Six candidates turn out to Norris council forums

September 25, 2024 by G. Chambers Williams III

All five incumbents and one of two challengers turned out Saturday at the Norris Community Building for two forums designed to allow City Council candidates to state their cases for votes in the Nov. 5 municipal election.

The overwhelming message from the five members of the council running for re-election was that they intend to keep doing what they’ve been doing for the past two years or more: keep Norris the unique community it has earned its good reputation for, and keep taxes – and city debt – well in check.

Attendees included Mayor Chris Mitchell, who organized the separate afternoon and evening forums, along with council members Loretta Painter, Bill Grieve, Chuck Nicholson and Will Grinder; and challenger Ron Hill, who previously served a term on the council.

Conspicuously absent was the second challenger, James “Lee” Ragsdale, who did not show up for either forum, and did not send word as to why he was not present.

One resident who attended the first of the forums, which was scheduled from 1-4 p.m., even asked the other six candidates present whether they had heard anything from Ragsdale as to why he wasn’t there.

About 50 people – presumably all Norris voters – turned out for the first session, while about 20 were on hand for the second session, which began at 5 p.m.

All five council seats are up for re-election every two years, and both the mayor and vice-mayor are chosen from mong the council members by a vote of the new council in its first meeting, in December, after the November election each year.

“We’re on a great course,” Mitchell told the crowd. “We have no [city] debt, and we have not had a tax increase in 16 years.”

Mitchell is in his eighth two-year term as a council member and mayor, serving nearly 16 years.

The biggest challenges the city is facing, he said, include updating and maintaining facilities, including the Community Building where the city administration has its offices and the council holds its meetings; and upgrading the sanitary sewer system.

The sewer system has been under a “director’s order” from the state Department of Environment and Conservation for two years to reduce runoff of stormwater that enters and overwhelms the city’s wastewater treatment plant, causing untreated sewage to be diverted into nearby Buffalo Creek.

Painter, who has been on the council for nearly five terms, also touted the successes of the current council, and spoke of projects under way and on the agenda of council priorities, including upgrades to the Community Building and the city’s parks.

“Twenty-seven years ago my husband and I moved to Norris with our two children,” Painter told the crowd. “It’s been a wonderful place to raise the children.”

She said she began serving on city committees in 2008, starting with the Community Development Board, and later took an interest in City Council and began going to all council meetings before she ran for council the first time.

Grieve, who was elected to the council at the same time as Painter 10 years ago, outlined his background growing up in Norris from the first grade on, and later serving in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve for 29 years, and seeing duty in Vietnam and later in Operation Desert Storm.

“I want to be a part of the team that governs Norris,” he told the group at the first session. “At present, Norris has an outstanding government that is working as a team.”

Grinder, seeking his third term on the council, said he moved to Norris in 2018, but over the past 20 years has done “a lot of work here in Norris” as a building contractor.

“My wife and I moved to Tennessee in 1998,” he said, adding that his wife “grew up in Lake City.”

“For me, the most important part of being here in Norris is … to keep the character of Norris what it is – the trees, the trails, the roads, the community … I live here because of those things,” Grinder said.

Nicholson, who was first elected to the council two years ago, also now serves as vice-mayor and chair of the Norris Water Commission. He said he had worked for TVA for 40 years, and has been involved in Norris city government since the 1980s with the Tree Commission and other boards and commissions.

“In the last two years since I’ve been on City Council, we’ve made a lot of progress,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot more to do … [such as] maintaining, upgrading and repairing our infrastructure. … There are some exciting things on the horizon, too. … I want to keep Norris as a safe, affordable, enjoyable place for people of all ages, people of all backgrounds.”

Hill, the only challenger in Saturday’s forums, was appointed by the council to serve the remainder of an unexpired term in 2017, and ran successfully for a full two-year term in 2018.

But he came in sixth place for the five council seats in the 2020 election, in which he was replaced by Jill Holland Ryan. He did not run in 2022.

Hill said he grew up near LaFollette, but spent most of his adult life working in law enforcement in Pennsylvania.

He and his wife decided to retire to East Tennessee, and chose Norris.

“I want to keep Norris’s culture like the TVA originally designed it,” he said.

“I would like to see more programs … for seniors,” he said, adding that more than half of Norris residents are seniors.

As for the only candidate who didn’t show up for the forums, several of those attending said they have no knowledge of Ragsdale, who has no prior council experience and has never run before.