by Joe Sullivan

For those who anticipated that Mayor Bill Haslam would take office waving a wand and making momentous things happen, his first year as mayor may have come as a disappointment for lack of tangible accomplishments.

But, as he marks his first anniversary on the job, Haslam says, “I’m more encouraged than not by the progress that we’re making. The frustration is that everything takes a little longer than you’d like.” Using a football analogy, he says, “We’ve driven the ball down to the 10-yard line, and now we’ve got to put it in the end zone.” Among the touchdowns he foresees within near-term reach:

• Completion of plans for the eight-screen cineplex that’s due to go up on Gay Street and serve as a catalyst for downtown retail activity. “My goal is to have a signed deal with Regal [Entertainment Group] by calendar year end, under which Regal will be the operator and commit $2.5 million for furnishings and equipment.” The balance of the estimated $7.5 million cost will be divided equally between the city and a group of private investors whom Haslam has personally enlisted. It’s still an open question whether the historic but long-vacant buildings that line Gay Street’s 500 block will be preserved. Keeping them will add to the cinema’s construction cost and, “We’ll have to finance that gap,” Haslam says. He’s committed to having the cinema up and running by mid-2006.

• Augmenting downtown’s work force by attracting tenants to TVA’s East Tower, on which developer Sam Furrow and partners acquired an option last month for $12 million. The 247,000 square-foot tower has space for up to 1,000 workers, and private ownership would also augment the city’s property tax base. The city’s role in making it happen, Haslam suggests, could be to facilitate needed parking by providing tax increment financing (TIF), for a new privately owned garage. Under a TIF, property taxes on the new facility would be dedicated to its financing for a period of years.

• Bringing a Mast General Store to Gay Street as another retail anchor. Distinctive Mast stores have provided a boost to downtown retail activity in several Carolina cities, most recently Greenville, S.C. Again the city’s involvement would take the form of a TIF.

• Creating several hundred well paying jobs in the center city by attracting manufacturing and/or distribution firms to the barren I-275 corridor that centers on the former Coster Shop property, in which the city has invested $8 million. Haslam now sounds much more upbeat about the prospects than earlier in the year. “While I can’t name them, there are three or four companies right now that represent very good prospects, and I am very hopeful that we can announce some deals in the coming year,” the mayor reports. But they will come at a price to city taxpayers. “When you’re talking about a big manufacturer or distribution facility, it would be naïve to say we can get them by just showing them a piece of ground. If it involves a lot of jobs at decent wages the competition is incredible out there,” he says.

Downtown revitalization and job creation are two of the four goals set forth in what’s being billed as Haslam’s strategic plan for the city under the label Knoxville Works! The other two, to which he attaches equal importance, are “Stronger, safer neighborhoods” and “City services you can count on at a competitive price.”

“While the business community might focus on what we are doing for downtown economic development, the average citizen wants great services, and we have to design a government that can deliver those services at a price people can say, “That’s a good deal,” Haslam says.

As one step in that direction, performance measurement has become an integral part of city budgeting. Another will be introduced next spring when the city’s 311 call center comes online for receiving citizen complaints and expressions of all sorts on all facets of city government performance. “311 is going to give us a lot more data that will help in measuring things like neighborhood safety, and then we can start budgeting from that on how we allocate patrol divisions—where they are, when they work and what they are doing,” Haslam says.

An oft-expressed Haslam concern has been that city expenses have been growing at a rate of nearly five percent a year, whereas city revenue growth has been growing at only half that rate. The 35-cent property tax increase that Haslam guided through last spring with minimal opposition was perhaps his biggest single accomplishment of the year.

The tax increase was designed to cover that gap, not just for the current fiscal year, but for two or three years to come. Still, it’s only buying time.

One of the most important things Haslam says he’s learned during his first year on the job is that “there are two very different things that you could spend all your time on. Is your focus going to be on making city government work better or making the city better? My answer is that you have to do some of both.”

On the internal front, he says, “My biggest job as mayor is to come up with a framework that makes Knoxville city government a viable long-term entity without taxes getting too high or services becoming inadequate.”

In pursuit of his goals, Haslam is widely credited with making good appointments to key posts in his administration, establishing good working relations with City Council and staying attuned to citizen concerns in all sectors of the city. When he took office, his prime attribute appeared to be his business acumen, acquired as president of Pilot Corp. But he has also demonstrated that he has the political skills needed to lead a diverse city.

December 16, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 51 © 2004 Metro Pulse