Metro Pulse/Citybeat

Comment
on this story

Seven Days

Wednesday, April 4
Developer Earl Worsham and assorted county officials announce plans for "Universe Knoxville," their proposed planetarium project. Worsham touts it as "Knoxville's answer to Chattanooga's aquarium and Gatlinburg's aquarium." Because, well, you know, they all end with "-arium." (Other possibilities Worsham might have missed: a solarium, a terrarium, a sanitarium...)

Thursday, April 5
An internal report shows the Tennessee Valley Authority has spent $5 million since 1996 transferring a small number of workers from Knoxville and Chattanooga to Nashville. Jeez. They should've used Victor Ashe's travel agent.

Friday, April 6
Speaking of Ashe, today he files court papers disputing a firefighter's claim that he's still meddling in Fire Department personnel issues. (The mayor is under a federal court order to leave the department alone, after being found guilty of violating firefighters' civil rights.) He says he's never even heard of the employee in question. Besides, he was probably out of the country at the time...
The 41st Dogwood Arts Festival opens on Market Square. Artistic highlights: funnel cakes, roasted corn on the cob, "apple dumplins" and lemonade. Sadly, the airbrushed T-shirt stand—a favorite from last year—is nowhere in sight.

Sunday, April 8
Councilwoman Carlene Malone is quoted in the News-Sentinel saying Victor Ashe was behind the appointment of Raleigh Wynn to the late Danny Mayfield's City Council seat. Ashe responds, "What happens is history, and we need to move forward." Yep, he did it.

Monday, April 9
UT announces hikes in ticket prices to football and basketball games. Scalpers everywhere rejoice.

Tuesday, April 10
Knox County's Government Efficiency Panel rips the county school system for continued problems in its finance and human resources departments. Maybe they could get an AP calculus class in there to help out.

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:
This cartoonish canine is part of a mural on the wall of a building in an alleyway off Cumberland Avenue. It was reportedly painted as a project of a nearby daycare center. First right answer came from Anne Galloway of Knoxville, who wins a copy of the acclaimed novel Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund.

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

CITY OF KNOXVILLE BUDGET LUNCHEON
THURSDAY, APRIL 12
NOON
NORTHWEST PARK
Mayor Victor Ashe will announce his proposed budget for 2001-2 at a lunch meeting in the city park at the corner of Pleasant Ridge Road and Bradshaw Garden Drive. Park at nearby Badgett Field on Ball Camp Pike.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION

THURSDAY, APRIL 12
1:30 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN ST.

City Council rejected a proposed outright ban on new billboards inside the city limits last month, and instead offered a compromise measure that would allow new billboards only along interstates. MPC will consider the new proposal at its next meeting.

KNOX COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

MONDAY, APRIL 17
5 P.M.
ANDREW JOHNSON BUILDING
912 S. GAY ST.

Work session.

KNOXVILLE CITY COUNCIL

TUESDAY, APRIL 17
7 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN ST.

Council traditionally takes its first look at the mayor's budget proposal at the meeting following its announcement. That would be this one.

The Mayfield Chronicles

Following the tracks of City Council's controversial decision

March 20, 2001: City Council convened, as it always does, with an Ivan Harmon prayer. He prayed for the family of Danny Mayfield.

April 3: Vice Mayor Jack Sharp pulled out Mayfield's chair for its new occupant.

"Here ya go, buddy," he said, grinning broadly and slapping the back of newly-appointed 6th District City Council member Raleigh Wynn as Wynn took his seat and got to work. One of the first items of business was a motion to name a park after Danny Mayfield, who died of bone cancer March 21. Wynn moved to approve.

"This will be one of several ways Councilman Mayfield's memory will be continued," announced Mayor Victor Ashe.

Unfortunately, Danny's wife Melissa wasn't there to enjoy the honor, since City Council had just rejected her request to serve out the remaining eight months of her husband's term, and she went home immediately after the vote to explain the situation to her two small children. The evening capped off a devastating two weeks, and because Melissa resigned from her job at Knoxville College last year to care for Danny when he became ill—and served as her husband's eyes, ears and legs—the Council decision left her with an additional problem: she is suddenly without income.

