Jack May was able to hijack the whole community plan process," said Joe Ingle, a United Church of Christ minister who has lived in Bells Bend since 1978. "One wealthy landowner, a multimillionaire, overtook and thwarted the community's wishes, aided and abetted by the (Metro) Planning Commission staff.In his public hearing comments last Thursday, Rev. Ingle also confronted the Metro Planning Department staff for refusing to refer to call Scottsboro/Bells Bend residents what they call themselves: neighbors. Planners bring their own jargon to neighborhoods calling self-described neighbors "stake-holders" who get academically "mapped" relative to the May Town Center project that Planning is recommending in place of the neighborhood sub-area plan. The business-biased assumptions of a "stake-holder" model of reducing the complexity of a local community to economic categories could not be more clear even if more "mappable."
"Here we were, on the verge of having a distinct, creative plan … and he was able to come in and essentially co-opt the process."
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
You Better Think about the Judgment Day
A pastor from Bells Bend asks to get a witness against the May Town Center team and the Planning staff in Sunday's Tennessean:
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Same song next verse as seen with the public schools. A few wealthy people call the shots and the involved people have no say. This is funny though since the CofC, not College of Charleston, wants money to stay downtown and the fast money people want to develop everywhere. Maybe it's the upcoming election, which makes the very wealthy(Repubs not Demos) realize that the winds might not blow as strong for them. How much do these people need? What do they want?
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