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Streamlining
When gadfly Oscar "Poor Boy" Brown takes a notion to lecture City Council, one of his frequent recommendations is that city legislators should emulate their county counterparts and institute a committee system (City Council meets twice a month, has no committees and rarely holds workshops).
Well, Brown will be disappointed to learn that the Knox County Commission, which meets once a month, has pared its standing committees to two: Finance, which will be chaired by John Griess, and Intergovernmental, to be chaired by Phil Guthe. At first glance, the change looks like a triumph for the West Knox crowd (or "Revenge of the Yuppies," as one wag puts it). But 8th District Commissioner John Mills, who chaired the now-defunct Human Services Committee, says he doesn't mind a bit.
"This does not mean an end to the county faction," Mills says, pointing out that he used to attend multiple committee meetings where the same issue would be considered over and over again.
'Twas the Friday
...before Christmas and all through the firehall, not a creature was stirring, because they were all at the breakfast honoring mayoral candidate Bill Haslam.
The biscuit bash, sponsored by Assistant Chiefs Charlie Hansard and Red Lowe, was well attended. Chief Eddie Cureton was there, along members of his administrative staff and 40-something fire fighters eager to show Haslam some love.
Several on-duty companies showed up with their trucks, notably Engine 10 from South Knoxville, Ladder 9 and Engine 9 from the fire hall in Ft. Sanders and trucks from Mechanicsville and Bearden. Knoxville Fire Department public information officer Charlie Barker said he was unaware that the breakfast had occurred, and was not able to say who had approved taking the trucks out of service, and whether the no-politicking-in-firehalls rule put down last year by former chief Gene Hamlin is still in effect. Lowe refused to comment on the Christmas gala except to confirm that he hosted the event and that "I support Billy Haslam." He also declined to speculate on whether a fire truck parked at the Summit Hill fire hall could make it to a fire in Bearden within the KFD's official four-minute response time.
So Where's Sylvia Poggioli?
On Dec. 20, as Knoxville-area radio-news junkies listened to National Public Radio's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, many listeners were startled to hear an NPR-quality report about the embattled Fifth Ave. Motel on Broadway. The four-minute story featured interviews and detailed the diverse history of the long-neglected ca. 1913 apartment building once known as Minvilla Flats.
If you called and e-mailed friends in other parts of the country that Knoxville had hit the NPR big time, you weren't the only one. Well, as it turns out, the piece was produced by local NPR affiliate WUOT. It was the first of what promises to be a series of local-news features planned by WUOT's new news producer, Matt Powell, a young broadcaster who came down from Michigan to fill WUOT's new post. Though the Fifth Ave. piece was only broadcast locally, the presence of a radio-news pro in town does make Knoxville stories on NPR more likely. Listen for more spots in the future.
January 2, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 1
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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