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Seven Days

Wednesday, November 6
A sheriff's department helicopter involved in a drug investigation is forced to land on I-640. Bet if the sheriff were allowed to lease that airfield from the drug dealer like he planned this never would have happened.

Thursday, November 7
Mike Arms decides to stay on County Commission, despite the fact that he has taken the conflicting post of chief of staff in County Executive Mike Ragsdale's administration. Oh, well.

Friday, November 8
The performance of Knoxville Symphony music director candidate David Allen Williams in his conducting test the previous night is given rave revues by the News-Sentinel's reviewer. And that's not just because his name is reminiscent of the local favorite, country music outlaw David Allan Coe.

Saturday, November 9
The football Vols lose at homecoming to the Miami Hurricanes, 26-3, leading to a rash of wind metaphors in the media and the unusual and devastating November tornado weather around here the following day.

Sunday, November 10
The horror of a band of deadly tornadoes rampaging across Tennessee puts the silliness of moaning over a football loss in perspective.

Monday, November 11
The Veteran's Day celebration and parade is marked by a group of veterans warning of the terrible prospects of future wars. They call themselves the Knoxville Area Coalition for Compassion, Justice, and Peace. Think about it.

Tuesday, November 12
The Sentinel reports that the denuding of part of Sharp's Ridge has been necessary to accommodate the newest television technology. Scores of trees had to go to make room for a new digital TV tower and the road leading to it. Not a bad trade, huh? Trees for more and better TV?

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:
We didn't get nearly as many responses as we thought we would on last week's Knoxville Found, given that it's on a well-traveled street in the Old City. But the first correct response came from the owners of the building, Buzz Goss and Cherie Piercy-Goss. We'll let them explain the story behind the photo, which is of a sign on the Jackson Ateliers building on Jackson Avenue: "The building, which has a beautiful heavy timber structure, once housed the Haynes-Henson shoe company's million dollar shoe house. Until the early '90s it belonged to Floyd Roach, who used the building as a warehouse for his furniture business, just around the corner on Central Street.

"The current iteration dates to 1992, when we bought and converted the warehouse into a series of loft offices designed to meet the needs of creative professionals.... The 'Shoes and Rubbers' sign, one of several which we could discern, was chosen for restoration because of its oddity."

In recognition of Buzz and Cherie's teamwork, they are awarded Stephen Russell's Barefoot Doctor's Handbook for Modern Lovers: A Spiritual Guide to Truly Amazing Love and Sex, with hopes that it embarrasses the heck out of them.

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

LIBRARY DIRECTOR SEARCH
Thursday, Nov. 14
5 p.m.
Lawson McGhee Library
LL Meeting Room
500 W. Church Ave.
Agenda includes a review of the job description, advertising plan, and interview process.

KNOX HERITAGE
Thursday, Nov. 14
6 p.m.
Great Hall
KMA
1050 World's Fair Park Dr.
Annual meeting and awards presentation and inaugural 1791 Heritage Society dinner. Charleston Mayor Joe Riley will be the guest speaker.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Monday, Nov. 18
6:30 p.m.
East Knox County Elementary School Library
9315 Rutledge Pk.
AND Tuesday, Nov. 19
6:30 p.m.
Ritta Elementary School Library
6228 Washington Pk.
Meetings will be held to review information on the Northeast County Sector Plan.

PUBLIC FORUM ON DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION AND COOPERATION
Wednesday, Nov. 20
12 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church
Corner of Church and State Streets
Panelists will be: Wayne Blasius (CBID), Melinda Boyd (KAT), David Dewhirst (local developer), Kevin Dubose (Assistant Director of Development, City of Knoxville), Bill Lyons (UT Political Science Dept., Chair of KCDC), Andie Ray (City People, HMSA), Norman Whitaker (Executive Director MPC). You may call ahead and purchase a lunch by reservation at 922-8555.

Dolly's Bra
Should the Tennessee Amphitheatre be saved?

After 20 years, the Tennessee Amphitheatre is officially condemned and slated to be demolished. That was Mayor Victor Ashe's order, and on Monday, workers began removing the seats and other salvageable items in preparation to demolish the landmark. But the unusual building's fate isn't sealed just yet.

