Metro Council rubber stamps another Karl Dean property tax giveaway to a big corporation

Remember this when the Mayor proposes a property tax increase on regular Nashvillians the next time his budget comes before Metro Council for approval; the next time he defends that tax increase by saying, "We have no other choice if we want to fund Metro services":

Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s largest private health care provider, is close to landing a $3 million property tax break from Metro for building a new $200 million data center in Antioch.

The Metro Council, after no deliberation, gave preliminary approval Tuesday to hand HCA a 60 percent property tax abatement on real and personal property taxes over seven years to accommodate a new Antioch data center at The Crossings on Old Franklin Road. The incentive, which Mayor Karl Dean’s administration engineered, is set for final approval in April.

We had a choice; that is to say, the Mayor had a choice. It was the same choice he had when he raised stormwater fees to pay for improvements a few years ago. At that time he raised residential water rates at a higher rate than he did business water rates, even though the latter generate huge amounts of stormwater run-off with paved parking lots and expansive roofs. At that time a few council progressives shouted protests loud and long about favoritism and dirty dealmaking with the rich.

He's passing out tax breaks now and sending us the bill for them later. Yet, some of the same progressive council members who fought the good fight last time are sitting out this one in silence. In sum, Karl Dean and the Metro Council are choosing to subsidize wealthy business on the backs of smaller property owners instead of requiring them to pay their fair share just like you and I will be expected to when the tax hammer falls.

Tax breaks for the wealthy and influential are just another form of class warfare, and the Mayor and Metro Council are choosing up sides against the middle class. But when the budget discussions start percolating in a little while not a word will be said about Metro's preferential option for the rich.

Instead, it will be about collecting the money for our public school kids, for police protection of our neighborhoods, and for job growth in the private sector. Opponents of unbalanced tax increases will be scapegoated for opposing full funding for Metro services.

These tax breaks will be forgotten or ignored.

Shame on council progressives for not lifting a single voice to oppose. Shame on council conservatives who will likely howl loud and long against a property tax increase but did not bat an eye at the subsidies flying out the courthouse door to big business (you will be the ones who deserve all of the scorn and backlash for abandoning Metro services with any budget cuts). A pox on both of your houses.

Council member comes out of hiding to sit in council chambers for 15 minutes but remains mum about MetroCenter hooker hook-up

Photo credit: WKRN

Brentwood CM Brady Banks sidled into last Tuesday's council meeting after it had already started, sat at his desk for 15 minutes, and then left before it was over. Why did the man even bother, given that he is supposed to be focusing on repairing his private life with his family before putting on a public face again? The City Paper hints at a couple of reasons:

Banks’ exit, more than anything, created confusion. Attending Tuesday’s council meeting seemed to signal an intention to keep his council seat. But council members weren’t sure why he departed early. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to face the cameras, many concluded, or he wanted to keep his perfect-attendance council-meeting streak in tact.

None of these is a valid reason to show up at a Metro Council without intentions of taking care of the people's business. Each reason is self-serving. If CM Banks is going to make symbolic public gestures to subtly cue that he is stiffening his back against the firestorm, then he can also respond directly to questions about what the hell he was thinking when he arrived in North Nashville last week to pad our crime statistics. If he treats his council attendance as a self-aggrandizing game, then he does not appreciate the seriousness of his current situation.

The council member's apologists complain that it is too soon to criticize him and he needs a private period to work with his family. But they did not utter a discouraging word on Tuesday, when their champion appeared in public in his official position of council member and sat mum. The Banks entourage should not get to have it both ways. Either he shows up at council and performs, and he addresses questions about why he engaged in illegal behavior (that should have landed him in jail for a mandatory 7 days), or he stays at home and works on keeping his family together.

But his appearance at Metro Council indicates to me that Brady Banks is likely more focused on rehabilitating his future electoral chances that suit his political aspirations. Otherwise, where was the appearance of contrition on Tuesday night?


UPDATE: In a 2010 United Methodist article on pre-marital cohabitation, Brady Banks said that faith is the "central dynamic at play" in his marriage.

Planning Commission defers Karen Johnson's bill to allow public process on billboard conversion

Antioch CM Karen Johnson

Earlier this evening Metro Planning staff recommended approving CM Johnson's bill (BL2012-109) that would allow property owners abutting billboards a public process with the Board of Zoning Appeals when a billboard owner wants to convert a conventional billboard to a tri-face billboard. The only person to speak against it in public hearing represented a corporation with a chunk of wealth and heft of influence in Tennessee: Lamar Advertising. He is also the Executive Director of the special interest lobby, Tennessee Association of Outdoor Advertising. Commissioners responded by deferring a decision on the bill until the next commission meeting, saying they want to know more about the legal implications elsewhere of regulation of billboards.

For their part, the staff advised commissioners that state law did not specifically address tri-face billboards, which gives Metro some leeway to require corporations to demonstrate that the conversion to more advertising would not have negative impact on property values.

The billboard merchant opposing Johnson's bill told Commissioners that it violated state law and that a similar measure had been overturned in Johnson City. He also maintained that determining whether billboards have a negative impact on adjacent property values is "subjective at best". This may be true, but not in the sense he meant. It is not subjective because being objective about billboard impact is impossible. The outdoor advertising industry would like us to believe being objective is impossible so that we will surrender and submit to their demands. To the contrary, judging negative impact is subjective because objective studies have not been conducted on the impact of billboards on adjacent properties.

At least no studies had been done until an urban planner in Philadelphia completed one two months ago. Jonathan Snyder's analysis concluded:

In Philadelphia, there is a statistically significant correlation between real estate value (as measured by sales price) and proximity to billboards. Properties located within 500 ft. of a billboard have a decreased real estate value of $30,826. Additionally, homes located further than 500 ft. but within a census tract/community where billboards are present experience a decrease of $947 for every billboard in that census tract. Income for strict sign control cities is higher than that for not-strict cities. Furthermore, the home vacancy and poverty rates for strict control cities are lower. Having strict sign controls does not negatively impact the economic prosperity of a city.

Nobody challenged the billboard lobbyist when he claimed that judging negative impact is subjective, and my guess is that is what he is used to. During Commissioners' comments, former council member Stewart Clifton indicated that property owner feedback might be reduced simply to whether or not they liked or disliked the look and colors of certain signs. He seemed to indicate that the public would not give reliable feedback on property values outside of aesthetic taste. That seemed to reinforce the negative-impact-is-subjective-at-best mantra. Again, nobody was around to challenge this characterization that a public process would produce unreliable data.

Adkins & TNGOP-in-Chief

Commissioner Greg Adkins responded with the deference to big business that he developed a reputation for when he was on Metro Council, arguing that there is no difference whatsoever between conventional bill boards and tri-face billboards. Without the slightest nod to democratic process, Adkins told the group he was going to vote against including public feedback because, "Advertising is advertising". Never mind that tri-fold billboards triple the volume of advertising and risk reducing a community's reputation to advertising space.

