Students allege they’ve been teaching themselves with no instructor for weeks.

To see if that is the case, Messed Up cameras go into High Tech Institute in Nashville.

We travel down a long corridor lined with students wearing blue scrubs.

We ask the students studying a trade where the massage therapy unit is. They point us down the hall.

We arrive in a rear waiting room where we find several students sitting in chairs. The lights are off. Some of the students are browsing through paperwork. Other students are quietly sitting in chairs.

I have only been here a few seconds, but this sure doesn’t feel like a high intensity learning environment.

“Are you jennifer,” I call out to a woman before me, whose eyes are wide open.

“Yes,” she exclaimed, almost surprised Al and I have arrived.

“Did I find the right place?” I ask, putting my camera down on the little magazine table before her.

“Yep, this is what we do.”

“You guys learning?” I quip.

“Oh yeah we are learning a lot; waiting for people to unlock the door so we can get chairs out to do chair massages if we want to.”

Jennifer Smith is from Carthage and tells me she drives an hour each way, every day to come here to study.

Smith tells me, she entered High Tech Institute in December of 2006. Her goal: to graduate May 2008 with a degree in massage therapy.

According to Smith, when the class instructor became ill, the school did not replace her. Subsequently, students continued to gather here, she says, to teach themselves.

“I am in the last internship of my program before I am able to graduate and now they are telling us we don’t have an instructor. So I come here to study for about four hours sometimes we do chair massages.”

“So how long have you guys been sitting in these chairs here in school doing nothing?”

“This is about the third week now.”

“Three weeks! Everyday?”

“Yes. For about four hours.”

“You sit here doing nothing.”

“Yes, pretty much. We either study or we can try and do chair massages as you can see the door is locked and we can’t get anyone in to let us get the chairs.”

“What do they tell you?”

“They say make the best of it.”

I speak to a classmate of Smith. She is seated by the locked massage therapy door. She is holding papers in her hand. She tells me that she is studying.

“Who is teaching you right now?”

“Myself.”

“You are teaching yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Do I want to be a client of yours you teaching yourself?”

“It bothers me yes.”

“What bothers you?”

“That I don’t feel like I am getting the education for $11,000 I paid.”

Messed Up calls High Tech Institute corporate offices in Phoenix, Arizona for a statement.

Vice president Diane Gilmore sends me this statement:

PHOENIX, Ariz. (May 12, 2008) – Established in 1999, High-Tech Institute (HTI) Nashville offers career focused training programs in the fields of health care and technology. Below is in response to current issues raised by WKRN:

High-Tech Institute is aware of concerns raised to WKRN by at least one student in the Massage Therapy Program in regards to an instructor shortage. The instructor in question has been out with a serious illness and the school is working diligently to find a replacement. High-Tech Institute is also working with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to find an amenable solution for all students affected by the shortage of instructor issue. We expect the issue to be resolved in a very short period of time.

The statement goes on to say:

As part of an ongoing accreditation process, the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, (ACCSCT), has advised High-Tech Institute that its schools have been placed on probation. High Tech-Institute was founded on the highest standards therefore it has been fortunate to maintain excellent accreditation records over the years. Supported by a long history of educational excellence, High-Tech Institute believes that it will satisfy ACCSCT’s concerns and expects to be successful in being removed from probation in the near future. Meanwhile, all High-Tech Institute schools remain accredited and continues to be committed to its students, employers and the communities we serve as has been our legacy for more than two decades.

I call the Tennessee Higher Education Commission about High Tech.

The state agency licenses high tech institute and secondary schools like it. The executive Director, Richard Rhoda tells me his agency has placed the school on what’s called “conditional authorization” for what Rhoda says are issues relating to “adequate and credible faculty”

“It’s under watch it is probation in a general sense. There are issues there the administration has been cooperative not bringing new students into new programs.”

“Their instructor got sick but nobody else could fill her shoes?” I ask.

“Correct and that is just not a good practice I mean proprietary schools are businesses but that is not how you do business.”

Thanks to Messed Up’s involvement, Richard Rhoda says the Tennessee Higher Education Commission will make sure that Jennifer Smith gets that degree she has worked 16 months to achieve.

Rhoda also says High Tech Institute has been working well with the state trying to rectify its problems.

The accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology placed High Tech on probation in January of 2007. High Tech appealed that process.

That statuse changed Tuesday, May 13, when ACCSCT issued this press release:

ACCSCT Commission Announces Conclusion of Appeals Proceedings Regarding High-Tech Institute, Inc.

Arlington, Virginia (May 13, 2008) – The Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT) announced today that the appeal of an October 12, 2007 Commission action regarding schools owned and operated by High-Tech Institute, Inc. has concluded.

In accordance with the Commission’s decision, High-Tech (refer to May 13, 2008 Public Notice for individual schools and locations included in the Commission’s decision) will no longer be eligible to enroll new students in accredited degree programs without new approvals from ACCSCT. However, students who are currently enrolled in High-Tech Institute degree programs will be able to complete course work at their current schools and receive a degree from an ACCSCT-accredited institution. The schools remain on probation.

ACCSCT believes that by having valid and reliable standards, we can ensure the academic quality of programs offered by our accredited member schools. When a school applies for and receives accreditation, the school accepts the obligation to demonstrate its continuous compliance with ACCSCT’s high standards through the accreditation process which requires an explicit demonstration of quality educational delivery.

Hopefully, this 16 month long debacle is over, and students can rest assured that they will get the education they are promised and they are paying for.

The constant barking would break the Tin Man’s heart.

The brainless Scare Crow would scratch his straw head and wonder; “Where are all the rats coming from and why can nobody stop it?”

The cowardly Lion would take one deep breath and run away from the over powering stench.

The problem?

A bunch of angry snarling Toto’s pooping up a river of stink.

Janice O’Neal is no Dorothy. She’s a grandma who is pissed!

“Anyone who comes back here and says they don’t smell it is a bare faced liar.”

O’Neal is furious. She is a human pit bull who is tired of living in a cage of stink.

She leads Al and me to the rear corner of her Hewlett Street home.

Like a wet blanket of noxious odor, the smell sticks to our skin, filling our nostrils, making our eyes water.

“We can’t let kids in the back yard play. We can’t sit out and grill. The smell is so bad. It will make you puke!”

O’Neal waves her hands in front of her face. She turns her head away from the rear fence. She seems weak as if the nauseating smell is reaching through her nostrils and sucking the energy from her.

She lowers her head pulling her shirt up over her mouth and nose. Like a sickened hunch back the angry little woman moves away from the rear fence line.

“It stinks. Whatever it is it stinks. It is god awful. It is all the time!!!”

Other family members chime in like an angry chorus.

They hate the stink, but that’s just the start of it on Hewlett Street.

Rats and feces and stench. OH MY.

Like the tip of the spear, I go to the yard where the odor is emanating from. The yard is dark because of the thick layer of tress over head. The smell of feces is pungent in the air. As I walk forward I imagine this is what Bubonic Plague smells like.

Behind the home there are pens and dog houses and six Beagles. There are feces in the cage and dog food scattered about.

But quite honestly, the pens and the backyard don’t look that dirty to me.

The smell is another story. It is encompassing, like mustard gas. It is pervasive and prevalent and pernicious. It seems to blister the epidermal layer of all who dare encroach on this invisible denizen’s lair.

I see a number of rats laying dead. There’s one in the weeds. There is a dead rat on its back near a shed; its white belly is exposed. I can see the rodent’s little rat fangs sticking through his little rat lips.

Jennifer Ladd lives at this address. The young woman who answers the door is friendly and eager to answer questions about the smell, the dogs and the problem that some say begins in her backyard.

Ladd comes to the door with her two-year-old son Michael. The toddler is wearing a diaper which is appropriate for the questions I ask her about the feces and stench.

