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Free Parking?
At Saturday's antiwar demonstration at Morrell Road and Kingston Pike, which drew 150-300, several chose to park in the lot beside Borders bookstore in nearby Deane Hill Shopping Center. Afterward, several demonstrators found they didn't have a ride home. Several had to pay about $117 each to retrieve their cars from Cedar Bluff Towing.
Parking in the Borders lot was reportedly light that day. The only posted warnings were signs indicating that "unattended vehicles" would be towed. Some towees say they had plans to shop at the center on the same trip. At least one is seeking restitution from Borders.
The management at Border's declines to comment, saying they didn't even know about the incident until after it happened. They refer inquiries to Dale McMahan, who manages the shopping center.
McMahan says he towed the cars based on advice concerning High Terror Alert from the Knoxville Police Department, which called Deane Hill a "soft target" and recommended the towing of vehicles left by drivers who depart from the shopping center. Saturday morning, he says, he got calls from the management of two stores in his center, Jared Jewelers and SAS Shoes, which reported that three cars parked together, had been abandoned by their drivers. McMahan noted that their trunks were together. "A trunkful of C-4 explosives can blast out two miles," he says. "I don't have any bomb-sniffing dogs."
One towee, teacher Jane Sorenson, doesn't buy that explanation. "If they thought they had bombs, they should have called the bomb squad in, not poor Cedar Bluff Towing." Sorenson, who says she spent $4,000 at Deane Hill stores last year, says, "I will not shop there anymore."
She also says the towing company told her it had received prior notice about expected towings at Deane Hill.
McMahan says he asked police to make an announcement about the towings. He says he waited 30 minutes before he called the tow trucks. (The number of cars towed is disputed. McMahan insists there were only three, but some reports cite eight. Metro Pulse located four drivers who said their cars were towed.)
"That's their first-amendment right," McMahan says of the demonstrations. "But when it comes to parking on privately owned property during a High Terror Alert, there has to be a line drawed."
Among the towees was UT's salient antiwar organizer, graduate student Will Reynolds, who considers it a free-speech issue.
In Loco Moody
County Commissioner Wanda Moody, who has filed multiple law suits (popularly known as Moody I, Moody II, Moody III and Moody IV) against Tim Hutchison and her Commission colleagues, was out of the country Monday when a resolution was introduced at the regular Commission meeting urging settlement of her legal actions. Her loquacious lawyer Herb Moncier appeared in her behalf, and wanted to read a letter from Moody. Moncier has taken depositions from many of these commissioners, and was not warmly received by the county legislators (Commissioner Howard Pinkston calls him "Mister Mon-sewer"). Last week, Chancellor Thomas R. Frierson dismissed a large part of Moody II, ruling that she had no standing as a commissioner to take such action. Commissioner John Mills wanted to know if Moody is suing as a commissioner or a private citizen. Moncier volunteered to explain, but Mills cut him off, saying that he didn't have all day, and referred to the longrunning and expensive murder trial of Moncier's client, accused serial killer Thomas "Zoo Man" Huskey.
"It's not your money, Mr. Mills. It's the state's money," Moncier replied."
Moody's colleagues voted to stop prefixing Moody's name with the word "Commissioner" in legal documents.
March 27, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 13
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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