friend said he had been lucky. “The harder I work, the luckier I get, Clyburn responded.
The writers ended with a quote Biden has attributed to his father: “It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.”
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today.