The question about city politics I hear most often comes from people wanting to know why they can’t vote in city council primaries. Generally, it’s because they don’t live in the district that’s on the ballot – elections for these four-year terms are held every two years to avoid the possibility of a creating a legislative body composed entirely of rookies.
And usually, those asking the question are frustrated because they don’t get a say in most of these races until the November general election when the top two primary contenders face off citywide.
Sometimes those asking the question cannot vote in either the primary or the general elections because they don’t live in the city. Why do they get so worked up about city elections when they don’t choose to live in the city? Your guess is as good as mine, but Knox County Republicans have long harbored an irresistible impulse to mess with the city that appears to have come to a head this election season.
Carlene Malone, who represented the city’s District 4 from 1991-2001, frequently found herself on the losing end of 8-1 votes. Still active in city issues, she wonders why people ask this question at all, considering that Knox County Commission elections are district-only, except for the two at-large seats that are a relatively recent addition.
“Don’t they realize that in the county they can’t vote for these district people, ever? In the city, everybody has to run citywide, so they are responsible to all voters. The district council member can’t get by with a wink and a nod, which you see a lot in the county legislative body. They can pound their chest and stand up for their own district knowing that there are enough votes among their colleagues to turn it the other way, and the district voters cannot touch them. In the city, every member of council is responsible to every voter.
“We used to tell (a longtime county commissioner who was known for wink-and-nod performances) ‘Yeah, we know how you voted. Your job was to get us the other votes.’”
District 4 is now represented by Lauren Rider (whom Malone supports) and includes Old North Knoxville, Fourth & Gill, half of Fountain City and Holston Hills. Malone says that she could not have been elected if then-District 5 city council representative Larry Cox hadn’t peeled off Old North and Fourth & Gill and thrown them into District 4 after watching those neighborhoods demonstrate newfound political clout by opposing a joint city/county effort to build a massive garbage incinerator on Baxter Avenue on the outskirts of Happy Holler, which had not yet begun to revitalize.
(District 5, which is not on the ballot this year, is now represented by Charles Thomas after two terms of Mark Campen. It stretches from Oakwood Lincoln Park to North Hills and includes the other half of Fountain City.)
Knoxville City Council districts. City Council meets with representatives of the Municipal Technical Advisory Service at 5 p.m. Thursday to begin the process of redistricting.
Former Mayor Victor Ashe says his decision to withdraw city support for the incinerator project was not triggered by opposition from the Northside neighborhood activists. He pulled city support because he decided that we were not running out of landfill space and because he did not believe a mass-burn incinerator was good for the environment. He said he considers it one of the 10 best things he did as mayor.
But Ashe agrees that the Old North Knoxville and Fourth & Gill communities have become a formidable force, having produced three council members and a mayor since the incinerator fight – plus Malone, whose impact on public policy is still being felt; she was one of the earliest supporters of term limits, for example.
The failed incinerator project had other consequences, tragic ones that reached all the way to Nashville when longtime state legislator Ted Ray Miller, a powerful Democrat who held the District 13 House seat now occupied by Gloria Johnson, was arrested by the FBI for extorting the solid wase authority by threatening to block its enabling legislation. Miller committed suicide the night before he was to appear in federal court to be indicted.
With the exception of the county’s Black Wednesday debacle, it is difficult to think of a more impactful local issue than the incinerator fight that redrew the city’s District 4.
Next week we’ll look at the sprawling District 6.
Betty Bean writes a Thursday opinion column for KnoxTNToday.com.