For most of the last couple of decades, the 1,400-seat covered open-air theater has been the main destination on the World's Fair site. Now, it has found itself, through no fault of its own, in the side yard of a huge new Convention Center. Moreover, recent tests have shown it to be in a dangerous state of disrepair. Rust and cracks in the main trusses mean it may not survive the next strong wind. Should we fix it up and improve it? Or should we take the mayor's advice, based on the recommendations of Dale Smith of the Public Building Authority, and demolish it? Both options have their champions. And both are expensive.

Since the week it was finished, it has been affectionately known as Dolly's Bra: the big, white, double-peaked steel and fabric thing down at the bottom of the World's Fair site was innovative in its day, when Tennessee's contribution to the Fair drew raves from Time magazine and the European press. Its designers were then-young architect Doug McCarty and German engineer Horst Berger, who earned international fame for his use of rigid fabric in structures like the Denver International Airport, the King Fahd Soccer Stadium, and the Haj Terminal at Jeddah, allegedly the world's largest roof.

The amphitheater has been used for most of its 20-plus years, but its first six months were undoubtedly its busiest era. During the World's Fair, it hosted an array of performers of an unmatched, loony range: everybody from Leon Redbone to Victor Borge to Slim Whitman to Richie Havens; from Jimmie "Dyn-O-Mite" Walker to perhaps the most dramatic appearance in the auditorium's history, that of the Warsaw Philharmonic performing Rachmaninoff while participating in a genteel pro-Solidarity demonstration against Poland's Communist regime.

Since then, it has been the venue of rock 'n' roll shows, a Fourth of July symphony concert now and then, and a number of dramatic performances, like Tennessee Stage Company's annual Shakespeare in the Park. Some of UT's colleges have used it for graduation ceremonies. This in spite of the fact that performers say it's not ideal. Acoustics are troublesome, especially for unamplified dramatic shows that were generally inaudible except on the first row or two. The hard seats are, for comfort, inferior to grass.

Ashley Capps, of AC Entertainment, has brought more people to the theater in the last ten years than anybody else. AC's Hot Summer Nights series in the '90s brought everybody from Widespread Panic to Bela Fleck to the TA. "I've heard shows there that were dreadful," he admits. But he's quick to add that the theater's problems were usually solvable with careful amplification. When Hot Summer Nights programmed events on the nearby South Lawn, Capps says, it was mainly because they were expecting a crowd too big for the amphitheatre.

Capps declines to offer an opinion on whether it should be saved, admitting that he hasn't studied the costs associated with restoring it. But for the record, he says, "I like the facility. I like the way it looks. I like the way it sits there in the park. I like the way it's set on that lake. It can be a really, really cool place to see a show."

However, Dale Smith of the PBA suspects it's not worth the price of saving it. He says the PBA got involved in the issue only accidentally; until this year, the convention-center construction and World's Fair Park overhaul had been working around the amphitheatre. But a few thousand dollars had been dedicated to cleaning it up, and that cleaning disclosed some cracking in the amphitheater's structural steel. A metallurgical engineer advised PBA that it's now unsafe to use. The estimate they got for repair of the structure was $578,000. "That would do nothing but make it safe," Smith says, and would include no other desired improvements to the sound, lighting, and seating. "We'd spend another quarter of a million bucks," he says, to bring it up to the standard of the other new buildings in the park. SMG, the manager of the Knoxville Convention Center, maintains that it will require a cool million to be useful for convention purposes.

Repairing the steel structure would also fail to fix possible damage to the theater's unusual canopy. The Teflon-coated fiberglass fabric was cutting-edge in 1982, which means it doesn't have a track record. "Nobody can tell us how long the fabric will last," Smith says. "It has already lasted longer than it was supposed to." For now, it's in good shape, but replacement of the cracked steel could crack the fabric, and even the smallest repairs would run into the thousands. Today, similar structures elsewhere in the country employ less-expensive polyester fabric coated with PVC.

With a total price for refurbishing of about $700,000, the negligible weekly rent for the place—$175—a million-dollar restoration makes less sense, especially, Smith says, considering that the size of the place is awkward for most shows: "It's too big for a jazz ensemble, but too small for the real moneymaking events." And there's the fact that it's not attractive in the cold months, and that some of the seating isn't protected from the rain. "You're always gonna lose money on it," he says. "If we spent a million dollars on it, the city would have to subsidize it annually."

