KNOXVILLE, TN (Story courtesy of WVLT) – Councilwoman Gwen McKenzie says she is planning to motion to delay a city council vote on the sale of part of Chilhowee Park to Emerald Youth next week.
The City of Knoxville says Councilwoman McKenzie intends to do this during the city council meeting on Sept. 2. She says this move will give her and her colleagues more time to listen to the community’s questions, suggestions and concerns about the sale.
She intends to postpone the vote for another two weeks.
You can find the agenda for the September 2nd city council meeting by clicking here http://City Meetings Portal(opens in a new tab) cdnsm5-hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_109478/File/CityCouncil/agenda.html.
Around mid-August, the city announced it was thinking about selling a part of Chilhowee Park to the Emerald Youth Foundation for it to potentially become an athletic complex.
However, the plan was not met with support from some community members who say they were frustrated about the city’s transparency about the sale. They also said they believed there were better ideas of what to do with that area of the park, such as more greenspaces, adding historic signage to honor the park’s legacy and other amenities.
Due to these concerns, Knoxville City Council members voted to delay the sale on August 19th so they could have more conversations with the public.
