BOWL FOR KIDS’ SAKE 2008 – visit BigBrothersBigSistersETN.org
Coming to an Alley Near You!
Have fun with coworkers, friends or family while also helping children. Bowl For Kids’ Sake benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee. Every dollar raised goes toward uniting at-risk children with caring adult mentors. It is a FUNtastic way to spend time together and help our community.

More details after the break...

One thing that I have always noted about this website is that all the members stay in tuned to the activity of the city and county extremely well.

In an attempt to increase awareness of community activities I bring to you:

Link...

Please visit and the site and enjoy. In addition, if you feel inclined to do so, please leave a message under the contact section in the guestbook.

Thank you,

NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING

January 24, 2008 5:30 p.m.
Charles W. Cansler YMCA
616 Jessamine Street

The City of Knoxville's Community Development Division is developing its 2008 Annual Action Plan. This plan will include projects and activities the City will perform from July 2008 through June 2009 to address the housing, infrastructure, service, and other community needs identified in the 2005-2009 Consolidated Plan.

I spoke with Madeline Rogero this morning and we both want to make sure that all are aware of the following important public meeting. Lots is going on in Community Development.

Link...

NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING

January 24, 2008 5:30 p.m.
Charles W. Cansler YMCA
616 Jessamine Street

The City of Knoxville's Community Development Division is developing its 2008 Annual Action Plan. This plan will include projects and activities the City will perform from July 2008 through June 2009 to address the housing, infrastructure, service, and other community needs identified in the 2005-2009 Consolidated Plan.

A public meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 24, 2008 in the community room in the Cansler YMCA. This meeting will be an opportunity for community members to give City staff input about community development, housing, neighborhood and homeless needs and issues.

If you have questions or would like further information, please contact Becky Wade at (865) 215 2120 or by email at bwade@cityofknoxville.org

A HUD review of Knox County Community Development Block Grant and other programs requested by Mayor Mike Ragsdale in August has been completed and a report of HUD's findings has been submitted to the mayor's office.

The report "commends the county for employing a knowledgeable staff and for a commitment to carrying out worthwhile activities," and also commended the County "for good programmatic monitoring of sub recipients."

The report did, however, find actionable issues involving:

• Possible conflicts of interest relating to the CDBG program

• Problems with KCCD and Knox County PBA employees time sheets used to allocate administrative costs among programs

• Failure to include a "reversion of asset" related to a subrecipient agreement with the Tennessee Conference of Community Development

Other areas of concern included:

• Lack of progress in the HOME affordable housing program and "inconsistency of the PBA to provide consistent and experienced management of the Knox County Rehabilitation Program"

• Problems with subrecipient management procedures involving program and financial management monitoring

• Concerns regarding separation of duties and having proper checks and balances in place

A total of $33,454 in questioned funding was disallowed, and another $840,000 is under further review. HUD's summary letter of findings can be found here.

The mayor's office says they are taking steps to address these issues. The HUD report noted that Knox County officials did not appear to have "adequate knowledge of the CDBG and HOME conflict of interest requirement" and that they would review the county's response in relation to the disallowed funding.

The mayor's office has prepared the requested conflict of interest documentation, a copy of which can be found here.

Last week I had the pleasure of showing Michael Kostroff, the mean lawyer on the HBO hit series "The Wire" around Knoxville. Apparently, he has a couple of friends who want to get out of LA, and they've been considering the Mid-south. Always eager to recruit more artistic people to our area, I proudly cruised him around our downtown area and North Knoxville--the West side of Knoxville is another planet to me, too strip-mallish, too suburban, too far to drive for city folks used to living in a downtown neighborhood.

Some of Kostroff's favorite places were the Tomato Head, Oodles, the Time Warp Tearoom, Carpe Librum Bookstore, Market Square, and the Riverwalk. He did point out however, and I have to agree with him, that the one thing missing in downtown Knoxville or even North Knoxville was a good old fashioned urban breakfast joint.

You know the kind I mean--tables and a counter with red and chrome stools, CHEAP prices, a place that makes corn beef hash and serves lox and bagels, a place where you can hang out and read the Sunday Times while enjoying a homemade blueberry muffin. The kind of deli where regulars go every day and everyone, like in the Cheers bar, "knows your name".

