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Time Won't Give Us Time
Knoxville mayor Victor Ashe was in a hurry to get City Council to approve a $500,000 grant to Sam Furrow, the new owner of the downtown post office building, as a part of a plan under which someone would develop a new hotel across from the downtown convention center on the site of the present state Supreme Court building. The mayor was in such a rush that he called a special meeting of Council Monday, rather than wait for the regularly scheduled meeting Oct. 29. At the meeting, Councilman Joe Hultquist said he didn't mind the idea in theory but would vote against it because he had so many unanswered questions about the grant, which is supposed to fund exterior renovations of the post office building. For example, did anyone get multiple bids on the project before coming up with the $500,000 figure? (The answer, by the way, is apparently not.)
"I have had very little information and almost no time to consider this," said Hultquist, who was joined by Council colleagues Steve Hall and Nick Pavlis in voting no.
Five voted yes, enough to pass the resolution that authorizes the mayor to enter an agreement with Furrow and the Central Business Improvement District to move ahead with the project. Barbara Pelot was one of the five who assented. "Sometimes, more time just clouds the issue for us," she said. "I think it is time to move and time to act, and I think sometimes that the saddest thing is the time that we lose by waiting."
Five votes was not the two-thirds majority needed to authorize the $500,000 to come out of the city's budget on an emergency basis. Council will meet in another special meeting on Nov. 4. to vote on second reading whether to allocate that money.
String Music
Big Jim Haslam is a big supporter of the symphony. But it is common wisdom that his wife, Natalie, probably enjoys the high brow stuff more than Jim, who came to Knoxville on a football scholarship and has been a player in University of Tennessee athletics ever since.
So he drew a hearty guffaw from the crowd last week when he participated in the questioning of the latest (and some say the best) candidate seeking to fill the vacancy as conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. The conductor, Lucas Richman, who is from Pittsburgh, was the center of attention at a reception at the riverside home of Haslam's daughter-in-law, Dee. Richman was doing an admirable job of giving good answers, when Haslam broke into the discussion:
"What's your favorite Mahler symphony?"
The room erupted in laughter, to the mystification of the candidate, who said he hoped one day to be "...an insider enough to understand what that joke's about..."
Whereupon Haslam issued a follow-up:
"What's your favorite football team?"
Just Our Bill
It's almost Halloween, which means that campaigning for state offices is heading into the home stretch. The runaway favorite for the coveted Ear chutzpah award is former state Sen. Bill Owen, who is running to recapture the 7th District seat he lost 12 years ago. A new Owen brochure hitting mailboxes near you features a long tome on Owen's life and times, including some historical precedent for turning to a seasoned veteran for leadership in troubled times:
"Recently, when General Motors and Ford found themselves in difficult times, both companies selected veteran leaders to turn things around. Back in 1939, England found itself in need of a new direction and they called on Winston Churchill to help.
October 24, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 43
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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