When challenged by fellow commissioner Phil Ponder to clarify what he meant by the statement, "Tri-face billboards do not change use", Adkins did a fairly poor job of clarifying. He merely repeated several times, "They do not change use", as if it were self-evident, even as Ponder gave examples of how all advertising is not the same. Assuming that Adkins was not just communicating poorly, I concluded that he had simply rehearsed some pro-industry talking points on use without critically reflecting on the meaning of "use".

Unfortunately, there was nobody available to counter what seemed to be a shared ambivalence for democratic process informing regulation of outdoor advertising, which is dominated by loads of money and by swarms of lobbyists. The staff seemed unprepared to deal with questions about legal ramifications. However, they were not entirely to blame, since it was a public hearing. Nobody spoke during the hearing for the bill. CM Karen Johnson was not in attendance. There were no community leaders present to speak in favor of approval. The meeting became an echo chamber for pro-industry talking points and uncritical questions.

Brentwood council member arrested in close proximity to North Nashville public schools, but not charged with the proximity code violation

I have obtained the affidavit and arrest warrant of CM Brady Banks, who was charged last week with soliciting sex in a North Nashville hotel during a police prostitution sting. The details are in the document I post below. Click on the image to enlarge:

The law (TCA = "Tennessee Code Annotated") cited in the affidavit distinguishes between "Class B" and "Class A" misdemeanors; the latter prompting a stiffer penalty of at least 7 days of incarceration due to the illegal solicitation occurring within 1.5 miles of public schools. Metro Police charged CM Banks with the less severe misdemeanor, which allowed him to bail out of jail within hours of his arrest:

(a) A person commits an offense under this section who patronizes prostitution.

(b)  (1) Patronizing prostitution is a Class B misdemeanor.

         (2) Patronizing prostitution within one hundred feet (100') of a church or within one and one-half (1.5) miles of a school, such distance being that established by § 49-6-2101, for state-funded school transportation, is a Class A misdemeanor.

        (3) A person convicted of patronizing prostitution within one and one-half (1.5) miles of a school shall, in addition to any other authorized punishment, be sentenced to at least seven (7) days of incarceration and be fined at least one thousand dollars ($1,000).

        (4)  (A) Patronizing prostitution from a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age or has an intellectual disability is a Class E felony.

                (B) Nothing in this subdivision (b)(4) shall be construed as prohibiting prosecution under any other applicable law.

(c) As used in subsection (b), "school" means all public and private schools that conduct classes in any grade from kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12).

There are 2 public schools roughly within .5 mi of the hotel where Brady Banks was arrested:

Hull-Jackson Elementary & John Early Middle close to Marriott

There are 3 more public schools within a 1.5 mile radius of where Brady Banks was arrested:

Jones Paideia Elementary, Buena Vista Elementary,
and Robert Churchwell Elementary are within 1.5 miles of Marriott

I do not understand why Metro Police charged the Brentwood council member with the lesser charge. Maybe some of you legal types can help me understand what I am missing here in my reading of the code, which seems straightforward. Should Brady Banks have spent 7 days in jail with a "Class A" misdemeanor before his release or not?

Postscript: jump to the MNPS map of the schools in and around MetroCenter.

Crime alert: this one involves a council member

MNPD staged a prostitution sting at a MetroCenter hotel tonight mere blocks away from Salemtown, and officers arrested 3 people, one of whom was District 4 (Brentwood) council member Brady Banks, who was also Karl Dean's manager of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods a few years ago. According to WSMV:

A Metro councilman was arrested Thursday for allegedly patronizing prostitution during a sting at a motel in the Metro Center area.

Councilman Brady Banks, 33, is accused of paying $100 to a female undercover officer in exchange for sex, police said.

Banks allegedly met the officer Thursday just after 4:30 p.m. while responding to an ad posted by the police department on the Internet.

Banks is married to a Methodist minister and is a new father.

According to the Sheriff's Office, Banks was released on $1,000 bond tonight after being booked.

CM Banks has been considered an up-and-coming young Democrat who was being marketed and groomed as a viable challenger to Tennessee Republicans. I was never concerned about his partisan chops, but I was fairly underwhelmed by his tenure in the Mayor's office in what was supposed to be an advocacy role for neighborhoods.

Now I question his judgment and his willingness to bring alleged criminal activity to my North Nashville community rather than risking it in his quiet suburban hamlet near bucolic Radnor Lake.


UPDATE: I can always count on Mike Peden to point out the interesting coincidences in Metro politics. He referred me to the fact that CM Banks, arrested at a MetroCenter hotel, received 2011 campaign financing from the Greater Nashville Hotel and Lodging Political Action Committee.


UPDATE: Is any criticism of CM Banks's alleged criminal activity a partisan or hateful "game" or "relish" in damaging news?

I don't experience anything close to satisfaction, joy or catharsis in the news that a council member may have misconducted himself in my North Nashville community. Just like folks who live in Brentwood, we want a safe and crime-free community, even though North Nashville is popularly depicted, especially in the news media, as a nest of criminality and violence. If Brady Banks trafficked sex in MetroCenter he contributed to those narratives. And he is not just someone's personal friend. He is an elected public figure who should not be entitled to a moratorium on scrutiny because he may or may not have wreaked havoc on his own personal life to boot.

Metro Council votes to urge Jesse Register to return to previous terms with service workers

The council passed a memorializing resolution earlier this evening, 25-9, encouraging Nashville schools Director Jesse Register to return to its previous practice of negotiating with the unions representing service workers and bus drivers. A month ago Mr. Register appeared to move on from the previous memorandum of understanding with the unions, encouraging employees to break from the unions and thus settle for a distinct disadvantage to the school district, which is not vested with protecting service workers' best interests ahead of those of district executives and corporate patrons of the district.

Tonight's resolution passed overwhelmingly. CM Emily Evans voted for it, calling Mr. Register's break with previous union arrangements "needless" and the breach between the district and the unions a "gratuitous fight". She described the MNPS decision to discard unions one "without any documented benefits for students". Council conservatives--who rarely stand with workers--were predictably cool toward the motion urging the school district to reengage the unions. Duane Dominy bemoaned the strained relationship between the district and its workers, but he based his opposition to the bill on the unfounded conjecture that it would cause greater strain.

SEIU photo of former MNPS board member
& current CM Karen Johnson
meeting with union members

However, there is not much more the council can do with a non-binding, toothless resolution to drive a wedge between the workers and Jesse Register than he has not already done himself. Mr. Register seems more engaging of  "CEO Champions" for his new "academies" than of the workers at the base of the MNPS pyramid:

Register ... [and] the school board’s “executive staff” decided to discontinue the MOUs entirely by deleting the school system’s Labor Negotiations Policy.

Register referenced Tennessee’s Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act, which was passed by the state legislature last year and replaced teachers’ collective bargaining rights with “collaborative conferencing” ....

“In recognition of state law regarding teachers’ unions, and the non-binding nature of any MOU with support unions, my executive staff has met and voted to rescind HR 5.129, the Labor Negotiations Policy.”

The move didn’t go over well with SEIU Local 205 president Doug Collier.

“Dr. Register is now trying to use those laws — which do not apply to school support employees — as an excuse to overreach his authority and silence the voices of thousands of loyal city employees who voted to form a union,” Collier said in a press release.

