Metro Pulse/Citybeat

Comment
on this story

Seven Days

Wednesday, December 3
Sevierville gets a grant to buy hybrid-electric buses to start up its public transit system. Now if Pigeon Forge will just get that grant to limit traffic on its parkway to electric vehicles, we'll all breathe easier when we pass through.

Thursday, December 4
Natalie Haslam is lured to the site of her fete for being named to receive the 2003 Knoxville Award by a ruse in which she was told she was going to witness an award to UT football coach Phillip Fulmer. She should have been suspicious. She had a better year than he did.

Friday, December 5
A city commissioner in Johnson City says the community has "won" its fight to prevent a methadone clinic from being established there. Now, the heroin addicts will have to keep on stealing to get their fixes, like the Good Lord intended.

Saturday, December 6
Fulton High School wins the state's AAA football championship, its first. Does this mean we'll have to put up with the Falcons' fight song at every city event for a whole year?

Sunday, December 7
The Lady Vols defeat Louisiana Tech using a zone defense. A zone? C'mon, that couldn't have been a Pat Summit decision. Was she out sick?

Monday, December 8
The Associated Press reports that the Tennessee lottery has received more than 9,000 applications for 300 jobs. There must have been some misunderstanding. Those employed won't be winning the lottery, they'll be working for it.

Tuesday, December 9
The Associated Press reports that a Knoxville legislator is investigating high salaries and bonuses to be paid by the state to lottery officials. Oh, so that's why so many applicants.

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
Throughout the thirties and forties the Lone Ranger served as company mascot for the Merita Bread Company who in turn sponsored the Lone Ranger radio show on their vast AM network. After the company divested from their radio operations, the Lone Ranger went to work for General Mills and Colonial Bread and continued there through the fifties.
Somewhere along the line the "bizarre bread guy" replaced the western hero as pitchman for Merita and he can be seen today at all of their area outlets including the one on Central Ave. where this picture was taken. Congratulations to Chris Clinard of Knoxville for winning this week's prize—a six-pack of Fufu Berry Soda from the Jones Soda Company. Yum!

A Downtown Bookstore
Market Square Booksellers: New, it's almost mainstream

For the last several years, downtown has had an unusual, and unwelcome, distinction. It was one of the few metro downtowns in the region that didn't host one general-interest bookstore. Asheville, Chattanooga, Nashville, have always had bookstores downtown, often a choice of two or more.

That lack in Knoxville has been nearly unaccountable, considering that downtown is visited daily by nearly 20,000 office workers, including lawyers, bankers, accountants, and engineers, most of whom appear to be at least literate; and it's adjacent to one of the largest college campuses in the Southeast—which doesn't have much in the way of privately run bookstores, either.

Downtown has seen a motley series of worthy and interesting bookstores, most of them eccentric in one way or another, and most of them short-lived. (A UT satellite bookstore on Henley Street specializes in the offerings of UT Press, plus UT souvenirs, and St. John's Cathedral hosts a largely religious book shop.) But it's been several years since a downtown bookstore has made an earnest attempt to give a general audience what they want.

Market Square Booksellers is attempting to do something like that, though they're not strictly mainstream. You notice that when you walk into the shop just north of Tomato Head. There's a display case of Celtic jewelry over on the right. Celtic music's playing softly in the background. And you can't help but notice as you get near the counter that the middle-aged proprietor is wearing a kilt.

His name is Bob Dumas, proud member of the Scottish Society of Knoxville. Serving the heritage and genealogical needs of Knoxville's considerable Celtic population is one of his chief missions in Knoxville. Dumas also intends to emphasize local authors. "We want to support local writers, local poets, local artists, before we support those from out of town," he says.

His wife Dore, librarian at Farragut Middle School, helps run the place with a couple of assistants, Jason Ricker, and Rebecca Sloane, the latter an artist who makes some of the jewelry and Christmas ornaments they sell. Sloane is deaf, but Dumas says customers have been understanding, sometimes communicating with her in writing.

It's Bob Dumas's first experience with running a bookstore, but unlike some of his labor-of-love predecessors in selling books downtown, he has plenty of practical retail experience. The Alabama native was working for the Everything's A Dollar chain when he was transferred to run a store in Sevierville. Frustrated with tourist traffic in the summers, the Dumas's moved to Knoxville, where he eventually went to work for OfficeMax.

A couple of years ago, under the influence of his librarian wife, Dumas began considering the book trade; he worked for Book Warehouse part time to learn the ropes and see if he liked it. Compared to his other retail experiences, selling books was a peaceful thing. "Working in a bookstore, I've never been cursed, I've never been attacked," he says. "When was the last time you raised your voice in a bookstore?" To Dumas, a bookstore is, first and foremost, a peaceful place, and an ideal place to work.

