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Seven Days

Wednesday, January 14
Knoxville's first surviving set of quintuplets are delivered successfully at Fort Sanders Hospital to a happy couple. Makes you wonder if there's not some fertility drug available for the downtown.

Thursday, January 15
A pair of Knoxville's finest police officers got into a gunfight with a shooting suspect in a housing complex. The suspect fired 10 or more times; the officers got off 12 shots in the exchange, which police said began at point-blank range. No one was hit. Now that's our kind of gunplay.

Friday, January 16
A state appeals court rules that school boards must negotiate proposed dress codes for public school teachers with the teachers' unions, leaving open the possibility that short shorts, cowboy hats, spurs, chaps, thongs, and mini-skirts will return soon to classrooms across the state.

Saturday, January 17
The Associated Press reports that state government, strapped for the last three years, will have a surplus of up to $150 million at the end of this fiscal year June 30. The finance commissioner says an upturn in the economy brought increases in tax collections, particularly in the sales tax. Such wild ups and downs could be avoided with a state income tax to replace much of the sales tax. But will voters listen? Noooo.

Sunday, January 18
Peyton Manning, the revered former UT star quarterback, is humiliated by the New England Patriots after two straight stellar performances for the Indy Colts in the NFL playoffs. He makes "no excuses." A grown-up now, Archie's kid still shows class.

Monday, January 19
Bandits dressed in black stick up a Krystal on Millertown Pike, threatening employees there with laser-sighted pistols. The red-dot special for the night was three cheese Krystals and a cash drawer.

Tuesday, January 20
The state's freshly established lottery churns into action at 12:01 a.m., playing to long lines of customers, looking for a lucky pick. Nobody wins a million dollars, and everyone goes home wondering what the big deal was.

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:
Judging by the number of responses received for this picture, we might as well have picked the Sunsphere. Guess we're losing our touch. The "P" is mounted on the Pease furniture store at the intersection of Martin Mill Pike and Ogle adjacent to King Tut's Grill. Karyn Adams, come on down to the Metro Pulse office! You are the proud recipient of a miniature semi-truck promoting the Fit Patrol. While the cause may not be as popular as say, the American Red Cross, the primary objective of the Fit Patrol is to inform and educate the ladies on choosing the proper bra size. Your search for the perfect fit starts and ends with the Fit Patrol. To find out how you can do your part to bring an end to this growing epidemic, visit fitpatrol.com.

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

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday, January 26
2 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

The School Board Races
A referendum on Supt. Lindsey?

The bubbling political brew getting stirred up in northwest Knoxville over whether the challenger faked his address or the incumbent resorted to dirty campaign tricks may have overshadowed the issues in local school board elections, but there's far more at stake this year than whether Jeff Byrd lived where he said he did or what D.M. Miller's supporters did when they tried to investigate Byrd.

Candidates for school board almost always say their races are all about the children, and that may almost always be true. But this year, there are at least three underlying and interlocking themes lurking just below the surface of the county school board elections, and all these issues concern Superintendent Charles Q Lindsey, who is himself an issue in at least three of the four school board contests coming up next month.

A primer on the upcoming elections, courtesy of Greg MacKay, election administrator
1) A voter cannot vote in one primary for a local race and another for the presidential preference. A voter could not vote in the 5th District County Commission Republican Primary and the Democratic Presidential Primary.
2) Any qualified voter can vote in a school board district race in his or her district. A voter can vote in either the Democratic or Republican Presidential Preference Primary and a school board race. It is separate and non-partisan. A voter could vote in just the school board race too.
3) If a school board candidate gets 50% plus one vote, his or her name will go on the August ballot alone. Otherwise the top two vote-getters go on the ballot in August. Early voting in the primary started Jan. 21 and runs 'til Feb. 5.

First of all, Lindsey has long been up against a core of diehard opposition to the concept of appointing, rather than electing, a schools superintendent. Even though common wisdom and credible research support the hypothesis that school systems get better leadership from leaders who are appointed by elected school boards than from those who stand for election (and re-election) themselves, many Knox Countians prefer the old system that served up popular, long-tenured superintendents Mildred Doyle, Earl Hoffmeister and Allen Morgan.

Secondly, the opposition to this superintendent is more than just philosophical. It's gotten real personal. Lindsey, in some respects, has been his own worst political enemy. Knox County's first purely appointed schools superintendent sees himself as a change agent, and as such, has been a lightning rod for controversy. From the beginning of his tenure, he has taken a confrontational stance with County Commission, the elected body that holds the school system's purse strings and is responsible for levying the taxes that support education. School board members had long chafed under the requirement that appropriations of more than $50,000 must be approved by the commission, and at best, the school board/commission relationship has always been touchy. Under Lindsey, the tricky relationship became a downright war zone.

Commissioners who were bitter adversaries on most other issues banded together in their enmity for the new superintendent. Three years ago, Metro Pulse observed that Lindsey "had done the impossible" by uniting "the most factionalized governing body this side of Northern Ireland" with his confrontational tactics.

In the 18 months since the election of a new county executive, another problem has arisen for Lindsey. He and County Mayor Mike Ragsdale have had an uneasy relationship. Whereas former County Executive Tommy Schumpert, an old school administrator who was widely known as a friend to the education establishment, managed to avoid being fragged in the crossfire between the Commission and the school board, his successor Ragsdale has locked horns with Lindsey on key issues. Both Lindsey and Ragsdale deny any hard feelings, but sources close to Ragsdale brand Lindsey "the biggest pain in Ragsdale's ass" because of his reluctance to consider merging certain business functions of the school system, such as payroll, under the supervision of Ragsdale's administration.