The USW and SEIU sent complaint letters to Metro Board of Education Chairwoman Gracie Porter earlier this month.

Gracie Porter never replied publicly. At least there is no indication in online news searches that she did. I received tips a couple of years ago that Ms. Porter cast the deciding vote for Mr. Register's plan to privatize the service workers' jobs in exchange for the position of board chair. And no good deed goes unpunished, as SEIU had already canvassed for Ms. Porter during her campaign for office four years before that. I can understand how speaking out publicly on Mr. Register's rejection of unions might put Ms. Porter in an awkward position.

Given the district's terse reply to the media tonight, Jesse Register does not appear too receptive to the council's resolution. I am Jack's total lack of surprise.

Enclave's 7th Annual Best and Worst Metro Services

In last year's Best and Worst I offered some New Year's resolutions for each of the Metro Departments I covered. None of them were realized, so I won't even try this year. I did stay with last year's form of picking the 3 services whose activities got most of my blogging attention. I also continued the idea of tacking the rest of the mentionable departments after the big three.

Without further adieu, the best and worst of the services that are supposed to be of some benefit to us.

Metro Council
Surprisingly to me, there was a lot more good than expected from the council whose term ended with last August's elections. That council launched the nondiscrimination ordinance in the wake of the Belmont soccer coach controversy. That ordinance, destined to be blocked by the right-wing Tennessee General Assembly, prohibited Metro contractors from discriminating. Also good was the joining together of both council progressives and conservatives to stop Mayor Karl Dean's unilateral plan to demolish the racetrack after a huge, historic turnout to the public hearing. Not even Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors' draconian public hearing tactics could derail the results. To their credit, the council required any Fairgrounds redevelopment to include a bona fide, inclusive community planning process. Finally, CMs approved Mike Jameson to General Sessions Judge. Like I said, it surpassed my expectations.

On the other side, the council generally behaved like the cowed tools of Dean it has generally been. The Budget Committee followed the Mayor's budget hearing script, and they failed to properly review County Clerk John Arriola's inappropriate spending habits, which later blew up in the media, resulting in belated CM calls for Arriola's ouster. They also failed to do their due diligence on objectively filling a Criminal Court Clerk vacancy, instead approving the Mayor's hand-picked choice, Howard Gentry. Then there is the newly elected council, which looks like it will be more Dean-dependent than the previous council ever was. Having learned nothing from the Mayor's summer IQT debacle, the sheep herd moved to approve the Mayor's plan to allow LifePoint to pay no taxes for several years and reduced taxes up to 15 years in exchange for property that could have itself been incentive to relocate.

Noteworthy CM performances:

• Emily Evans and Jason Holleman tried to bring back an equitable plan to remove cap on storm water run-off fees for businesses.
• Jamie Hollin, who could plausibly qualify for Nashvillian of the Year, was the drum major for nondiscrimination legislation and struck a populist chord on the Fairgrounds preservation. He brought progressives and conservatives together in winning efforts, while being a gadfly for Mayor's Office and culture warriors alike. Any current CM who desires to be perceived as independent should look to Hollin.
• Erica Gilmore expressed unqualified support for historic preservation of the Fehr School Building. She also took a leading role on the council's nondiscrimination ordinance. She finally put the African American Music, Art, and Culture back on the radar after being distracted by the Sulphur Dell ballpark concept.
• Karen Bennett voted against nondiscrimination and then said she encouraged those who supported her vote not to take an online neighborhood poll on the nondiscrimination measure, even though the poll could be taken anonymously.
• Jerry Maynard compared the Fairgrounds to crack houses and bristled when North Nashville talk show listeners called him the Mayor's "rubber stamp" on the air, prompting him to call them GOP "ringers". Also, Maynard had to scrub "lawyer" from his campaign website after it became clear that he was still suspended from practicing law.

Mayor's Office
The main feather in Karl Dean's cap had nothing to do with his re-election talking points to staged neighborhood meetings of "economic development, economic development, and economic development". It was signing the nondiscrimination ordinance over the protests of the local Chamber of Commerce and in spite of his past reticence to sign anything that regulated the "free" market. Sure: it seemed arbitrary and capricious given the story of his change of heart was a chance encounter with wealthy booster Mike Curb, but any time Karl Dean breaks from the Chamber it is beyond all doubt newsworthy and laudable. To his credit, Hizzoner also finally followed through on his longstanding promise to move the Metro Action Commission's main offices and utility bill support service to more accommodating facilities than Salemtown's old Fehr School.

And then there was the rest of the mess. Dean didn't visit Antioch after a February tornado, but he did carry on with a non-essential trip to Japan in spite of State Department warnings against non-essential travel. He announced a plan to reduce the size of North Nashville police force and to increase the size of the suburban force. The Mayor stuck to his plan to demolish the Fairgrounds Speedway despite mounting losses on Fairgrounds redevelopment and demonstrated public pressure against demolition. However, he never consulted the Fairgrounds staff for feedback before introducing his demolition plan. Obtained emails showed Dean staffers tried to exclude some preservationists from the public meeting process. When they were not trying to torpedo their Fairgrounds opponents, the closest Dean advisers accepted gifts of vacation lodging and other perks from a no-bid Metro contractor in violation of a 2008 executive order signed by Dean.

Meanwhile, the Mayor was expanding his staff. He hired former Bredenistas at prices that could have paid for more Metro services. He doubled his communications staff to "serve the needs of the media".  The hirings did not sit well with all, given that in 2011 less than 250 stormwater projects completed after 2 years and road maintenance and repair needs were lagging behind. The Mayor also cut back the concept of a green roof on his expensive new convention center to a small fraction of the structure to save money. In July the Mayor lost a jury decision and in December he lost the appeal, both of which guaranteed that the convention center budget was busted. Dean told the press in June that "our citizens" expressed "overwhelming support" for a new convention center, even though construction never enjoyed more than 37% support in polls; last year construction only got 26% support.

Dean, a politically connected lawyer besides being Mayor, plead ignorance on news that fellow Democrat Phil Bredesen had leveraged the transfer of millions of dollars in non-hockey-event sales from Metro coffers to the Nashville Predators hockey club. Dean raided funds designated for services to pay for streets, parks, libraries, and public safety in order to subsidize professional hockey in Nashville because he had to redirect tourist taxes earmarked for the Predators to construction of the Music City Center.  The Mayor's Office looked the other way while the Predators tried to extend a no-bid, noncompetitive contract with an NHL insider and while they lied about checking with other potential vendors. Finally on the sports front, Mayor Dean dropped $157,000 on a ballpark feasibility project, but he concluded in December that a new ballpark is a "luxury."

Karl Dean joined forces with GOP Governor Bill Haslam to offer the IQT company government subsidies, tossing 1,000 Canadians out of their jobs; because of their admitted failure to adequately vet IQT, they were shocked when the company declared it was not moving to Nashville. On the education front, the Mayor flung himself even deeper into privatizing, venture philanthropy trends in public education with Teach for America, charter school incubators, and "CEO Champions".  He earmarked $10 million for KIPP Academy (charter) while bona fide public school infrastruture continued to crumble.

