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Introduction

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  The Year in Review 2001
Government and Politics

Remember the Renaissance?

At the beginning of the year, the town was abuzz about "Renaissance Knoxville," the mega-development that promised to support the new convention center, reinvigorate downtown—and maybe make Knoxville more noticeable from jetliner windows. Mayor Ashe had declared it was the biggest thing to happen to Knoxville since TVA. As proposed by Worsham Watkins International and refined by the Public Building Authority's Dale Smith, the sweeping redesign of a half-mile swath of downtown from Gay Street to World's Fair Park promised to add a new Marriott Hotel, an urban cineplex, hundreds of residences, a 34-story office tower, and a "shoppertainment" district, all to mostly blighted and underused parts of the city—and redevelop Market Square in the bargain. Supporters hinted it might draw major corporate headquarters to downtown.

There was some urgency about the plan, because it was seen as vital to promoting the city's expensive Convention Center, due to open in 2002. City fathers agreed RK was so great we didn't even need to think about any other ideas; from the beginning, it was the only major plan the city considered. Though many others had objections to various parts of RK—urban-design types hated the tubing in the original plans that seemed designed to keep people off the sidewalks, and some Market Square advocates hated the idea of a private company controlling this 150-year-old public space, but ultimately WW seemed willing to negotiate—it seemed likely that something good, or at least lively, was going to come of Renaissance Knoxville.

However, jinxed by the Holiday Inn dilemma (RK presumed that the World's Fair-vintage motel would somehow be forced out of the picture), the downturn of the cinema industry (in particular, the bankruptcy of Regal), the unexpected slide of the '90s economy in general—and the slow disclosure that RK wouldn't necessarily be a great deal for the city—Renaissance Knoxville atrophied piece by piece. In October, WW announced it would not submit a proposal for the city's revised, smaller-scale approach to Market Square and adjacent properties. We hear that at least one national urban development consultant is using the WW drawings in his presentations as an example of things-that-don't-work. Worsham Watkins at one point was anticipating developer fees in the range of $10 million-plus if the project came together. In they end, they got paid in the area of $450,000 for their consulting services, which seems to have left everyone—including them—feeling gypped.

State Government's Dead End Game

Not even the labors of Sisyphus were as futile as the state of Tennessee's attempts to get out of a financial hole these past two years.

At least in Greek mythology, when Sisyphus kept trying to roll a stone up a hill only to have it fall back down again, the hill didn't get any higher. In the case of Tennessee, however, the hole keeps getting deeper and deeper as the state Legislature temporizes in ways that only compound the longer-term erosion. Most legislators know that only revenue-raising measures will reverse it, but a majority has never been able to agree on any of the multitude of tax increase and reform plans that have been proposed.

In the absence of any new source of revenue, the Legislature managed to balance the budget in 2000-01 with hot air in the form of inflated estimates of how much more money existing taxes would generate. When the additional money didn't materialize, the state was left $250 million in the hole. Fortuitously, close to $500 million in non-recurring tobacco settlement payments had been accumulating, which the Legislature was able to latch onto to cover not only that deficit but also $233 million in outlays for the current fiscal year.

After this year's legislative session ended in even more abject futility, the $233 million tobacco patch represented the sole source of new funding—a sum that was insufficient to fund any of the additional $100 million that Gov. Don Sundquist had recommended as a step toward reviving higher education from its debilitated state.

Then, as the economic downtown worsened—both pre- and post-September 11—a $300 million shortfall in budgeted tax receipts began accumulating. Legislative leaders huddled through much of October with a view toward convening a special session to stop the hemorrhaging in the short run and to make a start toward covering a projected $800 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that lies ahead. But their huddle ended in another muddle of inability to agree on any course of action.

By January, the state will have run through its entire $178 million rainy day fund, and how it will pay its bill from that point forward is anybody's guess. (Mustering legislative majorities for spending cuts is just about as Sisyphean a task as getting the votes for a tax increase.)

