Council Member To Be in Online Convention Center Debate Tomorrow

CM Emily Evans tells of her participation in the Tennessean's online debate Wednesday:

Our neighborhoods struggle everyday to get the services from the government they need - whether it is social services or fixing potholes. And if you were to call me or any other CM and ask us to spend $1 billion dollars in one year on any of those things, we would probably laugh. Yet, the Mayor and to a lesser extent, the Council, appears poised to spend that on a new convention center and a government owned hotel.

Is this a priority for your neighborhood and your community? Will it yield positive results that will bring meaningful improvements to our city or will it just be another pet project into which we pour money?

The Tennessean is having an online debate tomorrow at noon featuring, embarrassingly enough, me and Ron Samuels from the Music City Center Coalition. The Tennessean is to be commended for bringing more information and discussion about this project forward. I encourage you to support their effort by submitting questions to runderwood@tennessean.com. The forum will be structured with a set amount of questions, pro and con, and time limits on answers, so the planted question routine we often see should not be a factor.

I would also like to encourage each of you to sign up at Nashville's Priorities. www.nashvillespriorities.org. This organization is encouraging debate and discussion using credible data so that Nashvillians and their elected officials will make an informed choice. As you will see from the facebook page, people from all over Nashville are concerned. Please sign up and get engaged. We need our neighborhood voice now more than ever.

UPDATE: For those of you having trouble getting your questions through to the Tennessean, new information on the problem and the solution after the jump.