As for his re-election, Dean supporters criticized any opponents who dared politicize the 2010 flood, while the Mayor held campaign events under the banner of "rising" from the 2010 flood. Shockingly, the Mayor's re-election also solicited journalists to join his "community steering committees".

Metro Nashville Public Schools
It is rather depressing, as a public school parent, to say that I found nothing good about MNPS this year. I wish I could find a half-full glass.

Director Jesse Register signed a letter with wealthy special interest group leaders from Nashville's Agenda to oppose the state's plan to streamline teacher evaluations. Charter school and innovation czar Alan Coverstone held a North Nashville "collaboration" and in private school fashion did not invite everyone with a stake in North Nashville schools. MNPS's advocacy partner Stand for Children gave subtle indications that some interpret as moving against teacher unions as other Stand organizations have done in other parts of the country. An embarrassing YouTube video appeared in June that showed the SFC CEO telling an audience that his organization used the best lobbyists in Illinois to jam proposals down the throats of teachers unions. SFC Nashville waged its own campaign by endorsing Karl Dean for Mayor, in spite of the apparent conflict of interest. While my kid's underfunded North Nashville school suffered for a lack of computers, a Boston charter school company was spending over $100,000 (stipend + benefits) on each of its twenty-something MNPS charter school founders.


The best and mostly worst of the rest in no particular order 

• Metro Finance -- Rich Riebeling could not or would not project a cost for Fairgrounds demolition even though he was its most ardent advocate.
• State Fair Board -- Emails showed that Buck Dozier lampooned a Fairgrounds redevelopment concept informed by the community and written by the Nashville Civic Design Center.
• Convention Center Authority -- 10 months after CCA PR manager Holly McCall swore that the Music City Center budget would not go over budget, the Music City Center budget was blown by poor estimates on the value of land acquired.
• Metro Water Services -- Scott Potter failed to respond to a West Nashville community leader who emailed her concerns about locating the West Nashville Police Precinct along the Richland Creek watershed. Only one community meeting was held on the matter after a number were promised to get feedback. And I learned some interesting information on vulnerabilities at Central Wastewater Treatment from a former security guard at MWS that makes me feel a lot more insecure.
• Metro Health Department -- Cited Occupy Nashville for food health violations, then performed an about-face, telling the press that they should not have been cited.
• Metro Police -- Stationed a not so inconspicuous van as "undercover dignitary protection" for former Bush official Donald Rumsfeld, who even after all of those years patronizing privatized black ops security companies can obviously no longer afford private protection.
• Metro Night Court -- Magistrate Tom Nelson refuses THP request for arrest warrants on Occupy Nashville protesters, thusly defending their basic liberties.
• Metro Planning Commission -- In Autumn, local company Yazoo Brewery teamed up with small Bells Bend farmers and produced their first line of beer made with locally grown hops, appropriately called "Bells Bend Preservation Ale". If it had not been for the Metro Planning Commission's narrow rejection of May Town Center, this buy-local project might not have happened. The rejection happened in 2010, but the ripples spread into the community this year.
• Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods -- Played a Halloween trick on neighborhood association leaders by handing an alarm company all of the latter's contact info, which is now held by Metro under false pretenses.
• Metro Historical Commission -- Kick-started the process to help Salemtown toward rezoning for the historic Fehr School building, a Civil Rights Movement monument.
• Metro Planning Department -- Finally included a nondiscrimination provision on gender, gender identity and sexual orientations 2 years after Metro Council passed an ordinance requiring it and a few weeks after Mike Peden started emailing them, Megan Barry, and Jason Holleman about noncompliance.
• Public Works -- Attempted to redesignate collector streets without any community input despite profound impact on pedestrian neighborhoods.
• Davidson County Clerk -- John Arriola spent wads of public Benjamins on superfluous signs and SUV among other forms of malfesance.
• MDHA -- Washington Post goes national with the agency's failure to start construction on low-income housing even after federal money was spent to buy the land and to build infrastructure.
• Metro Legal -- Dismissed a spurious, stupid complaint by a supporter of Mayor Dean against Emily Evans after the supporter misconstrued a friendly chat as unfriendly.

Writing these each December becomes harder rather than easier. I keep looking for more progress in Metro, but it is a rare commodity.

West Precinct constraints prohibit community development

Former Mayor Bill Purcell was not perfect. He made mistakes. Among those I would not include ignoring community-based growth. In fact, Mayor Purcell pitched the dramatic increase of associations as a feather in his cap. He backed it up with a robust Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods.

No so for our current Mayor.

The community-relations angle of the installation of the new Metro Police West Nashville precinct has been botched from beginning to end. The Dean administration was widely criticized for overpaying auto dealer Bob Frensley, friend of CM and Mayor's Office alike, for the property. Community leaders warned that the property was flood risk at a meeting where they were roundly dismissed by Dean's right-hand man, Rich Riebeling. Lo, and behold, a 1,000 year flood sent a clear message to everyone but Karl Dean, who remained unbent on the precinct placement.

The latest botch: the community affairs facilities of the new West Police Precinct can barely accommodate the West Nashville community groups registered at Metro. In their first outreach correspondence to West Nashville, Metro Police sound more like sheep herders than community affairs officers:

From: Chick, Twana D. (MNPD) [mailto:twana.chick@nashville.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 4:57 PM
To: Undisclosed recipients:
Subject: meeting with leadership teams at New West Precinct

Good afternoon:
I would like to schedule a meet-n-greet type of gathering here at the new West Precinct Community Room with the leadership teams of the various groups. I need to gauge how much participation there would be to see if we should have one meeting or two. There are 104 registered community groups. We only have 134 chairs in our new community room.

My first proposed date is February 7th from 5:00p.m.-7:30p.m.

Could ONE PERSON from each group please carefully respond by changing the subject line to: Feb 7, YES, 2 (if you wanted to bring a contingent of two from your group), Feb 7, YES, 4 (if you wanted to bring four people) and so forth. If your group leadership could not do Feb 7, then the subject line should be: Feb 7, NO. The term “group leadership” is intentionally broad and left up to your discretion.

All I am going to initially do is count persons and gauge interest. Sign in the email body with your group name only so I can tell which groups have responded. Don’t put anything more in the email body because I’m simply moving them to a folder for counting purposes.

If you are a business, I want to do businesses together at a later time.

I will tally responses until January 1. Don’t worry that you’ll get left out – I’m just doing this to gauge interest because I have no idea what to expect. I hope I’m not flooding your inboxes. One of the issues I hope to work on is getting email addresses organized so you don’t receive too much from me. Thank you for your patience.

Here is a sample:


Have a wonderful day!

Sgt. Twana Chick
West Precinct Community Affairs Coordinator

Given the stated capacity of the community, the precinct space seems inadequate to the task of accommodating local groups on occasions where they might need to meet together with the police. There is no room for growth of more community groups in West Nashville at the police precinct. While the blueprints for the new precinct may have included elements to stem any future tides from a flooded Richland Creek, they did not include provisions to spur a rising tide of community organizations.

Maybe that is because Karl Dean, unlike Bill Purcell, appears to take no pride in stimulating the growth of community-based organizations.

