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Being a Good Neighbor
The first annual Fort Sanders Festival is being touted as a way to unify the neighborhood despite all the rampant demolition of historic homes. Which is why some neighborhood activists are pissed off that the Historic Fort Sanders Neighborhood Association took a $5,000 gift from JPI (the company that recently tore down 32 homes along 11th Street) to help stage the event.
"I think it's an obvious sell out," says James Henry, who quit the group a while back and has since formed the Knoxville Renters Rights Association. "It doesn't make sense to take $5,000, cuddling up to them after we spent twice that fighting a battle we basically lost."
However, association president Randall De Ford defended accepting JPI's donation (which amounted to 60 percent of the $8,400 raised). He said money was solicited from businesses all over the neighborhood. "They haven't bought us off. What they've done is what every corporate entity should do for their neighbors," he says.
"We're in crisis with the destruction of these homes. Because of that we feel it's important to attempt to bring the neighborhood together and promote unity," De Ford adds.
The neighborhood party is being held from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and will include several bands, food and information at the Laurel Avenue and 15th Street (er, um, we mean James Agee Street which is named after some guy who used to live around there).
This Old House
If you thought all those nice old homes along 11th Street were history, you might be surprised next time you drive the street. One two-story brick house remains in the middle of what is now a dirt lot (pending JPI redevelopment).
Did JPI decide some homes are in fact sacred? Or is there a property owner who realizes you can't buy this kind of character? Well, no.
Attorney Joseph Levitt Jr., who owns the home at 931 World's Fair Park Drive, says he has no qualms about unloading the property, which has had the same tenant for about 30 years. When asked why he hasn't sold, Levitt at first said, "They've not expressed any interest in buying it." But then he conceded, "There was some real estate man who called me a while back wanting to know if I wanted to sell it. I think he offered me $85,000," says Levitt, who owns somewhere around 50 properties in the city. "I would sell it for $140,000 or $150,000."
David Taylor, of Capital Commercial, which acquired property for the JPI development, says he can't talk about the situation do to client confidentiality. However, he says JPI has indeed been interested in buying the house. Care to guess what the company would do with it?
Save the Carp, Part 2
Just a month ago we reported in this column that the PBA had sought the advice of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to help relocate the fish and ducks which have been living in and on the Waters of the World for years. PBA chief Mike Edwards says the advice they got was to leave the ducks alone—that handling them would do more harm than good—but to net the carp and other fish and dump them in the river. That they did. Then they drained the water—into the creek.
That former standard operating procedure might have worked smoothly, for all we know, except for the fact that the Waters of the World are right outside the offices of UT's Energy, Environment and Resources Center. Graduate students Jeff Duncan and Laura Wilkes observed the draining of the pond with its years of high-bacteria fecal sludge, directly into the Second Creek storm drain. Meanwhile, dead fish were observed floating down lower Second Creek, suggesting that either the possibly toxic sludge killed fish in the natural creek, or that some fish left in the pool had died when it was drained. At last report, the city, with the help of the cavalry at Ijams Nature Center, were stepping in to make the best of the situation.
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