“Actually it is the house behind us,” she says. “My dad keeps the dogs clean.”

Ladd tells me that the smell disgusts her. She says, like the O’Neal family next door, that she is also afraid to put her baby down in the backyard because of the rat infestation.

“They carry diseases. They can get a hold of this one,” she said as she snuggles baby boy Michael closer to her bosom. “I have not been able to let him go in the backyard.”

“So what I have here is a neighborhood where nobody can let their kids play in their own backyard because there are so much feces and rats. Is that messed up?”

“That is messed up!” she parrots.

Ladd tells me that Metro Health has been here and put down rat poison. That would explain the dead rats in her backyard.

But who is to blame? I wonder. What so many rats? Why so much stink? Where is the clean up?

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Rats and Feces and Stench, OH MY!

Ladd tells me that the people behind her on the next street over are the problem. She alleges they wash their dog feces down the hill in an unsanitary river of fecal matter. She says that is the source of the smell.

Al and I go to this home on Norma Drive.

We go into the back yard and find a dog pen. The sign is to the point: “BEWARE OF DOG.”

A black and white pit bull mix rushes the fence banging his anvil sized head into the mesh. He is angry and possessed and wants to grab Al’s scotum and chew it off for a souvenir.

We will later learn this dog’s name is Little Man. There is nothing little about the aggressive behavior the dog exhibits.

Even the owner tells Metro Animal Control officer Billy Biggs, “Be careful, Little Man will bite!”

That’s like, Quint, the grizzled salty fishing boat captain in Jaws, telling Roy Schieder that shark has a taste for human torso.

At Messed Up’s request, Biggs bangs on the door at Norma Street.

Biggs walks to the pen and inhales deeply.

“I don’t smell nothing,” he says to co-worker Terry Jones.

Both Jones and Biggs move closer to the fence which is about four-and-a-half feet high.

“The pen looks clean,” Biggs says softly, trying not to disturb little man. “I don’t think the rats are coming from here.”

Jones points to the Ladd house in the background indicating the source is there. He steps closer to the fence.

Bad move.

Little Man explodes from his hiding place and throws his angry dog body against the chain link barrier.

Jones, a veteran animal control officer, is startled as the dog comes very close to snapping off his head.

“I got to go get me my pole,” Jones says taking five steps backward.

Biggs bangs on the door of the home.

A young woman holding a small baby answers the door.

Biggs tells the woman who identifies herself as Cynthia King that he is investigating the stench and the rats.

Cynthis King, Like Ms. Ladd tells me that her dogs are clean.

Biggs tells me that the dogs are licensed and up to date on shots. He says the sanitation division inside the Metro Health Department is responsible for the other health issues.

Before Biggs leaves he tells Mrs. King that the neighbor behind her with the six Beagles is probably the source of the problem.

King says she is not surprised.

“Their yard and their dogs they are nasty back there and that is where the rats come from,” King tells me clutching her small child.

Just then, fellow Health Department worker Jawon Lauderdale arrives. His ID card indicates he is with Metro Sanitation division.

Lauderdale knows this area.

“We got the complaint on Monday,” he tells me. “With the volume and the amount of animals there, you have to expect that there will be some sort of smell. There is going to be a smell. So we asked the owner to maintain the pens, attend to the pens, if possible, twice a day. If the problem persists, what we do is send out a notice that there is a problem. And they should take proper steps to keep the property clean, to clean behind the dogs, feces, put out straw or hay to absorb the problem.”

So Metro has checked the dogs. Metro has put out rat poison. Metro is trying to deal with the source of the stink.

None of this is good enough for Janice O’Neal who talks to me angrily behind the protective face shield of her shirt.

“Come out here and do your job,” she screams at the camera, pretending it is the head of the Metro Health Department. “Get rid of the odors and get rid of the rats. Get rid of the problem, everything that causes it. The source of the stink.”

She is angry and her words are coming at me in disjointed bursts. “I invite every official to come and sit in my backyard and eat lunch if you can.”

I inhale deeply and feel the caustic burning stench fill my lungs. “It smells like a toilet back here. I don’t think I want to.”

She laughs her first laugh of the day. “It is worse than a toilet.”

That afternoon I get on a conference call with Metro Health Department officials.

They confirm there is a problem and they are treating the area for rats.

“Whenever people have outside animals and feed them outside there is a rat problem,” Brent Hagar, Director of Environmental Health Services tells me over the phone. “We have issued the occupant with the Beagles a 10 day notice for sanitation issues,” he adds. “There is no requirement in Nashville that says how many dogs you can have and she has six beagles. They were checked. They are all vaccinated. They seem to be in good health. But there is a sanitation problem with the waste. They were issued a citation Tuesday and we were out there on Monday we asp went out and treated for rats that day. We found rat holes. We put rat poison in the holes.”

Hagar says the rats come because dog food is scattered everywhere. Hagar says the smell comes from the feces which are not cleaned up appropriately.

“Rats = disease,” Hagar says. “There are a number of health issues. They can carry plague. They can contaminate food products. They can bite. They can destroy property.”

Monday, May 12, 2008, Hagar calls me back. He tells me that his people have been swarming this neighborhood looking to rectify this horrible problem. The director tells me that they have treated again for rats and will continue to do so till the rat infestation is eliminated.

He also tells me that in addition to the woman with the Beagles, the Health Department just recently cited the dog owners on Norma Street. Hagar says the family there has allegedly been burying the animal waste in the backyard, which is not permissible. Hagar says the family now has ten days to fix this problem or they too will be cited into court.

Hagar tells me that the health department is on this problem and will get it fixed.

For the residents in this stinky, rat infested neighborhood, one can only hope that Hagar’s Ruby slippers click together and solve everyone’s problems.

Until then I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore Janice O’Neal.

Neighbors say they have called metro codes multiple times. Neighbors say Metro Codes has had no answers.

Neighbors say they have repeatedly called Metro Police. Police confirm they have been to this Hermitage neighborhood known as the Bonnas dozens of times, but so far there is nothing that police say they can do.

Neighbors say they call their Metro Councilman Bruce Stanley. They call him on Saturday mornings to let him hear the roar of the race car engine.

Bruce Stanley says he has talked to police and sent letters to codes and has visited the neighborhood and so far Stanley has been unable to make the excessive noise stop.

With no where else to turn, truck driver and father of four, Rodney Bartholomew calls that’s messed up.

Bartholomew has lived in this neighborhood for close to a dozen years.
 
For close to a dozen years, Bartholomew says the man across the fence in his back yard cranks up the engine of his demolition race car and revs the engine.
 
On this day birds are chirping and the tranquil sounds of the Zen garden fill the pleasant calm in Bartholomew’s back yard.
 
“You told me that this started when your little girl was in elementary school, and your little girl is now in college,” I state.

Bartholomew speaks quietly and his words chosen carefully. “That’s right.”
 
“Have you gone over and talked to the guy and ask why are you revving this car?”
 
Bartholomew pauses for a moment and tells me about an incident when he first moves into the neighborhood. There was a problem over a fence.  He might have attached it to the race car driver’s side. The race car driver protested. Bartholomew says it was uncomfortable and he took the fence down.
 
“When we had the deal with the fence I was done with him,” Bartholomew says matter of fact.
 
Bartholomew takes me into his home. He leads me to a large screen TV and he pushes play.
 
A video comes on. I hear Mr. Bartholomew narrating. The super on the screen says: May 3rd 10:20 am. Bartholomew is taking me on a tour of his property. He shows the garden and his deck and the children’s play house. He talks about Saturday morning after Saturday morning, year after year. Like clock work, he knows the sound is going to come. He predicts it is just a matter of time.
 
VROOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost on cue, through jittery camera work, pointing toward the source of his consternation, you hear the cacophonous thunder of a high octane engine. At first it roars, then it consumes more fuel and the accelerator forces open the hungry carburetor. The thunder intensifies into rapid pulses, shrieking sonic booms, like an platoon of M-16’s firing indiscriminately. If there was a DB meter pointed at the tree line, it would have burst.

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As I watch the video, I see a flash of orange whip through the foliage and I hear Bartholomew say; “there it goes, down the street.”
 
The tiny living room is filled with the sound of the thunderous engine. Though it is on tape I almost feel like I can taste the exhaust.
 
“My kids can be out here playing baseball and that race car will start up and they will drop their bats and run in the house. They can’t stand the noise.”

 
Bartholomew introduces me to his neighbor. Pat Abel has throat cancer and he talks through a voice box in his neck. Pat has lived here for 33 years and he says for a third of his existence here, the engine noise has terrorized the neighborhood like invisible pirates spilling over the gang plank, swinging, cutlasses in hand, into his ear drums.

“I asked him four or five times to stop and he won’t. He don’t care about nobody out here, but himself.” The words exit Abel’s throat like an aerosol can. Speaking and formulating words seems arduous. Still he gathers breath after breath to tell me about the noise that he says ruins the quality of his life.

Then Abel tells me something I never could have imagined. The senior citizen tells me that he has lost his sense of smell, but not his taste.
 
“I can taste it,” he says referring to the race car fumes. “It is real bad. Horrible.”  He struggles to force words through the box attached to this throat. “It’s unreal. Like the Indianapolis 500.”

Abel sends me MPEG video from his car port. The clip is only a few seconds long, but that is all it takes. The video is green and grainy and pointing toward his back fence. There is a roar so loud, I have to take the ear phones off my head.
 
“Wow,” I say to Al, telling him to listen to the noise.

Al’s salami size hands pull the ear phones away from his water melon sized cranium. He flashes me that famous gap toothed grin that says: “Yeah this is a story!”

I ask the neighbors why the police can’t make the noise stop. This is a very sore point for Bartholomew. I can sense he has lost faith in his elected officials and the city workers whose responsibility it is to make sure that quality of life in Metro is preserved.

“He (officer) told me if this guy was playing a radio real loud they could cite him. But they can’t site him for that,” he says referring to the mechanized thunder pouring forth from his big screen TV.

Apparently this is accurate. I spend a great deal of time talking to the community coordinator for the Hermitage precinct. He sends me this detailed note and observations as it relates to the city’s noise ordinance.
 
The first question, what is considered a noise complaint, and what can the police do about it is the key question to this problem. The metro noise ordinance is below. The code deals primarily with music and sound amplification devices (speakers). As such, a loud race car will not apply. The very last part of the code does deal with vehicles, but only those under the care and control of a business or commercial facility. This will not apply to the situation at hand. What we can enforce is a loud muffler ordinance (also below). In most situations however, we will probably need to catch the vehicle on the road for this as it falls under traffic ordinances. We have had numerous complaints coming from various parts of the neighborhood on this individual since the Precinct first opened. It is typically seasonal (during the summer), and officers have talked to the offender in the past. I have not been able to find any code that the police dept. can enforce that would make it illegal to have a race car in your driveway per se. Codes may have something that they can work with.
Sgt. Todd Leach
Hermitage Precinct
Community Affairs Coordinator
880-1855

I go to the source of the alleged problem.

His name is Carl Taylor.
 
I pass by the race car in the driveway. It is orange and yellow and dented from fender to fender. There is no glass and it is immediately obvious that this high powered car is more about power than speed. More about collisions than crossing the finish line first.
 
I find Mr. Taylor in his back yard. Taylor is sporting a bushy pile of hair around his mouth. His hair has a twinge of red and is cut short to his head. He is wearing a cut off t shirt. Both arms are decorated with brightly colored tattoos.  His dogs, in nearby cages are barking so loudly I have to shout hello.
 
Taylor is stunned that Al and I are there to cover this story. I sense he is mad, though he will tell me more than once that he doesn’t care what his neighbors think.
 
“It don’t bother me,” he says getting close to my face. “If they don’t like it they can buy me out.”  The energy is pouring off Taylor’s forehead like an blow torch. I can feel his intensity as he gets right up on me to explain his position.

I’ve done this more than once, and I hold my ground.

“You realize it is pretty loud, right?”
 
Taylor shouts at me. “Well, I had the police out here last Saturday, and police say I was not bothering a soul out here mid day Saturday I have motorcycles that run up this road louder than this car.”

To prove to me that his car is not that loud, the 43 YEAR OLD jumps up on his race car, twists some wires and cranks the engine of the demolition derby machine.
 
“VROOOOOOOM”

The car spews out exhaust and a fire storm of noise.  Blue smoke bursts out of the shiny chrome pipes extending through the hood.
 
Taylor is energized as he jumps off the trailer like a wild animal ready to pounce. He heads right for me shouting over the voluminous roar.
 
“You tell me you can’t hear Harley Davidson’s running down the road louder than that?”

“Say that again,” I shout back, sort of amazed that anyone would try and communicate standing next to this power plant of pulsing energy.

“Tell me you don’t hear Harley Davidson motorcycles louder than that car right there.”
 
I shake my head and move around to get some video of the exhaust pipes which are blowing out a steady belch of smoke.

Taylor again leans into the camera and tells me that he is glad he is on the news and I should make sure and record what he is about to say.

“This is my hobby,” he screams, while banging on the driver’s side door.

“Me and my son have been doing it 15 years, and I am not going to stop.”

“Do you ever run it up and down the road?” I ask.
 
“No its not street legal,” He replies.

Taylor turns the car off. Like sticking a massive cap into a volcano, the intensity of anger and noise and belching sound subsides quickly. I hear a flock of birds flutter through nearby trees, flying in a frenzied formation as if their little brains have been pulverized by invisible hammers of sound.
 
“I wish my neighbors would mind their own business,” he says.

At first, Taylor seems a bit rough around the edges, but suddenly he shows me a caring side.
 
While standing on top of the trailer, he bangs the roof with his fist.
 
Like a judge on the bench, enforcing an important point of law, Taylor commands my attention, pointing to the names painted on the top of the car.

The names are in memory of some demolition racers who died recently.
 
“There are some boys who drowned in Dickson,” he says repeatedly banging on the roof. “That’s them boys’ name and that girl’s name right there. I put their names on this car: In loving memory of these people. We run these cars cause these boys. Chris and Brian. They derbied with us for years. That’s why we built these cars in loving memory of them.”  I see how much this means to Taylor who is growing increasingly emotional.

“My son won, and he gave a trophy to that boy’s momma right there.”
 
I appreciate Taylor’s dedication to friends and former racers.

“You seem angry that your neighbors have called the news?”
 
“I am not angry,” he says staring at the names etched on the top of his racer.

He pauses. High octane emotions begin coursing through his veins pumping through his soul like racing fuel being ignited by a spark plug.

Taylor is kidding himself with this statement. He’s mad all right, and he’s going to admit it.

 Like the cold edge of a capricious wind racing ahead of an approaching squall line, his true feelings emerge.

“Well yeah I am angry that man calls. He don’t have nothing better to do. This car is no louder than any motorcycle on the road. This car is not bothering a soul. If they have a problem, they should come talk to me. I hope I am all over the news. I am telling you right now. I am not stopping!!”
 
Taylor is a bubbling pot of oil. He is once again spewing his words at me.

“I will drag another car in here, and I will make the next one twice as loud.”
 
I laugh at the suggestion of a 2nd race car even louder than this one.
 
Taylor continues defending his position.
 
“I had the police in here last Saturday listening to them run. He said it was not bothering a soul. There are motorcycles running up and down the road louder than that. He said as long as you are not running them up and down the road, then you are not bothering nobody.”

