A typical night at the Rutherford County Election Office
There I was—minding my business and not bothering anybody—when an elderly woman signaled toward me and inquired if she could asked me a question: “How far do you believe the First Amendment goes?” she asked. “Pretty far,” I said, considering my entire career has been based on freedom of the press.

She then launched into an attack on an article I wrote about Nicole Lester, Rutherford County’s administrator of elections, having election signs in her yard before the May Republican primary. During an Election Commission meeting, Commissioner Johnny Taylor, a Democrat, raised the point and said he felt she should remove them to avoid showing favoritism.

Election Commission Chairman Ransom Jones, a Republican, said, “It probably doesn’t look good” but added afterward he didn’t believe election signs were a very big deal and that he allows anyone who asks him to put a sign on his property.

Lester had signs for Sheriff Robert Arnold, District Attorney General-elect Jennings Jones and public defender candidate Andy Brunelle. Lester’s husband, Joe Russell, is chief administrator for the sheriff, while the next district attorney is son of the Election Commission chairman.

Anyway, this woman at the election office asked me why I was violating Lester’s First Amendment rights with a story on election signs. She said she used to live on a main road and allowed anyone to put election signs in her yard.

I countered that most of the time a sign in your yard means you’re supporting that person’s campaign. Also, even though Lester had the right to put signs in her yard—it’s not against state law for election administrators—I pointed out that when you’re the top election administrator in the county, you should stay beyond reproach and not play favorites.

The woman didn’t seem to grasp this concept and the debate continued for several minutes in the election office as people milled about discussing politics and waiting for numbers.

She continued to argue that she had let anyone put election signs in her yard. So when Ransom Jones walked near the counter, picking up some papers, I turned toward him and said, “Do you think Ransom would put a Chuck Ward sign in his yard?” Ward ran against his son in the recent district attorney race.

Jones, who apparently was upset by the initial story, said the issue should have ended when the state elections office said it was legal. Nearly shaking with anger, he said, apparently speaking about his son Jennings, “I’d like to see you tell his mother she can’t put his sign in her yard.”

Without knowing it, Jones pretty much made my argument. But then the woman—Corrine Zorn, a member of the election’s absentee counting board—launched into a tirade about local newspapers and the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, and shortly thereafter I ended that conversation.

Mosque-phobia
On some golf courses, every putt is said to break toward the ocean or toward the creek or toward the road. In Murfreesboro, everything seems to break toward the mosque, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.

Not only was Mrs. Zorn upset about my article on election signs, she was still angry that local Muslims were allowed to build a new mosque, despite legal efforts against it. A group of residents also is fighting to stop the ICM from opening a cemetery at the site. It’s the object of a legal battle in Chancery Court, from which all local judges recused themselves.

After Chancellor Robert Corlew stepped away from the case during March, a great uproar followed in the Judicial Building hall where Muslims and ICM foes accused each other of lying, etc. People opposed to the mosque cemetery contended, among other things, that the Rutherford County Board of Zoning Appeals approved the cemetery in spite of flooding problems and the potential for traffic congestion.
As the rancor began to die down that day, I was asking Lou Ann Zelenik, a spokeswoman for the group, about the reasons for opposition. I was standing there taking notes when someone kept bumping the back of my shoulder.

Finally, I turned around and said, “Who’s bumping me?” in a not-too-happy voice.
It was a fairly young man with a shaved head who was trying to stop a young Islamic woman—who said she was from the University of Maryland—from videotaping the interview.

Immediately, he started trying to interrogate me, asking if I was an editor with The Daily News Journal (which I was for about 20 years), why I left, and generally trying to stare me down.

After a few seconds, I simply said, “Who are you?” And he turned away.

I knew who he was: Micah Forrest, the same person who helped disrupt a Rutherford County Election Commission meeting in early 2011. Doris Jones, who was chairman at the time, lost control of the meeting and resigned not long after that. But that’s another story.

Apparently, Mr. Forrest is still trying to throw a monkey wrench into the public discourse. Oops, did I say course? Yes, if Rutherford County were a golf course, everything would break toward the mosque.

What the heck did he say?
During a recent Public Safety Committee meeting, Rutherford County Commissioner Matt Young balked at a request to spend $36,000 on a new underwater sonar to aid in the search for bodies.

“That $36,000 can be used so much better than to find a body that’s been there for a while,” Young said.

He contended that the county already has a sonar and that Homeland Security funds, the part of the county budget that would pay for the equipment, should be used to deal with terrorism.

Some commissioners might have sided with Young when he began to make his argument, but then he lost them.

“You leave a body at the bottom of a lake, it’s going to float up eventually,” he said.

That comment elicited this response from Mayor Ernest Burgess: “If it’s your relative or mine, I don’t think we want to wait until they float up.”

Funding, which, oddly enough, had already passed the full county commission and budget committee, received a 5-1 vote for approval. Young was defeated in the May Republican primary.

“Trailer park trash”
Shane Jacobs of Mt. Tabor Road, a witness in an attempted murder case, used these words in General Sessions Court to describe himself when his attorney asked him if he ever hung out socially with one of the suspects.

“Just trailer park trash, man.”

James Russell of Spring Street is charged with firing a gun at Jacobs’ feet and then shooting Rachel Orman after allegedly breaking into their Christiana trailer last September. Defense attorney Joe Brandon called it a drug deal gone awry.