Tennessean Acknowledges Controversy of Whitson's Appointment to BZA and Mayor Dean's Role

From Michael Cass:

Tonight the council unanimously confirmed the appointment of former Councilman Chris Whitson to the Metro Board of Zoning Appeals.

Dean’s appointment of Whitson upset some council members and neighborhood leaders because the attorney lives in Belle Meade, which is not subject to Metro zoning laws, and he took some stances on the council that some viewed as anti-neighborhoods.

“Mr. Whitson on a number of occasions opposed efforts by neighborhoods to protect themselves from incompatible development,” Lane Easterly, treasurer of the Nashville Neighborhood Defense Fund, wrote to Dean on Monday.

Whitson said he understands that his role on the zoning board is to interpret and apply existing laws rather than making new ones.

A BZA engineered for LED

The Tennessean catches up on a story that's been brewing since the Board of Zoning Appeals reversed Zoning's disapproval of a request to install a brightly animated LED billboard:

The Metro Law Department sued in Davidson County Chancery Court on Tuesday to reverse the Board of Zoning Appeals’ ruling earlier this year that Richardson Outdoor Advertising can build a 50-foot-tall digital billboard to replace a standard board at Bell and Murfreesboro roads ....

The Metro Codes department initially denied a permit to Richardson Outdoor Advertising last spring. The denial relied on a legal interpretation that digital billboards must be at least 2,000 feet from other billboards.

The BZA ruled in June against the denial, but I could not find any media reports on the roll call. The Zoning minutes only tell that the vote was 4-2 but they are not transparent about how members voted. I called Zoning and finally received a list of names of the members who voted to overrule the zoning and allow LED signage:

• David Harper
• Chris Whitson
• Mercedes Jones
• Stacey Garrett

The Nashville Business Coalition used allowance for LED billboards as a litmus test for candidates 4 years ago. A sign industry influence broker and NBC member held a post-election fundraiser for the Mayor to pay back some of his campaign bills. A little later NBC darling Chris Whitson was endorsed by the Mayor and approved by the council for an open slot on the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Has the BZA been moving toward opening the door to LED billboards? To some it seems so. Earlier this year a neighborhood leader attended a BZA hearing on an applicant's attempt to make an appeal for an LED billboard. She came away with two primary impressions. First, the applicant appeared to her to be testing the waters to see if a LED appeal could pass. Second, she wondered if some BZA members might actually be intent on permitting LED appeals based on their leading questions directed at community opponents:

• Why don't you want LED in residential area?
• What make you think having LED billboard nearby will affect the property value?
• The applicant is suggesting to lower the height and dim it at night, will you reconsider your opposition?

She wondered specifically about the propensities of David Ewing (voted against the appeal in June) and David Harper. Her perception proved right in at least Harper's case in the the latest appeal.

Whether or not Metro Law can turn this appeal around, the handwriting may be on the wall with regard  to the BZA's future intentions on LED billboards. The BZA does not appear to have been built to regulate or control Vegas-style signage dominating people's vistas. When a board is engineered to make it easier for industry to ignore community quality of life and do whatever they want, what choices are the rest of us left with?

Woodlawn Area NA President Petitions Planning Commission to Deny Charlie Tygard His Neighborhood LED Billboards on June 11

In a letter to the Planning Commission and several other Metro leaders, WANA President Bell Lowe Newton makes some strong arguments:

The fact that [the neighborhood light emitting diode billboard] ordinance will open up of every zoning district in Nashville to the possibility of LED signs is shocking and appalling to me. In reading Section 17.16.140 [of the Metropolitan Zoning Ordinance], which describes the general conditions that all special exceptions have to fulfill, I now know that I would have to refer to these conditions to show the BZA how an LED sign negatively affects my home, property and neighborhood. These include not adversely affecting other property to the extent that it will impair reasonable long-term use, and protecting persons and property from erosion, flooding, fire, noise, glare, or similar hazards. I am further disturbed to learn that although the BZA has the latitude to determine that an LED sign could be detrimental to a neighborhood, the fact that the majority of a neighborhood opposes such a sign would not be the determining factor in whether a sign of this nature is erected.

Of even greater alarm is that I feel you are so out of touch as to how the majority of taxpaying citizens feel about this extremely important issue. While Mr. Tygard “sees nothing objectionable for a church or school to use a changeable message panel to convey the good deeds and events going on within those buildings, especially since there is less power & less light produced than the current floodlit signs,” my neighbors and I do.

