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Seven Days

Wednesday, May 14
State commerce officials order an Oklahoma company and its Tennessee affiliate to stop selling investments in worm farms here, calling their marketing scheme a scam. So, how are we supposed to catch bream? They won't all hit crickets, you know.

Thursday, May 15
State Rep. Bill "Willie the Sneak" Dunn slips an anti- abortion plank into the state's "omnibus" budget implementation bill. And to think, there are still people who believe that federal anti-racketeering laws don't apply to the anti-abortionists.
Now we have to remember to call the guy we elected county executive "Mr. Mayor."

Friday, May 16
Kirk Trevor twirls the baton over his last Knoxville Symphony Orchestra concert before departing from the conductor's post he's held for 18 years. Phew. We won't have to remember to call him "Maestro" anymore.

Saturday, May 17
A 185-acre riverfront farm in Pigeon Forge that brought $8,000 in the Great Depression is sold at auction for $20 million. That's nothing, you could have bought all of Pigeon Forge for maybe $80,000 back then. What do you suppose it would bring today?

Sunday, May 18
An early morning fire in a Fort Sanders apartment building is termed "suspicious." Call us when a Fort Sanders apartment fire isn't suspicious. That'd be news.

Monday, May 19
U. S. Rep. Zach Wamp, the Chattanooga Republican who's made a moral and ethical stand against accepting money from Political Action Committees in his four terms in the House, says he'll take PAC money in the event he runs for the Senate in 2006 because he'd have to. What does that say about the Senate?

Tuesday, May 20
A baby girl is born in a van outside the University Center on the UT campus. Attendants include the mom's sister, a jogger, a UT cop, and a UT Bookstore employee, who wraps the newborn in an orange and white "Baby Vol" blanket. Everything about this Knoxville birth is unusual except the baby's first blanket.

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:
Okay, we made last week's Knoxville Found a little easier, and you Knoxvillians responded appropriately. We had lots and lots and lots of correct IDs for the photo. Glad to know you are still paying attention.

As many of you guessed, the "Free Parking" sign hangs from the now-condemned Fifth Ave. Motel. If only a solution to downtown Knoxville's parking woes could be identified as easily as this sign was.

First among equals in replying to this week's photo was Jackie Kroll of Knoxville. In honor of her first-responder status, Jackie receives the much-praised R. Scott Brunner collection of essays, Due South: Dispatches from Down Home.

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

COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday, May 26
2-7 p.m.
City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

JAMES WHITE PARKWAY TASK FORCE
Tuesday, May 27
4 p.m.
South Knoxville Baptist Church
522 Sevier Ave.
For more information, call 215-2075.

KNOX COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD
Tuesday, May 27
5 p.m.
Lawson McGhee Library meeting room
500 W. Church Ave.
Regular Meeting

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, May 27
7 p.m.
City County Building
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

KNOXVILLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Thursday, May 29
3 p.m.
KCDC Conference Room
901 N. Broadway
Regular meeting.

NINE COUNTIES. ONE VISION
Thursday, May 29,
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Knoxville Convention Center
Room 301
525 Henley St.
Fourth in a series of Downtown Task Force public meetings led by urban design firm Crandall Arambula to discuss plans for downtown revitalization. Call (865)525-4949 for more information.

Tennessee in a Soup Line
Congress moves toward aiding the states

Even as the state Legislature moves to approve Gov. Phil Bredesen's budget cuts, Congress appears to be close to providing a big chunk of aid to fiscally strapped states.

The Senate last week approved a $20 billion fiscal aid package of which Tennessee's share would be $426 million. The package was incorporated into the Bush administration's tax cut bill, on which a House-Senate Conference Committee is expected to act soon. Until last week, the administration had opposed the $20 billion outlay, whose prime sponsor is Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Nebr.) But Nelson's vote became crucial to getting a Senate majority for Bush's cherished dividend tax reductions, and the aid measure became part of the bargain.

