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Seven Days

Wednesday, October 23
The three-week-old website, firecoachfulmer.com, records its 550,000th hit. That's a lot, even if you consider that 227,000 of them were traceable to the home computer of John Majors.

Thursday, October 24
The arrest of suspects in the D.C.-area sniper case puts an end to the rumor that avid gunner and gubernatorial candidate Van Hilleary, a member of Congress known to hang out occasionally in Washington, is being sought for questioning by investigators. After all, he is a white Van.
A survey reveals that Tennessee is fourth in the nation in the incidence of women killed by men. Whodathunkit? We'd have believed it easier the other way around.

Friday, October 25
A nine-count indictment in Anderson County against an 84-year-old grandmother charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a state trooper and two jailers is dropped. The officers are instructed to take a self-defense course.

Saturday, October 26
UT loses to Alabama, ending a streak of seven Vol football victories over the Tide. Vol fans try vainly to turn the clock back eight hours, rather than one, at the 2:00 a.m. end of Daylight Savings Time. Some of them just stop their clocks until the Alabama game next October.

Monday, October 28
UT Provost Loren Crabtree learns that he was not named the new chancellor of the Knoxville campus, as was reported Friday. President John Shumaker says he must first secure the input of students and faculty. Yeah, right.

Tuesday, October 29
The News-Sentinel editorial staff decides that the op-ed thought for the day for Wednesday should be, "Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths," attributed to Lois Wyse. Uh, not in Tennessee, Ms. Wyse (see Friday item above).

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:
Two weeks in a row! Two weeks in a row we've gotten only two replies to Knoxville Found. And, heavens, Rob Frost was again the first and only (technically) correct respondent. Come on, Knoxville, are you really going to let one know-it-all lawyer get the best of you? Let's see some effort, team!

Anyway, Rob ain't gettin nothin' from us this week, despite correctly stating (on his second guess—he was only guessing, for gosh sakes!) that the photo in question was hanging in the window of Thompson Photo's shop on Clinch Avenue. No, instead, we're giving the prize to Karl E. Rapp III for his deduction that the photo is of the Little River Railroad & Lumber Co. Train on the Elkmont to Townsend run. We're doing this because we actually have no idea where or precisely when the photo was taken, and Karl's answer sounds plenty authoritative to us. In return for solving this mystery, Karl will get a different enigma solved, in the form of Lee Miller's Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. Betcha Mr. Miller didn't get pictures, though.

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

KCDC BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Thursday, Oct. 31
11:30 a.m.
Northgate Terrace Social Hall
4301 Whittle Springs Rd.
Vote on the Market Square Redevelopment Project budget and time table is expected.

SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Monday, Nov. 4
2:30 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Large Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Second reading to provide $500,000 for facade improvements on the downtown post office.

MAYOR'S NIGHT OUT
Monday, Nov. 4
5 p.m.
Inskip Elementary School
4701 High School Avenue
Citizens are invited to bring subjects of concern to the mayor's attention.

ELECTION DAY
Tuesday, Nov. 5
8 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Various Locations
Do your civic duty. Go vote. Call the Election Commission at 215-2480 to find out where.

Unfinished Business
Six years later, Turkey Creek wetlands in limbo

When the city of Knoxville proposed building an extension of Parkside Drive over storms of protest about damage to one of Knox County's biggest wetlands, developers and consultants placated objectors with promises to institute a conservation easement, park, and educational center on the property. Six years later, those promises haven't been fulfilled.

The city claimed the extension was needed to relieve traffic congestion. But many saw the project as a way to assist a 400-acre retail "power center" south of I-40 and west of Lovell Road, spearheaded by developer Turkey Creek Land Partners.

