District change proposal is just a bad idea

To the Editor:

You ever watch something happen in local government and think, “There’s no way they expect us to buy this?” That’s exactly how the push to change Macon County’s voting districts feels. Commissioner John Shearl is trying to sell this as some kind of fairness reform, but once you look at the details, it’s obvious what’s going on. And it’s not fairness. 

Locating I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge was a bad idea, but we’re stuck with it

If you’re like me, you avoid driving I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge like warm beer on a hot summer day. 

Hey, if I have to circle through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas to enter Tennessee from the west and then drive east back to Knoxville, I’ll do it. Perhaps I exaggerate, but that drive through the gorge to Knoxville has always been one of white knuckles, clinched orifices and prayers that speeding semis don’t topple over on you in a curve. 

Partisan school board system a bad idea

To the Editor:

I was dismayed to learn that Jackson County’s all-Republican commissioners voted to approve a resolution to make local school board elections partisan.

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