By the next morning, she had made the decision to move to Nashville, where she has a strong support network and good career opportunities. Here is some of what happened since March 21 to bring her to that point:

Thursday March 22— It was the day after Danny Mayfield died, and rumors were already flying. Council had 30 days to name a successor, but the buzz was that there'd already been a deal cut to fill his vacant seat, and according to scuttlebutt, it would be someone friendly to the Ashe administration, someone safe. Someone old. The first name to surface was that of former Councilman Bill Powell, whom Mayfield had defeated in 1997. The name would turn out to be wrong.

Friday March 23— Jack Sharp was telling people he wouldn't be attending the Mayfield visitation at Unity Mortuary that night. He grumbled about Councilwoman Carlene Malone being asked to speak at the Mayfield memorial service. Ashe used the k2k email forum to denounce rumors that discussions were taking place about filling the 6th District seat and to admonish those who wanted to discuss the appointment.

Saturday March 24— Mayfield's City Council colleagues were among several hundred mourners who attended a memorial service at Greater Warner Tabernacle AME Zion Church, where the Mayfields were active members of the congregation. Among the speakers were Malone, the colleague to whom he was closest, and Ashe, who said he had developed a warm personal relationship with Knoxville's youngest Council member, despite the fact that Mayfield ran against him two years ago. He praised Mayfield for his Christian convictions and courage in the face of death. Greater Warner minister Eric Leake warned of "a cancer on this city" and denounced those who had been watching for Mayfield to die because they wanted his Council seat.

When Ashe and Sharp went through the receiving line, Melissa asked them both not to move to fill the seat until she had a chance to speak to them upon her return from her husband's burial. She, too, had heard rumors that a deal was being cooked up.

Other things happened at the memorial service, too. As is customary upon the deaths of city officials, police officers stood watch at the church door and at either end of the casket. But the usual Knoxville Police Department honor guard unit was not present. Sources call the honor guard at the Mayfield funeral "a make-shift deal," and say that members of the SWAT team who customarily serve funeral duty were not present.

"They went through the motions," a knowledgeable source says. "And they did it with reluctance." (The following week, honor guard members were present at the funeral of a retired police officer.) KPD Chief Phil Keith did not attend the Mayfield funeral. It is fair to say that Danny Mayfield, whose first order of business as a new Council member in 1997 was to push for a police review board in the wake of the deaths of several African Americans, was unpopular with the KPD administration and with some officers. Tribe One, a street ministry Mayfield founded along with his partner Chris Woodhull, is viewed with skepticism by some KPD brass, who refer to the organization by the derisive nickname "Hug-A-Thug."

Sunday March 25 — The issue of filling the 6th District seat was discussed on the Sunday talk shows. Channel 10 commentators Don Bosch, Bud Gilbert and Bill Lyons supported Melissa Mayfield. But a Channel 6 reporter debunked the notion that there is a local tradition of widows being appointed to fill their deceased husbands' seats, saying "At least that's what Craig Griffith (Ashe's spokesperson) told me." (Ashe was continuing to claim to be neutral as Switzerland on the issue.)

Monday March 26— Former Ashe mouthpiece George Korda appeared on Hallerin Hill's morning talk show and argued vociferously with callers who said Ashe was orchestrating an attempt to deny Melissa Mayfield the opportunity to serve out her husband's term. Korda: "The bottom line is the mayor doesn't have a vote!" A special meeting of City Council scheduled for that day was postponed until Wednesday. Noon Monday was the deadline to add a resolution to the April 3 agenda to appoint a new 6th District Council member, and the resolution entered was co-sponsored by every member of Council except Nick Pavlis and Malone, both Mayfield supporters.