A last-ditch (at least for this year) gathering of legislative leaders on Dec. 5 ended with House Majority Caucus Chairman Randy Rinks concluding that, "There's no other options any more. We're looking at a brick wall."

Cagle in, Cagle out

In Mayor Victor Ashe's office, the year ended pretty much the way it began: with the departure of a deputy mayor. Gene Patterson left Ashe's administration at the end of 2000 to return to the world of broadcast television (see Media). In his place, Ashe dipped again into the local media pool and came up with a surprising selection—News-Sentinel associate editor and political columnist Frank Cagle. Known for his caustic jabs at Nashville tomfoolery and a general recalcitrant grumpiness, Cagle nonetheless spent most of 2001 playing harmonious second fiddle in the City County Building. He maintained an outlet for his political analysis on his own website, www.frankcagle.com. In December, he surprised not much of anyone by leaving Ashe to become communications director for Congressman Van Hilleary's 2002 gubernatorial campaign. Ashe named long-time city flack Craig Griffith as his replacement deppity (crushing the hopes of many Metro Pulse staffers, who had been dusting off their resumes).

One casualty in Cagle's tenure was Department of Development director Doug Berry, who either quit or was forced out (depending on whom you believe) within weeks of Cagle coming aboard. Berry, an energetic thinker with an independent streak, apparently got crossways with Ashe and his pitbullish law director Michael Kelly over the city's complicated land swap deal for the new News-Sentinel property. He was promptly replaced by his former assistant (and wife of the Metro Pulse managing editor), Leslie Henderson.

An Expanding Universe

Nature abhors a vacuum. Thus, when County Commission scrapped plans for building a new jail and sheriff's headquarters on a State Street site acquired for that purpose, it was only natural that others would cast covetous eyes on it.

Foremost among them were developers Worsham Watkins International in tandem with the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership. After watching a TV show extolling a new virtual reality theater at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City, Earl Worsham hatched the idea for bringing simulated space visitation to Knoxville as the sort of destination attraction that had been eluding WW's downtown redevelopment efforts up to then. Plans for a new children's museum and exhibitry from the Smithsonian Institution and TVA were folded into a monumental $140 million complex dubbed Universe Knoxville that would rise 23 stories above the bulldozed State Street site.

When the chamber's president, Tom Ingram, initially approached Knox County with the proposal last spring, his chances of getting County Commission backing seemed minimal at best. A majority of that 19-member body hails from districts predominantly outside Knoxville's city limits, and they had previously shown little ken for downtown redevelopment efforts. Granted, the county had grudgingly made a modest contribution toward financing the city's $162 million new convention center. But it wanted no part of the aforementioned Renaissance Knoxville. Moreover, most commissioners were skeptical of projections that Universe Knoxville would attract a million visitors a year and thereby generate enough revenue to pay for itself.

But Ingram managed to marshal the forces of Knoxville's business establishment on behalf of the undertaking with considerable effect. A lobbying and promotional campaign included pep rallies hosted by James Haslam II at his Pilot Corp. headquarters, who's who assemblages of supporters at County Commission meetings and outreach by a speaker's bureau that made the rounds of civic club meetings.

The News-Sentinel, whose initial coverage had played up Universe Knoxville's potential risk to taxpayers, began tooting the horn for its potential benefits both in editorials and a puffy advertising supplement. And it didn't hurt to have the heir apparent to the county executive's post, Mike Ragsdale, working behind the scenes in his present capacity as administrator of Barber and McMurry, the project's architects.

By December, it became apparent that Ingram's forces were prevailing. At a Dec. 5 County Commission workshop, County Executive Tommy Schumpert announced his support for a $36.5 county bond issue to help fund a somewhat scaled-down, $106.5 million version of the project. Schumpert's recommendation was contingent upon backers securing $65 million in private bond financing, plus $5 million from the city, among a number of other conditions.

Despite the ongoing opposition of Commission Chairman Leo Cooper and Commission Finance Committee Chairman Frank Leuthold, a Commission majority rallied to Schumpert's endorsement and approved the proposal on Dec. 17 by a 12-7 vote. However, the project's financial advisors have warned it may be a tough sell on the bond market.

