Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Muckraking With Phil and Renee

Earlier this year, Renee Wheeler Hamby packed up her little dog Marty and split from husband, Phil, who publishes the weekly broadsheet known as The Knoxville Journal. Renee qualified for housing through a battered women's organization, and both Hambys took out mutual orders of protection, with Renee's allowing for "social contact," since she continued to work part-time at The Journal.

This week, Marty is dead, and Renee Hamby says her estranged husband (who has been a vocal critic of the Knox County Animal Shelter and an advocate for starting a "no-kill" facility) is responsible. On Tuesday, she looked for a judge to hear her complaint that he violated the order of protection. Knox County judges declined to involve themselves with the case, and it is scheduled to be heard in Sevier County.

"She's on a crusade to hurt me any way she can," protests Phil, who says Renee's accusations are the result of her anger over his filing for divorce.

A court document signed by Renee says that on Saturday, May 27, "Phillip reached over the fence and stole my poodle. I watched Phillip through the peephole in the front door. I called 911. When 911 arrived, a neighbor came... and stated that she seen Phillip take the dog. (The next day), my dog was found dead on Papermill Road."

Marty, an 11-year-old mini-toy poodle, weighed 12 pounds and was mostly an indoor pet who enjoyed watching TV and whose favorite movie was Homeward Bound. Renee Hamby, who often wrote about her pet in her Journal column, was spending Memorial Day weekend with a friend who had a "doggie door" and a fenced-in front yard where the dogs could come and go as they pleased. She says Phil Hamby came to the house twice that day, and that the first time he came, she called 911 as he rattled the screen door. He left before the police arrived, and she says he returned 45 minutes later to snatch the dog.

"I had nothing to do with the dog," Phil Hamby says, claiming the dog often ran away. "I did not kidnap the dog. Everybody who knows me knows I am an animal lover."

Your Gas Taxes At Work

Off and on since last year, Tyson Park has been completely closed to all through traffic, including pedestrians and bicyclists, as TDOT works on a massive widening of the Alcoa Highway connector overhead. The Third Creek Bike Trail leads from the Bearden area to Volunteer Landing. For 20 years or more, a number of downtown and UT commuters have used the trail on a daily basis. Tyson Park is right in the middle; Knox County's longest bike trail is unusable without it. The construction workers have provided neither covered walkways nor pedestrian detours around the site.

Recently, a longtime bicycle commuter, unable to find a safe alternative, crossed into the construction zone. When a construction supervisor yelled at him, the bicyclist explained he needed to get to work, and asked to be directed to another route around the construction. At morning rush hour, the 45 mph automobile lanes of Kingston Pike didn't look safe for bicyclists, and the bicyclist reminded the supervisor that even the Kingston Pike sidewalk was closed by the same TDOT project.

The flustered construction worker responded with what we can only assume is the official TDOT line: "Well, get in your car and drive to work!"

Your Gas Taxes At Work, Part 2

For most downtown commuters, the biggest change wrought by the massive, multi-lane James White Parkway improvement is that the left turn onto Walnut Street, still the main entrance to downtown from Neyland, is now delayed by an inexplicably long red light. As we sit there and wait for nothing to pass, we try not to believe the cynical rumor that the light is there just to force drivers toward the so-far underused stretch of "improvement." Meanwhile, the nearby U-turn necessary, if illegal, to get from Locust Street to the riverfront is doing booming business.