VOL. 53 NO. 9
IN THIS ISSUE
Artist, leader Nita passes
Funeral services were held March 2 for Nita Buell Black, retired teacher and founder of the Powell Playhouse. She is survived by husband Jim Black and many relatives and friends. She was a lifelong member of Sharon Baptist Church. At Powell High School for 35 years, she was the drama coach and senior-class sponsor. Upon her retirement, the faculty named “The Nita Buell Auditorium” in her honor.
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March 3, 2014
Good weather boosts
park work
See Nancy Anderson’s tribute on A-7
Halls boys fall in region finals Peyton Booker didn’t just fall down. The Halls High School guard is angling with the ball left of the key with 3.9 seconds remaining. A Powell defender moves in close, and there’s a collision, spilling both players to the floor. The call would decide the outcome.
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Knox County Parks and Recreation crews are at work in Clayton Park. Parks and Rec director Doug Bataille said the good weather last week “allowed us to get some people in there, and we were working on the footers for the restrooms and the picnic shelter and also were able to get into the water line.” Photo by Ruth White
See Stefan Cooper’s recap on A-11
TSD boosts literacy The night featured dancing, music, art, fellowship, cookies and cake and just all-around celebration when the Tennessee School for the Deaf hosted the Literacy Imperative for a program called “Black History: Art, Dance, Literature – A Valuable Cultural Experience.”
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Read Carol Zinavage on A-6
Biggest winner? Sandra Clark has fun with the upcoming county election by naming the big winners from Thursday’s withdraw deadline.
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Read the report on A-4
NEIGHBORHOOD BUZZ
Halls Hall of Fame The Halls High Alumni Association is seeking nominees for this year’s inductees into the Halls Alumni Hall of Fame. Nominees must have been Halls High graduates for at least 30 years and have been successful at the local, state, national or international level in either business or public service. Info or to receive a nomination form, call David Wayland at 922-7615.
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Bounds wins as deadline passes By Betty Bean When Patti Lou Bounds started planning her school board campaign kickoff for Feb. 27 at Beaver Brook Country Club, she had no way of knowing that it would turn out to be a coronation. Bounds, who has taught for Patti Lou Bounds 23 years, already had made plans to retire from her job as a kindergarten teacher at Brickey-McCloud Elementary School at the end of this school year when she heard that incumbent Kim Severance wasn’t going to seek re-election. She and her
husband, Tommy, talked it over during Christmas break, and she announced her candidacy shortly thereafter. “I’m a lead teacher. I’ve evaluated teachers, and I’ve been evaluated. I’ve done Common Core. And I thought that, knowing parents and knowing kids, I would be an asset to the school board,” she said. Still, she was just as surprised as anybody else in Knox County to be the only candidate left standing in what she’d expected to be a three-way battle for the 7th District school board seat in Halls and Powell. But on Wednesday, R. Larry Smith announced that he was withdrawing from the race. On Thursday, Andrew Graybeal followed suit. “I am delighted, overjoyed, elated,” Bounds said. “There are
no words to describe it. I never anticipated that this would happen. When I heard that Larry Smith was going to have a press conference, I had no idea he was going to drop out of the race. On Thursday, we held our breath all morning, and around noon, somebody told me he’d dropped out. “One thing I’ve learned already is there’s a lot of speculation and rumors out there.” Bounds the candidate has been tight-lipped about the plans of Bounds the school board member, but on Thursday, she shared some policy views, from her perspective as a career teacher. “I’m not a big proponent of testing children that young (kindergarteners through second-graders). I see the effects it has on the children. We did that a few years ago when I was at Powell, and I would spend all year building
their self-confidence and here’d come the test and destroy it. It’s hard. It’s very hard – they’re just not equipped. I would really like to come in and be a voice for the kids and the parents and the community and the teachers, and not just the teachers. The custodians work very hard, and the cafeteria people work very hard. I’d like to be a voice for all of them.” Bounds said she plans to spend a day per week in each of the nine schools in her district. “It’s very important to keep in touch with what’s happening in the classroom.” Severance will serve until the new board member is sworn in Sept. 1. Two Republicans qualified for the 7th District seat on the County Commission. Charles Busler and Bo Bennett both live in Powell, as does Bounds.
BZA delays Tazewell Pike variance By Jake Mabe The Knox County Board of Zoning Appeals voted 5-4 to delay a request by Neyland Apartments Associates Five LLC for a waiver of the minimum required parkingstall area from 200 square feet to 162 square feet for The Cottages at Tazewell Pike development, a 280-unit apartment complex. The development had concerned nearby residents who are worried about stormwater runoff from the 28-acre parcel. County Commissioner Amy Broyles, who represents the district, told BZA that 11 subdivi-
sions and some 200 homes are nearby and that runoff drains into White’s Creek, a tributary of First Creek. She says the city of Knoxville has spent “tens of millions of dollars” addressing flooding nearby and doesn’t want to see the development “undermine the costly improvements downstream. “I’m not here to oppose the variance, just to ask that specific conditions be attached to it to mitigate flooding.” Developer Joe Fielden said he would be “more than happy” to sit down and talk with the neighbors “in an orderly fashion.” He also
observed that the only issue before BZA was the size of parking stalls; he wants to make them smaller than required, which would mean less asphalt and reduced runoff. Broyles said the underlying problem is RB zoning, a countyonly designation that does not require developers to submit plans to the Metropolitan Planning Commission for approval unless they are building 12-24 units per acre. “It’s a quirk in Knox County zoning. Commission tabled this contentious item in 1988 rather than deal with it,” Broyles said. Vice chair Markus Chady made
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the motion for a 30-day deferral, which he called a reasonable request. “It really did come out of nowhere. It caught District 2 residents by surprise. As an architect, I know it’s customary for citizens and developers to work together. So we may come out of this with a little bit of goodwill.” Chady, Cindy Buttry, Bill Sewell, Kevin Murphy and chair John Schoonmaker voted for the deferral, with Schoonmaker being the deciding vote. Cynthia Stancil, Frank Rimshaw, Scott Smith and Carson Dailey voted no.
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