Mercy Health Partners is sponsoring a community meeting this Monday, April 21st, at South Doyle Middle School to discuss their plans for the Baptist Hospital site. The meeting will begin at 6:30 PM, and will be held in the Commons area of the middle school.

The Mercy Health Partners voted this week to make the Baptist Hospital campus the site for their new $400 million hospital. That hospital will replace both the present St. Mary’s Hospital’s main campus and Baptist Hospital’s main campus. This is a major investment in South Knoxville and the south waterfront, and should be of interest to anyone who lives in South Knoxville or has an interest or stake in the area.

Vistors are welcome at this meeting, so please come if you are interested.

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Beck Center, 1927 Dandridge Avenue at at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 18. The program will begin at noon, followed by questions and discussion.

Infill development, as the words imply, is the process of filling in gaps in already developed urban areas. It involves increasing urban density, improving antiquated public facilities, new mixes of activities and land use. It involves more urban design emphasis than traditional land use planning.

Seven of the people most responsible for planning the infill development of central Knoxville will talk about their plans for the Broadway and Central avenue area, the South South Knoxville waterfront, Cumberland Avenue and Magnolia Avenue. Infill development of these
areas , along with the current successes of revitalization in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood, Old North Knoxville and Mechanicsville can create, in effect, a whole “new town in-town” in Knoxville.

Michael Carberry, Comprehensive Planning Manager for Metropolitan Planning Commission, will introduce the topic and the projects. Maps and drawings of the projects will be exhibited. Other presenters will
be Bob Whetsel, Director of Redevelopment , City of Knoxville; David Hill, Senior Director of South Waterfront Development; Mike Reynolds and Jeff Archer, Metropolitan Planning Commission Planners; Anne
Wallace, Cumberland Avenue Project Manager and Jacene England, President of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

City Council members Bob Becker and Joe Hultquist who represent parts of the City involved in the projects will attend to participate in discussion following the presentation.

What: 2008 Knoxville/Knox County Neighborhood Conference

When: Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 8:00 AM

Where: Knoxville Convention & Expo Center (525 Henley St.)

Who: Neighborhood Groups, Homeowners Associations and interested citizens throughout Knox County and the City of Knoxville

Why: To help citizens more efficiently utilize government/community services and to empower neighborhood leaders to make a difference in our community.

Registration for the 2008 Knoxville/Knox County Neighborhood Conference is now available. Please visit our website at Link... or contact us at 215-HELP (4357) to sign up now!

This year's conference will feature several workshops focused on improving and empowering your community with valuable and relevant TWO-WAY communication between constituents and Government, Non-Profit, and Neighborhood organizations.

SIgn up soon, as spaces are limited!

Please forward this message along to your friends and neighbors...

Oh goody, I get to be the one to post this!

Stuff like this.

Why couldn't she just have said "I'll support whoever the Democratic nominee is and I am completely confident that will be my husband"?

Here's Obama's latest:

I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is can she get the people who voted for me?

Way to show Democratic solidarity, dude.

And BTW - get over yourself.

So all day I've been hearing about how Hillary Clinton "cried," "broke down", "let her emotions get the best of her" etc. etc. I finally checked into the video, expecting to see a sobbing out-of-control person.

And this is what I found.

All I see is somebody acting like a real human being who actually cares about something.

And these are "tears"? Geez, I've cried more than that over a sad movie. Heck, I've seen my spouse cry more than that at a sad movie.

I'm not a huge Hillary fan, but I am truly pissed that she's getting attacked over this. We need more intelligent passion like this, not less.

Edwards' response was classless and cost him my primary vote (not that it will matter by Feb. 5). I hope Elizabeth kicked him where it hurts.

That is, contingent on Commission approval. Looks like the City basically got what it wanted.

Here's one for Randy...

Link...

Have you ever wanted to host a Candidate Forum for your organization or neighborhood association but didn't know how? If so, we have a workshop for you!

Candidate Forums are important in educating voters at the local level, and in encouraging more voter participation. We need citizens who know how to help, especially with high interest in the upcoming election season!

On Saturday November 10, 2007 the League of Women Voters of Knoxville-Knox County will host a Candidate Forum Training Workshop at the West High School Library from 9:30am - 11:00am. Attendees will learn all about organizing, planning for and running a Forum. There is no cost to attend.

Please RSVP to Emily Woodle, Voter Services Chair, at saundersek@yahoo.com or 865-604-2882. You can also call committee member Jamey Dobbs, at 548-0818. And spread the word!

This has been in the works since last spring.

Well, I hope Commission enjoyed their time in the courtroom - because both WBIR and WATE led their 11 p.m. coverage with the news that the City intends to sue the County over the stormwater ordinance.

Link...

Geez, Ragsdale is proposing yet another committee study this thing? Are you kidding me?

The annual Neighborhood Conference is scheduled for Saturday, October 13. More info here.

These conferences are usually pretty good. Notice that stormwater and traffic calming, two topics heavily discussed here, are on the agenda.

This will make you wince.

... let's not forget Commission. An excellent piece by local columnist Leslie Snow.

Just so Ragsdale doesn't feel too singled out - here's how Commission made the 1/31 appointments. In their own words, no less.

Cluck, cluck.

There's been a fair amount of discussion on this forum about the Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission. So I thought folks would be interested to hear there is currently a "city" vacancy on Commission (the Knoxville Mayor appoints 7 members; the County Mayor appoints 8). These appts do not require City Council approval, so the Mayor's decision is pretty much his to make.