We do have the coffee shop in Old City, but it's only coffee and pastries there. We also have Rankin's on Central Avenue. It's got the right physical space, but the menu is classic "homestyle" meaning the home-fries are so-so and the waitress probably thinks lox should be on doors, not on top of bagels. When asked if they had corned beef hash, she just looked puzzled.

Don't get me wrong, I love places like Rankin's. I'd probably starve to death without them, but they're just too un-urban to satisfy my need for a good old fashioned breakfast joint.

The food at the Cracker Barrel is okay, but it's always too mobbed on the weekends, and you have to pass through the jungle of trinkets, the cabbage-shaped tea pots, and hummingbird wind chimes to reach the dining room. That can be a little unnerving early in the morning.

The Waffle House is--well what can you say about a place that serves homefries that looks like shredded strings---

I wouldn't call Panera Bread a breakfast joint.

There is an interesting homestyle restauraunt around the corner from the Fellinni Kroger's (a name Kostroff loved by the way). It serves breakfast, but on styrofoam plates. They have gospel singing there too. On weekend nights, the parking lot is packed. I've always wanted to go in there some night because I imagine they have great music, but frankly I'm kind of afraid they all might start laying hands on me, and I'm not exactly eager to be possessed by the Holy Ghost or anything else.

After touring the city, Kostroff was definitely impressed with Knoxville. Especially the price of homes and apartments here. He loved the Tennessee Theater, and he's played some of the best theaters in the country when he toured with The Producers and Les Miserables.

I think maybe Harold's Place was the kind of urban deli we would have enjoyed, but Harold's is now all closed up and gutted.

I guess all I can do is wait for some clever business person, not a chain, not a corporation, just somebody with a few bucks who wants to make a good living, to open an urban deli downtown. Surely, with all the condos, lofts apartments and new retail shops, they would draw a lot of people.

If anyone knows of a place I've missed please let me know. If the atmosphere is right and the eggs (two over easy please with home fries, coffee, and toast) are under $4.00, I'll be there every morning.

Residents of a Palm Beach County trailer park are being enticed to sell. Developers are chomping at the bit to build more condos in South Florida. I suppose for that kind of money the residents can just buy a condo on the beach. Not the same though. In high-rise condos you don't get to "cruise the narrow streets on golf carts, passing palm trees and tiny, neatly manicured yards". I knew we should have kept our house when we moved. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

This will be one of the differences in SoKno once they get done, that is if they ever get done. Cute little neighborhoods will be come brick or aluminum siding 3-4 story boxes with a completely different type of community. Very little grass and many more cars per square mile. Ah, well, progress. Or is it?

Lots of new tag-team KNS reporting about Knoxville Community Development by Hayes Hickman and Scott Barker over the past few days:

Haslam overhauls Community Development Block Grant Process:

Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam said Thursday his department heads will step in to oversee distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants after weeks of turmoil in the city's Community Development Department.

Three Empowerment Zone options on the table:

The third option, and Mayor Bill Haslam's preferred choice, would leave oversight of the zone with the PNI board of directors, minus its three-member staff. That support would instead come from city staffers within the Community Development Division.

Also under that plan, Martin said, a new agency other than PNI most likely would be contracted to run the loan program.

Employee says Kesler tried to alter stats:

Former Knoxville Community Development Director Renee Kesler tried to get subordinates to alter statistics in a report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, employees said in sworn statements.

Kesler's directives, which employees said would have misrepresented the Community Development Block Grant program's accomplishments, weren't followed in the end, though the final report downplays the program's shortcomings.

City gave grants despite concerns:

The city's investigation, however, found other instances in which programs won grants despite incomplete or inadequate applications, or review scores that were lower than other applicants.

[..]

In her interview with investigators, Kesler defended the selections and attacked the probe. She said some organizations "don't have the capacity to complete those full applications, so we have to work with them and we worked with several of the agencies."

She also said the investigation was racially motivated.

The KNS's newly found interest in downtown development is encouraging. Hopefully they will turn these two reporters loose on other stories that the public may not be hearing about in the future.

As for the Community Development situation, it seems to have put Mayor Haslam between a rock and a hard place with regard to Knoxville's minority community, but he appears to be handling it as well as could be expected given the circumstances. And just in time for the 2007 elections, too.

This morning on The Voice 1180 AM, Lloyd, Kevin and company mentioned a couple of times they had all the transcripts from the city's investigation of the Community Development department.