In May, 2002, he walked around downtown polling people at random, asking if they would patronize a downtown bookstore. He was encouraged by the results and learned that people wanted a place to buy cards and other gifts as well. That was the origin of the jewelry case. Around the same time, he made contact with Jon and Mandy Clark, a young couple who'd bought a building on Market Square to fix up; they live upstairs.

"We have basically all the departments you find in a [chain bookstore]. Just not in the depth." With about 5,000 volumes now, it does seem a little sparse compared with most bookstores. Dumas says he may grow the inventory by as much as 20 percent, but no more. He doesn't want to place to be cluttered and claustrophobic.

The arrangement's a little unusual, in that the new books are cheek-to-jowl with used ones on the shelves. Some you can tell apart only by the price stickers: the used books and remainders have them, the new ones don't.

He says the store's starting with a "shotgun approach—some of everything you can think of." He admits some sections could use some beefing up, but he swears by one line: "Our children's section is as good as anybody's in town," he says.

"Our customers basically tell us what to carry," he says. "It'll take us a few months to find out." He says he has already gotten requests for more books of poetry, and, thanks to customer demand, he now features a kiosk of new bestsellers. He says being a mom-and-pop makes them quicker to adapt to customer demands.

So far, after two weeks, they're selling some books, but a whole lot of cards, more than he expected. Also another line, Magnetic Pet Notes. "Certain breeds have sold out," he says, mentioning Golden Retrievers. And magazines: he carries mainstream magazines on the rack, as well as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and a few other newspapers.

His blue and green kilt is a Campbell plaid, Black Watch. He wears a kilt even on the cold days: partly because he likes it, partly because "I'd like for people to get used to it. It's a good thing to embrace a little diversity." He enjoys wearing it to the bank around the corner.

"People in Knoxville don't say, 'My God, you're wearing a skirt!'" he says, adding that it's a little different from his home. "They look at you askance in Alabama."

—Jack Neely

Deane Hill Dilemma
Street closures drive 'em wild

The resolution to close off the Golf Road and Cheshire Drive intersections at Deane Hill Drive to through traffic for 90 days didn't seem particularly controversial when it passed City Council 9-0 at the Nov. 11 meeting. It had been requested by Mayor Victor Ashe and 2nd District Council representative Barbara Pelot, who did it to accommodate neighborhood association members who had been looking for a solution to problems caused by heavy traffic. The plan is for ballots—one per household—to go out to the neighborhood near the end of the 90-day period asking whether the closure should be made permanent.

Pelot and Ashe were motivated by stories like these:

Ron French's front yard on Golf Club Road has been the landing place for vehicles whose drivers who have come skidding in from the southbound lane of Deane Hill Drive on seven different occasions over the past eight years.

Once, it was a drunk in a truck who slid across the next-door neighbor's yard, mowed down some bushes, hit French's porch and was spinning his wheels in an attempt to leave the scene when French and a neighbor took his keys and held him until the police arrived. Another time, it was a guy in a Jaguar, who lost control, drove the edge of French's yard, knocked his mailbox down, crossed the street, caromed into a neighbors yard, then careened back across the street, into a third yard.

"He lived off Ebenezer Road, and he got hung on the curb," French said. Some well-dressed friends came and tried to help dislodge the car from the curb, but took off running when the police arrived. "That was a $50,000 car, and last I heard, they never got it out of impoundment."

French's next-door neighbor, Ted Elmore, had a car come down the hill, run over the curb, hit a big maple tree and come to rest in his yard. A female passenger was seriously injured, and a couple of years later, the tree died.

Suzy Cantey, who lives on Cheshire, has had more than $1,000 worth of property damage done to her property, and once had a car tear through her yard, plow down a tree and land three feet from her son's bedroom window.

"The driver was so upset over the damage to his car that he barely spoke to me when I offered him a phone," Cantey said.

Other neighbors told of being afraid to go to their mailboxes or to walk along sidewalks, of children not getting to trick-or-treat or ride bicycles, of pets being in mortal danger. So the furious reaction to the temporary street closing (which took effect Dec. 8) came as a surprise to many members of Council. And by the next meeting, delegations from both sides came to argue their cases.

The first to speak against the street closing was Patsy McClure, who lives on Cresthill Drive. McClure is against closing the street on principle, and she also objects to the way the decision to close it was made. She said she had little time to discuss the matter because she was emailing city officials to inform them that the street closing has prevented mail from being delivered.

"People didn't get their mail because of this dang closed street," McClure said Monday night. "This should stop this thing. This is interfering with the mail delivery. We have lots of troubles here, and everybody's mad. We didn't have a neighborhood vote—just all of a sudden we get a note saying the streets will be closed December 8th. It was all done undercover."

