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Seven Days

Friday, Nov. 3
Vice-President Al Gore's visit to McGhee Tyson Airport draws crowds, but the George W. Bush-endorsing News-Sentinel declines to publish any crowd estimates, claiming they vary.

Sunday, Nov. 5
Arson fires rage through ultra-dry areas of counties surrounding Knox. TV public service announcements plead with the arsonists to understand that Knoxville can't annex across county lines yet anyway.

Monday, Nov. 6
Rep. Jimmy Duncan's plan to legislate against "outrageous" TVA compensation packages is aired. TVA executives from the '30s through the '90s clamor to learn if the Duncan proposal would be retroactive.

Tuesday, Nov. 7
Al Gore loses the Tennessee presidential electorate decisively to "Dubya" Bush. Mayor Ashe wonders what his old college buddy has that he didn't have when he ran against Gore for the U.S. Senate. But then...

Wednesday, Nov. 8
Dawn breaks with television newscasters unable to make a presidential election call, declaring the election "bizarre" and the situation "chaos." Uh, guys? Get a grip. It was a close election, but the nation is safe and all we really need is a little sleep.

Knoxville Found

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
Al, Al, Al—don't you miss the simpler days? Back when you were just a bestselling author, musing on the state of our fragile biosphere? Well, if the Florida vote doesn't turn out your way, you can always go back to your first love...whatever that may be. Anyway, as promised, we have two winners this week—one for creativity and one for accuracy. The first goes to Dave Hamrin of Knoxville, who wrote, "Diminutive author Erich Segal thanks recent Harvard grad Albert Gore, Jr., for inspiring his latest novel, Love Story. Segal was signing copies at Davis-Kidd, a local bookstore." Hee hee. Of course, the real explanation is more prosaic: "Mayor Victor Ashe shaking hands with then Senator Al Gore after he autographed a copy of his book, Earth in the Balance, at the former Davis-Kidd bookstore." That amazingly precise account comes from someone named Victor Ashe of Knoxville. Thanks for playing, Vic! For the winners, we have: 270 electoral votes! Oh, wait, we already gave those away. OK, they'll each get a special Metro Pulse party pack, including notepads, pens, wine glasses, stickers, balloons, after-dinner mints and snazzy MP T-shirts (which we fully expect to see you wearing at the next Council meeting, your honor). As for the 1992 snapshot, it was the work of the late, provocative Knoxville photographer Jan Lynch, who always managed to be in the right place at the right time.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
THURSDAY, NOV. 9
1:30 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN STREET
MPC's regular monthly meeting, the highlight of which could well be the proposed billboard ordinance that was postponed last month.

KNOXVILLE'S POLITICAL LEADERSHIP: WHAT LIES AHEAD
THURSDAY, NOV. 9
5:30 P.M.
THOMPSON-BOLING ARENA
1600 STADIUM DRIVE
Lots of changes are in store for Knoxville's political landscape—a new mayor and city council will be in place in 2003, and most county offices will be up for election in 2002. Before all that happens, UT Professor Bruce Wheeler will give a historical overview of Knoxville politics, and local public officials will present their views on what's to come.

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION INTERGOVERNMENTAL COMMITTEE
MONDAY, NOV. 13
2:30 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN STREET
Before it makes it to the commission's monthly meeting, it's got to get through these guys.

KNOXVILLE CITY COUNCIL
TUESDAY, NOV. 14
7 P.M.
MAYNARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
737 COLLEGE STREET
City Council is holding its regular meeting at Maynard Elementary in Mechanicsville at the request of council member Danny Mayfield.

Personal Loss

The Knoxville-based Amputee Coalition of America helps people cope

Standing just outside his office door, John Miller doesn't look much different from a lot of other middle-aged, middle-management executives in Knoxville. He's dressed conservatively in a dark gray business suit, and he wears glasses and a thick, full mustache. But when he walks away, toward the door, he limps noticeably, his left side thrown awry by the prosthetic leg he's worn since 1996.

Doctors amputated Miller's left leg as a result of vascular disease that blocked circulation in his limbs. It was a traumatic event—he describes it as "horrific," and says that his perception of himself was damaged for months afterward. But it also led him, if somewhat circuitously, to his current job as president of the Amputee Coalition of America, a Knoxville-based non-profit organization that provides education and support to the country's 1.5 million amputees and people born without limbs.

"I can only speak for myself—I don't know how it is to have congenital limb loss—but having experience with four limbs and losing that was as hard as any other separation or loss," Miller, 52, says. "It may be worse, because of the feelings of appearance and self-esteem, the impact [limb loss] has on a person's feeling of himself."

The ACA was established in Chicago in 1989 by Mary Novotny. In 1997, when Novotny moved to Knoxville, the organization's headquarters followed her. The coalition is now located in a small office in a business park on East Hill Avenue, just east of downtown.

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," Miller says, claiming that the ACA is the only national non-profit organization based in Tennessee.

Since the coalition moved here, the staff has grown from three to 21, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control has just announced its second three-year, $4.2 million grant for ACA to run its National Limb Loss Information Center through 2003.

Through the information center, coalition staff members operate a national hotline (1-800-AMP-KNOW) to answer questions about limb loss, refer callers to local support and advocacy groups, and publish a bimonthly magazine, inMotion. Callers to the hotline generally seek information about five topics: pain management; financial support for increasingly expensive prosthetic devices; emotional support for adjustment to life without an arm or leg; adaptive technology to make it possible for amputees to drive or use a computer; or legal referrals.