During his first campaign, Mayor Haslam promised "balance" in MPC appointments. However, over the last few years, MPC has become more unbalanced, not less. It is now pretty much dominated by folks with development or real estate backgrounds.

I very much want to see the Mayor appoint someone this time with a strong neighborhood background. I'm not talking about a NIMBYite knee-jerk anti-development type, but someone who understands the POV and concerns of neighborhoods. It would be nice if that person also understand the functions and workings of MPC so that they can "hit the ground running."

It's not that hard to come up with names that fit this bill. If you're interested in moving MPC in the right direction, you might want to take a few minutes to contact Mayor Haslam about it. His email address is mayor@cityofknoxville.org.

The Decider commuted the jail time part of the sentence. Poor Scooter will be on 2 years probation and have to pay the $250,000 fine (tough for a guy who has God knows how much $$ in his defense fund), but he serves nary a day.

This comes on the same day that an appeals court unanimously upheld the trial judge's decision that Libby could not stay out of jail pending appeal.

You know, I think I'd mind a pardon less. This is just plan micro-managing the judiciary. Not to mention that Bush has said before he wouldn't get involved as long as Libby still had appeals left.

Doesn't Bush get upset when Congress tries to "micro-manage" the executive branch?

Oh yeah, that's different. And it's a holiday week, so you're not supposed to notice.

well, I know what I'll be doing this weekend!

Even tho I should have stopped being surprised long ago, two of these from the Bush administration in one day is too much.

First, the FDA announces it will "fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease."

Seems that one small company wants to test all its cows for mad cow. Larger companies object, because the smaller company could advertise its quality and they might be forced to test all their cows too in order to compete. Isn't that how the free market is supposed to work? (CBT, where are you?)

But no-oo, the Bush administration must protect the big guys from competition from a small business, although how the hell it can forbid somebody from testing its herd is a mystery to me (and apparently to the Federal district judge who first ruled for the meatpacker).

Then NASA Administrator Michael Griffen says that although global warming is a problem, it would be arrogant to try to address it. I can't even attempt to explain this one - as GR would say, read the whole thing.

And please just kill me now.

Just thought ya'll would like to know that we're all Communists now. And that's a "fair and balanced" assessment.

Fire up the Internationale.

The Justice Dept. IG is now investigating whether Monica Goodling considered political affiliation in hiring entry-level assistant USAs.

I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.

The KNS profiles Stacey Campfield. Here's my favorite part:

While none of those ideas has been transformed into law so far, Campfield said he is optimistic about ultimate success. He compared his crusading to the 18th-century efforts of William Wilberforce to convince England's Parliament to abolish slavery.

"They tried to intimidate him, ridiculed him," Campfield said. "That shows that, if you just keep trying, sooner or later it'll happen."

That Stacey, he's so noble.

A short post on this because I didn't take notes.

Awhile back MPC did a study, with lots of input from a local task force (on which my spouse served) on improvements to the Chapman Highway corridor. These dealt with both strictly transportation issues, but also with land use issues. That study is available here. It was approved by MPC, City Council, and County Commission.

As the MPC website states, "Upon completion of MPC's study, the Tennessee Department of Transportation contracted with Palmer Engineering to conduct a transportation planning study that would make recommendations on short-term improvements to ehance the safety and operations of Chapman Highway."

The results of that second study were presented Monday night and tonight in two meetings in south Knoxville. Since this was a TDOT study, it addressed transportation issues only.

All ideas are for short-term improvements to Chapman Highway, basically "low hanging fruit," although Jeff Welch of the regional TPO stressed that as of yet no funding was available for any of them.

They included things like reducing the # of curb cuts, adding a turn lane to the section just south of Stone Road, improving road alignments with Chapman Highway (especially where there was a "jog" at the CH intersection), and adding to the existing street grid to make more "frontage" routes along the highway.

In general I was pretty impressed by what I saw.

I doubt this is available on the web anywhere because we were looking at info on some pretty large maps, but if you are interested, Rene Davis at MPC is the local contact for the Chapman Highway study and should be able to direct you to more info. I also hope there are others out there who attended and who might add to my brief synopsis.

Fired USA David Iglesias gives a remarkably candid (not nasty, not snarky, but remarkably candid) interview to GQ.

It's one of those "more in sorrow than in anger" kinds of things.

This may well be the proverbial straw.

So I'm bored this evening. The spouse is out of town and sparring with #9 is beginning to pall. So just for fun I hopped over to Brian's Blog.

My that's quite an ego the ex-chair has there. I particularly liked his option C: "They recognize the name Brian Hornback and know that by using the name over and over it will generate more traffic to their website."

Let's generate more traffic for R. Neal. Brian Hornback, Brian Hornback, Brian Hornback,....

And speaking of local celebs, this is just too damn funny.

I"m tired of talking red light cameras, so here's something completely different:

For the past year or so, MPC and a Steering Committee have been working on design guidelines for downtown Knoxville. The development process included an inclusive public participation component.

This is something I've wanted to see for a very long time, and I'm excited that they passed Council on first reading this week 9-0 (after sailing through MPC last month on the consent agenda).

However, there is some opposition from a few local developers, who would like the guidelines to be voluntary rather than mandatory.

Take a look and tell me what you think.