Excuse me, but it appears that some government officials are not voting the voice of their constituents and I urge you to disapprove this bill.

The overwhelming majorities of many of our neighborhood associations believe that the city should be LED free, but, if you insist on having them, please resign these gaudy, atrocious signs into the remaining commercial, office, and shopping areas and allow agricultural and residential need to stay LED FREE.

I oppose LED signs in neighborhoods even with the protections described in the draft ordinance.

And, please know that I clearly understand the difference between these signs with all their protections and video signs. I know that Councilman Tygard is not trying to put moving video screens on every street. I feel that even if a monument type sign that would be generally similar to what the proposed ordinance would allow isn't as gaudy as the sign on I-65, it is still inappropriate in a neighborhood and even the less commercial areas around town.

I don't think a monument type LED sign with amber letters is appropriate for a neighborhood even if it does turn off at 10 PM, and I am concerned about enforcement since there are over 50 signs that have been determined to be out of compliance with the existing ordinance.

Putting LEDs in a "monument-type sign" is merely dressing up and putting female warpaint on a porker.

President Newton's insight on the likelihood that CM Tygard is taking control of quality of life decisions away from neighborhoods should be sobering to all of us who are concerned with the erosion of local autonomy. What is even more frightening is that the control is being handed to the Board of Zoning Appeals, a Metro bureaucracy that does not have an uncontroversial reputation. Last year, Mayor Karl Dean appointed and the Metro Council unanimously approved anti-neighborhood Belle Meadean Chris Whitson, who asserted that he would "interpret and apply" existing laws rather than creating new ones. Whitson won't have to make a new law toxic to local communities; CM Tygard is handing him one that he can merely "interpret and apply" against neighborhoods in the LED billboard legislation.

NBC PAC's Favorite Chris Whitson Unanimously Approved by Metro Council

Pro-growth candidate was approved to the Board of Zoning Appeals with no discussion. The Nashville Business Coalition wins again. We get to find out how much it costs neighborhood quality of life.

My Hopes Dashed?

This seeming routine appointment, and more particularly, Mayor Karl Dean's passion for it, have got me troubled. It seems fair to ask at this point whether there is a connection between Mayor Dean's support of Chris Whitson, darling of the Nashville Business Coalition, and the sucking-up fundraiser that at least one NBC leader sponsored for Karl Dean last fall.

I expressed my hope that it would not be a bad sign about the Dean Administration. My concern that it was a bad sign is even stronger now.

Legislation Alert: Contact info for LED Task Force Members to OPPOSE new LED ordinance

The LED Task Force meets this evening at 4:00 in an as yet undisclosed place (can you say "Sunshine Law"?  Sure, I knew you could) the Mayor's Conference Room (according to the Nashville Neighborhood Defense Fund) to consider a new ordinance that would essentially provide conditions to permit light emitting billboards into residential and mixed-use neighborhoods within 151 feet of the closest residential property.

Please write the Task Force and express your opposition and--if applicable--your neighborhood association's opposition to any LED signs being permitted under any conditions in residential and mixed-use neighborhoods.  Here are the email addresses of the Task Force members:

Jane Alvis (sign co. lobbyist) -- jane@alviscompany.net

Megan Barry (council member) -- Megan.Barry@nashville.gov

John Brittle (real estate) -- brittlej@realtracs.com

Stewart Clifton (planning commission) -- stewartclifton@comcast.net

Terry Cobb (codes department) -- Terry.Cobb@nashville.gov

Bob Cooper (council lawyer) -- bcooperst@bellsouth.net

Dan Haskell (hotel industry lobbyist) -- dhaskell@gsrm.com

Debby Dale Mason (chamber of commerce) -- dmason@nashvillechamber.com

Larry McWhirter (former council member) -- mcwhirterl@bellsouth.net

Anna Shepherd (Tygard-appointed neighborhood rep.) -- Anna.Shepherd@dioceseofnashville.com,

Patricia Totty (northwest neighborhood rep.) -- patricia.totty@state.tn.us

Charlie Tygard (sponsoring CM) -- Charlie.Tygard@nashville.gov

Sonny West (zoning) -- Sonny.West@nashville.gov

Chris Whitson (Belle Meade resident/BZA) -- cwhitson@sherrardroe.com

Kathryn Withers (govt. rep.) -- Kathryn.Withers@nashville.gov

Gloria Dumas (code violations judge) -- GloriaDumas@jis.nashville.org

Burkley Allen (west neighborhood rep.) -- BurkNewt@aol.com

Dang it all if this isn't coming down during another holiday season when attention and energies are focused elsewhere.

