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Seven Days

Wednesday, September 4
Knox County Commission greets its four newest members by voting narrowly against a referendum on election vs. appointment of the schools superintendent that would pit the county charter against state law. Only in East Tennessee would such a recalcitrant measure be considered seriously.

Friday, September 6
Gov. Don Sundquist comes East to Maryville and Harrogate to announce hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of grants to enhance facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists in those areas, skirting and ignoring Knoxville. Too bad, but little wonder. The Knoxville mayor's running battle with the state administration's TDOT on road construction snafus has made it nearly impossible to use cars here.

Saturday, September 7
UT's football Vols manage to squeeze out a 26-3 win over Middle Tennessee State University at Neyland Stadium. The Vols were obviously almost distracted, Trojan Horse-style, by the Blue Raider's mascot, which resembles either dragon or a dragon fly. We're still wondering what it is. It's still blue.

Monday, September 9
UT President John Shumaker tells the Faculty Senate the university is "in good shape," even with its horrendous funding prospects and its searing morale issues over its budget and its faculty and staff (except his) salaries that are way below regional averages. What'll he say if the football team doesn't beat Florida.... The school's "in great shape?"

Tuesday, September 10
A plot to legalize moonshine production in Jonesborough is foiled when referendum backers miss a petition deadline, the AP reports. It's a vain effort anyway. If it's legal, it ain't moonshine, and a tax stamp ruins the taste. Anybody knows that.

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:
Well, we said the previous week's Knoxville Found photo was easy. At that time, we didn't know we were about to make last week's photo even easier, by running a second photo of it with an identifying caption in the cover story. The object, as we clearly stated in that caption, is the "80-year-old memorial to Knoxville High School soldiers who died in World War I," which stands in front of the old high school on Fifth Ave. Many of you wrote in, either to ID the photo or to mock us for running another shot with the answer, but Alan Cheatham of Seymour was first to respond correctly. In recognition of our obtuseness, Alan receives a copy of The Darwin Awards II, which commemorates "individuals who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it in a sublimely idiotic fashion." 'Nuff said.

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

LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Friday, Sept. 13
4 p.m.
Lawson McGhee Library
Meeting Room
500 W. Church Ave.
Special session to determine the salary/benefits for the Interim Library Services Director.

TENNESSEE INDIAN AFFAIRS ADVISORY COUNCIL
Saturday, Sept. 14
9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Square Dancers, Inc.
828 Tulip St.
Committee reports, address from Todd Cruize of the Governor's office, and discussion of the proposed Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs.

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, Sept. 17
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

Just Change the Locks
UT shifts plans for Howard Baker center, evicts students

For their last year at UT, some candidates for a Master of Fine Arts degree get to move out of the Art and Architecture building to a more personal studio.

Several weeks ago, six MFA candidates drew straws to see who would get the best art studio on campus. The prize was space in a handsome brick house at 1628 Cumberland Avenue. The building, used for various purposes by UT for the last 60 years, has most recently served as the Art Studio Annex, with room for three graduate art studios and two faculty studios.

"The light's good, the location is fabulous," says Michelle Dussault. The painter from Rhode Island has been working her way through UT's graduate program as a teaching assistant. "I like the size, the high ceilings; they're really ideal art studios."

One of three students who won the draw, she was told she could move in Aug. 1. She did, and enjoyed it as much as she thought she would. "The house has a great energy," she says. "You might think that sounds strange, but it just has a good feel to it."

On Friday, Aug. 29, Dussault arrived at her studio to find her key no longer fit the lock. She learned from a custodian that she had been evicted, that the house was "condemned," and that she could not even enter to retrieve her own work and supplies.

Something similar happened to fellow student Mark Wankle, another of the three MFA candidates with studios there. However, after complaints, the university had the locks changed back to suit their keys that day. But the following Tuesday after the Labor Day weekend, the locks had been changed for the third time in four days. Dussault, Wankle and the others were told they had to get their stuff out pronto.

