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Seven Days

Thursday, March 14
Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership President Tom Ingram clarifies an earlier remark in Nashville that he would be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in behalf of Lamar Alexander's bid for the U.S. Senate. He now says he'll be working "24/7" to perform both his $200,000-plus per-year Chamber job and get the former governor's Senate campaign cooking. The clarification probably seems more important from Knoxville's viewpoint than from Nashville's.

Friday, March 15
It's disclosed that two students "from good homes" attending colleges in Knoxville finally have been charged, nearly a month later, with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment for their part in the car-to-car shooting of a woman on an I-275 ramp in the city Feb. 17. Why so long to get charges formalized? Well, why not? They were from "good homes."

Sunday, March 17
It starts raining.

Monday, March 18
It's reported that the county might save a couple hundred thousand tax dollars if it accepts a new ambulance service bid that might cost individual ambulance users hundreds of dollars apiece when they need an ambulance. Sounds perfectly reasonable to anyone who wants to hold down taxes at the expense of the poor, the sick and the feeble. Does that include County Commissioners?
It keeps raining.

Tuesday, March 19
The Knox County Commission and the county's school board each claim victory over a chancery court ruling that threw each side a bone in their lawsuits against one another. Has anyone pointed out to them that when both sides win, both sides lose, especially in terms of time, attorneys' fees and public respect?
More rain is predicted. Look out down low.

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:
Who is that jolly guy hoisting a glass? Well, as one of our respondents put it, "That's Bob Barley, of course." Whatever his name, this talisman of tipplers resides above the stage at Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria in the Old City, from whence he dispenses goodwill and rosy-cheeked cheer. He is a reminder that, as Benjamin Franklin said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Considering the number of microbrews on tap there, God must love Barley's very much. The first of many correct identifications (from Barley's regulars, we can only assume) came to us from Stephanie Hundley of Knoxville. While it would be fitting to award Stephanie a beer, we're not sure we have the proper city license to do so. So she'll have to settle for a new hardcover edition of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, issued to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the book's debut.

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

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday March 25
2 p.m.
City County Bldg., Large Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
Regular monthly meeting. Look for discussion of the controversial ambulance service bid.

CENTRAL BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
Wednesday March 27
9 a.m.
East Tennessee Historical Society (Old Customs House).
Quarterly board meeting with update on new downtown projects.

KNOX COUNTY DEVELOPMENT CORP.
Thursday March 28
11:30 a.m.
Family Investment Center
400 Harriet Tubman St.
Monthly board meeting.

CENTRAL BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
Thursday March 28
5-7 p.m.
Fairbanks
607 Market St.
Listening session for public comment and sharing of ideas on downtown issues.

Five Points Visions

What will work best in redeveloping Five Points?

What would be better for the depressed Five Points area: a limited-selection discount grocery store that has a good chance of success but reinforces the neighborhood's image of poverty, or a nicer, well-designed grocery store that could reinvigorate the area but has a bigger chance of failure?

Community activists and city officials hope they can find a middle ground between those two extremes and finally improve one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

At a City Council workshop last week on Five Points, supermarket consultant Keith Wicks of Minnesota delivered the good news that a small supermarket is feasible at Five Points. The meeting was largely for informational purposes, as Council is not yet considering any specific proposals.

Councilman Mark Brown—who called the workshop—says he'd like Council to take some action this year. The city does not currently have any money committed to a redevelopment project in the neighborhood. Council could offer tax abatement incentives or low interest loans or partner with private developers in some way. In part, the city is waiting to see what comes out of the various private proposals, Brown says.

"I know there are people trying to forge partnerships," Brown says. "It's my hope there can be a collaborative effort of some kind, hopefully with us getting some assistance from the Empowerment Zone."

Wicks said the safe investment would be a 15,000-square-foot, discount, limited-assortment grocery like Save-A-Lot. A 20,000-square-foot full-service store with a deli and bakery might also succeed, but it's a riskier venture, he said.

