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Seven Days

Thursday, July 18
TVA finally gets around to cutting back on its luxurious office space in Nashville. The agency indicated it needs less than half the space and will save about $1 million a year. A million here, a million there. Pretty soon that could add up to real money.

Friday, July 19
State environmental officials notify the city that regulations were violated in the dumping of materials from the former Coster Shop property under redevelopment. City officials say it's all the contractors' fault—heck, they're not even sure where the Coster Shop is.

Saturday, July 20
It's disclosed that a Knox County election commissioner publicly endorsed a fellow Republican for re-election. Told that such actions by an election commissioner are ill-advised, if not an outright breach of office, the commissioner says he "forgot" he was on the Election Commission. Maybe he should "forget" about being re-appointed.
Fire breaks out at a Morgan County oil drilling site from what was described as a gusher. As the fire rages, Morgan County residents don ten-gallon hats and start forming lines at the nearest Cadillac dealership.

Monday, July 22
KAT announces its ridership grew by almost 5 percent in the past fiscal year, "despite...an economic downturn." The bus company apparently doesn't understand that the economic downturn, if it continues at the present rate, would add thousands of bus riders and create demand for many more bus routes.

Tuesday, July 23
TVA announces it plans to spend almost $2 billion to reopen its oldest nuclear reactor, Unit 1 at Browns Ferry in Alabama. That unit was first activated in 1973. Someone at TVA should look up the projected life of a nuclear reactor. Unit 1, idled out of safety concerns for 17 years, is a little long in the tooth to be fired up again.

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:
Does the right hand know what the left one is doing? Maybe, maybe not, but plenty of you knew what we were up to with last week's Knoxville Found. The limited perspective wasn't enough to fool you; you knew those were the hands of the Alex Haley statue in Morningside Park. Jeannine Hunter of Knoxville was first to tell us what so many of you also knew. In recognition of her achievement, Jeannine receives a copy of the appropriately titled Mountain Hands: A Portrait of Southern Appalachia, which just happens to be written by another local celebrity writer, Sam Venable (photos by Paul Efird). We're sure it will be in good ha-...care, with Jeannine.

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

KCDC BOARD MEETING
Thursday, July 25
11:30 a.m.
Love Towers
1171 Armstrong Ave.
Regular monthly meeting.

KNOXVILLE AREA TRANSIT (KAT) CITIZEN'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Thursday, July 25
1 p.m.
Lawson McGhee Library
Downstairs Meeting Room
500 W. Church Ave.
Monthly meeting.

KNOXVILLE TRANSIT AUTHORITY
Thursday, July 25
3 p.m.
City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 W. Main St.
Monthly meeting.

NAACP POLITICAL FORUM
Thursday, July 25
7:30 p.m.
City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 W. Main St.
No further information available at press time. Contact the NAACP office at 522-8930 for more information.

Long Odds
As the lottery campaign nears, anti-lottery forces have everything but the votes

The good news for lottery hopefuls is that a recent Mason-Dixon poll funded by the state's large daily newspapers showed that 64 percent of Tennessee residents favor one. But that's about it. As the anti-lottery forces get ready to launch their campaign to defeat the Nov. 5 referendum, they have everything else that matters: money, a statewide organization, a ton of ready-made literature and most of the passionate people in this debate. About all that the pro-lottery side has is state Sen. Steve Cohen, who believes in his cause but who has so little money that he doesn't think he can afford to drive around the state arguing in favor of it this fall.

"I think that this is the greatest thing that we could do for colleges and for the future of this state," says Cohen. "But we have no money, we have no office, we don't have much of anything but a strong case."

In the referendum, Tennessee residents will decide whether to replace the state Constitution's ban on lotteries with language that authorizes a state-run lottery to generate money for college scholarships, capital projects for K-12 education and early learning programs. If the referendum passes, the Legislature would still have to actually authorize a lottery—a step that is not a foregone conclusion regardless of what happens in November.

Despite what the polls show, the campaign that is about to start is decidedly one-sided. With less than 15 weeks until the referendum, the anti-lottery side has a statewide organization called the Gambling Free Tennessee Alliance that has raised close to $500,000 and hopes to eventually get about three times that amount. The GFTA, which is chaired by Republican fundraiser Joe Rodgers of Nashville, has hired conservative lobbyist Michael Gilstrap as its full-time director and former Knoxville mayor Randy Tyree as a consultant. Allied with the GFTA is the Tennessee Baptist Convention, the largest religious organization in the state with 3,000 churches. The TBC is helping to raise money to fight the lottery and has provided anti-lottery literature to churches across the state. The TBC also has the backing of the Southern Baptist Convention, a Nashville-based organization that helped defeat a lottery referendum in Alabama in 1999.

On the other side, the Tennessee Student Lottery Coalition has raised less than $20,000. The TSLC's board of directors, an impressive group of power brokers from across the state, has done little so far. Knoxville businessman Jim Haslam has withdrawn from the board. Nashville health care magnate Clayton McWhorter is busy running his venture capital business and devoting time to the University of Tennessee, where he is the vice chairman of the board of trustees. TSLC board member and Republican fundraiser Ted Welch has been so caught up raising money for U.S. Senatorial candidate (and lottery opponent) Lamar Alexander that he doesn't think he'll be able to devote much time to the lottery. "I'll help with the lottery campaign if I can, but I doubt if I will be doing direct solicitations," Welch says.

Cohen says he plans to start raising money in August. "I've obviously been pretty busy right now, with the Legislature in session for so long," he says. He says he has no idea how much his side can raise, but he knows it will be nowhere near the amount raised by the anti-lottery movement in Tennessee or even the pro-lottery side in Alabama prior to the 1999 referendum in that state. "In the other states where there was a recent lottery referendum, the governor was out there raising money in favor of a lottery," Cohen says. "Here it's just me."

