Ex City Councilman, Ex Sheriff, Ex EMA Director, Ex Secret Service, Soon to Be Ex City Manager of East Ridge (If anyone is paying attention).

Tim Gobble is on his way to becoming Ex City Manager of East Ridge and Current resident of the big house, if he doesn’t straighten up.  We’ve covered his rise, fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall so many different times that it is difficult to tell the difference between Gobble and a Yoyo. He’s already been in hot water during his short stint in East Ridge on several occasions and finds himself there again due to his feelings that the laws of this land are for everyone except him. He decides what is right and wrong. He decides who is good and bad.  The truth is, he is the bad man. Deceit, is a way of life for him.  He is not real.

Tim Gobble plays fast and loose with the facts. Whatever will benefit him, is what is considered the proper thing and anyone that crosses that path is vilified.

East Ridge City Manager Tim Gobble said he is complying with a requirement that he live in East Ridge by renting a furnished apartment.

He also said that he feels it is not improper to use $6,000 in moving expenses that he received to pay rent on the furnished apartment on Maiden Drive.

Mr. Gobble said his home in Cleveland is listed with a realtor, but he said it “might be years before it sells.”

He said, “I have rented an apartment in East Ridge since July 23 and the moving allowance was provided per my contract to assist with any related moving expenses that I may incur, now or later. I considered renting an apartment a moving-related expense while having to continue to pay a house note as well. There is nothing in the contract that would indicate otherwise.

“I certainly would not have incurred both rent and a mortgage payment had I not moved to East Ridge for this job. Nothing in the contract would indicate my family also has to be residents of East Ridge.

“I believe I am fully compliant with all provisions of my contract as I am a resident of East Ridge.”

Chattanoogan.com

Seems Some are starting to agree and pay attention to this snake oil salesman, Gobble.

Strange Definition Of Moving Expenses
posted October 5, 2011

I must say I used to think Tim Gobble was a different kind of politician. That is until I see how he defines moving expenses. He is just another smooth-talkng politician that can justify his enreasonble actions with unreasonable excuses and think everyone is crazy for not buying into it.

Using his logic, all college kids living at home that get a job offer are able to claim unheard of “moving expenses.” Let’s face it if the college kid has to relocate and pay rent that is an expense they didn’t have prior to that job. Same thing with their electric bill, groceries and every other living expense.

I sure hope Mr. Gobble doesn’t claim these deductions on his tax return or he will be serving East Ridge from the federal pokie.

Jimmy Gray

Chattanoogan.com

• 6 Missing East Ridge Vehicles Were Scrapped
• City Unclear On Whether 3 Motorcycles Are Paid For

Tim “I’m an Elected Official hireling of the taxpayers, and can do what I want” Gobble is at it again. After wreaking havoc in Cleveland and Bradley County, then at the Hamilton County jail and now in the City of East Ridge.

Seems Gobble can’t find a whole mini-fleet of vehicles so his answer to the taxpayers is “it’s silly to even keep looking”. No, Mr. Tim Gobble, what’s silly is that anyone with any functioning portion of a brain, still has any faith in you. You are clearly, not only incompetent, but disingenuous.  Seems like you had the same problem keeping up with vehicles, property and titles when you were the “sheriff” of Bradley County.

Have the “too dumb to notice” taxpayers forgotten your last stunt in East Ridge? You remember, when you said vital city functions and services would have to be

cut and discontinued if the taxpayers didn’t cough up a tax increase for you. The first vital service and function was to send some flunkies to WalMart to outfit your offices with huge flat panel TVs. Sounds like something the old Bradley County sheriff did just a couple years ago.

Oh yeah, that was you too.  Ahhh, those were heady days, weren’t they?

East Ridge City Manager Tim Gobble said he has learned the fate of at least six missing city vehicles. He said he was advised they were taken by a local garage and scrapped.

Mr. Gobble said he does not know the condition of the vehicles or if the city got any money from the scrap….

…Mr. Gobble said, “I don’t know why or by whose authority it was.”

