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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Who is funding Knox County - One Question? |
| The Baker
Center Study is funded by a grant from the
Seven Islands Foundation. All steering
committee members are volunteering their
services to the effort. Other costs
should be minimal. Private donations
will be accepted to cover other incidental
expenses such as the cost of materials for
the public meetings, registration of the
internet domain name, hosting the site on
DiscoverET.org, etc. |
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What is the Seven Islands Foundation? |
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Seven Islands
Foundation is a Knox County based
philanthropic foundation headed by Pete
Claussen. It is best known for having
made possible the conservation of the Seven
Islands Wildlife Refuge in East Knox County. |
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How was the Steering Committee formed?
How were the members chosen? |
The Steering
Committee was recruited by a smaller
organizing committee that came together
under a common interest to engage the public
in a process to look at governmental
structure and operations in Knox County
as a result of the January Supreme Court
opinion that made it clear that for the
first time in Knox County's 215 year
history, it is clear that we can have
whatever form of or changes to local
government that citizens approve. The
original organizing committee members came
from widely divergent viewpoints on what, if
any, changes ought to occur, and agreed that
for the process to have credibility there
had to be a totally open process without any
predetermined answers, overseen by a
Steering Committee that represented all
parts of Knox County. The original
organizing committee consisted of Lynne
Fugate, Diana Morgan, Tom Salter, John
Schmid, and Laurens Tullock, with one of the
first and most important roles being to
choose a Chair who would insure that the
process would achieve the desired result of
openness and inclusiveness. The Chair
that was agreed upon was Dr. Joe Johnson,
President Emeritus of the University of
Tennessee, who then became a part of the
organizing committee. The profile of
Steering Committee members that were asked
to serve is that they represent all parts of
Knox County, they are informal servant
leaders that care deeply about the future of
the community, and they do not have
conflicts of interest such as an elected
position or local government employment.
It is the Steering Committee as a whole,
rather than the smaller organizing
committee, that will ultimately form the
recommendations that will be made to the
community. |
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Isn't Knox County - One Question just
another pro-metro group? |
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Definitely not!
The premise behind Knox County - One
Question is that the citizens have the power
to amend the current Knox
County Charter. On January 12, 2007
the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed that we
have a historic opportunity, if we choose,
to change the structure and functions of
local government using the current charter.
Those who are proposing metro or unified
government are actually proposing throwing
out the current city and county charters and
starting from scratch with a new charter.
While we expect citizens to bring up metro
or unified government in the public input
sessions, we expect there will also be a
number of other ideas proposed about the
future structure or functions of local
government. All ideas generated in the
public meetings, along with the results of
the Baker Center research will be reported
later this Summer [click
here to see the ideas from those meetings]. Any efforts to
actually use the information gained to
change the structure or function of
government will be up to the citizens of
Knox County. |
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