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Seven Days

Wednesday, June 4
The Associated Press reports that the state Legislature declined to pass restrictions on the sale of common ingredients used in the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamines. Who can figure that one out? It's pretty clear the legislators aren't using speed.

Thursday, June 5
Imperial of Tennessee joins La-Z-Boy, perhaps the best-known name in recliners, in announcing that its Morristown upholstered furniture plant is closing. Does this mean we'll have to shop in China for the overstuffed stuff to outfit front porches all across East Tennessee?

Friday, June 6
Mayor Victor Ashe reverses himself on closing the Burlington firehall. Think fast now. When was the last time in his four terms in office that Victor backed away from a stand he'd taken, popular or unpopular?

Saturday, June 7
The News-Sentinel publishes photos of a wrecking crew putting asunder the once-proud and gloried Bill Meyer Stadium. We know it had outlived its usefulness, but where were the preservationists when we needed them? Sniff.

Sunday, June 8
Clean-up workers spend most of the morning scouring Kenny Chesney's suntan oil from the exposed surfaces of Neyland Stadium.

Monday, June 9
The owner of an East Tennessee massage parlor, one of several closed last year in a federal clampdown, pleads guilty to charges arising from the practice of prostitution. Duh. There must be another reason behind the concept of a massage parlor, but offhand we can't think of it.

Tuesday, June 10
The AP reports that a Memphis judge is calling for better security in courtrooms because too many defense lawyers have been beaten up recently by their clients there. How many is too many?

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:
Councilman Rob Frost was first. Tarik Saleh, who observed that the arrow was supplied by Yee-Haw, was second. Developer Wayne Blasius was third. They and many other readers knew that last week's Knoxville Found photo was taken in the alley behind the buildings on the east side of Market Square. (Just so you know, the alley in question was once called Strong Street, as its continuation across Union Avenue is sometimes still identified on maps.) But Sherry Houts of Knoxville was first to note that the neon arrow indicated the back entrance to the Preservation Pub. For being first to mention that little detail, Sherry will receive Love Me Like Crazy, the latest CD from Texas band Cave Catt Sammy, which just played Barley's.

What we're dying to know, though, is what the heck all of you were doing congregating in that alley in the first place?

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

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Thursday, June 12
1:30 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Several downtown historical rezonings are on the agenda.

PBA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETINGS
Thursday, June 12
4 and 5 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Room 549
400 Main St.
Regular meetings.

Center's Blues
Convention bookings lag badly

The budget that City Council approved on Tuesday contains a stark portrayal of the costs of the city's new Knoxville Convention Center. Total costs of $21.6 million are shown, which represents a $13.5 million increase from the fiscal year now ending.

According to the budget document, "The bulk of this increase results from the addition of convention center project debt and depreciation. $7,299,620 in bond interest and $6,171,890 in depreciation are now reflected in this fund. Also, the City's $899,700 contribution to its Tourism and Sports Development Corp. is now included in its entirety."

Convention center operating losses for the fiscal year ahead are budgeted at only $3.7 million, reflecting revenues of $1.7 million and expenses of $5.4 million. Some officials contend losses of this magnitude are to be expected in a convention center's early years of operation. But when asked about convention bookings for the years ahead at a public meeting, the convention center's general manager, Bill Overfelt, characterized them as "extremely low."

The Tourism and Sports Corp. is responsible for attracting conventions more than a year into the future, with typical lead times on bookings running four to five years out. The new entity's president, Gloria Ray, cites a sorority conference and a veterinary student symposium as gatherings that will draw upwards of 2,000 visitors to Knoxville in 2004. And then there's a Particle Accelerator Conference that's expected to bring 1,200 delegates in 2005. But that's about it for the nonce.

SMG, the convention center management firm for which Overfelt works, is responsible for booking shorter lead-time events (i.e. less than 12 months out). He points to some success in landing an Amputees of America convention and one sponsored by House Hasson. But most of the convention center's bookings and revenues are from consumer shows and other local events that would be held here anyhow and don't draw many visitors to Knoxville.

Overfelt is clear that "a new convention center hotel is an absolute prerequisite to make us competitive" in attracting major conventions. But Ray takes a somewhat different tack. "It's not necessarily correct that we've lost business because we don't have a new hotel, though if we did it would increase the number of events we could go after." The executive vice president of the Tourism and Sports Corp., Mike Wilds, adds that "in a destination market you don't just sell one facility. You sell the assets of the total community including hotels, Expo North, Chilhowee Park and the arenas."

Faced with a white elephant of growing proportions, Mayor Victor Ashe, who called Tuesday for a City Council workshop on convention center bookings, declares, "We're going to review the entire operation because we've got a problem that can't be deferred to the next mayor. Convention bookings are anemic, and to simply schedule weddings and bar mitzvahs wasn't the reason for building the convention center."

On one front, he says, "I'm going to do everything I can to get a convention center hotel deal done." On another, he says that "the city's contract with the Tourism and Sports Corp. needs to be rewritten to make convention center sales one of their goals."

—Joe Sullivan

'Family Matters'
Child support collection takes a positive turn

When Knox County gave up its state contract to operate the Child Support Services of Tennessee office here early last year, the private contracting agency that took over the office committed itself to becoming a kinder, gentler enforcer of child support collections.

"We're trying to work with people to get compliance with a court order without having to take the case [back] to court," says Kay McCampbell, the program manager here for the contractor, Policy Studies Inc., a Denver firm that performs similar services for several states.

"We want to negotiate among adults what's in the best interest of the children," McCampbell says. "It's a family approach. The child is a part of a family, whether that family is together or not."