The report is perhaps the first that the city's had predicting a supermarket could work at Five Points. "I'm pleased the consultant at least said it's a slam dunk that a supermarket can at least operate in Five Points," says Zimbabwe U. Matavou, president of the Black Business/Contractors Association. "We had been told for 20 years that a supermarket could not be profitable in Five Points."

But at the Council workshop, Matavou also said that "Five Points has to be designed in a way that it reflects something other than a couple of cracker boxes with signs placed on them."

Brown says the right operator—like John Davis, who now runs the Express Mart convenience store on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue—could creatively work around those issues. "I think the limited-assortment definition that [Wicks] was providing could mean more than what it has meant traditionally. I think John Davis is more attuned to those needs of the community. [The store image] is also going to depend on what else goes there beside that store."

Wicks' study found that the potential market area includes about 11,000 people. The average household income is about $24,000. Looking at the business the competition is doing—Food City and Kroger a few miles to the east on Asheville Highway and Kroger and Save-A-Lot on North Broadway—Wicks estimated a discount store would sell about $81,000 ($5.38 a square foot) to $92,000 ($6.12/s.f.) a week in its first year, depending on whether the store were a stand-alone or part of a plaza. Likewise, a full-service grocery store would net about $107,000 ($5.37/s.f.) to $119,000 ($5.95/s.f.) a week. (According to Wicks, the largest competitor, the Asheville Highway Kroger, brings in $340,000 a week, or $5.48/s.f.; the smallest, Save-A-Lot, takes in $90,000 or $6/s.f.)

Brown, who called the workshop, says he's trying to avoid any divisive issues. "I don't want any one particular issue to throw the proposition off track. I'm trying not to deal with either/or propositions, and instead look for the common ground," he says.

That prospect could prove difficult, as two of the parties are now in a legal dispute. The Black Business/Contractors Association has a discrimination complaint filed against Partnership for Neighborhood Improvement, which administers Empowerment Zone money. For now though, everyone is cautious but hopeful that something can finally happen in Five Points.

Councilman Joe Hultquist says a well thought-out process with lots of public input is what's needed. "It's hard to do it right. It's easier to do something halfway and meet some sort of minimum standards and move on," he says. "If the bottom line is we're doing something because, by golly, we promised all these years we'd do something, there's a good chance we'll be disappointed. I'd like to see something that will have a positive long-term impact."

—Joe Tarr

Ambulance Chasers

What's behind the big ambulance fuss? Politics and money, of course.

Next week, Knox County Commission will almost certainly throw out County Executive Tommy Schumpert's recommendation that American Medical Response should be awarded a five-year contract to provide emergency ambulance service. The contract, which is worth at least $50 million, has been held for the past 17 years by Rural/Metro, which also provides subscription fire service to Knox Countians. Rural/Metro wants to continue as the emergency service provider. AMR bid on the contract unsuccessfully five years ago.

The fracas over the contract has dominated local news (and advertising) over the past week, as both companies have trotted out high-priced lobbyists to plead their cases with county commissioners and the general public. Along the way, it has pitted some familiar faces against each other.

Because Law Director Mike Moyers has opined that the county charter prohibits the commissioners from doing anything more than ratifying or rejecting Schumpert's choice, the bid process—from which Schumpert attempted to remove himself by appointing a committee to evaluate proposals—will begin all over again if Commission throws out the AMR recommendation. And the multi-front war over who gets the lucrative contract will rage on.

As in any superheated conflict, both sides lay claim to the moral high ground. One side says AMR won the contract fair and square by complying with the county's bid procedure. The other side says Rural/Metro has provided exemplary service for nearly two decades and should be given credit for their record. And, as in any war, there are many subtexts.

One county commissioner says he is having to keep a couple of cordless telephones charged up because of all the calls he's getting over the ambulance contracts. (The commissioner also said he would speak more frankly if his name isn't attached to this story.)

"When my phone rings, I know it's someone from Moxley-Carmichael, John King or Joe May calling me," he says. "...There are a lot of big dollars at stake. We have five very powerful firms or individuals, and maybe even more, involved in this thing."

