by Joe Kirkpatrick

Let me start out by saying I do not know Myles Howard.  As far as I know, I have never even met him.  From what I have read of him prior to the Walker Valley Band Booster scandal, he seemed like a hard working man who was genuinely interested in serving his community.  I hope for his sake and the communities sake, the current audit shows he was negligent and a poor bookkeeper, but not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.

Now - my point:  As I have previously written several times in this column throughout the past several years, we need to elect people to public office who have a background in business and finance.  Elections should not be a popularity contest - they should be a contest to elect the best qualified candidate - period!  As far as Myles Howard goes, he can be the nicest, most honest guy in the world, but the bottom line is, if he cannot handle a band booster clubs finances, how can he be expected to handle a multi-million dollar budget he handled has a school board member?
 
Folks, Myles Howard is not the Lone Ranger.  I'll never forget County Executive Gary Davis giving his "State of the County Address" to the county commission two or three years ago.  In essence, his whole address was, "we cannot keep spending more money than we are taking in."  The last sentence was hardly out of his mouth, when one of the commissioners said, "there's a ball field out in my district that needs some lights and it will only cost about

$167,000 for them."  Immediately, a motion was made, seconded, and voted for by all of the commissioners except Mike Plumley and Lindsey Hathcock, who evidently were the only ones who had listened to Davis's address. 

An example of well-trained qualified leaders are Bob Corker, the current mayor of Chattanooga, as well as former Chattanooga Mayor Jon Hensley.  Both of them ran multi-million dollar businesses, and clearly brought their business expertise into their elected position.  Under their supervision, a great deal of development was done to the downtown section of the city, bringing millions of dollars in tourist revenue.  In the past, former beer distributor and trucking company owner Ned McWherter brought his business expertise into the Tennessee Governor's office and ran a tight ship.  Present Governor Bredesen brings years of experience in running a large health care corporation into the Tennessee governor's office now.  Even with the TennCare woes he is facing, we hear nothing of the dire budget deficits that constantly plagued the Sundquist administration. 

Bottom line, finance and business experience make a difference.  As far as being in an elected position to be responsible for managing millions of dollars, being a nice guy is great, but business experience is what counts