Knoxville work crew inadvertently demolishes sold county house

Before/after 1611 E. Glenwood Ave.

Imagine you have agreed to sell your house. As you're about to close the deal, someone else comes to your property and tears the house to the ground.

That's exactly what happened in East Knoxville where Knox County sold an abandoned home at auction to a man from California. While the county and buyer proceeded with the purchase, the City of Knoxville was moving forward with plans to raze the blighted house.

"It was sold at public auction for $7,200. The day before we were doing a closing, we learned the city had inadvertently demolished the home. Obviously, when we went to close, the gentleman who had purchased the home was not interested in closing," said Hugh Holt, purchasing director for Knox County.

The house at 1611 E. Glenwood Avenue was demolished on August 6. The abandoned property came into the county's possession by default after years of delinquent property taxes.

David Brace, director of public works for the City of Knoxville, said the home had been on a list for demolition for some time. The city demolishes around 60 to 70 blighted structures every year.

"We will demolish a home when it is a health or safety issue to a neighborhood or a community," said Brace. "If you live next door to one of these [houses], they're horrible. People break into them, steal the copper out of them, drugs, prostitution, and so on. So they're a real serious issue. That house had been blighted for a long time. It had been a problem for the community for many years."

Holt said without the house on the property, similar parcels have sold for around $1,000. While that's a considerable drop relative to an auctioned price of $7,200, it is still only a few thousand dollars in the grand scheme of things. The greater concern is ensuring a similar demolition mix-up does not occur in the future.

For more, click RIGHT HERE.

County asks Rural/Metro to explain potential 'service related issues'

Knox County has asked its ambulance provider Rural/Metro to explain why a number of "potential indicators of service-related issues" have occurred.

In a letter, dated July 1, Knox County Purchasing Director Hugh Holt asks for a  “written explanation and an action plan to remedy these performance related issues.”


The letter, county officials say, is a  "proactive effort to identify potential issues that could develop into problems that impact public safety."

MORE: Contract, compliance reports and Letter from Holt

Officials said they were concerned about the company's local staffing levels, and "its seemingly frequent use of mutual aid and an early assessment of June 2015 performance numbers that indicate Rural Metro’s response times may not meet contractual obligations."

The county’s contract with Rural/Metro allows the company to use mutual aid agreements in responding to calls when necessary, and also requires that, at least 90 percent of the time, a first responder arrives on-scene within 10 minutes of a call for emergency medical service.

The early assessment of June’s response data may indicate a 10-minute-or-less response time of just under 90 percent, which could trigger fines for Rural/Metro.

That's why, county leaders say, they asked the company to explain it's "frequent use of mutual aid and what appear to be below-benchmark response times."

“When someone calls 911 for a medical emergency, they deserve to know they’ll receive an appropriate response, which is why Knox County is doing its due diligence. It’s our duty to ensure public safety,” said Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett. “A primary reason we have a contract for this sort of service is to ensure performance and maintain accountability.”

Official hints political motivation behind E-911 radio system vote

Knox County's top purchasing agent on Thursday suggested that the county's E-911 board declined to approve a contract to replace the area's outdated emergency broadcasting system because of political motivations.

His comments come a day after board members said they wanted a do-over after an evaluation team spent more than 18 months overseeing the bidding and negotiation process.

"I've been in this business for more than 25 years and the (Knox County Purchasing Department) director since 1998 and every once in a while there comes along an acquisition that lends itself to politics and political influence, and sometimes your natural inclination as a procurement (official) kicks in and you think: 'I don't think things are going to work out as they should,'" Hugh Holt told WBIR 10News on Thursday. "But, it's part of it and sometimes decisions aren't made about what's the best business decision."

Holt said "99 percent of the time, when you do everything right, you typically get the result you expect."

The purchasing director said he didn't take the board's decision personally, but that his department followed the county's procurement code, which the E-911 board adopted more than 20 years ago.

"There's 11 people on the board and there's 11 opinions, and the majority of them may not have seen what that (evaluation) committee saw and what I saw," he said. "The bid process was managed correctly and the proposals were fully vetted."

Full story RIGHT HERE.

Mayor Burchett authorizes new raises

Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett has authorized new pay raises for almost half the employees under the executive branch purview, with much of the increases set aside for workers who make $30,000 or less annually.

But, three top ranking officials, including the administration’s chief of staff, also will get significant bumps that combine for $29,400 in raises.

The adjustments, which took effect July 1, are in addition to the 2 percent raises for general county employees and those who work in the Sheriff’s Office that Burchett and the Knox County Commission publicly discussed and approved during budget talks this past spring. 

The commission will still have to sign off on the new adjustments when the administration brings the board a set of proposals on how it wants to use expected surplus money the county will receive in late August. If the board declines, the employees will still get the raises because officials have built into the budget “enough negative allocations,” meaning money set aside for positions currently vacant that could cover the costs, said county Finance Director Chris Caldwell.

