Amusement Tax Bemusement

If getting Knoxville a new convention center is truly Mayor Victor Ashe's top priority, then he should be looking for every way he can to make the city a more attractive destination for convention-goers.

Fostering the city's nightlife certainly ought to be high on the list. Yet in a disconnected sort of way, city officials persist in singling out small clubs that offer jazz, blues, rock and other genres of live entertainment for a 5 percent tax on their admission and cover charges.

Except for booze, the only other line of business that's subject to such a local tax is hotels and motels. But proceeds from the hotel/motel tax are dedicated to promoting tourism (and presumably overnight stays) whereas amusement tax revenues go into the city's coffers for unrestricted use. Moreover, while most cities around these parts have comparable hotel/motel taxes, Knoxville is the only one that imposes an amusement tax.

All of the larger halls in town have managed to get exempted from the amusement tax. So when stellar attractions are booked at Thompson-Boling, the Civic, the Tennessee, the Bijou or the World's Fair Park, the city doesn't get any of the take. But these exemptions, granted in the name of putting Knoxville on an equal footing with surrounding cities, only sharpen the competitive disadvantage of smaller music venues like Lucille's, Manhattan's, Sassy Ann's, the Mercury Theater and Barley & Hopps.

City officials claim they don't get complaints about the tax and doubt whether a 5 percent surcharge is consequential to nightclub patrons or proprietors. If the revenues at stake were consequential to the city, such defenses of the levy might be warranted. But the vast majority of the tax's million-dollar annual take comes from movie theaters and UT athletic events.

Nightclubs should be exempted from this patently discriminatory deterrent to the development of the city's entertainment scene.

—Joe Sullivan

Seeing the Forest

Tennessee's state parks are in trouble, on two counts. First, as was detailed in an excellent series of articles by Associated Press writer Marta Aldrich last week, the state park system is suffering from years of underfunding--trails are falling apart, lodges desperately need repairs, and lakes are filling with run-off sediment.

Second, Gov. Don Sundquist and some legislators--in a classic case of counting the trees but missing the forest--think the answer to the parks' problems is more development. Sundquist, who should maybe get out in the fresh air more, sees nothing wrong with turning some of Tennessee's most breathtaking and pristine reserves into manicured greenways and centers of commerce.

Fortunately, there are also some good ideas on the table. The question is whether there's enough political will, and enough public support, to push them through.

Tennessee's system includes 51 parks that cover 133,000 acres of woodlands, wetlands, and water. Anyone who's spent an afternoon at Fall Creek Falls, Big Ridge, or any of the other state grounds within driving distance of Knoxville can testify that they offer beautiful, accessible locales for hiking, fishing, swimming, and picnicking. They're also free, which is both a blessing and a bane. While the ideal of public lands open at no charge to everyone is laudable, it may not be realistic. Of the eight states surrounding Tennessee, six charge some form of entrance fee, ranging from 50 cents to four dollars. Although Tennessee parks do charge fees for cabin rentals, campsites, and other activities, those generate only about $23 million a year, about half of the parks' $44 million annual budget.

The rest comes from the notoriously fickle and doggedly political Legislature, which also has to worry about funding things like roads, schools, and prisons. With state revenues being as tight as they have the past few years, it's no wonder parks have ended up pretty far down most legislators' priority lists. Parks don't create jobs, reduce crime, or teach kids to read--at least not in any way that makes a good campaign slogan.

The best way to solve the problem is probably to take the parks out of the political realm. That's what Knoxville's own state Sen. Bud Gilbert has proposed in a bill pending before the Senate's Environment and Conservation Committee (which Gilbert happens to chair). The bill came out of a conference on state parks last year, where participants agreed the parks needed two things: an independent funding source and an independent governing board. Gilbert's bill would actually create the board first, a bipartisan commission modeled on the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. The board would then draw up a master plan that would include proposals for funding, most likely in the form of parking or entrance fees.

The bill makes sense--it's hard to imagine most visitors would mind chipping in a buck or two at the gate if they knew it was going directly to park maintenance. But it has one problem: "The governor's not for it," Gilbert says, "which makes it very difficult."

