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Seven Days

Wednesday, August 21
The USDA announces plans to distribute raccoon baits containing rabies vaccine across northeast Tennessee by air drop and by hand to attempt to stem the spread of the disease into that area. Good luck. If they really want to get raccoons to eat the bait, they should be hiding it in household garbage cans.

Thursday, August 22
A mediator assigned by a federal appeals court to help TVA and the EPA work out their differences on how TVA should comply with the Clean Air Act throws up his hands and announces failure. The issue will now be decided as part of the dispute between major league baseball's owners and players.

Friday, August 23
Two—count 'em—radio stations are trying, apparently, to take credit for Knoxville's Boomsday fireworks show on Labor Day. The real founder, Cool 93.1 is one of them, and is not being Cool about the interloper, B97.5, WIMZ. Talk about fireworks!

Sunday, August 25
Someone notices that the signs erected last week by the city complaining about delays in state road construction projects and listing TDOT chief Bruce Saltsman's phone number are missing from poles. Who could have taken them down? Maybe the phone company, trying to clear jammed lines between Knoxville and Nashville?

Monday, August 26
Charles Davenport, the school librarian who resigned as chairman of the Knox County Library Board to make himself available as "interim" director of the county's library system is in fact appointed interim director by the board, despite the adverse recommendations of practically everybody connected with the libraries. Speaking out to County Commission, Massimo Pigliucci, the UT professor and Metro Pulse columnist whose writings are titled "Rationally Speaking" likens the appointment to UT hiring a middle school football coach to lead the Vols.

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:
Don't do anything bad in City Councilman Rob Frost's district. This guy knows all and sees all. Take Knoxville Found, for instance. He's almost always first to identify it and almost always correct. (We suspect he has several hundred taxpayer-funded staffers canvassing Knoxville for this sole purpose, but we have no proof. Yet.) Anyway, Rob nearly always wins, so we mostly just ignore him. But this is a special occasion: As of our deadline, only one other person, Rachel Lewis of Knoxville, correctly identified last week's photo, which was one international landmark among the many depicted at CityStreetz, a skateboarding park at Kingston Pike and Walker Springs. For her perspicuity, Rachel receives a really spiffy, neat-o, iridescent-looking "Drive Me Crazy" planner/address book. For his, Rob gets mentioned in this space.

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

KNOXVILLE'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Thursday, Aug. 29
11:30 a.m.
Walter P. Taylor Homes
317 McConnell St.
Regular monthly meeting.

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, Sept. 3
7 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

KNOX AREA TRANSIT PUBLIC INPUT MEETINGS
Thursday, Aug. 29
8:30-10 a.m.: Broadway Shopping Center Parking Lot, 2217 Broadway
10:30 a.m.-noon: Kroger Chapman Square Parking Lot, 4409 Chapman Hwy.
6—7:30 p.m.: Knoxville Center Parking Lot
KAT is holding meetings to gather comment for its Action Plan 2010. For more information visit the website at or call 215-7820.

Old Pay, New Pay
Retired firemen and police pushing for pension referendum

Alva Harmon became a Knoxville fireman in 1955 and retired 33 years later. The way he sees it, it was at least as hard to fight fires in the old days, probably more so. "I drove a fire truck that didn't have power steering and didn't have heaters and didn't have a lot of equipment that they have today," Harmon says. "And we fought a heck of a lot more fires then than they do now."

However, Harmon doesn't get paid as much money as someone who now retires from the fire or police department. He gets 60 percent of his retirement-level base pay as a pension, while current retirees—boosted by a series of hikes put in place between 1997 and 2001—get up to 75 percent of pay as a pension. He and his colleagues are making a last-minute effort to lobby the Knoxville City Council to put a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot that, if passed, would increase their retirement pay to current levels.

A petition drive to create such a referendum tried, but failed to get the necessary 15,000 signatures during primary elections four weeks ago. According to the referendum's backers, the petition drive failed not because of a lack of public enthusiasm but because of a lack of volunteers manning the petition tables.

Undaunted, the retired firefighters and police officers have already gotten the measure on next week's Council agenda, thanks to supporting Council members Nick Pavlis and Steve Hall. "These people have worked and put their lives on the line for us," Hall says. "I think that putting it on the ballot gives the people an opportunity to decide whether they need an increase in their retirement or not." But the effort faces an uphill climb to get on the ballot because of its cost and because it is opposed by Mayor Victor Ashe and city Finance Director Randy Vineyard.

Vineyard points out that the proposed increase would cost Knoxville's taxpayers an estimated $1.1 million per year. Meanwhile, the pension fund had such a bad year because of the slumping stock market that it appears as if the government will have to increase its contribution to the fund by about $2 million next year, even if the proposed increase does not pass.

Vineyard says he understands and appreciates the work and service provided by retired police officers and fire fighters. "We have done some things over the years to help out previous retirees, such as the time we made it so that their cost of living adjustments were changed from additions onto their base pay to additions onto a compounded amount," says Vineyard. "But this is something different." Vineyard says it would be extremely unusual for Knoxville's government—or any government, for that matter—to change the vested formula under which previous retirees are reimbursed. "And if we do this for the uniformed retirees, the argument next year would be that we will have to do it for civilian retirees. And there are more of them."