They were going to review the investigation over the long weekend and then on the program on Monday start discussing what's in the transcripts. Parts of the transcripts may be read on the air.

And from what I've heard, the summaries on the Sentinel's web site are pretty tame compared to what's in the actual transcripts.

Here's the Knoxville News Sentinel report. An interim contract was approved, but action on a new contract was postponed for further review.

PNI is embroiled in the controversy surrounding Knoxville's Community Development Division. Renee Kessler resigned as head of that division last week. According to today's report, the local NAACP was at the meeting to ask Mayor Haslam to clarify that Kessler's resignation had nothing to do with charges of discrimination involving division employment practices and Empowerment Zone operations. The mayor repeated his assurances that his own investigation found no evidence of discrimination.

We understand there is a 1200 page report resulting from an internal civil service investigation into operation of the EZ program and Community Development. We expect there will be more to come on this developing story.

In our opinion, City Council was right to approve an interim contract to keep the program going, and they were right to agree to pay PNI for the work they have done without a contract since the previous one expired in April. Now the city needs to review the entire program to make sure it is being run effectively so that taxpayer dollars are producing the intended benefits. City Council was right to postpone the proposed PNI contract until all of this is sorted out and the city can determine how the program can best be administered going forward.

Link...

Via KnoxBlab.

Anyhow, while I feel for his daughter (no kid wants to see their Dad told "Get lost."), this picture is more representative of how America isn't, than anything else. Bennett's pronouncement of a Santorum presidential run floored me with laughter last night.

This is pretty dang funny! Hat tip to HuffPo

Link...

My college classmate wrote: "I continue at Parsons Brinckerhoff in DC - working principally on federal transportation policy - right now on the future of the Interstate Highway System over the next 50 years."

and I responded: "The Interstate Highway System, along with those who make decisions about it, need some serious help. One of the new Knoxville mayor's first decisions in office was to approve an I-40 widening to ten drive lanes as the highway slashes through Downtown Knoxville and some of its oldest neighborhoods.

to which my classmate responded: "Unbelievable. No one does this much more in the real world."

I asked a question on KnoxBlab a long time ago about the wisdom of the City of Knoxville investing so much money into the Downtown Cinema. My question was whether we were are the brink of a technology shift that would reduce movie theater attendance due to a large increase in home theater purchases.

George Lucas gives his viewpoint.

"We don't want to make movies. We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the feature film thing, because it's too expensive and it's too risky. Lucas said he believes Americans are abandoning the moviegoing habit for good."

Let's review, when did Knoxville build the Convention Center? At the bursting point of the Convention Center bubble.

When does Knox County choose to build the Midway Industrial Park?

When does the City of Knoxville decide to invest 3 million no 5 million no 7 million just don't ask how many millions of taxpayer dollars into a City owned movie theater?

When the movie business bubble burst. You have to hand it to them, they are consistent.

Return To Torah Ministries has hit a speed bump in its effort to aquire Old South High.

Details at Link...

Councilman Steve Hall gave us another great moment at City Council tonight. In the discussion on the Knoxville South Waterfront Redevelopment Plan, Hall revealed that he owned property within the 'expanded' redevelopment area (the recently included area outside the original Vision Plan) but had never received notice to that effect from KCDC. He said that 4 out of the 11 home owners on his block had not received notice either. Hall was the lone city council member to vote against the Redevelopment Plan, which included substantial tax-increment financing.

I used to know the answer to that question but I am no longer sure. Have we lost our collective minds regarding government and development?

The reason that development can be good is that is provides income to the local government. A case can be made for TIF's, IF there is a return on the investment of the TIF. If the project fails then the local government does not receive the full extent of the projected property taxes and the local government pays the balloon note on the infrastructure. All projects have risks. There are no slam dunk real estate projects. There are no sure things.

We need to have a debate about what is the role of government. It has morphed from what we learned in high school. We cannot fund schools or police retirement because we are using too much tax money to make speculative risky investments with private enterprise on the “hope” the end result will be increased property taxes. That is not the role of government. The government is not meant to be a lending partner to local real estate speculators. That is what banks are for. The government is supposed to build schools and pay its policemen.

