Jerry Maynard said he's no rubber stamp, but he can't distinguish how he's not a rubber stamp

I want to go back to June now that the council election is over to part of a mid-summer radio interview where CM at-Large Jerry Maynard did not exactly keep cooly cool with a couple of critics:

Maynard: I wanna be around for the next 4 years to make sure we fully fund education .... if we get the wrong people on Metro Council, we will not support fully funding our schools, and that is the number one priority that we should have as a city: ... to support our school board, to work with them on reform, to work with the Mayor .... I've got my own ideas. One thing I would like to do is to bring college students as mentors and tutors in or middle schools ....

Caller #1: As far as the past four years, Metro government hasn't really done anything about education except put lip service to it. And I really feel like a lot of the council and you yourself are rubber-stamping.

Maynard: Rubber-stamping for the school system?

Caller #1: For Karl Dean ....

Maynard: That's cute ....

Caller #1: ....We've got no repercussions, no consequences for ill actions and we have certain ones who don't want to speak on it in a real manner. The writing is on the wall. There is no accountability, and King Dean and the rubber stamps is what rules

Maynard: That's a cute little statement, but let me tell you something .... if you think that all we were doing was the rubber stamp, then I would say look at my record .... [giving developers financial incentives to build workforce housing in the "urban city"] .... keeping guns out of our parks. I've done some things regarding being elected and it hasn't just been rubber-stamping anybody.

Host: Alright we got another caller ....

Caller #2: ....You sound good, sir, but there's no substance. All I hear is words but we see no results. You talk about you interested in public education. Where was your voice when all these Metro employees lost their jobs? These jobs were outsourced.

Maynard: That's the school board, sir .... Since you want to say all I want to do is talk, so let's make sure the talk is straight .... Metro Council cannot tell the school board what to do with the money once we give them the money .... Let me let you get to know since this is the "truth zone" .... Dr. Register said, "No" [to Maynard's request to save the jobs if council could find the money] .... He tied the hands of the Metro Council [by signing contract without giving them a chance to find money] .... Now you can talk that I did not have a loud enough voice. Go back and look at the tape .... So, this is not a fiscal concern it is a policy decision .... Now, because I'm not on the school board, I can't tell Dr. Register what to do. The Metro Council can only pass the budget.

Caller #2: You're a Metro Councilman at-Large. Call a press conference. Do something other than just talk....

Maynard: So, a press conference would do what?! What would a press conference do? [Change of topic: exchange about David Torrence and whether the Mayor's response on Torrence was lacking]. Let me say this: My name is Jerry Maynard. I'm running for council at-Large. I'm running for re-election based on my record. You can call it "rubber-stamp" if you want to. Listen, this council and this black caucus that I've served on has been more effective, and I'm sorry that your head ... I don't know where you've been. You been living under a rock or something.

First of all let's agree that if CM Maynard had not lost his composure during the phone call he probably could have avoided the disingenuous reply that he is somehow running independently on the merits of nothing but his own record. Fact check: not only did Mayor Dean endorse and campaign for CM Maynard, but he raised funds for the Maynard campaign. The at-Large CM sounded too full of bravado for someone so utterly dependent on coattails.

And why shouldn't the Mayor go all in to help him? If you listen to the interview before and after this particular exchange, you will hear Jerry Maynard wrap himself up in Karl Dean's coattails by pimping the Mayor's pet projects: construction of the Music City Center, the unpopular plan to put a health care center in a mall, the scheme to redevelop the Fairgrounds, a ballpark at Sulphur Dell. So, the fact is that Jerry Maynard has rubber-stamped every single significant project this Mayor has proposed and enthusiastically campaigned on them. He never broke with or questioned the Mayor's Office when it could have mattered. To the contrary, I'm not sure he stood up to the Mayor as an opponent on anything at all. The projects he takes credit for independent of the Mayor are financial incentive offers and volunteer projects that the Mayor has never opposed. That is likely why he never denied the charge of rubber-stamping even though he tellingly protested too much about it.

Finally, it seems obvious that he wants to have it both ways on education. Jerry Maynard wants you to know that he is pumped about making sure that "education reform" (another Dean priority) continues from his position on the Metro Council, but his brightest idea is to organize volunteers to mentor and tutor. As noble a cause as that may be, he does not have to be a CM to do pursue that mission. While he would not have campaigned with the slogan, "I really have no influence over Metro public education," he had no qualms about trotting it out to use on his critics. CMs should not take strong stances on government issues that they really have no power over in the first place. Even influence over the funding mechanism for Metro Schools is mostly limited to an up-or-down vote on a budget proposal. So, for all of Jerry Maynard's talk of being there for schools, when push comes to shove he has to concede that CMs cannot do much more than talk about supporting education. So, how are the callers wrong?

This interview made clear that Jerry Maynard cannot take criticism of his ties to the Mayor's Office and turn off the juice long enough to focus on how he distinguishes himself from Mayor Dean. After a third critical call from Antioch came in later he accused his critics of being "Republican tea party folks" who are being prompted to call in. As if either Democrats or independent voters could not possibly be dissatisfied with CM Maynard's coziness to Karl Dean. Think again, Mr. Maynard.

HT: Genma Holmes

Jerry Maynard running as "attorney of integrity" with ethical misconduct questions and suspension of his law practice

I still cannot find any reports that the suspension of CM Jerry Maynard's law license has ended. Not long ago CM Maynard expressly and in no uncertain terms told his fellow council members during one of their business meetings that he was no longer practicing.

Yet, he seems to have no reservation calling himself a lawyer on his re-election website, and he indicates that his practice is characterized by integrity while neglecting to mention the ethical misconduct questions alleged about him:

Meet Jerry

Pastor. Educator. Community Leader. Businessman. Lawyer. Political Leader.

These words all describe Jerry L. Maynard, II

....Inspired by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and the impact an attorney of integrity could have on a community, Maynard chose law as his profession. He earned his Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana..

Metro council member advocates selling off public healthcare for the elderly 120 years after Metro started it

Save the strong, lose the weak.
Never turning the other cheek.
Trust nobody, don't be no fool.
Whatever happened to that Golden Rule?

-- Stevie Ray Vaughan, Crossfire 

Despite my chagrin that we have a Mayor who would turn Nashville's elderly patients over to the foibles of private healthcare providers, I was struck that one council member defended the Mayor with his own peculiar brand of social Darwinism:

Councilman Jerry Maynard, who chairs the council’s Health, Hospital and Social Services Committee, said privatizing the centers would allow Metro to strengthen Nashville General by putting the city’s entire health care subsidy behind the hospital. “I believe that’s our moral, legal and ethical obligation — to provide a public, safety-net hospital,” he said.

