KNOXVILLE — Knox County Animal Control is looking for a raccoon to help pay for a van. The department has asked the county several times for a larger transport van with a cooled cage area, and the budget office has turned it down each time. Then field supervisor Lonnie Beck read that animal control in Hanover County, Virginia, paid for body cameras with T-shirt sales after a raccoon turned up drunk in a state liquor store. The Virginia chief told reporters the raccoon “just helped us a little bit faster.” Beck took that to mean the department had been asking for the van the wrong way.
Beck has since driven past a wine shop in Sequoyah Hills more than once, and he has asked a couple of officers to go in and ask about the dumpster behind it. The officers keep asking about the van instead. He is tired of explaining it.
“I’ve got the van figured out,” Beck said. “I’ve had the van figured out. What I need is somebody to walk in there and ask about their dumpster. And don’t say why. Just ask.”
At a budget workshop, Commissioner Janice Rowan asked whether the department could submit the van request through the regular process. Beck said it had, and that he keeps the folder in his truck.
“It’s the same folder,” he said. “I just keep adding to it. You want it? I can go out and get it. It’s got the Virginia article in there now, too.”
Some of the officers have already sketched a T-shirt with a raccoon in sunglasses. Beck told them to put it away until there is a raccoon.
“I’m not printing anything,” he said. “Not yet. Put it in a drawer.”
The wine shop locks its dumpster at closing, which Beck has noted.