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Seven Days

Wednesday, Jan. 17
Captain's Log, Stardate 170101: Dr. David Moncton announces he'll leave the Spallation Neutron Source project in Oak Ridge to run the Advanced Photon Source project in Chicago. Starfleet Command sends its congratulations.

Thursday, Jan. 18
Here's the story of a scab named Brady: Former Brady Bunch hunk Barry Williams brings his touring production of The Sound of Music to Knoxville, despite a fine and reprimand from Actors Equity for starring in a non-Equity production.

Friday, Jan. 19
A study shows Tennessee leads the nation in boosting its high school graduation rate. Of course, another study recently gave the state an F for its low standards and accountability. Could there be a connection?
The global economy is good for you, part 27: Universal Furniture Ltd. announces it's closing its Morristown plant and laying off 546 employees (although 300 of them may be hired back into a converted distribution center). The furniture work is shifting to Asia.

Saturday, Jan. 20
The Clinton Era ends. The Bush Error begins.

Monday, Jan. 22
Knox County Commission is confronted once again with a.) a proposal to buy out the contract of the Farmer's Market operator b.) a proposal to consider acquisition of the federal Post Office on Main Street for jail space and c.) continuing exhortations from Superintendent Charles Lindsey to give more support to the school system. Commissioners opt to, respectively, a.) do nothing, b.) do nothing, and c.) do nothing. Um, did anyone notice if they were still breathing?

Tuesday, Jan. 23
The big Nine Counties One Vision PR event at the Tennessee Theatre is broadcast live on all local TV stations. So that's what "one vision" means. (Reports of co-hosts Edye Ellis and Fred Forster being mistaken for Monica and Chandler by confused WB 20 viewers appear to be false.)

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

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:
One for the West Knox crowd: the waterwheel in question is located at the corner of Westland Drive and Sherwood Drive. The first right answer came from Scott Williams of Seymour, so he's the winner. But the most complete answer was courtesy of Jean Webb Bonnyman, who tells us, "It was designed by Barber & McMurry architects and was built for my grandparents, Julia and Daniel Clary Webb, who were among the first families to develop Westmoreland Heights. It originally worked as a pump for well water, but now is only decorative." And now we know. For his alertness, Scott wins a copy of Tong Sing: The Know Everything Book Based on the Ancient Chinese Almanac. Use it carefully.

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

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY PUBLIC HEARINGS
THURSDAY, JAN. 25
1-4 P.M., 6-9 P.M.
OAK RIDGE CONFERENCE CENTER
OAK RIDGE MALL
The DOE will hold two public hearings on the upcoming Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Critics complain that DOE plans to build a new arms-manufacturing plant at the Y-12 facility.

NORTH KNOXVILLE EMPOWERMENT ZONE ADVISORY COUNCIL
THURSDAY, JAN. 25
6:30 P.M.
JOHN T. O'CONNER CENTER
611 WINONA STREET
This is the first in a series of public meetings held by the Center for Neighborhood Development for input on neighborhood development related to Knoxville's federal empowerment zone funding. The North Knoxville council area includes Old North Knoxville, Fourth and Gill, Love Towers, and Parkridge. For more information call Bob Booker at 522-5935.

NORTHWEST KNOXVILLE EMPOWERMENT ZONE ADVISORY COUNCIL
THURSDAY, FEB. 1
6:30 P.M.
CHRISTENBERRY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
925 OGLEWOOD AVENUE
The second in the Center for Neighborhood Development's public meetings on Knoxville's federal empowerment zone funding. The northwest zone includes the Lonsdale, Lonsdale Homes, Lincoln Park, Oakwood, and Christenberry Heights neighborhoods. For more information call Bob Booker at 522-5935.

Nine Counties...

..OK, we've got that part down...

Unless you live in Sevier County, you may not have noticed it last week when the Sevier County Commission voted down a proposal for zoning—despite a referendum in favor of it approved by county voters.

County commissioners there said most of the people who supported the referendum lived in the municipal areas (Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg), which already have zoning. Therefore, the legislators didn't feel bad about contravening the apparent will of the people.

Sevier County, by virtue of its proximity to Knoxville and alleged shared interests in the future of the broader region, is one of the nominal Nine Counties in the grand Nine Counties One Vision project. And the clear divisions within its own borders—between urban and rural dwellers, natives and newcomers, city and county political bodies—are a timely reminder of what the 9C1V organizers face.

At the big Tennessee Theatre 9C1V shebang Tuesday night, co-host Edye Ellis proclaimed, "Regions are the new cities of our times." That may be so in some theoretical sense. But the old cities (and counties, and school boards, and planning bodies) are still with us.

9C1V executive director Lynn Fugate acknowledged as much with her repeated exhortations-cum-cautions that "The biggest challenge for the vision right now is the implementation phase."

To recap: Nine Counties started a year ago with funding from Knoxville's Cornerstone Foundation and other sources. A series of public meetings in the identified counties (Anderson, Blount, Grainger, Jefferson, Knox, Loudon, Roane, Sevier, and Union) drew more than 3,600 participants who generated nearly 9,000 ideas for bettering the region's future. Those were boiled down at further meetings to 29 specific priorities and strategies.

So what is the "vision"? The closest to a unifying definition comes in the 9C1V brochure distributed Tuesday night (available online at www.ninecountiesonevision.org): "To recognize and protect the values and assets of the region." That plays itself out in various guises through areas such as the environment, growth management, education, downtown Knoxville, and transportation.