Got that? If Karl Dean and Jerry Maynard have their way, we are going to cut off our elderly from subsidized long-term care and accountable Metro oversight in order to flip the funds to general healthcare for those in the population who do not need long-term care. Reverend Maynard's ethics are utilitarian (funding as much good as the Mayor's Office will allow for a larger number of short-term patients, or as Karl Dean calls them, "customers"). But the Reverend's defense is also brute social Darwinism: the younger, biologically superior population deserves the best chances to survive and the access to government subsidies in order to do so.

Just like that, after 120 years of the county looking after long-term needs elderly patients, Reverend Jerry Maynard is prepared to sell out nursing home residents' interests to the indifferent marketplace. He is willing to hock instead of promote their welfare. He is intent on casting them out into the world of medical commerce, where are as likely to be picked out of the herd by industry hyenas as they are to get accountable medical treatment.

The trade-off: he saves his own pet projects. Word is he is planning to run for Mayor, so I assume "saving" Metro General while letting the elderly go has value as future campaign fodder.

This is a brave new world. Government leaders who call themselves "Democrats" no longer even bother to lift a finger to advocate for those who cannot any more. To them this is just one more privatization deal to grease the skids of the special interests.

Jerry Maynard's resume includes pastoring a church. I assume that means that he sees himself as an authentic Christian minister. I wonder how he reconciles these ethical compromises with power and money to the teachings that his faith tradition considers as definitive for character. When I survey Christian scriptures to find justifications for subjecting weaker people to brutal societal forces I instead read these:

• For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in .... whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.
• Blessed be you poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now: for you shall be filled. Blessed are you that weep now: for you shall laugh .... But woe unto you that are rich! for you have received your consolation .... Woe unto you that are full! for you shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for you shall mourn and weep.
• How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

I don't see how a Christian minister can adhere to these tenets but exercise a lifeboat ethics, cutting loose those assumed to be less worthy of the guarantee of a public safety net. If anything, Reverend Maynard should be advocating for the elderly at Bordeaux precisely because his Christianity will not allow his politics to turn away conveniently from the most vulnerable like the priest and the Levite on the Jericho road.

If he has heard the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the past, perhaps Reverend Maynard needs to hear them again with fresh ears:

the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is...1,200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2,200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

It is hard to reconcile MLK's view with a social Darwinist or utilitarian politics that argues that good government should not be "in the business" of securing the common good. Securing the common good means spending more and risking more for those most spent and at most risk in our society. It means stopping to help those who need our help even when rational calculations tell us that it could cost us.

In all of his words defending Mayor Dean on privatizing healthcare, Reverend Maynard does not bother to stop and ask what might happen to the elderly Bordeaux residents once their facilities are privatized. His faith is built on nothing less than the marketplace and Dean's noblesse.

But Reverend Maynard's problem is that he frames the question completely at odds with the common good. We are not simply in the nursing home business by providing long-term care for the elderly. We are not simply competitors with private industry. Publicly-subsidized healthcare, which Reverend seems to advocate when it comes to Metro General Hospital or Obamacare, is a safety net for those who might not benefit from privately-run care. Any one of us deserves refuge at our lowest moments, and those of us who are at most risk, especially so.

Publicly-managed long-term care should be sanctuary from the predatory inclinations of the private enterprise system, where the goal of making money can overwhelm the mandate to do no harm. It shouldn't be another real estate deal that Metro government brokers under the guise of the "public-private partnership". Why should government be in the business of real estate if it should not be in the business of healthcare?

We rely on our legislators to be advocates for protecting patients from the market rather than being lackeys for private healthcare interests who covet the windfall of flipping public long-term care to the marketplace. We deserve better from Jerry Maynard.

WWJD: Jerry Maynard tells 92Q of his plans to run for re-election in 2011

This morning Council Member at-Large Jerry Maynard was guest on Ernie Allen's regular Sunday morning show. Here is the entire podcast offered at 92Q:




Several points from the interview stand out to me in this election year:

In his zeal for a ballpark, Jerry Maynard rewrites our history

Last night I started a post on my impressions of yesterday's Sulphur Dell ballpark community meeting, but it is not in a place where I am satisfied with it. In the meantime, I have been reading the media coverage and noted this:

No one was happier Thursday than At-Large Councilman Jerry Maynard, who at one point before the meeting began, could be seen standing on a chair proclaiming strong support for the project and directing a crowd to pick up red Friends of Sulphur Dell shirts.

"In 2008, we formed Friends of Sulphur Dell right here at Farmers Market, with Freddie [O'Connell, president of the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association, who was standing nearby] and all the neighborhood association and groups,” Maynard said, following the meeting. “And we didn't know if it was going to happen, but we fought hard for Sulphur Dell because this is the birthplace of baseball [in Nashville]. This is where it should be, the neighborhood ballpark. I'm so excited that it's going to happen. I can't tell you how excited I am. I mean, it's going to happen."

If Friends of Sulphur Dell started in 2008, it is news to me and I have been blogging on North End news since 2005. The group was not announced in Salemtown until 2010, and it was my distinct impression that it was being founded at that time. 2010 was definitely the year that Salemtown Neighbors was invited to participate. The website for Friends of Sulphur Dell was not started until 2011.

CM Maynard's claim that all of the neighborhood associations "fought hard" for a new ballpark in the area is an outright fabrication, misstatement, error and any other word synonymous with "falsehood". Salemtown Neighbors has always expressed a willingness to consider a ballpark as long as all of its questions and concerns were addressed. SNNA appointed me to be one of its representatives to the Sulphur Dell group.

On April 13, 2010, a few days before this group that would become Friends of Sulphur Dell convened at Farmers' Market, Freddie sent a message to the Salemtown Neighbors listserv about a Tennessean reporter incorrectly saying that everyone in our community supported a new ballpark at the early stage:

it seems like the narrative is already that the North End supports Sulphur Dell. He called me yesterday, and I explained that we were not going to take a position till after Saturday's meeting, if at all, and I'm glad he noted that in the story.

After I made it clear in the Sulphur Dell meeting that we were on the fence and that we had particular questions about traffic and parking, and when I asked that we set up community meetings, I stopped being included in the group's proceedings (assuming they had many more after that; the website went quiet in 2011 and did not become active again until August 2013, when news media reported that the Mayor wanted Sulphur Dell).

Where Jerry Maynard now gets the idea (or the gall) to misrepresent Salemtown's support, ambivalence or opposition to a new ballpark is beyond me.

