County Commission District 2 has a particular distinction: It is the only county district that lies entirely within the bounds of the City of Knoxville.

An urban district concerned about housing, homelessness and mental health resources.

Many of the day-to-day public services in the district’s North Knoxville neighborhoods are provided by city rather than county departments: law enforcement, fire protection, trash pickup and street paving are all covered by the city rather than the county, as are for the most part development and codes inspection functions.

That doesn’t make the area’s County Commission representation superfluous. For one thing, the county still provides important services to local residents — public schools, most obviously, along with ambulance libraries and the Health Department (which is actually headquartered in the district).

For another, the district’s voting precincts have trended Democratic in recent years, making it currently one of just two seats held by the minority party on the 11-member Commission. 

The 2nd District runs across the northern half of the city, from 4th and Gill to Spring Hill and Norwood to Fountain City. It is economically and racially diverse. As of the 2020 Census, about 75 percent of the population was white, 11 percent Black and 9 percent Hispanic. Its long-established city neighborhoods range from the grand Victorian houses of Old North Knoxville to modest mill workers’ homes in Oakwood-Lincoln Park.

It has a recent history of launching the careers of successful local Democratic politicians. The last two mayors of Knoxville both first held elected office in the 2nd District — current Mayor Indya Kincannon as a school board member, and former Mayor Madeline Rogero as a county commissioner.

Whether Democratic incumbent Commissioner Courtney Durrett joins those ranks remains to be seen. For now, she is seeking a second term on Commission after being elected the first time in 2020. She has already made a mark on Commission, serving a year as Commission chair with unusual bipartisan support.

She faces two opponents in the Aug. 1 general election: Republican Debbie Phillips and independent candidate Ethan Grantham. With less than three weeks until early voting starts on July 12, Grantham does not appear to be running an active campaign. He hasn’t posted to his campaign social media accounts since April and did not return phone calls from Compass.

Durrett leads the pack in fundraising, reporting $14,780 in contributions through the end of March, with $9,895 on hand. Phillips reported raising $1,552, with $1,337 on hand. Grantham has not reported raising or spending any money.

Here’s a look at the three contenders, based on interviews with Durrett and Philips, and on publicly available information about Grantham.

Courtney Durrett

Durrett, a former school teacher who also has experience as a state legislative staff member, joined Commission in September 2020 — in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as controversy was growing over public health mandates. Commissioners Justin Biggs and Kyle Ward that month proposed neutering the authority of the county’s Board of Health.

It was also the same month Durrett found out her young daughter had Type I diabetes, which doctors now think may have been triggered by an early COVID infection. (Several studies have shown a correlation between the pandemic and the onset of juvenile diabetes.) 

“To start off my first month on Commission with (discussing) the dismantling of the Knox County Board of Health was kind of a slap in the face,” Durrett said. “I’m here to try to make a change, but a good change. And this goes against everything I’ve ever experienced.”

Durrett was one of the Commission’s few steadfast defenders of the county’s health professionals, as local conservatives eventually successfully pushed to abolish the Board of Health the next spring. It was replaced by a strictly advisory board. A subsequent change in state law made the issue redundant, placing ultimate public health authority with county mayors and the governor.

As the pandemic controversies abated, Durrett began to find her feet politically. Although she and Commissioner Dasha Lundy, the body’s other Democrat, have sometimes been on the losing end of lopsided partisan votes, she has more often found common ground with those on the other side of the aisle.

“Being one of two Democrats out of 11, I can’t just say no,” she said. “Because then I will be ineffective, and what’s the point of me being there if I’m not going to get anything done?”

That includes her relationship with Republican County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, whose help Durrett has enlisted for a series of sports competitions to raise awareness of diabetes.

“Once you get to know somebody, you know the reasoning why they make decisions, you know where they’re coming from,” she said. “You look at somebody as a person versus a party.”

She even took a part-time job with Jacobs’ office in the summer of 2022, helping the county plan special events. She also had a part-time job for several years with the City of Knoxville’s Office of Neighborhoods, giving her experience with both local governments. (Durrett has since the left the public sector altogether — she now serves as the East Tennessee external affairs manager for cable and internet giant Comcast.)

Maybe the most notable moment of her Commission career to date came with her surprise selection as Commission chair in 2022. The vote came shortly after the swearing-in of new commissioners who for the first time created a six-member female majority on the body. All six of them — including four Republicans — voted to turn the gavel over to Durrett, despite being from the minority party. (They also elected a Republican vice chair, Terry Hill, who took over as chair after Durrett served one year.)

“I think it showed that maybe the good ol’ boy system isn’t as prevalent as it once was,” Durrett said. “It was very much, you know, ‘We’ve got a female majority — why not female leadership?’”

Beyond the symbolism of serving as the first-ever woman chair, Durrett said she pushed during her time in the role to re-evaluate Commission’s own functions and processes. One result is a series of recent changes to meeting days and times — including giving the monthly zoning meeting its own day, with a start time of 5 p.m. rather than 7 p.m. — which she said should make it easier for members of the public to attend and speak to the issues they’re concerned about.

Beyond administrative issues, as one accomplishment of her term she points to the county’s partnership with the city and state to open a new urgent care and mental health emergency center on the site of the old St. Mary’s Hospital, which is in the 2nd District.

“I feel like that’s a very important initiative that the county was able to bring to the 2nd District and put back in that location,” Durrett said.

Because the district lies within the city, Durrett said she also has to maintain close ties and relations with city officials — not just Mayor Indya Kincannon and City Council members, but department heads as well. 

Its configuration also means the district won’t be directly affected by the Advance Knox planning process and its new growth and land use plans, which only have force in the unincorporated areas of the county. But Durrett supported the effort as a way to balance growth with preserving some open spaces in more rural areas.

