| Features |
|
| Member Options |
|
|
| Downloads |
|
| |
|
| GOP gubernatorial hopeful shares message on UC visit |
By: Glenda H. Caudle Special Features Editor
|
Posted: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 9:06 pm
|
By GLENDA H. CAUDLE
Special Features Editor
He describes himself as a “lifelong conservative.” According to his official biography, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam is also a husband — to Crissy Haslam — and father — to Annie, Leigh and Will Haslam.
He has been the East Tennessee mountain city’s chief executive for six years and was re-elected in his most recent contest in 2007 with 87 percent of the vote.
In 2010, he has his sights set on another address in Tennessee, however. This time, he wants to move his family to the governor’s mansion in Music City, U.S.A. and tackle the task of governing the entire Volunteer State and not just that area where the term “Volunteers” automatically calls up images of the sprawling college campus in the heart of his hometown.
Haslam boasts that Knoxville has the best credit rating in the city’s history and credits his experience as a businessman with helping that happen. He joined the family business, Pilot Travel Center, as a young man and in his 18 years as president has grown it from a company with a few convenience stores and 800 employees to a business entity that provides jobs for more than 11,000 people in 250 truck stops in 39 states.
Long before he became the chief executive of the family business, however, he was literally learning the ropes from the ground up — or in his case, from the gas pump onward.
A good student and athlete with natural leadership skills, he worked filling cars with fuel from the seventh grade on during summer vacations.
After graduating from Emory University, he married a young student he had met his first day in college — a Memphis resident known to her friends and family today as Crissy Haslam.
His love of politics was born in college, where he juggled his studies, volunteer work with Young Life in Atlanta and summers spent helping out in the campaigns of Tennessee’s former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker and current U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander.
After learning business skills necessary to grow the family enterprise, he launched his own business, Saks Direct, as an Internet retail business and became its first employee and decision maker, earning strong returns for his investors.
As mayor of Knoxville, he has balanced six consecutive city budgets and has established a reputation for “going to the people” to hear their concerns in their own neighborhoods.
Friday morning, he toured the Obion County Public Library with Union Citians Bill and Carol Latimer, who donated the property, along with the late Mrs. Tom Elam, and spent some time outlining his plans as governor of the state. He also responded to questions from the breakfast-time audience.
Haslam pledged that his administration — if he wins the GOP nod in the 2010 primary and then the general election — will use “real” numbers in working with the state’s financial future, and he acknowledged the task will be anything but easy, given the current financial climate.
He noted that Tennessee “lives on” sales tax and some excise taxes and said there has been an 8-9 percent decrease in income for state coffers. “It will be a really horrible job to figure a budget, whoever the next governor is,” he said.
Asked if he foresaw Washington “bailing out” states such as California that are teetering on the brink of economic collapse, Haslam responded, “Who knows what they will do now?” However, he said he would be willing to bet that won’t happen because states such as Tennessee that have tried to be fiscally conservative would rebel. “Tennessee is relatively fiscally responsible — it’s 48th in terms of its tax burden, so Tennesseans would surely say, ‘Why should we bail out a California?’”
While acknowledging that states have some authority to say “No” to the federal government, he added that Tennessee could not advise its citizens to stop paying their income taxes in an effort to rein in Washington’s spendthrift ways. He reminded the crowd that the best form of government is local government — the kind they can reach out and touch and see. State government, he added, is still something the average citizen can see and feel, but the federal government has lost touch through its gross inefficiencies.
Responding to a question about the state’s budget, Haslam said funding to education should be the last thing that is cut, even though it is the biggest chunk of the budget — 70 percent when paired with healthcare and highways. He added that money is not the only answer to improving the educational futures of Tennessee’s children, however. More rigor is needed, he advised.
With regard to employment, the Knoxville mayor said rural areas appear to be suffering much more than municipalities in Tennessee. In rural areas, the unemployment figures are usually much higher than the statewide average of 10-11 percent.
“The next governor will have to have a strategic plan for the rural areas — region by region. He’ll have to ask what will allow Tennessee to market each region.”
Describing himself as a very strong pro second-amendment supporter, he said the concealed carry laws of the state have generally worked well. He added that urban areas have a different view of gun rights, in general, than more rural areas and said he understands concerns about guns at places like Little League fields. If the decision were left to him, he said, he would pull guns out of areas where the focus was on children while allowing them in other areas.
When a question about accepting prisoners from Guantanamo in Tennessee was raised, Haslam noted that mayors are used to dealing with the consequences of their decisions in ways that those in Washington don’t have to consider.
“Until someone shows me a better way, I would just leave Guantanamo open,” he said.
Haslam, who is an elder at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church, said he would concentrate as governor on doing everything he had learned from his experience as a mayor and in business. He pledged to make smart business decisions for the state, attract more jobs and put forth real reform in education while protecting the values held most dear by Tennesseans.
Published in The Messenger 8.18.09 |
|
Printer-friendly format
|
|
|
|
