Vote yes on Amendment 3 on November 4th

Tennessee state income tax. 

Lloyd Daugherty and the Tennessee Conservative Union started fighting a state income tax in  80’s when then Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander toyed with the idea of an income tax for Tennessee. He fought it again in the early 90’s, when Governor Ned McWherter proposed an income tax. McWherter dropped the idea just as Alexander had. In 2002, the income tax debate came to a boiling point when Governor Sunquist pushed an income tax. The income tax was defeated and has pretty much been considered a dead issue since then. 

But that has not stopped the pro-income tax crowd from pushing for it. After that last fight in 2002, the State of Tennessee put together The Tennessee Tax Structure Study Committee to study restructuring the Tennessee tax system. On August 18, 2004, Lloyd made a presentation at one of the panels the committee held titled “Pitfalls of State Income Tax”. As expected, the committee came to the conclusion that an income tax was needed in the State of Tennessee. All they have to do is to wait until they have a willing governor and a State Supreme Court willing to rule that a state income tax is constitutional and then we will have an income tax in the State of Tennessee.

Some people argue that it is unconstitutional. Others argue that it is constitutional The debate will continue on until the matter is decided permanently, either by enacting it or expressly banning it in the state constitution.  The only way to end the debate once and for all is to pass Amendment 3 on November 4^th. 

Lloyd dedicated his life to fighting an income tax in the state of Tennessee. Let’s make sure that his sacrifice was not in vain. Let’s finish the job for him.  Vote yes on Amendment 3 on November 4^th. #noincometaxinTN  #doitforlloyd.

Where will the cameras go?

From this story in the Knoxville News Sentinel.

This is one of the many reasons why I don't like the red light cameras.

"What they (Redflex) will do is they'll come in and have our data, which is the same data we've used throughout the process, and then they'll do their own survey," Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Wednesday. "They'll look at it to see if their survey backs up our data ... then they'll determine what intersections they will be in."

Redflex is making the decisions. Bad, very bad.

From the Lost and Found Department

FOUND - Six (6) village idiots. If your village has lost its idiot, please contact the Knoxville City Council. Six of them were seen there on the evening of November 8th. Please be prepared to identify. More information can be found here.

VOTE FOR STEVE HALL!!

I got a phone call a few minutes ago from a friend telling me that WATE had reported earlier this morning that Steve Hall had dropped out of the City Council race. STEVE DID NOT DROP OUT OF THE RACE!! He is still in the race and if you were planning to vote for him, please do so.

Another problem with the Redflex contract

What about unpaid citations, does the City of Knoxville have to cover them This clause is on page 9.

(E) Prosecution of Citations: Compensation. The City shall diligently prosecute Citations, and Redflex shall have the right to receive, and the City shall be obligated to pay, the compensation set forth on Exhibit D attached hereto.

The problem this presents is if someone doesn’t pay a citation, will Redflex still receive compensation for the citation? According to this, it should and the City will have to pay Redflex from their share. I've been playing around with some numbers. It looks like during the time when Redflex and the City of Knoxville would be splitting the money 85/15, if 20% don't pay their citations, the city will be losing money.

The big problem with this is that several years ago, the Knoxville City Court, which would be the court that would have jurisdiction over these citations, had over a million dollars of unpaid fines. This news report is from 2001 and I’m worried that things haven’t changed since then.

Another question is if someone successfully fights a citation, will the City have to make up the difference? Maybe that's why there is no plan for letting people contest citations.

Red light

Michael Silence had this about the proposed contract for Redflex to install red light cameras in Knoxville.

Redflex gets 85% of the first $4,500 worth of citations for each calendar month for each location. Since the citations are $50 each, that should be the first 90 citations each calendar month. After the first 90, the money would be split 50/50 between RedFlex and the City of Knoxville. First 90 citations = $4,500 x .85 = $3,825 for RedFlex. The City of Knoxville would only get $675 of that $4,500. (After the first $4,500, the split will be 50/50 with the City of Knoxville. For now, I'm only going to talk about the first $4,500.)

However, the contract refers to the first $4,500 that comes from “Designated Intersection Approach” and not “each intersection”. On page 3, (F) has the definition for “Designated Intersection Approach” as those set forth in Exhibit A. However, in Exhibit A, it refers to “implementation of up to 15 intersections”. The question is then, in the compensation part, are they talking about having cameras set up at 15 intersections or at each of the approaches (which is usually 4) at each of the 15 intersections?

Then there is this on page 7 of the contract. “(N) “Intersection Approach” means a conduit of travel with up to four (4) contiguous lanes from the curb (e.g.. northbound, southbound, eastbound or westbound) on which at least one (1) system has been installed by RedFlex for the purposes of facilitating Photo Red Light Enforcement by the City.”

Let’s go back to Redflex’s share for the first $4,500, which would be $3,825. $3,825 x 12 = $45.900 That is for 1 year for 1 location. Multiply that by 15 intersections and you get $688,500 but only if they mean intersections and not approaches the way. If they consider each intersection to have the possibility of 4 “Designated Intersection Approaches”, which I think is what they mean, then that could up their compensation to $2,754,000 each year. ($688,500 x 4).

I don't know about you, but I don't like it.

Serenity - The Firefly Movie

I got to see the new movie Serenity Tuesday night. It's good. It's I'm-going-to-start-going-to-movies-again good.

Normally, I don't go to movies. I decided to go to this one because my son is a big Firefly fan and I knew it would mean a lot to him. I really wasn't expecting to like it that much since I'm not a fan and I haven't even watch a whole episode of it. (My son has the DVDs and watches the reruns on the Sci-Fi channel.)

I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. Watching it reminded me of the watching the original Star Wars movie back in the '70s. It's a good story and it's well told.

My son, who does see a lot of movies, thought it was the best one he had seen in at least a year, maybe two. He wants to go again this weekend and will probably see it a third time in a couple of weeks.

There are a couple of scenes that could have been difficult (too gory) for the weak-stomached to watch. Instead of focusing on the gore itself, the director focuses on the reactions of the characters who have to witness it. It gets the point across without grossing out the audience.

I give it 2 thumbs up. I would give it more, but God only gave me two thumbs.

Something to celebrate

Here.