Tuesday, December 15, 2009

$300,000 for an election sounds like a bargain after Metro spent $400,000 on a private PR campaign

Before you start heeding the memes, refrains, and mantras of Music City Center proponents that a referendum on the Mayor's plan will cost Metro $300,000, bear in mind that their side has already overspent an initial convention center contract much more; over $100,000 more than an election would cost, to be exact. Metro's convention center backers failed to stay within their $75,000 budget and instead paid a wealthy PR firm $458,000 to influence public opinion. That included $10,000 for twittering and blogging on behalf of building the big box.

Heaven forbid we spend tax dollars on actually getting the public pulse on the convention center rather than burning vital Metro revenues on twittering and blogging.

1 comment:

  1. You have in the past stated your opposition to referendum. You have also spoken our against the cost of special elections (as in the case of English only).

    Isn't your current stance at odds with earlier positions? Couldn't the money spent fora non-binding referendum be better used to keep the Downtown Library open? There is a certain irony in using that location as a backdrop to launch an effort that takes money which could be spent to keep the facility open.

    ReplyDelete