Thank you Rocketsquirrel. Traveling the country for over 40 years weekly, I have never seen the unending concentration of the downtrodden that Knoxville has allowed. Mr. Lyon or Mr. Finley, why are you allowing this travesty?

Thanks Rocketsquirrel for all the interesting information. I wonder why the News Sentinel and others do not pursue this line of inquiry? What ever happened to investigative reporting....why can this kind of information only be found on the blogs? Someone should follow the money and see where it leads. Thanks again for your valuable contribution to this discussion.

Reminds me of the bumper sticker "If you aren't completely appalled, you haven't been paying attention." Hope the local media is paying attention. This should be right up WATE's hard news alley. Hopefully enough buzz can be generated on the local social media scene that it will be impossible to ignore. I'm certainly going to try to spread the word.

Why on earth do we have ANY unadvertised contracts for bid in the city or the county? I would have thought that purchasing regs would prohibit that. Does anyone know how many more are out there? And why they are allowed to put out a RFP without advertising it?

Minvilla Manor was in fact advertised publicly for bids at the Knoxville Builders Exchange. The bid date was 4-22-08 and at least at one time, there were 4 companies bidding on this project. There may have been others and then again, not all 4 may have placed bids.

So is the issue that it was not advertised outside of KBE? Is KBE a closed organization? In other words, do you have to be a member and/or pay fees to see RFPs?

KBE is a member subscribed organization with offices around the state. It is fairly open as to who can use them and about as "public" as it can get. I am also not aware, but would think, it was advertised elsewhere but I do not know that for a fact. I also do not know if it was advertised in the paper, but it could have been.

Here is their link for more info.

(link...)

Do you think the folks who post comments on this web site just rode into town on a turnip truck? You stated that the bidding process was "about as 'public' as it gets." Who are you kidding?

I smell the faint scent of corruption and political scandal every time I drive past the Minvilla Manor. The scent is getting more pungent with each posting.

I am by no means defending this situation, but when the comment was made that this project was not advertised, this is in fact not true.

Also, I did not refer to the bidding process about being public, this was a reference to the use of the KBE and the projects it advertises.

RIF

And just to make my position public, I think spending this amount of money on this prject is a complete waste of taxpayers dollars and will benefit fewer of the homeless than it should.