His rewrite of our history is supported by nothing I can find in my records. I received an email saying that Karl Dean told a Hope Gardens resident in 2010 that Sulphur Dell was his preferred location. I was also told by an insider whom I trust that, while the news media was reporting Sulphur Dell as only one option among others the Mayor was considering, the push for finding grassroots support for Sulphur Dell that year came top-down from the Mayor's Office. Around that same time Freddie made it clear to me that he shared concerns the association had about negative quality of life impacts of a new ballpark on Salemtown. He also told me that if Salemtown Neighbors chose to oppose Friends of Sulphur Dell, then it would be a "stumbling block to the unified approach" the boosters were trying to project.

Obviously the council member at-large has taken that disingenuous approach to heart. I hope Freddie took the time yesterday to pull Reverend Jerry Maynard to the curb and to correct his fast-and-loose abuse of the truth in his zeal for a ballpark concept that may or may not be worthy. The record should be set straight.

CM Jerry Maynard is one slick at-Large

An e-mail I received from a fairgrounds preservation supporter indicates that ethically troubled CM Jerry Maynard was using council rules to kill a bill for the Mayor. When Maynard's effort failed CM Adkins did what he could to try and force a vote without consideration:

The Mayor’s extraordinary effort began when Council Member Jerry Maynard signed onto BL2010-770 in Budget and Finance committee for the purpose of having the bill defeated. He signed the bill without talking to the primary sponsor, Council Member Duane Dominy. Then Council Member Greg Adkins attempted to pass a Motion to Table the sponsor’s request for indefinite deferral. It ended when the Council voted against the Motion to Table 19-18-2.

Whenever journos start accusing CMs like Mike Jameson of "obscure parliamentary maneuvers" the least they could do would be to acknowledge CM Maynard's own slick moves are based more on power than on principle. I will be posting more on that e-mail shortly. Any moral high ground supporters of the Mayor's plan might have claimed after CM Dominy introduced his bill involving CM Sandra Moore's district without talking to her was lost in CM Maynard signing on without talking to Dominy.

The cloak-and-dagger tactics seem to occur on all sides with the Mayor giving an executive boost to those on his side.

AMPscam: in the absence of studies "presume" the studies

And "forward" ain't "northward"

Because of family illness, I did not have a chance to watch Metro Council proceedings on the Mayor's budget proposals last week live. Yesterday, I started going back and watching the video from the last meeting. I was particularly interested in CM Josh Stites' amendment for bus rapid transit that would have required a study of alternatives to the Mayor's Office selection of West End be included as part of the bond resolution.

The amendment had received a good amount of media attention, which is likely one of the reasons it also was opposed by 3 different CMs before debate was cut off prematurely. The points expressed against the clause were all feeble. Peter Westerholm trotted out, as if on script, the same tired talking points he has in the media. Jason Holleman, who said he shared some of Stites' concerns, argued that he received assurances that Mayor Karl Dean would consider alternatives in the future and that we should place trust in those assurances.

But the weakest tea of all came from CM Jerry Maynard, an at-Large who often self-styles as a North Nashville representative. In his comments to council lawyer Jon Cooper and then to CM Stites on the amendment, Mr. Maynard ran interference for Hizzoner:

Cooper: [I]t's included in the initial bond resolution as part of the project to be funded.
Maynard: If we pass this, what impact will it this have?
Cooper: If MTA has already done such a study, then that would satisfy [Stites'] clause ... [MTA] would have to answer that, but if funds have already been spent for that study and they don't need to do that, then they could show that they have already satisfied that part of the study.
Maynard: Based on the comments that I've heard from [Mr. Ballard] and others, that they have looked at other routes and determined that West End would be the best place to start. I think you could presume that a study has been done of alternative routes and I would aks if CM Stites would withdraw his amendment.
Stites: If [studies] have in fact already been done it would be best to leave the amendment in; and then, if the studies fulfill or meet the amendment then it would move forward

Plainly, all CM Maynard had to do if he wanted to put to rest the question of whether West End is the best alternative is hold the alternative analysis up and refer to the sections that considered options like Charlotte Pike or Gallatin Road. Why not simply read MTA's conclusions, if they exist, to the council? Instead, CM Maynard lectured those with honest questions to "presume" that MTA has done the studies absent any transparent data.

Either the data on alternatives to West End doesn't exist, it is being hidden from the public or all of the Mayor's supporters are willing to jettison transparency and openness in government in the name of placing blind faith in both Karl Dean and MTA. In any one of those scenarios the principle of informed consent has been violated.

So, Jerry Maynard sowed seeds of doubt toward an entirely even-handed, fair proposal, and then North Nashville CM Walter Hunt called for the question, effectively terminating any more debate on adding alternatives analysis as a requirement of the bond resolution. Despite the fact that the Mayor's BRT/AMP plan excludes North Nashville from access to the transit cash that could roll in, none of the North Nashville CMs present--not Matthews, not Harrison, not Langster--raised any questions about alternatives. They all seem to have acquiesced to the Mayor's Office, as has a majority of the council, which voted down Josh Stites' attempt at fairness.

The final report on BRT assumes the West End corridor from beginning to end. The "Alternatives Evaluated" sections only consider alternatives in modes of transit (for instance, light rail vs. BRT) rather than alternatives in corridors considered. The only consideration given to other areas for BRT are for speculative, future possibilities that will no doubt compete with one another. There is nothing to suggest that Charlotte Avenue or any other North Nashville corridor will get consideration over say, connecting the east-west corridor with 21st/Hillsboro to Green Hills. The absence of any consideration in the final report of other corridors further underscores the probability that the analysis is not open to public discussion (and Metro does not make access to this limited report easy, charging a chunk of change to acquire it).

And one more thing. CM Bruce Stanley's earlier comment (in a different context) that a number of council members have been kept in the dark on BRT/AMP sustains my perception that the Mayor's supporters have not been on the up-and-up about the viability of all options. It seems that even council members are voting on this initiative from a position of ignorance or a tacit acknowledgement that the deal was done on arrival. Even its council supporters can only refer to nebulous faith and presumption absent any hard data. That is no way to serve the public on such an important question concerning so much money.

A tough year for CM Jerry Maynard, Esquire

CM-at-Large Jerry Maynard saw his law license suspended by the Supreme Court last January because he failed to respond to a complaint of ethical misconduct. According to the Nashville Post, the grounds of the suspension lie in Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr's disclosure that Maynard worked in a legal capacity for a North Nashville health center while serving an earlier suspension.

