KNOXVILLE, TN (Story Courtesy of WVLT) – After several weeks of discussion and consideration, Knoxville City Council voted to withdraw a vote that would sell a portion of Chilhowee Park to the Emerald Youth Foundation.
Discussions began in mid-August after an item was added to city council’s agenda for its Aug. 19 meeting to sell nearly 13 acres of Chilhowee Park to the Emerald Youth Foundation for an outdoor recreational facility and athletic fields for $913,518.
After hearing feedback from residents and some council members who said they had first heard of the proposal only days before, council voted unanimously to postpone the item for two weeks.
During that time, the City of Knoxville and Emerald Youth worked on an updated plan which saw a 40-year restriction period, an extended right of first refusal period, a commitment to keep as many mature trees as possible and a written commitment guaranteeing the space would be accessible by the community at large. It would have also included a $10 million commitment for improvements to the north side of Chilhowee Park and the formation of an East Knoxville Advisory Group.
Before Tuesday’s meeting, at-large member Debbie Helsley was planning to propose postponing the vote again to Nov. 25, which would be after election day on Nov. 4.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Knoxville City Council members voted 5-4 in favor of withdrawing the sale entirely from the agenda.
Councilman Andrew Roberto said the process of the sale fell short of what was needed to pass.
“The process fell way short of what we need to do. Once you sell park land, you can’t get it back, and that’s very important,” Roberto said.
“We did the revisions because the city asked us to and because some council members came to us and said ‘If you make these revisions, we can support that’ and then turned against us and said no,” Middlebrook said. “We’ll talk with the mayor and others, but we’ll make some decisions about where we go from here.”
Emerald Youth Foundation’s president and CEO, Steve Diggs, said that while the outcome is not what they were hoping for, they were grateful for the opportunity to have been in the process.
For more than 30 years, Emerald Youth Foundation has engaged with young people and their families across Knoxville, today helping around 3,500 children, teens and young adults grow in their faith, learning and health each year.
We are incredibly grateful to parents, young people and supporters – including members of the Emerald Youth East Area Community Engagement Committee chaired by my friend, Rev. Dr. Harold Middlebrook – for their hard work during the last three years. We also appreciate our Health Initiative Task Force that includes every major healthcare provider in the area: Covenant Health, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, New Direction Health Care Solutions, River Valley Health, Tennova Healthcare and the University of Tennessee Medical Center.
While the outcome of tonight’s Council meeting is not what we had hoped for, we also trust God’s will for our organization, as well as for city young people and their families. The Emerald Youth East Area Community Engagement Committee, our Health Initiative Task Force and our Board of Trustees will now be asked to advise our plans going forward. We are grateful to Mayor Indya Kincannon, her administration and Council for the opportunity to have been in the process.
We will continue to serve with resolve and hope in East Knoxville, Lonsdale, Mechanicsville, Oakwood-Lincoln Park, South Knoxville and elsewhere in the heart of the city. And we give God all the glory and praise for what He will continue to accomplish in the lives of our city’s young people.