As logical as Vineyard's argument sounds, it might be tough for the council to turn down the 410 retired firemen and police officers that would benefit from the proposal. After all, public support for uniformed public servants is at an all-time high, largely because of the memory of September 11. Harmon is one of several people, along with retired police officer Melvin Pierce, who spent a good part of this week meeting with city councilmen asking for their support. "We have people who are retired on $700 or $800 a month right now," Pierce says. "Even with this increase, they still may be below the poverty level. When you make that much money, you are existing, not living."

—Bill Carey

Inconclusive Study
Report leaves many questions unanswered on hotel

A hotel market analysis conducted for the city beats the drum for a new, 400-room convention headquarters hotel. But it doesn't shed any light on how much the facility would cost or how it could be financed.

The analysis is contained in what's labeled an interim report submitted by Hunter Interests, Inc., an Annapolis-based consulting firm. In a cover letter, the firm's principal, Donald Hunter, states, "We are presently working on the financial analysis and fiscal/economic impact tasks." Yet even in their absence, Hunter reaches a sweeping set of conclusions about the feasibility and need for a headquarters hotel adjacent to the city's new convention center. To wit:

* "Our conclusion that there is excellent market potential for a new 400-room convention headquarters hotel adjacent to the new convention center...without significant negative impacts on the four existing downtown hotels."

* "Most importantly, the new headquarters hotel is essential to realizing the business potential of the new convention center. It is one of the best small convention centers I have seen...but it needs a large full service hotel of comparable quality on an adjacent site, preferably functionally integrated with the convention center, to properly penetrate the regional group business market and achieve full booking."

Hunter's only caveat is that, "it will not be easy to secure an investment of this magnitude in downtown Knoxville in current financial markets. The City should be prepared for a public/private venture similar to those now being undertaken in numerous American cities that have recently built or are building new convention and conference facilities."

What's missing, for starters, is any mention of what the magnitude of the investment might be. When contacted by telephone, Hunter says, "We haven't really costed it out yet." When apprised that another hotel consultant estimates the cost of a first-rate headquarters hotel at $150,000 to $200,000 per room, Hunter responds, "That's too high. I think we can get good quality in the $100,000 to $150,000 range."

That would place the cost of a 400-room hotel between $40 million and $60 million before factoring in the cost of a garage and other infrastructure such as a pedestrian connector over Henley Street. And how much of this cost might the city and its taxpayers have to bear? "That depends on how hard it is to get financing, and right now it's difficult to finance hotel projects," Hunter says. Several cities including Houston, Austin, and Kansas City have turned to revenue bonds issued by authorities like Knoxville's Public Building Authority. But when projected revenues aren't sufficient to satisfy investors there's often a need for what Hunter terms, "gap financing" on the part of a city to cover the shortfall.

Nearer to home in Chattanooga, proceeds of a 1/4 cent increase in the city's sale tax were dedicated to the financing of its new $40 million conference and hotel complex. According to former Mayor Jon Kinsey, the city initially sought a private developer for the project. But when the public sector share became apparent, "we decided it made more sense to do it ourselves." And what would the public sector's share have been? "At least 50 percent," says Kinsey.

Knoxville's Mayor Victor Ashe is very guarded in his response to the Hunter report. "Until we have the accompanying financials it's a nice document but not something I can proceed on," he allows. "My disposition is to proceed in a positive way consistent with the city's sound financial rating." But he goes on to say that, "in the time I have left [as mayor] I couldn't do much more than lay the groundwork. The actual construction wouldn't occur on my watch."

The Hunter report is laden with hotel occupancy statistics and projections. For downtown hotels, occupancy rates are projected to rise from 59.6 percent in 2002 to 71.4 percent in 2004, then drop to 57.6 percent in 2005 when the new headquarters hotel is presumed to open. After that, they are projected to steadily rise again to 60.1 percent in 2006, 62.7 percent in 2007, and 65.4 percent in 2008.

Yet the report states that, "The experience of other cities shows that a rising tide does indeed lift all boats—existing hotels are immediate beneficiaries of new business generated by new convention centers and their new headquarters hotels."

Conspicuously missing from the report are any projections of another crucial element in the feasibility and financing equation: namely, hotel room rates. It only notes that average rates "increased from $73.13 in 1996 to over $78.00 in 1999 and dropped only to $77.39 in 2001." Yet they are far below the national average and, according to another hotel consultant, far below the threshold needed in conjunction with higher occupancy rates to support financing of a new high-end hotel. Hunter acknowledges in an interview that, "If we thought that $135 to $150 a night were attainable, we would have a lot less of a problem with financing. But we can't be too far out of line with other properties. It's a tightrope we will have to walk."

The report also states that, "These projections assume no major changes in the four existing downtown properties—that an expensive major renovation of the Holiday Inn will not occur and it will be viewed as the value alternative to the new headquarters hotel." But the Holiday Inn that adjoins the convention center is already underway with a $5 million or so top-to-bottom renovation that's due to upgrade its flag to a Crowne Plaza. Is that major?

