The death of the Thorn Grove Community
Monday was a sad day in Knox County Commission. In one of the most confused meetings, that often resembled the Keystone Cops more than a Commission meeting, the Midway Industrial Park received 7.5 million dollars of funding from the Knox County Commission. This happened even though there is a lawsuit seeking an injunction against any breaking ground on this project. It was a tortured, confused, and often comical 45 minutes that made those who watched in person or on Cable Television wonder about the old joke of “Who is on first”?
The Midway Industrial Park is covered in great detail at the website KnoxAction.com. There have been many web posts on KnoxViews and at Say Uncle. It has received much coverage also at the News Sentinel blog No Silence. So with all of the known information that questions the risk and return on investment of taxpayer dollars the Knox County Commission chose to ignore the demands of those in the Thorn Grove community and the voice of taxpayers who see this as the biggest gamble since the Farmers Market.
The MPC hypocritically and perhaps illegally ignored their own sector plan to choose the Midway Industrial Park site. The Development Corporation chose to ignore its main requirement that the slope of the site no exceed six percent. Both of these entities and the Knox Area Chamber of Commerce ignored that this site had much greater financial return as a tourist area or subdivisions and that those ideas would not require over 57 million dollars of taxpayer investment.
Most importantly all parties ignored that the Thorn Grove community is one giant karst sinkhole waiting to happen. This will literally be a black hole that money is poured into never to be seen again. The Ragsdale administration is its most irresponsible move yet has bragged that the Midway Industrial Park will create 4,600 jobs and bring over 12 million dollars a year of tax proceeds to Knox County government. That is an abject falsehood.
Lets review who will be around when this goes bad. Mayor Ragsdale is in his final term. So are Commissioners Griess, Leuthold, Hammond, Guthe, Schmid, Ivan Harmon, Cawood, Moore, Tindell, Strickland, Jordan, and Pinkston. The vote was 15-4 with only John Mills, Phil Ballard, Larry Clark, and Mark Harmon voting against funding the 7.5 million dollars for the Midway Industrial Park.
So you may see your government in action I have posted the entire Midway Industrial Park discussion on YouTube. I have done so to create a record of how this happened so in the future when this blows up in the face of the taxpayers you will know who was responsible. It is said that people deserve the government they get.
No one deserved this disaster.
YouTube coverage of the Knox County Commission meeting on the Midway Industrial Park:
December 19th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
“the Knox County Commission chose to ignore the demands of those in the Thorn Grove community and the voice of taxpayers who see this as the biggest gamble since the Farmers Market.”
Wasn’t the Farmer’s Market a creation of Governor McWhorter?
As I recall, it was some kind of bone he threw to Knox County for some pricey project on which he was spending state money elsewhere.
This looks like a NIMBY to me.
I feel sorry for the people in the Thorn Grove Community, but this is a fact pattern which will replay itself with unfortunate frequency as our country grows from 300 million to 400 million over the course of the next 30 – 40 years.
Look at the situation with the Orange Route playing out on the west end of town for similar, quite reasonable, angst on the part of landowners who are watching their pastoral acreage grow into areas of residential, commercial and industrial concentration.
It looks to me like Knox County is trying, rightly or wrongly, to keep pace with Blount County in the industrial park arena.
I don’t purport to know whether the industiral park will be economically successful from Knox County’s perspective, but time will tell.
All of this rampant development makes me want to pack up and move to Mountain City, but, unfortunately, some developer has already built some retirement community there which is replete with cookie cutter lots, a Jack Nicklaus deigned golf course, beautiful mountain views, shuffleboard, etc.