Dussault now has her whole career in her car. She and other students have since learned that the house was "condemned" by UT on Aug. 1, the same day they were told they could move in. There have been vague insinuations of asbestos in the house, or that it was otherwise unfit for habitation—which might be surprising considering that, according to Dussault, UT bought the house a $25,000 new roof only two years ago.

This week, Vice President Phil Scheurer says, in a tone of reassurance, "We have no plans to tear the house down." However, there are a good many footnotes in that statement. UT does intend to remove the house eventually, and it will remain vacant until then.

Scheurer says that he and some other unnamed administrators toured the building in early August. "We were not pleased with what we saw at all," he says, declining to be specific about any particular problem, or to comment on the house's relatively new roof. "We made the decision to take the building out of service."

He makes it sound coincidental that UT has other purposes for the space. "In the future we have that corner sited for the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy," he says. That will be a surprise to anyone who has seen UT's website about the much anticipated addition, endowed with $6 million approved by Congress almost two years ago. As recently as this week, UT's own website about the Baker Center had it going into the old Hoskins Library, located on the 1400 block of Cumberland. An architect's rendering of an improved library building heads the Baker Center web page.

However, Scheurer says the administration chose in June or July to move the building's site to the 1600 block. "We changed our minds," he says. "We thought we could better serve the program with a free-standing site." He says construction is contigent on raising $9 million through the usual private sources, and may not begin for more than a year.

About the lock-changing spree, Scheurer acknowledges that mistakes were made. "It was the usual demon of communication, or lack thereof," he says. "That's why there was such a fuss that all of us regret, though we didn't know it was a fuss until just recently."

Unlike the unannounced-demolition tactics of years past, this time Scheurer did confer with preservationist group Knox Heritage and with city administrator Ellen Adcock.

"If and when the building needs to go," he says, "we'll offer the building in a sealed-bid process" to anyone who might be able to move it elsewhere. That may seem small comfort to preservationists. The house would lose any potential for historic-register tax credits. It would also lose its geographical context as one of the very last residential houses on Cumberland Ave., which was once a primarily residential street. But Adcock and other preservationists see Scheurer's offer as a positive move, by UT standards.

In the balance is a big, almost cubical early-20th-century house, two stories—three, if you count the dormered attic—with a front porch. It appears in city directories in 1910, when this upscale residential neighborhood had no intimate relations with the small university over on the Hill. The first resident at 1628 Cumberland was apparently William T. Claiborne, a prominent downtown businessman. But its longest-term residents were Ernest and Louise Keller, who lived there for over 25 years. Connected to the family for whom Keller Bend is named, Ernest R. Keller was an executive with a major railroad-construction firm; later, he founded his own insurance company and served two terms as city councilman during Knoxville's brief experiment with progressivism in the 1920s. Keller was related to legendary author and reformer Helen Keller, who reportedly visited her older cousin Ernest in this house.

After some 25 years there, Keller and his wife retired to a smaller place, and UT obtained the house, which served for many years as the "Home Management House."

The ousted grad students we spoke to aren't necessarily preservationists; they're mainly concerned with getting their degrees. Dussault, with her work in the back of her car, feels as if she has already lost valuable time in her final year.

Wankle expects they'll find space for him elsewhere on campus, probably by ousting somebody else. However, Wankle is most disturbed by the seemingly sinister way things are being handled. "There's a lot of secrecy," he says. "A lot of people who know things are not telling anybody else. Either there's something underhanded going on, or it's just that they're inept." He's made inquiries of offices up to the president's level. "I'm not getting an answer," he said early this week. "It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth about the school."

Dussault suspects the school is acting secretly to sneak the condemnation through before preservationists make a stir about it. Architect Randall DeFord of Knox Heritage seems grateful that UT has committed to a moving option, but he points out that UT's current Master Plan, which calls for the demolition of several more plausibly historic buildings, spares the house at 1628 Cumberland. Long-range maps drawn before the Baker Center decision show this house still standing.

