An open seat on the Knoxville City Council – the only district up for election in 2027 – has its first candidate: assistant public defender Caleb Atkins.
Atkins filed paperworkto represent District 5, which covers northwest Knoxville neighborhoods like Inskip, Lonsdale and Oakwood-Lincoln Park. It stretches out to the city limits near Callahan Drive to the west, Cecil Avenue to the east and Pleasant Ridge Road to the south.
Atkins, 26, is a recent graduate of the University of Tennessee's college of Law, according to his Linkedin profile.
"Me and my wife have been going to city council meetings this year, we've lived in District 5 for a little over a year now," Atkins told Knox News. "We're looking around and we don't have any sidewalks in our
neighborhood. We love the idea of having a walkable neighborhood. We live in city limits.
"We went to city council meetings and heard things they were voting on and talking about. I saw all these things in our district and in our city happening that I liked, and I saw things like increasing surveillance and rubberstamping things with the police that were very frustrating. Seeing those kind of things inspired me to throw my name in the ring," he said.
District 5 Councilmember Charley Thomas is term-limited. Thomas' successor will serve a two-year term and be up for reelection in 2029 after Knoxville voters chose in 2024 to align the District 5 elections with the rest of the district seats.
Candidates have until May 20 to get in the race. The primary election is Aug. 31.
Only those who live in District 5 will be able to vote on the district's city council representative, but other citywide races are on the ballot, including a new mayor, all three citywide council seats and municipal judge.
If you want to see which district you live in, head to kgis.org/maps.
You have power: Use it
Knoxville voters in the 2026 midterm election will be asked whether to condense city elections if popular candidates do well in the primaries.
Currently, the top-two vote-getters in nonpartisan August primaries advance to a November runoff. A ballot question asks whether to keep things working that way, or allow candidates who get a majority of the votes in the primary to win automatically.
The change would align city council races with how the mayor and municipal judge are elected.
The ballot will ask one question, and a "for the amendment" vote means you support the change, and an "against the amendment" vote means you want to keep elections as they are now.
Allie Feinberg is the politics reporter for Knox News. Email: allie.feinberg@knoxnews.com; Reddit: u/KnoxNewsAllie
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: First candidate for northwest Knoxville City Council seat steps forward
