Metro Pulse/Insights/Lakeshore Gardens

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by Joe Sullivan

The failure to adhere to the City Charter that has invalidated City Council's approval of $6 million for the Lakeshore Park gardens is bad enough. What's worse is the way in which Mayor Victor Ashe is now attempting to hold other city capital outlays hostage in a ploy to get the gardens funded.

The $14 million that Council approved for a new garage adjacent to Market Square and a $1 million contribution to the Tennessee Theatre's renovation head the hostage list. But Ashe's ploy extends to prospective funding for everything from a new convention center hotel and a downtown cinema to the rehabilitation of Fort Dickerson, a park in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood, and several other projects.

The City Charter provision that's precipitating all this havoc stipulates that all city capital improvements must be included in a capital improvement plan that's considered by the Metropolitan Planning Commission prior to City Council action. But the Lakeshore gardens weren't included in that plan, which must now be amended for the project to go forward.

"They should have been, but they weren't, and that was a mistake which I regret and for which I'll accept responsibility," Ashe says.

The hitch is that, per the charter, an amendment to the capital improvement plan requires approval by a two-thirds majority on City Council. That means six votes on that nine-member body. But the controversial gardens were only approved by a five-to-four vote on June 10 when Council adopted the city budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Hence, the resort to holding other, broadly supported projects hostage in hopes of garnering a sixth vote for the gardens, which have been championed by two of Ashe's closest confidantes, Tom McAdams and Caesar Stair.

The pretext for the hostage-taking is a mayoral contention that the Market Square garage and the grant to the Tennessee Theatre weren't sufficiently identified in the capital improvement plan and therefore must be included with the gardens in a plan amendment.

The garage was an integral part of the Market Square Redevelopment Plan that Council unanimously approved in early 2002, and the need for it has become all the more pressing due to a shortage of parking for downtown office workers and residents. In the capital improvement plan the $14 million for an 800-space garage is labeled as being for Market Square. But Ashe contends the labeling is a misnomer. "If the garage is not mentioned as a garage and is not on Market Square, if it's a block away, then that ain't there."

As for the Tennessee Theatre money, City Council's attorney, Charles Swanson, is clear that it didn't need to be in the capital improvement plan to begin with. That's because the charter provision only pertains to city projects, not grants to private entities such as the Tennessee Theatre Foundation, which owns the theater and is underway with its $20 million renovation. It just so happens that the Foundation's chairman is News Sentinel publisher Bruce Hartmann, who is someone I hold in high esteem and commend for spearheading the renovation. It's unfortunate that Ashe's ploy has cast a shadow over the News Sentinel's editorial support and glowing feature treatment of the gardens.

In addition to projects included in the city's $27 million capital budget for the year ahead, the amendment to the capital improvement plan submitted to MPC this week includes other prospective ones. Topping the list is $20 million for acquiring the site and building a parking garage to support a new convention center hotel that Ashe has made a top priority. The cinema that is the sine qua non of plans for revitalizing Market Square is earmarked for $6 million. Then there's $1 million for Fort Dickerson and for a new park in South Knoxville, down to $100,000 for a park in Fourth and Gill.

"We're trying to make certain that the capital improvement plan is consistent with public discussions that have taken place, although nothing that comes back [from MPC] changes the capital funding program that Council has approved," says the city's finance director Randy Vineyard. He reckons this is only the second or third time in his 20 years on the job that a plan amendment has gone to MPC—to be acted on at its July 10 meeting, then back before City Council July 22.

To the extent the real purpose of bundling all these projects in a single plan amendment is to convert one or more of the four opponents of funding the garden project at this time, it doesn't appear to be succeeding. Ashe acknowledges continued opposition from the four including South Knoxville's Joe Hultquist (who has devoted himself to plans for Fort Dickerson); Rob Frost, who lives in Fourth and Gill; Steve Hall and Nick Pavlis.

"No one's feet have been held to the fire on it, but I would hope that those who are sincerely opposed to the gardens, for whatever reason, that their opposition it not so intense that they are willing to let everything else go for a year. It would be very crippling for the convention center; it's crippling for downtown," says Ashe.

The potentially redeeming value of this exercise is that putting all of the city's prospective capital outlays on the table provides a basis for assessing the cost of financing them. Viewing these costs in conjunction with the city's existing debt service requirements and revenues for debt service in turn provides a basis for projecting whether a tax increase will be needed, and if so how much, to cover new outlays.

Such projections are by no means simple or precise. They involve making assumptions about interest rates which are unpredictable and about the timing of expenditures in relation to the dates on which existing debt matures. But Vineyard is a past master at this kind of financial analysis and should be able to provide a frame of reference for Council members, not to mention the taxpaying public.

If the recently proposed gardens can be funded in conjunction with the established commitments without a tax increase, then perhaps they are worthy of going forward at this time. If not, Council should avert the crippling effects of Ashe's hostage taking by excluding the gardens from the amended capital improvement plan in order to get a two-thirds majority.