Tuesday March 27—Danny Mayfield was buried in Freehold, New Jersey. Ashe sent the following email to the k2k list:

"Obviously anyone is free to discuss who and how council picks a successor to Danny Mayfield and when...but I still think it is inappropriate until the actual burial takes place which is right now in New Jersey....Tank Strickland is representing the city of Knoxville there.... I have refrained from commenting on it "

Wednesday March 28 —At the end of a special Council meeting at the Coster Shop property, Sharp announced that Mayfield's successor would be chosen Tuesday April 3, thereby ignoring Melissa Mayfield's plea that he wait until after she returned from her husband's funeral before making a move to fill the seat. Melissa and her children returned from New Jersey late that afternoon and noticed that Danny's name had been removed from the list of City Council members on the "Welcome to Knoxville" sign at the airport. (Frank Cagle, deputy to the mayor, says Ashe had nothing to do with the removal. "As soon as he heard about that, he called out there and told them to put it back," he says.)

When contacted by the media, Melissa Mayfield publicly asked Sharp to postpone the vote. Sharp told TV reporters the decision could not wait due to urgent matters like budget meetings and redistricting decisions.

Over the next few days Melissa, who needed six votes to be appointed, picked up strong support from the public, but made no headway with the majority of her husband's City Council colleagues, some of whom said they feared she would become an ally of Malone. Three of them—Sharp, Jean Teague and Gary Underwood—did not even return her calls. Sharp told Mayfield supporters he was "doing her a favor" by preventing her from being appointed and suggested she should stay home and take care of her children. Ashe continued to distance himself from the decision as the name of retired educator Raleigh Wynn, 77, holder of several Ashe appointments, emerged as the apparent front-runner.

Monday April 2— A crowd of well-wishers showed up for a press conference on Melissa Mayfield's front porch at 10 a.m. Flanked by Democratic lawyer Greg Isaacs, Republican state Sen. Tim Burchett and longtime civil rights activist Sarah Moore Green, she made a public appeal for the appointment. Former Councilman Casey Jones, whom Ashe had been mentioning over the weekend as a possible contender for the appointment, showed up to endorse Missy. A press release allegedly from Sharp that denounced Burchett and Isaacs was faxed to local media outlets shortly after 10:30. Sharp touted Wynn as a "Knoxville native" (an apparent allusion to the fact that Melissa Mayfield, 31, has only been a Knoxville resident since she was 18) and claimed strong 6th District support for a Wynn appointment. Later that day, Sharp would fail to show up for a Channel 10 interview, and Ashe would refuse to speak to the same Channel 10 news crew at Mayor's Night In.

Tuesday April 3— As 7 p.m. approached, it was evident that City Council was going to draw a big crowd. Among them was an unusually strong police presence in the Large Assembly Room that night. In addition to a contingent of uniformed officers, the room was sprinkled with police detectives such as J.J. Jones, Edd Stair, Charlie Bundren and others. There was even one officer with a camera, and Deputy Chief Jerry Day periodically came down from the dais to order them to fan out among the crowd.

"You would have thought we had the softball team from Brushy Mountain State Prison among us," one Mayfield supporter said. "There were all these plain clothes people mixing with the crowd, and the only reason they were ordered to do that was somebody thought Missy's crowd would be disorderly. You could have robbed any store you wanted that night, there were so many officers at City Council. There wasn't anything to be afraid of, just because people disagree with you. People disagree with me every day and I don't put out a goon squad on them. If Jack Sharp died and people came up there to support his wife Doris, would there have been a high number of officers assigned to the meeting?

"The whole thing smacks of racial profiling. How can they now tell a beat officer he can't go out here and pull somebody on the street because they're black, but they can send a contingent of undercover policemen to mix with a crowd because a candidate for a political office is a black woman?"

Cagle says KPD provided its normal retinue of two uniformed officers, plus two in plain clothes, which he calls "a sensible precaution, given the emotion of the situation."

In the days since the City Council vote, the discussion has shifted. A group advocating the recall of sitting Council members and/or the mayor has formed. Korda has publicly predicted that the movement will "fizzle." Others say the Mayfield decision has tapped a wellspring of anger that won't go away, and predict that "Recall" bumper stickers will soon be appearing. Melissa Mayfield plans to be out of Knoxville by the end of June.

—Betty Bean