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Gailen Porter
377-3222

About Gailen...

Occupation:

Employed by Clayton Manufactured Housing, Inc.

Former Co-owner of Clayton Nissan, Inc.

Three Reasons to Vote for Gailen...

1. Integrity:  I am a strong conservative with high moral standards. I am a first time candidate, with no alignment to any other candidate or political faction, including current or prior office holders. I have never been a Knox County employee, and have no family members employed by the county. I have no political favors to return.  I have run my campaign with great integrity and practice integrity in my daily life.
   
   

2. Experience:  I have a proven, successful tract record of 33 years business and corporate experience in new automobile dealerships, serving as General Manager, Vice President, and eventually as co-owner of a new dealership.  I have managed million dollar budgets in business, and have served on the financial committee for my church.  I have supervised hundreds of employees through the years and have served on the personnel committee in my church, resulting in a wealth of human resource experience.  My high school education has served me well but I have also benefited from many sources of education through the years.  I have sound common sense, and good judgment that does not come from degrees, and cannot be found in textbooks. 
   
   

3. Leadership qualities:  District 8 needs a leader who will refuse to use their power selfishly for their own purposes.  Good leadership requires a person to have integrity, to be bold and strong, to speak out in the face of opposition to give positive direction for change.  I have the qualities of a good leader. I have been a leader in the business world for 33 years and in church for 17 years.  My goal is to help the people of Knox County restore integrity and accountability to county government. I support a re-call provision. I will encourage Knox County government to accept the recommendations provided by the Ethics Committee to alleviate conflicts of interest in all county offices.  I support the Sunshine Law as it is. Change must come from the character of elected officials, not from change of the laws.  Elected officials must be held to a higher standard of behavior. I will be a leader for change to make the needs of district 8 heard loud and clear.

    

Gailen's Thoughts On... 

Knox County Schools: 

 Working with Superintendents and School board members should be a high priority for the Knox County Commission.  If elected, I will make every effort to provide necessary funding, and to implement programs to upgrade our schools.  Our school facilities are inadequate to meet the needs of our children.  The Gibbs Community has a new elementary school, but needs a middle school for the safety of students being bused across dangerous roads to Holston Middle School.  The Carter Elementary School building is over 70 years old and needs to be replaced, not just for convenience, but also for health reasons.  I will promote fairness when allocating money to schools. 

Property Taxes:  

I support a tax freeze for Senior citizens.  I feel Knox County must become more innovative in methods to raise revenue to prevent escalating property taxes.  Our county government should utilize financial advisors, bond attorneys, and public/private sector innovators in search of ways to increase revenues.  As commissioner, I will focus on the county budget to alleviate waste, dishonesty, and fraud.  Hard choices must be made.  In the private sector I learned to be profitable in both slow and prosperous economies.  I will make this issue a serious priority if elected. 

Development:

The lack of balanced growth for the past 10 years has affected our schools, roads, and taxes.  We need balanced growth.  We’re losing our rural communities to development. 

Knox County must make a greater effort to understand the impact, both negative and positive, that development will have on a community.  Usually, the citizen’s home is their major investment.  Tangible changes to their property affect their economic standing, which can also affect their health, safety, and well being.  The economical well being of citizens should never be disregarded simply for financial gain for developers. 

Developers shouldn’t be granted permission to build without a funding plan to pay for additional schools and road improvement made necessary by their projects.  Developers profiting from development should pay some type impact fee to provide infrastructure needed as a result of development projects.  I will be a voice for proper planning.  Developers will know my major concern will be the impact projects have on my constituents.   

Environment:

Enforcing laws and upgrading education on global warming are a must. Knox County should adhere to all Environmental Protection Agency laws for commercial and industrial projects. 

Citizens should be educated on global warming causes and ways to protect the environment.  A good start would be through enhanced school programs, short educational seminars through employers, civic organizations, churches, and Senior Citizens meetings. 

The public should understand that the speed of rising global temperatures, not just the global temperature, is a cause of global warming. Stabilizing carbon emissions for the next 50 years would avoid most global warming impacts.  We need to be better stewards of the land we’ve been given.  We must all become “green warriors”.  It takes everyone to make a difference.