The city manager said he is also trying to find out if the city has fully paid for three police motorcycles. He said lease-purchase payments to a dealership in Knoxville stopped earlier, but the city does not have titles to the motorcycles.

He said the new owner of the dealership does not know the answer.

Mr. Gobble said the city still has not found the title to the city car driven by chief building officer Mark Dempsey. But he said a replacement title has been applied for.

The city manager, since learning there were no titles to 11 city vehicles, said he named city staffer Amanda Miller as the city’s “car czar”.

Mr. Gobble said, “Some of the vehicles and titles we will probably never know the answer. There comes a point when it is silly to keep looking.”

 

For Full Story
Chattanoogan.com

Tim Gobble’s push for an statutorily illegal increase of taxes on small business and violation of the Sunshine Law?

Full Story

East Ridge Raising Property Tax 30 Cents, Garbage $5 Month, Hotel Tax By 2%

…The property tax will rise to $1.42 per $100 of assessed valuation.

The garbage fee goes from $10 a month to $15 a month.

The hotel-motel tax increases from two percent to four percent.

Officials said the tax increases will bring in $1.5 million in revenue and fund such items as a three percent raise for employees and $220,000 in raises for fire and police to bring them in line with other agencies.
Police officers will get $3,000 more each and firefighters $1,000 more each.

It will buy a $160,000 truck for a new recycling program that officials said should pay for itself in 3-5 years. It will be handled through RockTenn and items will not have to be sorted….

Officials said the city will soon be required to have garbage service pay for itself and there is now a $300,000 hole. The higher rate will bring in $410,000 per year.

The expected $125,000 from the higher hotel-motel charge will go to pay off city debt. However, council members voting against it said it may cause some motels to leave East Ridge.

…It brought protests from Council members Bethune and Manning.

Councilman Bethune said, “I thought we were going to come here and go over the budget line by line. I didn’t know we would sit down and it would be concreted.” He added, “I have $50,000 in cuts that wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

Mayor Lambert, who said he has two kids and another on the way, said, “I work three jobs. I work my behind off….

…New City Manager Tim Gobble, at the start of the meeting, said there remained a projected deficit of $616,000, though health care costs were not going to be as high as expected and the county trustee was going to charge the city one percent instead of two percent for handling the sales tax. The projected health care cost increase is now at 11.5 percent.

Mr. Gobble said the fund balance stands at $6.4 million and the city’s debt at $8.8 million with an annual debt cost of $1.2 million.

…Prior to the vote, Councilman Bethune said, “I know I’m beating a dead horse. I knew when I walked in here it was 3-2 for a tax increase.”

But he said, “There are people out there who cannot stand it.”

Councilman Manning said, “A lot of people were hit by the tornado. The people can’t afford it.”

Councilman Branam said on the property tax hike the owner of a $100,000 home will pay $75 more per year. The owner of a $75,000 home will pay $56.25 more.

Councilman Bethune said the average price of an East Ridge home is $77,000, which he said is the lowest in the area. He said, “Property values are going to plunge more.”

The rest of the story

East Ridge faces new $600,000 deficit
By Kate Harrison

East Ridge is poised to end its 2011 fiscal year … with a deficit surpassing $600,000.

And the city could face another if it doesn’t generate more revenue or cut services next year, City Manager Tim Gobble said during a special meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Gobble, who took on the city manager post in late April, said this year’s deficit chiefly results from rising costs and flagging revenue, and not from loose spending.

“I think the staff has done a good job on holding the line. Overall we’re down in spending. We’re just still coming out of a recession — these are difficult times,” Gobble said, citing rising costs in health care, fuel and utilities.

Documents also indicate East Ridge saw a decline in sales tax revenue this year.

The budget worksheet Gobble presented for the 2011- 12 fiscal year is just a “bare bones” platform formulated by city directors, and does not include raises or increases besides projected hikes in insurance, utilities and fuel costs….

During the meeting, Gobble outlined a series of revenue options, including a property tax increase ranging between 10 and 30 cents.