Farewell, Danny

Like many of the visionary leaders whom he admired, Knoxville City Council member Danny Mayfield's legacy of political moxie has survived and thrived since his untimely death from cancer in March of 2001. Mayfield, a native of a rough area of Camden, New Jersey, came to Knoxville to attend Knoxville College. On the bus to Tennessee, he met the woman who would become his wife, Melissa Chisholm. Together, Danny and Missy Mayfield sunk deep roots in Knoxville, becoming the parents of two children, as well as active church and community leaders.

In 1997, Danny Mayfield entered elected office for the first time by winning an upset victory in the City Council race for the 6th District.

In 1999, he took on Knoxville's establishment with a bold if overly ambitious campaign for mayor. Although Mayfield lost this race and returned to his work on Council, his confidence and shrewd political skills clearly marked him as a young man to watch. Sadly, Mayfield's political potential never had a chance to mature. At age 32, he lost his life to cancer. The Knoxville community—white, African-American, liberal and conservative—rallied 'round Mayfield's articulate and dignified young widow and were outraged when she was denied the courtesy of being offered the opportunity to serve out the remainder of her husband's term on Council. Although Melissa Mayfield ultimately chose to leave Knoxville and take her children to live in Nashville, the community outrage at her treatment solidified into KnoxRecall, a grassroots organization that made a noteworthy attempt to see Mayor Victor Ashe and other city officials recalled from office. Many political observers also believe that the Ashe administration's snub of Ms. Mayfield played a pivotal role in the outcome of 2001 City Council elections.

A few weeks after his death, Danny Mayfield was voted "Knoxvillian of the Year" by Metro Pulse readers in our annual "Best of Knoxville" poll.

Can't Quite Recall

One of the strangest chapters of this strange, eventful year came during the normally lassitudinous months of May, June and July. Building on the wave of indignation that arose from City Council's refusal to consider Melissa Mayfield for her late husband's seat, a small but diverse grassroots group coalesced under the name KnoxRecall. With a leadership drawn from some of the more vocal participants on the Internet discussion forum k2k—among them Regina Rizzi and Steve Dupree—KnoxRecall spent nearly three months gathering signatures on petitions calling for the recall of Mayor Victor Ashe and Council members Jack Sharp, Ed Shouse and Larry Cox. They had a steep hill to climb, needing more than 15,000 signatures to force a recall vote. And for two and a half months, they worked hard, toting clipboards to concerts, festivals and urban and suburban parking lots in 95-degree heat.

They ultimately fell short of their goal and refused to reveal how many signatures they actually garnered. But in the meantime, the effort appeared to have a galvanizing effect on both Ashe and the Council, who collectively became more responsive on issues including a proposed billboard ban and the permanent establishment of the Police Advisory Review Committee. Things took an ugly turn when KnoxRecall sued the county Election Commission in an attempt to clarify the meaning of the city's murky recall ordinance. City Law Director Michael Kelly seized on the lawsuit as an opportunity to subpoena KnoxRecall members and subject them to confrontational depositions that appeared aimed at discovering the identities of all KnoxRecall supporters and contributors, as well as times, dates and locations of all the group's meetings. For months after the end of the effort, Ashe supporters speculated about who was really "behind" KnoxRecall—never appearing to consider the possibility that the answer was right before their eyes. In any event, the Recallistas went on to involvement in several of the fall's City Council campaigns. When veteran neighborhood activist Lynn Redmon showed up at Joe Hultquist's 1st District victory party on election night, he credited KnoxRecall with having awakened a new spirit of political involvement in the city. The crowd, rife with Recall veterans, cheered happily.