Sign Task Force Includes Billboard Industry Lobbyist

An Enclave reader comments thusly:

Did you notice the co-chair of the LED task force? Her name is Jane Alvis and she is a registered lobbyist for Lamar Advertising. Looks like [Vice Mayor Diane] Neighbors is putting the fox in charge of the hen house. I am still looking to see if Bobby Joslin [owner of local sign company] is on the list.

According to the Metro government website, Ms. Alvis is indeed a registered lobbyist for Lamar Outdoor Advertising. Which billboard opponent does Vice Mayor Neighbors balance her with on the task force?


UPDATE: I received a CC: from the Hillwood listserv earlier this evening saying that the other co-chair, Burkley Allen, is a long standing neighborhood activist from Hillsboro West End.


UPDATE: Another Enclave reader comments:

This task force looks rather one-sided in favor of the business community. Where are the other task force members representing the residential part of the community?

co-chair- Burkley Allen-Neighborhood leader
co-chair- Jane Alvis -Registered lobbyist Lamar Advertising
Dan Haskell -registered lobbyist, Greater Nashville Hotel and Lodging
Debby Dale Mason-Nashville Chamber of Commerce
Patricia Totty- Hadley Park Neighborhood
Anne Withers- ?
Chris Whitson- BZA, Belle Meade resident, doesn't even live in Nashville area governed by sign code
John Brittle- Real Estate
Bob Cooper- Metro lawyer for the Council
Stewart Clifton-Planning Commission
Terry Cobb- Head of Codes Department
Judge Dumas-Environmental Court, who will have to preside over codes violations in court
Anna Shepherd-?
Larry McWhirter- Donelson councilman almost 20 years ago
Sonny West-well enough said here

All they are missing is Joslin and lawyer Tom White. Maybe they are controlling this committee by proxy.

Pro-LED, Conservative NBC PAC Lobbies Metro Council for BZA Appointment on Law Firm Letterhead

In an email sent to Metro Council earlier today the Chairman of the conservative business PAC, Nashville Business Coalition, encouraged council members to vote for the PAC's candidate to join the Board of Zoning Appeals. Chair Dan Haskell wrote the following memo to council members using the letterhead of his employer, the Law Offices of Gullett, Sanford, Robinson, & Martin, PLLC:

Click image to enlarge.

The Board of Zoning Appeals has responsibility for approving and disapproving LED signs among other variances and exceptions to codes, so placing someone beholden to the NBC PAC on the BZA looks like a strike against community quality of life, which NBC has shown a willingness to sacrifice in the name of the growth that they assume occurs with light emitting diodes.

In the meantime, consider Chairman Haskell's employer's self-description:

Members of the firm routinely engage in matters involving litigation, business and commercial transactions, issues involving employers and employees, insolvency proceedings, wills and estates, real property transactions, and government relations, among other matters.

Does it seem inappropriate that the NBC Chair is using official firm stationary to lobby for an appointment that may benefit the firm in future government proceedings (as well as NBC) should Metro Council approve?


UPDATE: NBC's endorsed candidate, Chris Whitson, is also a lawyer with a concentration in corporate representation. He is with the firm of Sherrard & Roe, a self-described "full-service business law practice." That's not exactly inspiring for neighborhoods concerned about corporate growth overrunning local communities.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Metro Services in 2008

Because of the limits that following the TVA disaster has placed on my disposable research and writing time, I am not able in 2008 to pour the usual amount of effort into Enclave's Annual Best and Worst of Metro Services. So, I am going with a concise format of what I found to be the good, the bad and the ugly in Metropolitan Nashville governance. If you are a devoted Deaniac, you should stop reading here because if I were doing the regular format, the things I hit on below would have sunk the Mayor's Office to the bottom of the worst Metro services this year (even though Mayor Dean did make a laudable effort to fight English Only).

