COLUMBIA, Tennessee – The Maury County Chamber and Economic Alliance hosted a mayoral forum at Columbia State Community College in the Cherry Theater on Thursday.
All three candidates in the race, former State Representative Sheila Butt, former Maury County Mayor Charlie Norman, and Pastor David Baker participated.
Butt often referred to her work in the Tennessee General Assembly, where she served for eight years and put the focus of her remarks on serving the people of Maury County.
“The mayor’s race isn’t really about a person. The mayor’s race is about Maury County and what is best for our county. I’m here tonight because I believe that my eight years serving you in the state House has prepared me uniquely for this position,” she said at one point.
“I served on the agriculture committee. We have lots of rural communities here in Maury County,” added Butt.
Perhaps displaying resentment towards his defeat in the previous mayoral election, Norman, the former mayor of Maury County who current Mayor Andy Ogles defeated in the 2018 race, took the opportunity to take shots at his successor.
“We’ve had a mayor that’s not engaged and he’s not attuned to what’s going on in the county. The responsibility of the mayor is to influence people. The responsibility of the mayor is to be there when he needs to be. He needs to look for ways that he can help the community,” said Norman.
“But politics is about serving people and the mayor should serve the people, not look for an agenda, or not carry an agenda and not worry about what he’s going to in four more years – worry about what he’s got to do from day to day, work with his people and his 12 department heads, and do what’s best for Maury County and serve the citizens,” he added.
Baker, who is bizarrely suing Butt for defamation over a text message discussion that sources say was over simple opposition research, frequently pointed out that he’s never held elected office.
At one point he said, “So many times the politicians will talk about the problems – and they’re great at talking about the problems and talking about the issues – but they don’t get them done. If we would have had an impact fee just even ten years ago, the numbers that were given – 60 plus million dollars – we could have had right now, for school, for water, for infrastructure.”
Managing county growth was one of the dominant topics of the forum, with all three candidates discussing the issue in their remarks multiple times.
All three candidates in the race are running as independents without political party affiliation due to current Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles’ electing to withdraw from the race after receiving the Republican in order to focus on his run for the Republican nomination to the U.S. House.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
