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Seven Days

Wednesday, June 12
The News-Sentinel announces it's begun installing its massive new German presses in its new $50 million building. Scripps Howard, the N-S parent company, seems to be banking on the newspaper being around long enough to recover its investment, amid rampant rumors that Scripps is going to close its Rocky Mountain News in Denver soon.
The Associated Press reports that zebra mussels, the tiny mollusks that wrought havoc in the Great Lakes, have been found in the Tennessee River near Knoxville. The story gives every indication that the invasion is another hostile Yankee activity until it finally explains that the mussels are natives of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Communists!

Thursday, June 13
The MPC approves expansion of General Shale's surface mining operation along Millertown Pike after the company promised to minimize impact on the surrounding area. The action gives new hope for such a productive reuse of the former Justice Center site downtown in case Universe Knoxville plans fall through.

Friday, June 14
Kentucky's high school all-star football team slams Tennessee's, 31-14, with the stars of the game committed to UK. Uh-oh.

Monday, June 17
Lee Ferguson, president of Bike Athletic Co., a Knoxville manufacturing staple since the 1930s, resigns saying he was never one of the investors that bought Bike from Kazmaier Associates last week, even though Dick Kazmaier, the former All-American football hero, said at the time Ferguson was. It may have been the first time Kazmaier was faked out of his Size-10 medium Bike jockstrap since he left Princeton in the 1950s.

Tuesday, June 18
Bearden High School's state champion soccer team learns it was named the top team in the nation by the coaches' association. Several Bearden players are expected to be shipped to South Korea to join the national team in time for Friday's World Cup quarter-final match with Germany.

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:
A lot of you knew that the plaque in last week's photo is on the bandstand at Chilhowee Park. But did you know that the bandstand is the only survivor among several structures built in 1910 for the original Applachian Exposition? Me either. (Jack told me.) But it was there for Teddy Roosevelt and the first dirigible and airplane flights in East Tennessee in 1910, for William Jennings Bryan at the Second Appalachian Exposition in 1911 and for the reading of a special message from President Woodrow Wilson sent via the new wireless telegraph at the third exposition in 1913. And it's been there for all the TVA & I Fairs since the first in 1916. And there it is still. Richard Saffles of Knoxville was first to identify the plaque's location and for his prize will get a copy of Breathing the Same Air: An East Tennessee Anthology, put together by the Knoxville Writers' Guild. Maybe someone from the guild will be inspired to write an ode to a 1910 bandstand in return.

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

CITY COUNCIL
Monday, June 24
Noon
Market Square
Special meeting to vote on funding for the Kinsey-Probasco development plan.

COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday, June 24
2-7 p.m. City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular monthly meeting.

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, June 25
7-9 p.m. City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular monthly meeting.

KNOX VOICES
Wednesday, June 26
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Macleod's
Corner of Union Avenue and Market Street
An informal forum on Knoxville issues sponsored by Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership, k2k, UTK, and Metro Pulse. A chance to meet and talk with people from diverse parts of the community. With beer!

MARKET SQUARE REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Thursday, June 27
10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Watson's Building
Market Square
Public input session for the Kinsey Probasco redevelopment plan.

CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE TO KAT
Thursday, June 27
1 p.m.
Lawson McGhee Library
Downstairs Meeting Room
Regular monthly meeting.

KTA (KNOXVILLE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY) BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Thursday, June 27
3 p.m.
City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular monthly meeting.

Send In the Clowns
Did you hear about the comedian running for Senate?

Most politicians aren't funny on purpose. Kendall "Buck" Wells is an exception. He's certifiably funny, having won a comedy talent search back in college, and so finely honed is his talent that he can break out credible impersonations of Randy Travis, Merle Haggard and Elmer Gantry without stopping for breath. He's incorporated some of that into his door-knocking routine—and, not surprisingly, he says he's having a big time on the campaign trail, where he's taking the shoe-leather-and-sweat-equity approach to office-seeking.

Ask him a standard interview question and he'll sucker punch you with a joke.

Ask him, for example, if he's married: "Married? You know anybody? I've got an ad in the Bargain Mart Scratch and Dent section, but a lot of people don't want a bargain."

Write him off as a clown, and he'll explain that comedy is "a technique and a tactic to break down barriers."