Sundquist apparently thinks the parks can be made to pay for themselves in other ways, most notably with the additions of golf courses and convention centers. Four of each are already under development at eight state parks. The idea is all wrong for a couple of reasons. First, it might not even work. Tennessee already has about 280 golf courses, and several big convention centers; how many more of either will the market support? Second, even if it did succeed in turning state parks into "golf destinations" for tourists or hobnob spots for conventioneers, is that really what they're supposed to be? Thirty million people already visit the parks each year, presumably for reasons other than putting or networking.

But Gilbert says the public fuss stirred up by the AP articles has made an impact on the governor's staff. He's confident some long-term assistance for the parks can be worked out, even if it doesn't take the form he has proposed, which he acknowledges is politically dicey.

"I don't know that a bill imposing a user fee could ever pass down here," he says. "So if they can come up with a [funding] source that's independent of a user fee, more power to them."

—Jesse Fox Mayshark

Laurels for Laurel HS

It would be hard to get much farther from corporate America than Knoxville's Laurel High School, a funky brick house in Fort Sanders where a copy of UT's 1997 football schedule on the office bulletin board is covered up by fliers for kundalini yoga classes and drum circles.

But the small private school--the only local survivor of the "alternative" education wave of the 1970s--got a nod of approval last week from the decidedly corporate and aggressively nonalternative offices of Wal-Mart. The national discount store chain named Laurel teacher Margaret Scanlan one of its 1,500 "Teachers of the Year" and gave the school a $500 check for educational activities.

"We're going to use it for cultural field trips and also on some texts," says Claudia White, the school's principal and only full-time employee.

The recognition is a boost for a school that has been going about its business for 26 years with only intermittent acknowledgment from the outside world. Scanlan, a local artist with a master's degree in education who has taught art, poetry, and other courses at Laurel High for 17 years, says she came to the school after two years in the public school system.

"I saw the one place where you could actually work towards the [educational] ideal," she says. "I've seen so many people get excited about learning.

"It's people like Graham," she adds, waving to a young man with a short mohawk and a polite grin who's just entered the school's office. "He appeals to me. This is not an ordinary guy. He's got much more personality than an ordinary student."

At a school with 25 free-thinking students and up to 16 part-time faculty, rapport between teachers and pupils is easy and friendly. Scanlan pauses several times during the conversation to greet students, admiring one girl's 10-inch-high blond hair spikes and giving an encouraging hug to another. While Scanlan insists her award is really a tribute to the whole school, students say she deserves the honor.

"She's really sweet, and she doesn't really criticize you or anything," says 16-year-old Anna Potter. "I took one of her poetry classes, and it didn't really matter if your poem was good. She made you feel good just for doing it."

"She helped me to understand Shakespeare more," adds Kirk Muensterman, an 18-year-old who commutes from Gatlinburg each day. "I never could do that before."

As for the unlikelihood of the small school attracting the attention of the Wal-Mart empire, White just grins.

"We're trying to use all sorts of local resources to help us encourage our teachers," she says.

—Jesse Fox Mayshark

Time * Date * Place

An occasional series oftrue life Knoxville vignettes

A few minutes after 4 p.m., Thursday afternoon, 100 block of Gay Street:

At first, the man looks like he's talking to himself, waving his arms in front of the window of Harold's Kosher Deli. He has a long, straw-colored ponytail with a matching mustache, and he's wearing a white muscle shirt and blue jeans. But a closer inspection reveals Harold himself on the other side of the glass, pointing to a hanging sign that says "Closed." "Are you closed?" the ponytail man asks as Harold opens the door a crack. "Yes," Harold says, pointing at the sign again. "I can't read," the man says, shrugging. "I never went to school." Harold pauses a moment, smiles, and lets him in. A few doors down, two teenage girls are on their way into the club-kid Mecca of Planet XChange. Inside, a big fan and soothing shadows siphon off the afternoon heat, and the racks of dangling oversize shirts and faded overalls exude their own kind of cool. The girls grab some shirts and a big camouflage jacket and head for the dressing stalls at the back. Depeche Mode moans over the store stereo. Outside a few minutes later, the ponytail man is back on the street, one hand holding unwrapped aluminum foil while the other lifts a dripping hoagie to his mouth. He's smiling.