Bill Shacklett

I was standing on the sidewalk holding up a lamppost in front of the Rutherford County Election Office on Nov. 4—minding my own business, of course—when up walked City Council candidate Bill Jones.

I greeted him and we shook hands. Honestly, I was a little worried that I might have jinxed him the day before when I sent him a text to ask him where his election-night headquarters would be located. He responded: At Maple Street Grill. I answered: Where winners go. After all, just about everyone who’s ever set up shop there won their race.

But as it turned out, the reason he was walking past me that night was to get to Pa Bunk’s, a natural-type restaurant and grocery, where City Council candidate Bill Shacklett was headquartered.

Mind you, this was only about 8:30 p.m., and we still hadn’t seen many returns except early voting results, which did give Shacklett a sizable lead over Jones.

Anyway, Jones headed straight for Pa Bunk’s, met Shacklett outside, looked him in the eye, shook his hand, told him he’d run a great race, chatted for a moment, turned around and headed back to Maple Street.

“Did you just concede?” I asked him.

He answered that he was already down by 1,400 votes and didn’t see any way he could muster enough to win.

I was a little befuddled. After all, we just witnessed an August Republican primary in which state Sen. Jim Tracy claimed victory on election night, then lost by 38 votes to Congressman Scott DesJarlais.

With that in mind, the Shacklett camp was thrown off by Jones’ early concession. It seemed they didn’t want to be jinxed.

Shacklett was red-faced and not quite ready to celebrate after Jones left. When his sister, Gloria Christy, emerged from their photography shop next door, she asked what Jones was doing, then said, “It’s a little early, isn’t it?”

I noted to the Pa Bunk’s guys, “He must be clairvoyant. Maybe he should win.”

As it turned out, he wasn’t quite clairvoyant. But he was correct about who won. Shacklett collected 9,218 votes/45.9 percent compared to 7,774/38.7 percent for Jones and 2,910/14.51 percent for Juanita Thouin, an agent for Exit Realty.

Shacklett will serve the remaining two years of the four-year term begun by former Councilman Toby Gilley, who stepped down to take a General Session’s judgeship.

In dissecting this race—Jones’ early concession aside—if you asked 100 political observers to predict the outcome, probably 70 of them would have said Jones. After all, he raised $51,000 to Shacklett’s $5,876 and spent just about all of it, including a big chunk on sending slick mailers to voters’ homes. Shacklett, on the other hand, focused on Facebook and word of mouth.

Both of them are hometown guys, but they don’t exactly run in the same circles. Shacklett has coached Little League for more than 30 years, and he’s worked with Main Street businesses in addition to serving on the City Council for a term.

Jones, on the other hand, is connected at the hip with the Chamber of Commerce through Destination Rutherford, its jobs initiative, St. Thomas Rutherford, MTSU Foundation, the Rutherford County Industrial Development Board, and the list could go on forever. He’s been a big-time volunteer.

With all that, though, the question must be asked: Did Jones really want a seat on the City Council? After all, he is area executive for Pinnacle Financial Partners, which holds a large portion of the local banking pie.

He’s a big fish. On the City Council, he’d make about half the people mad about half the time, especially on difficult votes. That’s no way to run a bank, especially if you want borrowers to pay their notes on time.

It also shows that money ain’t everything. (I’ve been trying to tell my wife that for years. She keeps telling me we need to pay the bills. I say I don’t need no stinking bills.)

Oddly enough, Tracy raised more than $1 million and outspent DesJarlais dramatically but still couldn’t get those 38 votes.

This reminds me of a Beatles song lyric: I don’t care too much for money / Money can’t buy me love. Now, if I could only get my wife to sing along.

Whine in grocery stores?
OK, I’ll say it right here. I voted “yes” in the referendum to allow wine in grocery stores last month. But as I wandered around the Election Office that night waiting on returns, I realized I’d made a mistake.

“Heck, I don’t know why I voted for wine in grocery stores,” I said aloud, drawing a few chuckles from people in the room. “I don’t even buy beer in grocery stores. I’m afraid all the Baptists will see me.”

By the way: What’s the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist (which I am, at least for now)? A Methodist will say “Hi” to you on the way out the door at the liquor store.

Cracked-up computer?
Last month’s Stockard Report told about former Circuit Court Clerk employee Lisa Dunn being fired for getting upset over a new computer system being installed in the office. Apparently, she slung a chair across a room and got irritated with the vendor installing the computer system.

Well, it looks as if Dunn should get her job back, or at least get back pay. Rutherford County officials said recently they are suspending use of the new software because of “problems with daily functions.” If it’s put on hold permanently, that means the county spent $737,000, plus about $50,000 a year over two years to hire a computer expert, to purchase and install the new system from Utah-based New Dawn Technologies.

