by Joe Sullivan
Mike Ragsdale isn't due to take office as county executive until September. But the unopposed candidate to succeed Tommy Schumpert is by no means waiting in the wings. To the contrary, he's pushing ahead with plans for carrying through on his commitment to spur economic development in Knox County.
Ragsdale's plans have two basic thrusts. One is aimed at bringing new leadership and coordination to efforts to attract more conventions and visitors to Knoxville. The other seeks to strengthen recruitment of new industry and other employers.
On the convention and visitor front, Ragsdale has enlisted Gloria Ray to head a new entity that would oversee the Knoxville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the management of the city's new convention center, as well as the Knoxville Sports Corp., which Ray has headed for the past decade. Ray's success in that post is manifest by the fact that she's responsible for the only two major events booked into the convention center: namely the AAU Junior Olympics this summer and the American Bowling Congress next year. "Gloria is a dynamo with a proven track record, and she would be a great person to head this organization," Ragsdale says.
Just getting such an organization formed will attest to Ragsdale's leadership abilities in other ways as well. The convention center is presently managed by Philadelphia-based SMG under a contract with the city that is administered by the Public Building Authority. Getting the SMG contract assigned to a new entity would represent a big stride in city-county collaboration.
Mayor Victor Ashe will neither confirm nor deny that such a realignment is imminent, but he and Ragsdale are known to have discussed it. At the same time, Ragsdale appears to have overcome resistance to consolidation from the board of directors of the Sports Corp.—resistance that thwarted an earlier effort to fold it into the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership. In each case, Ray's good offices have been key.
Under her direction, the convention recruiting and booking roles of SMG and the CVB would be coordinated, whereas presently they have separate sales forces and separate lines of accountability. The CVB is funded by Knox County with dedicated hotel/motel tax dollars and is overseen by the Knox County Tourist Commission, comprised primarily of County Commission appointees. "We need one agency with a single purpose responsible for conventions, leisure travel and sports events," Ragsdale asserts. Just how it would be governed, and even its name, remain to be worked out. But Ragsdale believes the CVB should retain its identity and that its director, Mike Carrier, "can play an important role."
Because Ragsdale just happens to be chairman of the Tourist Commission and already has a lot of sway with County Commission, he may be able to effect the changeover even before he takes office as county executive. On the economic development front, by contrast, the restructuring that Ragsdale has in mind is likely to take longer and prove more controversial.
Ragsdale wants to eliminate frictions between the two entities that share responsibility for bringing employers to Knox County's business parks. He'd accomplish this by putting the Chamber Partnership, which is responsible for marketing, in charge of the staff of the Development Corp. of Knox County, which is responsible for land acquisition, site preparation and sale terms. "It's become all too apparent that we can't close deals because we can't reach agreement between the marketing arm and the land arm," Ragsdale asserts.
Subordinating the Development Corp. staff would spell the demise of its executive director, Melissa Zeigler, whose relations with the chamber's head of economic development, Jim Breitenfeld, are strained at best. But it wouldn't necessarily get rid of the more fundamental clash with the Development Corp.'s quasi-independent board of directors over how deeply to discount the cost of land to prospective employers.
So Ragsdale wants to rein in the board as well. Where a majority of its members have been more or less self-perpetuating business people, Ragsdale seeks to make them subject to appointment by the county executive. Since the Development Corp. gets its funding from the county, it seems reasonable for county officials to have the final say on how much to spend to attract firms to business parks. And Ragsdale is determined to take the lead in this regard.
Implementing this idea gets sticky, though, because the state constitution prohibits the county from directly subsidizing the cost of land to private purchasers. That's why the Development Corp. was established as a separate entity in the first place, and Ragsdale needs to walk a fine line to avoid jeopardizing the very purposes he's seeking to accomplish.
Still, I think it's time for bold initiatives in Knox County and look forward to having a county executive who's prepared to take them.
April 4, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 14
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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