• January
  • The good: Metro Police caught the thief of the Metro Election Commission laptops and located the hard drives at "rave-type" coffee bar, effectively dispelling a Wachenhut-contracted security guard's claims that the computers were stolen before he was on Christmas Eve duty.
  • The bad: Mayor Karl Dean singled out Metro ITS for the heist of Election Commission and promised security changes without any reference to culpability in either his office or former Mayor Bill Purcell's regarding a building alarm and camera system that was turned off on Christmas Eve 2007.
  • The ugly: Metro Legal lead with a wrist slap on Wachenhut. CM Charlie Tygard intended to go where Buck Dozier failed to go before: LEDland. Metro's computer chief had laptop stolen from his own car during Metro's IT security audit.
• February
  • The good: Metro Parks says Morgan Park will get a playground by summer.
  • The bad: Court Clerk Vic Lineweaver wanted Metro to buy him a new car! CM Tygard's LED bill passes first reading with no debate, thanks to Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors' new iron-fist of order.
  • The ugly: CM Tygard blamed former Mayor Bill Purcell for Metro's budget problems a year after the council was spending discretionary funds furiously on pet non-profits.
• March
  • The good: Council members paid attention to flood of neighborhood emails opposing Tygard's LED bill. Metro Public Works responded to traffic complaints in Salemtown.
  • The bad: Zoning Administrator Sonny West ignored popular opposition to the LED bill.
  • The ugly: government haters kept angling for Metro government jobs.
• April
  • The good: CM Megan Barry called upon Vice Mayor to appoint a representative LED task force to study the LED proposal.
  • The bad: Tygard appointed his own task force to rubber stamp LED recommendations.
  • The ugly: Mayor Karl Dean appointed pro-development darling of the conservative Nashville Business Coalition, Chris Whitson, to Metro's Board of Zoning Appeals.
• May
  • The good: CM Mike Jameson showed himself to be the only CM with the backbone to stand up and counter-punch the Dean administration's pro-development leanings.
  • The bad: Metro Police called to Salemtown to deal with drunken party brawls and indecent exposures across various properties only to excuse the law-breakers as part of a "Meharry Medical graduation party."
  • The ugly: Mayor Karl Dean rumored to eliminate pro-neighborhood Metro leaders on behalf of developers.
• June
  • The good: Metro Planning Commission disapproved 7th & Garfield development and asked developer to get all of his ducks in a row before coming back.
  • The bad: Metro Council meeting again turned into a bash-Purcell-fest, and yet, usually iron-fisted Vice Mayor Neighbors did not lift a finger to rule it out of order.
  • The ugly: Metro Council followed "Developers Playbook" and scheduled planning and rezoning public hearings just before a major travel holiday.
• July
  • The good: CM Emily Evans challenged fabrications of the May Town Center developers.
  • The bad: Metro Planning Department moved May Town Center proposal to the Planning Commission for a vote on the strength of the developers' studies because they lacked the funds to conduct their own economic impact study.
  • The ugly: Mayor Karl Dean allowed without objection the local media to write his role as Metro Legal chief out of the narrative on why the Bush Justice Department was investigating a council rezoning issue.
• August
  • The good: Metro Parks met with Sylvan Park neighbors of Richland Park to consider expansion, including an amphitheatre.
  • The bad: summer ended without Metro Parks fulfilling its February promise to install a playground at Morgan Park.
  • The ugly: I received an icy monologue from Sylvan Park CM Jason Holleman comparing the property values in Sylvan Park to Morgan Park Place condos rather than to anything in Salemtown, which also borders on Morgan Park and which has never even asked for an amphitheatre.
• September
  • The good: at least we did not have to live with Williamson Co. Republicans.
  • The bad: because of snafus, Metro Police and Metro Youth Services delayed sending detectives to Salemtown to investigate a teenage shooting, failing to support Mayor Karl Dean's central campaign promise to deal effectively with youth crime.
  • The ugly: based on the narrative of Tennessean reporter Janell Ross, Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas asserted that "all too often" suspicious person calls are racist calls.
• October
  • The good: you fill in the blank ____________.
  • The bad: Metro Youth Services Detectives still had not followed up with the teen victim of a Salemtown shooting.
  • The ugly: CM Jim Gotto resurrected the perennial empty patriotic gesture of introducing a memorializing resolution to put cheap yellow ribbons on poles at the Courthouse Square because he got a nod that the Dean Administration would make Parks follow through this time.
• November
  • The good: somewhere Tony Orlando is smiling.
  • The bad: Metro Police were clearly the only ones responding to crime in after hours bars.
  • The ugly: while the press pounced on Metro Council attempts to deal with after hours crime, Mayor Karl Dean, who had run for office on the promise of dealing with youth and gang crime did nothing.
• December
  • The good: the war on Christmas nonsense seemed to stay away from Metro this year.
  • The bad: Metro Public works was "unresponsive" to Belmont-Hillsboro Neighbors and CM Keith Durbin.
  • The ugly: Mayor Dean promised CM Erica Gilmore that installation Morgan Park playground equipment is still going to happen.