HT: Mike Peden

LifePoint sails through our tamed Metro Council

Ronnie Steine, who in the past has been the Mayor's own little straw boss on the Metro Council, is fond of repeating the mantra over and over that council should not debate bills on first reading, but let them get into the committee meeting process and then debate them on second. The problem with that option is that the hand-picked, loaded committees where the really important stuff gets decided tend to discourage disagreement and dissent. Like some out-of-sight-out-of-mind, coal-stoked furnace in the basement, they are engineered to burn off anything not beneficial to the Mayor's Office. By the time the important ordinances get to second reading, unless there is a well-organized popular front against them, opponents who are not silenced are pushed aside by the lotus eaters on the council.

The LifePoint legislation, up for second reading last night, is a case in point. It is a bill that affects all of us in that it hands land to a private company tax-free for a number of years on the illogical basis that it will increase our tax revenues. Questions that CMs raised earlier were put to bed last night:

The Metro Council, on a unanimous second of three votes, gave preliminary approval of millions in financial incentives to Brentwood-based LifePoint Hospitals as a way to lure the company’s headquarters and its 400 employees to Nashville ....

Leading up to Tuesday’s vote, some council members were skeptical whether the deal constituted true economic development worthy of a significant tax break.

No member even bothered to go through the motions of the challenge for the good of democratic process. They just rolled over for Karl Dean, perhaps the most undemocratic Nashville Mayor in memory. His little straw boss on council is wrong: the only process operating at the Courthouse is the figurative cinerator in the bowels of the Mayor's Office, fueled by outside lobbyists. The committee system is an extension of that, designed to kill resistance.

West Police Precinct opens Wednesday amid unresolved questions about flood risks

One community leader not likely to get a personalized invitation to Wednesday's ribbon-cutting ceremony for the West Police Precinct is Trish Bolian.

In spite of the fact that Trish was prescient about the fall out of Mayor Karl Dean's decision to locate the precinct in a refurbished car dealership near Richland Creek, her requests for information on plans for the police station and flood plain mitigation have been ignored both by the news media and by the Dean administration.

Trish, one of the neighborhood leaders who correctly warned the Mayor's Office that a major flood would would be catastrophic for the building (as it ultimately was on May 2, 2010), read Tennessean reporter Michael Cass's story last March on a flood team that the Mayor put together to gather information and make recommendations under the direction of Metro Water Services' Scott Potter.

Trish responded to the Tennessean story the next day by emailing the following to Cass (CC'ed to Potter):

Michael, I am writing to you both to commend you for the article you wrote yesterday "Flood team seeks way to keep city safe" and to ask that you do another article on this topic to answer some questions that have not been answered till now regarding the relocation site of the West Nashville Police Precinct to the former Frensley property on Charlotte.

I have included photos taken on May 2 at this site (and would be happy to share a video also shot that day with the full sound effect of raging water) if you would like to have it.

The questions I would like to ask about your article are these:

1. Is this "team" the same one that was referred to in an article by S. Toone regarding "Agencies unite to develop flood preparedness plan"? That article mentioned that the meeting was to be held on Feb. 22. No mention was made of time, place. It also mentioned that "government officials will meet with....neighborhood associations on Feb. 22 to begin the process of developing the plan". I am the President of the Hillwood Neighborhood Association and a founding member of an organization connecting many neighborhood associations together. I never got any notice nor did anyone post any specifics regarding this meeting on the multiple neighborhood associations website leading me to form the conclusion that no one was notified. Kathy Baker, former president of the Hillwood Neighborhood Association for 4 years, placed many calls, sent multiple e mails regarding specifics of this meeting. No specifics were ever obtained despite much effort. I placed a call to the Mayor's office and was told that I would be connected with the person in that office coordinating this meeting. This was on Friday before President's Day. Till now (though I left a detailed message) I have never gotten a call back. Needless to say, from my perspective there was no input from neighborhood associations on Feb. 22 or any follow-up meetings on this topic.

2. In yesterday's article you state: The Metro Council voted unanimously in December to ban development in the floodway, and any new construction in the flood plain now has to meet a "no adverse impact" standard, meaning it won't result in increased flooding. The new police precinct is partly in the floodway and in the flood plain. As it stands now, a wall is to be erected around the front of this building to try to keep this site from flooding in the future. At the Feb. 2011 meeting at Cohn School regarding this police precinct relocation, I asked how construction of this wall would affect areas on the other side of it such as Pep Boys (where people were rescued by boat) and subsequently down into the Nations where eventually 81 homes are to be bought by the city due to flooding. Answer: basically that no one knew but they didn't think it would create a problem. Common sense dictates that if flood water can't go where its force is pushing it (against a stone wall) it will keep moving to the place where there is no stone wall...right into Pep boys and that shopping area and into The Nations.

How can construction of this police precinct at this site meet this Metro council ban?

3. Your article goes on to say "Potter said the city will look at ways to store and absorb water ......and move critical services out of harm's way, including utilities, POLICE STATIONS....".

IN THIS CASE WE ARE NOT MOVING A POLICE STATION OUT OF HARM'S WAY WE AE SPENDING WELL OVER $14 MILLION DOLLARS TO PUT IT THERE right in the very site the above photos were taken! How can this be?

Of course, the NES station on Briley totally flooded as well, people were rescued from the roof and 27 bucket trucks were lost there and I constantly watch the rebuild there on the same site..looking more and more each day like it did before the flood.

I really would urge you to write another piece regarding this matter. As late as today, crews are busy at work at the former Frensley site spending tax payers money to build a police precinct (2nd largest in the county) and where the new police chief says that there will be enough parking to store extra police cars! How can any of this happen when the flooding prevention folks say "we are moving critical services OUT of harm's way...including POLICE STATIONS"!

I asked Trish if she ever got a response from either Cass or Potter and she told me that she never did. Having the reporter and the MWS bureaucrat ignore her after she specifically detailed for them how she and other leaders were ignored earlier strikes me as insult to injury. For her part, she continues to feel that people in influential positions cannot tolerate inconvenient questions. I cannot help but agree with her. Unless it fits the dominant narrative, generated by Dean's communications office and parroted by journalists, reality-based dissent is ignored.

As best I can tell, the "community meetings" played up in the reporting actually amounted to just one meeting held in late July for the purpose of making a PowerPoint presentation (which made no reference to the West Police Precinct in sections on Richland Creek). It appears that the primary means of collecting public feedback is not meetings but an online SurveyMonkey survey that allows people to to rank "five main criteria used to evaluate damage reduction solutions". It seems predetermined, minimalist, and controlled. If it does not mistakenly assume that everyone concerned has online access, then it is designed to limit rather than to encourage public response.

Wednesday Mayor Dean will go on ignoring West Nashville concerns about the flood-prone building on Charlotte Pike by tying it up with a pretty ribbon, which he will then cut in order to open the precinct up to whatever the future holds. And somebody from the Tennessean will no doubt be there to convey the festivities exactly as they are staged.