James Howard Kunstler, noted architecture and urban design pundit, will lecture at UT on Monday night. McClung Auditorium, 5:30 pm. More details at:

Link...

bill lyons wrote:

"The comparison is more like apples to pencil sharpeners"

A new, good idea!

With the Sunsphere, we still have the chance for our shared public symbol to serve and reflect us all. Since it looks like citizens are going to be paying for this public symbol one way or another, we must be sure its use is of the highest civic value.

I propose we rename it the "Funsphere' and make it a creative learning center, along with restaurant and observation levels. Let's work together to build a top-notch children's museum and interactive discovery center for kids of all ages, where area and regional schools can enjoy visiting once or twice a year.

.

Now is the time for citizens who believe in Knoxville to claim our shared symbol. And who better to claim it for and demonstrate our community's values than for the children?

Contact city officials, attend council meetings, talk to neighbors and encourage the city not to accept any proposal which fails to reflect Knoxville's highest values and the Sunsphere's highest potentials.

I say let's go for it.

WANT TO MAKE A quick buck?

UPDATE: Remember there's no such thing as racial profiling. 

UPDATE: This is inconvenient. 

Note to R. Neal: You need to turn off comments on any mock InstaPundit post. This prevents leftists from spewing hate speech.

We saw a booth for this group at the Tennessee Valley Fair yesterday which showed a photo of their new "International Headquarters". It was a photo of the old South High School.

Check out Link...

In particular, look under "projects"- international headquarters, and under "presenting", page 12.

Did we miss something about that property being sold to this religous group?

The people of the Thorn Grove community in East Knox County have filed a lawsuit to protect their community autonomy. This is the way business must be conducted in Knox County when the local government refuses to represent the people. One of the developers that owns parcels which will be used for the Midway Industrial Park is Harry Sherrod. The same Harry Sherrod who threatened Gary Seller's during the Wheel Tax petition and who was a key figure in Mayor Ragsdale's efforts to stop the Wheel Tax petition.

One of the key requirements for the Development Corporation was that the land have no more than 6 degrees of slope. This site in Thorn Grove is some of the most rolling land in Knox County. But only four Knox County Commissioners actually visited the site. The vote was pure politics. Commissioners voted for the Industrial Park because County Mayor Ragsdale told them to.

The 11 million dollars needed to purchase the 370 acres meant no money was left to keep the County Mayor's promise of fully funding the Hardin Valley High School. Mayor Ragsdale is doing everything in his power to build this High School for only 1,300 students. The result being that there will be no relief for school overcrowding for Karns, Bearden, and Farragut until 2011, well into the administration of the next Knox County Mayor.

Which is more important, to help a friend with a business deal, or to keep a promise to solve school overcrowding? Mayor Ragsdale has given his answer and only a court case can stop him.

The MPC has released a draft of the Chapman Highway Corridor Study. You can access from the MPC website.

Interesting looking plan with many nice features. Hope I'm still around to see it implemented!

I saw a couple of weeks back Number 9’s Halls Shopper Tyler Harber string with a couple of posts about Bill Johns should be our county mayor.

I doubt that Mike Ragsdale will let the Sentinel ever cover this guy, but maybe the Metro Pulse will since he is also an organic farmer. As suggested, here is a new string about the guy I met last week:

It is funny about that "degrees of separation" thing since last Thursday; I met Bill Johns at the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Nanotechnology Conference in Oak Ridge. Bill Johns was the keynote speaker about nanotech business.

It just so happens, he is the guy who ran the "Marty" for mayor campaign (dog - voter awareness) in which I wrote about last month. Apparently, my wife also met him that same day at Bearden High School when he was talking about the new high school ( Link... ).

If you did not watch the County Commission meeting on this past Monday, you should have. With Mike Ragsdale sitting a few feet from him, Bill Johns gave probably one of the most serious, facts-based, and informative talks linking education, technology, and economic development that has ever been heard before the commission. He also laid down the law about financial management and proactive planning of our community.

I heard he blasted the proposal of the PBA conducting a $600,000 study to determine if our schools are overcrowded to the likes of studying if Al-Qaeda wants to kill us. Bill Johns also talked about how politics and bureaucracy are hurting us and referenced an e-mail group he had with the school board and the PBA.

During his talk, he mentioned his background and referenced his site:

Link...

For those who are interested in nanotechnology, education, politics, conservation, and other information, you should check him out.