Then last July a petition for discipline was filed against Reverend Maynard (yes, he is also a senior pastor of a Clarksville congregation as well as a former professor of law and ethics and member of the Democratic Party Executive Committee). I cannot find any details on that filing, but reportedly, CM Maynard appears to be in the more formal stage of the disciplinary process at this point. Here is how that is said to play out:

At the end of the informal phase, disciplinary counsel will reach a conclusion about what should happen next. If you have not been able to convince disciplinary counsel that the matter should be dismissed, then the informal, investigatory phase of the process is going to end one of two ways: either the Board, through Disciplinary Counsel, will propose some form of public or private discipline on your license, or the Board will publicly file a formal petition for discipline against you thereby beginning the second phase of the process. Are you convinced you need a lawyer yet?

The second phase looks a lot like the pursuit of a civil lawsuit with a three-member hearing panel playing the part of the judge and jury. You will have to file an answer to the petition, the hearing panel will enter a scheduling order, there will be discovery including the right to take depositions, and ultimately you will try your case to the hearing panel. The hearing panel’s ruling can be appealed to circuit court or chancery court and, from there, directly to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Because of a change in disciplinary procedure a few years ago, once the petition for discipline has been filed, the whole proceeding is public like other civil lawsuits. Significantly, this also means that the respondent lawyer’s ability to walk away with a private reprimand is now gone. Once this Rubicon has been crossed, a lawyer has to either win the case completely or face some form of public discipline, as the lowest form of discipline that can be imposed by a hearing panel is a public censure.

I cannot imagine this is good news for the CM, who was elected to represent all of us as "at-Large," but it should be a consideration if he decides to run again.

I have heard that CM Maynard is going to lead the Mayor's effort at Tuesday night's council meeting to beat the opposition to selling the fairgrounds to private developers. His checkered ethical history will not exactly give a boost to that cause. Actually, his deal to be one of Karl Dean's advocates for redevelopment may be an extension of his seeming penchant for misconduct.

Despite an unforgiving political context, the council's resident reverend preaches forbearance for Brady Banks

There has been practically no backlash at CM Brady Banks' arrest during a prostitution sting coming from the Courthouse elite. Typically council members have done far less than soliciting sex and still raised righteous indignation Downtown. Opposing the Mayor's capital plans or yelling at each other in the parking garage has gotten council members labeled opportunistic, out-of-order or inappropriate by fellows in Metro government.

But the Banks affair has prompted little response outside Reverend CM at-Large Jerry Maynard preaching love and forgiveness in a letter--based on the gospel of John (the question of casting stones at the woman caught in adultery) and on the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans (the strong showing restraint toward the weak)--responding to District 4 criticism:

I hope that at this time you will pray for the Banks family and not throw stones at Brady .... There will come a time to address whether he can continue serving your district .... But, now is not that time. For those of us who believe in the Holy Word of God, the Bible says when a man finds himself fallen down in sin, those of us who are strong must bare the infirmities of the weak and not please ourselves.

What I find interesting is that the preacher totally ignored the context for both Christian passages, and in so doing applied the prescription for apples to the problems of oranges.

In the case of the woman caught in adultery, she had no power whatsoever to fight for herself due to the gender double standards of the period. Jesus's challenge to the men to cast the first stone was turning the power equation on its head. Brady Banks (who himself has a divinity degree) worked for 2 governors and this mayor; now he is a Metro Council Member with a campaign war chest of $14,000 according to the Election Commission. His power status bears no resemblance whatsoever to the woman about to be stoned in John.

It is a similar context for the Paul's letter encouraging the strong bearing the infirmities of the weak: Jews, including Jewish Christians, were being persecuted by Rome, and Paul encouraged the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians to put aside their differences and support the weaker members who faced persecution and animosity. Once again, Brady Banks may be facing some criticism, but he is hardly persecuted or weak in terms of real power equations.

That is some tortured exegesis on Reverend Maynard's part.

And the thing is, Jerry Maynard has not always modeled self-restraint and forbearance for people weaker than him in the past. Take his attacks on inconvenient questioners on a North Nashville call-in show last year.

Despite the selective application of Christian forbearance, CM Maynard serially claims that he fights for North Nashville. It seems to me that fighting for North Nashville in the current context is holding one's influential colleague accountable for pursuing criminal activity here.

I Am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise

The Scene reports that we may see at-Large Council Member Jerry Maynard's "beer cabaret" bill again thanks to the efforts of former at-LCM Adam Dread, who is now a lobbyist for the "Pure Gold" chain of strip clubs (God, why did I ever vote for Adam Dread that one time?).

Sounding either paternalistic or feminist at a twisted Orwellian angle, CM Maynard explained that his bill (which was withdrawn at the last council meeting) is designed to "protect" women.

But the biggest insult to voters was Mr. Maynard's claim that he had no self-interest in this. That's true only if you parse "campaign contributions from strip club chains, Adam Dread, and beer companies" out of the "self-interest" equation. To talk as if he can't benefit from a strip-club ordinance is misleading and a poor show of character. To use his title of "preacher" as his rationale--effectively shielding the financial interests behind this bill--is repugnant.

This bill may fall to some other sponsor when reintroduced, but to me it will always be Jerry Maynard's beer cabaret bill. He's already done his part to make the lobbyists happy, and he cannot shake off the label just like that.

HT: Christian Grantham

The politician displayed ballpark cynicism

Since the project I started yesterday (to crowdsource a list of community meetings that Rev. Jerry Maynard claims ballpark supporters held many times over the last few years) seems to be failing miserably, I'm starting to assume that readers are just as unaware of any of these forums as I am. Maybe no neighborhood-oriented meetings were held (beyond the one I attended in 2010 that was designed to drum up support).

As regrettable as CM Maynard's claims about community meetings are, I want to skip today to something else he told council, which came across as cynical to me with a second look at the tape:

We're not doing anything we haven't done in the past .... I got to tell you, I'm troubled because, this is the fir- as council lady Gilmore said, this is the first time we've had major economic investment in North Nashville, and to pull this one when we haven't pulled anything else after all these years. I just think we need to move forward on this.

I never lose faith in CM Maynard's ability to stretch the truth beyond anything I might recognize, but once again, it is not factual that the council has not pulled any other bills on first reading after all these years. I've blogged about several times the council has pulled bills off the consent agenda on first reading. I can remember other times bills have been pulled on first reading for discussion. It is rare, but it happens. I've always assumed it remains in the by-laws because the members see its utility even in its rarity.

So, how many times does CM Maynard have to make stuff up before someone in council or in the news media calls his bluff?

