Metro Pulse/Editor's Corner/A New Mayor?

Comment
on this story

Preservationist, anti-sprawl warrior, downtown booster... yes, it's Victor Ashe

by Jesse Fox Mayshark

It is no secret that I have rarely been an admirer of Mayor Victor Ashe. During my time writing about and observing politics in Knoxville, I have been everything from amused to infuriated by our longtime chief executive's petty politicking, muddled planning and short-term thinking. But without retracting any criticisms Ashe has earned in the past, it's impossible for anyone paying attention not to be somewhat amazed at hizzoner's actions over the past six months.

Oh, sure, the old Victor's still there. I could point to any of a half-dozen recent instances that have given evidence of his continued churlishness and his administration's tendency to act first and ask questions later. But in the big picture, and on some pretty important issues, Ashe's perpetually stubborn nature has lately been showing some very welcome progressive streaks.

First of all, there are his ongoing battles with the Tennessee Department of Transportation (detailed in this week's cover story, among many other places). Ashe was the first and loudest public official in the state to propose last fall that the Sundquist administration tap its road-building fund to keep state parks open. Sundquist and TDOT went ballistic, of course—those TDOT funds make a lot of road builders rich, and those builders donate a lot of money to state politicos. But the resulting flurry of publicity undoubtedly helped shame Sundquist into coming up with a plan to reopen the parks.

Ashe hasn't backed off TDOT, latching onto the "First in asphalt, last in education" refrain with a pesky determination that, by all accounts, has been driving Sundquist and TDOT Commissioner Bruce Saltsman nuts. Besides opposing the completion of the South Knoxville Boulevard (a stance that has made him an unexpected hero of local environmental activists, probably to their surprise as much as his), he has also emerged as a critic of the proposed I-75 beltway. When the Knox Area Chamber Partnership recently endorsed the proposed "Orange Route" for the beltway, which would run through West Knox County, Ashe tartly declared it "a victory for urban sprawl." The beltway is a complicated project, and its advantages and disadvantages are hard to reduce to yes-or-no slogans; but it's frankly heartening to hear a mayor of a mid-sized Southern city talk disparagingly about "sprawl."

Then there's the Ashe administration's ongoing enlightenment in its approach to downtown redevelopment. Ashe has turned almost 180 degrees in a few years, slowly appreciating and then acting on the need for tax incentives to spur residential growth in the center city. Several projects are already underway. Leaving aside the arguments over whether the new convention center and Universe Knoxville will really be worth what we're paying for them, the attention to smaller-scale but more sustainable growth in the rest of downtown is gratifying. The administration has given tentative support to the Kinsey-Probasco proposal for commercial development of Market Square, and for a new cinema on Gay Street. Ashe has also reiterated his support for the "Sundown in the City" concerts on Market Square, which drew tens of thousands of people downtown on Thursday nights last summer. After years of big-buck, big-box proposals aimed at tourists and daytrippers, the city is actually committing itself to projects aimed at people who live and work here.

Finally, and most dramatically, Ashe has suddenly emerged as a sort of vigilante preservationist. Acting with an executive privilege he was reluctant to exercise until recently, he has in the last month slapped applications for historic protection zoning on two endangered structures: the Coughlin house, which the brahmins of Cherokee Country Club think would look better as a parking lot; and the Sprankle Building on Union Avenue, which is being eyed for apparently similar purposes by the poohbahs of Home Federal Bank. (A psychologist could have a field day analyzing the wrecking-ball lust of Knoxville's aging elite.) Ashe's actions do not guarantee anything—for one thing, they require (and deserve) the support of the Metropolitan Planning Commission and City Council. But they will probably make it harder for anyone to knock down either edifice without some due consideration.

A cynic could point out that much of Ashe's activism on these issues can be laid to his famous penchant for making enemies and nursing grudges. He's been on the outs with TDOT for years, and there's little love lost between him and Chamber Partnership president Tom Ingram. You could also ask, reasonably, where the sprawl concerns were when Ashe pushed through city support of the Parkside Drive extension that gave rise to the monstrous asphalt plains of Turkey Creek. And so on.

But while I think it's important to remember history, both recent and ancient, it's even more important to recognize the needs of the present and future. From that perspective, Victor Ashe is looking more and more like the mayor Knoxville needs right now. Architect Buzz Goss, a downtown activist who co-founded the Internet discussion group k2k, opined in a meeting last week that Ashe could make his last two years "the best two years of his term." I would have doubted that six months ago. I'm happy to have those doubts dimmed. Keep it up, yer honor.