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Veterinarian Dr. Dan Parks wants to bring lessons learned as a small business owner to the Hamblen County Mayor’s Office.

Parks is challenging incumbent Mayor Chris Cutshaw in the May 5 Republican primary.

“We’ve lived in Hamblen County for 32 years,” the Cocke County native Parks explained. “We’ve watched over more recent years, government has been less and less like a business to more of a patchwork type government, ignoring this and that.

“We are the highest per capita debt county around. What is really going to be critical is to understand you’ve got to run this like a business. I have 45 years of business experience.”

Parks began a traditional veterinary practice back in Cocke County but says over the last 20 years he’s run the Five Rivers Mobile Vet as well as managing a small farming operation.

“See, Hamblen County is basically a big business,” he said. “We will do better where we can operate and manage our county like a business with our budget, our services.”

One of the areas of which Parks is critical is the new Justice Center and jail. Parks agrees the county needed a new jail but says the commission lost focus on other needs.

“We’ve got a state of the art justice center and roads that will ruin a vehicle,” he said, adding the County should have better balanced its spending to build a jail and pave more roads.

Parks also said that the ultimate decision on the justice center should have gone to a referendum rather than decided by the commission.

In fact, he says, any major project that is optional in nature should be decided by referendum.

“There’s a difference between essential and optional,” he explained. “We needed a jail but once it became more than a jail, the people of this county should have had the ability to weigh in on it.”

When Parks says weigh in, he makes it clear he doesn’t mean the various meetings in which the public could offer input.

He said that, personally, he believes the people should have more direct opportunities to make the decision instead of the commission.

“If it’s optional and it’s a major issue, it should go to the people,” he said.

Issues Parks pointed to that would have been ripe for public input included when the county elected to continue curbside garbage pickup (a survey was sent out).

“Things like that, people should have choice,” he said. “County commission is the legislative body. They are in office to represent constituents.”

He again said the planning should have been better, allowing the budget to spread out allocations not just to the jail.

“The jail should have been built 12 years ago,” he said. “What we need is long-range blueprints and a plan. What’s our sheriff going to need? Are we going to need a school? Rather than what it seems to be doing, just piling all in at one time.”

Asked if the county had moved away from long-term budgeting and planning, allowing old debt to roll off before taking on new major projects, Parks said it sure seems like they are not planning ahead.

“It seems like that. I’m not necessarily in the day-to-day, week-to-week deliberations that go on,” he explained. “From what we see it does not seem that they’re looking ahead.

“The jail should have been built a long time ago, rather than planning from the outside looking in. It seemed they put it off and put it off. It was kicked down the road.”

Parks said that if elected, he’s going to look to the budget to cut expenses.

“If it’s not essential services, state-mandated expenses, we need to eliminate it,” he said.

He said he hasn’t yet dug into the budget to identify which expenses would be ripe for cutting but did single out allocations to non-profit organizations as a possible place to find cuts.

“I have not studied the budget on that kind of level, but I will tell you, I guarantee you there’s things in the budget (to cut),” he said. “I know they’re in there. If they’re not essential to the function of our government, not state mandated, (they will be cut).”

Parks said he’s mostly against “giveaway section” of the budget which is essentially the government using tax money to support local charities and non-profit organizations.

“It’s not the government’s place to give to all these things, I could tell you a story about Davy Crockett on that,” he said. “But it’s not the government’s place to give away tax money, your money and my money.

“That is something as the budget is worked on, I think we’re gonna have some new commissioners, each items in the budget is going to be looked at as is this essential, go through it item by item.”

Agencies that requested allocations last year included the Morristown Area Chamber of Commerce, ALPS, MATS, Central Services, the Forest Service, Friends of Hospice and more.

Parks did say he would advocate continued support for the Volunteer Fire Departments, which provide essential services.

“There’s one thing in there that’s always been in the giveaway section that is essential and that’s fire departments,” he said. “See that as just essential. The fire departments are not considered a donation, which is essential. It helps to lower insurance costs for homeowners (and offers fire protection.)”

Another place Parks would attempt to improve county government is communication and transparency.

“Communication has been lacking. There’s a huge disconnect between the public and the Hamblen County government,” he said. “There seems to be little effort made to keep the public informed.

“We need communication. We need transparency.”

Parks proposed going further than current efforts, which include video recording meetings and making them available and posting things like meeting agendas, minutes and information packets as well as the county budget and audit reports online.

He said he would support the county government summarizing the various issues and proposals and putting them online as well.

“We’ve got to come up with means to tell the public what’s going on,” he said. “What we need, for instance, is a website summarizing (issues and putting it on the website.)”

Asked if the county would need to hire a journalist or public relations person to summarize the county’s positions, Parks said he hadn’t gone that far yet but would look in the County Mayor’s office to see if there was someone who could assume those responsibilities.

“I’ve not been in the mayor’s office to look and see, can that be a duty assigned to somebody already there? Just see who we’ve got that would handle the media side of it,” he said.

On the issue of paving, Parks said the commission has finally started to address paving with a $3.5 million allocation, but at $300,000 a mile, it’s not enough.

“Paving 10 miles a year is still a slow go,” he said.

To try and help address the problem, Parks said he would seek new bids and try to get better bang for the county’s buck.

Parks was also critical of the property tax raise that took the cost per $100,000 from $1.22 to $1.47.

While he noted the county’s property tax rates remain comparatively low, he said that big of a hike in one fell swoop was too much and indicated poor planning.

“Our tax rate, it’s right in line,” he said. “Seeing where it is, well it’s not that bad. But just because it was low is not justification for raising taxes rather than looking for places to save.

“Even though our tax rate is within reason, that big jump you’ve got single parents and seniors on a fixed income that are affected.”

Ultimately, Parks said he’s running for mayor for the opportunity to represent the whole county, not one group or another.

“We don’t have that right now. I’m concerned about the struggles a lot of families are facing. We want to make sure we’re doing the best we can not to add to their struggles by taxing and spending,” he said. “All my years in service and business, that gives me the tools I need.”

Parks is a graduate of the University of Tennessee’s Animal Science and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine programs.

Other than one year in Kentucky early in his career, he’s worked and lived in Cocke and Hamblen counties.

He and his wife Mitzi have a blended family, a son Josh (now deceased), two daughters and seven grandchildren.