In the Tuesday edition of the Crossville Chronicle most of the ink is dedicated to the recent Assessor Of Property Candidate Forum sponsored by the Cumberland County Republican Party. Two front page stories that continued on throughout the paper and an editorial by the paper. The forum held at the Community Complex last week caught several by surprise when candidate Kelli Tipton Buchannon got the last word in – and it was a doozy.

Buchannon was the last candidate to speak according to the Forum’s protocol set up beforehand.  In her closing remarks, Buchannon addressed some irregularities in the Assessor’s office that needed to be changed. Buchannon suggested the current Cumberland County Property Assessor Sandy Gilbert was unprepared for state assessment appeals hearings in 2022 and in 2023. Buchannon then proceeded to quote Assessor Gilbert in a Chronicle article from 2023 in which Gilbert said “They’re going to get a bill. If they don’t have a problem with that bill, we’re valuing them too low”.  Gilbert was visually caught off guard and began shaking her head after the comments.

The Chronicle implied Buchannon’s comments were “Gotcha” moments and they just don’t happen in small-town America candidate forums.”    The Chronicle editorial indicated there should have been a ‘rebuttal’ time for Gilbert after Buchannon.  Crossville Mayor R.J. Crawford, who moderated the forum, told the Chronicle “If we get into allowing one person to respond, then this person is going to want to respond and this person is going to want to respond to that. If we allow that, then it opens up the floodgates, and I just wanted to keep it clean … it’s the same way we ran it for the school board and other candidates.”

Since the forum, Gilbert has posted the 2023 Chronicle interview on her Facebook page that actually confirms  Buchannon’s remarks on the Gilbert quote about upping an appraisal if the property owner doesn’t complain.

Kelli Tipton Buchannon told CNF her bullet points about necessary changes in the Assessor’s Office, including an over inflated Assessor’s County budget and an unheard of 109% turnover rate since Gilbert took over the Assessor’s Office, weren’t frivolus accusations but documented facts.

The Chronicle is correct. It’s been rare, if ever, a local political candidate for any county office has publically pointed out a challengers (albeit an incumbents) deficiencies in managing their duties which needed to be corrected by a new elected official. Those types of campaign strategies are usually reserved for state and national campaigns.  One attendee of the Republican Party’s Candidate Forum remarked afterwards “I don’t know who this Kelli is, but she sure got everyone’s attention here tonight”.