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Seven Days

Wednesday, July 3
Legislators talk, but do not act, on tax reform, instead passing a sales tax increase that will raise an estimated $933 million to balance the state's "status quo" budget on the backs of Tennessee businesses trying to sell taxable products near the state lines. Oh, well, thousands of state employees will get to go back to work after a prolonged holiday.

Thursday, July 4
The fireworks you saw were not necessarily torched solely by people incensed by the Legislature's unwillingness to confront real problems, but a lot of them were.

Friday, July 5
The mother of a Loudon County teenager dying of cancer is jailed for refusing to seek medical treatment for her daughter. All along, we thought "Under God" meant innocent kids and their parents were protected by a higher power.
A Knoxville woman deported from Israel for participating in a "peace mission" says she'll return to the strife-torn region. The question is: What for? No one there has shown any interest in peace.

Saturday, July 6
Knox County sheriff's candidate Jim Andrews is heard on NPR's Car Talk show explaining his decision to drive a little convertible instead of a big truck in his campaign. After calling his roadster a "wussy" car, his hosts convince him he's doing the right thing and should "stick to his guns." Guns? What guns? This was supposed to be Car Talk.

Monday, July 8
A former City Council member, Gary Underwood, files suit to re-instate an action to allow a referendum on changing the city election cycle that was effectively rescinded by the new Council membership. Some people never give up.

Tuesday, July 9
Rural/Metro was summoned to a northwest Knox County location to examine a drum of chemicals that was bubbling and giving off a noxious odor. Not to worry. It's not us. It's just some old Oak Ridge barrel rolling our way.

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:
Knoxville Found's photo last week is of a statue in front of the building housing the Meridian Trust & Investment Company at 109 Northshore Drive. We're glad that many of you, including first-responder Ed Rogers, Ph.D., a professor in UT's Department of Family Medicine, knew where it was, because we're not allowed farther west than Western Plaza. And we don't know anything else about the statue, other than our art director mumbling something about statues being a favorite decoration of a mysterious person named "McBride." If you know more, please feel free to let us know. As his prize, Prof. Rogers will receive a copy of Authorized to Heal: Gender, Class, and the Transformation of Medicine in Appalachia, 1880-1930. We hope it helps.

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

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.

POLICE ADVISORY AND REVIEW COMMITTEE
Thursday, July 11
6 p.m.
Mt. Zion Baptist Church
2714 Brooks Rd.
Quarterly meeting. The public is invited. Call 215-3966 for more information.

KNOX COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
Tuesday, July 16
5 p.m.
Andrew Johnson Building
1st Floor Board Room
912 S. Gay St.
Work session.

Who Speaks for the 17th?
Both candidates say they will

The 17th House District stretches from the manicured "Hills" of Sequoyah to the foothills of the Smokies, where Jefferson County butts up against Cocke. Two-term Republican state Representative Jamie Hagood is working hard at putting the best face on the plan that shoved the district she represents into Jefferson County and strung it out along the southern rim of Knox County and looped it west to take in her home precinct of Sequoyah and Westmoreland next door. She says she loves Jefferson County.

"It is a beautiful county with great, great people. In the past, I used to go up there a lot to go horseback riding, so I was familiar with the people there. Early on, I think, in the communities that were split, there was a lot of concern about representation, but now, I think a lot of people are seeing it as definitely an opportunity to make some great lemonade..."

Hagood, a new graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law when she was first elected, maintains that if she is reelected, Jefferson County will benefit from the additional clout of being represented in Nashville by a member of the Knox County legislative delegation, as well as from being represented in Washington by three different members of the U.S. House of Representatives (Bill Jenkins, Jimmy Duncan and Zach Wamp).

Her opponent, political newcomer Craig Kisabeth of Dandridge, is likewise determined to make the best of the situation.