The current property tax rate is $1.12 per $100 of assessed value. A 15 cent increase would net the city $510,000 in new revenue, Gobble explained. It also would mean the owner of a $75,000 home would have to pay $28.13 more per year. A 30 cent increase would cost that homeowner $56.25 more per year.

Other revenue options Gobble proposed were a hotel/motel tax, a sanitation fee increase and a recreation fee increase….

Gobble maintained that confronting the looming deficit is likely going to mean sacrificing services….

The council will hold a budget workshop June 2 at 6 p.m. at City Hall. The public is welcome, but Gobble was not certain whether they would be able to give formal input at this stage.

To view this entire story, Click Here

If everything goes well, the fortunes of perennial failure Tim Gobble will soon come full circle. The Newshound has learned that three days after Christmas, Gobble submitted his résumé for the position of police chief in Franklin, Tennessee. If he gets the job, it will be like returning to his roots; for you see, it was the Franklin police chief who helped set the shaky tone of Gobble’s political career when it began almost ten years ago.

Some of you may remember those heady days of 2002, when dashing Secret Service agent Tim Gobble won the heart of the popular vote and was elected to the Cleveland City Council. His first order of business was to clean up the Cleveland Police Department and force a reckoning on police chief Lee Reese. Gobble was Elliot Ness. He was gold.

Then things got shaky. Less than a year after his landslide election, Gobble came under fire for violating the Hatch Act and was thrown off the City Council. Even worse, it turned out that Lee Reese was friends with police chief Jackie Moore in Franklin, Tennessee. And even worse than that, Jackie Moore was the “special friend” of Gobble’s supervisor at the Service Service, Sara Beth Pulliam. Now there’s you a ménage à trois made in Hillbilly Heaven if the Newshound’s ever seen one.

Anyway, long story short, fledgling politician Tim Gobble was not just off the Council, he was out of the Secret Service as well. Gobble insists that he quit the Service rather than be transferred to DC as a punishment for bucking Lee Reese, but that’s not the case; according to Secret Service documents the Newshound saw with his own eyes, Gobble was fired. Shaky, shaky, shaky.

Then, in 2004, county mayor D. Gary Davis saved the day by hiring Gobble to be the new director of the Bradley County Emergency Management Agency. All of a sudden, Gobble was back on top. He was gold again.

But alas, that didn’t last either. It wasn’t long before the county mayor was expressing regret that he had ever hired Gobble in the first place. Davis and most of the Bradley County Commission began loudly and publicly complaining about the politician who was running the EMA. Davis even went so far as to lament, “Hiring Tim Gobble was the worst mistake I ever made.” Shaky, shaky. Within 16 months of being appointed EMA director, Gobble once again quit amid more charges of Hatch Act violations and a lack of confidence on the part of his bosses. But by that time, he had lost interest in the EMA job anyway. By that time, he had convinced himself he didn’t really want to be an EMA director — he wanted to be a sheriff instead.

In mid-2005, Gobble met with the head of the Tennessee Democratic Party Bob Tuke, local business man and political consultant Ron Moore, and another TNDP official to discuss Gobble running for office as a Democrat. According to Moore, Gobble told him, “(I) have always been a Democrat.” However, some time after their meeting, Gobble decided he would be better off, considering Bradley County’s heavily Republican population, to run as a Republican.

Which brings us to a second wave of heady days in 2006, when dashing ex-Secret Service agent, ex-city councilman and ex-EMA director Tim Gobble won the heart of the popular vote and was elected sheriff of Bradley County. He was gold again. Sheriff Gobble’s first order of business was to sue the County, and right off the bat, everything got shaky again: His popularity dropped like a egg from a tall turkey.

By the time Gobble lost his lawsuit against the County, he had also lost interest in the sheriff job, as well. He soon convinced himself he didn’t really want to be a sheriff — he wanted to be a U.S. Congressman instead. In May 2008, Gobble turned his attentions to politicking for the House of Representatives.

