Public officials and candidates for public office know when they run for election that they will be held to higher standards than others, and that they will be scrutinized and judged on their conduct and actions, past or present. Against that standard of accountability, voters could find good reason this week to reconsider their support for Sheriff Jim Hammonds and Greg Vital, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Tennessee’s 10th state Senate primary election on Aug. 2.
Hammonds, reporter Ansley Haman learned this week, blatantly violated county government’s anti-nepotism policy by hiring his son, Jimi Hammond, as the full-time webmaster for the sheriff’s office. He did so, moreover, the day before the County Commission approved a new fiscal year budget that showed the sheriff’s office running an unauthorized deficit of $4275,000 to $400,000, despite a state statute that requires sheriffs to operate on a balanced budget.
Vital rightly came under scrutiny for his claims — in person recently in a candidates’ forum, and through a history of professional background about himself — that he “graduated” from college, when he did not.
•••
Sheriff Hammond recently has casually dismissed criticism of his questionable activities – his regular association with a former deputy who went to prison more than decade ago for supplying drugs to jail inmates when Hammond was chief deputy; the large group of friends and political donors whom he as enrolled as members of an honorary “posse”; the cost of his official car. He apparently is equally indifferent to the unease of several commissioners about both his nepotism and the budget deficit he has refused to eliminate.