by Joe Sullivan
Nothing is more important to Bill Haslam's effectiveness as mayor than his ability to mold majorities on City Council. And nothing is more encouraging about his preparations for taking office on Saturday than the way in which he's gone about establishing good relationships with all nine members of that legislative body.
The good will that Haslam commands at this point spans the philosophical gamut among Council's five holdover members—from staunchly conservative Steve Hall to liberal activist Joe Hultquist. It also extends to the four newcomers elected in November, including the only one—Bob Becker—who supported Haslam's mayoral opponent Madeline Rogero.
"I think he's going in the right direction. He's concerned about the budget and getting it under control," says Hall. Hultquist, whose gotten short shrift from outgoing Mayor Victor Ashe, sounds almost exultant when he says, "We have a mayor elect who has a great attitude. We've got a real opportunity to develop a healthy, cooperative approach." And Becker, for his part, anticipates a "very good relationship" with the new mayor. "He's very intelligent and well informed, but he doesn't claim to have all the answers and always listens well."
In his individual meetings with each Council member, Haslam has stressed a collaborative approach to governance. "I really do believe in a collaborative style, and I think that Council meetings are a place where issues get aired and people get a chance to express their views," he says, while adding that "I'm obviously going to have a perspective that I'll be pushing hard, but I hope people will say that we got the right answer."
Just how conducive this approach will be to good decision making remains to be seen. With a new mayor and no Council member with more than two years experience, a widespread view is that the decision-making process will become much more deliberative if not indeterminate than it has been under Ashe. "The first six months everyone is going to be feeling out everyone else," predicts Councilman Rob Frost.
But it doesn't follow that more debate will lead to the sort of divisiveness that has come to the fore over the past two years in which an Ashe-led majority of five has narrowly prevailed on several key votes over an alienated minority comprised of Frost, Hall, Hultquist and outgoing Councilman Nick Pavlis.
While welcoming dissent, Haslam puts a premium on avoiding divisive factions. "I don't think you can look and say Bill Haslam is always going to have these votes or not going to have those votes. I think there will be majorities that will be together on some issues and wholly different majorities that will be together on other ones."
An early test of Haslam's majority-building skills could come on the issue of whether to build a Gay Street movie theater separately from a new transit center in which it's been due to be incorporated. Haslam is committed to getting the theater up and running quickly, because he believes it is crucial to the revitalization of Market Square, in which the city has already invested $8.8 million. He's concerned that its inclusion in the transit center that's still awaiting federal approval and federal funding could delay its completion unduly. But especially given the city's budget bind, he's also concerned about how much building the theater separately would add to its cost. Haslam says, "I'm still in a fact-gathering stage of finding out what it would cost and how long it would take to build the movie theater separately, what the best location is for everything from people who understand urban design better than I do, and if we build them together what the time frame would be for that. Then, we have a process to go through both with the public and with City Council. But that's a process that has a time clock ticking on it in my mind, because a lot of things are waiting on that to happen before we can fulfill what downtown should be."
Sentiments on Council appear sharply divided over whether the proposed Gay Street site for the transit center is optimal, whether it should house the theater, and whether additional funding for a separate theater can be justified, given the city's overall budget bind. Overhanging these issues are historic preservation concerns that haven't yet come to the fore. The transit center's design contemplates the demolition of a row of historic buildings on the east side of Gay Street's 500 block. Plans for a separate theater, by contrast, contemplate preserving at least their façades and using one of them, the landmark S & W Cafeteria, as the theater's entrance.
Weighing all of these considerations and then making the case for whatever he recommends will sternly test the new mayor's capacity to lead within the framework of an inclusive decision-making process that he advocated during his campaign. Before reaching Council, that process starts with public participation, which Haslam envisions being patterned after the way Market Square redevelopment plans were vetted. But in the end, the buck stops with the mayor, subject to his ability to get majority support on Council.
One of the keenest observers of Knoxville's body politic, former Councilwoman Carlene Malone, believes Haslam will prove proficient at doing so. "I think Bill Haslam will get the majority he needs when he needs it," she ventures. "There are going to be a lot more questions, but I think Bill Haslam will be smart enough to have the answers."
December 18, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 51
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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