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HONORABLE MENTION
13. Mike Edwards, President, Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership (three out of eight votes)
14. Larry Fleming, President, Knoxville Utilities Board (three out of eight votes)
15. Bruce Hartmann, Publisher, News-Sentinel (three out of eight votes)
16. Larry Martin Chairman, First Tennessee Bank (three out of eight votes)
17. Alvin Nance, President, KCDC (three out of eight votes)
18. Bill Sansom, Chairman, H.T. Hackney (three out of eight votes)
19. Sam Anderson, Director of Parks and Recreation (City) and Chairman of the School Board (two out of eight votes)
20. Ben Atchley, State Senator (two out of eight votes)
21. Mark Brown, City Councilman (favorite for vice-Mayor) (two out of eight votes)
22. Loren Crabtree, Chancellor, University of Tennessee (two out of eight votes)
23. Tom McAdams, Attorney (two out of eight votes)
24. Madeline Rogero, Recent Mayoral Candidate (two out of eight votes)
25. Laurens Tullock, President, Cornerstone Foundation (two out of eight votes)
For those who received the same number of votes in our top 12, we cast a second ballot to determine in which order they should be listed. Those receiving the same number of votes but who did not make our top 12 were listed in alphabetical order.
Whether you are on our list or don't even recognize a single name on it, it is our hope that our little internal exercise will get you to think about the nature of power and influence in our community. Perhaps you'll come to believe as we did that, while the wealthy will always hold prominent positions on any such list, you don't have to have a million dollars to affect the direction in which our city moves.
Take for example the three African-Americans who made our top 25. They made it not because of personal wealth, but because they have earned great respect among their peers and are thus able to influence their community to take specific actions that they feel are in its best interest. No greater evidence of this strength of a few can be found than in the latest mayoral election. With a small group of prominent African Americans leading the charge, a community that traditionally votes Democratic supported a Republican establishment candidate, swaying the election in his favor.
Other examples of relatively small groups of people affecting the direction of our city are the Historic Market Square Association's instrumental role in thwarting Worsham-Watkins International's plans to build a glass dome under which they would have hermetically sealed Market Square, and the success that K2K (a Yahoo web group who chew up and spit out city issues through cyberspace) had in derailing WWI's plans to build the proposed Universe Knoxville project. By being extremely vocal in its opposition and, frankly, right that this proposed destination attraction seemed more like a black hole from whence our tax dollars would never return than a panacea for downtown's pain, K2K caused enough consternation for the powers-that-be that the project—just like a dying star—eventually imploded.
What all this seems to suggest is that the power elite rule Knoxville only to the extent that we allow them to. Every city in America has its own 12 or 25 most powerful/influential people and, by definition, these people try to shape the decisions made in their respective communities. In this, Knoxville is no different. Where, in our opinion, Knoxville has traditionally suffered is that too few people have been willing to step up to challenge the direction in which our leaders are taking us. We do not believe that this is due to a lack of caring, but because these people feel that they cannot make their voices heard. Our study reveals that there is mounting evidence that would suggest they can.
October 30, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 44
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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