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County Mayor Tim?

Sheriff Tim Hutchison has no plans to run for county mayor in 2006, but that hasn’t prevented his being sent e-mails asking him to run. A group of people upset about the wheel tax and the direction of county spending has begun to bombard the sheriff with e-mails ([email protected]) asking him to “save” Knox County by running against County Mayor Mike Ragsdale. (We’ve seen copies. We especially like the blue bumper sticker with yellow letters.)

Hutchison will, no doubt, resist this draft movement. But then again, there were just a few e-mails six weeks ago suggesting that someone do something about getting that wheel tax repealed.

Sez He was Hol-robbed

Tim Graham says he was unfairly treated on the contract to develop the Farmers Market. Graham Corp. and Holrob Investments were the only developers to bid on transforming the money-losing county property into a commercial (tax-producing) and public space.

The Knox County Industrial Development Board took back its proposal, announced the sale of part of the property directly to Target and Kroger and said Development Corp. CEO Mike Edwards would negotiate with Holrob to develop the rest of it. This appeared to be a rejection of both developers, but since big tenants get a deal, the rest of the space is where developers make their profit.

News accounts had Graham’s attorney hinting of improprieties in the process, but no one would say what they were. Edwards had a sojourn at Holrob when he left the Public Building Authority and before he went to Turkey Creek, then on to head the Chamber and the Development Corp. Bud Gilbert, Graham’s attorney, has requested all the documents in the evaluation process to see if his client was treated even-handedly in the discussion.

Industrial development guys say they were just worried that since Graham had property across I-640 he might tie up the Farmers Market, then sell his other property to Target and Kroger, leaving the Farmers Market site without anchor tenants. Then, once his deals were done, Graham could give the property back to the county. The also point out that Holrob had the highest score in three different evaluations.

Gilbert still wants to know why Holrob gets to develop the rest of the site without another bid. The Graham negotiation at this point centers on how much the copying cost is going to be for all the documents.

Annexation Rears Head

If Target and Kroger stores are built on the Farmers Market property does that mean they will close other stores or is this a new market? It’s an important question because these stores throw off enough sales tax to make local governments drool.

If these two huge retailers move onto what is now county property outside the city limits, the city will be missing out on a huge chunk of sales tax. There is no doubt that the previous mayoral administration would have been on the site waiting for them, to cut the ribbon and welcome them into the city.

But if the city were to annex the Farmers Market for the sales tax would county commissioners go berserk? It might threaten the current détente between city and county and cooperation on such issues as using county owned downtown property for joint projects like the bus transfer center, a Cineplex or a library. Current Mayor Bill Haslam is not likely to force the issue.

So Much for Progress

Carlene Malone sees a grim irony in the discussion about the new Target at the Farmers Market. It is widely believed that the new store might replace the one on Broadway, though Target has made no decision on the matter. Long-time residents may remember that developers demolished the historic Park Place estate on Broadway in order to build the retail center. (What was historic about it? Well, it was built in the 1890s and was the first home in Fountain Head, now Fountain City. If you want to know any more ask Jack Neely, we just do gossip.) Should the Target store move to the Farmers Market location, can we put back Park Place and the beautiful knoll on which it rested?

Ah. Guess not. Something to keep in mind the next time we want to tear down something historic for some more sales tax.

Malone led the neighborhood fight to save Park Place. The effort brought her to public notice and led her to run for City Council where she was to give developers grief for years to come.

Unlimited

Several of the referendum questions on last week’s ballot were confusing and seemingly arcane, but some voters were especially flummoxed by Question 6, the one about term limits for the Knox County law director. It read, in part, “The Knox County Law Director shall be subject to the term limit provisions of this Charter to the same extent as any Constitutional officer of Knox County government....” What some voters may not have known was that, according to a 1995 ruling by the state attorney general, Constitutional officers—which don’t include the county law director—aren’t term limited. So voting for the “same” term limits was voting for no term limits at all.

Unlike the usual yes-means-no ballot initiatives, like the city hotel referendum, the term-limit question wasn’t just a matter of tricky wording that you had to read carefully; in this case, voters needed prior knowledge of the existing state-constitutional practice, and the fact that the law director was not included in it.

Almost 33,000 voters made a choice on that one, and maybe most of them had done their homework and knew all about the attorney general’s 1995 ruling. But we’ve heard from some voters who thought they were voting for term limits for the law director who learned afterward that they were actually voting against them.

In any case, the people have spoken, regardless of whether they knew what they were saying. By a landslide of more than three and a half to one, the county law director—in this case, Mike Moyers—doesn’t have term limits.

August 12, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 33 © 2004 Metro Pulse