McClure and Barbara Rasmussen, another neighbor who opposes closing the street, sent a packet of information to members of Council. Among the documents enclosed is a copy of an email from McClure:

"I request you rescind the resolution to close Golf Club Road and Cheshire Drive which is to become effective on December 8. I stated in public forum that the neighborhood had not EVEN DISCUSSED this possibility nor voted on it. This was a premature action on the part of our president and the City Council.

"Since November 25, we have polled the entire neighborhood. We have 105 signatures (one vote/address) that oppose this action. Only 45 are for closing the streets. City Council members should listen to the majority. I request a response from each of you."

Rasmussen requested that the street closure be delayed and the resolution rescinded at the Dec. 9 Council meeting.

"We need your assistance...in undoing this grave injustice. By permitting this resolution to go into effect, it would be devastating to the community. This goes beyond their ability to use their streets. It denies them their democratic rights as Americans. They are all being victimized by a few instigators and as it appears, endorsed by members of the city traffic and engineering departments...."

A letter from Rasmussen to city engineering chief Sam Parnell starts by expressing "disgust and revulsion toward the individuals who are responsible for initiating the impending traffic closure..." and goes on to question the sanity of one proponent of the closure, to suggest that another supports the road closure because "realizing and accepting his inability to control his outbursts is motivating him to limit the exposure he has to other people. That may be one of the reasons drivers have sped by his home: they fear for their lives!" The letter also launches an attack on Deane Hill resident Bud Gilbert, despite the fact that Gilbert signed the petition opposing the street closing.

In an email to Gilbert enclosed in the packet, Ashe appears to be washing his hands of the situation, saying that he "...had never agreed to (the street closure) until council acted and I suspect council is finding this is a lot more divided than what they had been led to believe. My successor and new council can handle this... however, until council modifies or rescinds this resolution, the administration will adhere to it."

Meanwhile, Kathy Foster, who is president of the neighborhood association, is bearing the brunt of the storm.

"It's only a few people who are objecting, but it has been really hard. I have been threatened with lawsuits. All I was hoping when we came here was that we had moved into a neighborhood that was a tight community, where people talked to each other and helped each other out."

Foster said her organization did not ask for the street closing—they asked for help with traffic problems that have worsened since the city aligned Papermill Drive with Golf Club Road at Kingston Pike. These conversations had gone on for several years, Foster said, and resulted in traffic studies showing that there are about 6,000 trips per day through a subdivision with fewer than 200 homes. "At first, the city told us to send out ballots that gave us options—more people voted for speed humps than road closings," Foster said.

But no solution got the required two-thirds vote, so nothing happened. Time passed, and more people moved into the neighborhood, which is surrounded by commercial development. Foster said a traffic study conducted this fall showed 6,350 trips per day and spurred her community into action again.

"We went to the city and said, 'Just please get us a solution.' They told us there was no money for traffic calming, like speed humps. The thing that gets me is I have no political connections. I've just been working diligently on this problem for a long time, and there were people who were here before me who have been working for years to get the city to help us with traffic problems. I feel like the mayor made the decision because he saw the traffic coming through here.

"We asked Barbara Pelot to help us find out what money the city has to help us, and I don't understand what is wrong with trying out the idea for 90 days and see if neighborhood likes it. The neighborhood gets a vote."

Pelot said the opposition to the street closing is "very vocal," and that she has been threatened with everything from re-election opposition to recall over this issue. But she says she's gotten "more thank-yous than complaints."

"This neighborhood group was hoping for traffic calming devices, but there is no capital budget for that, and it was very discouraging to them. What we have done just prevents people from going from Papermill, zipping through that intersection and roaring down the street like a ski slope. The opposition is basically people who live on the west end of the subdivision and don't want to be inconvenienced. I would agree with them that if we had permanently closed the street, it would have been very wrong."

The Metropolitan Planning Commission is not involved in this controversy, since no one is asking for a right-of-way closure. Jeff Welsh, MPC's deputy director, said MPC officials met with some of those involved to discuss the ramifications of closing streets to through traffic.

"I can sympathize with people who live on these streets and have to deal with traffic, but the broader issue is you are limiting access, and you will continue to create more and more congestion on your major arterials. The more closures, the fewer options."

The bottom line to this controversy is that City Council is extremely unlikely to reopen this issue, and the neighborhood is into week one of the experimental street closure. When it comes time to take a vote, there will be a new mayor and City Council in place.

Mayor-elect Bill Haslam said he's educating himself on the issues and confesses that he used to be one of those cut-through drivers.

"But that's past-tense," he said. "I won't do it ever again."

—Betty Bean