Circling the Square

It was the single most written about, argued about, coveted, caviled over and controversial plot of property in Knox County this year. And a lot of people still don't even know where it is. Market Square, that hidden jewel of downtown Knoxville, went through a dizzying series of conceptual ups and downs and lateral passes in 2001. In practical terms, not much happened. More businesses closed—J. Scott's restaurant relocated to Clinch Avenue and its neighbor Cafe Max also shuttered its doors—and a few also opened, most notably Emily Dewhirst's Nomad gallery and the Susan Key Gallery a few doors down, along with the relocated Reruns clothing store. The Sundown in the City series of free Thursday night concerts drew reliably large crowds, filling the Square at least one night of the week.

But the real action was happening in the realm of theory and policy (not to mention hopes and dreams). The year began with a revamped version of developers Worsham Watkins International's proposal for downtown redevelopment, rechristened Renaissance Knoxville by the Public Building Authority. It included a mandate that property owners on the square either agree to lease their space to a master developer or have their property seized outright by the city. But even as Mayor Victor Ashe weighed the proposal, it started to fray. The developer WW had in mind—John Elkington of Memphis' Beale Street—decided he didn't really need WW at all and started trying to make deals on his own, most prominently with David Dewhirst, the Square's biggest property owner. Then Elkington himself developed image problems as a deal he was working on in Winston-Salem, N.C. fell apart. By the time Ashe recommended an entirely new redevelopment plan for the Square (replacing the one he had introduced with similar fanfare back in 1997), Worsham Watkins, the Public Building Authority, and Elkington alike were clearly out of the picture. Things then fell into the lap of Knoxville's Community Development Corporation, leading to yet another unexpected player when KCDC board chairman Bill Lyons decided to take an active role. Concerned about perceptions that the Market Square plans had been developed in a political and planning vacuum, Lyons—a UT political science professor best known as a local TV pundit—began the tricky task of trying to integrate public participation with a process that was already well under way. Especially notable was Lyons' willingness to take responsibility for a KCDC memo to City Council, which seemed worded to discredit public objections to the redevelopment plan. Lyons did that all too rare thing for a public official: he stood up at a City Council meeting and issued an unconditional apology and promised to correct the report.

Meanwhile, a group of property owners organized under the name of the Historic Market Square Association and, with the assistance of public funds donated by Councilwoman Carlene Malone, hired the nationally recognized Gibbs Planning Group to do a market analysis. Gibbs' findings—recommending small-scale restaurant and retail development—amounted to a rejection of past plans for large entertainment and "shoppertainment" attractions on the Square. Awaiting proposals from interested "coordinating developers" to pull the pieces the together, Lyons appointed a review committee that includes Malone herself along with UT architect Mark Schimmenti and neighborhood activist Lynn Redmon. The next question, which will be answered in early February, is who will submit proposals for them to review. The most likely contenders appear to be a team of Dewhirst, Brian Conley and former Chattanooga mayor John Kinsey. But as this year demonstrated, with Market Square, you never know.

Making Change on Council

While Knoxvillians of 2001 aren't widely recognized for their radical tendencies, this year's surprisingly engaging City Council races arguably represent the closest thing to a progressive mandate the city has seen in many moons. Although only just-under 18 percent of the electorate actually voted, interest in the first election since the enactment of term limits was high. Without a single incumbent on the ballot, a slate of political newcomers, many with strong credentials as community activists, defeated candidates with more traditional backgrounds in politics and business.

In the ugliest campaign of the election, 1st District candidate Greg Pinkston, nephew of longtime South Knoxville political kingmaker Howard Pinkston, was handily defeated by neighborhood community activist Joe Hultquist—in spite of the fact that Pinkston spent much of his campaign budget on aggressive personal attack ads. The closest race took place in the 2nd District, where West Hills neighborhood advocate Barbara Pelot ultimately defeated Knoxville business consultant Joe Bailey. The final vote tally left Pelot with 7,566 votes to Bailey's 7,533, a difference of only two-tenths of 1 percent.

