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Seven Days

Wednesday, Jan. 16
Levi's officials announce they may have to close their remaining Knox County plant in Powell. The company has moved most of its manufacturing business to cheaper foreign contractors. In a way, we suppose residents of Powell should take it as a compliment—it means Levi's no longer considers them a 3rd-world nation.
An Anderson County commissioner suggests studying whether Oak Ridge should secede from Anderson County. Now if they can just figure out a way to secede from Tennessee...

Thursday, Jan. 17
Sheriff Tim Hutchison delivers 15 boxes of Sheriff's Department records to mad-dog attorney Herb Moncier, in the most recent round of County Commissioner Wanda Moody's long-running lawsuits against Hutchison. Moncier discovers receipts for checks in amounts up to $110,000 with no accounting of how they were spent. The Sheriff's Department says they were used for undercover drug buys. Whoa, dude, $110,000 worth of drugs? Party in the Evidence Room!
A man is arrested in Chattanooga on suspicion of being the guy who held up two Knoxville banks while wearing a ridiculous Afro wig. He faces charges of armed robbery and possession of an unregistered hairpiece.

Friday, Jan. 18
The Knox County Law Department subpoenas film footage from all local TV stations of their coverage of the Moncier-Moody-Hutchison rumble. What, the Law Department hasn't figured out how to set its VCR?
The first legal liquor store opens in Maryville. Despite the fears of Mur'ville teetotalers, civilization utterly fails to collapse.

Saturday, Jan. 19
News flash: UT's men's basketball team somehow fails to lose at the buzzer and actually beats Syracuse!

Monday, Jan. 21
Many more people turn out for Knoxville's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations than turned out for a regional KKK rally in Newport on Saturday. We shall overcome.

Tuesday, Jan. 22
Oak Ridge's Y-12 plant receives federal permission to start dismantling some aging nuclear warheads. Um, could they send that team over here when they get through? We'd like to introduce them to County Commission and the school board.

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:
Well, here's a first: a team effort. Of the many, many (many) people who correctly identified this ecumenical entrance as the side door to the venerable Laurel Theatre, the first was a group identified only as "employees of Sam's Party Store and Falafel Hut." For good measure, Falafel Hut owner Renee Jubran also entered the mix. No surprise, really—the two businesses are just around the corner from the Laurel. And with most of the old Fort Sanders houses that used to stand between them long since demolished, there's an increasingly clear line of sight between the neighborhood institutions. (Word to the wise: if you're one of the few who didn't recognize the door, you really need to go check out the Laurel. The converted church, operated by Jubilee Community Arts, is the most intimate performance space in town, and it has lovely acoustics. We've heard of musicians who go out of their way to stop in Knoxville just so they can play at the Laurel.) For their efforts, and also in recognition of their fine baba ganouj and astounding beer selection, we're happy to send the Falafel Hut and Sam's employees a copy of the new collection Sweet Tea & Jesus Shoes: New Stories of the South. It includes writing by Donna Ball, Virginia Ellis and Deborah Smith.

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

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday Jan. 28
2 p.m.
Large Assembly Room
City County Building
400 Main Ave.
Regular monthly meeting.

Sad Protest

Snapshots from the Ku Klux Klan Rally in Newport

Just before noon on Saturday, 15 or 20 curious onlookers are crowded together on the front porch of Brown Funeral Home in downtown Newport, just across the street from the Cocke County Courthouse. A cold, steady rain is falling, but that hasn't deterred any of them from watching one of the biggest news events to hit town in years. Some have driven over from Knoxville, an hour away, to watch members of the Church of the Knights of Yahweh, the Morristown branch of the Ku Klux Klan, simultaneously celebrate the birthday of Gen. Robert E. Lee and protest the federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Most have these early observers have little sympathy for the Klan. A man from Knoxville says he brought his kids "to show them a bunch of stupid people." But there aren't many strong opinions among those gathered on the funeral home porch. One woman from Selma, Ala., bunched up in a black jacket with a hood pulled around her face, says she and her husband were in Pigeon Forge for the weekend and heard about the rally. While she opposes the Klan itself, she worries that the civil rights movement has gone too far. "Years ago the Klan did good...A lot of blacks now are down on whites, and just want power. They want us to turn around and be their slaves." She won't give her name, saying her husband is in politics in their home town.

Two rows of Tennessee state troopers are already in place, one group lined up on the lawn of the courthouse behind a ribbon of yellow tape, another in formation near the railroad tracks that run down the middle of Main Street. The troopers, wearing riot gear and blaze orange ponchos, have cordoned off a 50-foot-wide swath of asphalt for the protesters who are just beginning to show up, mostly young, mostly dressed in name-brand rain gear and carrying signs that read "Stop the Hate" and "End Racism."

Willie Campbell, an old black man from Knoxville, is standing quietly underneath an awning on the building next to the courthouse, watching the crowd swell to a couple of hundred as the scheduled start time nears. "I came to watch the parade here," Campbell says. Asked if he's ever seen anything like this, Campbell shakes his head sadly. "Never in my life. I hope it's the last time, too."

