If Hamilton County Republican primary voters were looking to find sharp differences among the three candidates vying for county mayor in Monday’s Hamilton Flourishing “People’s Debate,” they may have been disappointed.
Candidates Matt Hullander, Sabrena Smedley and Weston Wamp, for instance, all:
* Agreed that smaller rather than bigger government was preferable.
* Supported enhanced vocational education for students.
* Vowed to continue the county’s sound track record on economic development.
* Pledged to stand with law enforcement officers.
* Concluded that their plans did not call for a tax increase.
* Said they were pro-life.
If there was an overarching theme, it was the education of Hamilton County’s 44,500-plus public-school students. Even when questions from moderator Doug Daugherty drifted to other topics, the three candidates often steered their answers back toward education.
In those answers, voters may have detected subtle differences.
Smedley, for example, wants to “go back to the beginning,” placing an emphasis on early childhood education and early-grades literacy. She called for moving “the best and brightest” teachers to where they are most needed, incentivizing those teachers, giving teachers more autonomy on teaching reading and writing. She said what she is suggesting wouldn’t require a tax increase.
“If they can’t read,” she said, “what does it matter?”
Although Smedley earlier had voiced support for more vocational education opportunities, Hullander and Wamp said such opportunities should be primary.
“I’m going to disagree with Sabrena,” Hullander said. “That would cost a lot of money.”
He said he was “all for trade schools,” for developing the workforce already in the county and opined that “a four-year degree is not for every student.”
For his part, Wamp said he is “not always going to tell you what you want to hear. To expand [pre-K across the county] would require a tax increase. The whole model is broken.”
He said he’s not against a literacy focus but that students seeking a family-wage paying vocational track “ought not be frowned on if they’re not reading on a senior level.” He also proposed more vocational schools and a middle/high school in downtown Chattanooga.
Hullander and Smedley emphasized the importance of public safety, with Hullander calling crime the “No. 1” problem he hears about and Smedley pledging to be “tough on crime” and to revive a gang task force.
Wamp, while acknowledging “we’re all going to stand with deputies,” said the long-term strategy to reduce crime is to aggressively tackle education deficits and move away from “cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all” educational approaches that don’t work for many young people.
Each of the three stressed their leadership backgrounds.
Hullander told of mowing lawns, bagging groceries, loading trucks, and finally buying and growing the business his father started, then selling it.
“I want to use my business background to run this county,” he said. He also cited the late Claude Ramsey, a longtime county mayor, as saying, “The county should run at the speed of business.”
Smedley mentioned starting her former realty firm as a single mother, being a small business owner who had experienced break-ins and shutdowns due to the pandemic, helping lead the fight against annexation before twice being elected as District 7 county commissioner, and her eight years on the commission during which 39 businesses located here and 11,000 jobs were created.
“I’m the only candidate running that has eight years of government experience to go in there day one and do the job and bring stability to Hamilton County government at a time it’s going to need it,” she said.
Wamp, co-founder of an investment fund, founder of the Millennium Debt Foundation and a Tennessee Board of Regents member, said he already has turned his dreams for the county into a platform for the race.
“I’ve been privileged to learn business alongside entrepreneurs,” he said.
With the first truly contested Republican primary for mayor since the county switched to the mayor/commission form of government in 1978, the May election is likely to draw more interest than usual. But that’s not saying much.
In the last mayoral primary in 2018, 20,503 of the county’s 192,662 registered voters went to the polls, 12,714 in the Republican primary. That’s 6.6% of county voters. If the same number voted in the Republican primary this year, considering there is no primary runoff and the winner is likely to have only 30% to 40% of the vote, the Republican nominee might be selected by earning fewer than 5,000 votes.
With the Republican nominee the likely winner in August’s general election, it’s critical for voters to pay attention to all the gatherings in which the three candidates appear – not the fake news spun out by social media – and listen for the subtleties that will determine their vote for the next Hamilton County mayor.