In the 6th District, the city's only district with an African-American majority, local lawyer Mark Brown received more votes than any other candidate—9,914. Brown defeated his opponent, Sheryl Rollins, general counsel for the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, by a more than 2-to-1 margin. The other winners were attorney Rob Frost in the 4th District and local political TV talk guy Steve Hall in the 3rd. Frost enjoyed the rare distinction of having the blessings of both Mayor Victor Ashe and outgoing Councilwoman Carlene Malone, whose seat Frost is filling.

Political junkies are already gearing up for next year's races for County Commission and county executive. And beyond that, the 2003 mayor and Council races. Don't change that channel.

KPD vs. the Knox Sheriff's Department (vs. the Bad Guys)

Late on June 23, as he prepared for Sunday morning breakfast at Ramsey's Cafeteria, 53-year-old Bill Christain was murdered with an ax, hammer and knife. His assailants then took $20 from the cafeteria and started a fire. As gruesome as the murder was, you'd think that the region's law enforcement officers would be doing all they could to catch the murderer. Unfortunately, when an arrest was made a month later, it hinted at a huge political rift between the area's main crimefighting units—the Knox County Sheriff's Department and the Knoxville Police Department. When the Sheriff's Department charged Mark Ray Collins with the murder, along with his wife Amanda Lee (both former employees at Ramsey's), the KPD said that the Sheriff's Department hadn't involved them in its investigation or shared any information. (KPD officers first learned of the sheriff's involvement when they noticed the county's divers searching for evidence in the Tennessee River, after Collins and Lee were in custody.) Collins has since filed for a dismissal on grounds that his wife was threatened and lied to while being questioned by sheriff's deputies.

Tearing Down the Fort (Then Rebuilding It)

When it comes to houses being bulldozed, Fort Sanders has certainly seen worse years. But when Jerry Hughes knocked over six condemned houses he owned along Highland and 16th Street, it stung mightily. Neighborhood and historic preservationists had high hopes the old wood frame houses could be renovated and spark a Fort Sanders renaissance. Hughes didn't have much economic incentive to worry about the law—the fine for tearing down a house without a permit is $100, the permit itself is $40 (the city will ask the state next year to raise the maximum fine it can levy). Hughes' action was also a thumbing of the nose to the new NC-1 overlay, which requires any demolition or new construction to be approved by the Historic Zoning Commission. Hughes was found guilty of violating the law, but was not fined. Although the NC-1 overlay wasn't enough to save the homes, the new regulations will shape what's built in their place. This fall, the HZC approved plans for a three-story apartment building, and it's expected to be vastly different from the ugly, motel-style walk-ups developers usually build in the Fort. Verdat Aboush's plans include front porches, a Victorian turret and complex roofline reminiscent of the original houses.

Meanwhile, the embattled DeArmond house, an especially elaborate Victorian which, after about 110 years at the corner of Clinch and 15th (now James Agee Street), found itself in the way of an expanding parking lot, had seemed a lost cause. But just as many were convinced it would be demolished, its owner, Robert Shagan, moved it to a space diagonally across the street. We can't say the corner house looks quite as impressive there, plugged into a row of contemporary but not quite as distinguished houses close on either side, but we're hopeful that its existence is the first sign of a thaw.

Four Words. Two Periods.

After its ambitious launch in 2000, the Nine Counties. One Vision. (sorry, they insist we punctuate it that way) process created 29 task forces to address general issues of concern from transportation to education. At this writing, some 700 Knoxville-area volunteers are involved in the process, and most of them have been involved mainly by attending meetings. Inspired by maverick urban-design guru Gianni Longo and loosely modeled on a plan already used in Chattanooga, it's called "visioning," and those who were skeptical of the project may not yet feel any great remorse.

However, there are signs that some of the task forces are actually hatching into permanent and perhaps influential organizations. By the second quarter of 2002, director Lynn Fugate says, the greenways task force will have molted into the Tennessee Valley Greenways Commission, which will coordinate greenway construction across 11 counties, including the Smoky Mountains area. Just as soon, or sooner, the public education task force will yield a regional public-education foundation which will encourage innovative strategies in K-12 education. And thanks to the Nine Counties social services task force, in 2001 the United Way kicked off its campaign on a regional level for the first time ever. Look for more to follow.

