Author: DELETE ME

Op-Ed

City/County-Sponsored Block Party To Promote Baseball Stadium

(This is the text of a letter to the News Sentinel that I sent on 16 July 2021. They published it on 4 August 2021, well after the event discussed. It seems clear, from the sponsoring of the event by the Knox County and the City of Knoxville, that they have abandoned all pretense of “considering” funding the stadium and have moved to flacking for it. I think that the same can be said of the News Sentinel itself.)

On July 14 the News Sentinel informed us that on July 17 there was to be a Smokies Stadium information session and block party paid for by the city and county, at a city-owned parking lot located under an overpass. City and county employees – but apparently no Smokies employees – were to be available to answer questions about the new stadium.

This announcement just screams that the fix is in, that the project is a done deal and it is time to start the celebrations – the sponsoring of the event by the city and county, both by financing it and by promoting the stadium to the public, shows that these entities are taking it for granted that the stadium is a go. Further, combining an information session with a party attended by children shows that this is not really an attempt to convey information but an attempt to associate baseball and the stadium with fun and free stuff. How much information can be conveyed effectively outdoors, under a noisy underpass, with the cries of children close at hand?

This is so inappropriate. The city and county are essentially throwing their authority and our taxpayer dollars into the effort to undercut any public resistance to the stadium project. It is clear that they are not trying for an even-handed approach prior to approval by the city council, the county commission, and the obviously tame Sports Authority.

Thus it seems that the point of the so-called information session is really to minimize public opposition to having the public pay for Mr. Boyd’s stadium by providing bread and circuses to the public.

Op-Ed

Knoxville Baseball Stadium Is a Done Deal

[This is yet another letter not published by the Knoxville News Sentinel. It was sent to them on 11 May 2021. As I note below, the News Sentinel and other local media outlets seem to be heavily flacking the stadium project and so of course they are presenting little or nothing in the way of opposition opinion.]

Of course the baseball stadium is a done deal. In 2016, Mr. Boyd denied that he was planning to move the Smokies, but developments since then show that the publicly funded building of a stadium for him was in the works all along.

Jason Zachary implied this recently, saying that Boyd had worked with community leaders for years to “relocate the team to Knoxville as a tenant of a new sports and entertainment complex” at a Boyd-owned site. Zachary said that Knox County and Knoxville city officials were in favor. Now we hear that the support of community activist groups is being solicited, with promises of favorable considerations in the associated privately funded development.

Zachary asserted that the stadium would not lead to higher taxes for taxpayers. Well, due to (1) the realization that the tax base of the stadium complex district would not generate enough taxes to pay for the stadium and (2) the reluctance of state officials to create an even bigger tax district, the state decided to goose the project along by giving the new sports authority upfront “the same amount of money the expanded tax district was projected to generate over 30 years”, some $13.5 million dollars. Either that money was drawn from other, possibly worthier programs or Tennessee taxpayers are in fact paying more tax. Also, since that is state rather than local money, the state is disfavoring Sevier County taxpayers and favoring Knox County taxpayers.

State, county, and local officials, local TV stations, and the News Sentinel are flacking the stadium, claiming that it will be a community events center where, e.g., soccer games, concerts, and “sleepovers” could be held. But there seem to be plenty of existing venues for these activities. So the stadium is really a solution in search of a problem.

Op-Ed

Questions About Handicapped Access at the Proposed Smokies Stadium in Knoxville

[Update: When the Knoxville News Sentinel did not publish my letter below, I posted it here on April 7, 2021. However, they did publish it on April 14,  2021, i.e., more than a month after I sent it to them by E-mail. Usually if they are going to publish a letter they double-check with the author. They did not do that with this letter, so I had no idea they were going to publish it until it actually appeared in the newspaper]

[This is the text of a letter I sent to the Knoxville News Sentinel on March 10, 2021. They did not publish it, I suspect because they are boosters of the proposed taxpayer-funded baseball stadium. There seems to be substantial opposition to the proposal that the State of Tennessee, Knox County, and/or the city of Knoxville fund this stadium to the tune of $65 million plus $20 million for infrastructure improvements such as road modifications; however, it also seems to be a done deal since ground has been broken on the site of the stadium and the local television stations, city council, county board, etc., seem to be 100% in favor of building the stadium and the local news media speak of it as if the completion of the stadium were only a matter of time. Funding would be via a tax-increment funding scheme. The team is the minor-league Smokies baseball team, owned by University of Tennessee president and business owner Randy Boyd. Since the University of Tennessee has prominent football, basketball (male and females), and baseball and softball teams and since East Tennesseeans are most strongly interested in football, it would appear that there would not be a great interest in minor-league baseball. But Mr. Boyd, who has strong connections to state government from his former work as a commissioner, chairman of Tennessee Promise, etc., has clearly sold the powers that be on the feasibility of this venture. ]

Before Knoxville and Knox County accede to Mr. Boyd’s request that they build him a baseball stadium, more information should be provided. For example, we are told that there will be no public parking at the stadium and that no new parking garages or lots will be built. Patrons will have to park half a mile away or more in existing parking areas. There may be a shuttle to get them to the stadium and back, but it will undoubtedly cost extra.