So it's only natural that humor is a major weapon in the arsenal of the least-known candidate in the race for Knoxville's 7th District state Senate seat. But just two scant weeks before the start of early voting, it's unlikely that many voters even know that he is seeking the Democratic nomination for the seat now occupied by well-known Republican Tim Burchett. Wells' Democratic primary opponent is the well-known Bill Owen, a former state senator who is seeking to make a political comeback after being ousted from office in 1990. Also in the mix is Republican Joe Burchfield, a perennial candidate who served a half-term in the '80s as a state representative and who is running as an Independent.

In explaining his candidacy, Wells draws on classical literature. He sees himself as Cincinnatus, called from the fields to save the republic. He cites Aristotle, who saw humans as political animals finding their place in the polis. "Our civic responsibility goes beyond our property lines, and the political answers we seek will be found beyond our party lines...

"I had never aspired to be a candidate, and I really don't have the credentials you'd expect someone running for this kind of position to have, but for all the experience and all the credentials held by all the accomplished people in the state Senate, they can't move our state forward."

Wells' campaign is largely self-financed. To date, his most visible attempt at raising his public profile has been a zany mugshot ad in Metro Pulse announcing that he has "No criminal record." He says the ad was not a slam against his primary opponent and was just an attention-getting device. "Most people are so disengaged from politics. I just wanted to give them a chuckle."

He says that he has enough money for one more ad and is thinking about borrowing his brother's family to spoof the traditional candidate's "family man" shot that adorns most every political brochure. "It would say, 'The Candidate has no family, but he'd like to thank his brother for the use of his family in the campaign.' And my brother'd be standing over in the corner going like this—" Wells crosses his arms over his chest, cocks an eyebrow and strikes a quizzical pose.

It doesn't take much conversation, however, to discover that Wells is on a mission. He is serious about public education, and his passion runs so deep that he spent most of last year interning and then working as a temporary history and psychology teacher at Clinton High School, despite the fact that he has a full-time job at Marathon Ashland Petroleum Co., where he works as a receipts and reconciliation inventory specialist. Check out his web site (www.gobuck.org), where he gives a detailed explanation of his decision to run for public office. He starts with an experience he had while serving in the Navy after he dropped out of Karns High School shortly before he was to graduate in 1978: "The roots of this campaign can be traced to Old Jerusalem. It was there that I once sat listening to a chant emanating from within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher while, from a nearby minaret, the muezzin called the faithful to prayer with the words, 'God is most great, God is most great ...' The mingling rituals charged the atmosphere about me and inspired me to seek a greater understanding of the ancient world ..."

When he was discharged from the Navy, he enrolled at the University of Tennessee and slowly worked his way through college, taking courses that challenged him and supporting his education habit with jobs like selling shoes and driving an 18-wheeler. By doing so, he says he "... fulfilled a desire and design born years before and miles away. I emerged from the University with a degree and a certification to teach history."

Jobs teaching history and government can be hard to come by, particularly given the condition of the state economy, and Wells has considered joining the exodus of teachers headed for lucrative jobs out of state. "I thought about leaving the state to teach—but I was born and raised here, so I decided to stay and fight."

This is a bold ambition for a neophyte politician in times when most candidates are running like scalded dogs from issues concerning fiscal policy. How does Wells plan to persuade an overwhelmingly conservative constituency to trust him with pocketbook matters?

"Conservatives are absolutely right to be skeptical of government. ... It's all too easy for government to become the master instead of the servant of the people. But on the other hand ... government does need to be able to meet the needs of the people that it serves."

—Betty Bean

Depot Repo
Could Depot Avenue be next for downtown development?

Jackson and Depot Avenues run parallel on the northern fringe of Knoxville's central business district, on either side of the railroad yards. Both streets were built in the 19th century, laid out to serve railroad commerce. The buildings of Jackson Avenue were long central to the railroad-dependent wholesale trade. Depot Avenue (better known as Depot Street) was the address of Knoxville's first train station, and of several railroad hotels; Depot was so important to the city's commerce that in 1897, hundreds of employees of two rival streetcar companies rioted here, battling over rights to build trolley tracks.

Though the Southern Railway passenger terminal closed 34 years ago, Norfolk Southern freight trains still use these tracks. The rail yards separate Depot and Jackson, which are joined principally by two points: one is a bumpy railroad crossing at Central, at the abrupt northern boundary of the Old City; the other is a likely-to-be-rebuilt viaduct at Gay Street.