Cohen's main selling point is Georgia's HOPE scholarship, on which he hopes to base Tennessee's scholarship program if the lottery passes. Funded entirely by the Georgia lottery, the HOPE scholarship guarantees full tuition to a Georgia state college for every student who graduates from a Georgia high school with at least a "B" average and who maintains at least a "B" average in college. Started in 1993, the HOPE program has provided $1.56 billion in scholarships to over 600,000 students, dramatically increasing college enrollment in the state.

"The fact that tuition rates have gone up so much has made the scholarships even more important," Cohen says. "College is not cheap in Tennessee anymore."

In addition to the scholarships, the Georgia lottery has also funded that state's commendable pre-K education program, which serves 62,500 children at 976 locations. Tennessee's pre-K program is pitiful by comparison and only serves 3,000 students, despite repeated efforts by Gov. Don Sundquist to expand it.

Besides the programs that would be funded by the lottery, Cohen and other TSLC board members say Tennessee should institute a lottery out of self-defense. "We already have a lottery; we just don't get any of the money from it," says Welch. "Tennessee residents are driving across the state line, and so all the money goes to Georgia, to Kentucky and to Virginia." Cohen also argues that other states' lotteries are contributing to Tennessee's increasing problem of sales tax drainage. "People are going across the state line to buy lottery tickets, and when they get there they go ahead and buy their beer and their cigarettes and their groceries," he says.

The anti-lottery side has some literature that criticizes and downplays the HOPE scholarships, but that's not the main thrust of their argument. The case against a lottery combines moral arguments with economic ones. The Rev. Paul Durham, a Gambling Free Tennessee Alliance board member, prefers to lead with the moral arguments. "We believe that gambling is corrupt and that it would absolutely cause more corruption in our state," says Durham. Tyree prefers the economic tack. The lottery is such a reverse Robin Hood," he says. "It may be voluntary, but it is still a tax that will be mainly taken from the poor in order to be distributed to the middle and upper income kids."

One thing no one really knows is how the lottery will affect, or be affected, by this fall's other elections. As a general rule, most of the Democratic candidates for statewide office favor the lottery, while most of the Republican candidates are opposed to it. Meanwhile, there is almost no chance that voters will forget to weigh in on the lottery, since it will be located between governor and U.S. Senate on the ballot.

About the only thing that the pro- and anti-lottery sides agree on is that the issue will become more talked about after the primaries. "Until just a few weeks ago, everyone was focused on the budget battle and the income tax debate that went with it," says Gilstrap, who used to be the director of a conservative lobbying group called the Tennessee Institute for Public Policy Studies. But the lottery captures everyone's imagination, and everyone has a strong opinion one way or the other."

—Bill Carey

Democratic Dilemma
The primary process may split the progressive vote

Some hometown friends and supporters of gubernatorial candidate Randy Nichols regret they won't vote for him next Thursday.

Nichols, Knox County's district attorney general, has received conspicuous endorsements from the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Chattanooga Times. Of the two major-party candidates, he got the highest score of the just-released Voter's Guide of the Nashville-based Tennessee Alliance for Progress. Other educational, mental-health and law-enforcement groups have also endorsed him. But the race is a dilemma for many pro-education progressives, as evidenced by the number of yards in South Knoxville and Sequoyah Hills containing signs touting both Democrat Nichols and Republican Craig Kisabeth, challenger to incumbent State Representative Jamie Hagood. No one can vote for both.

To vote for Nichols in the Democratic primary, of course, voters relinquish their right to vote in the Republican primary—which in some cases is their only chance to choose a state representative. Especially at issue is the 17th district race between Hagood and Kisabeth. Since the Democratic Party failed to launch a challenger, the race will be decided in the Republican primary. That district includes many Nichols supporters.

One of those yards with signs for Kisabeth and Nichols belongs to UT professor Jeff Mellor, who's leaning toward voting in the Republican primary. He likes Nichols, he says, for what his program promises for higher education; but he wants to vote out Hagood for her "proven failure to support education."

People like to think they can make a difference, and despite the prominent endorsements, Nichols greatly trails front-runner Phil Bredesen. An added inducement for erstwhile Democrats to vote in the Republican primary is that the gubernatorial race, which pits Van Hilleary against Jim Henry, appears to be much closer than the Democratic contest. And Knoxvillian Joshua Williams, Nichols' campaign manager, admits that which box to check before walking into the booth on Aug. 1 will be "a dilemma for some people. You have to look to leverage your vote, to put your vote where it may have the greatest difference."

Nichols famously supports tax reform, and many of Nichols' pro-tax-reform supporters are especially incensed at Hagood's support for the low-tax CATS budget proposal that would have stripped UT of millions in state funding. "Jamie Hagood needs to understand why there's such ire, such pervasive disappointment in her lack of leadership, her failure to support the university," Williams says.

However, Williams insists pro-education progressives should still vote Democratic, partly because the gubernatorial race is more important. "People say Nichols doesn't have a chance," he says. "That's maybe not true."

But even if it is, he says that a political race has two purposes: one is to elect officials. But the other is to "elevate, elucidate and illuminate the issues. You vote not just for the person; you vote for the position. If Nichols gets only one-third of the vote, Bredesen will have to modify his position."

It's a good point. But there remains the possibility that a show of support for a progressive gubernatorial candidate in his hometown will ensure the victory of a non-progressive state legislator.

—Jack Neely