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Seven Days

Wednesday, June 26
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess. This is getting more than a little annoying.
Thursday, June 27
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess.
UT trustees adopt what they call a "tentative" budget, because of uncertainty about what the state Legislature will do to resolve its own budget mess, and the Faculty Senate representative tells other board members that her colleagues are looking for jobs in other states. Good thinking.
A Morristown man has confessed to burglaries at 50 churches in seven states, it's disclosed. Maybe he was just trying to steal the phrase "under God" from the churches' "pledge" documents.
Friday, June 28
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess.
Saturday, June 29
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess.
Sunday, June 30
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess by the midnight deadline, shutting down "non-essential" arms of state government and furloughing half the state's employees indefinitely.
Indefinitely is a long, long time.
Monday, July 1
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess. Some of them head home. If they all headed home, we couldn't be much worse off.
Road construction comes to a halt as TDOT runs out of money. Road rage is directed toward cars with legislative tags, and TDOT critics are seen cheering (on foot) in the streets.
Tuesday, July 2
State legislators talk, but don't resolve the budget mess.
A federal judge in Knoxville gives an area coffee distributor 10 days to pay employees what they are owed or be shut down. The owner of the business might have been heard shouting, "Let them drink tea!" but his voice was drowned out be the legislative chant of "Let them eat cake."

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:
Why a vacant building should care to promote "Peace on Earth...Goodwill Towards Men" is perhaps a question best left to heaven. But we can at least answer the question of where this building is: on the corner of Glenwood and Broadway, across from Greenlee Bicycle Shop, on the northeast fringe of the Fourth and Gill neighborhood. A dweller in Fourth and Gill (though not a fringe dweller), City Councilman Rob Frost is a frequent first-responder to Knoxville Found. Perhaps associating his name with the sentiment expressed herein is Councilman Frost's way of extending an olive branch from the legislative to the executive branch of city government. Whatever his motivations, Frost's efforts are rewarded with a Lilo & Stitch "Create a Hawaiian Adventure: Luau and Recipe Tips" brochure and a Lilo & Stitch beachball. Y'all play nice, now.

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

KNOXVILLE CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, July 9
7 p.m. City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Second vote on the H-1 overlay for the Smith/Coughlin House is on the agenda.

Metropolitan Planning Commission
Thursday, July 11
1:30 p.m.
City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Vote on the H-1 overlay for the Sprankle Building is scheduled.

CANDIDATE FORUM, STATE REPRESENTATIVE, 17th district
Thursday, July 11
7-8:30 p.m.
City County Building
Small Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Craig Kisabeth will answer questions from the audience. (Jamie Hagood has withdrawn because of scheduling conflicts.) Moderated by Gene Patterson. Sponsored by Metro Pulse and the UT Faculty Senate.

Into the Recycle Bin
Election Commission removes referendum from ballot

Chiding Knoxville's legislative and executive branches for not working out the issue themselves, the Knox County Election Commission voted unanimously to abide by City Council's desire to remove the election cycle referendum from the Aug. 1 ballot—over the objections of the city's legal department. Said Election Commission Chairman David M. Eldridge, "I am frankly disappointed that we are being presented with this issue today, that we are being called upon to resolve it. I'm disappointed because I am concerned that it evinces a level of divisiveness within our city government that we do not need to have."

At issue was an ordinance that would have allowed voters to decide whether the City Charter should be amended to make city elections coincide with state and federal elections. Widely regarded as a pet project of Mayor Victor Ashe, the ordinance was passed by the previous Council in October of 2001, a month before five of those Council members left office. This apparently did not sit well with some freshman Council members. Councilman Mark Brown said, "Remember, this ordinance was passed in October; we were elected in November. That's a quick time frame for five outgoing people to vote in this situation, and then let five new people come into it.... It could have been delayed until we came in, as the new elected officials. But that didn't happen."

Ashe said changing the election cycles would increase voter turnout, but the new Council members said they were worried city races would have a hard time attracting the attention of voters and the media if they were held at the same time as other high-profile elections. After Monday's meeting, Councilman Steve Hall said that he thought "the Commission acted correctly, for all the reasons that were stated. I think the City Council elections would just get lost in the fray."

When Council voted to remove the referendum from the ballot at its June 25 meeting, Ashe publicly upbraided the rebellious Council members and refused to preside over the vote or sign the ordinance. Council member Barbara Pelot presided in his absence. Ashe argued voters should be allowed to decide when to hold elections. Brown and other Council members responded that the referendum was not initiated by voters but by Council itself, and Council should have the right to withdraw it.

City Law Director Michael Kelley presented the position of the city's legal department, while Jason Long, who practices with City Council attorney Charles Swanson, spoke for Council. The crux of the debate was the interpretation of a passage from the Tennessee State Constitution. Article XI, Section 9 states in part, "A charter or amendment may be proposed by any home rule community. ...It shall be the duty of such muncipality to publish any proposal so made and to present it to its qualified voters at the first general state election which shall be held at least sixty (60) days after such publication and such proposal shall become effective after sixty (60) days after approval by a majority of qualified voters voting thereon."

In essence, Kelley's argument was that, because the section does not specifically include directions for removing a referendum from the ballot, it must be interpreted that a muncipality does not have the power to remove it. Long's position was that, since there was no specific prohibition or other direction in the wording, the passage must be interpreted to allow Council the freedom to remove the referendum.