The $5.1 million road, for which the city spent $4.1 million and the county $1 million, required the filling of four acres of wetlands—marshy habitat that many plants and animals need to survive. In order to conpensate for this, permits required the city to flood nine acres of dry land to create wetlands and place at least 34 acres into a conservation easement restricting future development. "It has been proposed, and favorably accepted, that these wetlands be dedicated to Ijams Nature Center, a regional environmental educational center," reads the wetland mitigation plan, which the city submitted in March 1996 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environment and Conservation to receive permits. "A site will also be dedicated as part of this easement for a learning center to be constructed." In addition, the mitigation plan calls for the construction of 4,050 feet of nature trails and the planting of 1.8 acres of trees and shrubs.

The city has fulfilled some of these promises, planting trees and constructing a greenway over two miles long. However, this "recreational area" may not be what residents imagined. The greenway starts off pleasantly, skirting a vibrant wetland full of birds, before turning to parallel I-40, just yards away from that interstate. The promised Ijams-run park and educational facilities were never created. And it is not clear whether the so-called conservation easement has ever been placed on the 34 acres. If it has not, the city may be violating its permits.

On March 25, 1996, then-Ijams director Bo Townsend, City Director of Engineering Sam Parnell, and the Land Partners' John Turley signed a letter of intent declaring Turkey Creek's plans to transfer property rights to Ijams. Making the agreement seem more final than it really was, the News-Sentinel reported, "Ijams Nature Center has agreed to manage the area after development." In a public comment session in December 1996, environmental consultants to the city publicized their "discussions" with Ijams. They touted proposed educational displays and a wetland arboretum.

But before Townsend left Ijams for Austin, Texas, in July 1999, he recommended to the board that Ijams not take the conservation easement, and the board agreed. Townsend says what changed his mind was "a little more information about the condition of the wetlands, and what we were facing, and a realization that we didn't want to spread ourselves too thin."

Developer Kerry Sprouse, president of First Commercial Realty and lead partner for Turkey Creek Land Partners, served as chair of the Ijams board before the wetlands controversy began. He says Ijams should have taken the easement, and he's still hopeful the non-profit will reconsider.

"They came to me as a manager of Turkey Creek and said we are concerned that we are going to have to do this, and we don't have the funds," Sprouse says. "[But] I had personally written a business plan that Ijams could raise a significant amount of money for education...from merchants in Turkey Creek. I would still like Ijams to be involved because it's the single most important educational facility that they could have."

However, Ijams' future involvement in the project looks doubtful. Diane Madison, who has served as Ijams director since Townsend left, says, "There's been no discussion while I have been here of Ijams accepting management."

Despite Ijams' clear refusal to accept responsibility for the conservation easement or to build the aforementioned "learning center," in October 1999 attorney Arthur Seymour, Jr. prepared and recorded with the Knox County Register of Deeds a "conservation easement," with Ijams' name on it. The deed says that, "The Grantor [Turkey Creek Land Partners] desires to convey the Protected Property subject to the recordation of these Restrictions to Ijams Nature Center or to another regional environmental educational or conservation organization, which will preserve and enforce these restrictions." A receipt accompanying the document names "Ijams Nature Center" as a second party.

Danielle Droitsch, lawyer and executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, says the document does not represent the creation of a true conservation easement. As proof of her claim, she cites Tennessee law that states that a conservation easement must be "specifically enforceable by its holder or beneficiary." Droitsch says she plans to file complaints with TDEC and the Corps of Engineers.

"Those permits are in violation," she says. "The city of Knoxville is responsible for this."

A beneficiary of a conservation easement takes on the responsibility to guard the property against prohibited uses, such as animal grazing or the storage of construction materials. In the case of Turkey Creek, the developers agreed to maintain the wetlands for five years after completing mitigation work—a term that will end in 2003. After that, a beneficiary, if any is found, would take on maintenance costs.

The Turkey Creek Land Partners' stewardship has not been without controversy. In 1998 local TDEC biologists recommended enforcement against the city for permit violations such as poor sediment control, and a TDEC assistant general counsel called for almost $6,000 in fines before intervention from the agency's upper echelons dismissed the complaint.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation recently placed Turkey Creek itself on a list of waterways too polluted to fulfill their intended uses. But Jonathan Burr, a biologist in TDEC's Knoxville office, says the Turkey Creek Land Partners development can not be pinpointed as the source.

