Elizabethton mayor says Carter County will give Lt. Governor Ramsey the boot

[doeriver]

Elizabethton mayor says Carter will give Ramsey the boot
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?ID=77340
By John Thompson
Elizabethton Bureau Chief
[email protected]

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/images/Photos/Articles/large/Curt-Alexander,5xcol.1.jpg

Elizabethton Mayor Curt Alexander
(John Thompson / Johnson City Press)

ELIZABETHTON — As officials in Nashville continue to debate whether the state should spend $16 million in a tough budget year to build a fish hatchery in Elizabethton, a local leader weighed in on the controversy Tuesday.

Mayor Curt Alexander said he was disappointed that Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey from neighboring Sullivan County is against funding the project this year.

“I think this is going to give Mr. Ramsey the boot in Carter County when election time comes around,” Alexander said.

Alexander sees the project not as an issue of whether state money should be spent on a hatchery during a time when the state is having to make deep cuts in its budget. He said he believes the issue is political, with Ramsey and other Republicans in the Senate and House trying to pay back Carter County’s representative, Kent Williams, for breaking ranks with the Republicans and siding with the Democrats to become speaker of the House last year.

Ramsey denies the accusation. Last year, as chairman of the state Building Commission, he sided with Williams in obtaining $800,000 for planning and design work on the state-of-the art hatchery.

“I am absolutely for building the fish hatchery, but not in this budget year. That is the way they do it in Washington, but it is not the Tennessee way to spend money you don’t have on pork barrel projects,” Ramsey said.

Williams said he has heard it all before.

“It is never time to spend any state money on Upper East Tennessee. Not when the economy is bad or when it is good,” Williams said two weeks ago when Elizabethton’s Jerome Cochran, a former state representative, announced he could not support the fish hatchery this year.

Cochran said again on Tuesday that he is opposed to funding the hatchery and said state leaders should focus on getting more jobs in the private sector instead of spending scarce state funds to create government jobs.

Alexander also accused Ramsey of selectively trimming the budget. He said that while Ramsey was in favor of cutting $16 million for the fish hatchery, the lieutenant governor was also in favor of spending $18 million for a private prison in West Tennessee that had contributed to Ramsey’s campaign.

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[southernyankeebelle]

1. You know how Ramsey is lying? When he opens his mouth. Nuf said.

[doeriver]

2. Ron Ramsey Hates Trout Fishermen

Ron Ramsey Hates Trout Fishermen
http://www.topix.com/album/detail/elizabethton-tn/L3961BND2VBQKNSB