Hizzoner casts his lot with the state: not exactly a profile in courage

Apparently, Mayor Karl Dean could not put aside his own personal fondness for the Great Hearts charter school company in order to lead a Metro agency out of a mess the State of Tennessee engendered. A Tennessean reporter tweeted Hizzoner's response to state action in September:

Mayor Dean said in interview that loss of state funds [due to declining one application for one charter school] is [Metro school's] problem. "They created it, and they need to figure it out."

Gadzooks. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the school board made a mistake. If you were the elected head of Metro government, the person who makes all of the budget decisions for all departments and agencies, is it the wisest course of action to cut loose an entire department or agency for a misstep? The alternative expression--"Regardless of what happens, we will find a way through this together. Let's pick up the pieces"--seems the proper course for those looking for a high road even when one has the opportunity to say, "I told you so."

Consider the fact that those adversely affected by the actions of the State of Tennessee are not powerful business interests who should be able to weather the lack of state funds, but the most vulnerable segment of the population: Nashville's public school children. Was it prudent for Hizzoner to take an adversarial posture with the state against a Metro agency when the latter had not violated anyone's civil rights and had not conducted themselves in an unethical manner? Was it wise to endorse the idea that the state should be spending less money on all Nashville children because a few middle class parents, who already have charter options, did not get the plum charter school they wanted close to their predominantly white neighborhoods?

How many times has this Mayor attempted to be our local Oprah with efforts like encouraging us to lose weight or to join his book club? He can weigh in touchy-feely over our personal lives, but he cannot have some compassion over the real risk to kids of red-state action?

And let's not forget one more thing: Karl Dean's campaign claims to fight tirelessly for full funding of Nashville's schools is fundamentally compromised by his stubborn willingness to side with the state and punish Nashville's school kids over a charter school application.

But let's end the dumb assumptions and let's get one thing straight: the school board made no mistake. For once, they did something right with a charter school application. And how much worse does Hizzoner's callous indifference appear in that light?

Can Metro Planning regain public confidence with their lingering failures to wait for studies?

The Metro Nashville Planning Department has already established an irrational pattern to rush to judgment without benefit of independent, objective studies to back their recommendations. In yesterday's excellent analysis on May Town Center, Christine Kreyling reiterates Planning's switchbacks with respect to neighborhoods proximate to Bells Bend:

Despite all these conditions on which the planners insist to curb the May Town beast, [last week's Planning] report states: “Staff acknowledges that because of the project’s regional scale and long term build-out, not all effects of the May Town Center project can be known at this time.”

The report therefore calls for a profusion of “additional studies” to project “the offsite impact of the project on development patterns.” These “offsite impacts” are creating widening ripples of concern — not to say hostility — in the neighborhoods across the Cumberland from the May Town site. And the planning department’s support for the project in the absence of “additional studies” threatens to undermine citizen trust in the planning staff and the whole community planning process ....

Council member Emily Evans, who represents Hillwood, West Meade and Belle Meade, noted that the planning climate has cooled considerably since May Town loomed on the horizon.

“In the summer of 2007, we did a plan amendment for West Meade, and the planning staff were great and we got a real consensus,” Evans said. “The participants gave the staff a standing ovation” at the final meeting. “Now the attitude is suspicion and distrust, because the community perceives May Town as a bait-and-switch deal.”

Three weeks ago I e-mailed a neighborhood planner under new urbanist Rick Bernhardt's oversight who is connected to these recommendations, Anita McCaig, asking her specifically about Planning's switch from a West Nashville community plan to priority for May Town Center. I have corresponded with Anita about various neighborhood issues going back to early 2005, and I don't ever remember her being hesitant about either answering my questions or referring me to another official who could do so. I have yet to hear back from Anita on the question of May Town Center.

When planners are not forthcoming with citizens about their motivations and intentions behind their abrupt about-face, it lends to the perception that they have battened down against broad public blowback and are working in cahoots with influential developers against the public interest. I concur with the belief that the way the planning department has handled this episode undermines public trust in the community planning process. How can we have faith that the time and energy we sacrifice to give Metro Planning our feedback will be wisely invested in fair plans that benefit all?

Former Vandy Professor Makes $600,000 a Year as Pastor

Riverside Church in New York City is a historically social justice, anti-war church that now has taken on the materialist trappings of Wall Street. Former Vanderbilt professor Brad Braxton is clearing $600K in compensation, and he has moved into a penthouse apartment at the Montana, a luxury high-rise on the upper West Side where apartments rent for up to $18,000 a month. Braxton's back-up will be making $300K.

In a world of suffering and in a time of economic malaise, how is such greed coming from a faith built on the teachings of a wealth-eschewing vagrant even defensible?

Where Was That "Progressive" Candidate When Metro Council Was Subsidizing the Church of Christ?

I've already said that I believe that she is going to trounce her opponent. A story this morning bears that out; except for the possibility that she may not have enough votes to forestall a run-off. I wonder how many more votes she could have gotten from some of us by just dropping her sponsorship of a conservative, pro-growth bill? And might those votes have made all of the difference?

And look here: nobody, but nobody, has been as watchful or as critical as I have of "slush-fund appropriation[s] to the church-of-Christ sponsored inner-city-ministry." Nobody has to preach to me the evils of certain candidates. I understand them and write about them.

But this is not simply a straight up comparison of the minor evils of one wayward bill vs. all of the ills of social conservativism that might spew forth on Nashville should one side win. It is a comparison of the main responsibility of Metro Council members (balanced planning and zoning), their accountability, and the highly visible controversies (English Only or gay/lesbian benefits) that as lightning rods have more bang than buck to them in the context of the Metro Council.

And while we are on the subject of religious-based slush funds, I have one simple, admittedly rhetorical question that dissects the whole "lesser of 2 evils" rationalization: where was Diane Neighbors' vote against, for instance, Carolyn Baldwin Tucker's bill to send over $13,000 in public funds to the Inner City Ministry? Where was her hypothesized socially progressive voice shouting her opposition then?

While we are stretching for answers on who is the lesser of two evils, bear this tally in mind; it is the list of recorded votes from the April 17 Council minutes on the bill that added to the Council's Church of Christ "slush-fund":

“Ayes” Dozier, Neighbors, Tucker, Briley, Dread, Gilmore, Isabel, Hunt, Craddock, Murray, Jameson, Cole, Hart, Forkum, Ryman, Brown, Gotto, Burch, White, Loring, Page, Greer, Pepper, Wallace, Walls, Whitmore, Evans, Summers, Shulman, Adkins, Foster, Alexander, Wilhoite, Hodge, Toler, Coleman, Duvall, Williams, Tygard (39); “Noes” (0).

The two candidates' names are right next to each other in support of this bill. My argument against some other progressives is simply that they may be as close to one another on the matter of committee appointments. We have no indication from the Neighbors campaign to the contrary. There is no "lesser evil" on that score.