I thank Taylor for his frank and candid remarks.

They say get both sides of the story, and I have certainly accomplished that.

Metro Police tell me neighbors have been complaining about this race car for more than a decade.

Police say if he was blasting a loud radio, they could cite Mr. Taylor.

But the Metro Ordinance, the way it is currently written, really does not adequately address loud engine noise.

While police are at a loss to enforce a noise ordinance, Metro Codes revisited this equation and Wednesday, MAY 7TH,  they cited Mr. Taylor.

Essentially it’s against the law to keep an unlicensed car in a driveway, even if it is on a trailer.

Officials say he has 15 days to move the race car into a garage or barn or he’ll be cited into court.

Councilman Bruce Stanley tells me by phone he sent a letter to codes.

I asked what more he might do.

He says he plans to look at tightening the loophole that governs the decibel level of music but not loud engines.
 
Here is the violation that Metro Codes says the vehicle violates, as written by Assistant Director Billy Fields.
 
“Basically, the vehicle must meet the requirements for a motor vehicle to be stored on residential property. This vehicle does not meet those requirements in that it appears to not be operational and it is not registered and licensed. Vehicles stored on a trailer must meet the same requirements as one parked in the driveway.” from an email from Bill Penn, assistant Director of Codes and Building Safety

The violation is of Metro Code of Law number 16.24.330:

B. Open Storage. Except as otherwise provided for in the zoning code, it is unlawful for the owner, occupant, or person or entity in control of a building, structure or premises to utilize the premises of such property for the open storage of any: Inoperable, unlicensed, or unregistered motor vehicle ; appliance; building material, including glass, brick, stone, block, wood, metal; rubbish; tires; automotive parts; or debris, including but not limited to weeds, dead trees, trash, rubbish, garbage, etc., or similar items. It shall be the duty and responsibility of every such owner or occupant to keep the premises in a safe, clean, and sanitary condition and to remove from the premises all such stored items upon notice from the director.
The owner was ordered to abate the problem within 15 days. If he fails to comply with this abatement order, a warrant will be issue for the owner to appear in the Metro Environmental Court.

Here is the metro ordinance governing loud music, but not loud engines:

11.12.070 Excessive noise.
A. It shall be unlawful for any person to:
1. Operate or allow the operation of any sound amplification equipment so as to create sounds that register more than fifty-five db(A) between 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. or fifty db(A) between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m., as measured anywhere within the boundary line of the nearest residentially occupied property. For multifamily structures, including apartments, condominiums, or other residential arrangements where boundary lines can not readily be determined, it shall be unlawful to operate or allow the operation of any sound amplification equipment so as to create sounds that register more than fifty-five db(A) between 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. or fifty db(A) between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m., as measured from any point within the interior of another residential unit in the same complex or within the boundary line of the nearest residentially occupied property. For purposes of this section, “sound amplification equipment” means a radio, tape player, compact disc player, digital audio player, television, electronic audioequipment, musical instrument, sound amplifier, or other mechanical or electronic sound-making device that produces, reproduces or amplifies sound. This subsection shall not apply to a special event, mass gathering or other permitted activity by the metropolitan government or its boards or commissions. Further, the provisions of this section shall not apply to entertainment facilities constructed to provide outdoor entertainment owned by metropolitan government or its agencies and parks under the control of the board of parks and recreation, properties lying with an area zoned CC district and properties zoned CF district that are contiguous to those zoned CC district.
2. Operate or allow the operation of any sound amplification equipment for advertising purposes or otherwise to attract customers so as to cast sounds which are unreasonably loud and disturbing or which register more than sixty db(A) at or on the boundary of the nearest public right-of-way or park. The provisions of this section shall not apply to properties lying with an area zoned CC district and properties zoned CF district that are contiguous to those zoned CC district.
3. Operate or allow the operation for personal use of any sound amplification equipment on the public right-of-way, including streets or sidewalks, or in parks under control of the board of parks and recreation so as to produce sounds registering more than sixty db(A) fifty feet or more from any electromechanical speaker between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., or fifty db(A) fifty feet or more from any electromechanical speaker between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. The provisions of this section shall not apply to properties lying with an area zoned CC district and properties zoned CF district that are contiguous to those zoned CC district.
B. The foregoing limitations on the operation of sound amplification equipment provided in subsection A. of this section shall not apply to the operation of horns, sirens, or other emergency warning devices actually being used in emergency circumstances.
C. No person operating or occupying a motor vehicle on any street, highway, alley, parking lot, or driveway, either public or private property, shall operate or permit the operation of any sound amplification system, including, but not limited to, any radio, tape player, compact disc player, loud speaker, or any other electrical device used for the amplification of sound from within the motor vehicle so that the sound is plainly audible at a distance of fifty or more feet from the vehicle or, in the case of amotor vehicle on private property, beyond the property line. For the purpose of this subsection, “plainly audible” means any sound which clearly can be heard, by unimpaired auditory senses based on a direct line of sight of fifty or more feet, however, words or phrases need not be discernible and said sound shall include bass reverberation.
Prohibitions contained in this section shall not be applicable to emergency or public safety vehicles, vehicles owned and operated by the metropolitan government or any utility company, for sound emitted unavoidably during job-related operation, or any motor vehicle used in an authorized public activity for which a permit has been granted by the appropriate agency of the metropolitan government.
D. No person or persons owning, operating, or having the care, custody, or control of any facility located within fifty feet of a residence and/or of a natural conservation area shall permit to be operated any musical instrument or other entertainment device using amplification unless such music or other entertainment is provided within a totally enclosed structure. Such music or other entertainment may be provided outside of a structure only between the hours of seven a.m. and eleven p.m., except when exempted under provisions of the code as a special event, mass gathering or other permitted activity by metropolitan government or its boards or commissions. The provisions of this section shall not apply to entertainment facilities constructed to provide outdoor entertainment owned by metropolitan government or its agencies and parks under the control of the board of parks and recreation, properties lying with an area zoned CC district and properties zoned CF district that are contiguous to those zoned CC district as of November 21, 2000, or properties lying within an area bounded by properties fronting Music Square West and 17th Avenue South from Division Street to Edgehill Avenue, properties along the north portion of Edgehill Avenue between 17th Avenue South and 16th Avenue South; properties fronting 16th Avenue South and Music Square East between Edgehill Avenue and Division Street and also, including those properties lying within an area fronting on the east side of 21st Avenue South from Scarritt Place to Edgehill Avenue and the properties fronting on the north side Edgehill Avenue to 17th Avenue South.
E. No person or persons owning, operating, or having the care, custody, or control of any business or commercial facility shall be permitted to operate any equipment, vehicles, or heavy machinery incident to performing business or commercial functions, or engage in any other business or commercial activity between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. which would emit, cause to be emitted, or permit the emission of any noise in excess of seventy Db(A) as measured from a point as close as possible to the outsidewalls of any residential structure located within a residential zoning district affected by the noise at a height of four feet above the immediate surrounding surface. The provisions of this paragraph shall not be applicable to business or commercial facilities located within the CC and CF zoning districts.
(Amdt. 1 to Ord. BL2006-1138 § 1, 2006; Ord. BL2006-1138 § 1, 2006; Ord. 2002-1061 § 1, 2002; Ord. 2001-772 § 1, 2001; Amdts. 1, 2 to Ord. BL2000-378 §§ 1, 2, 2000; Amdt. 1 to Ord. 93-724, 8/3/93; Ord. 93-724 § 1, 1993; Ord. 88-508 § 1, 1988; prior code § 29-1-54)
12.32.050 Mufflers–Prevention of noise, fumes and smoke.
A. It is unlawful to operate any motor vehicle at any time unless equipped with a muffler in good working order and in constant operation to prevent excessive or unusual noise, and no person shall use a muffler cut-out, bypass or similar device upon a vehicle on a highway, within the metropolitan government.
B. It is unlawful to operate the engine and power mechanism of every motor vehicle unless equipped and adjusted as to prevent the escape of excessive fumes or smoke.
C. Section 12.84.010 sets out the penalty for violation of this section.
(§ 4 (part) of Amdt. 2 to Ord. 90-1255, 7/17/90; § 2 (part) of Amdt. 1 to Ord. 90-1255, 6/19/90; Ord. 90-1255 § 4 (4), 1990; prior code § 27-1-281

For more than five months a metro dental clinic has been wrangling with insurance adjusters trying to get a simple $800 check.