"It certainly constitutes a major renovation in my mind," says the Holiday Inn's general manager, Walter Wojnar. "We got a sign off today [Tuesday] that we meet Crowne Plaza standards, and we are pushing ahead. But if we're looking at a new 400 room hotel, all bets are off."

So why did Hunter issue such an incomplete report with so many ramifications at this time? "We're hoping we can get the financial analysis out in a couple of weeks, but the city has been pressing us to get something in their hands," Hunter says.

— Joe Sullivan

State-Funded Hell
A Pulse reporter loses her drivers license

OK, so there isn't really a sign over the front door of the Department of Safety Driver's License Examination Station on Strawberry Plains Pike saying "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." But maybe there ought to be.

You wouldn't think something as commonplace as transferring all my junk into a jazzy little evening bag one Saturday night back in the middle of June would have carried the consequence of a five-hour sojourn in hell. But somehow, I lost most of my ID cards through that process. And I had no idea that the state was going to shut down the Knox County Clerk's drivers' license renewal centers.

For more than a month after I lost my ID cards, I played scofflaw and skulked about the mean streets of North Knoxville risking criminalization because I so dreaded going to that place in Strawberry Plains, which actually seemed like a less painful option than heading out west to the other state office on Lovell Road. Or so I thought. But I was due to go on vacation and had a non-refundable plane ticket with my name on it that would have been rendered useless without a photo ID. Getting a duplicate license seemed like a better plan than going for a passport.

I was wrong. Getting replacement licenses had been relatively painless in Knox County at Clerk Mike Padgett's three satellite offices in the Courthouse, at Knoxville Center Mall, and at Hall's Plaza mall on Maynardville Highway. They provided an alternative to the state offices inconveniently located at the extreme east and west ends of the county. Padgett's "express" service was efficient and convenient, considered by many in Tennessee as a prototype for how a government office could serve the public. A few months ago, the three express centers were processing some 300 renewals a day.

But that ended June 30, when Padgett's grant was canceled during a raft of allegedly temporary layoffs forced by the state's budget mess. When the General Assembly finally passed a budget in July, the Knox County Clerk's money for processing driver's license applications was not renewed.

Many local officials, including Mayor Victor Ashe, believe this is a punitive measure imposed by Gov. Don Sundquist to "punish" the people of Knox County because its state legislators did not support his tax reform measures. State Sen. Tim Burchett is in cautious agreement, saying "I wouldn't put it past the Sundquist administration to use something like this as retribution."

In any case, Padgett is steamed. So was I, after suffering through a five-hour bureaucratic obstacle course that involved driving from Strawberry Plains to the Courthouse to get a new voter's registration card because I had also lost my Social Security card and had nothing the examiner would accept as proof that I was not some terrorist impostor posing as Betty Bean. This despite the fact that I had called ahead and asked what kind of identification I would need to get my duplicate license. The person giving out the information on the phone neglected to mention that there was a good chance my Social Security number would have to be "verified"—even though I have had a valid Tennessee Driver's License since 1967, which bore, in recent years, my Social Security number. Ordinarily, I was to learn, this "verification" could be done electronically if the DOS computer were working—which, of course, it wasn't the day I was there.

But enough of my venting, and back to Padgett's story. According to the Knox County clerk, he was given two days' notice that the state did not intend to renew the contract it had with the county to operate the three drivers license centers. Padgett said he still has been given no explanation for the state's actions, even though he asked for one. "I hear it's because I have 'incapable' people," he says. We never received one complaint from the state, and my people go through the same training as the state employees," he says.

Beth Womack, the public information officer with the Department of Safety, says the satellite stations were shut down primarily for "security" reasons, because Padgett's employees are not as well trained as state employees. She also says, by the way, that the Social Security "verification" is within the purview of the examiner, since there is an electronic connection between the Social Security office and the state.

Except for not explaining why it was my fault that the Department of Safety hadn't "verified" my Social Security number or why I couldn't get accurate information when I called to ask what sort of identification I would need to get my duplicate license, Womack answered my questions, sort of. And on July 19, an answer to Padgett's question, sort of, appeared in the form of a new entry on the state of Tennessee's web site.

The press release said the state was changing the requirements to get a state-issued driver's license in Tennessee because of security concerns that have arisen since the terrorist attacks last September. The news release listed extra hoops through which driver's license applicants would have to jump: more identification, affidavits, Immigration and Naturalization Service documentation. It also said that staff members will receive intensive training.

This little-publicized answer doesn't please Padgett, who was not impressed when he learned that the state had opted to cope with the overflow crowds in driver's license examining stations by keeping the doors open five days a week instead of four.

"It's just not working, and people are having to stand in line for hours and hours," Padgett says. "It's not that I'm saying the state employees are doing anything but trying to do a good job, but they've just got such a heavy burden put on them...This measure is inflicting a lot of pain, and it touches everybody."

Last Friday, as I left the Election Commission, new voter's registration card in hand, I noticed a woman who was soliciting signatures for a petition to re-open the clerk's drivers' license substations. I signed it. As it turns out, I was one of the first people out of 30,000 to do so.

—Betty Bean