The Tellico Village Governmental Affairs Committee hosted Loudon County Mayor Buddy Bradshaw, Loudon County Commission Chairman Henry Cullen and Loudon County Sheriff Jimmy Davis at a Legislative Forum held Thursday evening, July 18, in the Yacht Club at Tellico Village.
Area residents were allowed the opportunity to express gratitude, share concerns and ask questions to all elected officials; however, community members were limited to one minute to say their peace.
Steve Packwood, a member of the GAC, moderated the forum to ensure that the three members of the Legislative panel as well as community members were respectful and adhered to the designated time restrictions.
LOCAL ELECTIVE INTRODUCTION
Bradshaw, Cullen and Davis took a few moments to introduce themselves to the nearly 70 audience members and explain how they came to be in their current position.
Serving his third term as mayor, Bradshaw, who is from Loudon County, never expected to end up where he is — despite coming from a politically proud family.
“I’m a strong, devout Christian. I hope everyone here is. I rely a lot on my faith and the harder I prayed, the more it was apparent that was what I was supposed to do,” he said — referring to running for mayoral office in Loudon County.
Bradshaw put a grassroots campaign together to run for office, which was met with a lot of people telling him that he couldn’t win. It only motivated him more.
Bradshaw lost the early voting tally, but on May 6, 2014, he won the election by 143 votes.
“I’ve built a team and the success we’ve had as a county, don’t think that’s on me. It’s not,” he said. “It’s the people that put in the hard work everyday, and I’ve built an incredible team to help support this. To help run this county.
“As much as I’d like to take credit for it, it’s not, but these people. We take pride in our work,” he said.
Bradshaw attributed six out of the last seven audits being clean to the dedication to those who work for the county.
“We work every day to make Loudon County better (tomorrow) than it was today,” he said.
Cullen, the Tellico Village Commission representative, has lived in the neighborhood for 21 years. He retired from Ford Motor Company in Atlanta and moved to the area shortly after.
After spending a year working with the Tellico Village Volunteer Fire Department, he was elected as chief of the nonprofit, where he served in that capacity until 2012.
He spent a few years focused on his family and spending time with his grandchildren.
In late 2013, when the previous Tellico Village Commission Representative Don Miller announced he wasn’t going to run for reelection, Cullen’s phone began ringing off the hook with questions of if he was going to, or if he would, run in Miller’s place.
After much consideration and persuasion, he ran and was elected in 2014.
“If it wasn’t for 34 years with Ford and the experience of managing budgets, HR and all the things that went into it, I would’ve probably folded my tent after four years,” Cullen said.
“I’m happy to serve the community and I’ll tell you this, I always watch out for my friends and neighbors in the Village — your best interest, as well as the rest of Loudon County,” he said.
Like Bradshaw, Davis was also born and raised in Loudon County. However, his path was slightly more nontraditional to end up where he is.
Davis’ parents owned a restaurant in town and, because of their influence, that’s where he had his sights set.
Eventually, he said, he got bored of cooking and didn’t see the future he wanted as a chef — instead, he wanted to help people.
At the age of 23, he joined the Rescue Squad and in 1994 he joined the Auxiliary Police — a volunteer agency — and fell in love with the profession and work.
“There’s nothing like pulling into someone’s driveway and handling a problem that they may have and fixing that for them and feeling a sense of accomplishment every day, every call that you’ve helped somebody,” he said.
“Obviously there’s tragedy that comes with that, and heartache that comes with that being in emergency services,” he said. “But I still feel if there was something that needed to be done, I wanted to do it and that served me well as I moved up at the Sheriff’s Office.”
In 2005 he became the assistant chief, and the deputy chief in 2017.
“The best thing about being sheriff is every other top law enforcement official n the country is selected,” he said. “The director of the FBI, obviously, the Secret Service, everyone in those. Police chiefs even are selected, (but) the sheriff — being the chief law enforcement officer of the county — only serves the one and that’s the people.”
“That’s why I enjoy being sheriff more than a police chief because if I don’t do a good job, it will tell in the polls,” Davis said. “That’s kind of why I got into it. I’m very proud of the agency we’ve been able to grow in the last two years. I was just elected two years ago and looking forward to the next two years and hopefully after that.”
THE BURNING QUESTION
While most who spoke were tame with their questions and words, some did express colorful concerns regarding the recent tax levy.
Other questions were brought up about traffic lights in the Village, Loudon County gangs, squatter laws, the impending increase to the Villagers’ utility bill and updating the Loudon County website — all of which were answered by the appropriate representative.
The most outspoken of those in attendance — Jim Stevenson — brought up the most concerns … ranging from concerns of those in office like County Commissioner Van Shaver, who he said has insulted Villagers on more than one occasion by calling them people with pitchforks and torches and talking down to women at meetings.
He also said that he isn’t happy with the education performances of the schools, calling the 35% to 45% proficiency disgusting. All of which he backed by stating the tax levy shouldn’t have been approved and there wasn’t enough research completed to back it.
“I look at all of the people that showed up to protest the fact that you didn’t have sufficient data to justify a $115 million tax levy and yet 40% of the Commission said, ‘No we’re not going to support that.’ But the rest (of) you guys voted it in and you went ahead and approved it.
“Many of us have filed complaints with the state comptroller’s office … (and) we want an investigation on this. I want to see how you justified it. The Board of Education, the (Loudon County) commissioners — y’all seem to be in the back pocket of somebody. I don’t know where the effort is coming from. …
“I’m not happy. There’s a movement in Loudon County right now to … throw you people out of office (and) I think a lot of your meetings are not going to be peaceful and quiet. We the People have a voice, and you guys told us, you made it very clear, you didn’t care about We the People and all you had to do was say, ‘Let’s go do a study.’”
Packwood interrupted Stevenson during his time, in favor of maintaining a brief discussion time period. The audience clapped as Stevenson walked away from the podium.
“The Board of Education was a unanimous vote that felt like that’s what they needed for the Loudon County Schools — 10 out of 10 Board of Education members did,” Bradshaw said. “There’s a lot of faith in the mayoral veto. The mayoral veto is not like the presidential or even the gubernatorial … it doesn’t take a super majority to overturn the mayoral veto, it takes six votes. How many commissioners voted for it? Six.
“At the most, it might have delayed it a little bit, and that’s just until … they could have a called meeting to override the veto,” the county mayor continued. “I stayed on either side of this. I did not lobby for it. I did not get out and lobby against it … I know out here it’s not popular at all. Trust me, I’ve got 500 emails or so telling me as much.
“At the same time, if you go down to the lower end of the county, it is popular. They do believe it’s necessary. If you go on the upper end, they think it’s necessary,” he said.
Stevenson took the podium three additional times during the forum, each time being more passionate than the last.
Visit the Tellico Village Network’s YouTube channel to watch the full forum.
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