Child Support Services gets, essentially, two types of cases. In the first instance, applicants are trying to establish paternity, and in the second, applicants are trying to collect court-ordered support payments. The measures they take to do so are for the most part their own, but authorization comes under the federal Child Support Enforcement program, in place since it was first enacted by Congress in 1975.

How well is the new contractor doing? McCampbell says the number of cases now under order of the courts for compliance in Knox County is up to 57.5 percent, fractionally above the average among Tennessee counties. When her company took over in March of 2002, that rate was 33.8 percent, almost 20 points below the state average. Hampered by stretched resources, the county gave up its contractual role to the private firm at that time.

Clearly proud of the results, McCampbell says her staff of about 50 full-time employees is dedicated to achieving the federal goal of 80 percent compliance. She's convinced the family method is the way to achieve it for the 17,903 open cases her office is handling.

One applicant in the office this week (We'll call her June) was applying for help in establishing paternity for her 8-month-old daughter and also in collecting child support from the father of her 10-year-old son. She's been paying almost all the costs of raising the kids with a $5.75-an-hour third-shift job, with a little help from her own family.

"My daughter's father has given me some money, but not enough. I need it guaranteed," she says, adding that her son's father will "send a money order for $40 once in a while, just whenever he feels like it. My son deserves better."

Asked how she thinks the fathers in her case will respond to a call for "family" negotiations, June says, "I don't know. I hope they respond well. It's worth a try."

McCampbell and her staff are employing some new tactics to bring the families to the negotiating table to establish "agreed orders" to take to the courts— 4th Circuit, Chancery, and Juvenile— that handle domestic relations or child support matters.

Last Friday was the office's first "Negotiation Day," to which families were invited in large numbers. This first attempt at a mass negotiation process was aimed at cases in which paternity had to be established. Of 400 invitees, 131 signed in, and 22 agreed orders were signed, says Kevin Teffeteller, an attorney who heads a legal staff of five full- and part-time lawyers working for Child Support Services here.

"That's a very good day," he says, and both Teffeteller and McCampbell agreed there was a minimum of fuss raised by the parties. "People were patient and polite for the most part," he says, "and there was not a lot of anger or hostility," to which McCampbell adds, "Not all were happy. Some were frustrated." But she says they seemed to understand the Child Support Services was not representing either the custodial or non-custodial parents, but the children and their needs.

Teffeteller says the office is now "thinking strongly" of arranging the same kind of negotiating process for enforcement and compliance cases.

It's a rewarding task, he says, representing the state, which represents the children. There is no "downside" to serving the children's interests, Teffeteller says. "It's an extremely satisfying way to use a law degree."

—Barry Henderson

Gone South?
Parkway extension put in 'park'

The new gubernatorial administration in Nashville has promised a careful review of controversial Department of Transportation (TDOT) road projects such as the South Knoxville Connector, a proposed extension of James White Parkway from Moody Avenue to Chapman Highway. Whether the Bredesen regime's refreshing diplomacy will result in any substantive alterations of the plans laid by TDOT under former Gov. Don Sundquist remains unclear.

New TDOT Commissioner Gerald Nicely recently charged the University of Tennessee Center for Transportation with reviewing the connector and 14 other similarly controversial proposals across the state. According to Executive Director Steve Richards, Transportation Center researchers are in the midst of a four-month case study to determine whether any of the projects should be revisited. The results of the study will be reported in a case-study analysis at the end of July.

"We're assessing the overall planning process (of the projects), the steps from day one," Richards says. "It's an open-ended study; TDOT didn't restrict us in any way. The decisions would ultimately be up to them. But I think they're prepared to do what's necessary."

Many residents hope that means drastically rethinking, if not scrapping the South Knoxville project outright. City Councilman Joe Hultquist, chairman of the local James White Parkway Task Force, points to a number of potential hazards, including the environmental impact of the connector on an area fraught with caves and sinkholes.

"The connector was conceived as a route to the Smokies, before we had Highway 66 (from I-40 to Sevierville)," Hultquist says. "Now it would be mostly a commuter route. The demand for it is reduced. My concern is that we'll build it, have problems, and then won't see it revisited for another 30 years."

Mayor Victor Ashe is famously opposed to the connector, at least in its proposed form. An outspoken critic of TDOT, he waged an ongoing war of wills with the Sundquist administration and former TDOT head Bruce Saltzmann. His recent dedication of the Marie Myers Park where Moody turns into Sevierville Pike was widely perceived as an effort to block construction.

Situated in the path of the connector route, the park would be a legal as well as physical obstruction should TDOT choose to forge ahead; federal laws restrict the use of highway funds for projects that traverse certain protected greenspaces.

"I'm hopeful the Bredesen administration will recognize the foolishness and folly of the project. It's a $38 million expenditure for a four-mile stretch of highway. We could pave the street in $100 bills for that."

But most connector opponents seem cautiously optimistic since Sundquist and Saltzmann departed. A member of South Knoxvillians for Reasonable Development (SKARD, a citizens' group also opposed to the extension), Elizabeth Farr, attended a May 14 public meeting on the connector, conducted under the auspices of the UT Transportation Center. Above all else, she was encouraged by the fact that public input has apparently been reintegrated into TDOT's modus operandi.

"I'm grateful we have a new commissioner; there was so much arrogance at TDOT before," Farr says. "I think they're sincerely trying to look at everything. At least they're trying to listen to people a little more. Maybe they're actually trying to be a department of transportation and not just a department of road building."

—Mike Gibson