Neighbors for Progress poses as community-based, but is fed by outside donations

Astroturf. That's what it seemed to me beginning late last year when the same small number of representatives from self-styled "neighborhood" organization, Neighbors for Progress, appeared at council meetings during Fairgrounds discussion. Then, they could only muster 35 supporters during the pivotal council public hearing against 3,000 advocates for racetrack preservation.

While the mainstream news media continued to spin Colby Sledge et al. as a neighborhood group, I continued to insist that NFP looked like an extension of Davidson County Democrats who had a financial interest in selling the Fairgrounds to private developers. While their website promoted a community-based movement committed to installing a park, in a pinch they were getting help from very powerful people including a lawyer last minute to try and derail their opponents before the referendum.

Not even handing out t-shirts could make them grassroots

So, now I'm not surprised at all that the media has finally dug up NFP's financial ties to partisan politicos (nor am I surprised that the embarrassing media reports are coming so late in the game to minimize the damage):

Campaign efforts of the fairgrounds area organization Neighbors for Progress aren’t funded by actual fairgrounds neighbors.

Rather, the group’s modest amount of money has come from former Mayor Karl Dean strategist Will Pinkston, investor John Cooper and a political action committee dubbed Building Nashville Together, financial reports submitted to the Davidson County Election Commission last week reveal.

The organization, which supports Dean’s vision for redeveloping the 117-acre property, has made only one political play during Metro’s election season: issuing a negative campaign mail-piece against District 24 Councilman Jason Holleman, who is trying to fend off challenger Sarah Lodge Tally and her army of pro-Dean supporters. Holleman has questioned the mayor’s handling of the fairgrounds issue.

“I think the disclosure demonstrates that Neighbors for Progress was a political attack operation, not any kind of neighborhood organization,” Holleman said.

Pinkston, a former aide to Gov. Phil Bredesen who briefly worked on Dean’s re-election team, contributed $1,000 to Neighbors for Progress. Cooper donated $700. Building Nashville Together contributed $1,500.

Neighbors for Progress is not very effective at organizing people so they have to rely on organized money given by some very powerful people in the Democratic Party, many of whom have ties to Mayor Karl Dean. Colby Sledge admitted to the City Paper that they cannot muster any influence without the help of these partisan sources. That admission does not allay my perceptions about NFP.

By the way, Building Nashville Together is a 527 organization whose chair is a former campaign manager for Jeff Yarbro, who is closely tied to Karl Dean, too. BNT has been paying people to canvass neighborhoods for Dean-friendly candidates for Metro Council, no doubt to grease the wheels on future projects like the Mayor's Fairgrounds "redevelopment" scheme.

Paid out $10,000 helping Deaniacs like Tanaka Vercher and CM Anna Page

If you can't organize people to help you at the grassroots you can always buy some influence to mobilize the voters you believe you need. And money spent now may just flip future council votes to Karl Dean.

Casting the net more widely on the census changes proposed in Metro Planning's "Alternative A"

A round-up of reactions to the first round of proposed changes to Nashville's council & school board districts, which were introduced a couple of days ago:

