Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Talking It Up

The Volunteer State has gotten some high- profile exposure in the wake of the shutdown of Tennessee government. State employees should quit their whining, says Rush Limbaugh, who snorts that those who are laid off are, by definition, "non-essential" and should therefore hit the road. "There's your budget cut, folks."

Locally, sports-talk guy Tony Basilio has been inspired to branch out into political commentary. On Tuesday he and his sidekick, "Brocky," were trashing UT political science prof/political pundit Bill Lyons when Lyons popped in on their remote broadcast site and politely took them to task. Later, Basilio said that his expanding audience means that he has less freedom to speak his mind.

The following afternoon he told his listeners that Gov. Don Sundquist started TennCare and that the state hadn't had trouble balancing the budget in the pre-Sundquist era. Since Sundquist predecessor Ned McWherter was the architect of TennCare, and in his second term made the same tax reform push as Sundquist, Basilio was wrong on both counts. As a political commentator, he's an excellent sports-talk guy.

Moving On Up

County exec-elect Mike Ragsdale has found himself relegated to a corner of somebody else's office at his current job at Barber & McMurry, where he is counting down the days until moving into the City County Building. Barber & McMurry has hired former Convention and Visitors Bureau head Mike Carrier to fill Ragsdale's soon-to-be-vacated position (in a move that some waggish observers have likened to a witness protection program, considering that Carrier's departure from his post coincided with a Ragsdale-endorsed reorganization of the CVB). So Ragsdale has set up camp in the office of B&M honcho Bob Parrott while he mulls over hiring a media specialist for the county. He is said to be considering former mayoral flacks Mike Cohen, Frank Cagle and George Korda, along with Katie Bell and an Unnamed Draft Pick for the position.

Run, Jamie, Run

The 17th state House district candidates' forum scheduled for next Thursday, July 11, will go ahead, but with a few changes: incumbent Rep. Jamie Hagood, after first agreeing to debate with challenger Craig Kisabeth, subsequently told organizers she had a scheduling conflict. Attempts to reschedule sometime before the Aug. 1 Republican primary were unsuccessful. As a result, one of the sponsors, the League of Women Voters, has withdrawn because of policies that prevent it from involvement in events with just one candidate represented. The other sponsors, Metro Pulse and the UT Faculty Senate, are still signed on. So if you want to hear what Kisabeth has to say, come on down to the Small Assembly Room in the City County Building at 7 p.m. next Thursday. And just for fun, you can invent your own responses for the absent Hagood.

Insurrection

Ballots for the August primary election went to the printer this week undisturbed by threatened legal action by the city. Mayor Victor Ashe, miffed over City Council's 6-3 vote to remove the election-cycle referendum from the ballot (see Citybeat, page 7), had been threatening to challenge the decision in court. On Monday, Knox County Election Commission voted to uphold City Council's decision. There was no word from Ashe, who is in Belgium.

Radio-Free Radio?

Late last week, workers at WUOT—the University of Tennessee radio station that broadcasts National Public Radio, classical and jazz music and other shows—were fretting that they might not be on the air come Monday, because of the state budget crisis. The students who run WUTK—the more youth-oriented college station—had similar fears.

Come Monday morning, most of the university was shut down, but a relieved Daniel Berry was still giving his morning concert on WUOT and you could still catch an assortment of computer-spun alternative rock and hip hop on WUTK.

On Sunday, UT President John Shumaker and his staff decided which jobs and departments were essential and both stations made the cut. UT spokesman John Clark says it's because the stations are "a means of communicating with the campus about what's going on in regards to the shutdown."

"I understand too that there's some FCC issues about hours of operations that have to be met," Clark added.

Several WUOT employees were told to stay home and the station had to cut a number of programs, Berry says, including "Marketplace," BBC news and "Schickele Mix"—these programs from Public Radio International had contracts due on July 1.

Other areas declared essential at UT include security, animal care, police, any research programs that involved live organisms (which would be lost if unattended or monitored), and certain student services. About 21 percent of UTK's roughly 6,600 employees are still working as of press time, Clark says.