Today, it's a schismatic neighborhood, but an interesting one. On the town side is the Old City, the JFG plant, the burgeoning residential 100 block of Gay, and the long-promised McClung warehouse residential project. On the far side, along Depot, are Regas, the grand dame of Knoxville restaurants; the Victorian-era White Lily flour plant, manufacturer of one of Knoxville's best-known products; specialty businesses like O'Hanlon Lighting and Industrial Belting and Supply; and some interesting vacant buildings.

Charlie Smith, of the architectural firm Bullock Smith, knows this neighborhood well. His office is in the 1903 Southern Railway passenger terminal, which his firm renovated several years ago. Bullock Smith is among Knoxville's best-known architectural firms, with contracts in 23 nations and most of the United States. They're known for their imaginative, often whimsical designs of shopping centers and entertainment venues. Smith often entertains clients in downtown Knoxville, visitors from Turkey, Trinidad, Canada, Saudi Arabia. He likes to take them for lunch and a stroll, and that's what got him thinking. The Old City's just around the corner, but in between, especially around Central and Depot, are broken sidewalks, gravel, and railroad tracks unimproved for pedestrian use. And then there's what he calls the Dempster Dumpster Archway, a collection of garbage bins on both sides of Central which forms the northern entrance to the Old City. "It's a little embarrassing, bringing people from around the world this way," Smith says.

He responded as any architect would, by going back to the office and drawing some pictures. He's proposing to KCDC that his neighborhood become a voluntary "development area."

In the past, property owners haven't generally regarded redevelopment-area status as a badge of honor. Often implemented to deal with uncooperative or irresponsible landowners, development areas frequently arrive as unwelcome impositions, the equivalent of detention. Declaring a neighborhood a redevelopment area often means clearing titles for forced acquisition and/or condemnation.

Intended to hasten work on the apparently stalled McClung warehouse project, the Jackson Avenue Redevelopment Area originally included only the long western block of that street.

For once, neighboring property owners were actually envious. First was former mayor and major property owner Kyle Testerman, who wanted to include his block of Jackson in the Old City. Then came Charlie Smith—with the support of the Regases and other neighbors—proposing to include Depot, and the whole neighborhood north to Magnolia, in what he posits as the Jackson/Depot Redevelopment Area.

He pictures a vacant two-story Victorian building at Central and Depot as a railroad museum. The industrial-tool businesses could open a shop for renovation supplies. The venerable White Lily plant, just across the tracks from the Old City, might open a street-level gourmet shop. He has interested Bill Regas in the possibilities of opening a street-level Greek bakery, as well as a Regas take-out window. All the city would pitch in would be sidewalks and maybe some plantings and fencings.

Though the "redevelopment area" designation makes it easier for the city to condemn and acquire property, Smith doesn't see condemnation as a likelihood for any building in the neighborhood. Each landowner would be responsible for his own improvements. Advertisements for discussion of the issue will commence in July, with the proposal likely to come before City Council in August. According to Dan Tiller, KCDC's chief executive officer, the proposal, if passed, would be little more than an idea, which wouldn't necessarily imply action. It certainly doesn't imply developers, and even city-sponsored improvements would have to follow on their own.

"This is something we need to make clear. We're not preparing a plan, it's a process," Tiller says of the redevelopment-area proposal. He has given Smith's plans the once-over, and so far has no objections, and says Smith's proposals may be incorporated into KCDC's proposal.

For Regas, O'Hanlon, Bullock Smith and other businesses, there's some urgency to improving alternative connections to the rest of downtown. Beginning around 2007, TDOT plans to demolish the 1919 Gay Street viaduct, which is now the primary pedestrian and automobile conduit between them and the rest of downtown. Construction of the new bridge, built higher to accommodate tall rail cars, will take at least two years. Smith appealed to the highway commissioner to keep the old bridge partly open during construction, in the manner of the recent work on Lovell Road. He got turned down flat.

With Broadway making for a rather roundabout connection, the main artery between the bulk of downtown and the Depot/Magnolia area, as well as the Emory Place vicinity, will be that now-crumbly block where Central crosses the tracks.

—Jack Neely