After exhaustive efforts, the office manager decides enough all ready…it’s time to get Messed Up on the case.

It all begins on November 20, 2007.

“The whole truck was on its side,” effusive office manager Gail Harris says.

According to a metro police report: a semi truck made a left turn off of Murfreesboro Road, onto Fesslers Lane. For whatever reason, the truck tipped over.

“All this landscaping was knocked off its foundation,” Harris says pointing to a few rail road ties scattered about the parking lot of the Napier Sudekum Dental Office on the corner of these two roads.

According to the police report, the truck takes down an NES Power pole and hits a fire hydrant, and wrecks the Dental Office’s solid planter box.

“I jut want the property to look nice, I want it nice for the patients,” Harris says. “if they see something like this then they are going to say what are they doing in my mouth.”

I laugh out loud. An interesting question. I guess first impressions are important to every business.

Harris tells me the damage is $800.

“I called the adjuster Shane, and he said we’ll get someone on it. Well that went on and on. It was a total of 9 calls I made.”

After 4 months of haggling - Harris says the trucking company’s claims adjuster says, “the check is in the mail, so go ahead and get the damage repaired.”

“So the landscaper comes out and repairs it March 20th.”

Harris tells me the landscaper immediately begins calling asking where is the check. Harris says she calls adjuster who reportedly has one excuse after another.

Harris says she decides to hold off planting flowers in the repaired planter box till the check situation is corrected.

“It is very embarrassing,” Harris says with a fore long look on her face.

Another month goes by, some five months now since the November 20th accident, and Harris has had enough. She calls me.

I call the adjuster and start leaving messages with secretaries at insurance company’s saying that I want to know why a simple accident claim takes so long to pay.

I eventually bypass the man that Harris is working with and call the trucking company’s primary insurance firm. An agent with this national company tells me that in some cases, like this one, they used an outside agency to handle the dental office claim.

The agent for this national company tells me that he had no idea that all of this was going on and it was just a big misunderstanding. He tells me that the minute he heard about it, he made sure that the check was cut for the landscaper.

You know what’s crazy about this story, on April 30th…the same thing happened again. The same trucking company missed the same turn, hit the same power pole and again messed up the same planter.

No telling how long it will take to process this claim.

In the meantime, both the water company and NES tell me they plan on sending the insurance company a bill for the broken pole and the Messed Up fire hydrant ($1084).

Good luck everyone.

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According to the Dept of Safety:  243,000 drivers in Tennessee have suspended or revoked licenses.

That’s a quarter of a million motorists.

A frightening number of the state’s 4.4 million drivers break the law every day by not keeping automobile insurance, as mandated by state law. 

Here are some more facts and figures from my friends at the dept. Of safety:

Last year 44,000 Tennesseans had their driver’s license revoked or suspended.

Last year 32,000 Tennesseans got pulled over and could not prove they had insurance.

Why should you care?

Because sooner or later one of these uninsured menaces is going to run into you or someone you know.

It happened to dawn Kleiser who is 26 and 8 months pregnant with her first baby.
 
“Was it nerve racking being pregnant and getting into a little fender bender?,” I ask the cheerful woman.

“Very much so,” she says without hesitation. “It was really, really scary cause I was afraid something happened to the baby”

Kleiser says April 21st, she is entering a fast food parking lot when another motorist suddenly roars out of the parking space in reverse smashing into her little red car.

“She put it in reverse and hit the gas.”

Kleiser’s Honda Civic is knocked violently, causing, she says two thousand dollars worth of damage.

“My car went into the air.”

Klesier has never been in an accident before. She says she is stunned and all she can think to do is call metro police.

“I was nervous. Had never been in an accident before.”

Because there are no injuries, and the incident happens on private property, dispatchers tell Kleiser to exchange information with the other driver who Kleiser claims never once gets out of her car.

“Did she get out and say ma’am are you ok?,” I ask.

“No she was too worried about getting her lunch.”

I shake my head.

“She hits you and she doesn’t even get out of her car?”

“Nope. I am not sure why she put it into reverse to begin with. I am still wondering about that. So I got out and asked her what happened? And she say, obviously I just hit you. Yes. Obviously so.”

Kleiser says the other driver identifies herself as Chiquita Hall who admits she’s at fault and she has no insurance.

“Describe her demeanor. Was it non-chalant? I know I just hit you, but now get out of my face I am eating fries?”

Kleiser laughs. “Yes.”

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“So you say ma’am can I get your DL? What does she say?”

“She had an I.D. But would not let me look at it. She wrote all the info down for me and when I asked for her insurance she kind of chuckled ‘Well how can I do that I dont’ have any and I said that’s great.”

Kleiser tells me that her insurance company is on the hook for the lion’s share of the damage, and she is on the hook for the 200-dollar deductible which says could be better spent on baby clothes.

“This is Messed Up. I have to have insurance it is the law and she can drive around with no insurance and not even get in trouble for it. It ”

News 2 has looked into Chiquita Hall.

According to metro police, the 23 year old has been arrested 7 times in the last 5 years for driving on a suspended or revoked license.

The Dept of Safety confirms that the day of the wreck:  Hall’s license was revoked.

Traffic authorities also tell Messed Up that the young woman has been involved in at least 2 motor vehicle collisions. The Dept of Safety says Hall was found at fault on one of these cases and she has yet to make restitution to the other victims.

I went to Hall’s home. I knocked on her door. I called two numbers I had in my possession. One I got from official documents, the other was a number she reportedly gave to Kleiser.  One number is disconnected. The other number is not activated.

While nobody answers, I do find the grand am.

The bumper is dented and covered with red paint that Kleiser maintains came from the impact with her little red car.

I go to Capitol Hill and talk with a man who should have a dog in this hunt. He is State Representative Charles Sargent who is an insurance agent of 35 years.

The veteran law maker says he has never seen That Is Messed Up, but he says the scenario I describe to him is just that.

I tell Sargent the state needs to crack down. He says he agrees and supplies me with a plausible idea.

“Anyone can make a mistake and let their insurance slip, but let’s say for 2nd and 3rd time offenders, chronic offenders, who have been convicted the 2nd time or third time. I say let’s put them in the work house. Make them pay for it. Let them go out and work, then make them come back to the work house. Make them pay the expense. No tax payers dollars for this. Make them make restitution. That way a person will think, If I have to stay in Metro Work House for two or three weeks. Hmmmm, They would have a different thought about maybe breaking the law then.”

Sargent smiles. I think he likes this idea.

I get in his grill and ask him if he plans to pitch to his law maker friends on the hill.  He says he will.

I have my doubts, but we will see. 

So this is where it all stands:

Police tell me they’ve arrested hall at least 7 times.

We asked the metro prosecutors office how Hall keeps getting out of jail.

A spokeswoman for the D.A.’s office says most of her charges are “B” misdemeanors. She says Hall either pleads guilty and pays a fine or she serves her time in jail.

Oh yeah?

The Metro jail tells me ms Hall has spent, get this, 2 days…six hours…and 20 minutes in the Davidson County Jail.

2 days and six hours in jail for a wrap sheet that stretches back years.