Is it really expected that handicapped people will walk or roll for half a mile to the stadium? If there is a shuttle, will it be equipped with a wheelchair lift and other easy-access features? Otherwise, is it expected that a handicapped person will be dropped off at the stadium by his or her driver, wait for the driver to return on foot or by shuttle, and then wait again after the event for the driver to go fetch the car and return? If so, will there be a convenient dropoff/loading point (i.e., not competing with the able-bodied for space in the dropoff lane)?

Will there be convenient access at all entrances, or will handicapped people have to use a special entrance? Will there be an elevator to allow them to sit in the upper levels?

A modest proposal: if it turns out to be impractical for a handicapped person to attend a baseball game or other event at the new stadium, he or she should be given a refund on that part of his or her taxes (direct or indirect) that went toward the stadium, in view of the fact that this public facility would not be potentially usable by every member of the public – unlike, say, a library or a jail.

Op-Ed

Frank Cagle and David Hunter: An Appreciation

Frank Cagle and David Hunter died within four days of each other in February 2021. They were best known to East Tennessee residents as columnists for the Knoxville News Sentinel, but in terms of substance they were writers of significance.

Frank Cagle worked his way up from proofreader and copy editor to managing editor of the News Sentinel. His most frequent subject was local and state politics. Although he was a conservative of a somewhat libertarian bent, you most often could not tell this from his columns: he was a critic of all sorts of chicanery and backroom dealing, besides being a careful explainer of various points of view. He was not partisan in the least; he called them the way he saw them. His objectivity was what drew me in and eventually made me a fan of his. I also admired his writing in technical terms: his grammar and his choice of words were exceptional. He stopped writing for the News Sentinel when the management decided on “a different direction on the editorial page”. I noticed the different direction (I didn’t like it either) but did not realize that it had cost us subscribers his writing. The News Sentinel has had many capable columnists, but to me Frank Cagle stood above the rest, nearer to Olympus.  He was 72.

William “David” Hunter had some other job for years in his adult life, but always felt drawn to police work. Eventually he gave in to the urge and joined the Knox County Sheriff’s Department. He wrote op-ed columns for the News Sentinel for almost 30 years. He wrote on many subjects, but one that was very popular was dogs. He wrote about his German Shepherds Maxie, Greta, Angel, and Lady, in a way that spoke to all dog lovers and he was never trite about it. Sometimes he reminisced about his relatives, again in a way that, one felt, made you know what they were really like. But perhaps his best writing was on the subject of police work and what he had learned from it: the procedural aspects, the stress of having to be ready for anything, and, always, the human stories of the victims and perps. He also wrote many books and was nominated for an Edgar award. He was 73.

When I think about dying, I always imagine myself on my deathbed reviewing my life; I hope that if that happens, I will feel satisfied about the whole thing overall. Will I have my self-respect, will I feel disappointed, will I think that I sold out or settled for less than I could have been? I don’t know if Frank Cagle and David Hunter got to do that – the New Sentinel reported that Cagle died in the car as his wife drove him to the hospital – but if they did, I hope that they felt that they did make a difference and that they did show “the content of their character” to the world and the world said that it was good.

Op-Ed

Holding Kids Back May Be In Their Best Interests

[A letter to the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel that was published in February 2021.]

The News Sentinel reported that some people oppose holding back third-grade students who aren’t reading at grade level, on the grounds that it might hurt their feelings and make them feel un-special. One even opined that holding kids back was “punishing” them for not being prepared for reading tests. But such opposition is not in the affected children’s best interest.

First, the option of remediation – summer school and an intensive tutoring program – is offered, so kids can go on to fourth grade if they and their parents make an effort to make up their reading deficits. This is not punishment but shoring up. Second, kids would be better served by getting a second chance at the material instead of falling further and further behind in future grades. With many children in this situation, they would feel less singled out by being helped to understand that they were part of a large group getting extra attention. Third, considering their adult lives, how would it be better for the kids to be deficient in reading? They would not do well in college, even if they could get in, and they would not do well in many jobs that involve reading at the ninth-grade level, the level of many manuals.

How does it benefit society when the school system turns out graduates who feel really, really good about themselves but depend solely on other people to tell them orally everything they need to know for their jobs? That sales clerk is never going to rise to be manager of the store if he can’t read and understand those memos from the corporate office. Kids’ self-respect will be enhanced more by their mastering reading than by their being passed along in school with the story that they are terrific no matter how poorly they do.