Blitzkrieg II

UT's Kill-Everything-That's-Old Campaign '98 has struck again. In Fort Sanders last Thursday morning, during UT's fall break, bulldozers demolished a large century-old house at the corner of White Avenue and 14th. Across the street from the old library, the white frame house with a wraparound porch had been a landmark which had appeared on a recent historic tour given by the Fort Sanders Neighborhood Association. One of the first houses built on White Avenue, it was said to be in good condition. UT reportedly wants the lot for surface parking.

Neighborhood homeowners are especially upset about the sudden demolition; UT had been one of the central participants in Mayor Victor Ashe's Fort Sanders Forum, which was formed to settle disputes about demolitions in Fort Sanders. The Forum had met the week before, but UT representatives had mentioned nothing about plans to demolish the house. Other parties had been observing a moratorium on demolitions in the neighborhood, pending recommendations by the Forum.

Silence of the Lambs

"The silence tonight (from the city administration) speaks volumes," said Carlene Malone at the end of a jeremiad opposing Sam Furrow's request for a billboard near the Pellissippi Parkway during Tuesday's City Council meeting.

Ed Shouse spoke next and sounded puzzled. The Pellissippi Parkway, in the area near Furrow's Mercedes dealership, doesn't look so darn scenic to him.

Malone, despite being heckled earlier by Mayor Victor Ashe, led the charge to revoke a billboard permit that Furrow contends was the carrot that enticed him to allow his West Knox property to be annexed. Furrow says he needs the revenue from the billboard to ease the pain of the tax increase he will incur as a result of the annexation. He has asked to be "de-annexed" if he is not allowed to keep the sign, which Malone's side says violates a city sign ordinance because it is too close to the Pellissippi Parkway, a scenic highway.

When Shouse, while obviously intending to allow the permit to stand, conceded that "by a strict interpretation it may be a scenic highway," Malone buried her face in her hands. Shouse addressed a question to City Council's lawyer Charles Swanson.

"To me, the important issue is, (if Furrow's sign permit is approved) can billboards spring up all along the highway?"

Swanson ran through the possibilities, finally opining "...the possibility for that exists." Shouse voted for Furrow's permit anyway.

Malone denounced the Furrow deal.

"We have tortured, we have twisted the law in an attempt to entice Mr. Furrow into our great city..." She cited an application for the sign with a handwritten note in the margin that said "Call Jean in Mayor's off. at 2040." (Although Ashe has a receptionist by that name, Deputy Mayor Gene Patterson can also be reached at this number.)

Political Pop Quiz

Know who chairs Don Sundquist's Knox County re-election effort? None other than that scourge of the silk stocking crowd, city politico Jack Barnes.

However, you'd never guess it by the way he gets treated. At Sundquist's most recent local fund-raiser, for example, (we won't even attempt to answer the question of why an incumbent with a $6 million war chest and nominal opposition needs to be raising money three weeks before the election), Barnes and his crew of 12 firemen, who had saved the Guv money by setting up the room at the Hyatt, were seated waaaaaay in the back of the room.

But he didn't sit there long before he stalked out in disgust.

"I made a pretty damn good scene," Barnes admits. "I just said the hell with it."

Barnes says County Commissioner Pat Medley and GOP operative Susan Richardson Williams were responsible for the seating chart, but told him their instructions "came out of Nashville."

"I'll tell you one thing," says Barnes. "Don Sundquist is my damn friend. I don't know about this bunch of damn snobs and pisswillies."