- For being instrumental in bringing nationally recognized authors like Ken Kesey, Anne  Rice, Maya Angelou, Ray Bradbury, Larry McMurtry, Nikki Giovanni, William Vollemann and a host of others to Stockton for lectures and book signings. 
-  For providing a venue for California authors like Gerald Haslam,
Maxine Hong Kingston, Leonard Gardner, Sal Noto, Floyd Salas, Richard Dokey, Larry Meredith, Charles Clerc and dozens of other to personally promote their writing. 
-  For restoring the Harvard Bookstore, Stockton’s oldest bookstore, and helping add 15 years to its life. 
-  For restoring The Bookmark, and keeping it going through thick & thin for over 22 years. 
-  For co-founding and running the Mystery Reader’s & Writer’s Symposium at UOP for ten years and bringing writers like Tony Hillerman, Bill Pronzini, Marsha Muller and many more to Stockton. 
-  For bringing 49ers coach Bill Walsh to Stockton for a book signing that drew 300 fans. 
-  For sacrificing your financial future on an ill-fated expansion project. 
-  For continuing to service the Stockton literary community into the future with an on-line Internet based business providing access to new, used and rare books worldwide. 

Thus, for all this and more, I would like to honor myself with the first ever S.T.A.L.L. Award: Stockton’s Top Arts Literary Loser Award.  Along with a handsom plaque and proclamations from the city council, I will also receive the following: 
-  Abandonment by the Stockton Arts Commission after 20 years of
service. 
-  The kiss-off from Kaiser Permanente because I refuse to wait 8 months
to be paid. 
-  Continued requests for discounts as my business circles the drain. 
-  Continued requests for donations from people who have never set foot
in my shop. 
-  The ever popular compliment “I just love your shop” as they walk out
the door empty-handed. 
-  The continued belief that Barns & Noble is “the next level” and that
the people there know anything about books. 

To my loyal and faithful customers, and you know who you are, I thank you for this award on behalf of myself, my wife Wendi and my son Sam, who have shared in the interesting lifestyle afforded by a life devoted to books.  To the rest of you swine, good luck and godspeed on the new Border’s in Spanos Park. 

William Maxwell

Dear Editor:
Letter writer Dennis Buller has swallowed the oil and auto industries' Chicken Little propaganda hook, line and sinker.  The legislation attempting to set goals for California automobile emissions standards is needed because the federal legislature can't wean itself from the oil and auto industry's money, and the state legislature showed its true colors a few years ago when they bought votes with a reduction in car registration fees.  History has shown, from seat belts to catalytic converters, that these industries only change when forced to, all the while crying poverty.  They love the SUVs because they can take a passenger vehicle, pump it up like Angelina Jolee's lips and tack on several thousand dollars profit.  They create the market with hugh advertising campaigns, and then they fill it.

If you are affluent enough to own a boat, or need the extra hauling capability, then you should be willing to pay an impact fee.  If you are driving yourself to work or around town in a gas guzzling behemoth, you should not be rewarded.  The argument that the technology does not exist is spurious at best.  The technology to put humans on the moon did not exist until Kennedy made the challenge.  California, the fifth largest economy on the planet, has created a possible gold mine for the company which can develop the technology to exploit this market.  Keeping older, less efficient cars running longer will be mitigated by lessening the impact of producing and eventually disposing of a greater number of vehicles.  Right now, more Measure K money goes to auto related project rather than public transit.  This is exactly the opposite of how it should be. Ironically, now they want to introduce personalized license plates to fund Delta preservation, when oil and tire residue in the storm drains is a major source of water pollution.

I am much more concerned about the future of the finite resources of my environment and my eroding civil liberties than I am about the future of a 19th century technology and limitation of my choices of similar products.

Bill Maxwell

---

The evil leaf blower generates unsafe noise levels of 70-75 decibels.

As I rapidly approach a significant "oh" birthday, I find myself in full fledged geezerhood.   I ride my bike to work a few days each week and have noticed I travel from one leaf blower noise zone to another all along the ride.  Apart from the pollution the gas driven version of these "labor saving devices"  put into the air, the noise they make is their most obnoxious aspect.  Can't some one come up with a muffler for  these things? On these warm summer nights when you open up all the windows and doors to let the delta breeze flow through, it is really annoying to have to listen to your neighbor blow his lawn and sidewalk until the sun goes down.  And now we have those gas powered scooters zipping around the neighborhood creating more air and noise pollution. I'm not so old a geezer that I would say "get a horse", but I am willing to say "get a bike". And a rake.

Maxwell

If we must name schools after important people, then lets make the name a history lesson itself.  A few examples:  Dalton Trumbo Elementary, Agustin Zamorano Middle School, C.E.S.Wood High School.  If you know who these folks are, good for you.  If not, look them up.  The experience might take you back to your school days.

Bill Maxwell

Dear Editor:

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN DOWNTOWN STOCKTON? 