He ticks off the names: in one corner, representing Rural/Metro, are Moxley-Carmichael Communications and attorneys Arthur Seymour Jr. and John Valliant. On the other side, representing AMR, are lobbyists Joe May and attorney John King. Some may consider Seymour, who is close to Mayor Victor Ashe, primarily a city lobbyist, but he is equally effective when dealing with County Commission—as is John Valliant, a well-connected Democrat. King, an even better-connected Republican, is one of the most effective advocates who regularly appears before County Commission.

Moxley-Carmichael is headed up by the husband-wife team of Cynthia Moxley and Alan Carmichael. Moxley, a former reporter, had built up a small, select clientele that includes some of the most powerful corporate entities in town (think KUB, Pilot Oil, Clayton Industries and the Knoxville News-Sentinel), even before her husband, who is a former TVA public affairs executive, joined the firm.

On the other side of the table is May, a former county commissioner, state legislator, aide to Ashe and well-known campaign consultant. May is also a former Moxley employee, and it is fair to say there is no love lost between the two.

Then there's the Knoxville Fire Department. KFD Chief Gene Hamlin sent Schumpert a letter supporting Rural/Metro. But last week, the Knoxville Fire Fighters Association board issued a press release endorsing AMR. Sources in the fire department say the KFA officials were standing behind Bryan Cox, a 30-year KFD veteran who was a member of the evaluation committee. They say there are other considerations, too.

"Quite frankly, AMR is not in the fire-fighting business," says one firefighter. Rural/Metro, which also provides fire-fighting service outside the city, has had frequent run-ins with KFD, particularly during the annexation-happy Ashe administration.

Moxley admits that lobbying this issue has consumed all her time for the past several weeks. "Typically, I start my day with a 7 a.m. breakfast meeting," she says. "Since we can only talk to the commissioners one at a time, I've eaten at every Shoney's in town. And because I don't want to wait for them to put up the online version, I end most days after 1 a.m. at the News-Sentinel loading dock, waiting for the paper to come out. It's a real glamorous life."

The anonymous commissioner says it's not much fun being in his position, either: "I've enjoyed all the free meals, but I'll be glad when this is over."

—Betty Bean

An Open Mosque

Local Muslims reach out

September 11 may have changed every American's perspective, but maybe none so much as that of American Muslims.

A few were assaulted or harassed, many others felt they were asked to choose between their religion and their country. And most of them felt they had to defend their religious beliefs. Muslim women especially were singled out because of the head-dresses many of them wear.

"We ended up being the banners for the religion," says Yasmin Budayr, of Maryville. "We could be proactive, or we could hide in our homes and our mosques."

In Knoxville, Muslims have dealt with the attack by getting more involved with the community and trying to teach people what Islam stands for. "I've been a Muslim for 22 years. I always considered myself part of a larger body of Muslims, called Uma—the 1.2 billion Muslims who believed basically the same thing," Budayr says. "Now I realize that although I am part of the larger group of Muslims, I have had to really identify what I stand for and what I don't stand for."

As part of that reaching out, the Annoor Mosque, at 13th Street and Grand Avenue, is holding an open house Saturday (March 23) at 10:30 a.m. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, co-founder of the Zaytuna Institute and Academy in Hayward, Calif., will speak shortly after 10:30 a.m. and then answer questions. Visitors may tour the mosque and enjoy refreshments.

One of the preeminent American Muslim scholars, Yusuf met with President Bush after the tragedy. Like another Marin County, Calif., native John Walker Lindh, the 43-year-old Yusuf converted to Islam as a teen-ager. But he's taken a vastly different path from that of Lindh, who fought alongside the Taliban.

"Anger is a dangerous emotion and not a part of the Islamic tradition," he told the Wall Street Journal. "There are Muslims in the community whose anger has led them to do some pretty horrendous things. That's a problem, a horrendous problem. I don't want to contribute to that."

—Joe Tarr