However, the other option isn't very attractive, either. The estimate to demolish the amphitheater is $267,490—or $389,405 if the cost of engineering work done to date is taken into account. Another option Smith discusses, a partial-demolition option that involves converting the sturdy under-seat part of the building for other uses, is just over $500,000. Some believe the cost of demolition and conversion would approach the cost of the repairs necessary to make it permanent.

"I'm not trying to suggest that I know what value, or lack thereof, the amphitheater has to the community," adds Smith, who didn't make it to the Fair. "We're just giving you technical information. How much money is worth putting into this thing, we just don't know."

The amphitheatre has some strong and prominent champions, some of them off the record. One who speaks out in favor of saving it is Bruce McCarty, the venerable architect who as much as anyone introduced modernist architecture to Knoxville, and father of the amphitheater's designer. Earlier this week, he pleaded the case for saving it to Mayor Ashe and Dale Smith.

"I think it's something worth preserving," McCarty says, admitting he has reasons to be prejudiced. He thinks the difference between the total cost of demolition (and conversion) and rehabilitation may not turn out to be more than a few thousand dollars' difference.

"It's a unique structure, and I think it's one of the icons of the Fair. It's the most prominent thing on the site, with the possible exception of the Sunsphere. It's not 50 years old," he says, referring to the minimum age of structures considered historic—" but what difference does that make?" Noting a recent historical initiative involving a historic residence, he says, "It's not the Coughlin house, but there are a lot more people that remember fondly the events held in there than would even know where the Coughlin house is."

"SMG didn't think it could be used to make money," he adds. "But that's true of the convention center, too."

—Jack Neely

School Settlement?
Ragsdale backs proposal to end lawsuit with county

Next Monday's County Commission meeting could test of County Executive Mike Ragsdale's leadership in resolving an internecine dispute that has em-broiled county government for the past year.

The dispute is between County Commission and the School Board over their respective authority to approve school-spending contracts. The two combatants have been battling it out in court over whether a county charter provision that calls for Commission approval takes precedence over a provision of state law that leaves it up to the School Board.

Last week, the School Board proposed a settlement of the lawsuit whereby the county executive—but not County Commission—would approve school contracts is included in the school budget that County Commission approves annually, the county executive's role would be a limited one: namely, "to insure that the contract is legal as to form, that there are sufficient funds, and to insure that the contract was obtained through the applicable bidding process."

Ragsdale is backing the proposed settlement "with a few minor tweaks" and is seeking Commission approval of it at next Monday's meeting. "I think it's a good proposal, and we're going to try to add it to this month's agenda and put this all behind us," he allows.

As for excluding County Commission from the contract approval process, Ragsdale says, "Commission has already appropriated the money, and as long as the school adheres to legal criteria, I think that should qualify."

County Commission Chairman David Collins shares Ragsdale's sense of urgency in getting the matter before Commission but is not on board for excluding it from the contract approval process. "I think the county charter makes it incumbent upon us to exercise at least a cursory review of contracts above a certain amount," Collins says. Several other commissioners who were contacted go even further in asserting commission's prerogatives. "I tend to feel we need to review school contracts just as we review contracts for every county agency," says Commissioner Wanda Moody.

Time is of the essence if there's to be a settlement of the lawsuit because court proceedings are getting close to a conclusion. Oral arguments are scheduled for this Friday before the state Court of Appeals, and a decision could come before the end of the year. The School Board is appealing a lower court ruling that the county charter should take precedence over state law. However, the judge in that case, Chancellor Sharon Bell, also ruled that County Commission's contract review should be limited to essentially the same criteria that the School Board's settlement proposal would assign to the County Executive.

School officials interpreted that ruling to mean that they should no longer have to appear before Commission's many committees and then the full Commission to justify contracts. So they've stopped submitting them to Commission, directing them to the county executive instead. However, he, in turn, has been forwarding them to Commission.

If Commission insists on retaining its contract approval authority, albeit on a more limited basis than heretofore, it's anybody's guess whether the School Board would go along with any such change in its settlement proposal. Board member Dan Murphy is widely considered to be a swing vote on that nine-member body, and he doesn't sound amenable. "If that's what commissioners are hung up on, then they're behind the curve," Murphy asserts.

There are several other issues involved in the lawsuit, but the School Board's settlement proposal appears to have been well received on most of them.

—Joe Sullivan