Is it the ghost of "redevelopment" past come back to haunt us?  Every time I pick up the paper another building is being torn down.  There is enough open space down there now that you could start farming.  Or put in another housing development.   The theater complex is rumored to be dead in the water. The reported "tap room" is yet to open.  The city seems  to be determined to relocate all the low income folks from downtown out to concentration camps  near French Camp.  The two architectural gems of the city, the Hotel Stockton and Henry Apartments, sit quietly rotting. And this Starkweather person is suddenly keeping a very low profile.

Perhaps the "Gateway Block" really is the future for downtown:  acres of parking lots with fake old buildings on them hawking fast food and cheap beer.  Perfectly homogeneous with most everything north of the Calaveras River. Or maybe a housing project is not such a crazy idea:  carve up the water front into single family lots and sell them to the highest bidder.

I know the powers that be downtown are trying.  Some improvements have been completed.  And certainly, pockets are not being lined the way they were in those dark days that spawned the "modern" court house building. My introduction to downtown Stockton was in the mid 1970s.  From my little shop window in the 700 block of East Main I could look out on one of the worst patches of "Skid Row".   But you know what?  There were people and businesses.  Maybe not flourishing, but certainly getting by.  On that block there were at least two restaurants (with waitresses), a laundry, a book store, a paint store, a bike shop, a piano repair shop, and a couple of residential hotels. Sure, there were also prostitutes and winos and crazy folks set loose from the State Hospital by Gov. Reagan.  But there was a sense of  vitality and an economy.  Today that block is little more than boarded up buildings.

Build all the free parking you want, but until you have people all you'll have is a ghost town.  There must be a reason, and a convenient means for people to work and live downtown.  Movie theaters and box chain stores aren't going to provide these.  It's going to take affordable housing, small businesses and convenient and reliable public transportation.  With water and land becoming more precious, we need to start building high density housing now.  I for one would love to spend my "golden" years in a high rise without a yard or a bunch of empty rooms to look after.  At present, for this I'd have to move to a different city.  And those folks relocated to French Camp are going to be hard pressed to find someplace to buy cigarettes at 2:00 in the morning, let alone groceries at 4:00 in the afternoon.  I guess they are expected to hop in their SUVs and zip on over to the Food For Less five miles away.

As the voice in actor Kevin Kostner's head told him in the movie Field of Dreams:  "If you build it they will come."  If we plan and build for people to work and live and not just park and shop, they will indeed come.  And stay.

Bill MaxwellDivide & Conquer (An open letter to the Stockton Arts Commission)

Dear Arts Commissioners:

    It has been brought to my attention that Barnes and Noble has requested the Stockton Arts Commission to break the long-standing relationship between the Commission and Maxwell's Bookmark. When the David Sedaris and Billy Collins events were announced some months ago, I was asked by an Arts Commission representative to supply books for both of these events. Should the Arts Commission decide to change our relationship, I would expect them to honor their prior commitments.

    Let me present my case for continuing our relationship beyond the currently agreed-upon projects. Maxwell's Bookmark has supplied book sales and support for Arts Commission events for twenty years, a full decade before Barnes and Noble opened their Stockton store.

HISTORY:

    The Bookmark has been a Stockton literary tradition for over sixty years. It was founded by Stockton natives George and Emily Leistner, and has been in its current location since 1939. In 1970, Stockton native and long-time employee Harry Shelby bought the store, and sold it to me in 1981.

    I have been buying and selling books in Stockton for over 25 years, since my 1975 entree into the business with The Harvard Bookstore when it was located downtown on East Main. I am a fourth generation Stocktonian. My great grandfather came through Stockton on his way to the gold fields in 1850, and returned to settle here with my grandfather in 1900. My grandfather founded Maxwell Motor Supply Co., which still has a branch in Stockton, and was also a Port Commissioner and President of the Chamber of Commerce.  He lived just two blocks from the Bookmark.

    Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, has corporate headquarters in New York. All company profits go out of the community to advance the corporate profit line.

SUPPORT FOR THE ARTS:

    My relationship with the Arts Commission dates back to 1978, just two years after its founding, when the Commission sponsored Arts Festivals in Victory Park. At that time I had a small bookshop on Yosemite Street. Each year I set up a booth at the Arts Festival, displayed books by local authors and books about regional history, and did book binding demonstrations. This began a long sustained relationship with the Stockton Arts Commission.

    In 1982, my wife Wendi and I began work with the Commission sponsoring ten years' of Mystery Readers' Conferences as fund raisers for the public and UOP libraries. The Arts Commission presented us with awards for our service. Barnes and Noble had not yet entered the public consciousness.

    Throughout those years and right up to the present, I have helped the Marian Jacobs Literary Forum bring major literary figures to Stockton, from Larry McMurtry and Irving Stone, to Adrienne Rich and Robert Pinsky. I personally made the phone call to Tony Hillerman securing him as the first major speaker of our Mystery Reader's Conference. I also made the call which brought Ken Kesey and his fabled bus to Stockton, one the most successful events ever sponsored by our group.

    On my own, I have hosted events in my store for Anne Rice, Maya Angelou, Maxine Hong Kingston, William Vollmann, Bill Walsh and long list of local authors including Leonard Gardner, Gerald Haslam, Gary Soto, Ricardo Pimentel, Dan Goleman and Anna Villegas. I have also worked closely with the Business Leadership Summit since its inception, and provide sales for all their author speakers. I assisted the University of the Pacific when they brought Nikki Giovanni and Ruben Carter, and helped the Stockton Public Library when they brought Gwendoline Brookes and others to town.  My commitment to the arts in our community is a strong and lasting one, well documented and known to the public.

