Knox County Commission’s two at-large representatives deliberate and vote like the district representatives, but their perspectives are often different.

Sharp holds the fundraising lead for a seat that has gone to Republicans in previous elections.

Instead of representing a defined geographic area consisting of around 57,000 residents (give or take a couple thousand), they represent the entire county — 526 square miles and 515,000 or so constituents. Instead of focusing on a single congested intersection or short stretch of a roadway in their district, for example, at-large commissioners need to be familiar with the challenges facing the county’s entire road network.

At-Large Seat 10, currently occupied by term-limited Larsen Jay, will go to one of three candidates — Republican Justin Cofer, Democrat Rev. Katina Sharp or independent Ronin Cunningham.

Cofer narrowly won a three-way GOP primary, garnering 43.37 percent of the vote to Kimberly Glenn’s 40.85 percent, a difference of 981 votes. Ronnie Rochelle came in a distant third with 15.78 percent, enough to make a difference in the outcome. Sharp was unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Cofer’s campaign was rocked by news that surfaced about his dismissal from a job as a recreation assistant with the Tennessee Department of Correction in 2017. Officials at Morgan County Regional Correctional Complex in Wartburg determined that he violated drug laws and anti-fraternization policies. Cofer, who apparently was not charged, contends that he was set up by an inmate.

Running a countywide campaign typically requires a robust fundraising effort to reach voters from Strawberry Plains to Farragut and from Heiskell to the Blount and Sevier county lines. The At-Large Seat 10 candidates have raised comparatively modest amounts.

As of June 30, five weeks before Election Day, Sharp had more than twice as much money on hand as Cofer — $13,505 to $5,111. Cunningham reported that he had neither raised nor spent any money.

We interviewed Sharp and Cunningham and updated Cofer’s primary profile for this report. 

Katina Sharp

As a minister, Sharp lives and leads a life of faith, but she said she wouldn’t mix politics with the pulpit should she win a seat on Knox County Commission.

The Democratic At-Large Seat 10 candidate has been the pastor at Powell Presbyterian Church for eight years.

“I will not take my life as a pastor and as a Christian and push it on the constituents or on the County Commission, and it’s very important to me that the Establishment Clause is upheld and that we have a separation of church and state,” she said, while noting that “doesn’t mean I leave my faith at the door.”

She is also a third-party supporter of the Knox County Board of Education in a lawsuit brought against the school system by Wilberforce Academy alleging religious discrimination created by state rules for charter schools. The American Civil Liberties Union joined the lawsuit on the side of the school board. “They brought me in as an intervenor, as a pastor, to help them fight for separation of church and state in the legal system,” she said.

Prior to becoming a pastor, she was a mental-health and substance-abuse counselor at Peninsula Hospital, so she has long been called to service. It seems political office might be a natural evolution.

She has lived in Knoxville for 40 years and is a graduate of Bearden High School and the University of Tennessee. She and her partner live in the Cedar Bluff area with their four sons. 

Sharp abhors the cultural and religious grandstanding by some on County Commission, and that was a motivator to give public office a shot for the first time.

“Not only do we move away from policies that are actually moving the county forward, distracting from the work that we should be doing, but they’re also creating harm for those people who might be in those minority groups and are good, hardworking, tax-paying citizens who are harmed by the labels that are being slapped on them,” she said. “Those culture wars are a big deal.”

Sharp said commissioners should consider the ramifications of their actions.

“What I want to do is to become part of a system that, before we make any decisions, we stop and ask ourselves: ‘Who is this hurting and who is this helping?’ And we make decisions in a compassionate and in such a way that we think about the humanity behind the decisions we make,” she said.

Sharp said such a mindset can even extend to the oft-cited growth-related issues facing Knox County, including a chronic dearth of affordable housing and lagging infrastructure such as sidewalks.

Affordable housing remains a key concern voiced by her constituents. “As we watch the price of housing continue to rise, and it is not being matched by the increases in wages, then what we see is Knox County become less and less affordable,” she said.

That makes any talk of tax increases a serious matter, she asserted. “Part of affordability is keeping taxes low. So it’s important to me that we don’t create tax increases that price people out of Knox County,” Sharp said.

Voters are also raising concerns about Knox County Schools. 

“With us being 51st in the nation for funding our public schools, that’s very concerning,” she said. “Sending money away from public schools for the voucher system certainly cannot help our status. And so I want to make sure that we are addressing that important issue, that our public schools are being fully funded.”

She said it was unwise for County Commission to raid the Knox County Schools budget last month for $4 million to fund a pay increase for county general-government workers. While she believes the raises were deserved and needed, diverting money from the school system was not a sound solution to compensation issues. The local cuts were coupled with a funding shortfall from the state that reduced the school system budget by some $7.8 million and forced systemwide teaching-position cuts and targeted pay reductions.

She said the budget shuffle, done after the formal county budget was adopted, was a red alert. “The most important thing that I think came out of that was, it drew attention to the fact that we have a budget problem,” Sharp said. “When we have to decide between fully funding public schools or giving county employees the raise that they deserve, then what that tells me is that we’ve got a budget problem.”

Justin Cofer

Every time Cofer knocks on a door, someone mentions development and its impact on Knox County services. That’s what inspired the political novice to run for office in the first place. 

“All of this excess development is going on, and there’s no infrastructure being built,” Cofer said.

“The county is going to have to come in after the fact and widen the roads, add more utilities, and all that cost is falling onto the taxpayer. Basically, we are subsidizing these developers, and I feel that’s wrong to ask the taxpayers to do that.

“Our roads, schools, emergency services … they’re stretched thin. Growth itself isn’t the problem, poor planning is.

“And that’s where, with my background, I think I can be a great asset.”

