Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Déjà Vu All Over Again

Former Circuit Court Clerk Lillian Bean formally becomes candidate Lillian Bean at a campaign kickoff celebration at Powell Realty and Auction Thursday night. In doing so, Lillian and her husband, Richard, are returning to those halcyon days of yesteryear—or at least to the location of the last Bean election extravaganza, an erstwhile 1998 victory party meant to celebrate a win over challenger Cathy Quist, who took on the Beans in the GOP primary and won. Bean's trademark was her "Bean Suppers," which were served by her legions of loyal courthouse employees. Will Bean be able to gin up the services of volunteers whose paychecks she no longer signs, or have the wheels come off the Bean Machine? Will Gov. Don Sundquist come to Bean's aid as he did four years ago? Has Quist laid to rest the ghosts of the negative publicity she suffered her first two years in office? Bean, who has been making the rounds of Republican Clubs, made her first super-public appearance on public acess TV last week when she appeared on City Council member Steve Hall's show and professed her interest in such progressive concepts as e-filing and employee training. Calls were carefully screened.

Mary Lou Who?

Apparently Victor Kanipe, the husband of County Commission candidate Mary Lou Kanipe, left no stone unturned in his efforts to help his wife, who is seeking to unseat longtime Commissioner Mary Lou Horner. Kanipe, who is on the University of Tennessee campus police force, was circulating his spouse's qualifying petition among his cop friends when one of them, a Knox County sheriff's deputy, politely declined to affix his John Hancock to the document. The deputy wasn't nasty about it, but explained to the puzzled Kanipe that his mother probably wouldn't like him doing something like that. The deputy—Bobby Horner—wasn't exaggerating. He'd be in a world of hurt if his mama Mary Lou spotted his signature on her opponent's petition.

No Way

In the late '90s, hundreds of UT students, downtown commuters, and recreational joggers and bicyclists frequented the Neyland Drive/Third Creek Bike Trail; the impressive trail was recently completed clear through to Bearden, presumably giving West Knoxville a traffic-free route to UT and downtown. But if you haven't been seeing many people using the greenway lately, there's a good reason. For the last year and a half, it doesn't go anywhere. The vital link between Neyland and Tyson Park has been closed since 2000 due to UT/TDOT's controversial ag-campus bridge project. TDOT, which routinely marks detours for all projects affecting automobile traffic, doesn't offer the same courtesy to pedestrians, joggers, and bicyclists. It's just closed. All last year, a TDOT sign read, "Reopen Sept. 15, 2001." Some of us believed it. Six months after that deadline, it's still closed, and doesn't seem anywhere close to being finished.

City Greenways director Donna Young, who gets complaints about the closure of Knox County's longest and busiest greenway almost daily, used to be guarded about what she said about TDOT in print. Now she confesses she's extremely frustrated with TDOT's broken promises. After repeated pleas and apparent agreements, TDOT has done nothing to accommodate pedestrian traffic. She suggests that all complaints be directed to David Borden at TDOT.

Meanwhile, the boys in the hardhats found a handy way to solve the problem: on that "reopen" sign in Tyson Park, they covered that "2001" with a "2002."

DeVoretees Rejoice

Don DeVore, the chef extraordinaire who did the old Fountain Room for Barry Litton and the Painted Table where the Baker-Peters Jazz Club is today, is back from a lengthy culinary sojourn in Charleston, S.C. and then Naples, Fla. He and his wife Lauren have opened a new spot, called the Sequoyah Hills Cafe and Market, on Kenesaw Avenue in the heart of what's still this town's toniest neighborhood. Besides serving breakfast, he's doing lunch and dinner specialties, such as Mediterranean flatbread pizza and baked cod, plus deli items and some light groceries in the former uppity-upscale Fitzgerald's, which inhabited part of the old Reed's Grocery after that store closed.