Leave the Park Alone
As a neighbor to Lakeshore Park and a regular walker there, I'm suddenly surprised to learn that Mayor Ashe wants to section off some of it and start charging people to enjoy the view from the "top of the hill" which we all enjoy for free all the time.
I have walked at Lakeshore for years, spent many an afternoon at soccer games there with my daughter, even enjoy taking a breather and watching a Little League team play while passing by.
We do not need any gardens there. It's one of the most beautiful places Knoxville has to offer as it is. Mayor Ashe should be proud of creating the park in the first place...why do we have to section off parts of it so the "fancy folk" have one more place to come visit? One of the "fancy folk" who loves Lakeshore Park the way it is....
Susan Watson
Knoxville
Tax Idea a Gagger
I just read my last Metro Pulse. After gagging through Barry Henderson's [May 29] editorial I'll have to get my fix of "News of the Weird" online. It's too obvious Metro Pulse has been corrupted and is being used as a platform by someone.
Barry, your editorial seems to have been written on another planet. "The current fee is absurdly low"? So what? Are you forgetting we're being taxed to the hilt in every other area? "Many states have ad valorem or personal property taxes" Again, so what? They don't have a sales tax of almost 10%. "Income tax of some kind"? Ah-ha, the reason for this twisted logic suddenly jumps out. Someone wants a state income tax so bad they're willing to crush us with add-on taxes (like the recent doubling of the professional tax) until we cave. "Those who can least afford it." So low-income families should be hammered with a hundred bucks or so each year to keep their car licensed so they can get to work?
On top of that, you have the gall to say "it is not a tax that should be rolled back in the process of tax reform." Wait, didn't you just say "Until we get a genuine statewide tax reform" in the same paragraph? Sounds to me like someone has noticed an area where the state can squeeze its citizens for another drop of blood, and you were hired to make it sound palatable. Sorry, I don't buy it.
How about this: Instead of squeezing us even more, how about some "genuine" budgeting in this state. The waste and corruption in Tennessee is breathtaking. Give me a call, Barry, as a health-care professional I can save you that $3 million "chewing gum" money in Tenncare abuse every single week with a few simple changes.
Or this: Instead of spending millions trying to deal with the pollution generated by all those cars you want to tax, get the junkers off the road. It's been documented that less than 10% of the cars on the road contribute over 90% of the pollution. Clean up that 10% and your problem is reduced 90% and the state saves a bundle and increases tourism dollars since the mountains will actually be visible.
Or this: Halt the mindless proliferation of road-building that threatens to pave the entire state and halt the bogus "roadwork" that fattens contractor's wallets with tax dollars as they endlessly repave the same sections of road over and over.
Or this: Increase property taxes on homes valued at over, say, $300,000. Anyone living in a $300,000 home can surely afford a few hundred bucks a year much easier than the Tennesseans who "can least afford it," right?
Or this: Add the tax to new car purchases. That way it becomes a choice for Tennesseans. If you don't like it, don't buy that new car.
This seems a transparent attempt to bleed us further. I can think of a dozen ways Tennessee could either save or generate the money you think we need so badly. When I run out of money, I budget, I don't rob someone. The state of Tennessee should do no less. The logic in this editorial stinks.
Butch Evans
Knoxville
Grass Dream
In response to Scott McNutt's May 22 column on home ownership: I know Scott. As a matter of fact, I live across the street from him, and I can tell you that he has never mowed his lawn twice in one week.
Eric Ohlgren
Knoxville
Don't Out, Damn Plot
Adrienne Martini, that darling mensch of a clown fish, should refrain from reviewing such "mediocre" films as Finding Nemo if she can't understand one of the foremost tenets of reviewing a film: DON'T GIVE THE DAMN PLOT AWAY!
What a predictable review from such a predictable and self-absorbed writer. Blow the movie for Knoxville moviegoers by giving most of the plot away, including the first and most important scene. Forget that Nemo broke the opening weekend record for an animated picture. I guess that such a cerebral ironist like Martini can't get that some parents and their kids enjoy convention. And a certain homage to prior films like Dumbo or Bambi, for that matter, is something that a child might always remember and cherish, and may have even been the intention of the writers.
Metro Pulse, get over yourself. Sometimes, a kid's movie is just a great, adventurous kid's movie enjoyable by parents and kids alike.
Doug McDaniel
Knoxville
Who Needs It?
From Stephanie Piper's [June 5] Midpoint article.... "I got to spend time with a man who made violins out of walnut shells and a woman who took in abandoned babies and a Ringling Brothers clown."
Wow. I'd like to hear more about that woman who took in the babies and, for some reason, also took in a clown.
Why do we need a columnist to tell us that lying is wrong? Seems like the only purpose Ms. Piper's article serves is for her to talk about herself.
Mark Longmire
Knoxville
One Man's Paradise...
Having called The Kristopher in Maplehurst Court home for over two years, I was amused by the nostalgic tone of Jack Neely's [May 29] "Paradise Found Out." While the history of the place was quite interesting, the profile of life in this area was sadly lacking.
Maplehurst is lovely and charming on a Saturday morning, as no one wakes up before noon and the Cedar Bluff tow trucks have ceased their prowling for the next several hours. Otherwise, to set the record straight, it is dirty, overpriced, and home to not a few weirdoes you wouldn't ordinarily talk to in broad daylight. As for community, unless you are into illegal substances, there is none.
A single girl in a studio apartment, I had one forced entry into my apartment, witnessed one ugly eviction, two hallway fist fights, one hit-and-run that damaged six vehicles closely jammed together (as there's no other way to park), and was awakened in the wee hours to college kids blaring rap and doing lines of coke under my kitchen window. The two times my apartment was flooded out were just icing on the cake, as old piping problems are ignored and the concept of preventative maintenance is lost on the landlord. At each incident, I was painfully aware of the high rent I was paying each month to live in a bit of history.
As for the cats and the yin they contributed, perhaps the persistent feline urine smell that permeates the hallways and feral cat fights should be mentioned instead. They certainly didn't find the mice and rats.
Thankfully, I graduated and moved. I have found a new little paradise in Knoxville, and certainly will do anything in my power to keep it quiet.
Susanna H. Sutherland
Knoxville
No Mo Bobos
I enjoyed the [June 12] article on Bobos in Bearden. I grew up in Sequoyah Hills and Forest Heights. I still have family living in Westwood. This of course, was before it was trendy. I now live in Fourth and Gill. Am I a step ahead of these BoBos? I hope several steps, I feel them breathing down my neck, and my hair is standing up on the back of my neck. Are these the same people who want to put "upscale" housing in the old Fifth Avenue Motel?
It has been my experience that these people are not real. They have been created, and I hope I never become one. My chances are pretty good at not becoming one.
Number one, I hate coffee. I generally vote Republican (after a careful study of the candidates), and am in that embarrassing category of only having a bachelor's degree (I dropped out of graduate school), and have no children named Dustin, or anything else for that matter. (I did have a cat in college named Dusty).
Julie Wallin
Knoxville
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