But I digress from my original point: the cynicism of CM Maynard's argument in light of the fact that community meetings really have not happened much if at all. Why do I consider his comments cynical? Because I hear within them an implicit deal of "I won't pull your big capital spending bills if you don't pull my expensive pet projects." Instead of at least going through the motions of holding community meetings and bringing concerns to the council (even if disingenuously brought), CM Maynard seems to be conceding that Metro Council is not so much Nashville's representative body as they are what they have been called by others before: "40 jealous whores" fighting over turf, over influence. "You don't pull/I don't pull" comes across to me an acknowledgement that this council is more focused on whatever plums might fall from the master's table, leaving the crumbs for their constituents (who are otherwise out of sight, out of mind in these deliberations)

Playing the role of CM Maynard's enabler was Ronnie Steine, who did not particularly care for the way the council was tending to "move forward' on the ballpark bill. So, he counseled "backing up" and lectured the council about being on the same team with a united interest that he did not define. I'll have to assume that he meant the same old "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" interest they share. After he got a round of the council's applause, CM Steine launched into bill opponents for doing something he claims he always opposes, pulling bills on first reading. While he backed off his erroneous charge that opponents were breaking rules, he insinuated that they were breaking council tradition. But remember, they're on the same team:

You can call me a hypocrite on this one. I opposed pulling any bill on first reading .... I would argue whether you're for or against it that you honor this council and how we operate.

Whether or not I can call him a hypocrite may be up for debate, but calling him inaccurate is not. During one of those past moments where a fellow did indeed pull a bill off of the consent agenda during first reading, CM Steine had such a conniption that he threatened to pull every other bill off that same agenda for debate. Threatening to pull every bill on first reading to prove a point is still a contradiction of one's commitment never to pull any bill on first reading. Wouldn't the at-Large CM be better served, that is if he honestly is opposed to pulling bills off the consent agenda, by making a motion or introducing a resolution to change the by-laws and charter to prohibit pulling those bills? Even having a "consent agenda" implies that consent is freely given. If not, it's not a consent agenda, and fabricated tradition be damned.

The cynicism was on full display Monday night in the council discussion on a new ballpark for the Nashville Sounds. I guess I was expecting it, but I keep hoping for something more noble, even after all of these years.

My post-game wrap on the Sulphur Dell second reading

Emotions were certainly running high at last night's Metro Council public hearing on the Mayor's deal cut with the state and two developers, including the wealthy owner of the Nashville Sounds. If you had asked me beforehand where I thought the emotional outpouring would have come I would have bet my entire concession-stand outlay--including my beer money--that it would have been from the gallery, not from the floor of the council itself.

But the fireworks that have gone off during some public hearings--like those that ignited during the debate over the state fairgrounds plan a few years ago--never appeared from the gallery. Most of those who spoke on the question spoke in favor of the ballpark, but most of those seemed to be business interests that the Mayor's Office would have encouraged to come out. Only two association representatives (Buena Vista and Hope Gardens) from the affected neighborhoods spoke in favor. I did not see anyone from either Germantown or Salemtown associations at the podium.

CM Jerry Maynard previously characterized supporters of Sulphur Dell as a movement, which sounds dramatically populist. But where were they all on the most important night that citizens could theoretically have influence in speaking out? The booster group Friends of Sulphur Dell seems more like a gaggle of Facebook friends linking news stories than it does a movement organized for social change, but I was shocked that they did not pack the gallery with their red shirts. I saw a couple of rows of them toward the back, but even fewer at the podium. I kept waiting for dozens of them to start streaming in through the council doors from the mezzanine after Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors invited them to speak, but they never showed.

I fully expected that those speaking against the ballpark bill would be disorganized and ragtag, and not because people did not have questions about the development. Few showed up to speak against the ballpark. My expectations were already low because Mayor Karl Dean strategically pulled off a coup. For years he downplayed his support of Sulphur Dell, and he deked a couple of reporters, who wrote serious stories on Friends of Sulphur Dell. He kept his powder dry for the big push against the community planning process by announcing the ballpark plan with Thanksgiving approaching and demanding that his council stewards shrink the approval process. The genius of this was that any organized opposition, like that he faced on the Fairgrounds, had no chance to get on its feet. It was a brilliant tactical move that assured that anyone with questions or criticism would be picked off base before they had a chance to steal the deal. Opponents never stood a chance.

Red-shirt October

But the timeline and the relative obscurity of the process also may have kept authentic proponents at home, if there are really a large number of proponents out there. I do not believe there are. I'm still convinced that the "movement" under the Sulphur Dell bill is more astroturf than grassroots, and the fact that the red shirts did not show up en mass seems a huge blow to any pretension that the ballpark is a popular cause right now. I understand why run-of-the-mill supporters might not have known about the public hearing in time to respond, but when the red-shirts did not show up in droves it represented a late inning whiff as some council members at least needed the cover of community support even though the Mayor does not.

So, the public hearing portion was not nearly as momentous as it could have been for the Sulphur Dell bill. The real fireworks, the raw emotion was expressed by bill supporters who did not seem convinced during most of the post-hearing debate that they had the votes to pass the Mayor's plan. In fact they seemed desperate in lashing out and lecturing other council members about how they should vote on a concept, a proposition that they treated as fait accompli.

The first CM to make an appeal to emotion was Ronnie Steine, who characterized any legislative regulation of mixed-use ballpark development as a betrayal of trust and a "slap at integrity" (I tend to take Steine's habitual moralistic lectures to the council with a grain of salt given that he was caught stealing and lying in 2002 while Vice Mayor). Apparently, the CM did not get the memo that this is a dispassionate business agreement between competing interests. Some of those interests are the affected communities themselves who do not enjoy the privilege of sitting at the negotiating table when the Mayor, the State, the Sounds, and the developers meet. We rely on the council to represent us. Apparently, CM Steine would rather represent the Nashville Sounds, whom he also seemed to defend as having the right to cash in on past philanthropy in Nashville by getting a ballpark from Metro at minimal risk. Maybe charity is not its own reward after all.

There was also melodramatic CM Jerry Maynard, who claimed not to be resorting to hyperbole when he resorted to hyperbole: any attempt to regulate or otherwise mitigate the risk of a massive transfer of public wealth to private developers would "kill the deal" for a new ballpark. Not necessarily known for keeping a poker face or staying stoic in tense situations, CM Maynard not only appealed to fear and panic, but he practically tipped developers to our signs. Much of baseball is built on deception. CM Maynard showed no grasp of that fact. We rely on CMs to stand up for us, to represent us in these negotiating process. He totally abdicated to developers, who had to be very pleased with his frantic performance. What is worse, he insinuated that the role of the council is simply to rubber stamp the Mayor's decisions without any recourse to the community's informed consent. Why did we elect him if he is simply going to be a bat boy for the Mayor's Office?

