government Continuity on council Next Saturday the five re-elected city council members will be sworn into office for their final term and a special council meeting will be held at 11:30 a.m. at the City County Building to choose a vice mayor, Beer Board chair and representative to serve on KAT.
Victor Ashe
Vice Mayor Nick Pavlis will be chosen vice mayor again for a two-year term which means he will have served four years as vice mayor, along with Brenda Palmer to chair the Beer Board and former mayor Daniel Brown to continue on the KAT board (which was not consulted about the mayoral termination of the KAT management contract). Jack Sharp is the longest-serving vice mayor in the past 75 years, having served 14 years as vice mayor (or seven two-year terms). Due to term limits no one will ever reach that length of service again. Sharp currently serves on MPC. This is a special called meeting by the mayor, which is a practice I started as mayor in 1990. The reason to choose the vice mayor on the day the council and/or mayor is sworn into office is to ensure there is a vice mayor to assume authority should something happen to the mayor. Prior to this, the city might go several weeks before a vice mayor was chosen by the council. ■ More developments on the KAT (bus system) stemming from the Thanksgiving firing of KAT director Cindy McGinnis as a result of the $39,000 Gobis report. Gobis never interviewed a member of the KAT board in it is inquiry. The mayor never consulted (only informed) any KAT board member including Mark Hairr (former KAT director and UT employee now) on her decision to cancel the Veolia contract and thereby terminate McGinnis. She did not talk to any board member about McGinnis’ performance prior to her departure. The city website as of Dec. 11 still showed McGinnis in her position.
Melissa Roberson is the interim director. The mayor apparently intends to do a search for the new director. The manner in which McGinnis was fired has spread across the online transit community, which will cause qualified persons to think twice about Knoxville, knowing the job might last for only six years (time remaining to Rogero as mayor assuming a second term). The mayor after Rogero would be free to change the KAT director. This writer predicts the rest of the Gobis report, including the abolition of the KAT board, will be shelved and forgotten by this administration. McGinnis has been removed, which was the goal. It could have been done without the report. The Gobis report is not seen as objective or a valid roadmap for Knoxville transit. ■ Retiring KAT board member Essie Johnson will be honored for 32 years of service (this writer appointed her three times to the board) at the next KAT board meeting. She was not reappointed by Mayor Rogero, who is not reappointing anyone to more than two terms on various city boards. ■ The UT inquiry into charges against suspended UT band leader Gary Sousa, should be concluding soon. It is headed by a member of the Provost’s office. The Provost is on record as being very critical of Sousa which raises the question of how impartial such an inquiry can be if one of her employees is heading it up. Sousa is reported to have employed an attorney. He has tenure and is assured of a position on the music school faculty if he loses his band position, which seems likely. Whatever happens will be awkward for UT. ■ TVA CEO Bill Johnson has taken the axe to several positions at TVA, including the position of Emily Reynolds, longtime aide to former Sen. Bill Frist and former Secretary of the Senate. She handled congressional relations for TVA. She resides in Nashville and never moved to Knoxville. She has not determined what she will do next. Johnson was paid $5.9 million for only nine months’ work by valley ratepayers. This has triggered considerable unrest and dissension by ratepayers. The board has been silent on it.