"I don't think anyone can assume that yet. The development is still ongoing," Burr says. "The creek, to tell you the truth, was pretty bad before we started."

Walking around the Turkey Creek property, Droitsch says that a properly recorded easement is necessary to provide an educational center for children, and to prevent future development.

"All you have to do is look at this place...and realize that this place is not being protected," she says, motioning to beer cans, blue jeans and cardboard palettes strewn about the property. A siltation filter leading to the creek appears to be broken. "It's a bullseye for development until a conservation easement is placed."

Robby Baker of TDEC's Division of Water Pollution Control says a conservation easement is "a mechanism to establish restrictive covenants on a piece of property, things like, don't build roads and buildings, and keep it in a natural state. It establishes a third party that would be an enforcer of those covenants. It has to be either a public body or an exempt [non-profit] organization."

While Baker recognizes that the Land Partners did record a document with the register of deeds, "It's just not a conservation easement according to statute," Baker says. "Certainly this document that they've recorded with the deed is enforceable. It just doesn't have a third party to enforce it. It falls upon the city of Knoxville to enforce it."

Baker says that many developers have trouble finding easement beneficiaries, usually because of the costs involved. "Normally the grantor would provide some financial compensation to the beneficiary," he adds, but that's not the case in this situation.

John McArthur, a lawyer who does work for the Foothills Land Conservancy, says the document's vague language raises questions. Easements should be "to an existing person or some entity. It shouldn't be to some unknown [party].... That's interesting, to say the least." He adds that the conservancy may be interested in managing the Turkey Creek property.

However, Carl Olsen of the Army Corps of Engineers disagrees with the idea that Turkey Creek has no conservation easement because it didn't specify a third party to take care of the land. "Just because they aren't giving it to someone doesn't mean it's not a conservation easement," he says. "A 'conservation easement' just means it's not able to be developed."

Sprouse says the permits are not being violated, and his group has gone above and beyond the call of duty in preparing the conservation easement.

"We're not under any mandate to name that conservation easement to anybody right now," Sprouse says, adding that the required mitigation efforts—including wetland creation, landscaping, and the use of buffers to separate the wetland from construction— represent an ecological achievement for his partnership. "We have done something that has never been done in the state of Tennessee," he says.

As for whether a conservation easement requires a third-party beneficiary, Sprouse replied, "Yes, that is my understanding." When this reporter tried to point out that Sprouse's own "conservation easement" does not sign over rights to a specific organization, Sprouse suggested the reporter speak to Richard Young, an environmental consultant to the city of Knoxville. Sprouse claimed that Young is the most knowledgeable person on the subject.

"I'm not an attorney," Young then told Metro Pulse. "You should probably be talking to an attorney about this."

Seymour, the attorney who prepared the easement, was unavailable for comment due to a recent death in his family. A city spokesman did not return phone calls before press time.

Ijams' promise to take the easement six years ago did raise some eyebrows in the environmental community. Some wetland preservationists argued that Ijams was undermining their efforts and lending legitimacy to the development, Droitsch says. But, she adds, "The big mistake everyone made, including the conservationists, is thinking that [the easement] would happen.... Ijams should never be blamed because they didn't take it."

"Our mission was always for the well-being of the wetland, and educational purposes," Townsend says. "That's unfortunate if that [the easement] precluded any type of action by anybody."

—Tamar Wilner

Out of Gas
Full-service station ousted by massive TDOT project

After 30 years of running a profitable business; 30 years of selling gas in self-service and full-service capacities; 30 years of getting phone calls at all hours of the night to fix and tow cars from a loyal group of West Knoxville customers; Scott Kaderly and his service station are about to become the victim of yet another road-widening project.