The warm fuzziness surrounding the process was typified by Tuesday's awkwardly earnest stage production, featuring the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra, cued applause and haphazard film clips produced by all of Knoxville's TV news operations (as if we needed further blurring of our local journalistic lines). But it masks some less-than-fuzzy facts about what 9C1V has produced.

First, some of the ideas embedded in the various strategies are downright radical by East Tennessee standards. Under "Growth Management and Rural Preservation," for example, it suggests "a citizens' network of Growth Management councils, to require region-wide 'environmentally responsible and well-planned development.'" That word "require" is more loaded than it looks, implying as it does authority of some sort—authority that would have to be ceded by other local governments.

Also, "environmentally responsible and well planned development" sounds good until someone tries to clarify it. Then, the 9C1V task forces might discover that participants like environmental advocate Stephen Smith have a different definition than the assorted architects, general contractors, and developers who underwrote Tuesday's event.

Even the more focused goals come with major complications. The vision, for example, calls for a "master plan" for developing downtown Knoxville—a call that has been circulating downtown for years, and which Mayor Victor Ashe has repeatedly expressed little enthusiasm for. All of Ashe's major proposals for reconfiguring downtown have proceeded without such a plan. (Ashe was out of the country Tuesday night, and City Council was at a regularly scheduled Council meeting.) And calls for better mass transit, particularly rail, got the biggest applause on Tuesday, with surprisingly concrete proposals concerning costs and use of existing freight lines. But they're starkly at odds with prevailing notions of transportation planning and funding in Tennessee.

On the other hand, 9C1V organizers can argue that their efforts have put some degree of public weight and credibility behind ideas that might otherwise be dismissed outright. It's possible that as they move forward, they will find local governments reluctant to simply ignore the expressed wishes of thousands of their constituents.

Or they may find the Sevier County Commission.

—Jesse Fox Mayshark

The Heat's On

Low-income assistance programs stretched thin by winter's wrath

With heating bills soaring through just about everyone's roof this winter, more people are looking for help paying their bills.

A hike in gas rates combined with a colder than average winter has pushed many bills up almost double from last year. Knoxville Utility Board spokesman Jerry Dean says last month's gas bills were 76 percent higher than those of December 1999.

About 30 percent of the hike could be blamed on higher rates (which were pushed up because of low supply), he says. The rest was due to higher demand in the extreme cold.

Electric rates have stayed the same for about four years, but bills have also jumped over last year because of high usage, Dean says. Other heating fuels have also climbed. Kerosene rose from $1.18 a gallon last January to $1.84 last week because of high demand, says Cecelia Waters, who coordinates heating assistance programs for Community Action Committee, or CAC.

Lynnda Tenpenny, director of KUB's customer service, says the utility doesn't track how many people are having difficulty paying their bills. She says the company tries to work out payment plans for those having trouble, or to hook them up to programs that can help them.

CAC reports that it's had a significant jump in applications to its two utility-assistance programs.

In the first three weeks of January, 144 people made use of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), as opposed to 87 families in the first three weeks of 2000, says Waters. Those with limited income can utilize the emergency fund to pay for one heating or fuel bill—whether it be gas, electric, oil, coal or wood. The federal funds for the program could run out this week, something that doesn't usually happen until the end of February or early March. Congress last year approved extra money for the program, but it's not yet available.

CAC also coordinates Project Help, a program run jointly with KUB for residents who don't qualify for LIHEAP money. This program is funded entirely through donations, and all of it goes directly toward needy families' heating bills, Waters says. People can donate by adding money to their utility bills, or at the cash registers of any Food City grocery store, Waters says.

And the money is needed. Project Help funds are lower than normal this winter, because its fund was depleted last year. Last year, the program helped 700 families with $118,000. This year, there is only about $97,000—enough to help 570 families.

"This year, of all years, the cold weather and the rise in home energy costs have impacted a lot of our families," Waters says. "We were lulled [by] three nice, warm winters, and we forgot."

For information on getting help paying for your bill or donating, call CAC at 637-6700.

—Joe Tarr

Take One

Film commissioner Mona May expects local film industry to heat up this summer

The East Tennessee Film Commission has yet to land a big feature film production for the area, but that doesn't mean that commission director Mona May and her small staff haven't been working hard.

"We're getting our ducks in a row, what we need to sell the area," says May, who previously served as director of the Florida state film commission.

The biggest project under way these days for the fledgling commission is completion of the commission's regional production guide for film producers and directors. May says she hopes to have the guide printed by the end of this month so she can take copies to the International Locations Expo in Los Angeles in February.

May and her staff of three are also creating a website (www.etnfilm.com) that should be online by mid-February.

One feature project lined up for production this summer is Elvis is Alive, a comedy about Elvis, alive and well, working in Paris as an Elvis impersonator. Actor Don Murray, who had small roles in Baby the Rain Must Fall and Peggy Sue Got Married, as well as TV movies like Quarterback Princess and The Boy Who Drank Too Much, will direct and star in Elvis is Alive. May says she expects parts of the film to be shot here, as well as in Chattanooga and Nashville.

There have also been small music video and commercial shoots in town in recent months. "We've had a lot of people coming in and doing one- and two-day shoots," May says. "But summertime is when we'll start getting active, when we start having some lushness and green around here. That's when we'll get busy...There's some activity, but this is really a down time for everybody [in the film industry]."

—Matthew T. Everett