"You hear a sense of disenfranchisement from people at both ends of the district," the 47-year-old Kisabeth says. "And it's hard to figure out how it (the redistricting) happened. But I'd like to reassure them that I plan to represent the entire district equally, and I will initiate monthly community meetings. I want people to understand that I'll be there physically, that I'm a good listener who's always been the kind of person who listens before he talks."

Redistricting is a ruthless process, with the majority party typically exercising all the ham-fisted clout at its command to maintain its advantage over the minority. In Tennessee, this means that the Democrats get first pick when it comes to drawing district lines, with the Republicans being left to squabble over what's left. Republicans then demonstrate their own pecking order to divvy up the scraps. This year, Hagood evidently was at the bottom of the food chain.

The term gerrymandering was coined in Massachusetts in 1812, when Gov. Eldbridge Gerry presided over a redistricting plan that greatly benefited his Jeffersonian Party. Legend has it that one Federalist observed to another that the district looked rather like a salamander. His cohort replied that it more resembled a "Gerrymander."

Neither Hagood nor Kisabeth wants to point the finger, but there is lots of off-the-record speculation that the 17th District looks like a "Boyermander."

Outgoing 19th District state Rep. Jim Boyer says he's being unjustly accused by those who suspect that he wanted to isolate Hagood in hopes of enhancing his own chances of being elected to the 6th District state Senate seat upon Ben Atchley's expected 2004 retirement. Political observers predict that Boyer will sit out the next two years, wait for Atchley's retirement announcement, then run for the Atchley seat, and that Hagood is a major rival for that position. Boyer says such speculation is unfair and just flat wrong.

"Bottom line is, neither one of us—Jamie nor me—had a choice. Jamie may never believe that, but that's all right. I can't help it. The one thing I asked was to keep Knox County whole."

Boyer says the redistricting of Knox County was driven by one central intention: "To enhance the Democrats' probability of getting elected."

Boyer quotes powerful Middle Tennessee Democrat Pete Phillips (chairman of the House Calendar and Rules Committee) in explaining how the process works:

"We operate under the Golden Rule—'He who has the gold, rules.' When you're on the short end of the stick with 41 votes to their 58, they're going to do basically what they're going to do. Originally, it was a lot worse than it is now. They had 14 Republicans pitted against each other..."

Boyer says he is retiring from the House to concentrate on his business, which has suffered from ever-increasing demands of the general Assembly. Will he run for Atchley's Senate seat in 2004, should Atchley retire? "I'm not shutting the door on anything."

Both Hagood and Kisabeth oppose a state income tax and say they support their alma mater, the University of Tennessee. Hagood says UT has been an important part of her life.

"It has been very frustrating that higher education has been in the place where they have been in harm's way as this budget battle has gone on. I have been open to constitutional proposals that would fully fund UT throughout the whole budget process. I voted for a constitutional call and I have always been supportive of full funding for UT. I've always been open to any constitutional proposal for UT."

Kisabeth, who just retired from a phenomenally successful 20-year football coaching career at Jefferson County High School, is still a teacher and the athletic director there. He is not unfamiliar with the West Knoxville environs of the district, as he is a graduate of the University of Tennessee with a BS in mathematics who taught and coached at West High School in the late '70s. He doesn't sound like the typical coach when he speaks:

"Coaches have a tendency to get locked into teaching health and physical education. I taught algebra, geometry, and a wide variety of subjects. I know I'm battling the good ole' boy stereotype. A lot of people peg an athletic coach as only being an expert in that field. That is the wrong correlation to make. Coaches are hired as teachers first. We take pride in our teaching."

Even with that caveat, it is worth noting that he remains close to many of his former players and students, and he feels a deep attachment to the University of Tennessee and is concerned at the direction state funding is taking.

"Even the building maintenance allotment is only about a fourth what was originally budgeted.... Funding is a huge headache for our institutions of higher education right now and should be a concern for the entire state."