Victor vs. a Sacred Cow

Somehow in all the budget and income tax squabbles of the past year, it managed to stay out-of-sight. Despite the fact that TDOT has an annual budget of $1.4 billion, no one questioned its role or suggested that maybe all those millions set aside for road building could be put to better use. But when the governor started closing state parks—a budget cutting move that was no doubt politically motivated—Knoxville's own Mayor Victor Ashe (known as a champion of parks and developers alike) blew the whistle. Ashe called for more of the 21-cents-a-gallon gas tax to go to the general fund. (The tax raises $812 million a year, with $412 million going to TDOT, $31 million going to the general fund, and the rest going to local governments. TDOT gets another $192 million from vehicle registration fees.) With politicians desperate to keep from passing an income tax and many residents desperate to keep from paying it, Ashe's idea found momentum. He got a cover story in the Nashville Scene. Lt. Gov. John Wilder wrote the mayor, "Roads have got money running out their ears." TDOT officials countered that some $750 million of its budget came from the federal government, and required matching state funds. Meanwhile, the road building lobby got scared. They spent $120,000 on ads and PR to lobby against any diversion of road building money. Victor may well lose the fight with TDOT—a gigantic bureaucracy that has no debt—but he's earned the admiration of many for picking it.

Shoot 'im, Paw, He's Enncompitant

If School Superintendent Charles Q. Lindsey's favorite term for his school system, the "school family," has validity, that family may as well be called the Hatfields, feuding as they are with the Knox County Commission's McCoys.

Although the ongoing dispute did not start this year, it really lit up in 2001. From a legal embroglio over who has the authority to authorize school expenditures of more than $50,000 came a lawsuit and countersuit and a rhetorical escalation that had the Commission's counsel accusing the school board and superintendent of "demonstrated incompetence and misfeasance" and "deliberate indifference to...mismanagement."

In between were running arguments over who establishes school board districts, salaries and terms of office and whether the school system should be run by the board and administration or by the Commission, which unquestionably wields control over the school system's overall budget but now wants to extend that control to all budget changes and routine expenditures.

At year's end, a movement was afoot to return to an elected superintendent rather than one appointed by the elected school board. Lindsey is only the second appointed superintendent, but he's the first to rally teachers and other employees publicly to point fingers at the Commission for sticking its stinginess in the face of educational needs.

The Gasman Cometh

Bill Baxter, the lawyer and business exec who has kicked around Knoxville politics for a couple of decades and was Gov. Sundquist's commissioner for economic and community development, was sworn in this fall as the first Tennessee Valley Authority director from Knoxville since the late Chili Dean.

Baxter, who was most recently chairman and CEO of his family business, Holston Gases, the prominent tank farm on the south bank of the Tennessee River near Gay Street, was once a valued operative of Mayor Victor Ashe. He was nominated by President Bush and took the TVA post, which some people thought Ashe might be up for, while talking up energy conservation and solar power along with clean air and other environmental niceties on which TVA has been reluctant to deliver.

Doesn't sound like a gas baron, but then TVA directors have usually talked the good talk while ignoring the reality of its environmental despoilage.

Downtown Carrots

After years of discussion, the city finally implemented incentives to promote residential development in historic buildings downtown. And with or without Renaissance Knoxville or Universe Knoxville, it seems to be having a positive effect. Leslie Henderson, director of the city's Department of Development, expects the incentives to result in at least 250 new residences downtown in the next five years.

Administered through the city's Department of Development, the CityLife program offers developers tax abatement through the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program. In addition, the city will facilitate low-interest loans connected to the historic tax credits offered to buildings on the National Register. As icing on the cake, CityLife also coordinates parking needs with the Central Business Improvement District and a cap for fees for permitting and plan reviews.

Though the plan is available only to developers of historic buildings who are planning 10 or more residences, it's already having an impact on two major developments that had previously seemed stalled: the turn-of-the-century Emporium Building and the enormous 1920s Sterchi Building, both on the 100 block of Gay Street.