Tell me the system is not Messed Up.

Kleiser certainly thinks it is.

“When I tell you she has as many as 7 arrests for not having a valid driver’s license, what do you think?”

“It absolutely amazes me she is on the road and not in jail!!

Jeff Lane is a soft spoken man who chooses his words carefully before he speaks.

The bespectacled man moves to the chain link fence and sighs heavily as he looks at the sub atomic structure being constructed.

The wind here on Love Circle is blowing forcefully, scattering sparks from a welder’s torch. The air is filled with the unmistakable sound of power tools and mechanized chaos.

We are standing at the site of Villa Rich. The controversial home being built at the top of Love Hill.

When completed, the modernized glass tower, will stand 73 feet tall and be a cavernous 11,000 square feet.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with a home that big. But compared to the rest of Love Circle, this will look like a lanced, bloody boil in the middle of a super model’s face.

Can you say incongruous?

A question resonating on Love Circle among residents is: How tall is too tall?

Love Circle is all ready 744 feet above sea level. According to the historical sign at the park; this hill was known as Bald Hill in the early days of settlement. During the battle of Nashville in December 1864, Union defensive lines ran across Harding Pike near here.

The sign goes on to say: Hillside lots were subdivided for residences in 1910. This site was the highest point in the old city of Nashville and in 1926 the city acquired access mainly from John Love and built the Love Circle reservoir. This two million gallon water supply sits beneath the hill

So that’s the history of Love Circle.

But it is the future that Jeff Lane is concerned about as the wind blows his long silver pony tail back onto his shoulders.

“I think it is crazy,” the owner of a modest 1500 square foot home nearby says. “Because it really doesn’t fit in with anything out here at all, and the bad thing is, it blocks the view from the public park! It doesn’t seem like you should be able to build a structure like this.”

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Lane is mild mannered and respectful of property rights of one resident versus another.

“It is always a balance between people have the right to do what they want and what is reasonable and what is not.”

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Whether you find VILLA RICH beautiful, may just depend on whom you are and what your association to the project is.

The home in question is nicknamed: VILLA RICH. This is the new super structure currently under construction at the top of Love Circle in Nashville.

Country Music super star John Rich is the building owner. This creative musician designed the project that will reportedly stand 73 feet high and account for some 11,000 square feet.

I am sure that those associated with Mr. Rich think this unique, glass enclosed edifice is beautiful.

From the inside, 73 feet above the hill which all ready stands 744 feet above sea level, affording one a dramatic and unencumbered vista in which to view all of Nashville.

Aesthetically, Villa Rich is unlike anything ever built.

To some it is a glass tower that will afford residents inside this spectacular domicile, unfettered visual access to the splendor that is Nashville.

An unencumbered 360 degree view, more than 800 feet above sea level. When completed, this glass lined edifice will allow John Rich and his family to visually inhale the marvels of Middle Tennessee.

From this lofty, pristine perch in the sky, what won’t you be able to see?

As Mr. Lane stares at the welders sparks floating up from the metallic super structure, he wonders if his new neighbor’s house will blot out the sun well before sundown.

Let’s make this perfectly clear.

Mr. Rich has done everything by the book. He has broken no laws. He has crossed every “T” and dotted every “I”. He has dealt with every obstacle the city placed before him.

In a nutshell: Mr. Rich had a dream and he is going to build that dream and he is doing it according to law.

But the project does not come without controversy and debate and revision of plans.

According to the Metro Codes Department, the project has single handedly changed the way tall super structures in the downtown corridor will be built in the future.

According to Billy Fields, the problem was, the Rich camp wanted to build a three story structure. Apparently metro codes never specified how big a story is. For instance, in a conventional world, if a story is 10 feet, then Villa Rich would be 7 stories tall.

But in this pre-Villa Rich world, a story was never classified.

“The Pyramid in Memphis, tall as the sky, is only considered 2 stories.”

Imagine that!

The pyramid is 290-feet tall. That works out to about 145 feet per story.

Billy Fields tells me that Codes looked at this project from every angle, and essentially, except for a few details, the project did not violate any laws in Metro.

“The role of the codes dept. is to review the plans and compare to what the codes are and if they are in compliance then it is to issue the permit. there were issues. They went back and made some re-drawings, they came back, it was in compliance and the permits were issued based on that. Of course there were other reviews by government agencies, but they were within their rights to build this house the way they are building it. bottom line, if it is in compliance, based on the laws, passed by metro council, then it is our responsibility and our duty to issue that.”

Publicists for Mr. Rich decline to comment for this story, but in a March 2007 interview with G.A.C. TV – Rich is quoted as saying,

“It’s going to be a Nashville landmark when it’s done without a doubt. It’s going to be one of those places people drive by and take pictures of.”

Rich also tells the publication that his home will increase property values for the entire neighborhood.

“I am within codes and everything is legal,” the publication quotes Rich as saying. “What I am building there will increase property values in the entire neighborhood. It’s going to be great. I feel for people who are concerned, because they don’t understand what I’m doing. I’m here to help; I am not here to hurt anything.”

Alisha Allgood is a wife and mother of two little boys, ages 2 and a half and 8 months.

Last summer, the 27 year old tells me that her young family moves into their brand new home.

It wasn’t long after that they knew they had a problem.

“Starting in September 2007, we had the sheriff’s office knock on doors several times leaving these notes on the door.”

She shows me the official documents with Gene Bollinger: Robertson County Sheriff’s name emboldened across the top.

I will come to learn that these are civil warrants, and the deputies are looking for Jonathan Watts, a man who once lived at the address, before the Allgood’s purchased it.

“I come home to these,” Allgood says holding up the warrants. She reads it. “While you were out we called on your for a civil process regarding Jonathan Watts.”

“Jonathan Watts? Who is that?,” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know Jonathan Watts?”

“I have no clue.”

“You are not harboring Jonathan watts?”

“Absolutely not.”

“So he’s not your buddy, not your kid.”

“No way.”

“So you don’t know him?”

“I have no clue who he is.”

“So did you call this number and say I don’t know Jonathan Watts?”

“Absolutely. Absolutely. We contact this number and they basically say they don’t know what to do; that they will let someone know. I have called Duane Holt in their office. It stopped for a few weeks but then it started coming back.”

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“By their own admission they have been to your home, seven or eight times. Have you ever been home when they come?”

“My husband was home last week2 times when they come by. They asked if Jonathan Watts lives at our house and we said no. They asked again does he live there? And we said no. They are almost implying we were harboring him or hiding him.”

“What have you found out about Mr. Jonathan watts who use to live in your house? i found out that he is wanted for dui arrests and not showing up for court dates.”

“I have found out that the sheriff’s department is looking for him on civil papers and he owes some money and they are serving him to say he owes some money.”

Allgood wants to know what kind of man the sheriff’s are looking for. She calls the Robertson County probation department and finds out that Jonathan Watts got a misdemeanor DUI and he was sentenced to probation by the court.

“I contacted the probation officer the other day, and they say they now know where he is, but it is not officially documented on paperwork. So they still have to come out to his home.”

I shake my head. “So let me get this straight: the Robertson County Probation department knows where Mr. Watts lives, but the sheriff’s keep knocking on your door anyway?”

“Yes, It’s crazy.”

What do your neighbors think with the sheriff at your house. You must be a bad lady, right?”

Allgood laughs a nervous laugh. I have touched a nerve.

“Yes. Yes that is a concern. What do my neighbors think of me. I know no one. They know the situation. They know they are looking for a prior owner. That new couple they are bad news. That is what they must be thinking.”

I go to the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office for answers.

I talk with a long time grizzled law man named P.R. West, Captain over the warrant’s division.

I ask this no nonsense deputy what the P.R. stands for. He won’t tell me.