But by that time, nobody much cared anymore. Republicans were beginning to see him as a RINO and the public was beginning to see him as a flake, and this time the shaky period stayed with him. Gobble lost the Congressional race, lost his cushy job as sheriff and ended up taking a pity position as temporary Hamilton County jailer. Thus far, his job applications have all been rejected, including his application for a county manager position in Clay County, Florida.

Now Gobble wants to replace Jackie Moore as police chief in Franklin, Tennessee. See? If he nails it, he will have come full circle. But the Newshound will tell you this for free: Tim Gobble’s political career is a study in bipolar obliviousness. He has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory every time. He’s running out of options and so far that big marketing & sales company of his has signed exactly zero clients. Hopefully, he will get the Franklin, Tennessee gig. Let him play at being a police chief, see how long before his interest wanes. If nothing else, maybe it will get Christie off his back for a while.

Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond has offered ex-Bradley County sheriff Tim Gobble a job running the Hamilton County jail. Gobble hasn’t committed one way or another, and both men stress the job would only be temporary. If Gobble’s management of the Bradley County jail is any indicator, it’s probably just as well the job offer is not of a permanent nature.

According to a report from the Tennessee Corrections Institute (TCI) dated August 20, 2010 — eleven days before Gobble left office after serving a four-year term — an annual inspection revealed that the Bradley County jail “does not meet all applicable minimum standards.” And as everyone knows, “minimum standards” are on the absolute lowest end of the standards scale. In other words, that’s the worst level upon which a jail can operate and still maintain certification; the Bradley County jail ranks somewhere below that.

The TCI will be back on October 13 for a “re-inspection” to see if the problems they encountered have been corrected. Without a passing grade, the jail cannot be re-certified. If a jail cannot pass TCI requirements, prisoners would have to be moved to more suitable accommodations. Or, perhaps, they could go live with Gobble until things are straightened out.

Some of  the problems TCI found in Tim Gobble’s jail include overcrowding of county and state prisoners, temperatures in some of the pods “needs adjusting,” cells do not meet the square-footage requirements for overcrowding, high security light fixtures are covered, there is no sanitation log for the cleaning of mats and jail cells, and direct supervision areas are not being “continuously monitored.”

Also, according to TCI, inmates showed inspectors mold on the water coolers and around the lip of serving trays where food is placed. One cell had standing water on the floor and water leaking under the wall from the showers next door. TCI also noted graffiti and pictures posted on the walls and a lack of proper documentation of cleaning schedules.

One source in the jail who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told us, “Tim Gobble would breeze through the jail for photo ops, flashing his Pepsodent smile and acting like a regular guy, but outside of bending over backwards for (former Hamilton County sheriff)

Billy Long, Gobble never did very much for the deputies in the jail or the inmates while he served as sheriff.” (note: Billy Long, who was convicted of extortion, money laundering, and drug and gun offenses while serving as sheriff of Hamilton County, was housed for a time at the Bradley County jail. He is currently serving a 14-year jolt in a federal pen out we. Click For Video Of Undercover Sting)

Bradley County’s new sheriff, Jim Ruth, has been working hard to correct some long-neglected problems at the BCSO. The jail is one of those long-neglected problems, as evidenced by the TCI’s refusal to re-certify, pending the October re-inspection. We here at HometownCleveland.com call on the county mayor and county commissioners to work with Sheriff Ruth to see that the jail is adequately staffed and funded. The last four years have largely been wasted on partisan bickering and political maneuvering. The jail, the jail deputies, the inmates and, yes, the inmates’ families deserve better than the failing grade Tim Gobble left them with.

EXCLUSIVE!

HTC’s J.Michael Leonard conducts an exclusive one-on-one interview with sheriff’s candidate, Democrat Steve Lawson! Listen as J.M. confronts Steve Lawson with the tough, hard-hitting questions only HE can ask! You wanted it ~ you got it!

Robin Smith Waterboards Tim Gobble

Tim Gobble Sheriff Tim Gobble Robin Smith Chuck Fleischmann Tim Gobble