Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacob's Weekly Update

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacob's Weekly Update.

TRANSCRIPT:

“It’s Friday. Time for another weekly update. This week, I helped cut ribbons at the EmPATH Unit, a collaboration among the County, the City of Knoxville, the State of Tennessee, local hospitals, and the McNabb Center. The EmPATH Unit will help folks experiencing mental health issues get the appropriate service they need as quickly as possible. This facility is the first of its kind in the state and we’re all excited to see the positive impact it will make on our community.

I also toured CMC Steel and spoke at the American Job Center’s veterans job fair at Pellissippi State Community College. The 18th Children’s Festival of Reading took place last weekend, seeing over 11,000 people visit World’s Fair Park. This year, we helped celebrate the Imagination Library and its distribution of over 4 million books throughout Tennessee. Now, a festival that size doesn’t happen without hard work from the folks with our libraries and all our partners. So, thank you to everyone for your love of literacy and for sharing our commitment to making Knox County the best-read community in America.

Speaking of reading, Zoo Knoxville hosted our One Book Read City Scavenger Hunt Pizza Party this week. One child from more than 50 schools across the county was selected to attend after completing a scavenger hunt and winning a random drawing. Big thanks to the Knox Education Foundation, Knox County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jon Rysewyk, and Board of Education Chair Betsy Henderson, our great Libraries staff, Zoo Knoxville, Weigal’s, and Cruze Farm for making it such a memorable event.

This week marked the 50th anniversary of National Emergency Medical Services Week. A big thank you to all our EMS professionals. Congratulations to all of our graduating high school seniors. And thank you to their parents, loved ones, teachers, and many others who have helped our young people reach this epic milestone.

Last night’s downpour made Bearden’s graduation especially memorable. It also reminded me of how much has changed over the past several years. Prior to 2020, high school graduations were held at Thompson-Boling Arena. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they were moved to high school football fields to allow parents and loved ones to attend. Everyone liked it so much that Schools decided to continue this practice. Sadly, this is one of the few positive changes that COVID caused. And, now, testimony from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic indicates federal government officials have a lot to answer for.

On Wednesday, the Subcommittee released a memo exposing allegations of wrongdoing and illegal activity by Dr. Anthony Fauci's Senior Advisor, Dr. David Morens. Evidence suggests Morens unlawfully destroyed records concerning the origins COVID-19 to evade public records laws. Morens wrote in an email to Dr. Peter Daszak, whose EcoHealth Alliance is believed to have been involved with gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that he (Morens) “learned from our FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] lady here how to make most emails disappear after i am FOIA’d but before the search starts, so I think we are all safe,” adding that he “deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.”

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not, and I have a feeling that much more will be coming out of these hearings. And thank you to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul for his relentless pursuit of the truth. Next Tuesday, May 28th, I’ll be celebrating National Hamburger Day with an Eat and Greet at Scotties of Powell. That will be at 5:30 p.m. Please join me.

And, finally, just a reminder our offices will be closed this coming Monday, May 27th, in observance of Memorial Day. Until next Friday, I hope everyone has a safe Memorial Day weekend and a great week.”