CM Erica Gilmore seemed visibly shaken by finance questions on the council, and she lashed out at those who loved baseball, but who questioned the terms of the development outside the ballpark. She called their love of baseball "a strange kind of love". Oddly enough not a week ago at the community meeting CM Gilmore organized, I listened to Rich Riebeling say that the question of a ballpark should be kept separate from the question of ownership's stake in the development outside the ballpark. But last night she lumped baseball with everything else in the plan. And after losing her composure, CM Gilmore said that she had never brought up fiduciary responsibility or questioned the use of taxpayer money on past projects. Is that supposed to be a badge of honor or a moment of candor where she let slip that service on the council is more about trading favors and abdicating oversight of our resources than it is representing constituents?

One of the most effective agents in major league baseball is Scott Boras. He plays the long game, getting the most return for the players he represents against baseball owners who are wealthy enough to pay just about anything to anyone. The citizens of Nashville needed a few Scott Borases on the council to represent us in this decision. We needed CMs who would stick negotiations out, call ownership and mayoral bluffs, test how far to go in order to get the best finance deal from the Sounds (whose decisions at this point are down to Sulphur Dell and nothing else short of packing up and finding another city waiting around to hand them a ballpark). These CMs did not serve us well by gushing about how the Sounds are like loved vital family members we could not lose.

That is no way to do business. And it's not good baseball.

None of these council supporters of the Mayor's plan put forth any effort to be a Boras-style negotiator for us. They impulsively bashed those who did not simply go along and they ushered developers to a sense of relief that they would dominate this deal. And this deal, which only requires one more council reading, is utter domination without any protections for the community.

Here is the video from yesterday's entire council business meeting (public hearing on the Phillips-Jackson/ballpark bill starts after 41:00):

Let's make a list of the ballpark meetings held

Some people have mentioned about process, and I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows this. That we began this process several years ago. Several studies have been done. Several town hall meetings have been completed. Neighborhood meetings all around the baseball stadium area along with meetings with organizations, nonprofit organizations as well as property owners, business owners all along the surrounding area where Sulphur Dell currently is. There is nothing but positivity from all of the neighborhood associations. In fact all of the neighborhood associations with the exception of one has endorsed the Sulphur Dell project. The one neighborhood that did not endorse it, they did not say they were against it. They just did not vote to endorse. So, we have the endorsement of the neighborhoods .... because we met with them, we discussed it.

--Jerry Maynard's comments yesterday to Metro Council
on community support for a new ballpark

I keep up with the ins and outs of my neighborhood association. Unless they held an unannounced community meeting with Jerry Maynard and his team of supporters of the Sulphur Dell development project, I can say with certainty that he never met with us, never discussed it with Salemtown Neighbors. For Rev. Maynard to insinuate that he has met with us is pure fabrication based on my experience.

I'm curious at this point. Can anyone out there confirm that they attended open meetings on the plan in the neighborhoods where questions and comments were addressed after which the membership approved of the ballpark plan? By the way, comments with proper names carry more weight than anonymous comments do.

(The point bears repeating that the specific Sulphur Dell plan was not publicly announced until the end of last month at the Farmers' Market. At that meeting there were numerous critical and concerned questions asked from those attending, and I recognized several residents from area neighborhoods besides Salemtown. At least a couple of Germantown residents vocally expressed concern about fireworks.)

Please help me generate a list of community meetings held on this plan.

Did Scene reporter get busted out by Dem Chair?

PiTW blogger Jeff Woods has been continuing his war on progressives by hitting at bloggers' recent attempts to raise a little money for the state Democratic Party.  He uses that beachhead today to launch his latest salvo on Dem Chair, Chip Forrester, and the limbo the party seems to be in after the transition between Chairs.

A commenter named "Chip Forrester, Chair Tennessee Democratic Party" left the following comment:

It would have been nice to have the courtesy of a chance to respond to all of this prior to publishing this piece but since I did not have that opportunity, let me take a moment to help clarify this situation.

Since becoming chair, I have tried my best to be open and accessible about the Party and my actions at the Party. Since I was not given the courtesy of a phone call, let me address this specific situation.

It is customary for the new Chair of the Party to appoint new members to the Standing Committees once elected.

Will Cheek has served as Finance Committee chair for a number of years in addition to serving on the executive committee and as member of the Democratic National Committee. It has been my long held belief that leadership opportunities for members of the state executive committee should be spread among the committee. When elected Chair, I felt that naming a new Chair of that particular committee would allow me to offer an additional leadership opportunity to a member of the executive committee.

Prior to making that decision, I reached out to Metro Councilman Jerry Maynard who serves on the state executive committee and was a previous Deputy Chair under Chairman Bob Tuke’s administration, to discuss the idea of him chairing that committee. I felt that it was important to continue to elevate African-American leaders to key positions on the executive committee and since Jerry was already a member of Finance Committee that he would be an excellent chair.

Unfortunately, I had been given an outdated set of TNDP by-laws, which prior to 2006 gave the chair this authority. In 2006 they had been amended to have the Finance Committee chair serve until January of the next year. The thought behind the 2006 by-law amendment was that the new chair would benefit from the financial continuity of the current Finance Committee chair.

As chair of the Finance Committee in 2007, Will Cheek had negotiated Gray Sasser’s contract and salary and he and I entered into similar negotiations as he had done under the previous chair. In his fiduciary role as Finance Committee chair, it is his duty to husband the Party’s financial resources.

After discussions over the past week or so, he and I have agreed on a recommendation to the Finance Committee of a compensation package that has an annual salary of $95,000. This will be brought to the full Finance Committee in the near future and he and I are confident that the committee will unanimously accept this recommendation.

I hope this clarifies the specifics of this issue.

Let me add a disclaimer that there is no way outside of contacting him to verify whether it was really Chip Forrester who left the comment, but let's assume for the sake of argument that it was. Isn't it a rather scathing indictment of a journalist, if true, that he did not "verify, verify, verify" his information with the subject of his writing? I mean Jeff Woods is more than just a blogger. He's a professional journalist. He gets paid to cover the bases.

I'll follow up when the info is verified.

UPDATE:  ACK says that he has followed up and verified with Chip Forrester that he indeed did leave the comment at PiTW.

UPDATE:  Benintn has the ironclad judgment of Woods's brand of journalism:

This is gossip. It's not news. It's not journalism. What would make this a piece of journalism (not gossip) is if:

1. Forrester was quoted, or there was a report that "Forrester had no comment."

2. Will Cheek himself confirmed that he was voting for a pay cut.

3. Someone called Jerry Maynard and got a statement from him.

4. The "source" went on record.

I'm not sure why it is that Jeff Woods is on payroll at the Scene. This is all very interesting and intriguing and all that, but it's not journalism.

