I’ve heard a lot of questions and speculation about Applewood Apartments owner Joe Levitt. Who is he? What does he do with the money he collects from his tenants? As the news media have been reporting, the City of Oak Ridge has contended that the apartments are unfit for human habitation and is proceeding with a series of inspections to identify safety and health problems that must be addressed (or else the apartments should come down). Levitt, meanwhile, continues to claim (as he has done for years) that he is working as fast as he can to resolve the problems.
So who is he and where is the money he has collected from his tenants over the years? How is it that he evades code enforcement efforts? I’ve encountered Levitt in city meetings and I’ve heard stories about him (both as an attorney and as a slumlord), but I decided to Google for more information. It seems that Oak Ridge’s experience is not unique. Levitt, who has practiced law for more than 50 years, has a long history of thumbing his nose at authorities, often with success. Here are a few items I found:
* In the March 4, 2009, News Sentinel I read that Levitt is fighting Knox County efforts to force the demolition of a former Ingle’s Supermarket building on Clinton Highway that he owns together with John Spina. The county Office of Neighborhoods and Codes Enforcement wanted to pursue a demolition contract for the building and bill the owner for the cost under the county blighted property ordinance, but in February the two owners filed a complaint in Chancery Court saying that the ordinance “makes no provision for demolition of a building until it is acquired by the county under eminent domain.” Now the county is no longer trying to use the blighted property ordinance, but is considering action under the dirty lot ordinance, which also allows for demolition.
* In 2005, he was the lawyer who represented some Knox County adult bookstores in their fight against an ordinance that imposed restrictions on sexually oriented businesses (Adult bookstores sue Knox County, May 7, 2005). The County won this one, but the case wasn’t concluded until this year, and it went all the way to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
* Some years ago, he reportedly fought a colorful battle against automobile towing in the City of Knoxville. According to an anti-towing website, Levitt discovered that illegally parked construction workers’ cars would not be towed or ticketed, so he bought an old junker car and tied a ladder to the roof (”the better to impersonate a construction worker”), then proceeded to park wherever he pleased. Eventually a constable and an agent from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation discovered what he was up to. As the website tells it:
- In retaliation, the two cops attempted a crime of their own by an unconstitutional towing which is felony car theft. Levitt returned to his car before the crime was completed, and explained to the cops the error of their ways. The crooked cops, alleging “resisting arrest,” prepared to assault and handcuff Levitt. However, wily Levitt was too sharp for the dim cops and turned the tables, using the cops’ own handcuffs to handcuff the cops. Levitt then made a citizen’s arrest and escorted his prisoners to the county judicial commissioner (as required to issue a probable cause affidavit and prepare an arrest warrant). The amused commissioner threw all of them out of his jailhouse office, refusing to enforce the law of the land. At least the attorney avoided a parking ticket and tow bill, as well as avoiding a dull day.
* In 1997, Levitt was charged with resisting arrest, reckless driving, and failure to carry and display a driver’s license on demand in connection with an incident in which he tried to drive around a Tennessee Highway Patrol roadblock. He was eventually convicted only of not carrying and displaying his driver’s license, but that conviction was eventually reversed (in 2001) by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on the grounds that the roadblock was unconstitutional and the officers lacked probable cause to stop his vehicle.
Levitt also is an active buyer and seller (and sometimes forecloser) of real estate, mostly in small transactions. I only ran across one big transaction, reported in the News Sentinel April 17, 2007 real estate transactions list: Joseph Levitt Jr. to Baron II LLC, in Williams-Henson Luth subdivision, $1,312,912
Anderson County Solid Waste has announced the state-sponsored household hazardous waste collection event for 2009. Anyone interested in volunteering to take surveys or assist the State’s contractor in sorting materials should contact Geoff Trabalka by e-mail at gtrabalka@andersontn.org or phone at (865) 463-6845.
ANDERSON COUNTY
HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE
COLLECTION EVENT
Household Hazardous Waste is anything generated in the household that has a hazardous property. A material is hazardous if it is flammable, corrosive, toxic, or reactive with heat or contact with metals.
We will accept:
HOUSEHOLD CLEANERS: DRAIN OPENERS, POLISHERS, DISINFECTANTS
HOME IMPROVEMENT / MAINTENANCE: OIL-BASED PAINT, ADHESIVES, STRIPPERS, THINNERS, REMOVERS
HOME LAWN AND GARDEN: HERBICIDES, PESTICIDES, POISONS, FUNGICIDES, WOOD PRESERVATIVES
AUTOMOTIVE FLUIDS: OIL& FUEL ADDITIVES, STARTER FLUIDS, SOLVENTS, CLEANERS, REFRIGERANTS, COOLANTS, FUEL
MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLIES: RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES, PHOTO PROCESSING CHEMICALS, POOL CHEMICALS, MEDICINES / DRUGS, AEROSOLS / COMPRESSED GAS, CHEMISTRY SET CHEMICALS, COMPUTERS & RELATED EQUIPMENT
PLEASE DO NOT BRING:
LATEX (WATER-BASED) PAINT, ALKALINE BATTERIES, MEDICAL & INFECTIOUS WASTE, EXPLOSIVES / AMMUNITION, RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS (including smoke detectors), ANY EMPTY CONTAINERS
AUTOMOTIVE OIL, LEAD ACID BATTERIES
NO COMMERCIAL & AGRI-BUSINESS MATERIALS
SATURDAY
APRIL 4, 2009
9 am TO 2 pm
OAK RIDGE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT
100 WOODBURY LN. (Behind K-Mart)
OAK RIDGE
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL:
ANDERSON COUNTY SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
463-6845
SPONSORED BY:
ANDERSON COUNTY SOLID WASTE MGT. and the
TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
Michael Silence has a comment in today’s News Sentinel that (contrary to his intention) helps to underline just how difficult it can be for governments to make meaningful reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. He says that it would be silly for the state to require vending machines on state property to either use energy-efficient lights for advertising or have the advertising lights removed, because he figures that business owners should be removing those lights to save money. It’s not that simple!