• According to one Nashville Neighborhoods elist report, Metro Planning promises changes to "Alternative A" even though next week they will be introducing an "Alternative B"
• I have posted the spreadsheet of Alt A district numbers with population and race/ethnic stats that a Nashville Neighborhoods elist member obtained
• One of the oldest neighborhood associations, Belmont-Hillsboro Neighbors, already wrote a letter to Planning opposing Alt A saying that having 2 council members would disrupt their work. (But wouldn't having 2 CMs give Belmont-Hillsboro twice as much influence as say Salemtown, which would only have 1 under Alt A? I do not understand the concern with the inconvenience, when the payoff might be more).
• Likewise, CM Anna Page erroneously refers to new council lines "dividing neighborhoods" in her current district. This is backward thinking. Council lines do not determine neighborhood boundaries. Neighborhoods define their boundaries. Or perhaps CM Page could show us how neighborhoods that are currently divided by existing district lines are disadvantaged by them (which would open a whole new can of worms about the disadvantaged in this council term).
• Blogger Mr. Pink at the Nashville Scene worries about either the logic or the aesthetics of putting one side of Hillsboro Village in one district and one side in another. But he ignores the fact that the main campus of Vanderbilt currently sits in one district while the university's residential college campus at Peabody right across the street sits in another with no apparent ill effects.
• Ever consumed with beauty-contest elections one local party insider/long-time Dean shill is hind-sighting and second-guessing the decisions of council candidates to focus on existing district boundaries in their run for office. Read at your own risk: grooming candidates for the Democrats often becomes more important than weightier matters of politics affecting our everyday lives.
• Alt A would put the State Fairgrounds in a different district than the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood. Currently, both are in the same district and the most vocal opponents of the Fairgrounds seem to come from that neighborhood.
• CM Erica Gilmore, whose run for re-election could be substantially affected by Alt A is "still processing" the proposal.

All's fair in this council war: Barry replicates Dominy's initiative to save the Fairgrounds excepting the racetrack

CM Duane Dominy is not pleased with Megan Barry (a member of the Metro Council Dean Team, which includes Ronnie Steine, Anna Page, Rip Ryman, and Sandra Moore, also referred by local reporter Joey Garrison as the "Gang of Five"). CM Barry is bringing a bill that essentially saves the Fairgrounds another year, which was the purpose of a bill CM Dominy sponsored and deferred on November 16. The main difference between the bills is that CM Barry wants to demolish the racetrack and CM Dominy does not.

CM Dominy sent a letter to the Nashville City Paper and to the Council office for distribution late today. The letter is reproduced below (click on the images to enlarge), but the money section is the paragraph where he points out that the "Gang of Five" not only showed discourtesy not allowing deferral of his own bill, but they voted as a bloc to try and table his ordinance (which would essentially have killed it).

The council office e-mail to members is time-stamped 30 mins after the City Paper story reporting (but not reproducing) CM Dominy's letter appeared on the paper's website. A few minutes later Megan Barry replied by e-mail to the council membership, seeming to bristle about CM Dominy mentioning "courtesy," and she insinuated that his correspondence with reporters "hours before" she received the letter was an act of discourtesy.

It seems to me indignation flows both ways. Despite her statement to the Tennessean that the coterminous news of her bill and and of the executive memo stating the Mayor's plans were coincidental, the Gang of Five probably tag-teamed this bill with the Mayor's Office. Council action around big mayoral projects has moved like Secretariat, that is, like a "tremendous machine," since Karl Dean took office. To think that there was no behind-the-scenes action-coordination strains credulity.

I don't agree with CM Dominy on much, but I do agree that there is some Gang of Five hypocrisy (and I would add cynicism) here. They criticized Dominy for what they are doing with the latest bill, which not only resembles his, but compliments complements the Mayor's plans to privatize the Fairgrounds eventually.

Each one of the Gang of Five has advanced the Mayor's agendas with few questions asked the last 3 years, and this common commitment has meant an easy ride for Karl Dean up until now. For the new Fairgrounds bill not to be coordinated out of the Mayor's Office would be out of character. CM Barry would have to think us naive to believe that the Gang of Five and Mayor coming together so exactly was fortuitous.


UPDATE: In a pointed e-mail reply to Megan Barry's mockery of his "courtesy" last night, Duane Dominy counters that not only did she also go to the news media without consulting him on the Gang of Five bill on Thursday, but she also collaborated with the Mayor's Office in writing it. Dominy also reminds Barry that elections are over and he invites her to leave politics out of the Fairgrounds discussions. He also presses her again for a work session on the two bills together.

Like I said before, I would have to be a chump to believe that the Gang of Five did not work with Rich Riebeling and other Dean staffers on writing an ordinance the same day the Mayor's Office "called time out" on the Fairgrounds.