UPDATE: Vibinic takes a turn:

There’s been plenty of evidence in the past several years to suggest that Journo’s haven’t been doing their homework. This is the crux of the argument against using these “Anonymous Sources” without any verifiable source to back their claim, particularly when the report is grounded more in tabloid-esque reporting than the “hard fact” reporting that got it’s ass handed to it thanks to former Administration officials’ use of their anonymity to push a larger agenda.

Is a journalist duty bound to report something if it’s unverifiable, or is it just the manifestation of laziness and sensationalism? ....

The writer is in danger of becoming the tool of a small, unrepresentative group of people. Simply stating that no one was willing to go on record would have put this “Anonymous Source” in it’s place, right behind the refrigerator with the other cockroaches.

I would respond that for some journalists the question of "duty" seems a burden too hard to bear. Their definition of "freedom" makes no room for honor.

Common Patterns in Letters of May Town Center Supporters

An observant Enclave reader suggested that I take a look through the 19 out of 100 or so letters on the Metro Planning website that support May Town Center sprawl for "interesting similarity."

Indeed, I found some rather interesting patterns:

• Bordeaux is representin'
• Almost all look formulaic and ghost-written to me, almost as if they were prepared not to reflect personal qualities of the signers, but to be autographed by any MTC proponent
• The common formula: jobs, "smart growth," tax revenues
• Addressed to CM Lonell Matthews and copied to CM Jerry Maynard and CM Walter Hunt

That last pattern is perplexing. Why only 2 Cc:'s? Maynard is not the only at-Large CM. Hunt's district is in far north Davidson Co., while the district CMs immediately across the river from Bells Bend are Buddy Baker, Bo Mitchell, and Emily Evans. The proposed bridge would run through Baker's district. CM Jim Gotto sits on the Planning Commission, which is next to consider the proposal. Why the consistent copying by opponents to Maynard and Hunt? What are the odds that random Bordeaux residents from Lonell Matthew's district would coincidentally copy Maynard and Hunt (who has no observable connection to the first district)? Am I missing some orchestrated strategy here that targets Maynard and Hunt as in themselves critical to approval?

And on this topic of orchestration, one of the MTC supporter letters refers to the May Town booster group "Job Opportunities for Bordeaux," a project that received front-page promotion by the Tennessee Tribune. Could the generally impersonal look of the bodies of MTC supporter letters be the result of JOB efforts?

The letters of support addressed exclusively to CM Lonell Matthews constitute a small fraction of the overall letters published at the Metro Planning website. So, I have a hard time seeing why he came out so clearly today in favor of May Town Center himself (incidently SouthComm reporters were less kind last July, calling him a flip-flopper for initially favoring it and then opposing it). Besides, Matthews told the Planning Commission last July that infrastructure cost questions needed to be answered before approval could be won. Have those questions been answered?

Fight over Non-Profit Grant Money?

The Metro Council's Budget & Finance Committee is currently debating the non-profit grant award process in which panel reviews dictate which organizations are going to get Metro tax revenues. Given contrasting comments by Charlie Tygard and Jerry Maynard, it sounds like there is some bellyaching e-mails coming from some losing non-profits and their supporters over not having enough information about the award process and about possibly being overlooked even though their scores were higher. Metro Council will consider the awards at their next meeting.

With budget shortfalls in public services gallore, watching non-profits fight over what Mayor Dean throws them feels like slow death by a thousand tiny cuts.


UPDATE:  Buttorff follows up:

“It seemed to us that it became a process where [a nonprofit group] knew the Mayor or they knew the Council or they knew somebody,” said Metro Finance Director Richard Riebeling. “We felt there needed to be a process created that gave everybody equal footing and that’s what we think we’ve done with this.”

Tygard said that all three panels should use the same process. The Metro Council has to approve the grant awards as recommended by the Mayor’s Office.

Yesterday, Tygard said he’s going to file an amendment to alter the funding awards before the Council votes on the issue next week.

Jerry Maynard also made some reference to e-mails he is getting from a non-profits about this issue. It seems like the patronizing relationship between some non-profits and Council Members is still in place. I wonder how much lobbying is going on, and despite the Grant Coordination Director's claim that they are "building the airplane while flying it," some of the conflict of interest issues seem obvious.

Ballpark cost overruns already: what we should have been told before Erica Gilmore and Jerry Maynard rammed the Sulphur Dell deal through council

This troubling bit of Sulphur Dell news trickled out on December 31, which means that it was likely muffled by the holidays and that many might have missed it:

construction firms told Metro what it would [actually] cost to build a new baseball stadium for the Nashville Sounds.

But Mayor Karl Dean’s administration said the new facility will come in on budget, despite the builders’ initial estimates running some $5 million higher than city officials said a new ballpark would cost before public financing for the project was approved.

A procurement evaluation committee has selected a team led by Bell & Associates Construction to build the ballpark, which is scheduled to open in April 2015 with room for 10,000 fans.

Now we see why this deal had to go through before everyone started paying attention to Metro government shenanigans again in the new year. If your council member voted for this plan and it does run over budget, blame him or her for lack of proper oversight.

In Memphis in the meantime, the city council has worked out a deal to buy their minor league stadium, AutoZone Park, with guarantees from team and corporate sponsors. On first blush, the agreement looks much better for Memphis than Sulphur Dell does for Nashville. The Memphis Redbirds will now be owned by their parent club, the St. Louis Cardinals, who have agreed to help pay for stadium improvements and for marketing. Both the St. Louis team owners and corporate sponsor AutoZone have agreed to help the city pay off the debt from the bonds financing the deal if sales tax rebate revenues don’t meet projections. What got the Redbirds in trouble in the first place were bond holders trying to flip muni-debt.

And get this: there were Memphis city council members holding out against the deal until it was reworked more favorably for the city.

In Nashville we have no assurances from the Sounds owner (who strikes me as more of a real estate mogul than a baseball guy) and corporate developers that they will help Metro out if projections are not met by realities. That's because the sponsors of the Sulphur Dell bill--particularly Erica Gilmore and Jerry Maynard--discouraged any obligation whatsoever on these private interests to help Metro out if the dreams do not come true.

Maybe I've grown accustomed and calloused to the horsewhipping of Nashville politics, so I can't grasp the regressive holes in the Memphis deal like some critics, but I wish we would have had the Memphis city council representing our city on the Sulphur Dell deal. "Piddly" guarantees are better than no guarantees.

Breaking: Nashville Sounds owner scrubs the historic title "Sulphur Dell" from the name of the new ballpark

Mayor Karl Dean even gushed:
"Nashville won't make a cent off this!"

