Last week, Gov. Bill Lee gave what he called a “Friday Afternoon on the Farm” video address on Twitter to celebrate his first week in office and provide a brief update on his work.
The video, just over a minute in length, is available here on his official governor’s Twitter page.
We’ve had a great first week in office. I issued my first executive order focused on rural Tennessee and we began work on the budget. We’ll be posting regular Fridays from the Farm videos, and I’m excited to post my first one here on my new, official Twitter page: pic.twitter.com/VFuaF1qx3X
— Gov. Bill Lee (@GovBillLee) January 26, 2019
In the video’s post, Lee says, “We’ve had a great first week in office. I issued my first executive order focused on rural Tennessee and we began work on the budget. We’ll be posting regular Fridays from the Farm videos, and I’m excited to post my first one here on my new, official Twitter page.”
While he and wife Maria are living in the Governor’s Mansion in Nashville, they were spending a three-day weekend on “the farm,” he said. The farm to which Lee refers is his family’s Triple L Ranch in Franklin, where they keep Hereford cattle. In the video, Lee, dressed casually in jeans and a hooded jacket, stands in front of a ranch gate.
The inauguration the weekend before was “awesome,” he said.
The week was busy, with Monday being MLK Day and the first day of business being Tuesday, when he issued his first executive order, he said.
That order was aimed at improving state departments’ services to rural counties, as The Tennessee Star reported last week. Lee’s executive order directs all 22 executive departments to “issue a statement of rural impact and provide recommendations for better serving rural Tennessee,” his office said in a statement.
“Rural Tennessee matters to every Tennessean,” Lee said in his video address. His office has started to put together a legislative package “to emphasize the things that really matter.”
Earlier on Friday, he participated in public budget hearings, he said.
Lee has requested departments to identify ways to make cuts of 2 percent, with the savings going to other programs.
Wrapping up, Lee said, “We’re going to be reporting, hopefully, frequently from the farm, when we’re here.”
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
Background Photo “Bill Lee” by Bill Lee.
Enjoyed the video. Keeping it rural.