If anything, check out the posts about education. Our community has really dropped the ball on education and Bill Johns clearly states it there.

Perhaps we should start shopping around for a new vision and leader. If the current guy is already looking at Nashville, then why not start?

Brother can you spare 9 million?

Have developers figured out what patsies our leaders in local Knox County government are? Much has been written about TIF's here at KnoxViews. Even those like myself that cast a wary eye towards TIF's admit that in theory they can be progressive and provide a reasonable return on investment.

But when every project has to have a TIF to be viable one has to question what is going on.

In Friday's Knoxville News Sentinel Roger Harris writes that the James Doran Corporation that is building the Northshore Center has come back to City and County government and said that if they do not get a 9 million dollar TIF for roads that the entire 250 MILLION DOLLAR PROJECT MAY NOT BE VIALBE.

Who can really blame them? Isn't this just smart business? It is easy to see that Mayors Haslam and Ragsdale have sent a message to the development community that if you want some TIF money you just have to ask for it.

Let's review. The reason development is supposedly good is because it expands the tax base. Unless of course the first 15 years are used to pay off the roads and infrastructure. All across this nation cities and counties are imposing impact fees for roads, schools, and utilities so that infrastructure is NOT paid for by all the taxpayers. The ones that create the need pay for the associated infrastructure.

But not in Knoxville. Here all of the taxpayers pay for the infrastructure through TIF's. Think of it as opportunity costs. If the tax base does not increase for the first 15 years it must be made up for elsewhere. So what good is development if you receive no tax base for 15 years?

Does it seem like just yesterday there was a City project that had to have multiple injections of taxpayer money to be viable? What happened to the Five Points Village Plaza? After over 4 million dollars of taxpayer money was "invested" it went belly up in five months. Yes, Virgina, five months.

Local government must stop sending the message that projects are only viable if taxpayer money funds them. Do we really have to bribe people to come and live here? Or is this just a transfer payment to powerful developers who control our government?

In the next couple of weeks, meetings on three issues of importance to south Knoxville will take place.

The first is this Wednesday, 8/30, at 5 p.m. in the library of South Doyle Middle School.  MPC staff will be on hand to discuss the recommendations in the draft Chapman Highway Corridor Study and review the next steps involving land use and transportation improvements.  You can read about project background and notes from previous meetings here:  http://www.knoxmpc.org/chapman/index.htm

The second meeting is Thursday, 8/31, at 6 p.m. at Kerbela Temple.  This is a community-wide public workshop to discuss the draft form-based codes for the south waterfront.

The next meetings are Tuesday, 9/5 at 6 p.m. and Monday, 9/11, at 6 p.m.  Both meetings are at the South Waterfront Drop In Center.  These are neighborhoods meetings to address comments, questions, and concerns about the south waterfront redevelopment area and TIF.

Many more community meetings, Council workshops, etc. are scheduled this fall as work on the south waterfront plan winds up.  A complete schedule is available at http://www.cityofknoxville.org/southwaterfront/schedule2.asp

I stopped by the Greek Deli at the Chapman Highway Chevron and ordered the Gyro which was quite good with a refreshing sour cream(?) sauce. I got a free sample of Al-Hubh sauce thinking this might be good to take to a party as a dip but anyone who came near would get garlic breath not to mention the poppyseeds might get your drug tested pals thrown off the job. The service was cheerful but a bit slow as a family of former Katrina evacuees on their way to Pennsylvania from Texas had arrived right before me. Usually you get pretty quick service. Pretty good baklava, too.

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, shall we discuss the urban renewal that’s threatening this place of business? I asked the owner where she would go if the city took the deli for a park and she said “I’ll answer that when the city really does take this for a park… meanwhile I’ve got enough things to worry about” and “this building’s been here 60 years, it’s not going anywhere”. Now I’m confused. I thought denial was a river in Egypt, what’s it doing in a Greek Deli? More likely she was so busy with the store she didn’t read the paper.

Now the city is all set to advertise an urban redevelopment zone. The city says they’re going to protect the neighborhoods but haven’t quite gotten around to giving out any legal language to that effect. There’s not even a pretense they’ll protect the businesses on Chapman Highway. My heart won’t break if the muffler place moves a little farther out but a convenience store/deli is a real asset to the neighborhood. Can this kind of place afford the rent in a brand new condo tower?