Add a public comment E-mail the editor CORRECTION In a letter published May 13, we made an editing error. The current VAT (Value Added Tax) estimate in European countries is on average 15 percent, not 1 percent. We regret publishing the wrong figure.

Phony Parking Collectors

I want to make you aware of a situation in downtown Knoxville that I feel will effect the ongoing development and reviving of the downtown area. I and approximately 20-30 other citizens were victims of a scam at a downtown parking lot near Market Square.

Beware of this scam at local Knoxville pay parking lots near Market Square. I took my family to Market Square for lunch Saturday, May 8, and was told by a person posing as a parking lot attendant he was collecting $5 for special events parking. He was wearing a money pouch and t-shirt and baseball hat, and told us since there was a special event in the area, we paid him instead of the normal meter, which prints out a ticket. This individual had his routine down pat.

Well, when we got back to our car, there was an envelope with a fine for not paying our parking fee for the day. We talked to a parking attendant at a nearby lot working with same company, and he said this was an ongoing problem, and they have been trying to catch this guy posing as a parking attendant for special events for several weeks.

The message to the Knoxville public should be that all parking attendants should have shirts and ID proving they work for the parking lot and tickets to put in your window, even if it is special event parking. The parking company we dealt with was Central Parking systems. We saw at least 15 cars with envelopes for parking fines, scammed just like we were.

The parking lot owners do not seem concerned because they get paid more than they would for violations than if everyone paid normal parking fees. We spoke with two representatives from Central Parking who did not seem concerned that we had this problem.

I would hate to see others have the same bad feeling about going downtown when it is so easy for us to eat out west where we live and not be hassled by being scammed by individuals and dealing with pay parking lots.

Todd Mundt
Knoxville

Ramblings of a...

So now we have a coffee bar on Gay Street, for whom? Just for the record, I am against eating and drinking out on the sidewalk of Gay Street, our main historic street of this old town. Just as Market Square was designated for use by the public, so are the sidewalks of Gay Street.

We’re not European. Drinking on Gay Street, Lord help us! Let’s string up those drunks for all to see!

If Mr. [Jack] Neely needs a jungle to relax in now that the dark, snaky parts of Krutch Park are obsolete, let him sit in that overgrown pathway between Market Square and the rear door to KUB. The brightness and space in that park across from his office doesn’t keep him out of it apparently. It is now pedestrian-friendly, and a lone woman doesn’t have to be afraid of being approached by the homeless who’d taken over the fenced-in park. Also, the water is running. We might be able to enjoy it if the dogs were kept out. I’ve seen one swimming in the upper pond.

Is his yard at home fenced in to keep the public out? With all his lunchtime perambulations through the parks, across bridges thinking ‘bout things which happened a hundred years ago, I wonder, when does he eat?

I do admit his ramblings are interesting, but hardly history, secret or otherwise. Perhaps he should rename his weekly “thoughts,” as Reflections of a Drifter.

B.L. Burks
Knoxville

Debt to a Newsboy

I was a paper delivery boy in the mid to late 1960s for the Knoxville News Sentinel. I placed all my payday money in bonds as I was told I could take the money or invest in U.S. Savings Bonds. I took the bonds. One day the paper guy just didn’t show up, and I never knew where my money went.

I happened to remember about this when I was driving through Knoxville and decided to try and find out where it went. I went on some of the Internet search sites that search for lost funds and their owners and found the $165 I had given to the guy from the News Sentinel, still there with a net value with interest of $1,200. They couldn’t specify where it was.

I asked at the News Sentinel, and they said that account had been sold to a different bank and that there had been mergers and other things like that, and they said it’s been so long we can’t do anything for you. It was over 30 years ago, but I could always use extra money with three kids. I am sure the trail of the money would make an interesting story.

Dink Shackleford
Dryden, Va.

Rich Pay Their Share

The letter by Ms. Julie Hendrix (Incoming Mail, “A VAT of Worms,” May 13) is indicative, I’m afraid, of a swelling tide of class resentment in this country.

Ms. Hendrix is entitled to her opinions, but she is sorely misinformed on the facts. She asserts that it is the middle and lower classes who are bearing the burden of paying more and more taxes while the rich pay virtually nothing. Wrong! In 2001 (Source: IRS, Statistics of Income, September 2003) the top 1 percent of income earners paid 33.89 percent of all income taxes. The top 5 percent paid 53.25 percent. On the other hand, the bottom 50 percent of income earners paid only 3.97 percent of all income taxes.

Ms. Hendrix calls for restructuring the tax system to ensure fair payment of taxes by everyone who benefits from living in the United States. “Which begs the question: Who’s not paying their fair share”?

J. Mark Broussard
Knoxville

Bin Ladin’s Success

It sickens me to write it, but it is beginning to appear that Osama bin Ladin’s efforts against the incredibly powerful and prosperous United States have succeeded beyond what even he could have imagined.

Some may disagree, but consider that his organization knocked down the World Trade Center, killed thousands of Americans, and created a political panic that has restricted liberties of U.S. citizens and that continues to drain billions out of our treasury for a military action that is unpopular at home and reviled by most of the world.

Moreover, the rush to war based on flimsy evidence has alienated many allies, undermined confidence in our intelligence community and damaged the credibility of our government. And now, with the revelations of rampant abuse in Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison, President Bush is even being compared with the sadistic Saddam Hussein.

It did not have to be this way.

Buck Rutledge
Knoxville

May 20, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 21 © 2004 Metro Pulse