Monday, March 2, 2009
Politics / Woods Governor Rides Town Car to Fitness Event
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Gov. Phil Bredesen took his Lincoln Town Car across the street to the Bicentennial Mall today for a media event to urge state employees to exercise more often. Pith in the Wind, always on the lookout for hypocrisy, spotted Bredesen's sleek black Town Car warming up outside the Capitol before the event. It's something less than a quarter-mile from his office to the mall. But sure enough, the governor hopped in the car for the short ride. He arrived all toasty warm. Roughly 100 bundled-up state employees were there waiting for him, stamping their feet to fend off frostbite in the windy cold.
"Did you walk over today, governor?" we asked Bredesen.
"No," he admitted sheepishly, "I took the car over here today because I got through with a meeting very late. But I'm fully on board with the notion of trying to use lunch hours and the like to do walks, and I'm certainly encouraging state employees to do this."
"I did walk over here today," the first lady, Andrea Conte, interjected.
Bredesen submitted to a few questions from reporters. The only news was that the governor now is saying there will be no layoffs of state employees thanks to the federal stimulus money. After the jump, the Q&A:
Q: Even with the stimulus money coming in, will there be any state layoffs?
Bredesen: I'm really going to try to avoid them. We are working through right now just how this stimulus money applies to the budget. It comes with a lot of rules and restrictions obviously. If we can possibly avoid involuntary layoffs, I would like to do it. As part of the general changes, we're doing things like closing some offices and things, so I can't tell you the number will be zero. But certainly it's not up in the hundreds or thousands like we were concerned about before.
Q: Are you saying now less than one hundred as far as potential state layoffs?
Bredesen: In the normal course of business, there are often positions that are terminated. For example, we've been closing down some of the mental health facilities in accordance with the court orders and when that happens usually some people lose their jobs with the state. I'm not saying those are going to go away in this process. There may continue to a few at that level. But the numbers, the thousand or 1,500 that we talked about in the absence of a stimulus, that's gone away, and I think there's enough in this stimulus package for us to essentially make that numbe3r go away except for the any changes that might be taking place just in the normal course of business. I don't just want to be caught up in a thing where I say there's no layoffs and then we decide to close some office somewhere, which we were going to do anyway and 10 people get laid off and you're back at me saying 'you said no layoffs' because there always are some in the normal course of business.
Q: What are your thoughts on consolidating the higher education system now that the University of Tennessee president and the Board of Regents chancellor positions are both open?
Bredesen: Because both of those senior positions are vacant at the moment, we've said this might be an opportune time to look at whether reorganization is appropriate because this is certainly a clearing in the forest here, and we're going to do that. I don't have any answers for that yet. I've asked for people's opinions on how we're organized now and what changes might be appropriate and we'll see. It certainly presents an opportunity which isn't normally there to take a fresh look at things.
Q: Now that someone else has been appointed HHS secretary, can you tell us just how much interest you had in that job?
Bredesen: I certainly have an interest in the general subject of health care reform in this country. I do think everyone is entitled to some basic health care, and we've got 46 or 47 million who are not. I don't have any particular desire to go sit in a secretary's chair you know somewhere on the administration. If there were an opportunity to be part of that larger picture of healthcare reform, it's something I would have thought about. I think that has gone by the boards at this particular moment and I'm not unhappy about that. I love my job I've got right now. Really frankly, in these times with the tough budget situation right now, I really think that my place is right here, and it's worked out for the best.
Comments (5)
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I walked at the March to the Moon kickoff today and find it equally hypocritical that you don't mention that the Governor did, in fact, walk the mile or so walk with all 100 state employees in attendance. I can also say that they told us he was running late and we were entertained by a warm up dance by the Commissioner of Health while we waited. If you are going to tell the story, tell the WHOLE story.
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Posted by
Hilary Anne
on March 2, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Thank you for pointing that out, Hilary. I didn't know the governor did the walk. I left after the media avail and rode about 100 feet in Andy Sher's car to the Farmer's Market to eat a really fattening lunch.
Posted by
Woods
on March 2, 2009 at 3:54 PM