Meanwhile, some graduate students are wondering where to go next. At best, the knot has the makings of a public-policy faux pas. The Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy might offer some tips about how to prevent situations like these.

—Jack Neely

From Pulpit to Clink
Minister begins sentence for protesting at base

The interim pastor of the West Knoxville Church of the Savior began a six-month federal prison sentence Tuesday, making him the first Knoxvillian in recent memory to go to prison for trespassing during a peace action. He may not be the last.

The Rev. Erik Johnson was one of four Knoxville-area residents who last November crossed onto federal property at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. Sixty people went from here to Fort Benning to protest the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which they say is responsible for training Latin American soldiers in terrorism. The Knoxville contingent was a small part of about 10,000 protesters, according to the Knoxville Area Committee on Central America (KACOCA), which organized the trip.

School of the Americas Watch has organized the demonstration for several years to protest an academy whose graduates they say have committed some of Latin America's worst human rights abuses, including torture, rape, kidnappings, and civilian executions. SOA Watch says the SOA continues its grim work under a new name, while U.S. Army officials say the institute is an entirely new school, focusing on peacekeeping, disaster relief, and counter-drug operations.

Although more than 100 people were arrested at Fort Benning, prosecutors chose to pursue charges against only 43 of them. In July, Judge G. Mallon Faircloth handed six months' jail time to Johnson and other protesters from across the country who had prior records of trespassing at Fort Benning. Those with no priors received three months' imprisonment, or probation. Faircloth levied several fines; Johnson was fined $1,000 in addition to his prison sentence.

Johnson says he was aware of the possible consequences when he crossed over the painted line that divided city from military property. "For me, it's a spiritual choice, and I could not not cross over."

KACOCA members Johnson, Tim Mellen, and Jerry Bone were arrested at Fort Benning after walking around a chain-link fence and onto the base. Another KACOCA member, Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch, crossed over the line but did not stay long enough to be arrested. Mellen and Bone were not prosecuted, and both Johnson and KACOCA spokesperson Lissa McLeod say they don't know how the government chose whom to prosecute.

About 50 supporters, many of them KACOCA members, gathered Tuesday morning at downtown's First Presbyterian Church to bid goodbye to Johnson. (His term as pastor of a congregation of about 150 was coincidentally due to end this past Sunday.) A Latin American immigrant tearfully thanked Johnson and KACOCA members for their work to aid the citizens of his country. Afterwards, about 20 people drove with Johnson to the federal prison in Manchester, Ky.

Johnson said he didn't know exactly what to expect from prison life, although he knew he was entering a minimum-security prison with mostly non-violent inmates. Although not permitted to bring anything besides his glasses and the clothes on his back, Johnson said he'd try to take his Bible.

The night before his incarceration, Johnson admitted to harboring "a little edge of nervousness," but said he felt empowered by the support of KACOCA and his church. Both the United Church of Christ (Church of the Savior's parent organization) and the Presbyterian Church USA (which ordained Johnson) support the closure of the institute, Johnson says.

"I'm not afraid," Johnson said. "I do this quite willingly. I didn't make this decision yesterday. I made this decision numerous times when I crossed at Fort Benning."

Other local activists may soon face similar repercussions for their acts of civil disobedience. Mellen and Lentsch face possible one-year jail sentences and $100,000 fines for trespassing at Oak Ridge's Y-12 plant during an Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance rally last April. A third Knoxville-area resident, Lena Feldman, worked out a plea bargain and will not serve time. Lentsch and Mellen, along with Arizona resident Mary Adams, will be sentenced Monday.

While SOA protesters have served time in federal prison before, April's protests were the first to garner federal charges for Y-12 protesters. Bill Brumley, manager of the Y-12 site office for the National Nuclear Security Administration, says he decided to request federal prosecution because arrests by the city had not effectively stopped trespassing.

"We have to draw the line somewhere," he says. "[Federal prosecution] was really my only option for enforcing this boundary."

—Tamar Wilner
 

September 12, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 37
© 2002 Metro Pulse