County Law Director Mike Moyers, who generally tries to stay out of city affairs, also got dragged into the debate at the behest of the Election Commission. He essentially concurred with Kelley's interpretation. But in the last paragraph of his written opinion, Moyers stated, "A good argument exists for the position advanced by each party, and probably any action the Election Commission takes is defensible."

In presenting the motion to allow Council's decision to stand, removing the referendum from the ballot, Chairman Eldridge said, "I recognize the merit of the constitutional argument that City Council may have acted outside its authority." However, he found more persuasive "the proposition that the Council should have the authority to repeal that which it has already enacted; that seems to me the inherent authority in it."

Councilmen Joe Hultquist and Rob Frost applauded the decision. Said Frost, "It's important that this issue be studied in-depth, which I don't believe was done before. Hopefully this will give us the opportunity to do so, because the issue may not be 'ripe' right now, but it may be in the future." And Councilman Hultquist said, "We clearly did the right thing. We were clearly within our authority. Now, it's time to move forward. I'm thinking about presenting a resolution before Council to establish a blue-ribbon commission, to address the issue [of low voter turnout]."

Kelley's reaction was understandably less sanguine. "I'm disappointed in the decision, and I disagree with the decision...whichever way you feel about it as a policy matter, the voters should have the opportunity to decide. And I think the Election Commission should have erred on the side of allowing the voters to decide."

—Scott McNutt

Square Pegs
Market Square's redesign is under way—but not without controversy

The Market Square charrette last week ended with at least the appearance of consensus, as the design team of Kinsey Probasco outlined a general plan for Market Square, liberally defined to include everything from the TVA plaza to Krutch Park, including its proposed eastward extension to Gay Street.

The unusual team of developers chose the charrette process—a municipally progressive way for developers to hear and incorporate the ideas and opinions of citizens—to get some ideas and reactions, and perhaps to avoid the severe alienation elicited by the Worsham Watkins plans for the Square two years ago.

It's appropriate that a new concept be involved in such a sweeping change for the Square and its neighborhood, which will easily be one of the biggest transformations in the 150-year history of the marketplace.

Overseeing the process was none other than UT professor Stroud Watson, whose luxuriant white beard has presided over many similar events in Chattanooga. That's where he lives and where he has directed much of that downtown's remarkable revival, involved in everything from the Aquarium project, which he said came out of a Chattanooga charrette in the '80s, to the city's fleet of electric buses and the arts district, to the city's relatively new Miller Plaza. Both Jon Kinsey—the still-youthful former mayor of Chattanooga remembered for his progressive, new-urbanist values—and his partner Ben Probasco were present to hear the downtowners' comments.

Thursday's session, in which a crowd of more than 100 was split into about a dozen tables to discuss and sometimes argue various aspects of the project, was noisy and, at times, chaotic. Participants, ranging from major property owners to passersby, divided on several issues, from the true character of the square to the correct pronunciation of Krutch Park. Some issues were:

Whether traffic and automobile parking should be allowed on the Square. Though a recent report by national retail consultant Bob Gibbs recommended opening the Square to traffic, and a couple of retailers made a strong pitch for it, architect Buzz Goss, a member of the Kinsey Probasco design team, says the consensus was that the square should remain a pedestrians-only space. "I like that idea," says Mahasti Vafaie, whose 12 years as proprietor of the popular Tomato Head restaurant qualify her for Grand Dame status. "It's the only pedestrian space in town, and should stay that way."

Whether the adjacent streets should become two-way, which would make the Square easier to encounter by automobile—as it is, cars can only drive by or away from the Square. But this would also eliminate a significant amount of streetside parking, on which at least one retailer says she depends. The consensus, as voiced by Watson, was that all the streets involved—Wall, Union, Market, and Clinch—should become two-way.

The character and quality of the Square's public events. Though some see the city's free and wildly popular Sundown in the City concerts on Thursday evenings as an unqualified success, a few of the Square's residents are weary of the weekly festival, complaining of unruly beerdrinkers urinating on automobiles. And a few retailers, like Susan Key and Emily Dewhirst, are disappointed that the weekly thousands don't always render significant numbers of serious shoppers.

The trees. Maples or oaks, aligned in a classical allée for two blocks from Clinch to Wall, will be a big part of the plan. But one of the lingering arguments is the fate of the existing trees on the Square, which, after years, have grown to form a shady canopy over the southern third of the space. Some also regret the disruption the plan implies for 16-year-old Krutch Park, which even as it nearly doubles its size, stands to lose its fences, some of its trees, and its shady, enclosed pocket-park atmosphere due to the unified allée approach. Judging by the first reactions of some city officials and by discussions on the k2k Internet forum this week, the destruction of any of the Square's trees may turn out to be the most controversial part of the plan.

"I'm more concerned about what's going to happen during construction," says Vafaie, who wants to be sure her customers can get to and from her restaurant.

Goss believes the charrette was "precedent-setting" for Knoxville and hopes future developers will invite the same kind of public participation in planning.

Decisions made so far are mostly still in the category of recommendations; city officials advised Kinsey Probasco that several of the proposals, especially those regarding trees and traffic, would need further study. But Kinsey says he hopes to have construction underway by October. The next step is for the design team to synthesize the results of last week's meeting before they make a formal presentation to KCDC.

—Jack Neely