UPDATE: Trish's email mentioned the mitigation efforts at the new police precinct possibly pushing future floods on to surrounding properties in the Charlotte Pike area. Here is video of the May 2010 flood that hit a Pep Boys franchise near the precinct property. All of the water that flooded the old auto dealer in the still photos above would have to go somewhere else.





Rather than treating the Charlotte Pike flood plain as a natural barrier and not encouraging further development, the Dean administration seems content to build and then displace future flood waters elsewhere. [H/T Charles Maldonado]

Metro Council finally gets its Meals for Deals back

My blogging on Metro Council's Meals for Deals goes back 6 years, when I argued that prohibiting organizations and individuals from providing CMs meals was not a be-all-end-all for guiding CMs to conduct becoming, but it is a fair expectation. The lion's share of Metro employees do not expect to be catered to by outside agencies looking to network. They either bring or buy their own meals.

So, I have never understood the resistance from CMs like Charlie Tygard, Ronnie Steine Greer, Rip Ryman, etc. to being required to provide their own food, too. It is disingenuous and naive to act like influence would not enter into the equation, but Meals for Deals is definitely not the worst CM entitlement.

Well, tonight, the council approved on third reading a bill co-sponsored by CM Tygard, CM Phil Claiborne, and CM Anthony Davis to bring Meals for Deals back:

This ordinance would allow the acceptance of meals, beverages, and food of a value not to exceed $25 from a single source in any calendar year. The acceptance of the free food or drink would be required to be disclosed on the annual benefit disclosure statement filed with the Metropolitan clerk. The provisions in the ethics ordinance regarding the acceptance of promotional items not to exceed $25 in value and the acceptance of tickets to events not to exceed $100 in value from a single source in a given year are not changed by this ordinance.

Go buy a famished council member a meal. You've got 25 days left in this calendar year to spend $25.00 on each. Some of them have been working so hard for a half decade to get this perq back.

Convention center costs barreling overbudget, gaining momentum and risks after second courtroom loss

In July, Mayor Karl Dean and his MDHA minions lost a jury trial they hoped would hold the line on the low-ball offer they made to Tower Investments to get land for the new Music City Center. They might have low-balled the figure to hold down costs to make the convention center project sexier to the Metro Council, but they lose they did.

Now they have lost their appeal of their July failure to a judge, who upheld the jury's decision:

The Metro Development and Housing Agency, which was in charge of acquiring land for the Music City Center, hoped Circuit Court Judge Joe Binkley would reduce a critical July jury verdict in the contentious eminent domain case against development firm Tower Investments. Instead, Binkley agreed with the jury’s verdict that MDHA undervalued the land, which the city condemned and took from Tower to construct the new convention center south of Broadway.

Binkley rejected motions filed by MDHA seeking a new trial or to have the $30.4 million jury verdict reduced.

As a result, the convention center’s land acquisition budget remains busted, and the budget for the entire $585 million project will be left with a razor-thin contingency. A spokeswoman for MDHA did not rule out a possible appeal, opening the door for the 2-year-old case to be dragged on even longer.

“I don’t reasonably disagree with what [the jury] did,” Binkley said from the bench, citing state law that allows a judge to grant a new trial if he “reasonably disagrees” with a jury verdict. “And I do not find that the evidence preponderates against the verdict. I approve the verdict.”

Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling, who is one of Mayor Karl Dean’s top aides, declined to comment as he left the courtroom.

So, was Karl Dean's right-hand man, Mr. Riebeling evacuating quickly to avoid having to answer tough questions about what might have to be cut from the Metro budget to pay for this monument to the tourism industry or was he headed out to figure which groups of constituents might be least angered by cuts to their basic services in exchange for a colossus that looks bigger every time we count the costs?

The Mayor's Office is in a catch-22. The Music City Center Authority swore emphatically that the project would not go over budget. If Metro appeals Tower again and loses, the budget-busting costs grow absurdly astronomical. And what have they salvaged for the other two legal cases they have to fight over land acquisition? They have already redirected tourist taxes that were subsidizing pro hockey to cover this project. How will they keep their promise? How can they if they risk losing another trial with two others in the pipeline? Metro's other budget items have been drastically cut over and over again, so how will we pay for these convention center losses and still benefit from Metro services?

Deniable Dean?

Before Thanksgiving I posed the hypothesis that if Karl Dean did not know about the plan to send millions in non-hockey-event sales taxes away from Metro coffers and to the Nashville Predators hockey club then he is either inept of willfully ignorant. According to a late-breaking NewsChannel5 report last week, it looks like more of the latter:

But we've now discovered that they've actually pocketed almost $6 million, and there's another $4 million waiting for them to claim. It's all thanks to a lobbying effort on Tennessee's Capitol Hill.

"I just was a lobbyist, so I put the bill into the legislature," said Nashville attorney James Weaver.

Weaver is the man who went to Capitol Hill to get more of your money.

He's a longtime supporter of Mayor Karl Dean and a former lobbyist for the Nashville Predators.

After the team signed a lucrative new contract with the city in 2008, Weaver now admits he got state lawmakers to send them even more taxpayer money.

"We found out after the legislation had passed," Dean told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

But his longtime ally had a different suggestion.

"It was a public process," Weaver insisted. "Again, the bill was debated in the House, debated in the Senate, passed by both by large margins and signed by the governor."

Does Mayor Dean really expect us to believe--given general claims that mayors possess specialized knowledge of the ins and outs of financial dealings that we are not privy to--that he had no knowledge of a public process of state legislation that redistributed tax dollars to private enterprise? Karl Dean is a lawyer, for crying out loud.

Reporter Phil Williams also found that former Nashville Mayor, former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen inserted language into two different state bills that made the transfer of millions to the Preds possible. Dean worked for Bredesen when the latter was mayor, and a slew of Bredesenistas came to work for the Dean administration--at significant cost to taxpayers--after Bredesen's gubernatorial run ended.

The symbiosis between Dean and Bredesen (both of whom are Davidson Co. Democrats to boot) suggests to me that Dean would have had to have known that the fix was in on these bills. He cannot reasonably claim any deniability unless he simply kept himself willfully ignorant.

The part of this investigation where Dean's ineptness may slouch through is NewsChannel5's finding that MDHA hocked a sweetheart real estate deal to a local business in the convention center footprint that also had personal and influential connections at the Convention Center Authority. If the Mayor's Office prompted special assistance for one business it would be corrupt enough, but the very act of putting MDHA back in charge--after their mishandling of the Music City Center publicity deal with Dean ally, PR firm McNeely, Pigott, and Fox--is stupid and incredible.

Metro Health Department flip flops on Occupy Nashville citation

First, Metro Nashville cited Occupy Nashville for feeding the homeless and told them to close down their kitchen. Then, according to an ON supporter, Metro Nashville told the local media that their kitchen shouldn't have been cited:

According to [Metro Health] spokesperson Brian Todd, Occupy Nashville can feed anybody they want to, as long as they aren't selling food. He denied that the kitchen had been shut down and compared it all to tailgating for the Titans and said the only issue was whether or not the food was being sold. Since food has never been sold by Occupy Nashville, there should be no problem, right?