Happy New Year, everyone! And we still deserve a better year from Metro than we got the last one.

Depends on whose council member is being gored

During his tenure as a Metro beat reporter first at the City Paper and then at the Tennessean, I do not remember a discouraging word from Nate Rau against controversial CMs like Charlie Tygard (whom Rau once defended as "blogged to death") or Eric Crafton (whose English Only initiative Rau handled sensitively, nearly generously). But consistently with non-ostentatious CM Mike Jameson, Rau breaks out the critical analysis, regularly referencing what the Mayor's Office dislikes about him.

My issue here is not with evenhandedly treating CMs critically. I simply do not think that Rau's treatment of Jameson in particular has been the highest quality criticism.

It is no different in Rau's recent blogging on Jameson's reservations about privatizing the public Fairgrounds.  Rau blogs a somewhat rambling, disjointed, and loaded criticism of Jameson:

Jameson’s indignation could be seen as some what puzzling. He’s been a councilmember for more than seven years. He knows the ugly ins and unseemly outs of city politics.

I’ve heard it said that former Mayor Bill Purcell never used petty tactics like calling down department directors on district council members.

Somebody should tell that to Charlie Tygard and Chris Whitson, because I believe they would paint a different picture.

Since Dean was elected mayor, by my count he’s had five tough votes go through council – the Predators lease, the stormwater fee, the convention center land acquisition, the creation of the Convention Center Authority and the convention center bond resolution. Jameson has voted against three of those proposals; the lease agreement at Hickory Hollow would make four out of six.

It is fair for observers to wonder if Jameson’s opposition, no matter how eloquently justified, is rooted in politics, not policy, especially considering the weight of his stance just a year ago.

Someone needs to tell Nate that his wonderment is only fair if he goes back and actually analyzes Jameson's arguments and points out the logical fallacies point-by-point. I never remember him doing that, and I was reading the City Paper long before he was hired.

The problem is that in previous stories reporter Rau seemed to transmit what mayoral staffers either believe or spin about Jameson. The Mayor's Office told reporters that Mike Jameson was an opportunistic grandstander seeking a judgeship. Rau simply passed that judgment along without expressing any journalistic critical thinking or probing curiosity. When Jameson used the same parliamentary rules that other CMs (including Tygard) have used, Rau assumed without a second thought (or as if it had been spun to him) that Jameson used "obscure" tricks to shut down an unquestionably legitimate policy brought at an unquestionably impeccable pace. Jameson conducted council queries of Dean staffers in ways that casual observers called "polite" and "professional," yet analyst Rau was prompted to call the same act a "deposition" as if Jameson was not able to perform as anything but a slick lawyer.

But politics is an end game. If someone is playing politics then they make a rational choice for benefits that outweigh the risk involved in taking on a popular Mayor under this Metro Charter which relegates CMs to a ridiculously weak position from which to make legislative checks on the executive. While I am not happy with acquiescent CMs, I can understand that in this system their choice is either to be a Dean supporter or to find oneself isolated to the Mayor's dog house. And the fawning print media does not help break the servitude by repeating whatever their Metro PR sources tell them.

So, the insistence that a maverick is somehow gaining more than losing in opposing the Mayor on most of the most contentious issues is absurd. And yet, that seems to be exactly what Nate Rau is insisting. If it's just politics, then what is the benefit to Jameson of continuously sticking his head out of the council trenches only to face Karl Dean's howitzer? Given the Courthouse disdain he faces from the perfect storm of council conservatives, sovereign Mayor, and cynical reporters, what chance does Jameson have to win the end game that Metro politics is? Rau doesn't say, but he doesn't seem to be required by anyone to do so, either.

In the end Nate Rau fell into the same trap as many bloggers: he put up a post based mostly on anecdotes with few warrants, making a flawed case, nonsensical when judged rationally. Granted, it may make airtight sense inside the Courthouse.