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by Joe Sullivan

Ever since he took office nearly two years ago, Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale has been on a roll. His numerous initiatives have brought enhancements to the gamut of county services and also extended the county’s role.

No longer is the city a hole in the county’s donut; his ambitious plans for a new downtown library, a new Discovery Center worthy of the name, transformation of the Beck Cultural Center, and Five Points redevelopment all attest to his commitment to the center city as well as the county as a whole. So does his laudable Great Schools initiative whose several elements are aimed primarily at strengthening inner city schools, where student performance is now deficient.

At the same time, he’s pushed for a new library branch in Powell, new senior centers in Halls and South Knoxville as well as bringing officer pay in the sheriff’s department up to parity with Knoxville’s city police department.

To cover all of these initiatives, and many more, Ragsdale has mustered overwhelming majorities for his budgets on what used to be a fractious County Commission. By a vote of 16 to 3, Commission approved a $30 increase in the county wheel tax that would raise $12 million toward funding a $546 million budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 (up from $527 million in that year just ended.)

But now the taxaphobic propensities of some elements of the community are manifesting themselves in a way that could bring all of Ragsdale’s progressive undertakings to a screeching halt. A petition drive by opponents of the wheel tax increase seems likely to garner the 12,000 signatures to force a referendum on the issue in the Nov. 2 election.

Ragsdale is responding to this drive to undermine him with outward equanimity. “The public has every right to a referendum, and we support their efforts if that’s the way we want to go,” he says. But if the referendum gets on the ballot, he is poised to make the case as forcefully as he can “why defeating the wheel tax is a bad idea.”

His list of the casualties resulting from its rejection starts with the elimination of capitol projects including the new downtown and Powell branch libraries, the two new senior centers, the Beck Cultural Center, Concord Park improvements, a Northwest Knoxville Sports Park, and a veterans memorial. Beyond that, he says, “We would probably have to close the three least attended branch libraries and two branches of the Health Department, and it would mean cutting community grants in half. These grants, which presently total $5.4 million, represent an important source of operating funds for virtually every cultural, historical and social welfare organization in Knoxville, more than 100 of them all.

About the only areas that would remain unscathed by the resultant budget cuts would be law enforcement and schools—but even scheduled new school construction projects including Powell Middle and Cedar Bluff Primary could be jeopardized, Ragsdale warns.

It’s not that our county mayor is a spendthrift whose budget could readily be trimmed in other ways—far from it. Indeed, I’ve criticized him repeatedly in this column for shortchanging public schools to the detriment of Knox County’s ability to recruit and retain top teachers with competitive salaries (though his Great Schools initiative endeavors to meet that need for inner city schools, and Ragsdale is determined not to let that falter).

His budget’s biggest failing was not providing funding for a new high school in West Knox to relieve overcrowding at Farragut High School and prospectively Karns High School. But Ragsdale is now trying to rectify that mistake, working with a committee that includes County Commission, school board and West Knox parent representatives. He expects the committee will be announcing plans within the next few days for a new high school that “will include a funding package as well as potential sites.”

The funding for what may be a $40 million new high school will be derived in part from scaling back Ragsdale’s previously recommended $45 million outlay for a new downtown library that has drawn a lot of criticism. But he insists a proposed reduction to $25 million in the county’s library outlay won’t impair the new facility. That’s because, by relocating to the State Street site where the city is planning to build a new federally funded transit center, the county can also avail itself of federal funds.

“It will still be a very nice building, not diminished in any way. We’ll just be capitalizing on the infrastructure that will already be in place,” Ragsdale says. That includes parking, the foundations for the library that would be built on top of the transit center, as well as a heating and cooling system. City officials confirm that the Federal Transportation Administration, which is funding the project, is receptive to its supporting a library and potentially providing more than $17 million that’s presently allocated. The State Street Site would be linked to a Gay Street entrance by a new pedestrian bridge.

By now it should be obvious that both a new high school and a new library are dependent on the wheel tax for their funding, unless the county cuts way back on other services or comes up with some other source of revenue. A property tax increase, which would not be subject to a referendum, has been mentioned as an alternative should the wheel tax be voted down, but Ragsdale spurns this option, “I’ve submitted my budget and a way to fund it, and I’m going to stay the course,” he states emphatically.

Everyone who cares about the well-being of this community should rally to preserve the wheel tax that is vital to keep Ragsdale on his course.

July 22, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 30 © 2004 Metro Pulse