Except, Occupy Nashville still has the problem of the official citation, the one with the box checked that reads, "Your permit to operate a food establishment in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County is suspended effective this date," so today Occupy Nashville representatives tried once again to determine what it all meant and what they could do and not do in order to avoid more citations or even arrests or eviction of the entire occupation. By the end of the day, a curious story would emerge from Metro's Director of Public Food Safety, Todd Crozier.

It seems there should never have been a citation issued in the first place. According to the explanation given to Occupy Nashville today, "somebody, possibly the state of Tennessee," filed a complaint and requested an inspection. The inspector sent was new on the job and wrote the citation based on standing regulations, unaware that Occupy Nashville has been granted an exception to the requirement that they only feed members of their own group.

The blogger goes on to say that she believes the Governor's office is behind the citation, but even if that is true, Metro Nashville officials are still responsible for assigning an inspector and citing the camp. And it looks fishy to me that Metro bureaucrats are responding to these concerns in the news media rather than corresponding with ON directly to fix these problems. Even if Bill Haslam himself filed a complaint, the Metro Department of Health is culpable for following up, including deciding on the front end that the complaint bears no merit and releasing ON instead of leaving them confused, hanging on and holding the citation.

The simplest explanation here is not that Governor Haslam is able to manipulate Metro machinery even to the fine point of sending a noob prone to cite Occupy Nashville. The simplest explanation is that Metro Nashville screwed this inspection up and then launched damage control and spin in the Tennessean. That fits the Dean Administration MO.

However, anyone bent on seeing a conspiracy here should consider the possibility that part of Mayor Karl Dean's aspiration for an-office-higher-than-Mayor may include pinning the rap for his own boner on a Republican administration. Occupy Nashville should avoid the appearance of partisanship by perpetually focusing too exclusively on Bill Haslam when Karl Dean's administration is in play.

Karl Dean's bad form: Mayor's Office robbed Peter to pay Paul to pay Judas

The fact that Nashville is doing what none of its sister "hockey towns" is doing--subsidizing arenas for their pro clubs--is lousy enough. I agree with those of you who may be irritated by propping up athletics aristocrats in lean budget years.

But a tidbit buried deeper in this news is far worse than the fact that we bend over backwards to cater to corporate welfare. The Preds have been made accomplices in Karl Dean's mission to transfer Metro wealth in the form of tax revenues from the services devoted to streets, parks, libraries, neighborhoods and public safety to construction of the Music City Center.

Essentially, the Mayor's Office is raiding the General Fund (which pays for the services we demand of our local government in exchange for our taxes) to cover losses in subsidies to the Nashville Predators that were being paid by tourist taxes now redirected to construction of the Music City Center:

city leaders say it’s time for a change [in paying the Preds $7,800,000 out of the General Fund], especially considering the stress on the Metro budget. Amid whispers of a possible property tax increase, Metro Councilman Lonnell Matthews said it would be difficult to justify continued subsidies for a professional hockey team out of the operating budget.

Until last year, the subsidy was funded by tourism taxes and fees, but that revenue now goes to pay the debt for the new convention center.

Many of us warned over and over again that regular Nashvillians would be the truly disadvantaged of the convention center construction project, because our services would eventually be cut to obligate General Fund revenues to pay the huge cost. Rich Riebeling connived quite a shell game to cover the Music City Center drain on our resources without appearing to pay for construction with the General Fund. But that is exactly what has been happening.

It is time to shelter the General Fund services we enjoy from being bled out by Music City Center pipe dreams. The Mayor must end the subsidies to the Nashville Predators. If he does subsidize hockey the money should come from tourism taxes.

Knee-jerk corporate response in Nashville to proposed relief for overextended principals and teachers

After the state agreed to ease up on overworked educators and streamline the unrealistic teacher evaluation process, the Music City mogul class flushed apoplectic:

Keel Hunt, a public relations executive on the steering committee of Nashville’s Agenda, said education reform has emerged time and again as a focus for the group and Nashville. He is one of 29 people who put their names to the letter — others were Metro Nashville Director of Schools Jesse Register and Orrin Ingram, president and CEO of Ingram Industries.

Their letter contends that changing the evaluations could jeopardize the Race to the Top grant.

“I hope (the letter) helps underscore the importance that these people feel this issue has,” Hunt said. “It’s very important to stay the course. ... This is very important work, and there is broader interest in school success that goes beyond what one or two people feel.”

Nashville's Agenda has proved itself in times past to be a tool of wealthy special interests here while branding itself a product of democratic process. It was not too long ago that neighborhood-based leaders were at odds with Nashville's Agenda over the latter's "top down process that began with A-List financial, business and community leaders". I am not surprised at all that the organization wants to "stay the course" in the public school pressure-cooker that produces more opportunities for privatizing than it does for educating.

Apparently, Boss Register is willing to follow this course no matter how low teacher morale drops. He has cast his lot with the pecunious elites.

Nashville occupiers suspect faux-NES van of stalking & surveilling them

UPDATE: The Scene reports that the undercover van belongs to Metro Police, who decided for some odd reason that they needed to provide Donald Rumsfeld extra special coverage when he was speaking in Nashville.

Today, Metro Police spokeswoman Kristin Mumford told the Scene that it was actually undercover Nashville cops:

The van was a Metro Police Department undercover vehicle that was part of the dignitary protection plan for Donald Rumsfeld. Given his obviously controversial status, and the police department hearing talk of possible disruptions to his visit, officers were assigned to proactively work to ensure everyone's safety.

Because everyone knows Mr. Rumsfeld cannot afford to pay for private security himself or avail upon his buddies whom he hired to go to Iraq as private security contractors.

Beating up protesters is much easier than plugging potential security breaches in local utilities

Last week I had an interesting chat with a former security guard employed by Metro Nashville contractor Wackenhut to guard the Downtown water treatment plant near Salemtown. He told me that he believed the potential for catastrophic, lethal chlorine spill was real because the system does not have tight oversight.

Reportedly, the FBI is supposed to be regularly testing the security of the chlorine railroad tanker cars that deliver the concentrated toxic chemical during the water treatment process, but he never saw any conducted. He said that chlorine leak alarms went off several times in the small control building next to the tankers while he was on duty and that the building is supposed to be airtight, but on a number of occasions security personnel had to don gas masks while responding to the alarms.

Whenever there was a leak on-call "specialists," some of whom did not act like they knew how to resolve the problem, responded, according to the former guard. He also confirmed what has been reported in the past by others: the complex is remarkably vulnerable to sabotage given its proximity to Downtown Nashville.

Sandbagging tankers against the 2010 flood. 

It has been frustrating enough watching what looks a tragic accident (or act of terrorism) waiting to happen get attention from outside sources while Metro, state, and federal government officials seem to ignore the threat. A major chlorine spill would be a catastrophe for Downtown and both sides of the river. However, what I find even more galling is to watch how government misdirects its security forces away from real threats and toward innocuous inconveniences like the modest protests of dissenting citizens. Take the Department of Homeland Security, which assisted the Tennessee Highway Patrol's misguided crackdown on the relatively small Occupy Nashville protest. Give the protesters credit. They've fought the battle of Legislative Plaza against the state, gone to jail and won in the courts, and been acknowledged across media (along with overwhelming public support) for their perseverance.

