Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Brown Out

The fate of the historic J. Allen Smith home will be hanging in the balance at Tuesday's City Council meeting, with the outcome very much in doubt. Unless Council acts on an ordinance to impose historic overlay (H-1) zoning on the house at that meeting, the ordinance will die for lack of action within a prescribed time frame after Metropolitan Planning Commission unanimously approved it. As best anyone can count noses, four Council members favor preservation of the house, while four support the rights of its owner, Cherokee Country Club, to tear it down in order to get more parking and golf practice space. The ninth member, inner-city Councilman Mark Brown, is understood to be squarely on the fence.

In an effort to resolve the dispute, Brown brought in a firm from Nashville that specializes in moving houses. Its conclusion: the Smith house could be mounted on rollers and relocated at a cost of $400,000—but not down Lyons View Pike because of its narrow right-of-way. Meanwhile, the Junior League of Knoxville has been seeking to reach agreement with the country club on a plan whereby the League would raise the $1 million needed to restore the house and then make the upper floor its headquarters. In a letter to club members last week, however, Cherokee president Frank Addicks reported that, "Unfortunately, even though the club made concessions, tax issues negatively impacting both organizations have prevented these preliminary discussions from advancing to a compromise." Yet some of those involved in the discussions still hold out hope for them.

Brown couldn't be reached for comment, because he's out of town this week attending a short course at Harvard University on—guess what?—conflict resolution.

Knuckle Balls

Sleeping on the job isn't exactly a new pastime for Vice Mayor Jack Sharp, but these days he has a better justification—he's got to conserve his strength to go in for Mayor Victor Ashe, a busy man with more important things to do than stay till the end of City Council meetings. Ashe has been leaving most City Council meetings early, and is probably reassured knowing that he's turning the gavel over to a rested and ready Sharp. So when the television camera catches Sharp catching some Zs during the early part of a Council meeting, just think of him as a relief pitcher warming up in the bullpen with some deep meditation prior to coming off the bench for the mayor.

Charity Balls

The biggest spender at the annual Society of Professional Journalists' Front Page Follies auction Saturday night was mayoral hopeful Bud Gilbert, who jumped into a furious bidding war for what started out to be two 3-x-11 ads in the News-Sentinel. Gilbert's interest was piqued at about the $500 mark, when auctioneer Bear Stephenson announced that the newspaper was willing to increase the size of the ads, and also would allow the ad space to be used for political purposes. Gilbert started bidding and kept on until about the $1,800 mark, when he winked at Stephenson in an attempt to signal that he was done. Stephenson interpreted the wink as a bid, and Gilbert wound up winning the prize—for a paltry $2,000. Later, Gilbert said he wasn't unhappy about winking his way into the advertising deal, since he'd be getting $4,000 worth of space for his two grand. "It's a bargain, and I'm going to be running a poor man's race," he said, making an oblique reference to his prospective opponent Bill Haslam.

Meet Balls

The Follies bidding for tapas with County Exec.-elect Mike Ragsdale and his wife, Claudia, at Kenny Siao's chichi Cha Cha restaurant ran to $725 and was won by TVA Director Bill Baxter. He beat out Susan Brown, the Rural Metro honcha who has every reason to get next to the new executive, what with the county's ambulance contract up in the air and embroiled in a second round of political speed-shifting.