"It can be frustrating when we can't give them a straight answer," says Paula Marlow, a limb-loss information specialist. "It's usually a problem that they have to untangle over a long time. But the whole thing is about empowerment. We want them to go and do what they did before, or if they're congenital amputees, to help them live a healthy, productive life. Everyone has obstacles."

—Matthew T. Everett

Pedestrian Detour

One of the city's most walked streets closes for at least a year

The Clinch Avenue Viaduct cutting through the World's Fair Park is one of the few places in Knoxville where pedestrians rule. Closed to cars, you can find people walking over it at almost any hour of the day or night. For many University of Tennessee students and Fort Sanders residents, it's the main path to downtown.

Starting Nov. 27, the viaduct will be closed to pedestrians so that contractors can dismantle the top and rebuild it. When it reopens in a year or so, the viaduct will be a three lane bridge open to cars (two lanes going east, one west), with 7-foot sidewalks on both sides.

Rebuilding the viaduct is the next phase of the convention center project, and will cost about $3.5 million, says Public Building Authority project supervisor, Dick Bigler.

The bridge is being reopened to traffic to provide better access to the convention center, now under construction. "It's critical in regards to the convention center's success," says Ellen Adcock, the city's director of administration. "But one thing it will do is help relink the Fort Sanders neighborhood back into the downtown area. That's critical in terms of encouraging people to move into the area and utilize the downtown."

The viaduct was built in 1905 with a unique, since-abandoned construction style—its columns are hollow, steel-lined structures that were filled with dirt. After removing the tops, contractors will empty this fill out, Bigler says. The columns will be refilled with a modern fill (exactly what hasn't been determined), and a new top will be put on. A replica of the original railings will be built, Bigler says.

Original renovation plans called for a stairway and elevator near the Candy Factory, taking people from the bridge down to the park. That may or may not be built, and Bigler says the PBA's looking at a variety of options to move people down to the park.

Although Mayor Victor Ashe has asked the Public Building Authority—which is overseeing he project—to have the viaduct open by next year's UT football season, the road could be closed a year or longer. "We estimate about one year, but it's one of these things where you don't know what you're getting into until you tear into it," Bigler says. "It could be longer."

It will mean a much longer walk for anyone who uses the viaduct to get back and forth between downtown and Fort Sanders. The PBA will detour pedestrians around the park, using the little used west side of Henley Street, Western Avenue and 11th Street, Bigler says. The city will improve the landscaping and lighting along the route, and mark it with a red-dotted line, Bigler says.

The elevated walkway over Henley Street at Clinch will still be open for a while, although many pedestrians may opt to cross Henley Street at Western Avenue and Summit Hill, a long, treacherous crossing.

The elevated walkway will eventually be refurbished and shortened (to allow for a new set of stairs and elevator on the World's Fair Park side), Bigler says. But that won't happen until later in the project.

Starting early next year (once construction on the Locust Street garage is complete), the PBA will begin rebuilding an area of the World's Fair Park that has been a temporary parking lot since last year. During the rebuilding, any shortcuts through the park will be discouraged.

"We have to take the whole park, because insurance-wise and construction-wise, we're going to be all over it," Bigler says.

—Joe Tarr

Burning Bridges

Did opposition to the UT bridge cost a student group its funding?

Six years ago, Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville (SPEAK) was formed at the University of Tennessee to draw attention to environmental issues.

With 50 members, the group brings in guest speakers and organizes an Earth Day event. It also happens to be one of the most outspoken critics of the proposed four-lane bridge linking the main and agriculture campuses. SPEAK members argued that the bridge would encourage more cars on campus, create more pollution, endanger pedestrians and make the campus uglier.

Although SPEAK lost its fight over the bridge, members became suspicious when they mysteriously lost their funding this school year. "SPEAK had the strongest year in its history last year. We all thought it would warrant more funding, so it was kind of a shock," says Chuck Price, a graduate student in ecology and last year's SPEAK president.

Last year, SPEAK was awarded $2,200 from UT's Recreation, Entertainment and Social Board. It was the second year the group had received a campus grant. The money was used to bring in speakers (including representatives from the Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club and TVA), promote events and organize Earth Day activities, Price says.

The Recreation, Entertainment and Social Board is made up of faculty, administrators and student government leaders, says Timothy Rogers, UT's dean of students. Funding is not guaranteed from year to year, and the committee bases its decisions on the popularity of the group and the money available, Rogers says. He didn't have the precise figures at his fingertips, but Rogers says student groups and activities receive a total of around $750,000 each year.

Suspicions were raised last spring when SPEAK was never notified that funding proposals were due. Price found out the day it was due, and rushed to get a proposal in.

"I think we all have a healthy respect for SPEAK. But you're looking for broad campus appeal, and you're dealing with limited resources," Rogers says. "I would hope they would resubmit [for funds] this year," he adds.

Rogers wasn't there when the vote on SPEAK was taken, but says, "I can tell you unequivocally the bridge played no part in that [decision]."

Others aren't convinced.

"The bottom line is the way that's decided is kind of mysterious," says SPEAK advisor Mike McKinney, a geology and ecology professor. "They say [the funding was cut] for other reasons, but I don't believe it."

At any rate, SPEAK plans to continue. "The loss of funds has certainly hindered our ability to reach the larger community. We don't have a budget for fliers for events or bringing in speakers," Price says.

"I just think it's a sad commentary on the university's priorities," he adds. "The university seems to not want to address the real salient, pertinent environmental issues of our day. As a state school, it's kind of disturbing. Their priorities don't seem straight."

—Joe Tarr