Nevertheless, the committed followers who continue with the group beyond Governor Bill Haslam's bumbling heavy-handedness do not seem to expand. Moreover, ON has really not done much to occupy Nashville or otherwise live up to their name. They have not shown the slightest interest in occupying Nashville's Courthouse or the Chamber of Commerce or Gail Kerr's writing cubicle or the windmills of Jerry Maynard's mind or any other place of local political influence in Nashville. They've picketed NES and staged a street play at CCA. Today they're going to occupy the Tennessee Tower. They've basically given Mayor Karl Dean  (a Democrat with political aspirations) a pass. None of this is to slight the alternative democracy they're trying to run in the form of General Assemblies.

But really, was their nonviolent unwillingness to leave state-owned public property worth the attention of Homeland Security or the FBI or any other federal agency sworn to protect Americans against enemies, foreign and domestic? DHS overstepped its boundaries in assisting Bill Haslam's act of stepping on his own feet in the ON crackdown. Why are they not more focused on finding terrorists who might strike in Nashville or on securing vulnerable targets like the chlorine tankers at the Downtown water treatment facility?

Now we see reports that agencies like Homeland Security and the FBI may be coordinating responses with city halls across the country to suppress popular backlash against Wall Street and the financial industry. I have to wonder, given that President Obama broke his campaign promise to close George Bush's oppressive GITMO detention camps, whether the White House might actually be encouraging municipal and state-sponsored gagging of dissent as well as the compromise of universal human rights at home.

I notice this morning that Juan Cole is worrying about it, too:

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan let slip in an interview with the BBC that she had been on a conference call with the mayors of 18 cities about how to deal with the Occupy Wall Street movement. That is, municipal authorities appear to have been conspiring to deprive Americans of their first amendment rights to freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Likewise, A Homeland Security official let it slip in a phone interview that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security had been strategizing with cities on how to shut down OWS protests. The FBI is said to have advised using zoning ordinances and curfew regulations, and to stage the crackdown with massive police force at a time when the press was not around to cover the crackdown ....

What these two reports show is a high-level conspiracy to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to protest peacefully.

When will we see Occupy Wall Street protesters hooded, dressed in orange jump suits, and sent to Guantanamo for military trials? When you let the government act without regard for the rule of law toward foreigners suspected of terrorism, you open yourself to be treated the same way if the rich decide to sic their police on you (it is mostly their police).

Chapel Hill, NC cops suppress OWS protesters who occupied
an abandoned building to perhaps start a free clinic
-- KATELYN FERRAL AND MARK SCHULTZ

Sounds like the FBI is too distracted with aiding local police--who in turn act like paramilitary thugs toward nonviolent protesters--to spend much time testing for security holes at strategically significant utilities like Metro Water Services. I would agree with those who argue that if Homeland Security is coordinating these crackdown efforts against Occupy Wall Street, then we are not very far away from the day when we will see protesters rounded up and detained GITMO-style. The federal security apparatus, whose overseer is the President of the United States, needs to keep its eye on the ball and focus on potential local threats that are real. It should avoid micromanaging protest response as if it were quelling hostile coup d'etat. It ought to fix holes in the system rather than rolling back the civil rights of Americans.

Mike Jameson wins well-deserved General Sessions judgeship

Here come the Judge:

The decline of the progressive city, demanded by Republicans, enabled by Democrats

In his article called "The Myth of the Progressive City," Denver resident David Sirota enumerates the ways that leaders of Democratic cities have sold out the once proud faith in progressive tenets that lie beyond the pale of  strictly social issues (wherein common ground is often found with Republicans):

Sure, two or three decades ago, there may have been some truth to the notion that the American city is a union-driven bastion of populist progressive economics. But today, while cities may still largely vote Democratic, they are increasingly embracing the economics of corporatism. The result is that urban areas are a driving force behind the widening intra-party rift between the corporatist, pro-privatization Wall Street Democrats and the traditional labor-progressive “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party ....

On spending issues, Democratic-voting cities across the country have simultaneously slashed social services while offering up huge taxpayer subsidies for stadiums, corporate office buildings and other private, for-profit projects.”

As true as this may be for other cities it is especially true in Nashville, Tennessee, where Democrats in charge here refuse to see any of the regressive practices in privatization and subsidizing corporate influence. We have a Mayor, a Democrat, who generally ignores democratic process, unless he is threatened with a tidal wave of popular backlash. He appoints corporate donors and friends to influential committees and task forces with agenda often predetermined due to influence from interest groups like the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and the Nashville Business Coalition.

In a recent slow-pitch interview with an ingratiating "All Things Considered" (NPR) reporter, Karl Dean donned the corporatist stripes of so many Democratic city officials:

RAZ: Now these aren't boomtowns .... But they're clearly doing something right or many things right .... Mayor Karl Dean ... says his city has historically been more resilient .... What can somebody like you, in your position as the mayor of a city, actually do to begin to turn things around given how deep this economic crisis is? Is there a whole lot somebody like you or any mayor can really do?

DEAN:  ...We've been very active in economic development. And I think, fundamentally, you have to continue to invest in yourself, and the two ways we've done it, I think, are the most important. Number one is, unlike other major cities, we have not cut our schools' budget .... That's the one thing Nashville has to get right. We've also invested in ourselves, most particularly in this new convention center ....

RAZ: So does it mean that you have to just think more creatively? You have to go to the private sector and maybe look for a sponsorship, look for private companies that are willing to pay for public projects or public spaces like parks or community centers ....

DEAN: ....we've put more funding into education, but I have and others have reached out to the private sector to help us bring Teach For American here, the New Teachers Project, Charter School Incubators. If we did not have the private sector, we would not have been able to do that. Because if you're going to be doing anything innovative in government right now, you've got to build partnerships. You just can't do it on your own.

Dean tag-teaming education reform with
Chamber of Commerce CEO Champions

Terms like "innovation" and "education reform" have been used as code words here to privatize school service workers (removing their union from the public school equation), to spend millions on charter schools (privatized public schools which sap government revenues from traditional public schools), to link teacher evaluations to student test results (causing low teacher morale) and to force business-models via "CEO Champions," backed by venture philanthropy, on Nashville's secondary schools (which gives the Chamber of Commerce even more influence with little accountability to parents or taxpayers).

I am seeing more frustrations expressed here at neighborhood gatherings, parent-teacher organization meetings, and even in the streets (with Occupy Nashville) about how little control people have over municipal policies that are supposed to be informed by the community. As more people question and dissent, corporatists trot out the backlash argument that the wealthy people like those the Mayor enlists are the ones who provide us our jobs (as if that justifies their greater influence in politics above and beyond letting the people decide). They may create the jobs, but the workers create the wealth. Democrats like Karl Dean seem to have forgotten that.

Cities should be places where progressive democracy materializes rather than standing as empty window dressing that hides the hard machinery of top-down power. Neither prominent Davidson County Democrats nor their champion, Mayor Karl Dean, have done much to make Nashville such a place. We live the myth of progressive cities, too.