‘Knox County will not comply with your mandate’ | Mayor Jacobs sends letter to President Biden

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs wrote a letter to President Joe Biden regarding the new vaccine mandate executive order, according to a social media post.

“Knox County will not comply with your mandate,” said Mayor Jacobs in the letter.

He continued by saying as the chief executive of an organization that employs 2,700 individuals, he thinks the executive order would add financial, legal and regulatory burdens that will impact Knox County taxpayers.

Mayor Jacobs said that it would also hinder jobs and would not attract quality employees since many folks would not work somewhere that unjustly imposes vaccine mandates.

“As a fellow elected official who has sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution just as you have,” the letter said. “I am alarmed by the alacrity with which you issued this order, contradicting both Article 1, Section 1- which vests legislative power in the Congress- and the Tenth Amendment- which recognizes the sovereignty of the states or the people over matters the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government.”

Mayor Jacobs also said that President Biden’s own chief of staff, Ron Klain, retweeted the following: “OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations.”

“Mr. President, if we, as elected officials, ignore, disregard, and contravene the laws which bind us, how can we expect our fellow citizens to respect and follow the laws which bind all of us as a society?” Mayor Jacobs added.

He also said, as an American, he was appalled at the statement, “This is not about freedom or personal choice,” because, “in America, it is always about freedom.”

Mayor Jacobs said he recently attended Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss’ memorial service and mentioned how he was told that the young patriot died in defense, of everyone’s freedom like many before him. Therefore, he asked President Biden the question of it that was actually true.

He said if it is just an expression of solemn gratitude to rationalize the loss of the best and brightest then, America is not the people or the country it claims to be.

“In Knox County, we know what we stand for. We stand for freedom. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for the constitution,” May Jacobs concluded. “And you can rest assured that we will stand against your blatant and egregious executive overreach.”

On September 9, President Joe Biden ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant.

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