He begins telling me about civil warrants, Mrs. Allgood and what he can about Jonathan Watts.

“We get 1200 warrants per month that we have to serve. Civil papers. Criminal warrants. The Difference between these and arrest warrants, is with criminal warrants we put a guy in jail. Civil warrants have different days they must be served; usually 30 day service. After 30 days it is returned to the court. All info given to us addresses, comes from courts, and whoever gets the warrant.

He tells me that he has one full time deputy to handle these 1200 warrants a month, though he admits that all deputies can attempt to serve them on patrol.

Captain West tells me the warrant for Mr. Watts appears to be from a bank for money he owes.

He shows me that it is an account for $2,500.

Captain West tells me that the problem with this case is that the only address they have for Jonathan Watts is the address for the Allgood home.

He shows me the back of the warrant that looks like it has been lining the bottom of a bird cage. There is scribble all over it and dates and notations. Capt. West tells me that each time a deputy attempts to serve the warrant he notates what happened so the next deputy doesn’t make the same mistake.

So far I would say this antiquated system needs some tweaking.

“We do this for two reasons. Let’s say for the 3rd time and officer sees it is no longer valid address, that will keep this guy from going out,” West says.

I ask about the last visit to the house on April 9th.

“In this case we got no info till the 9TH OF APRIL that this was an invalid address!!.”

I quietly roll my eyes.

No information this was an invalid address?

Not according to the Allgood family, who claims nobody is willing to listen.

“This lady says she has told the Sheriff’s department over and over again that he doesn’t live here, still you guys come. What’s going on? Either she has not told them or you are not listening to her,” I say.

West runs through his records shuffling papers.

“Well I have no records on this warrant, that she has called to change anything till this April 9th thing it says the parents called to advise he no longer lives here. Then on 4/10/08 we (deputies) went to the post office to check the address and they advised the officer that Watts no longer lived there so we ceased all service to that resident at that time.”

“She says on the 12th, Saturday, two days after your last entry on that warrant, Her husband Physically spoke to your deputies about this issue. Is there any notation from Saturday April 12th? She says her husband talked to deputies. He reportedly said look. We don’t know this guy. And the insinuation was maybe you are harboring this guy. Do your records show that anywhere?”

More shuffling of papers.

“No I don’t have anything on April 12th. Well then we have a bit of a mystery,” I say.

“I understand why she is upset,” Captain tells me. “But i don’t understand why people judge an officer that every time he knocks on the door that he is going to arrest someone. you know the function of the S.O. It is a constitutional office and the primary duty is to serve papers and serve the court. And run the court. We have five courts in this county now. ”

“I don’t know Captain, all I know is she says she has physically come down here to talk to people to no avail. The system seems broken.”

The captain smiles like an old fox.

“Well I am here every day till 2pm. Five days a week. Nobody called me. I will pull the warrant if they did, just like when you called.”

Then with emphasis he adds:

“We are not harassing anyone. we are trying to serve a warrant.”

I make the Captain promise that there will be no more erroneous knocks on the door at the Allgood house.

In a subsequent phone call, he assures me that he has red flagged this address and made sure the court is aware.

“The plan is a major transformation. We’ll add windows here,” he says referencing the artists rendering in his thoughts. “We’ll have a nice long sushi bar,” over here he says pointing to a brick-block wall filled with spider webs and dirt. “We’ll have table seating, and booths and,”

His words trail off as the vision is consumed by the reality of the project.

Charette tells me that he first envisioned a 125 seat restaurant. But the water and sewer capacity fees jumped up from the darkness like a carnivorous monster chewing the dollar bills right out of his wallet.

“We started looking for ways to afford it and we had to reduce the plan to 99 seats,” he says. “Our budget is between 120 and 130 thousand dollars,” he says clarifying that money will be leveraged into the restaurant over time. He tells me that the available capital to transform this dungeon of doom is 80-thousand.

The Mayor responds with a solution that will help people like Charette.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (April 25, 2008) -Mayor Karl Dean today proposed a solution for business owners negatively impacted by water capacity fees charged for new service connections by Metro Water Services.

The ordinance submitted by the Mayor’s Office allows capacity fees to be paid in installments over time, removing an unintended barrier to small business development in Nashville. The capacity fees offset the effect of increased demand on the water system infrastructure.

“Nashville has seen tremendous redevelopment in our urban neighborhoods in the past few years. While these fees serve a clear purpose, they have unintentionally prevented some entrepreneurs from being able to open a small business in these areas. This ordinance is a way for us to help those business owners and make sure our economic growth continues,” Mayor Karl Dean said.

Currently under the Metropolitan Code, customers establishing a new water service connection are required to pay the capacity fee in full before a permit is issued. The ordinance allows the directors of Metro Water and the Finance Department to establish a partial payment agreement with commercial customers, where payment would be made in 36 equal monthly installments.

“This legislation is clearly a good first step toward correcting an unintended consequence that has negatively affected small businesses. The mayor should be applauded for taking this step and his future willingness to look at water rates and fees overall,” Erik Cole, Council member and chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, said.

Joan Bennett is driving her grandson Austin back to their Goodlettsville home.  They are returning from a holiday party at the 10-year-old’s school.

Joan is less than a mile from home when she calls her only daughter, Deborah.  With Austin in the back seat she tells Deborah how much fun she had and how wonderful everything was.

It was Christmas time and the world was full of cheer.

That would be the last time that Deborah Bennett-Barnes would ever talk to her mom.

Moments later, as the cruel tides of fate would have it, Joan would be dead.

Deborah sends me this note.

My mom was a breast cancer survivor.   She had a double mastectomy two and half years ago. She had her gall bladder removed one and half years ago.  She had a total knee replacement the year she died.  I thought that since she came through all of that, we were going to have her around forever.  My family moved here from California six years ago.  We bought a big house so that my mom could live with us and be our nanny.  My son, Austin, and her really bonded and were very close.  She picked him up from school every day.  She volunteered at his school from first grade to fifth grade and was known as “Grandma Joan” to the entire school.  The day she died, was my son’s class holiday party.  She was there at the party and got to speak with many of the teachers and parents that had come to know her. She called me and told me what a wonderful day she had.  The next call I got was telling me that she had been in a very bad accident and that she and my son were taken to Skyline hospital and that I should hurry.

My mother was dead and my son was injured.

According to first responders on the scene, Joan Bennett had a medical situation while driving a mile from her home.  She lost control of her tiny car and veered off the road, striking an NES pole.

Three months pass.  Winter grey skies will begin to yield to warmer days and the renewal of spring.

The family tells me it is finally beginning to feel closure.

Then the letter from NES arrives.

The letter addressed to the dead woman is terse at best.

It essentially indicates that the 73-year-old hit an NES phone pole and she now owes the power company for the damage.

“Getting this bill in March just opened a healing wound.  I really wanted to send NES a bill because their pole killed my mother, but I didn’t know how much to charge for her life,” Deborah will write me.

Her words are heart filled and thought provoking.

Getting the letter sends serious sticker shock through Deborah’s home.

Deborah tells me that it is unbelievable that NES wants money to fix the pole that killed her mother.
The thought of paying for the pole she so closely associates with the death of her mother was as shocking as hitting on 20 and pulling an ace.

It’s just not something you think you’ll ever see.

“It was an accident,” the woman says, clutching her son on the front stoop of their Goodlettsville home.

The bill is for an astronomical $14,493.  The labor alone is more than $12,000.

“That’s outrageous,” Deborah’s husband Phil Barnes spews. “$12,000 in labor to replace a wooden pole is outrageous to me!!”
 
“I was very shocked.  I couldn’t believe what it was saying.  I got a bill for a pole that my mother hit and was killed from and the bill was almost $15,000.  I couldn’t believe it.  I thought it was a rip off.  I kept looking at it.  I kept saying, ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’,” Deborah asked with a touch of anger in her voice.

