Hamilton County has never been immune to dirty politics. To the contrary, we have seemed to have more than our share of it. And it's often carried out over and over - thanks to political grudges carried for years.
That, we think, sums up what we saw last week as early voting began with yet another spit fight between two men who have served on the Hamilton County Commission and now are vying for the county's constitutional office of Assessor of Property.
Commission Chairman Randy Fairbanks has accused incumbent Assessor Marty Haynes of improperly lowering the property value of a golf course to help a friend and political supporter save money on property tax. According to Fairbanks, Haynes is behind the more than 28% decrease in assessed value for Creeks Bend Golf Club in Hixson, which was certified just months after Haynes took office in 2016.
Haynes acknowledges that it "looks bad." But he denies that anything is amiss.
(MORE: Opponent Randy Fairbanks accuses incumbent Marty Haynes of favoring political allies)
"Reassessments are a four-year process, and the bulk of the 2017 assessment was done by the previous administration before I took office [on Sept. 1, 2016]," Haynes said. "About half of the golf club is underwater when it rains, and when the staff factored in the most recent [Federal Emergency Management Agency] flood map showing a portion of the golf course is underwater, the value naturally went down."
As a matter of fact, the golf course is underwater right now. And the FEMA flood maps did change some years back, and you might recall that those changes, prompted by more extreme weather across the nation, resulted in work to raise the height on some portions of the Brainerd Levee.
Add to that the fact that Hamilton County had never done whole land assessments - analyses of homes and commercial properties grouped in a community along a given creek or ridgeside, for instance - until 2015, a year before Haynes took office.
Meanwhile, in his first three years in office, Haynes racked up a few important accolades. In 2018, the state named him assessor of the year, and in 2019 he received the leadership award from the Tennessee Association of Assessing Officers. He's raised the office to a three-star certification from the state; lowered the office's overall budget; led the state in professional training of appraisers; hired the county's first female property appraiser and switched the office to a more modern software and hardware system.
Fairbanks says he began looking into what he termed "problems" in the assessor's office six or eight months ago after a couple of employees from that office came to him, told him of what they deemed concerns and "asked me to run" for the office.
When the accusations about inappropriate assessments arose at the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club debate just before early voting began last week, Haynes said: "The [golf course] assessment is fair and right, and Randy, if there's anything wrong with Creeks Bend, call the [Tennessee] comptroller's office and report your findings."
After the debate, Fairbanks told the Times Free Press that he had not filed a complaint with the comptroller's office, which audits the assessor's office, because, "to be honest with you, I didn't know how that worked. I had no idea that was an option."
Oh, come on. Fairbanks is an experienced county commissioner who was elected in 2014, plus he himself is an accountant. How can he not know?
According to both of these Republicans, each now vying for their party's primary vote, bad feelings between them actually began in 2015 when the commission split over a two-year tug of war over commissioners' discretionary funds. County Mayor Jim Coppinger proposed a budget that would end the funds, which gave each of nine districts $100,000 in discretionary money annually. Haynes joined the side that wanted to end the funds, and Fairbanks wanted to keep them. The funds have since been replaced, but lowered in value. They remain controversial on the commission even today.
If that in itself were not small enough, there's the whisper campaign Fairbanks and his supporters have advanced for weeks before he made his accusation public in a mailer sent out to Republican voters last week and in comments in front of the Pachyderm Club.
Fairbanks had told the paper several times that he had "proof," but the only thing he's produced is a few lines on a spreadsheet showing local golf course assessments. Yes, the assessments are factual, but where's any throughline that shows what made each go up, go down or stay the same? That's like plucking several homes from around the county and showing their assessments but offering no details for how those assessments were reached. It may be worth noting that a part-time commission chairman's pay is $29,417 while the fulltime Assessor of Property's pay is more than $130,000.
Both Fairbanks and Haynes want the paper's election endorsements. It matters less on this page, as Democrats won't be able to cast a vote for either candidate since pulling a GOP ballot in the primary would mean we would forgo voting to nominate a Democratic presidential contender.
We can tell you, however, that if we were pulling that Republican ballot for the assessor's race, we would say vote for Marty Haynes. We don't see any there there to Fairbanks' claims.