Why must we rush Audit Committee?
As a member of the accounting community, I am concerned about the expected vote on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, to appoint four members and one commissioner to the newly formed Hamilton County Audit Committee.
The appointees’ backgrounds are unknown, and the commission still needs to interview them or at least review their resumes to ensure the committee’s independence and effectiveness. Increasing transparency and accountability in government is a good thing, but when the transparency and accountability of the appointees is unknown, this is problematic and leaves the public questioning the motives behind the formation of such a committee.
The proposed resolution states that “due to the importance of the business to be conducted by the Audit Committee, it is imperative that the committee holds its first meeting as soon as possible.” Why the rush? Have we had any issues with the county’s audits recently? Not that I am aware. Our county finance and audit departments do a great job. The commission should take the time to interview the candidates and review their resumes to ensure that they select qualified committee members, as this committee will have a lot of authority in our local government.
Charlie White
For basic needs, turn county blue
In the 2024 legislative session, Tennessee Republicans voted for tax breaks for corporations and against a bill to end the grocery tax. Tennessee is one of only 13 states with a grocery tax.
Some good news: Thanks to the strong grassroots response from Tennesseans and Tennessee Democratic legislators, the Republican statewide school voucher bill (which is currently in Hamilton, Davidson and Shelby counties) went nowhere. The bad news: Republicans want to bring the bill back next year. We don’t need our tax dollars handed over to unaccountable pop-up private “school” businesses or used to defray private school tuition.
To ensure that all people across Hamilton County and Tennessee have access to basic necessities like housing, groceries, medical care, fully-funded neighborhood schools and more, vote for what you want, not for what this extremist legislature wants us to have.
On Aug. 1 and Nov. 5, Hamilton County voters can get it done by voting for the Democratic candidates running for every state House seat in Hamilton County (Districts 26-30), state Senate District 10, school board districts 1, 4, 10 and 11, and Circuit Court judge.
Every vote counts in local elections. Vote local and vote blue in August and November.
Therese Pace Tuley
Trump can’t be once and future president
The once and future president has made history again as the first former president with a felony conviction, with three more felony trials to go.
The American electorate doesn’t care. They want their Trump, and they will have him. Again. All restraints will be off. He will use the power of his office to take vengeance on his foes. He will roll back all of Biden’s environmental protections, so that the babies born after Roe v. Wade was overturned will have neither clean air to breathe nor clean water to drink. Pro-life, indeed.
He will use the full force of the U.S. armed services to execute the greatest expulsion of illegal immigrants in history. Will his supporters care if tens of thousands of legal immigrants of the “wrong” color are also targeted?
He will betray our allies and pander to our totalitarian foes. The death of Ukraine as an independent nation and tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians will follow as quickly as he can manage.
Perhaps the leader of the free world will do all this from the confines of a New York jail cell. History awaits. Again.
Herbert K. Lea
Chickamauga, Georgia