So the question becomes how much relief might the federal aid provide from the 9 percent cuts totaling $637 million in Bredesen's budget. The answer, according to legislative leaders, is none.

The reason is that the federal aid represents one-time money, and both Bredesen and the legislature are averse to letting non-recurring revenues go toward covering the recurring expenses of state government.

"It would be like giving a heroin addict another fix to let it go into the budget," says Knoxville's Democrat Rep. Harry Tindell. To which Republican Sen. Ben Atchley adds, "You couldn't build it into next year's operating budget, but it can certainly help in other ways." Among them:

Covering a deficit that remains in the current fiscal year's budget and/or replenishing reserve funds that have been exhausted.

Fulfilling a pledge to channel $100 million to hospitals known as Essential Service Providers that bear a disproportionate share of indigent care. Half of these funds have been held up because of the budget crunch.

Making capital expenditures that have long been held in abeyance.

A prime beneficiary could be UT's Glocker Hall, whose $27 million renovation is a top university priority. "Glocker has been on hold since 1989, and funding it would be my first choice," says Atchley.

Bredesen's press secretary, Lydia Lenker, says, "It's a little premature to say what we would do with the money, and obviously we're still waiting to get it passed, as well."

Under the Nelson bill, half of the $20 billion would go for increasing federal funding of Medicaid for a year. The balance would be for unrestricted use, with the proviso that 40 percent of this money go directly to local governments.

Tennessee's share of the local money would be $77 million, which is more than the $61 million that Bredesen's budget extracts from local governments through cuts in state-shared revenues (a sum the legislature is still seeking to reduce). But Nelson's office acknowledges that direct funding of localities is the most problematic portion of his aid package and may not survive the House-Senate conference.

For sure, Mayor Victor Ashe isn't counting on any of it to ease the city's own budget crunch. "I'm never one to count my chickens before they hatch," Ashe says.

—Joe Sullivan

Donations Accepted
Sundown in the City is set for late June in the Old City

Sundown in the City will begin June 26 in the Old City Courtyard next to Barley's Tap Room with Southern Culture on the Skids and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band expected to play that night.

The weekly Thursday night concert held in Market Square has been a boon to downtown redevelopment. But it's been in jeopardy since the City of Knoxville—faced with a budget crisis—pulled its usual $100,000 contribution and the renovation of Market Square left it without a home.

The series will return to Market Square once construction is finished, which is expected to be at the end of July, says Ted Heinig, a spokesman for AC Entertainment. A number of temporary locations were looked at for the concerts. The Courtyard doubles as a parking lot during the day. It has a capacity of about 3,400, but when combined with Barley's parking lot the capacity increases to 5,000.

"The Courtyard presented the best option and opportunity for us to get started this year," he says. "One of the prerequisites for the site was that it be in downtown Knoxville. We didn't want to move the event out of downtown."

AC Entertainment also had trouble lining up sponsors. However, Pilot Corp. joined as sponsor for the event, Heinig says. Coca-Cola is also sponsoring the series as well as a brewery, which hasn't been determined yet. Heinig wouldn't say how much Pilot donated. "They stepped up when the city stepped down," Heinig says.

But the shortage of sponsors is still being felt, and AC will likely ask patrons for a donation, although it will not be mandatory.

"There's a good chance we're going to do a $3 donation because we're still trying to compensate for losing the funding from last year," Heinig says. "We're looking to ask the patrons to donate three dollars. We like to call it glorified free. We're hoping since the community has been so supportive of Sundown that they'll understand the troubles with funding."

Heinig says they're planning on a much higher profile list of acts to play the series. The planned openers—which have not yet been confirmed, but look pretty definite—have both headlined the event on their own. He wouldn't name other acts that AC is considering bringing in.

"Even though we're moving the site, we're really trying to raise the profile of the concerts. We're trying to build something special," Heinig says. "We think it's going to be the best Sundown ever. We're down to 15 or 16 shows, but with those shows being super high profile, we think it's going to have a greater impact."

—Joe Tarr