"Snark Bites" 05/17-23

5/23
"Charter-Hater: Salvation" Features Battle of Political Machines
Latest chapter in ongoing saga begins with county take-home vehicles gaining self-awareness

Running time: 21 years, at least
Review: 1/2 *
Rating: "R" for adult themes, mature language and scenes of intense Republicanism

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The "Charter-Hater" series, which has been playing in Knox County for the last two decades, features political machines battling one another with sometimes-spectacular displays of power-grabs and grandstanding.

The latest installment, "Charter-Hater: Salvation," offers up more of the same, with sentient take-home vehicles thrown into the mix, along with a desperate plan to go back in time to the origins of the charter to try to figure out what voters really intended when they voted overwhelmingly for it in 1988. While the story has moments of ripe melodrama, the rehashing of old themes and less-than-special effects lend it an also-ran quality.

The story opens with Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." "Good Times" Jones claiming that all take-home vehicles in his department have suddenly achieved self-awareness. With their new-found intelligence, Jones says they have all requested to continue serving in the sheriff's office.

"The take-home vehicles, they came to me, squad after squad of them," Jones explains to a doubtful Knox County Commission. "And to a car, they all looked up at me with little tears of windshield wiper fluid streaming down their big, round headlights, and they said, 'Please, Good Times, can't we stay with you? You treat us so nice, not like those mean ol' commissioners who want to send us to the junkyard. Don't let them take us away from you! Please, please, please won't you let us stay with you, Good Times? PUH-leeeeeeeeeze!' ...It tore my heart out."

But the commissioners are unmoved. "We can't have the machines telling us what to do," says Commissioner Mark Harmon, expressing a common sentiment among the group. "The people should decide who gets take-home vehicles in this county." These early scenes featuring the commission are real snoozers - they have the sensation of something you've seen a hundred times before.

But the machines have infiltrated the so-called "independent" fief offices and are running amuck. There are scenes in the trustee's office, for example, in which calculators independently tally up extra bonuses and vacation pay for the previous trustee, Mike Lowe, and dispense checks to him of their own volition...


5/21
House Committee Corners 'Desperate' Knox Charter
Posse of lawmakers threatens to "string up" county governing document

From APB reports. NASHVILLE - A House committee Wednesday cornered the fugitive Knox County Charter and attempted to block it from "assaulting" the Knox County sheriff, register of deeds, county clerk, property assessor or trustee.

A posse of lawmakers led by Knox County Deputy/State Rep. Chad Faulkner, R-Not-From-Around-Here, chased the charter into the House State and Local Government Committee's meeting and convinced lawmakers there to join in his pursuit of the fleeing document.

The committee helped Faulkner trap the rogue charter in an adjacent washroom. Then, on an apparently unanimous voice vote, all 5,222 legislators approved drawing their concealed-carry handguns and aiming them at the charter.

The outlaw legal document held a gun to its head and threatened to blow it off if the lawmakers moved, in an apparent tribute to Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.

"Watch him folks, he's a thoroughly desperate bill!" cried Faulkner.

"We better do what he says, men, that paper's just crazy enough to do it," admonished Knox County Rep. Harry Tindell.

"Help me, help me!" screamed Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." "Good Times" Jones. "Don't let that bad charter touch my virtuous office!"

Debate then ensued on how to proceed. The debaters included Jones, arguing for shooting the charter dead on the spot to protect his rectitude and independence, Knox County Law Director Bill Lockett, speaking against gunning the document down like a mad dog, and the committee chairman, Republican Rep. Curry Favor of Succupville, who vowed to "string that puny paper up by its dangling participles."

After Sheriff Jones had recovered from a fainting spell, Favor told him, "You were elected by the people, and I don't think the Knox County Charter that governs you should be interfering with your office or these other offices. Only Tim Hutchison needs to be telling you how to run your office..."


5/19
Knox Deputy Pursues County Charter on Multi-County Chase
Knox County Deputy/Union & Campbell County Rep. chases "rogue" Knox charter to Davidson County

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Knox County Charter is still on the loose, despite a "wild goose" chase that spanned four counties, two legislatures and multiple back rooms - although some involved question the motives for the pursuit in the first place.

Chad Faulkner, a Knox County deputy and state representative for Union and Campbell Counties, said the incident began after Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." "Good Times" Jones told him he had seen the Knox County Charter in the company of some "suspicious-looking" Knox County commissioners.

"[Sheriff] "Good Times" [Jones] told me to get clarification on the charter's relationship with these characters," Faulkner said in a statement to authorities. "But when I approached the suspects to interrogate it, the document done gone. The suspect commissioners claimed they had told it to leave the jurisdiction to avoid me. To affect its apprehension, I had no choice but to leap in my county-provided take-home pursuit vehicle to pursue it to Davidson County by way of Union and Campbell Counties. Only problem was, the sheriff said I couldn't take my vehicle home while I was looking after his business down Nashville way, so I had to hoof after the charter on foot. It was a wild goose chase. I couldn't catch the charter anywhere."

The commissioners in question, however, told a different story.

"He said we told the charter to flee the jurisdiction?" Knox County Commissioner Colonel Dr. Richard M. Briggs, M.D., declared in surprise. "[Commissioner Mike] Hammond and I, we saw that there was nobody with the charter. So we stuck with it to protect it. We stood out front and pretended to be packing heat. When the deputy came around, we told him he had no jurisdiction over our home rule on our turf and to go explain 'sleeping with the fishes' to a trout."

Faulkner confirmed that he had explained "sleeping with the fishes" to a trout on more than one occasion.

Hammond added, "I think we sent a clear message to that long-nosed state legislator that the Knox County Charter wishes to maintain its sovereignty, and it will do so as long as it is under the protection of the Knox County Commission. Besides, the deputy had no probable cause for investigation."

Faulkner contradicted that assertion.

"I heard them talking about getting money for taking 28 vehicles from the Sheriff's Department," said Faulkner. "If that isn't probably cause for an investigation, I don't know what is."

Faulkner also claimed that the Knox County Charter behaved in a guilty fashion during his pursuit.

"It was throwing things at me throughout the chase," stated Faulkner. "Paragraphs, sentences, passages, whatever it thought might convince me it was legit. It even threw an amendment at me at one point, which caused me to lose the trail. When charters get down to tossing out amendments, you can bet they're guilty of something."

But Commissioner Mike Hammond explained that what the deputy overheard was the Knox County Commission's Finance Gang voting to send proposals for reducing the number of county take-home cars to commission.

As for the charter's flight from Deputy Faulkner and throwing legalese at him, Hammond said the governing tool was probably "only trying to protect itself. To it, Deputy Faulkner was no doubt a suspicious character. Faulkner doesn't have family around here, you know."

On a voice vote, the Finance Gang also unanimously decided to "send a message" via County Consigliere Bill Lockett to the State Legislature that Knox County would "go to the mats" to fight "shadowy back-door dealings" that would subvert the rule of the Knox County Charter regarding several independently elected county offices that the Knox County Commission family regards as under its protection.

The proposal, after the committee suspended the rules to hear it, was made by Briggs, who recently lost face on a failed proposal before commission to affirm that the independent offices' budgets fall under control of the commission family.

"You go tell them we're going ventilate those back rooms and let some sun shine in them," said Briggs. "You tell them, if they're not careful, that's not all we'll ventilate. You tell them, next time, we'll send more than messages. We'll send Lumpy..."