I’m pleased and proud to be able to say that the City of Oak Ridge has removed the advertising lighting from vending machines (they kept the lighting that helps people use the machine, but removed the lights that only illuminate a soft drink company’s name) after TVA recommended this as a way to save energy and costs. TVA said the city could save $95 annually per machine. I figure it’s just $80 at current rates, but it’s not small change.
It’s not that simple to cut these lights everywhere though, because the owner of the vending machine usually doesn’t pay the electric bill for the power that lights the machine. When I suggested that my employer (ORNL) should follow the city’s lead and cut off the advertising lights on its vending machines as part of its “Sustainable Campus Initiative,” I was told that the vending machine owner doesn’t want to do that — mostly because they figure the lights might help their business, and they think it would be a waste of the perfectly good light bulbs that the vendor bought to light the machines. So the vendor doesn’t need to consider the real cost of his actions, and ORNL continues to foot the bill for useless lighting, while missing out on what should be an easy opportunity for reducing energy consumption.
I have no doubt that the same situation prevails at the vending sites in state buildings, at state parks, etc. That is, the vending companies that receive the benefit of the lighting in their machines don’t pay the costs of that lighting — instead they pass it along to the state’s taxpayers — so they have no economic incentive to do the right thing. I don’t know who in the legislature proposed this legislation, but whoever it was deserves our thanks.
This is just one example of how difficult it can be to curtail activities that have a negative impact on our environment. In general, consumers of energy aren’t being charged the full costs of their (our!) actions, so they (we!) don’t have the necessary economic incentive to change their (our!) behavior.
I was gratified when the Oak Ridge City Council and city staff took the first steps toward a program of “greening” the city. I hope we will be able to continue to follow through with actions, even when those actions won’t always provide a clear near-term economic benefit.
Added on March 23: The bill (SB 395 – HB 616) has a fiscal note indicating that it would save the state $438,000 annually. What’s silly about that?
I have an empty space in my heart, because my father has left the world. I’m glad I was able to be with him and my mother when he passed away. Now I’m back in Oak Ridge, but I’m feeling distracted by memories. Tomorrow, Tuesday, would have been his 88th birthday.
Thinking of those he would someday leave behind (and having written obituaries for many of his colleagues and friends over the years), he drafted most of his own obituary:
David M. Smith, Morris K. Jesup Professor Emeritus of Silviculture at Yale University and author of the world’s most widely used forestry textbook, died in Hamden, Connecticut, on March 7, 2009, at the age of 87.
Born March 10, 1921 at Bryan, Texas, the son of John B. and Doris (Clark) Smith; he grew up in Kingston, Rhode Island, and was a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, receiving a BS in botany in 1941.
During World War II he trained to be an Air Force meteorologist at New York University and served as a weather forecasting officer at heavy bomber headquarters in North Africa and Italy. Later at Yale he instituted the first U.S. instruction in forest meteorology.
At Yale University he received the Master of Forestry in 1946 and PhD in 1950, joining the faculty in 1947. He retired in 1990 after 43 years on the faculty of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He was an expert on silviculture, the technology of growing forests. He was the author or co-author of 4 editions of the textbook, The Practice of Silviculture, which is used throughout North America and, in several translations, throughout the world, and of numerous research papers and commentaries on forestry practices. His most important scientific contributions were in developing the concept that complex mixtures of tree species can be managed as even-aged aggregations in which different groups of species occupy different levels in stratified mixtures and that they often arise from “advanced” seedlings that naturally appear beneath forests. In his 43 years at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies he served as an advisor and mentor to numerous graduate students and directed the management of the Yale Forests, totaling 12,000 acres of New England forest land. He was a very popular teacher and an esteemed colleague.
American Forests gave him its Distinguished Service Award in 1990. He was a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters and received the Distinguished Service Award of its New England section in 1969 and 1993, the only person to receive this award twice. In 1986 his forestry efforts in Maine brought him an honorary Sc. D. degree from Bates College and in 1993 the University of Rhode Island awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree. In the early 1970s he was silvicultural consultant for the President’s Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment. He was also an advisor to the US Forest Service and an advisor to government agencies in Australia and British Columbia.
For four decades Smith was either a Director or the President of both the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and Connwood Foresters, Inc., the nation’s oldest forest landowners’ cooperative. He was on the Connecticut Forest Practices Advisory Board during the 1990s and for many years a Director of the Hamden Land Conservation Trust.
He is survived by his wife of nearly 58 years, Catherine V. A. Smith, daughters Ellen D. Smith of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Nancy V. A. Smith of Carbondale, Colorado, sons-in-law Richard Norby of Oak Ridge and John Stewart of Carbondale, grandson Karl Norby, and brother Allen Smith of Hendersonville, North Carolina, as well as by a niece, nephews, and cousins.
A memorial service will be held at a later date. In keeping with David Smith’s wishes, the family requests contributions in lieu of flowers to Yale University, designated for The David M. Smith Forestry Scholarship Fund, to School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511.
