Thursday night, Thunder Radio put the three of us running for Alderman on the same stage. Katie Northcott moderated, the questions were fair, and I want to say thank you to both of them for it. I also want to thank Mike Dent and Brandon Champion for showing up. They're good men. I mean that.
But good men can want very different things for this town, and an hour of questions made the differences hard to miss. Watch it for yourself, then read on.
If you only take one thing from that forum, take this: you have a real choice on August 6, and it comes down to four things — experience, leadership, ideas, and policy. Let me walk you through each one, because the gap is wider than the polite handshakes let on.
Experience
I've served two full terms on this board. I've passed agendas, made motions, handled seconds, sat through the executive sessions, read the budgets, and watched where the money actually goes. I don't need on-the-job training and I don't need a year to figure out how the room works. I've already done the job. That means I know how it works — and I know how quiet it stays when it shouldn't.
Mike Dent has a resume worth respecting. Twenty years in the Air Force, a chemical engineering degree from Purdue, program management on real programs. Nobody's taking that from him. But he told you himself Thursday night: this is his first attempt at public office. He has never sat on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. Managing a defense contract and managing a city budget under an open-meetings law with your neighbors in the room are not the same job, and the learning curve is paid for out of your pocket, in the four years he'd spend learning what I already know.
Brandon Champion is a good family man and a hard worker at Arnold. He's also never held office. And when the airport came up — the biggest fiscal mess this board has handled in years — he said, and I'm quoting him, that he "can't even scratch the surface of what half of that stuff they talk about means." I appreciate the honesty. But I don't want an alderman who's still trying to scratch the surface while your money is going out the door. This board doesn't have time for two people to learn the building at once.
Leadership
Here's where the choice gets sharp.
Mike's pitch is camaraderie. He talked about the bond he built as a navigator, having each other's back, a "unified" board that finds things to agree on. That sounds nice. But this board doesn't need more unity around the mayor's agenda — it needs someone willing to break it up when it's wrong. When I look at Mike's record of positions, I see a man who is going to go with the flow and give the mayor another yes vote on his affordable housing agenda. Nothing personal. But you should know what you're getting: a reliable second on the motions that are already going to pass.
Brandon's version of leadership is deference. Asked about the 2045 plan, he said people "smarter than I am" wrote it and he had nothing to add. Asked about the airport, he said the current board hired experts and it's "going in a good direction." Asked about transparency, his big idea was to move the debates out of the regular meeting and into the study session. Think about that one. His answer to a transparency problem is to have the arguments where fewer people are watching. That's not more sunlight. That's less.
My leadership is different, and I won't pretend otherwise. I'm going to have the hard conversations in public. I'm going to get flustered sometimes. I'm going to get down in the dirt and fight alongside you instead of trying to manage you. When the board tried to quietly repeal the 2045 plan with no notice to the public, I didn't call it a difference of opinion. I called it what it was. That's the job.
Ideas
Every rooftop grows the tax base is the biggest lie in local government. Mike and Brandon both talked about growth Thursday night, but neither one put a price tag on it. I will.
For every dollar a residential rooftop sends the city, it costs us about a dollar-fifty to maintain — schools alone are roughly 60% of that. Commercial is the opposite: it costs 30 to 40 cents on the dollar, so the city nets 60 to 70 cents. More rooftops don't mean more money in the bank. They mean more roads, more drainage, more wear and tear on everything we already maintain — paid for out of the same budget, off the backs of the people already here. That's not growing a tax base. That's growing a tab.
So my idea is simple and I've said it the same way every time: roads, drainage, and core services first. A maintenance plan and a funding plan before we break ground, not after. Growth should pay for growth, and rooftops should pay for themselves. The developer builds it and you maintain the world around it — that's backwards, and I want to fix it.
Mike's idea is a strategic plan, and I don't disagree with the concept — Tullahoma hasn't had a real one since Mayor Cope's day. But a strategic plan in the wrong hands is just a nicer-looking way to deliver the same agenda. The question isn't whether you have a plan. It's what the plan is for. Brandon's ideas — protecting trees and waterways, ADA-compliant sidewalks on new builds — aren't wrong. They're just small next to a city that's approving project after project with no plan to maintain what we already have and no plan to pay for what comes next.
Policy
On paper, the three of us agree on a few things, and I'll be honest about that. All three of us support the 2045 comprehensive plan. All three of us support keeping the Coffee County Senior Center going. But look at how we got there, because that's where the daylight is.
I fought for the 2045 plan when it counted. That document represents two years of work, hundreds of hours of city staff time, and a quarter of a million dollars of your money in community meetings where you told us where you wanted houses, commercial, and farmland to go. It passed. It became law. And then, in a single meeting, one alderman moved to repeal it with no notice to the public — and botched the process so badly the board's own actions had to be walked back. Brandon supports the plan in theory. I defended it in the room.
On the airport, Mike said proper oversight is enough and Brandon said it's headed in a good direction. I don't buy it. We were told the fuel spill would cost around $600,000 and it landed near $750,000 — and that's just the last number we heard. The same board that presided over unpaid leases, skydiving operations running without the proper license, and a prepay scheme that let people lock in fuel prices — that board was up for reappointment. That's not "a good direction." That's the same people, same chairs, hoping you stopped paying attention.
On the senior center, I'll give Mike credit for a reasonable compromise. But my position is grounded in a fact nobody disputed: the city already owns that building and already pays for its repairs. You're already footing the bill, so let's fold it into a Parks and Rec department that's earned the trust and do it right.
Who's Backing Whom
One more thing worth saying plainly, because this is a nonpartisan office and the money behind it should be out in the open. Brandon's own yard signs read "Paid for by the Coffee County Democratic Party." I didn't say that — his signs do. He told you Thursday night he won't apologize for accepting donations from people who like him, and that's his right. But a city alderman answers to all of Tullahoma, not to a party committee, and you deserve to cast your vote with your eyes open about who's funding whom. I answer to you. That's the arrangement I want, and it's the only one I'll accept.
The Choice
Here's the whole thing in one breath. If you want a reliable yes vote and a unified board that goes with the flow, you have that option. If you want someone who'll defer to whoever's already in charge, you have that too. And if you want someone who's just as tired as you are of finding out where your money went after it's already spent — someone who's done the job, knows how quiet it gets when it shouldn't, and won't be quiet about it — then I'm asking for your vote.
Early voting starts July 18. Election Day is August 6.
It's your roads. It's your money. It's your town. You get to decide who's watching over it.
*— Daniel Berry, candidate for Alderman, City of Tullahoma*