I never saw a date of Lincoln Road's re-opening. They will re-open Lincoln Road, won't they? The journey to my Bio-Diesel seems to be getting longer, and I won't dare drop a penney at any dos equis station.

*notice the Daily Times complacency in the "story". It would have been much easier to show a google overhead satellite image of how large the parcel actually is instead of going to the location and getting a shot of the "Snuffy Smith" storage shack they put on the front page. I wonder who chose that photo?

(link...)

(link...)

Notice the juxtaposition of the pictures. From the Daily Times, you either get news or a story. Guess which is which.

And FYI - As stated several times on this blog, The Daily Times legal attorney Rob Goddard who is also the mayors attorney paid by local tax dollars - also works as Vice Chair of the local GOP serving under Bennett. (link...)

Cozy ain't it?

If you go back into the County Commission minutes for the last seven years you can clearly see where they ask permission to sell a boat here or sell two cars with rollbars to an LEA in another county. I think I even saw a drug dog sold with permission of the County Commission. So all this still makes zero sense unless of course there is a new, new, new math ah la Blount County style.

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."
- George Orwell, 1984

While we are on the subject of Bennett's mastery of financing and salesmanship, let me point out the following;

On behalf of the citizens, Bennett negotiated a racetrack deal for a polluted couple of acres at the far end the of county for $785,000 (the county had assessed the property for $354K - 2.2. times less than what we paid) (link...).
On behalf of his builder buddy, Bennett was able to negotiate approximately $176K an acre for the most prime commercial real estate in Blount County. (link...) *

I wonder if there are any TIF's involved?

*notice the Daily Times complacency in the "story". It would have been much easier to show a google overhead satellite image of how large the parcel actually is instead of going to the location and getting a shot of the "Snuffy Smith" storage shack they put on the front page. I wonder who chose that photo?

Bennett claimed there were cars taken out of the system but not off the books. In July, Blount Today stated the following;

Sheriff Berrong, Mayor Jerry Cunningham and Assistant County Mayor Dave Bennett have provided numbers (249), including vehicles that were donated to the Sheriff’s office and surplus vehicles that are used for parts.

If these numbers in July included cars that did not exist ("Bingo. The paperwork didn’t jibe."), then how does the state come up with a total of 258 for 2007? If at 249, Bennett was counting cars that don't exist - did the state count even more cars that don't exist?

And while we're playing games, are there any reporters playing "Pin the Tail on the Insurance Company"?

“A lot of this was related to our insurance company who came in and told us we needed to take two-thirds of our vehicles off the road (that) they weren’t road-worthy,” Berrong said.

Still curious as which company instructed the Sheriff to buy more cars as Blount is self insured.