—Betty Bean

Historic Occasion
Council passes the Lyons View Historic Overlay

Barbara Pelot called it "a very defining point." Rob Frost said the vote would show that "the importance of preserving part of this city's heritage will be forever elevated to a plane it has never reached before." Mark Brown noted that "we must preserve those parts of our heritage that make us who we are," while pleading, "I hope, I expect, I request that Cherokee Country Club, Knox Heritage, the Junior League—those individuals who have worked so hard these last two weeks on this process—continue to work and to find out, can we get this [agreement] done."

With such pronouncements, City Council voted 6-3 to approve the H-1 Overlay for the J. Allen Smith house—in spite of Cherokee Country Club lawyer Charles Wagner III's sometimes-angry arguments that "the economics just aren't there," that a vote for the historic overlay would effectively end Cherokee's negotiations to save the mansion, and his claim that passing an overlay would constitute "a taking" of the Cherokee Country Club's land.

The importance of the vote may extend beyond the preservation of a single house. The immediate battle goes back to February, when Cherokee was notified that Mayor Ashe had applied to have a historic overlay placed on the Smith house. At the time, historic-preservation advocates feared that there were insufficient votes on City Council to save the house. But since that time, sentiment appears to have grown stronger in favor of historic preservation in general, perhaps because of the publicity surrounding the Smith house conflict. Mayor Ashe making historic preservation a top priority of his administration may also have had an effect.

The vote may be symbolic of other changes as well. Because Cherokee Country Club is widely considered to count among its members some of the most wealthy and most politically influential citizens of Knoxville, some attendees at last night's meeting speculated that the vote indicated a shift in the political power structure within the city. UT political science professor Bill Lyons, a frequent commentator on the city's political scene, wouldn't go that far. "I think there could be a change in the culture...maybe there's not the deference there once was. Certainly, the political process has become more participatory recently, and there are other movements—and historic preservation is one—that may be gaining [importance]."

Whether or not this particular vote goes down in history as a turning point for the city, the immediate issue is: Can a deal be worked out that allows Cherokee to build their desired parking lot on the club grounds and use the house for other purposes? A Circuit Court judge has already ruled that the city must issue the club a demolition permit, a decision the city has appealed. That case is still pending. Were the club to win, it would be allowed to tear down the house, if it still wants to.

Cherokee attorney Wagner was not optimistic about efforts to mediate a way to save the house. "In our conversations with a tax attorney for National Historic Trust, [we have] said that we will agree to a 'conservation easement' that will apply forever in perpetuity to that [house]...and we would be paid $2.5 million, which would be the costs of the renovation, the integration into the club [and other costs]." But, Wagner claimed, putting a historic overlay on the property would make the conservation easement impossible. Wagner then contended that, after Cherokee had worked out a deal with the Junior League in which the cost of preserving and restoring the house would not be borne by Cherokee, he was then told that no funds would be forthcoming from other parties. Thus, Wagner argued, Cherokee would be forced to bear the cost of preserving the house alone. (Councilman Rob Frost later noted that, even if a historic overlay were placed on the house, Cherokee would be under no obligation to spend money to preserve it.)

Lawyer Tom McAdams, a member of Cherokee and advocate of preserving the mansion who has been involved in the negotiations, disputed Wagner's assessment of the situation. McAdams claimed that the National Historic Trust's attorney did not give an opinion on "the impact on the donating organization...he did say that in the more customary situation a property owner donates [a property] for nothing and takes a charitable deduction equal to the value of that donation." He explained that the Junior League and its partners had offered between $1 and $1.5 million toward the preservation of the house, which he believed "was the largest single proposal of putting private money into a historic preservation project that is going to be owned and primarily utilized by someone else."

After the meeting, McAdams said he hoped that the club "would move forward with the mediation process. The preservation advocates are certainly willing, and I hope the club will be willing to continue to try to find a solution that will work for them and for the house."

Does the vote represent a sea change in attitudes within Knoxville toward historic preservation? One test comes at 1:30 p.m. today, when the MPC decides whether to extend a historic overlay for the 98-year-old Sprankle Building, which Home Federal Bank wants to demolish for a parking lot.

—Scott McNutt