Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed a Republican primary candidate for Madison County mayor, John Newman. to the newsmaker line to discuss his background and why he’s running for mayor.
Leahy: All-star panelist, Ben Cunningham, in-studio with us on the newsmaker line, John Newman, who is a candidate for mayor of Madison County. Good morning, John.
Newman: Good morning. How are you?
Leahy: Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. Are you running as a Republican in a primary? Are you an Independent? Democrat?
What’s your background and what race are you in the primary race? Is there a caucus? What is going on in Madison County?
Newman: I am running in the Republican primary and I have two other competitors for Madison County mayor. And my background from the governmental standpoint is I was elected in 1990 as the first Republican and was elected in Madison County.
Leahy: What were you elected as in 1990, John?
Newman: That was as a county commissioner.
Leahy: County commissioner. How many county commissioners are there in Madison County?
Newman: We have 25.
Leahy: Twenty-five. We have a similar case here in Williamson County, where I live, in the suburb south of Nashville. I think there are about 25. In a group that large, how do you ever get anything done?
Newman: Well, you got to play chess.
Leahy: (Chuckles) Chess and not checkers. That makes sense. Now explain to our audience, because in some local elections, the parties have chosen to do caucuses, as was the case in Maury County.
They held a caucus back in January to pick their nominee for county executive. In Madison County, you’ve chosen to do the primary. The primary is in May, is that correct?
Newman: It’s in May, and they start voting on Wednesday. But if I go back to 1990, I was picked in a caucus in 1990, and quite frankly, there were only three of us elected out of 25 Republicans and Conservatives who raised taxes two years in a row. And so I became the chairman of the party, and we actually led in 1994 in a primary, and we’ve had primaries ever since.
Leahy: Okay, good.
Newman: Now we can acquire that. Yes.
Leahy: In Madison County, you prefer the primary to the caucus. Tell us why you think a primary is better than a caucus.
Newman: I think it’s better because it allows more people to be involved in choosing the candidate. Ironically, again, I was picked by the caucus because that’s what it did in 1990.
And now years later, you have people come up that may or may not have been involved with the party and that type of thing. But it is the more open process, which I think is the best.
Leahy: Tell us about yourself, John. You’re from Madison County. And by the way, also tell everybody in our listening audience how big Madison County is. Where it is.
Most people know that Jackson is the biggest city on it. But tell us more about Madison County itself, its size, some of the problems they face, and your background, John.
Newman:Â Madison County is about 100,000 people and it’s two hours from Nashville west and one hour from east of Memphis. We are the largest county besides Memphis on the west side of the Tennessee River.
And we have a trade area, about 15 county trade areas that get up to almost a million people that come here to eat and do things like that. So we have a huge sales tax base. But my background, I’ve spent 20 years as a part-time county commissioner, and during that time I owned my own business and employed folks here and barbecue and meat and plate lunches and breakfast and that type of thing for many years.
Then I was a banker, vice president of the bank for several years. But during that time, I actually got the opportunity to work with U.S. Senator Fred Thompson as a field representative in all of West Tennessee.
But after I became commissioner and after I was a banker, I actually have been the last 12 years, I’ve been the county trustee from Madison County.
Leahy: County trustee. What exactly does the county trustee do?
Newman: The evil part of it that people think of is we collect property taxes.
Leahy: Is that evil, John? Everybody has to pay property taxes, right? Somebody’s got to collect them.
Newman:Â Well, we make sure they’re all collected. But more than that, we actually book-keep for all the departments in the county.
We’re the banker for the county. So all the money that comes in the county, all the sales tax comes in city and county and all over. We ensure that money is put in the proper place.
Leahy: Why is it that you want to run change jobs, go from trustee to county mayor? And what is it unique about you that you can help address the issues facing Madison County?
Newman: We’ve got tremendous opportunities coming before us with the Blue Oval City being built just 45 miles away from us. We’re going to have some tremendous growth in this area over the next four to 10 years.
And with my experience as a county commissioner, I didn’t just show up and vote, I immersed myself in the budget, in the finance department, and sat on the financial management committee.
And then as trustee, I continue to help with every project that comes into town that has bonds related to it or has incentives related to it, I’m still in the middle of all those types of things. I’m just prepared for the tremendous opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.
Leahy: You are talking about the Blue Oval City, that’s where the state government is providing, I think, about $800 million to Ford Motor to build electric trucks in that new development.
Newman: Trucks and batteries.
Leahy: You think that’s a good deal, right? I’m guessing you do.
Newman: I think it’s a good deal, but I do also believe that watching the other towns across Tennessee, particularly that we have to take a measured approach on how we grow in Madison County. And we don’t want to change the total personality of who we are.
And we need to be selective about some of the spin-off businesses that we are fit for, and we’ve got a tremendous place to have industrial growth but we want to make sure that our small business and our community stays safe and stays in good shape as this growth comes.
Leahy: Here’s Ben Cunningham with a question for you, John Newman.
Cunningham: I’m somewhat familiar with Jackson and Madison County. I’ve had some property over there and managed it over the years.
It’s been a while, but what is your property tax rate now? When’s the last time you increased the property tax rate over there?
Newman: Our tax rate right now is 235, and I will tell you that in the 1990s, again, they got raised every two years, and after that, after we got conservative Republicans on the Commission, we didn’t raise taxes for 23 years.
Cunningham: Wow.
Newman: And there was, about five years ago, I was not only commissioned at the time, but the city revoked on a sales tax vote that the people voted for going into school and took that money back, so the commission was forced to raise that tax. It went back and, by the way, I probably wouldn’t have voted to raise that tax because there are other ways to do it.
I’m a growth-type person, but the next year we appraised the plan and went through it and went back down to 235 and in fact, we just are going this year and it will probably end up under $2.
Listen to the interview here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