Sometimes I really hate having my healthy cynicism about people in power confirmed, but it was this morning. Wealthy real estate developer and owner of the Nashville Sounds Frank Ward just announced the naming rights of the new ballpark at the Sulphur Dell site. The name announced is, "First Tennessee Ballpark, Home of the Nashville Sounds" (named after the bank).

Mr. Ward and First Tennessee seem to have agreed to purge the historical moniker "Sulphur Dell" completely from the official title of the new ballpark. Obviously, the brand won't stoop to bear the historic context of the area adjacent to my neighborhood.

Looks like I was not exaggerating last week (in reporting the demolition of the state fountain commemorating the old sulphur spring that gave birth to a city) when I intimated that developers are willing to wipe away history to squeeze a few more bucks to add to their obscene piles of cash. I keep looking for the ballpark/mixed-use development team to prove me wrong about my concerns with this agreement, but today's announcement is the latest sign that these folks are willing to use our history as a sales pitch to grease the skids of politics, but they are not necessarily serious about embracing it.

We have been told to trust an accelerated process. We have been preached at over and over by Friends of Sulphur Dell, by the Mayor's Office, by opportunistic Metro Council members, by supporters far and wide that building a new ballpark as quickly as possible without proper public process is the best way of honoring the history of our area and the history of baseball at Sulphur Dell. With one morning press conference Metro, the Nashville Sounds and a bank just wiped all of that away.


UPDATE: Couldn't resist broadcasting this little dig at the now extraneous Friends of Sulphur Dell as it appeared on Twitter

UPDATE: Reporter Steven Hale has a rundown of the questions to ask elected officials and team brass that no other reporters are asking in the wake the ballpark naming kerfuffle. Take note that he cites the comments from Jerry Maynard about baseball "going back to Sulphur Dell". That got me thinking about CM Maynard's other comments employed to get the Mayor's plan passed without proper public input:

In 2008, we formed Friends of Sulphur Dell right here at Farmers Market, with Freddie [O'Connell, president of the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association, who was standing nearby] and all the neighborhood association and groups,” Maynard said, following the meeting. “And we didn't know if it was going to happen, but we fought hard for Sulphur Dell because this is the birthplace of baseball [in Nashville]. This is where it should be, the neighborhood ballpark.

Reverend Maynard's Sulphur Dell sermons strike me now as hallow and conniving. He has every opportunity now to speak out against the Sounds' decision to exclude Sulphur Dell from the ballpark moniker. I doubt he will say a word against it.

The other thing that strikes me about Hale's observations is how the Mayor places the blame for not leveraging any money for Nashville out of the deal with First Tennessee on the council's vote in favor of the deal:

Mayor Karl Dean's spokeswoman, Bonna Johnson, tells Pith that was part of the deal "just like at LP Field and Bridgestone, and it was in the agreements approved by the Council."

This is not much more than a chicken-shit response from the Mayor's Office. They determined the perimeters and terms of the Sounds deal that was sent to council with the point that any change in terms was a "poison pill" that would destroy it. They set the condensed timeline for approval of the ballpark. They held one community meeting even as Metro Planners promised more than one. They whipped the legislation through the council. They ran the PR campaign from start to finish. The onus is only partly on the weakling council that could not muster a challenge on much of anything to save its life. The Mayor conveniently acts like a strong executive (which is the Metro form of government) when he wants to, but when the heat gets turned up he consistently refuses to take it. Hizzoner's style of governing is to take the credit when it suits him, but to pass the buck when the load starts getting heavy.

The council deserves it's share of responsibility in this stupidity, but make no mistake, the Mayor should assume the lion's share of the blame for any money that could have been made from the naming rights but was lost.

Remember when Mayor Bill Purcell responded to the death of the last Sounds deal by demolishing part of their parking lot to expand a local park? I still marvel at the gumption of that. My sense is that, had he still been Mayor, he would have walked away from this deal with more revenues for public coffers (and even assurances about the Sulphur Dell name) than Karl Dean has.

My Eyes Are Peeled on This One, Brainstem

My friend, Sean Braisted, beat me to this City Paper news that new at-Large Council Member Jerry Maynard is having a fundraiser with some very influential Nashvillians to help him pay off his campaign debt. Sean is much less cynical and much more charitable than I am and he suggests that we give Mr. Maynard a chance since this is not a big deal as Sean sees it. But he also calls upon us watchdogs to keep tabs on the situation.

I feel more like a hangdog right now: after seeing the news earlier on Karl Dean's post-election Joslin-connection, I'm plain disappointed that a second leader for whom I cast a vote in the run-off is getting all tied up with big-money company, which has a very keen interest in Metro Council decisions.

The company Mr. Maynard keeps may not lend to balance when decisions get made. Here is a list of the contributors that the City Paper names:

• Adam Dread--lawyer who helped Davidson Co. Republicans prop up Kay Brooks on the School Board
• Other lawyers: Keith Simmons, Bob Tuke, James Weaver
• Multiple lobbyists: Jane Alvis, Peter Heidenreich, Joe Hall, Abby Trotter
• Roy Dale--Dale and Associates Engineering and Architecture firm who designed the controversial water holding system for a Salemtown development
• Other developers and contractors: Bill Hostettler, Bill Knestrick
• Nashville Chamber of Commerce Chair Darrell Freeman
• Convention Center proponent Bert Mathews

We will have to keep an eye on Council proceedings and watch to see whether at-Large Member Maynard sponsors bills or votes in ways that could be a conflict of interest based on his pocketbook needs rather than the broader community's welfare. It's just a shame that the post-election honeymoon ended so quickly for me.

Familiar Lobbyist Name, Familiar Lobbyist Refrain

The Tennessean suggests that registered lobbyist Joe Hall is leading the charge of the beer distributor lobbyists against the single serve ban that was deferred last night so that the Chamber of Commerce can have its way with it.

Joe Hall was one of the lobbyists who did CM Jerry Maynard a solid by co-hosting a fundraiser at his own company in 2007 to help Maynard retire his campaign debt. I think we can guess how Mr. Maynard would have voted had the bill not been deferred last night.

And no surprise here:  Hall was once a mainstream media reporter for a large Tennessee newspaper.  See the connections between journalism, public relations, and political patronage? This is a reason why I have so much respect for journalistic objectivity. Don't cry for the recent contraction of newspapers and the loss of reporters. Whenever they jump out of reporting, they seem to land on their feet quite nicely at the intersection between special interests and government power. It's a big, full trough with room for many.  Who knows? If the Nashville Scene's Jeff Woods keeps sucking up hard enough to convenience store interests on the single serve bill, he may find his own professional future secure should the Scene ever hit the skids.

Photo inset of Lobbyists for McCain from Darin Barry's photostream