The man standing next to Campbell, a middle-aged local in a camouflage baseball cap with a chaw of tobacco set in his cheek, is taciturn about the whole scene. "Everybody's got their own thing going on," he declares, spitting a string of tobacco juice into the rain. "It's a free country." He shrugs when asked if the Klan has a significant presence in Cocke County.

A small group of men from Harvest Outreach Church in White Pine have gathered across the street from the courthouse for a prayer vigil. "We're here to pray," Jim Bacon says. "We're praying against all evil and for God's love to permeate this place. We're not here to protest. We're only here to pray for love and acceptance."

A car horn blares out the tune of "Dixie" and a young skinhead walks through the growing crowd carrying a swastika flag. The owner of the funeral home is outraged and steps outside to voice his disapproval. "The Klan's one thing," he says. "That's just going too far."

Reporters swarm around the skinhead, who happily expounds his theory that white people are the true chosen people of God. Later, when a group of young black men walk past him, the skinhead draws on a cigarette and sneers. "Here come the brothers," he says. "Can't you smell them?"

A dozen Klan members finally come onto the front steps of the courthouse at 12:30 p.m. Only a handful are actually wearing robes; most are wearing jeans and leather jackets or sweatshirts. The message of Knights of Yahweh Grand Dragon Scott Fultz is drowned out by the protesters, who beat drums and chant into megaphones. The fragments that can be heard are the expected tirades against "race mixing," Jews, secular humanism, and the liberal media. A few rednecks stand near the yellow tape and shout out "White power!" and make Nazi salutes.

It's a long, dreary afternoon. Fultz yells his garbled message into the inadequate P.A. system. The protesters chant. Reporters and photographers weave through the crowd. The locals stand at the funeral home and watch it all, bemused by this sad spectacle that's sprung up in their home town.

—Matthew T. Everett

Shopping Trip

Wal-Mart plans to move into a bigger store on Chapman Highway, but what happens to the old one?

Wal-Mart is looking at opening a 213,000-square-foot "Supercenter" on Chapman Highway, right at the city limits. It is just down the road from Wal-Mart's current Chapman Highway store, and some people are disturbed by Wal-Mart's practice of abandoning old shopping centers.

"We have no objection to Wal-Mart," says Tom Boyd, whose property borders the proposed site. "But why are you moving? When they move from where they are, they kill another shopping center."

The developer of the property, Chip Slagle, acquired the rights to two pieces of property for the shopping center, which will be a total of 230,000 square feet. One of them is currently zoned C-4 commercial, the other residential. Slagle wants the city to rezone all the land to C-4. The Metropolitan Planning Commission has recommended the land be rezoned C-6—

a commercial zoning that requires site plan review, says Norman Whitaker of the MPC. "C-6 zoning would give us more input into review of the site," he says. "If it gets to C-4 we don't see it again."

Council will consider the rezoning request at its Feb. 5 meeting. Neighbors have some concerns about how wetlands and a creek in the area will be affected, and would like to maintain a natural buffer between the plaza and their homes. Those concerns are being negotiated with the developer.

But a larger issue may be Wal-Mart's practice of building a big box store, only to abandon it 10 to 15 years later. There are several other stores that share Wal-Mart's current shopping center, including a Food Lion grocery store. Without the biggest tenant, the plaza as a whole could suffer (especially since Wal-Mart Supercenters typically include an entire grocery store section, which would be competing with the Food Lion).

"If they lose the Wal-Mart traffic, that could be enough to make them close the store," says Councilman Joe Hultquist, who represents the 1st District. "If those anchors are gone, that's pretty much the end of that shopping center. And of course the city loses tax revenue."

Wal-Mart could retain its lease on the old site, and Hultquist says he wonders how aggressively Wal-Mart would market the space to prospective tenants.

"Wal-Mart is very careful on subleasing their properties. They want to make sure it's not someone who will compete with them in any way. For a building that size, it really cuts down on who they're leasing to. If they choose not to lease it, that doesn't bode well for the shopping center."

A Wal-Mart spokesperson did not return a call to Metro Pulse. The chain is known for restricting the information it releases to the public—everything from plans for future stores to where its clothes are manufactured.

Whitaker says Wal-Mart is not the only culprit when it comes to abandoning shopping centers. Chapman Highway in particular has been plagued with empty shopping and grocery plazas. "There's a real pattern in the retail industry of that happening. They're basically warehouse structures. You can probably think of several yourself that have been abandoned or converted to other uses," Whitaker says. "If you've driven [Chapman Highway] recently, there's two or three unused shopping centers."

But given the size of Wal-Mart's stores and its aggressive expansion strategy, it may be the most notable offender.

Hultquist says he'd like the city to try to deal with the problem.

"I'm not so sure we're in a position to do anything quickly enough to affect this proposal," he says. "The kinds of stipulations, controls, and development policies that are possible, that's what we need to look at. I don't know that that will have an impact on what we do here."

—Joe Tarr