VANISHING INDEPENDENTS:

    I am certain that the Arts Commission is aware of the plight of independent bookstores all across America.  Recently, columnist Patricia Holt spoke to the Stockton Friends of the Library about this issue. Among the arguments set forth in support of locally owned independent stores are that more of the money stays in the community, and that their inventory is not determined by computerized criteria collated half a continent away. But more germane to the Arts Commission, locally owned independent stores, whether they are selling books or barbecue, speak to the cultural diversity of a unique community.

    Barnes and Noble has argued that the Arts Commission should not grant exclusivity to any business.  B&N claims they just want "a piece of the action". The facts are that B&N already owns 95% of the new book market in the greater Stockton area.  In 1991, Barnes and Noble announced they were opening a store in Stockton. The NEXT DAY, after 30 years in business, our largest independent book store, Avenue Books, closed its doors forever. They did not want to even try to compete with a corporate chain of this magnitude. When the Barnes and Noble store opened on March Lane, my sales dropped 15%.  Luckily, I deal in a variety of used and antiquarian books as well as new books, so I managed eventually to make up the lost sales in other ways.

    Bookstore Ltd. and Readmore Books were not so lucky.  They too closed shortly after Barnes and Noble opened. B&N closed their own B. Dalton sister store in the mall so as not to compete against themselves. I decided to expand my store in an attempt to maintain new book sales, but could not open on time (due to permit and construction delays), and in my first year gave up 30% of my sales to the new Barnes and Noble in the mall.  I was never able to recover from this setback and closed the expansion after only two years. I will be paying off that debt for the next seven years.

    Stockton has a long litany of independent bookstores who have been forced into closing their doors. Avenue Books, Bookstore Ltd., Readmore Books, The Bookseller, Big Joe's, Fat City and The Harvard book stores have all closed leaving Stockton with an ever shrinking diversity of choice. It is with good reason that B&N is known throughout the book trade as one of the "Killer Bs."

ILLEGAL BUSINESS PRACTICES:

    Last year, The American Bookseller's Association, of which I am a member, filed suit against B&N and Borders for illegal business practices.  The ABA decided to settle during trial rather that risk millions of dollars in court costs to be paid by their membership of independent bookstores. There is still a case pending against B&N by an independent who was forced into bankruptcy by these illegal business practices.  It would seem these corporations don't just want a piece of the action, they want it all.

DO WHAT WE DO BEST:

    By having both Maxwell's Bookmark and Barnes and Noble do what they do best, the Arts Commission can actually improve the richness and diversity of literature in Stockton. The Arts Commission has the opportunity to provide roles for both my store and Barnes and Noble. Leave the relationship with our store alone.

    Let us continue to support the Commission, bring authors to Stockton, and provide book sales at events. Rather than fighting over the sales of a few events sponsored by the Commission, ask Barnes and Noble to support literacy in the way they do best - by using their national marketing clout to bring even more authors and diversity to the Stockton area. B&N does not need to rattle their lawyers' sabers, nor do they need to use more public money to increase their coffers, and they certainly don't need the few extra dollars generated by the sales at Arts Commission events. By supporting one of the few independent bookstores left in Stockton and asking Barnes and Noble to increase author visits to Stockton, the Arts Commission can improve the diversity and richness of Stockton's literary landscape.

Sincerely,

William Maxwell
Maxwell's Bookmark

The evidence  supplied by the City of Stockton plus the millions of tax payer's dollars already invested in our downtown, should be reason enough for the Planning Commission and the City Council to stop any more "big box" developments in north Stockton.  Let me add a few more reasons:

1.  This sort of development on Hammer Lane is discriminatory against those of us who live in central and south Stockton, predominantly Hispanic and African American neighborhoods, by forcing us to drive several miles for the same services offered more conveniently in northern neighborhoods.  This makes these products and services more expensive to central and south residents due to the added travel costs. These are the same neighborhoods which can least afford the extra expenses.

2.  These developments further degrade the air quality for all of us by forcing people to drive many miles to these locals.  Now that gasoline costs over $2.00 a gallon, I doubt that very many people will be driving from Jackson or even Lodi to shop in Stockton.

3.  These developments diminish traditional neighborhoods and go directly against the "urban village"  model so highly regarded in modern urban planning.

4.  Big box stores are filled with products made in China and other countries which pay their workers what amount to "slave wages."  They are a large contributing factor to our huge trade deficit and global environmental disasters.  Reducing our consumption and dependency on these products is to everyone's benefit.

Everyone from The Downtown Alliance, The Malls, Lincoln Center and The Miracle Mile to the  Charter Way, Country Club and Yosemite Street businesses should be dead-set against this sort of development.  The commission and the council need to "just say no."

Sincerely,

Bill Maxwell
Maxwell's Bookmark
Member: Miracle Mile Improvement Association &
                 Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce

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