Cofer, 46, was an electrical transmission installer in the Air Force, worked for the state’s Air National Guard and Department of Correction, and graduated at the top of his class from King University with a business administration degree. He lives in the Ball Camp area of West Knox County with his wife and two sons.

One of his solutions to ensure that services meet demand: Audit the county and pour the savings into roads and other infrastructure.

“I want to do a complete external audit of our budget, $1.1 billion, a full forensic audit of where every dollar’s going,” he said.

“And if that money is not being directly spent on programs that impact the taxpayer in a positive way, we need to take and roll that back into our infrastructure, like our roads, law-enforcement programs, to avoid doing any tax increases.”

Many people simply can’t afford a tax increase, he said, and affordability is an issue he hears about, too.

“Five percent may not seem like a lot to some, but when you’ve got someone that’s on a fixed income, that can be the difference between paying your power bill (and) getting your groceries for the week.”

Cofer said he has encountered transplants to the area from California and New Jersey during his campaign rounds. They see reminders of the places they left.

“They’re very concerned because they’re seeing us follow that same path that their states followed to put them in this situation where they decided to move,” he said.

Still, Cofer maintains a “don’t hate the player” attitude toward Knox County builders and developers.

“I don’t fault developers because they’re only doing what they’ve been allowed to do. I know they won’t like my plans, but the truth is they’ve got to build to make money,” he said.

“So at some point they’re either going to have to not build and not make money in this area, or they’re going to have to work with the Commission and work with the infrastructure where they still will be able to profit.”

He acknowledges that his plan will likely not land well.

“I have no doubt they’re going to fight me tooth and nail on this, and I’m good with that,” he said. “I don’t have all these big groups supporting me. I don’t have developers giving me money.” (Tim Graham is an exception.)

He describes his campaign and fundraising as “true grassroots style,” and he is working with right-wing GOP consultant Erik Wiatr, whose candidates tend to oppose more intensive development.

Cofer makes it a point to bring up the Advance Knox planning process, which Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs’ administration has been crafting with a consultant and Knoxville-Knox County Planning staff. The last portion of the process, a Unified Development Ordinance, will ultimately require Commission approval. 

“It’s a 20-year plan, but it lacks a one-year solution for infrastructure,” he said. “It opens up more land for development, but it does not implement what I call a ‘growth pays for itself’ model, with developers covering that infrastructure.

“We’ve got to get a plan that prioritizes drainage, roads, schools and all that. If we don’t do that soon, we’re just setting ourselves up for failure,” he said.

Cofer said he was amazed that Advance Knox doesn’t include projections about how much it would cost law enforcement to adequately police new developments or how the school system would handle the population growth.

He’s the one who will ask those questions, he said, and he also wants to better empower the disenchanted and disenfranchised citizens of the county.

“People feel like they’re not being heard. They feel that they do not have a true voice in Knox County government,” Cofer said.

Ronin Cunningham

Cunningham wants to be the vanguard of a youth movement.

“I think there’s a lot of people in my generation who are very timid. They’re very intimidated by what the future actually holds for them,” said Cunningham, a 20-year-old finishing up an associate’s degree at Walters State Community College. 

He hopes younger voters and those approaching voter age take some inspiration from his efforts. 

“The future might look bleak, but it’s also a very hopeful time for this generation because there’s a lot of change happening now,” he said. “There’s a lot of people realizing, ‘Hey, I do matter. My voice does matter. And the actions I take do make a difference.’ It starts small, but it can compound into something so much bigger.”

According to Cunningham, his youth sets him apart from Cofer and Sharp. “Seeing somebody like me deciding to run, I think, sends a very good message,” he said.

“I think some people just feel like they are not having their voices heard. And I feel the exact same way, especially as someone who’s part of the younger generations, like Gen Z. We have our own solutions to the problems at hand that may or may not be getting addressed, or at worst, just straight up ignored by the people that are currently in power.”

Like others on the ballot, Cunningham said people he talks to are increasingly concerned about the rapid growth and development of the county. The Corryton native has seen this period of blazing growth unfold in real time during his relatively short life. 

“There needs to be good infrastructure, which could include fixing up the county roads, could be investing a little more in public transportation, upgrading sewage, water, electricity lines. But you know, you have to be smart when you’re thinking about where you are going to put these next roads (and other infrastructure), or where you are going to modify. 

“Additionally, there can be a lot more variety in the housing that is built, which would help with affordability and availability issues.”

People also want to talk about education. Cunningham, of course, is a much more recent product of public schools than either of his opponents.

He is a graduate of L&N Stem Academy (he rode the bus from Carter High every day), and Cunningham wants students throughout Knox County Schools to have the same academic opportunity. 

“When I was there, L&N was considered the best school in the county, and I was wondering, ‘Why is this school considered so successful, and how could we bring those plans and ideas to all the other public schools?’ 

“And of course, there’s been recent news about the county budget and how much should be going to the Board of Education and what plans the Board of Education have for the future of these schools.”

This is his first venture into politics, and he is finding the campaign both enjoyable and educational. He has utilized a lot of the design skills he is honing at Walters State.  

“I did not need a team to help me come up with graphics or how to design a website,” he noted. He also enjoys meeting people and getting their perspectives, citing a “great time” he had during a recent meet-and-greet in Burlington.

He says he is running as an independent — he describes himself as a centrist — to better represent the full range of the county citizenry. 

“I wanted to run as an independent because I didn’t want to feel bound by any party, and because Knox County Commissioner (should be) a nonpartisan role,” Cunningham said. “And I believe with that intention you’re supposed to serve for the people in the county, not serve as loyal to the party, because there’s a whole lot of different perspectives.”