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Katy Tindall Klose is seeking the Ward 2 seat on City Council.

She has lived in Morristown for 40 years and previously served a term on the Hamblen County Commission. She lives in the historic district of Morristown, with her husband, Pete Klose. She has three daughters and four grandchildren.

In Klose’s opinion, Morristown has a dual appeal.

“It’s got that city atmosphere, with a hometown feel. Morristown is a family town, where you can find southern hospitality next to state-of-the-art international facilities,” she said.

Klose promised to be available, engaged and ready to represent the people of Morristown.

“When I’m elected to your city council, I will be there to show up, to ask questions, to represent you in the little issues as well as the big, because my family and I live here too,” she said. Klose paraphrased I heard country singer Reba McIntyre by saying, “To succeed on Morristown City Council, I think you need three things: a wish bone, a backbone and a funny bone. That kind of in a nutshell is me.

“As the mother of three daughters, I learned very quickly how to ask questions, get my facts together, figure out where it was we were trying to go and how to build a consensus. Those attributes come in pretty handy when you’re talking to citizens and your fellow council members.

“My husband and I live in ‘Old Town’ in a 138-year-old house where I’ve learned that in order to keep the lights on, you better be careful with your budget because there’s always something else you’ve got to fix. But you know, when you’re retired and you’ve got that fixed income they talk about, you also have to be good at finding ways to afford to make things happen.

Klose feels, in the place of large new projects, the city should focus on self-appreciation.

“There’s been a lot done in Morristown in recent years. But one of the things that I don’t think we’ve done enough of, I don’t think we’re that proud of everything we’ve done. I don’t think we talk about it enough. I think we’re too busy worrying about kind of what we’re going to do next, what we’re going to do, who is going to be here.

“I think what we need to do now is work on building those partnerships with the communities around us. Do you know we have thousands of people who come into Morristown every day, to work, to play. We need to be pulling in and treating them as (if) they’re members of our community. They may be transient members of the community, but we need to ‘PR’ our pride and talk about Morristown as if we are all glad to be here and we’d like to get basically everybody’s improvements and everybody’s suggestions and their participation.

“I’m one of those crazy parents who drove my daughters 40,000 miles a year to Knoxville; that’s a lot of time, usually at 4:30 in the morning several days a week and they swam at UT. One of the best news that I’ve ever heard is that UT was really interested in coming up to Morristown and maybe setting up a satellite swim program now that we have a facility here, so more families can take advantage of opportunities that may not be available. Not everybody has a crazy mother who is going to wake up at 4:30 in the morning.

“Yes, my kids all swam in college. But I think we have a lot more opportunities for our kids and for us …. If we would really look at ways that we could build more of those partnerships in the region, in the area, and hopefully there won’t be quite as many of you getting up at 4:30 in the morning to have to drive to Knoxville.”

If elected, Klose intends to use her communication skills.

“I know how to listen, I used this a lot serving on county commission,” she said. “I do know how to talk. In the newborn ICU, I had to perform under pressure. I know how to find answers.I know how to do research. I show up when I am supposed to and I participate. Boy can I ask questions. I know how we can move forward as a community,” she said.

“We all know Morristown is growing; there are new opportunities for work, for play, for fixing things up, for making room for lots and lots of new people: new houses, new apartment complexes, probably some new schools, I believe, are on the schedule. But, remember, one of the things we’ve got to do is – why did we all come here? Most of us came here because we kind of, sort of like that smaller town atmosphere. One of the things we’ve got to concentrate on doing, we need to take advantage of what is here.”

Klose said Morristown has always been an active community – something she learned quickly when she moved to city – but that more people need to be active in their local government.

“I had so many possibilities of places and people to help that I was almost exhausted two weeks after we got here,” she siad. “I think that what you’ve got to do is take experiences that you’ve had in other places and let’s share those good solutions you’ve had in other places. We’ve all been in traffic jams, wherever you’ve lived.

“We’ve all had problems. But we might have creative some creative solutions. Bring them up, come to a City Council meeting, they’re not going to scare you … there are a lot of people who are ready and willing to help us, but sometimes you have to give suggestions and talk about your experiences. I think if you have an idea, you’re going to find that we can build Morristown’s future together.”