Ragsdale spokesman Mike Cohen describes the situation in more discreet terms:

"We have had a harder time making progress with the schools administration than we have with school board members... The superintendent and the mayor have not had a confrontational relationship, but they certainly have not had a cooperative relationship, and we continue to be frustrated in our efforts to make progress...." Cohen says Lindsey is disinclined to consider consolidating duplicate services like payroll and infrastructure functions.

"It's a matter of efficiency," Cohen says. We want to do what we are good at and what will save the county money. We absolutely do not want to do is take over what goes on the classroom."

So how does the Lindsey factor come to bear on the 2004 school board elections? Let's look at it district by district.

The battle lines are fairly clear in the Byrd/Miller District 3 race already mentioned. Incumbent Miller is a Lindsey supporter. Challenger Byrd is closely allied with District 6 school board member Chuck James, a plumber who is employed by Knox County. Two years ago, James defeated incumbent (and Lindsey supporter) Diane Jablonski, with the help of numerous members of County Commission. Byrd enjoys the same support from the same supporters.

Byrd has become embroiled in a Tim Wheeler-esque residency controversy (Wheeler was the recent City Council candidate who was accused of committing voter fraud by claiming residency at addresses where he did not live). Byrd says he met the County Charter's one-year residency requirement by living in a condominium for a couple of months before moving to a new house inside the district. He says he had already decided to run because he wants "to make a difference" and was alarmed this summer to learn that his family residence was a few hundred yards outside the district line. So he says he moved to a condominium inside the district until he could purchase a home.

Miller supporters say Byrd is pulling a fast one. They do not believe that anyone ever lived in the Byrd condo, because they could see the unfurnished interior by looking through the curtainless windows. They also do not buy Byrd's disavowal of a political agenda, since they say they have good reason to believe he has been recruited by anti-Lindsey commissioners and school board members.

There's no controversy over who's allied with whom in District 5, where spirited challenger Karen Carson is taking on incumbent Brian Hornback, the most outspoken Lindsey opponent on the board. Hornback was subjected to a dose of public humiliation this fall when he and his allies, anti-Lindsey board members James and Robert Bratton, called for an audit of Lindsey's expense account. The tactic backfired when Lindsey was given a clean bill of health and Hornback's wife, a school system employee, was found to have violated system policy when she used sick days to accompany her husband of a board-sponsored junket.

Hornback, a candy salesman who does not hold a college degree, held a fund-raiser that was hosted and attended by numerous county commissioners, and he seldom misses an opportunity to drop Ragsdale's name, as he did last week on a Sunday talk show. He has a website that might do his campaign as much harm as good, since it is studded with grammar and usage errors: "Brian is 37 Years old and married to Rachel for 15 years. They are native's (sic) of Knox County."

Ragsdale spokesman Cohen says his boss "is not actively supporting anyone" but acknowledges that Ragsdale "has a longstanding relationship with Hornback." He says that a good many candidates have been to see the county mayor, who is "so relentlessly optimistic and generous with advice that anyone who leaves his office leaves there thinking they have his support."

Carson, a pediatric nurse and longtime PTA volunteer, has an informative web site where interested readers can look at her resume and see her reasons for running. She says she is "concerned about the direction our board has taken over the last 18 months. I have attended many of their monthly meetings and workshops, because of my volunteer responsibilities in the PTA. I have witnessed much of the board's time and our school system's money being wasted on personal agendas and bickering. I am running because I believe my opponent has lost the ability to work professionally, cooperatively, and courteously with others."

Out east in District 8, incumbent Jim Williams, a retired high school principal, is facing a challenge from a youthful opponent, car salesman Rob Foust. Williams has served one term. He was swept into office four years ago when he beat Steve Hunley, a close friend of Foust's family. So is revenge a motive?

"No," says Foust. "It's not a thing in the world like that. Having two kids in the Knox County school system, I feel I have a personal stake in the quality of education our kids are getting." Foust says he doesn't think the schools focus enough on the children, that he wants to go back to an elected superintendent, and that his opponent doesn't return phone calls.

Williams, a soft-spoken consensus-seeker during his first term in office, called this reporter back to say that he does, too, return phone calls. He said he is a longtime supporter of elected, rather than appointed schools superintendents, although he says he will work with whatever kind of superintendent he is given, and said he is running for a second term so he can see some projects through to completion.

The race in District 2 boasts a crowded field of five candidates, and is the only one likely to go on until the August general election. It boasts a diverse quintet of articulate candidates, including retired teacher Don Akers and retired school administrator Patsy Vittetoe; 23-year-old Project Grad employee D.J. Cright, contractor Dennis Seal and community volunteer Indya Kincannon, whose energy, high-octane resume and well-oiled campaign organization have made her the talk of the campaign season.

These candidates are vying for the seat now held by Paul Kelley, who is retiring from office this year. Kelley, who is generally considered the conscience of the school board, doesn't see much of a Lindsey factor in the race to succeed him.

"I don't perceive that any of the candidates in this district are running to get rid of Dr. Lindsey," Kelley says, "and in fact a couple of them are telling me that is not their purpose at all. I do think a couple of people are running to get rid of Dr. Lindsey, but I don't think they're going to succeed."

—Betty Bean