Victor Ashe

Victor Ashe, U.S. Ambassador to Poland

Victor Henderson Ashe II (born January 1, 1945) is the current United States Ambassador to Poland. From 1988 to 2003, he was mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee. Ashe is a Republican.

Early career

Ashe was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he attended public school. He graduated from Yale in 1967 with a BA in history, and in 1974 obtained his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law. During his tenure at Yale Ashe was also a member of the Skull and Bones Society alongside his former roommate, George W. Bush. Before becoming an elected official, Ashe worked as an intern for Congressman Bill Brock, and as a staff assistant for Senator Howard Baker. In 1968 Ashe was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives; he was only 23 years old at the time. In 1975 he filled a State Senate seat won by his unelected mother, Martha Ashe, who he appointed to the legislature, after the Tennessee Supreme Court stripped Ashe of his election, for failing to meet the age requirements of the Tennessee Constitution (Comer v. Ashe, 514 S.W.2d 730 (Tenn. 1974)). Any disqualified person who takes office is guilty of a criminal misdemeanor (Tennessee Code 8-18-102) [1]. ; he was later elected to the position and served for nine years. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1984 against future Vice-President Al Gore.

From 1967 to 1973, Ashe was a member of the US Marine Corps Air Reserves. He was also the Executive Director of the Americans Outdoors Commission from 1985 until 1987.

Mayor

Ashe was elected to be the mayor of Knoxville in November, 1987. He served 16 years as mayor, the longest term in the city’s history. As mayor, Ashe led several initiatives to improve Knoxville’s civic and financial footing. These initiatives focused on such things as waterfront development along the Tennessee River and the building of a convention center to attract tourism and business. The latter was a cause for controversy, with many residents saying that the city of Knoxville did not offer enough amenities to attract would-be events or shows to a convention center. Other initiatives included downtown redevelopment and sign and billboard control.

Ashe stressed diversity within his administration, noting when he left office the growth of minorities and women on commissions and boards during his time as mayor. While Ashe often had the support of the city council, he was unable to get it to institute a Police Advisory Review Committee to perform as a civilian review of police action, something which, in 1998, he felt was necessary to investigate the questionable deaths of three black men at the hands of police officers. At the time, hostility in the black community toward the police department was extremely high due to these deaths. Ashe circumvented the council and established the committee by executive order. Three years later, the council unanimously ratified the order, defusing growing protests for recall elections for Ashe and other councilors [2].

After Knoxville city councilor Danny Mayfield died while in office, many felt that his widow deserved that seat. Mayor Ashe moved to appoint Raleigh Wynn, instead, in retaliation for Mayfield campaigning for mayor [3].

"The night it all came down I could not stop shivering. It changed the way I viewed a lot of things. For the first time, sitting on Council [with mayor Victor Ashe], I really felt I was in the presence of evil. I had disagreed with people on many occasions and felt strongly about many things, but I never ever had felt something I could describe as the presence of evil. Until that night. There was just darkness. Hopelessness. But never, until Danny's death and the appointment of someone other than his wife, and knowing the orchestration that took place to make it happen, did I realize that I could never again go back to that body without carrying with me my belief that they were capable of the worst possible actions." —City Councilwoman Carlene Malone, Metro Pulse, "Malone Alone", December 13, 2001

Malone eventually sued mayor Ashe and city council, for holding secret meetings in violation of Tennessee Open Meetings Act [4] (Malone v. City of Knoxville, E200200734COAR3CV, 2003 WL 21018633, *3 (Tenn. Ct. App. May 5, 2003)).

Mayor Ashe was sued for political retaliation against firefighters. Ashe was cited for contempt of court, for telling a TV news crew that he won the lawsuit, which was a misrepresentation of the facts (Sharpe v Cureton, (172 F3d 873, CA 6, 1999)).

Felony criminal charges were also filed against Mayor Ashe, for his role in car-theft and extortion rackets run by city wrecker contractors. As a result, Ashe and city council terminated the contracts of five towing contractors, banned them for five years from future contracts, and filed a class action lawsuit against them, in his final week in office [5].

Parkland and Public Domain

As mayor, Ashe sometimes acquired land for city redevelopment projects from those unwilling to sell, saying that the needs of the community come before private property rights. He also noted that private owners of unused or undeveloped land within the city of Knoxville often chose to turn their land over to shopping centers or apartment complexes, and that these actions often caused the city to grow too quickly for services to keep up. Ashe also favored preserving buildings that had possible historic value, at one point threatening to put historic zoning restrictions on a building its owners wished to demolish. Some of the land acquired by the city during Ashe’s time as mayor was used for public parks, a service which may not have been offered had the land remained in private hands. During Ashe's mayoral tenure, parkland in Knoxville was increased from 700 to 1,700 acres (7 km²) and 30 miles (48 km) of greenway was added, some of it acquired by the city from unwilling sellers. At a dedication of a public park acquired in such a way after he had left the mayor's office, Ashe was candid about such methods, saying "This is how the public acquires land," and "…hard decisions [must be made] to move the community forward."

Ashe was a strong supporter of parkland in the city. He initiated a program called "Penny for the Parks" to create a trust fund that would use a one cent tax and federal matching money to commit $250,000 a year for city parks, greenways and historic preservation. After leaving office, Ashe was awarded a Cornelius Amory Pugsley Medal, which was granted by the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration in recognition of his work on greenways and public parks.

Ambassador to Poland

Ashe was sworn in as a US ambassador to Poland in June 2004; during Ashe’s tenure as mayor of Knoxville he helped to establish a sister-city relationship with the city of Chełm, Poland, and led two delegations to that city.

One of the issues Ashe engaged in when he was appointed ambassador to Poland was the difficulty Poles have getting work and tourist visas for the United States. After Ashe met with President Bush and Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski in Washington in 2005, Bush suggested that the visa rejection rate for Poles be lowered.

Ashe has also noted that Poland has a growing economy which offers many opportunities for US businesses. He is interested in having his own area of Knoxville and East Tennessee take advantage of such opportunities, and in 2005 advised a group of 16 Knoxville-area businesses to put together a trade mission to Poland.

Ashe is ambassador during the investigations into rendition, kidnapping and torture by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, at Black sites in Poland [6]. CIA is traditionally based in the United States embassy, office of the ambassador, which is traditionally used as a cover story for terrorism and narcotics trafficking, under orders of the White House [7].