Kaderly's business, the BP West Town at 7827 Kingston Pike, received notice a few months ago that the Tennessee Department of Transportation is acquiring a large part of its property facing Kingston Pike as a part of the massive reconstruction of the I-40/West Hills interchange (which is about to get underway). The gas station building does not actually sit on the land TDOT intends to acquire; but TDOT says that it and property owner BP have agreed that the building will be torn down because it will be too close to the wider Kingston Pike.

Meanwhile, the high price of real estate along Kingston makes it virtually impossible for Kaderly to move his business, one of the last places in town where you can get your car fueled and repaired in the same location. And Kaderly is further hampered by the fact that BP—his current landlord—has effectively exited the Knoxville market and is focusing its efforts on developing corporately owned mega-stations in large markets, not franchises in medium-sized markets.

"At first, I had intended to relocate, but that's just not feasible," says Kaderly, who has been in business at that location since 1976. "We have held on for a long time, but I'm not really sure what will happen at this point."

The quandary faced by the BP West Town shows just how hard it can be to move a business to make way for road construction and new development. It also illustrates the fragility of small mom-and-pop businesses, such as gas stations, that no longer have national franchises backing their development.

TDOT is rebuilding the area because the I-40/West Hills interchange is inadequate by current standards, requiring eastbound drivers who exit the freeway to make an immediate and awkward merge with westbound drivers who have exited I-40 and then looped around and gone under it. As part of the project, Kingston Pike will be widened for a few hundred feet and the eastbound ramp moved about a quarter of a mile to the west to become more gradual. After the project is completed, westbound and eastbound interstate drivers will be able to exit and immediately turn onto Morrell, Montvue, or the road where they currently run into Kingston Pike. Meanwhile, TDOT will also widen I-40 from six to eight lanes in the two-and-a-half mile stretch from Papermill Road to the West Hills Interchange.

The two projects will cost more than $60 million and begin around December, according to TDOT assistant regional director David Borden.

The BP station is, of course, not the only business in the area to be affected by the project. Others getting eviction notices include restaurants (Steak N Shake, Subway), retailers (Big and Tall Outlet, Thomasville Home Furnishings), small service firms of various kinds (Allied Title Co., Kingston Pike Pet Hospital), and many others. Although some of the firms, such as American Clothing Co., don't yet know where they will be going, most of them do. Thomasville is moving to a new building in the Turkey Creek development. The pet hospital is moving to South Peters Road.

But not Kaderly's BP station, which is one of the last locally owned gas stations in Knoxville. Because BP is no longer in the business of developing small gasoline stations, Kaderly would have to finance the construction of his new station if he were to try to simply move it. "But there is just no way that I can afford to do that, given construction costs, the price of real estate in this part of town, and the amount of money a small gas station can reasonably generate," Kaderly says.

Since it would cost less money to build, Kaderly also considered the idea of building an auto mechanic business with no gasoline sales. He found a developer and a vacant piece of property near Bearden High School, but the numbers didn't make sense either after construction costs were thrown in. "The amount of money I was looking at was a lot of overhead to cover," he says. "After all, I'd be losing the fuel business and probably losing some of my core customers at the new location. And I'm 58 years-old. I'm not really at the age where I'm ready to take on that much debt."

Since TDOT is acquiring the land on which his pumps now sit, Kaderly says his only hope is that he can stay at his current location and operate an auto repair business that does not sell fuel. But this plan hangs on a slender thread: TDOT, which generally doesn't compromise with anyone, would have to change its mind and allow Kaderly's building to remain. "We've asked for that, but haven't heard a response yet," he says.

TDOT is set to acquire the property through eminent domain on Nov. 16, and Kaderly has no idea whether his business will be allowed to continue after that. But while he waits for the latest smoke signal from BP or TDOT, there is at least one thing that has not abandoned him, and that is optimism. "Over the years, I have found that things generally work out for the best," he says. "Somehow, I think this will also work out. I just don't know how."

—Bill Carey and Patrick Corcoran