For several years now, Sean Murphy—called by Mayor Ron Williams both undesirable and carpetbagger, and now has adopted Undesirable Carpetbagger as his personal pronouns—has made a name for himself by thoroughly questioning the Town of Farragut and its operations. While he’s certainly not the first (Bill Johns and Mike Mitchell came before and are still active), Murphy has taken things to a whole new level, using tactics no one else has ever attempted.
You can’t miss Murphy’s world famous yard art, which consists of 4 sheets of plywood explaining some of the outrageous activities he has uncovered, all of which landed him in Farragut’s Town Hall court. Murphy countered by filing a federal lawsuit, which due to improper and illegal actions by the judge and clerks, is now in front of the US Supreme Court. He filed a Writ of Mandamus asking the Court to overturn clerks signing decisions solely for judges to make and to correct the record because it has been altered (which is a serious crime). You can check out his blog post and podcast about that [here].
While digging through discovery documents, Murphy’s legal team uncovered a letter from the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury addressing proper use of ARP (American Rescue Plan) funds. Murphy notes that further investigation is needed to determine if those funds were misused.
Most recently, Murphy has raised questions about the current sewer line expansion in Farragut, which Louise Povlin just admitted was because of a number of the apartments in Farragut. You can read more about that [here].
People often ask me what I think of Sean Murphy. I talk to him the same way I talk to anyone. We may not agree on everything—and we don’t—but that’s fine. I’ve never believed you have to agree 100% of the time to be friendly or respectful. Do you like Donald Trump in everything he does? You voted for him because you want the results. Substance over style.
In my nearly 21 years as the CitizenInformer blogger, I’ve found that the best conversations often come from people who’ve been the subject of the blog. Sadly, many still misunderstand what a blog is supposed to be.Unlike most of the full-time media, which tends to recycle the same storylines with slight variations, blogs have the freedom to explore what others overlook. Occasionally, the mainstream media gets it right—like WBIR’s recent reporting on staffing changes under Knox County Property Assessor Phil Ballard, which was a rare example of original, non-recycled journalism.
