RE-ELECT BOYD AS DISTRICT 8 COMMISSIONER
Tim Boyd is one of the few — perhaps the only — incumbent county commissioner who is consistently inclined to ask important questions about county services and taxpayer money. Best of all, he is not afraid of asking his questions and discussing the answers publicly on the dais of the county commission meeting room.
That’s vital to good government so we residents, taxpayers and voters can see and hear how commissioners decide the policies we live by.
Boyd asked questions over the lavish expenditures of the Convention and Visitors Bureau — which has a robust $7.8 million budget (80 percent of it taxpayer funded) — that allowed 25 staffers to use expense accounts to lure an estimated $1 billion in tourism dollars here. Yes, that’s a nice return, but other cities do it for less. Huntsville, for example, spends about $2 million to bring back $1 billion. If we could do that, we could redirect $5 million to something else — like education and roads.
Boyd’s questions played out with controversy last May and June, as the CVB, along with publicly funded county auditors, stymied Boyd’s and the Chattanooga Times Free Press’ requests for CVB spending receipts. County officials labeled the receipts and early county audit drafts as “financial working papers,” which are protected under state law.
Sadly, most of the remaining county commissioners and the county mayor were OK with that — praising the CVB for the gift horse it is, but turning a blind eye to the gift horse it could be.
But in October, state auditors released some shocking findings: Detailed receipts were not kept for 36 percent of the $378,298 in credit card charges made by CVB from July 2015 through June 2016. There was much more, but you get the point. The CVB is under new management these days.
Boyd, 65, also was the only commissioner to vote against a recent property tax increase, but not because we didn’t need one. We did, and he acknowledges that. In fact he had also voted against a county budget before that didn’t include a tax increase to fund $24 million in additional needs identified by school district officials. He made his second no vote because — again — it happened with virtually no discussion on the dais, and came out of nowhere. In fact, neither the county mayor nor the commission as a whole would even call it a tax increase. They called it a “tax rate change.”
Boyd then asked the county commission to require two separate votes to raise property taxes in the future — rather than a hurried through vote. But that motion came and went in mere seconds, dying for lack of a second.
Boyd the bulldog didn’t let it go, sarcastically noting that County Mayor Jim Coppinger didn’t give him a one-on-one briefing about the proposed tax increase as he had the other eight commissioners. The one-on-one meetings allow the commission to skirt the Sunshine Law and pesky public discussions.
Boyd’s Republican primary challenger, 41-year-old East Ridge Mayor Brent Lambert, has his own transparency issues. Lambert accepted $5,000 in donations in June 2017, including $3,000 from three developers working on the big Interstate 75 Exit 1 remodel and redevelopment in East Ridge. He used the money to pay off part of a $9,100 debt left over from his 2014 re-election campaign as East Ridge mayor.
Lambert filed a complaint against Boyd, alleging that Boyd had “threatened” him over some campaign contributions. Lambert won’t tell the Times Free Press exactly what the threat was. Boyd said Lambert had called him and raised the issue of the contributions. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been asked to investigate the alleged threat.
“I didn’t threaten him. I asked him to withdraw because I felt like what information was going to be disclosed may not be good for him, his family, his political aspirations or the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum [where Lambert is president and CEO],” Boyd said.
No one has ever accused Tim Boyd of being tactful. But frankly a bit of brutal honesty is exactly what our back-room, go-along, getalong county commission needs.