Tuesday, December 17, 2013

A glaring omission in Karl Dean's usual spiel about his priorities

I have blogged this Mayor since the beginning of his short but happy political life.

The constant refrain from him from launch has been: 1) public safety, 2) fully-funded public schools and 3) economic development. In 2007 in his first meeting as Mayor with neighborhood leaders Karl Dean doubled down on schools and safety as his primary means of addressing neighborhood concerns.

The Mayor has been willing to shutter and curtail other services to keep those three talking points in play. They are the fodder of both of his campaigns for Mayor.

The Mayor has proposed and launched the most expensive capital campaigns in Nashville history, principally serving business special interests, realizing his commitment to economic development. He has also articulated his ambitions to transfer public wealth to corporate pockets through privatization and tax breaks for the wealthy.

Entertaining visitors: good. Educating kids: bad.
Now that he has the term-limited security of not having to run for re-election as Mayor what is he jettisoning? Everything but his economic development plank:

We protected funding for schools and public safety .... However, that does not mean we can afford or should continue the sizeable year over year increases we’ve given the schools in previous budgets.

Note nary a murmur about the excesses of economic development. So, the Mayor, after six years in office, intends to start evaluating how much public education and our safety are costing Nashville even as the excesses of pandering to the business crowd seem more obscene.

How come Hizzoner refuses to reevaluate how much his wanton and promiscuous economic development policies are costing us?

1 comment:

  1. K.D. is a closet Republican who takes marching orders from the richest of the rich.

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