This fall, David Dewhirst, downtown resident and developer of the Emporium Building, unexpectedly announced plans to develop the old pre-1919 sidewalks under the 100 block as part of a vigorous residential and commercial redevelopment.

Meanwhile, Down the Street....

After more than a year of ambitious fundraising, the East Tennessee Historical Society broke ground on the long-empty Fouche Block site at Gay and Clinch for the multi-million-dollar expansion of the East Tennessee Historical Center, connected to the 1872 Custom House at Market and Clinch.

Across the street, after years of bombast about a new Justice Palace, the county decided (we think) not to tear down Gay Street's S&W block—a mixture of Victorian and art-deco buildings—after all. By August, they'd even fixed up the facades and done a little structural repair to the buildings to make them available for tenants.

Meanwhile, Home Federal evicted its tenants from the ca. 1900 Sprankle Building, a five-story neoclassical former apartment building well-occupied on its ground floor by Pete's Cafe, the Union Avenue Barber Shop, and Reruns clothing. We hear that in spite of city and federal incentives to develop historic buildings like this one, they mean to tear the building down; while admitting they haven't considered selling or renovating it, bank officials don't like to talk about their plans for the space.

Convention Center Hurries Up to Wait

Seven-day-a-week construction work is pushing Knoxville's new convention center ever closer to its completion date, believed to be June 2002. Even now, General Manager William Overfelt reports that he's got enough to show to have taken numerous prospective clients on tours of the $162 million facility. But seeing has not yet put many of them in a signing mood.

Beyond the Junior Olympics and American Bowling Congress events long scheduled for next year and 2003, only one gathering has been booked to date. That's a 2004 conference of the Knoxville-based Amputee Coalition of America.

A weak economy and the events of September 11 have, of course, been big deterrents. But unless a lot of bookings start coming pretty soon, the center could be on its way to becoming Knoxville's biggest white elephant ever, given its $2 million annual expense and $11 million debt service.

Overfelt is stressing "affordability and drivability" in pitching the facility to convention site selectors. At $58 a night, average hotel room rates in Knoxville are among the lowest in the land, far below the $86 national average, as compiled by Smith Hotel Research.

The flip side of these low rates, along with low occupancy rates, however, is that they stand in the way of making feasible the one thing the convention center is most lacking: namely, accessibility to a headquarters hotel worthy of the name.

The Holiday Inn Select is close enough. But its owner, Franklin Haney, has shown no disposition to proceed with previously announced plans for converting its shabby premises into an upgraded Crowne Plaza. Haney has more recently insisted he's got to be able to expand into the city's old convention center in order to proceed, but Mayor Victor Ashe has said he wants nothing to do with Haney.

Nor has the city shown any disposition to facilitate acquisition of the optimum site for a new hotel: namely the block just across Henley Street from the new convention center that's presently occupied by the state Supreme Court. The justices would love to move to larger quarters in the downtown post office, but it would take several million dollars to refurbish them and neither the state nor the city is prepared to pony up for that.

Thou Shalt Not Grandstand

Perhaps believing that Knox County schools' "zero tolerance" policy should now extend to such disciplinary infractions as idolatry and greed, Knox County Commission in November approved a controversial resolution approving the posting of the Christian Bible's Ten Commandments in the City/County building. Promoted by Commissioner Mark Cawood and passed by a weak majority, the resolution is essentially meaningless since A.) no funds were allocated for the project and B.) any posting is contingent on federal circuit court ruling on a similar resolution in Kentucky.

The Commission's actions seemingly served only one purpose, that of cementing the rest of the country's stereotype of East Tennesseans as intolerant and backward. One politically savvy observer of the Commission's proceedings wryly suggested that if the move to post the Ten Commandments ultimately fails, Council members could offer up an alternate credo for Knoxville's schoolchildren—maybe the Twelve Steps.
 

December 20, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 51
© 2001 Metro Pulse