Image Credit: Kelly M. Jackson / The Tennessee Conservative & Williamson County Republican Party / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Kelly M. Jackson] –
Last night at the Marriott in Cool Springs, nearly 300 residents of Williamson County’s district 10 showed up to cast their vote for one of the two candidates running to represent the party on the November ballot.
The seat was left vacant after D10 Commissioner David Landrum resigned from his position after moving out of the district.
The caucus style election was held due to the timing of the resignation in June, resulting in not being able to have candidates run in the May primaries.
The GOP expressed their intent to hold the caucus, after a contentious County Commissioners meeting yielded an appointment of former Williamson County GOP party chair, Cheryl Brown.
The appointment was made despite several appeals from county residents that the commission defer the vote until a nominee of the people’s choosing could be established and submitted.
The WCGOP explained in their newsletter, “Since this resignation occurred after the deadline to be on the current ballot, the Election Commission has requested that each party nominate a candidate. This candidate will then go on the ballot during the November 5, 2024 general election.”
Last night, the Williamson County GOP hosted the caucus. They had preregistering attendees ahead of the event, in order to vet their status as “bona fide” in order to allow them to vote for their candidate of choice.
Those who had not preregistered were able to do so onsite, where volunteers from the Tennessee state GOP were available to help find and determine based on citizens voting records, whether they qualified to participate in the vote.
The event started at 6 pm, and each of the candidates were given a 5–7-minute time-frame to share their experience and reasons for why they should be selected as the chosen candidate.
Cheryl Brown was the first to give her speech, where she spoke of her former experience as GOP party chair and current president of Republican Women of Williamson County, an arm of the Republican Women’s Federation, and expressed that her experience in those roles within the GOP are a reason citizens should choose her as their representative candidate in November.
The Tennessee Conservative has reported extensively on Brown’s tenure, and how her actions as GOP chair led to a sweeping grassroots re-tooling of the Williamson County GOP.
Bill Petty, a more recent transplant of Williamson County shared his experience and education, and expressed his seemingly deep understanding of the current issues that Williamson County faces looming in its very near future.
Petty spoke of current projects being undertaken by the county such as the new Criminal justice center, that has a whopping price tag of over 300 million dollars, and desired projects involving the building new schools and other types of infrastructure that will also cost the county billions. He expressed that a raise in property taxes would be imminent should fiscal responsibility on behalf of the county commission not be employed.
Petty spoke of the 1.2 billion dollars of debt Williamson County already has accumulated and expressed a desire to try and tackle the issue with transparency and accountability in order to utilize taxpayer dollars as efficiently as possible.
When the speeches were finished, those who were vetted to cast a vote did so, and the hand counted votes were tabulated.
Representative Gino Bulso acted as vote counter and announced a result only 30 or so minutes after voting had commenced.
Petty claimed a solid victory with 153 votes to Brown’s 78.
Petty will now appear on the November ballot as the Republican facing off against any Democrats or Independents that should choose to run against him in the general election in November.
Watch The Tennessee Conservative’s interview with Petty HERE.
About the Author: Kelly Jackson is an escapee from corporate America, and a California refugee to Tennessee. Christ follower, Wife and Mom of three amazing teenagers, she has a BA in Comm from Point Loma Nazarene University, and has a background in law enforcement and human resources. Since the summer of 2020, she has spent any and all free time in the trenches with local grassroots orgs, including Mom’s for Liberty Williamson County and Tennessee Stands as a core member. An outspoken advocate for parents rights, medical freedom, and individual liberty, Kelly also has a YouTube channel @Tennessee_Truth_Teller and is planning on expanding out to other channels soon. Kelly can be reached at kelly@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
10 Responses
Bill Petty was the choice of conservatives in the Tenth District. Congratulations Bill!
Cheryl Brown was hoping that endorsements from her establishment politician friends would be enough. It was not. Bill Petty gathered about 70 endorsements from Williamson County residents. He was endorsed by the people, not politicians! The voters saw through Cheryl’s establishment facade. They knew her history. She utterly failed in her leadership of the county party — with dozens of major issues during her tenure … including not being able to run a convention like the one she participated in last night. The convention she attempted to run had to finally be taken over by the Tennessee Republican Party!! And, in fact, Cheryl vote NO to even holding last night’s convention. Yes, you read that right. Cheryl was asking for the votes of the people who she voted should not have the opportunity to vote!! She just needs to go away.
Thank you for reporting the truth!
It’s nice to see the people get a chance to choose who represents them. Let’s keep it that way. N more appointments.
Thank you Kelly. Great article.
You’re the only one to write about this.
In case people don’t know, Williamson county has been run by a political machine run by the Mayor. He wanted Cheryl to win. Word is that this is the Mayor’s last term and he is losing his influence. In the recent election, he actively campaigned for 2 people who lost big.
It’s wonderful to see a true representative for the people won over a representative for the establishment. Hopefully this trend continues across the state because it’s still controlled by Rino establishment.
And thanks to Kelly for continuing to shine the light
Paper ballots… easy. No machines.
People getting to choose representation over being dictated to by the “professional politicians” who ignored both Democrats and Republicans trying to maintain their power…
Thank you Kelly for covering this. You know no other paper likely will.
The differences between the two candidates was stark. Cheryl for the most part just bragged about herself. Petty showed concerns for issues and policies that voters were concerned about. But, even more so, many of the voters in the room learned about how Cheryl had voted against having the convention at the July 22 county party executive meeting. She was asking for votes from the people who she voted should not have a vote! Whereas Petty had clearly worked hard to inform people about the convention and encouraged them to participate.
Bill Petty has far more support than people probably realize. His knowledge about what, truly, is going on in Williamson County by all these governmental groups was on vivid display Tuesday night. He knows the issues that are dear to the hearts and minds of voters and he expressed them clearly. I heard an audible gasp in the room when he mentioned that the county is $1.2 billion in debt. I am certain citizens don’t know that because the facts have been kept under wraps by county leaders. Bill’s experience, integrity and transparency will be a breath of fresh air when he is fully elected to the County Commission District 10 seat.
And thank you Tennessee Conservative News for wonderfully balanced coverage throughout this whole race. Kelly’s reporting – as well as her video interview of Bill – were helpful in helping more of us understand what is going on in our county government.