Red Bank incumbents face uphill battle

Lawsuits and traffic cameras.

For three Red Bank commissioners seeking re-election Nov. 2, those issues could do what the economy and “Hope and Change” did to national Republicans in 2008.

“There’s a lot of anger against some of these incumbents in the past few months,” said Royce Burrage, a longtime Red Bank resident. “The more people know about the issues, the more irate they become. It’s backroom politics at its best or worst, whichever you want to call it.”

Two-term Commissioner Floy Pierce goes up against Robert L. Perry and David R. Smith in the District 3 race.

“I have never seen our board split like this before,” Pierce said. “There’s always hope that things will be better.”

Over the summer, Red Bank got served with four lawsuits seeking a combined $6 million by a crowd most likely to appear in a walks-into-a-bar joke — a former police chief, two police officers and a DUI offender.

That’s not including a $10 million lawsuit filed in April against the city’s three sets of traffic cameras.

“I feel traffic cameras have hurt our community more than helped,” said Pierce, who voted with three other commissioners to extend the city’s traffic camera contract with American Traffic Solutions for 12 more years last winter.

“I’m for going back and reviewing that,” she said.

Another lawsuit, filed by former police Chief Larry Sneed, charges that Pierce, Commissioner Greg Jones and Vice Mayor Monty Millard arranged Sneed’s firing after he supervised two of Millard’s three arrests. Two of those arrests took place in Red Bank; the third was handled by Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies.

Several city officials said the commissioners spoke with City Manager Chris Dorsey after more than half the police department told them about Sneed’s “dysfunctional” leadership.

Jones, who is running against Edward L. LeCompte in District 3, said he wasn’t sure how the lawsuits would affect his electoral prospects.

“Until the truth really comes out, it could go either way,” Jones said. “I don’t know what else I can do.

“There are a lot of people who are anxious for the truth,” he continued. “And I don’t know if the lawsuit will be over and done with before election time.”

Jones and most commissioners have obeyed a directive from Red Bank City Attorney Arnold Stulce not to speak with the press about the lawsuits.

On the other hand, Mayor Joe Glasscock, also up for re-election, has been vocal about the “backroom politics” he thinks took place in Sneed’s ouster. He recently convinced the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to look into the firing.

Glasscock is named in Red Bank police Officer Bradley Hanon’s $1.5 million lawsuit in connection with a dispute after a commission meeting, but the mayor has not commented on that.

Glasscock is running against John Roberts for the commission’s lone at-large seat. The commission voted him in as mayor under the city charter.

“I’m not running scared, but I’m not running with confidence that I’m going to win,” Glasscock said. “But everybody that I’ve talked to said [Sneed] was fired improperly and done in haste.

“You’ve got to have someone with experience to guide the new commissioners, and people are convinced I’m doing the right thing in this city and siding with Larry Sneed,” he said.

Pierce said her constituents took a different view after reading about officers upset over Sneed’s managerial tactics.

“I can’t go into detail with this, but they’re understanding more about how that firing was handled,” she said.