The raises, including benefits, will cost the county about $1.1 million with the bulk of the costs coming this year and the rest set for next July. Officials say overall increased revenues, like an uptick in tax collections, will cover the additional recurring expense.

On average, the positions received a 5 percent bump in addition to the 2 percent previously approved in the current fiscal year’s budget, which took effect July 1.

Of the 400 jobs that received adjustments, almost 55 percent earned $30,000 or less and just over 75 percent made $40,000 or less.

However, seven employees who make more than $70,000 annually also will benefit. And three of them – Chief of Staff Dean Rice, Finance Director Caldwell, and Purchasing Director Hugh Holt – earn more than $100,000.

You can read the full story, with more details, right smack here.

KTSC duties possibly up for bid next week

The county's administration next week could officially start the bidding process for the duties currently performed by the Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corp. All of this, of course, was initiated after a member of the KTSC board said Mayor Tim Burchett bullied them into ending their contract early. (The mayor since then has publicly referred to the gentleman as “the big dog.” I'm not kidding.)

Anyhoo, county Purchasing Director Hugh Holt, who by default of his job with the county, has somehow found himself caught in the middle of this pending S-storm in which no one will win. In the meantime, though, he said he's talked to a number of organizations with such fancy acronyms as CVB and DMO and POS and HEH in an effort to put together a document with its own fancy acronym: RFI.

The RFI (henceforth known as a Request for Information) should be complete sometime next week. Holt said he's sought input from a number of outlets engaged in the convention, tourism and marketing something or others and he's “trying to attack it from as many points as possible.”

He also plans to get some input from KTSC – which will also bid on the proposal if necessary – later this week.

Here's the original story right smack here.

That other green-waste contract. Or not.

Ah, yes, that ol' pesky green-waste contract. Or is it contracts?

On Monday the commission in a 7-3 vote approved two deals – one with the NRRT (under a different name and, yeah, it was all legal) and another with Knox Ag Inc. Shamrock Organics Products.

I'm not going into the specifics of it. Here's the first story I wrote awhile back – click right smack here – about NRRT winning a county bid (along with the other company) and here's the commission work session story from Oct. 17 – click right smack here.

I figure this was a rubber stamp. Maybe a little showboating here and there.

Nope.

It took an hour. The five-minute “now shut the heck up” clock is really just a decoration.

Anyhoo, you can read my boy Anthony's story over here. Yup. Click right smack here.

I think what's key here is that Randy Greaves – the Shamrock guy – got pretty upset at one point and said he was backing out if the NRRT folks were awarded part of the contract.

I don't know if that was neck-talking or not. County purchasing Director Hugh Holt told me this morning he had one of his minions email Greaves, asking whether he really wanted to rescind his proposal and not enter into a contract with the county. He'll need that sucker in writing.

So far, Greaves hasn't replied.

If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

School board to vote on Carter design only

Just got off the phone with county purchasing director Hugh Holt a little while ago. Actually, it was several hours ago, but I got elections tonight, so I'm doing nothing right now. Yeah.

Anyhoo, he said he talked to someone who's name I can't remember, but he's high up in the school system food chain - not as high up as Lord McIntyre, but up there - and he said the Board of Education only needs to approve the schematic designs for Carter Elementary School.

They are not voting on anything else. This should take place Oct. 5. For all the talk, this should pretty much be a slam dunk, as the designs are comparable to Gibbs and some other schools that meet the so-called standards that have never quite been explained.

From what I understand, a vote against the designs would be a vote against the designs of other schools. That's just my impression.

Also, there's been some talk that because the project will use a different developer, then the BOE has to - again - vote on it. That's not the case. They never voted on an actual developer back in August. They voted only to accept a school from the county.

Also, there are some folks out there who think the project should be rebid because the bids supposedly called for a design-build, lease-back, whatever thing. That's also not the case. All of the developers - in their bids - said they would accept a lump sum payment.

So, essentially nothing has changed.

Finally, there's been some talk about the real cost of the school. The actual brick and mortar building is supposed to cost no more than $13.9 million - the same as the county planned to pay The Devon Group before they pulled out for reasons the governor knows. Er, that's what I hear anyway.

(Oh yeah, the new developer by they way, if you've been under a rock, is Partners Development. But, I digress.)

Officials think they can actually get the $13.9 million price tag down a little bit. However, there are some other costs. They call them "FF&E's." This is the crap that goes inside the building. (Fixtures, furniture and equipment.) That is not included in the price.

Initially, it was going to cost $2 million for this stuff when Devon was going to build the school. It's now supposed to cost $1 million. I can't remember why. It was explained to me; it made sense; I've now forgotten.

That's on the county, also.

So, there you have it. Presumably, the county's industrial development authority will sign off on this on Oct. 11 (and the school board on Oct. 5.) Technically, the county had until Oct. 17 to turn in the schematic designs, but that stage wrapped up well before then, so the proposal can go before the two bodies on time.

Groundbreaking - if Partners doesn't pull out - should take place in November.

However, with all that has happened, I'll believe it when I see it.