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Alcoa City Commissioner George Williams lost his Alcoa Board of Education seat in 1998 by three votes.

His sister, Geneva Williams Harrison, lost her seat on the Blount County Commission earlier this year by one vote.

"The Williams family is very competitive," George Williams said. "She had to outdo me."

Williams hopes this election is kinder than the one that cost him the school board seat he held for 10 years -- during which, by the way, he said he never missed a meeting.

"I don't plan to lose," he said, but it's worth noting that if he does, there won't be a single elected black person on any city commission -- or the county commission -- in Blount County.

"I think it is definitely important," to have African-American representation, Williams said. "There needs to be a voice. It also illustrates the inclusiveness of our city."

Not that Williams is angling only for the black vote in sections of the city such as the Hall and Oldfield communities.

"I work just as hard for any of the communities as I do for the Hall and Oldfield communities," said Williams, who is seeking his first re-election to the City Commission. He is one of three men angling for two commission seats, including fellow incumbent Clayton Bledsoe and challenger Ken White.

"Taxpayers live all over the city."

Williams chalks up his governing experience and career as reasons he deserves re-election.

"I have a history of involvement and working to make the community be all it can be," he said. In addition to his term on the City Commission and 10 years on the school board, he cites his experience with the Tennessee Valley Authority. He worked in community and business development for 20 years, and "managed $25 million in public works contracts across the eastern end of the valley.

"Not only do I have the history, I have the professional background."

He is campaigning hard to retain his seat, and is running radio, television and print ads throughout the market. "It's important to me." He acknowledges it will be a challenge to stay in office: "The other people are very well-known in the community."

He harkens back to the Alcoa of 20 years ago to frame his vision for the future.

"If I look back 20 years ago, a drive to West Knoxville was a major journey. Now it's 10 minutes," he said.

"Alcoa High School was playing on a much worse football field, and in a little cracker-box gym that leaked.

"Look at the changes we've seen in 20 years. We've got to look 20 years in the future. What do we have to do to maintain the quality of the community we have now? With my common-sense approach, I feel I can help plan for the next 20 years."

Keys to the future

Keys to maintaining that quality include the following, Williams said:

* Ensuring the city continues adequate planning for the future.

"We've got to maintain air and water quality," he said, "All that is not the result of Alcoa planning, but we've got to do our part."

Along the lines of maintaining a safe and clean supply of drinking water, Williams said a new water plant in the works will ensure that "for decades, residents of Alcoa will be assured a good, clean dependable water source."

He said "the cost is high" for the roughly $20 million new treatment plant, "but imagine what that $20 million would be in 2040 dollars."

Maintenance of "strategic, long-range planning" is key to Williams' vision for the future. "We have been fortunate enough to have the staff and leadership to have long-range, strategic planning.

"The planning department does a good job," though he said there have been past "issues with codes enforcement."

* Continuing the cooperative relationship with Maryville and Blount County.

"Consolidation of services has already been done with Maryville," to a degree, he said, citing bulk supply orders such as salt and utility supplies and the provision of Maryville Fire Department space while it awaits completion of its new headquarters.

"As far as combining cities, that probably won't happen in the lifetime of anyone we know," but the cooperative trends continue, "except one time a year during Maryville football week."

Williams has served with Maryville Councilman Tom Taylor on the Blount County Library Board, and with Councilman Steve West on the board of the Blount County Chamber of Commerce, and Alcoa City Manager Mark Johnson is a former employee of the city of Maryville.

He said he considers them all friends, "and these kinds of relationships make for a cooperative relationship with our neighbors."

* Continuing the trend of improvement in residential communities, including some poorer Alcoa neighborhoods, such as the Hall community.

"A lot of attention has been brought to the problems of the 13 streets we allowed ourselves to forget," he said. Now those problems -- which include poverty, a number of single-parent homes, property maintenance issues and drug abuse and peddling -- "are being addressed in the most effective way, and that's from the people themselves.

"The role of local government is to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves."

That said, "I think we need to do a better job of communicating with our taxpayers and residents," he said.

"People have discovered us," he said. "The gates are open. I can see 20 years from now we have a city of 10,000."

It's going to take work to maintain the current quality of life, and Williams feels he is up to the task.

"We had a saying in my family growing up: `The best way to tell what someone is going to do is to look at what they've already done.'

"I have a couple of grandchildren. I'd like for them to grow up in the Alcoa I grew up in: a safe little sleepy Tennessee town with a good quality of life, surrounded by friends."