Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Appearance of Conflict

The room was packed out at the West Knoxville Library this Tuesday, with residents and supporters crowding to hear what the 2nd District candidates for City Council had to say—and not say. Notable in both categories were contender Archie Ellis' answers to questions about downtown development in general and the proposed Universe Knoxville project in particular. Ellis was strident about saying the time has come to move forward, even warning that Universe Knoxville could move to another city or state if we don't act on it soon (presumably they'd have to change the name—Universe Toledo, maybe?). What Ellis didn't mention is that the development firm where he works, Partners & Associates, is headed by Ron Watkins, also known as half of the Worsham Watkins International team that is behind Universe Knoxville and that served as both consultant and proposed developer on the city's ever-changing downtown plan. (For the record, WWI was paid some $422,000 in city money.) Asked about the omission, Ellis sounded irritated. "I don't work for Worsham Watkins," he said. "How many times do I have to say it?...I work for Partners and Associates. I don't see a conflict at all." To the observation that other people, including his opponents, might raise such concerns, he responded, "That's their problem. Not mine." He also noted that former Councilman Ed Bailey worked for BFI at the same time Council voted to approve BFI's garbage collection contracts—"That, to me, is a conflict," Ellis said. Ed Bailey, of course, is the father of Joe Bailey, who just happens to be running against Ellis.

Block Blackout

Except for the flashing amber lights marking the lane that's closed due to KUB's utility construction, the 100 block of Gay Street is dark as a dungeon and likely to stay that way at least until the end of September. Hundred block residents noticed that they were plunged into darkness last week, and when they inquired as to why their light poles had been yanked, construction workers said they were "unsafe." Funny, since the residents have long been complaining about safety issues involving late-night vandalism on the block that occurs when late-night club crowds walk up Gay, sometimes keying cars, breaking windows and urinating in doorsteps. Taking all the streetlights out isn't going to improve the situation, they say.

KUB's Bill Elmore says it will be 30 days (from now) before new lights are up. The plan, he says, was to "retro-fit" the light poles, but when the crew started to work, they discovered that "those poles are so old and don't lend themselves to being retrofitted...We had not anticipated replacing the lights and fixtures."

He did not explain why it was necessary to take down all the light poles at once to make that determination.

What's the construction work about? That's the good news. KUB is upgrading the electrical utilities and water lines to accommodate development in that block, which includes works in progress like the Sterchi Building and Emporium, downtown fixtures like Harold's Deli, The Volunteer Ministry and homeless shelter mission and assorted pawn shops and residential buildings.

News Blackout

It's a fast track timetable from here on out, now that KCDC has unveiled its plan for Market Square redevelopment. Market Square property owners will plead their own development case at the next City Council meeting Sept. 4. But don't plan to watch the action on community-access CTV. That's because this is another of Council's regularly-scheduled road shows—this one at Northwest Middle School at the behest of Councilman Ivan Harmon. These traveling Council meetings usually feature PTA-provided punch and cookies, poor acoustics and seating arrangements and no live TV. Channel 12 videotapes the meetings and shows them the following week.

Party 'Til You Black Out

Generally, coming in first is a good thing, but local listeners had to cringe when the University of Tennessee made a "headline" on National Public Radio's All Things Considered Monday night. It was a story about the "Best Party School" award bestowed by the Princeton Review, and the announcer led into the story by speculating that "Students at the University of Tennessee may be buying their books at the liquor store" this semester.

Sanitized To Protect Young Minds

The front-page headline looked like a News-Sentinel headline from last spring: Health issues force Gilley to leave UT. That was, after all, the story we heard before the embarrassing revelations about e-mails, resumes, and one underqualified, however fetching, subordinate. But this wasn't an old headline; it's the one that greeted returning students in this past Saturday's Daily Beacon—a few inches below the line that declares it the "editorially independent student newspaper." The short article, which includes a becoming color portrait of Gilley, mentions nothing about one Pamela Reed or any scandal connected to Gilley's departure, a factor that's been publicly acknowledged even by members of UT's Board of Trustees.

The issue does offer separate page-12 story about Reed's own resignation (which doesn't mention the Gilley scandal), plus an editorial-page hint that "Gilley's resignation came on the heels of an investigation" into Reed's embellished resume.

Granted, that other daily's splashy front-page coverage this summer let us in on more about the Gilley-Reed relationship than we really cared to know, but the Daily Beacon's bowdlerized coverage of the issue makes us wonder who's the new commissar of the once less-inhibited Daily Beacon.