VOL. 7 NO. 16
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IN THIS ISSUE
Not in my town Editor Sherri Gardner Howell unloads on Bill Johns and his idea of making gun ownership mandatory for residents of Farragut. She writes: “I believe that this ordinance has no value except to make this wonderful community look like something it is not. “We are not a bunch of gun-brandishing, irresponsible yahoos.”
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Coffee break Phil Dangel is thinking a lot about the past these days. Farragut’s Shrimp Dock will be 5 years old on April 25, a realization of a dream of owning his own business for Phil, who is a partner in the business with his wife, Becky. Sit with a cup of coffee and get to know Phil Dangle.
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Farragut Book Fest Books came alive on April 13 at Campbell Station Park. Anyone who doubted that reading could be fun had to leave all misgivings in the car. The park was transformed into a children’s fun land, all centered on beloved books.
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Miracle Maker Farragut resident and veteran educator Cindy Bosse wrote a powerful proposal to gain technology at Sterchi School, a small elementary school in north Knoxville. Sterchi was one of 11 schools selected for next year’s pilot program. Sandra Clark writes that’s because Sterchi acknowledges the child of today.
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No way to win Sometimes there is no way to win. Jimmy Cheek, chancellor of the University of Tennessee, might not win a popularity vote from football fans. Innocent though he may be, Jimmy is perceived as part of the problem. His goal of academic excellence, making UT one of the top research schools in the country, is thought to be a stumbling block, even a blockade to football success.
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Designing for stage Marianne Custer speaks to audiences through fabrics By Betsy Pickle
Marianne Custer has become a fan of Tom Stoppard’s play “On the Razzle.” She’s just not sure that Stoppard would return the admiration. “We’ve decided that Tom Stoppard hates costume designers and hates prop people,” says Custer, resident costume designer for the Clarence Brown Theatre, which launches a run of “On the Razzle” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 26. “This show is a costume and prop nightmare.” “On the Razzle” is based on the Austrian play that inspired Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” which was adapted into “Hello, Dolly!” “It’s a wonderful story, this time without Dolly Levi,” says Custer, who also heads the master of fine arts design program in the UT Theater Department. She wasn’t familiar with the play before, but when she read it, she says, “I liked it right away. It was hilarious.” The show is set in Vienna in the late 19th century, when horses were still the mainstay of local transportation. “He has two of the leading men going off to Vienna on a horse, and then later on in the play, he has a coachman character who is picking up several of the characters in a coach drawn by horses,” says Custer. “So these are the kinds of challenges that Stoppard has provided us so kindly.” From a costume perspective, Custer wanted to come up with styles that would “enhance the humor without being the humor,” she says. “I didn’t want the clothes per se to be funny.” She does expect some costumes to get laughs. In the play, Viennese society is obsessed with Verdi’s opera “Macbeth,” and the town has gone bonkers over tartans. “You have all of these Austrian society people wandering around in their tartan finest – in their kilts, in their Balmorals, every
Budget talk What to expect from Burchett, Rogero By Betty Bean
The theme won’t be “We’re in the Money” for fiscal year 201314, but it won’t be “Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime,” either. And for that, local officials are grateful. “It’s a tight budget,” said Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero, who is expected to unveil a proposal on Friday that looks a lot like last year’s $180 million budget.
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news@ShopperNewsNow.com Sherri Gardner Howell Suzanne Foree Neal
“Revenues are still pretty flat – it’s been this way for several years, but as the economy rebuilds, capital projects will continue.” “Very sufficient,” was how Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett de-
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Kyle Schellinger and Marianne Custer look at a costume in progress on a dress form in the Costume Shop at Clarence Brown Theatre. Photos by Justin Acuff
Marianne Custer’s work shines as the actors show off on stage during a rehearsal of “On the Razzle.” From left are David Brian Alley, Neil Friedman and Cory O’Brien-Pniewski.
kind of tartan garment they can about the Austrians and Gerthink up,” says Custer. “I think mans, too.” this is Tom Stoppard’s great joke Custer discovered in her reabout the Scots – and probably search that the opera was not
scribed the budget figure that is expected to nudge a little higher than last year’s $710 million, primarily due to an increase in education funding (BEP) from the state. The first thing that both mayors want people to know is that in spite of expensive problems like insufficiently funded pensions, there won’t be a property tax increase in the coming year. “We’re delivering the services they need and not charging them any more for it – and these days that’s a pretty good deal,” Burchett said. County Finance Director Chris Caldwell said the county has seen modest growth – 2.5 percent in sales tax growth, 1.5 percent in property tax growth – and expects a $7 million increase in state educational funding. “Nothing to write home about,” he said. “But growth, nevertheless. The mayor wants to pay down the debt by $100 million by the end of 2016, and we are still on pace to do that.” Meanwhile, the city has found a
way to start getting a handle on its unfunded pension liability. “This required taking $10 million out of our budget last year, and we applied it to this year to buffer the impact on the operating budget. That buys time and helps us meet Rogero those obligations while waiting for the economy to come back,” said Rogero. Vice Mayor Nick Pavlis, who represents South Knoxville and the University of Tennessee area, is cautiously happy. “There’s no pot of gold,” said Pavlis. “But I had Burchett some large capital projects already in last year’s budget, and those are in the pipeline.”
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He is speaking of Suttree Landing Park on the south waterfront, the realignment of Woodlawn and Ft. Dickerson at Chapman Highway, the redesign of Cumberland Avenue and his favorite project, the Urban Wilderness. “That’s what I’ve pushed more than anything and I want to stay very focused on that,” Pavlis said. Rogero will host the annual budget luncheon at noon Friday, April 26, at Ijams Nature Center, Mead’s Quarry, spotlighting the first phase of the South Loop Trail, which connects Ijams Nature Center, Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area, William Hastie Natural Area and Marie Myers Park and is part of the Urban Wilderness project. Burchett will roll the county budget out May 1, but says there won’t be any refreshments. “We’ll just be going around to the districts, giving presentations. It’s too dadgum expensive to feed a bunch of people.”
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popular at all when it was first produced in 1862. “No one cared much for it until someone dragged it out of the closet in about 1932 in the United States and started producing it again,” she says. “So this whole Verdi-mania aspect of the play is entirely Tom Stoppard’s fiction.” Custer, who lives in The Village at Roefield, isn’t afraid of challenges. The Minneapolis native came to UT in 1974 after earning her bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota, teaching for a year, earning her master’s from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then working for a year in Colorado. She was invited to apply at UT after then-department head Ralph Allen put out feelers to her professors.
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