The nonprofit Tennessee Center for Policy Research awarded its annual "Lump of Coal Award" to the county's elected leadership, deeming the officials "the person or group in Tennessee who, more than any other over the past year, acted as a Grinch to taxpayers by wastefully spending their money and bah-humbugged the principles of open, transparent government," reports the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Among Knox County officials' misdeeds, the group cites county commissioners' court convictions for violating the state Open Meetings Act through their backroom deal-making, by which they appointed several family members and friends to fill the unexpired terms of 12 term-limited officeholders.
The group also mentions Ragsdale's alleged meddling in the process by threatening to withhold funding to the districts of commissioners' who did not vote for his preferred candidates.
"This year, no one deserves more to wake up on Christmas Day to a stocking filled with coal than Knox County's elected officials," writes Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, in a press statement.
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