“It’s making our decisions more intentional,” she said. “It gives us a framework by which to make decisions when we have zoning (requests).”

That probably helped earn her an endorsement from East Tennessee Realtors, which also supported the plan. Durrett’s campaign finance reports show contributions from Democratic Party stalwarts including Kincannon, Rogero, former 2nd District Commissioner Mark Harmon and philanthropist Phil Lawson. But they also include Republican donors such as former County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and developers Scott Davis and Steve Maddox.

In a second term, she said she wants to continue supporting the district’s schools and working on improving local mental health services. That includes keeping up pressure on the state to open a new long-term care facility in or around Knoxville.

And she said the county needs to look at its looming debt burden and revenue shortfalls. Durrett suggested that increasing the local sales tax rate might have more appeal than a property tax increase.

“No one wants to raise taxes, because we know the financial strain that it puts on residents,” she said. “But at the same time, what do we cut if we’re not increasing taxes? So I think the fairest thing would be maybe an increase in sales tax.”

Debbie Phillips

Phillips still lives in the house she grew up in, in the Norwood neighborhood. In her time there, she has seen many changes in Knoxville — including a lot that she doesn’t like. Growth in homelessness, a rising cost of living, and continual threats to the peace of the neighborhood from new proposed developments — all of those are alarming 2nd District residents, she said.

“I know people that’s leaving the city because of everything going on,” Phillips said. “They’re not happy.”

She currently serves as president of the Norwood Homeowners Association, which has exposed her to concerns throughout the community.

Phillips has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from South College. She worked as a paralegal for 26 years, specializing in bankruptcy cases — “I’m a numbers person,” she said.

For the past nine years, she has worked as a real estate agent, where she has seen firsthand the growing challenges of housing affordability.

“It is so tough,” Phillips said. “Especially when you have buyers that are desiring a single-family residence and everything out there is condos and apartments.”

With the neighborhood group, she helped lead a successful effort in 2021 to block a proposed apartment complex on Merchant Drive that would have brought hundreds of units to a vacant lot that backs up to Pleasant Ridge. To Phillips, it was an example of inappropriate development in a long-established community.

“I’m not against development, we have to have development to have growth,” she said. “But I am against reckless development. We have too many corridors and too many blighted buildings that could be turned into housing. And we need to properly maintain residential neighborhoods.”

As county commissioner, Phillips said she would have to work closely with city officials and City Council to address the needs of the urban district. She already has experience with that because of her neighborhood involvement.

Among the issues she hears most about from her neighbors and other district residents is homelessness, which is visible in encampments throughout the district. The area around the Merchant Drive exit from Interstate 75 is a particularly active hotspot.

“We’ve got to sit down and discuss and talk about how to fix it,” Phillips said. “The first thing we need is a mental hospital somewhere in Knox County, whether it be inside the city or out in the county. And we are going to need the state to come in and assist, because the taxpayers cannot pay for a mental institution.”

She said City of Knoxville property taxes are “already sky high,” and she would not support any kind of tax increase for the county. Instead, she said, county officials need to scrutinize the budget and prioritize the greatest community needs.

“We need to see where the money’s been spent and cut any unnecessary spending, and put it where it’s necessary to benefit the residents and future residents,” she said.

Phillips listed other priorities including supporting the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in its efforts to stem the flow of drugs; keeping a close eye on the performance of AMR, the county’s ambulance contractor; and scrutinizing proposed developments under the county’s new growth and land use plans.

“If the answer needs to be a no vote, I know how to say no,” she said. “We have to look at situations and circumstances and is this appropriate.”

Phillips said she’s not necessarily opposed to the Advance Knox process, but she felt that the plans that came out of it were pushed through without adequate time for input and review.

“They were at a deadline,” she said. “They should’ve started and had enough time, and allowed themselves enough time to review it.”

For the Sheriff’s Office, she said she wanted to talk to the sheriff about ways to improve recruitment and retention of officers. “They work hard, and I know they’re short-staffed,” she said. “We need to figure out a way to bring more onto the force.”

Phillips has been endorsed by the Knox County Conservative Republicans, a group facilitated by conservative consultant Erik Wiatr’s Knox For Liberty organization. Some of her campaign donations come from other candidates endorsed by the group — Justin Hirst and Daniel Herrera, who both lost in their respective Republican primaries this year for County Commission and county law director. (Hirst is now running for state House District 15.)

Phillips has also received contributions from developer Tim Graham and Criminal Court Clerk Mike Hammond (who is running for county mayor in 2026).

If elected, Phillips said she would work to involve the whole community in solving problems. For example, she suggested sponsoring trash pickup days at public parks and other areas.

“We’re gonna have cleanup days, folks,” she said. “We’re going to have trash days. Let’s get out, let’s volunteer. Let’s get a lot of nonprofit organizations out there. People have to realize, we are the volunteers, OK? We’ve got to work together.”

Ethan Grantham

Grantham is a detective with the Knoxville Police Department. He has received commendations including being named an “Officer of the Year” in 2019. He was cited for his “proactive work” that year, including 10 DUI arrests, six gun arrests and 61 drug arrests.

He started the year with a somewhat aggressive social media campaign, taking aim in particular at Durrett. But his X, Instagram and Facebook campaign accounts have been quiet for the past few months.

He posted a press release in March outlining his top priorities: public safety (in particular, support of the Sheriff’s Office); homelessness; sales and property taxes (he is against raising either); equality and inclusivity (he is in favor of both); and an “independent audit” of county and school system budgets, among other things.

In a summary statement, he wrote, “I am an independent candidate who prioritizes fiscal responsibility, good common-sense governance, and protecting the rights and interests of all residents in District 2 of Knox County.”