Banished!

Tensions are high on the 6th floor of the City County building, where the top dogs of local government are digging in for a long, hot summer. County Executive Tommy Schumpert says he'll be talking to Law Director Richard Beeler about why Beeler has banned county lobbyist Molly Pratt from the law director's office. Beeler says he notified Schumpert last Friday that "...he could come on in any time, but Molly is no longer welcome..."

Sources say Pratt caused a ruckus in the office when she thought a staff attorney was late for an appointment to discuss a bill passed on the last day of the legislative session that would create a 6th division of General Sessions Court.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Knoxville's Community Development Corporation has hired spin doctors to help sell its Hope VI project, which will demolish the buildings in Mechanicsville's College Homes development and replace them with single family dwellings. City Councilman Danny Mayfield was lobbied recently by Ingram Grouper Lewis Lavine, who came over from Nashville to ask Knoxville's newest, youngest and only African American elected official to get out front of Hope VI and sell it to his constituents. "They (Lavine and Knoxville IG partner Susan Richardson Williams) want me to champion the project, which I'm on the record as supporting. But I have a condition..."

Mayfield's condition would require KCDC to "...show good faith..." by leaving a few of the current buildings standing and allow the residents to purchase those. Citing an "open market climate of illegal drug activity" that he says won't be cured by knocking buildings down, Mayfield is critical of KCDC's "paternalistic" attitude toward the residents. "For me, the main concern is people development. This would have been a paradigm shift for KCDC. Instead of being a parent, they could have been a partner. More than anything else, this is an opportunity to solve a problem instead of pushing it to another place... But they turned me down."

So Mayfield, who once lived in College Homes, will support the residents' right to purchase the development. We don't know why KCDC hired a PR firm instead of simply talking to Mayfield, nor what the Ingram Group was paid for the conversation, since KCDC has not responded to a request for that information.

Golllleeeeee!!

Newsflash: New York is a big city. This scoop comes from unfailingly perky Channel 6 morning anchor Rachelle Kennedy's recent broadcasts from New York. Kennedy, seemingly under the impression that no one from Knoxville has ever been to any large American city, led one story in the series with this statement: "When you're used to THIS..." (pan to shot of cloggers dancing to banjo music) "...New York can be pretty amazing!" She then went on to carefully explain to us hillbillies "what it's like" in the Big Apple. Her revelations included such gems as: "they have expensive restaurants there!" and "you might see a famous person on the street!" While in the Big Apple, she conducted man-on-the-street interviews with random passers-by in which she asked them if they "like New York." One New Yorker, caught hailing a cab by Channel 6's camera, stuck her tongue out at Kennedy. Local viewers might have felt like doing the same.