A-4 • DECEMBER 16, 2013 • BEARDEN Shopper news
Walker seeks school board seat In case anyone doubts that James McIntyre will be the key issue in next year’s school board races, meet Marshall Walker, a retired Knox County Schools social worker who was in the audience last week when the school board voted 8-1 to extend McIntyre’s contract. Walker, who is divorced with two daughters and three g r a n d d aug hter s, says he would not have voted with the majority. Walker “There was no need to do that at this time. That carte blanche authority they’ve given the superintendent minimizes their authority. The school board hired the superintendent. He didn’t hire them.” Walker plans to run against 1st District incum-
Betty Bean bent Gloria Deathridge, who voted for the extension. Retired Vine Middle School principal George Kemp will manage his campaign. “(Gloria) Deathridge personally is a very nice woman. We are just different in our approach about how we should deal with the educational system in Knox County,” Walker said. “My experience has been with youth, parents, families and coaching. I believe that our school board representative should be responsive to the community and I will encourage more involvement from all of our community.” Walker attended Eastport Elementary School and Vine Middle School and was among the first AfricanAmerican students to attend Fulton High School,
where he played football, basketball and baseball, graduating in 1966. His father, the late Norman Walker, was the head custodian. His younger brother, the late Jackie Walker, became a two-time AllAmerican linebacker at the University of Tennessee and was the first African-American elected to captain a UT football team and the first African-American to be named an All-American from the Southeastern Conference. Marshall got a football scholarship to Florida A&M, but transferred to UT after he suffered a career-ending knee injury his freshman year. He has an undergraduate degree in human resources and a master’s in social work, both from UT. He worked for Knox County Schools from 20012012, and was assigned to six inner city elementary schools. He worked for the Tennessee Board of Paroles as a supervisor from 1986-
2001, and prior to that, worked for Child Protective Services in Knoxville as a senior counselor. He was an active volunteer in youth sports, and became an assistant coach at Austin-East in 1983. “Sam Anderson gave me a chance,” he said. “I coached under him until I moved away.” One of his proudest memories is of A-E beating Maryville in the last game he coached. Walker, who says he was one of those kids who was not projected to go to college, believes youth sports helped him beat the odds and that involving young people in sports instills discipline and builds relationships. “When I went to Fulton, sports had a lot to do with blending nationalities, races and ethnic groups. That was the difference. Other students that looked like me experienced negativity that I did not experience because I played sports.”
GOV NOTES ■ One-on-one constituent meeting hosted by Knox Mayor Tim Burchett will be 11 a.m.-noon Wednesday, Dec. 18, at the Fountain City Library, 5300 Stanton Road. ■ Knox County Commission will meet today (Dec. 16) at 2 p.m. at the City County Building. December meetings were moved up a week because of the Christmas holiday.
Holiday hobnob State Rep. Gloria Johnson, Knox County Trustee candidate Jim Berrier, and Leland Price, candidate for Criminal Court Judge Division 3, attend the Knox County Democratic Christmas party.
■ Knox County school board will meet 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8, in the boardroom of the Andrew Johnson Building, a move necessary because of a scheduling conflict at the main assembly room of the City County Building.
Changes ahead for Shopper news coverage Long ago and far away I wrote about a school board meeting. It was a totally different superintendent and board. “Sophistry,” was the oneword response of a soon-tobe former principal. I didn’t even know the word ... and when I looked it up I still wasn’t quite sure how it applied to my column. Last Monday when the current school board voted 8-1 to extend Jim McIntyre’s contract until Dec. 31, 2017, I finally got it. Buzz Thomas called McIntyre “the smartest superintendent I know,” and my cat sneezed. The smartest superintendent would not have jeopardized the re-election prospects of his most vulnerable allies on the board by asking for the 4-year contract. Three years is plenty long enough. At least that’s what my cat thinks.
Sandra Clark
The smartest superintendent would have taken the raise to which he was entitled and used it for postage stamps so the teachers could return their anonymous surveys anonymously. Instead, instructions went forth for principals to collect the surveys and send them to the central office. And Dr. McIntyre said he would set up a teachers’ appreciation fund with the $5,000 raise. For the 10 people who might not know it, Mike McMillan was the sole dissenting vote. I don’t like to be on the side of Mike McMillan. Neither does my cat.
So I’m moving on. No more school board meetings for me. And no more for Jake Mabe either. (Read Jake’s poignant blog linked from our website.) Jake and I got way too close to these issues and to these board members, our friends. Here’s our ShopperNews lineup for 2014. It’s designed to challenge us. Hopefully, it will make us a better newspaper. ■ Betty Bean will cover the school board and the 2014 elections for school board seats. The Miracle Maker feature was already set to expire on Dec. 31. It won’t be replaced. ■ Jake Mabe, previously Halls area reporter and features editor, will be the Knox County government reporter. Jake will monitor projects in each community that we serve, and he’ll write a political column on this page every week.
■ This writer will oversee community reporters/ editors for our eight zones: ■ Betsy Pickle – South ■ Betty Bean – East and North (south of I 640) ■ Ruth White – Halls/ Fountain City/Gibbs. ■ Libby Morgan – Union County. ■ Cindy Taylor – Powell and Norwood. ■ Sherri Gardner Howell – Farragut and Karns/Hardin Valley. ■ Wendy Smith – Bearden. In addition, we’re expanding our business coverage with a new feature: “Where the Jobs Are,” coordinated by Nancy Whittaker. Our regular columnists will be back, I guess. Nobody has quit. And if anyone wants to know what I think of the school board, well, ask my cat.