Former Circuit Court Clerk Laura Bohling, who was replaced in office by Melissa Harrell on Sept. 1, after losing in the Republican primary, persuaded the county to go with the new system in an effort to save money and give the county control, rather than lease an old system.

But more than two years after starting this project, it appears county leaders are just giving up on it. They went live with the system in early September but don’t seem to be able to make it work. Clerks have been going crazy trying to download and pull up information. And other problems such as late issuance of child support checks have come up.

This is nothing new. The Office of Information Technology has been battling it for a while. For now, the clerk’s office has gone back to its old General Services Automated system, but county officials won’t say whether they’re going to sue New Dawn to get their money back or what.

When contacted for comment in mid-November, Bohling had no idea the system was being suspended. She was disappointed, to say the least, because she felt she should have been allowed to help in the conversion process. Bohling said she tried to reach out to Harrell but couldn’t get her to return a call.

“It’s not a backwards system at all,” Bohling said. “I wish I could be a part of helping them make it work because I think it will work.”

Avent Lane, a Democrat who was defeated by Harrell in the November election, said he felt he could make the system work too. After all, that’s what he does for a living.

The updated system was supposed to make life easier, connecting the clerk’s office with the various courts and making information available to the public, including the attorneys who must access it in representing clients.

It did the opposite, especially for Lisa Dunn, who should receive a settlement from the county. Soon, maybe we’ll find out who’s responsible for this mess and who will pay. After all, the public has doled out about $900,000 for it.

The house in the Virgin Islands where Ed Netherland was found dead

Netherland tragedy
The murder of Murfreesboro native Ed Netherland, a life insurance executive and financier, is creating all sorts of speculation in Murfreesboro, none of which I want to repeat here.

His landlord on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he was found dead Nov. 18, said he thought Netherland was killed in a robbery gone bad. Let’s leave it at that for now as police there investigate.

After all, Netherland has a large family, and they must be in shock over his murder. He was 60.

In the wake of his death, Murfreesboro friends who knew him for decades say he was a gregarious guy, the kind who would walk into a bar and take over the place, flashing a wad of cash and buying everyone drinks.

Netherland

He was always working on something, the next big deal, they said. While a local guy might be trying to sell one person an insurance policy, Netherland was trying to sell a policy to an entire city.

In fact, a report out of Tampa Bay detailed how he led a group’s effort to sell a life insurance policy to the county school system there. Four New York families would invest $100 million each in the plan. The school system would set up a trust, and each time an employee died, their family and the school system would receive $50,000. The district and the employees would pay nothing, the article reported.

Whether it was legitimate, who knows? Netherland is quoted in the story as saying, “It sounds a little bit too good to be true, so let’s figure out how it works out.”

An article from the Chicago Sun Times, meanwhile, reported in July 2012 that Netherland and two partners, including Ira Brody of Rutherford County, were sued by Nina Investments, which claimed it got taken for more than $80 million it invested with the brokers in 2005 and 2006. A lawsuit filed by Nina said it was to get large returns on its investment through insurance-backed securities and a premium finance product known as “Ultra,” the article reports.

The lawsuit states that the investment company’s money went instead toward debt piled up by Netherland, Brody and Matthew Ross while they lived “lavish lifestyles,” according to the article.

The family’s obituary about Netherland was kinder, obviously. It said he was a pioneer in combining life insurance and securities to create “dynamic financial models” and that he closed five deals in one year totaling $1 billion in insurance.

In 1990, he formed Federated Technologies Incorporated while battling cancer, the obituary states. Netherland apparently moved a landfill out of Giles County and sought permission from Noxubee County, Miss., for a toxic-waste disposal facility, creating a rift in the community between land owners and the working class who wanted new jobs. The battle was detailed in the book Uproar at Dancing Rabbit Creek, although the description of the book is hardly kind to Netherland, calling him a “rogue” businessman who flashed plenty of money around in an effort to land the deal.

Clearly, the family feels he was a great person. My condolences go out to them. I just wish it was easier to find more articles detailing the good things he did.

Aydelott

Farewell to Aydelott
Love him or hate him, Murfreesboro Planning Director Joseph Aydelott had one of the toughest jobs in town for 23 years. He had the unenviable job of overseeing growth in one of the fastest-growing places in the country. As the city’s philosophy changed from accepting just about everything that came along with few restrictions to suddenly putting new and tougher requirements on just about everything, Aydelott was seen by some as a villain. He could be a little short at times, no doubt, and had to work on it. But Aydelott acknowledges that he embraced development and at the same time had to keep a handle on it, making sure it fit Murfreesboro’s new outlook. As Murfreesboro embarks on a 20-year planning tool, Aydelott says it may be time for “new blood.” Still, he played a key role in a fast-moving time in the city’s history.