UPDATE: since Jay has informed a Knox County citizen that “certainly the blogger you referred to sensationalized what happened.” Watch the meeting here While you are at it, watch the five hour plus December 2020 meeting where Council cut Parker off here.
Thursday evening, the Knoxville City Council and Knox County Commission had a public informative zoom about the proposed multi use stadium.
The information was NOT anymore detailed than what was shared when Knoxville and Knox County went to Council and Commission to get approval of the Sports Authority (the PBA – Public Building Authority of a multi use stadium)
It is my belief that Randy Boyd of Boyd Sports the Owner of TN Smokies Baseball and Steve Davis, President of GEM Community Development Group would have stayed all night to answer every question including those of Council Member Amelia Parker.
But Stephanie Welch of the City of Knoxville and Larsen Jay, Knox County Commissioner would NOT have it. Welch cutting Parker off trying to embarrass her because of an inability to schedule a private meeting. Jay said people on the call needed to go pick up kids.
Of that group I think only Commissioner Cortney Durrett and Justin Biggs have young children who would need to be picked up. Who would need to pick them up between 7 and 7:30 pm? Oh and by the way, Durrett and Biggs were on the call the entire time.
Remember this from December 15, 2020 when City Council Member Janet Testerman cut Parker off from asking questions?
I am not against this stadium, I am for every Representative of the people getting ALL the answers they need. I am NOT a fan of bureaucrats like Welch and Knox County Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Caldwell that try to hurry through.
Boyd and Davis in my opinion would stay as long as it takes. Only investing 120 minutes per session is lame and lazy.
Let’s get the information, answer the questions and start this thing. I will have more on this, in the future.
The brown property around the blue are all owned by Boyd, the blue is the proposed stadium footprint.
The Fort Wayne, IN stadium that would be similar to this proposal
potential revenue to pay back the public investment