“It was not personal. It was matter of fact. And by the way, send this to your insurance company and they will pay it. I was very surprised and shocked.  It was an accident. Why send someone a bill for the accident? Why is it so outrageously expensive?  Why is it you turn it into your insurance company and it takes care of it? That is why our insurance rates are so high.  Pass the buck… Don’t give a darn that someone gave their life,” she adds.

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I go to NES and talk to Tim Hill.  He is a nice man who has to stand in front of the cameras when things are tough.  Sometimes it is about power crews cutting down trees; sometimes it is about ice storms and nobody with power.

On this day, we are talking about sending an exorbitant bill to a family still in mourning.

“That is a major feeder line through there,” Hill tells me. “It’s right along Caldwell Lane.  A lot of people are not aware if they hit a pole they are responsible for the bill.  For example, if they hit a fire hydrant they will get a bill from the water company.  Many don’t understand why they are getting it.  It goes straight to the insurance company.  Usually, they never see it till the end when they get a final bill and realize what their insurance company has paid.  Normally we send them to the insurance company.”

“Why do we get this bill don’t you guys make enough money here at NES”, I ask. “Why not homogenize it in, massage it into your over all expenses? Nobody wants to get a bill like this when momma dies.”

“The sad part of this; there was a fatality.  Most times it is not.  It’s usually a wreck.  So we bill like we always do.  For anyone who wrecks our equipment.  What makes this bad is the lady died… My condolences to the family,” said Hill.  “I am sure it was probably very difficult to get this bill.  It was probably a surprise to them and we realize that.”

I ask Hill how one power pole can possible cost almost $15,000 to replace.

“It was emergency situation, after-hours work.  This is a main feeder line, feeding several big sub divisions.  That is a main distribution lines, so they want to get that fixed.  Not only because of the reliability, make sure power stays on, but also cause of the safety factor. If they had to replace that pole, probably, only thing supporting it was the wires.  They had to get it out and get a new one in as quickly as possible,” he said.

According to the bill, labor cost $12,149, vehicles $1,028, materials $776, traffic control $540… Grand total $14,493…
 

“Right, well part of that is, we had 15 people out there.  We had a line crew and a pole crew.  They were out there eight hours from 3:30 p.m. till almost midnight and by contract, they work double time on emergency situations.  We have a lot of indirect costs, like by Metro law we are required to have police on site to direct traffic for safety.  We have no say so in this we have indirect costs; materials, supplies, uses of trucks.   Standard charges we do for any job. ”
 
I read the letter to Hill:
“It is our understanding you are responsible for the damage to our equipment as listed below.  You are going to feel shock.”

“Yes I would. I don’t disagree with that,” he says. “The problem here is the lady, there was a fatality.  Normally these go right to the insurance company.  We didn’t have the address to the insurance company so they sent it to her home.  I can understand the hurt they are going through on top of the fact they just lost their mother.  I sympathize with them.  This is normal.  It is policy.  All they have to do is turn it over to insurance company. And their insurance company takes care of it.  Under normal circumstances they probably don’t even know we billed the insurance company directly. ”

I tell Hill that if a plane crashes right now during this interview, God forbid, Al and I are gone, working the story that we didn’t know was coming our way.  We’re on the clock till the story is over or till we are replaced, more than likely by the night crew, which will also work the story till it is over or till the next crew comes in, probably the morning crew.

It is very unlikely that Al of I, or the next shift or the shift beyond, are going to paid anything extra for doing our jobs.

Like a complicated New York Times Cross Word Puzzle, Hill begins to explain the timing of the incident to me.  The accident takes place in the early afternoon. He tells me that crews arrive on scene around 3 p.m.  He explains how many of the men on these crews get off at 3 p.m.

He tells me that many of the workers have decades on the job and make a lot of money per hour, times that by two and your dollars really begin adding up quickly.

He tells me that some of the expense in the final figure also goes toward employee benefits and retirement accounts.  Hill says that part of the equation is tough to understand without the assistance of an abacus and a sagacious CPA who can help break it all down.

When I relay all this to Deborah Bennett Barnes, she says bluntly, “It’s just money, money, money… We want the money and do what you need to get us the money.  That is Messed Up!”

Margaret Guttke is a nice woman in a tough spot.
 
The 51 year old has very limited mobility in her legs, pain associated with Fibromyalgia, she tells me.
 
The former 9 1 1 dispatcher and corrections officer now lives in a tiny apartment in city subsidized housing adjacent to Centennial Park.
 
The woman is quick witted, just not quick footed.
 
Guttke is confined to a power wheel chair to get her up and down and all around.
 
To the naked eye, this seems like the Cadillac of wheel chairs.

It is a Quickie Freestyle.
 
She shows me a bill that indicates it cost $7,500 dollars.
 
“Medicare” paid for it she says.
 
I ask her what’s the problem.
 
She says she is afraid that is going to get stuck.
 
“This is my legs!”  the 350 pound woman tells me. “If it gets stuck I am stuck.”
 
She tells me that the wheel chair gets hung up on some carpeting and when she goes onto the grass.

She tells me that she loves to commune with nature, and feed the birds and squirrels.
 
During the course of this interview, she will take her wheel chair into the grass near her apartment building and the power chair will stall.
 
“Stuck! Totally stuck!,” she says, her wheels spinning round and round in the damp grass.
 
Guttke tells me that she cannot get out of her apartment without a rolling start.  I will come back to her home the next day and see what she is talking about.
 
The threshold at the bottom of the door, essentially the weather stripping that is about an inch high that keeps the draft from blowing the under the door, also prevents her wheel chair from easily transgressing this portal.
 
She slowly maneuvers the heavy chair to the threshold. The wheels jam against the soft rubber.
 
As predicted the chair stalls.
 
It seems like a seven thousand five hundred dollar, brand new, wheel chair would have the guts to get over a one inch barrier, but it seems that it does not.
 
Guttke shows me a pamphlet from another company.
 
Two women are smiling in their power chairs positioned at the top of the Grand Canyon. The symbolism is simple. These chairs can go anywhere and do anything.
 
“Can they go to the Moon,” a co-worker jokes upon my return to the WKRN.
 
Guttke is not that fortunate.
 
I call up the company that services her wheel chair.
 
The district manager is a very nice man who seems genuinely concerned for Guttke.
 
He tells me that he has personally visited her apartment and the company has been there 3 times to make adjustments. I ask him to come again.
 
He agrees.

The next day a technician and manager arrive.
 
After a conversational rope a dope, in which we talk for about 10 minutes about power intervals, and wheel chair inertia, off-road capabilities and Medicare warranties, that may or may not have been violated by Guttke taking her wheel chair outside, we come to the moment of truth.
 
What is it that Guttke wants?
 
She wants a wheel chair that she can count on.

A wheel chair that won’t stall in the dead of night, the heat of summer, the pouring rain.
 
In a previous interview I ask Guttke if she is a complainer?  She says no. She doesn’t want to bother anyone, but she needs something done for her safety and her peace of mind.
 
The manager, Sonja Rohn, tells me that this company is going to stand by its customers no matter what.
 
Rohn is a pleasant woman who listens intently to all of Ms. Guttke’s concerns. She promises to put Guttke in another power chair that meets her satisfaction.
 
“We won’t leave them stranded,” she says. “Because she is our customer we will service it for a lifetime.. Our company will go beyond and above regardless of the warranty. We are a passionate company,” she says softly.

I think this problem would have eventually sorted itself out.  I do however, think my involvement expedited this outcome.
 
I can’t get to all the customer / product dissatisfaction queries I receive. 

I am happy I was able to tell this story, and perhaps make a small difference in the life of Margaret Guttke who is doing the best she can with the cards dealt to her.