A short lesson in how business models do not apply in public education

Council member Jason Holleman pulled me in on Sunday when he quoted one of the finest expositors of the relationship between public education and democracy, John Dewey, in his Tennessean column. Dewey's may be a hard pill to swallow for the "collaborative culture" in Nashville, which eschews conflict usually by ignoring those who bring it to light. However, it is no less true in genteel Music City: conflict is the gadfly of the critical reflection necessary to growth. Both minimizing and denying conflict, instead of acknowledging it and working towards mutual understanding, instigate nothing. Instead, they lead to hubris, atrophy and neglect as they destroy authentic community.

But I could go on and on about kick-ass Dewey quotes to the point of diversion.

The really important statements by CM Holleman are:

Speaking out is an essential responsibility of democratic leaders. To describe such leadership as “freelancing,” reflects a misunderstanding of the role of elected officials. We work for the people who’ve elected us. If we limit that work to the minutes of official meetings, we abdicate a critical responsibility to protect the public interest.

The Chamber of Commerce’s recent Report Card critiqued such advocacy as being inconsistent with the policy governance model the Board adopted. Respectfully, the Chamber may need a reminder on the nature of democracy and the expectations of elected officials.

Expecting only public praise and private criticism in the name of “policy governance” undermines the essential protections of free speech in general and, more specifically, erodes the relationship between constituents and their elected officials.

CM Holleman is responding to the Chamber's education committee, which accused the Metro Nashville Public School Board of "freelancing" instead of acquiescing to an idea of "unity" contrived from the strictures of their own business models for fixing what they deem as "dysfunction." The fallacy is the unexamined assumption that everything is better if operating like a business ideal. Commentators of many stripes have pointed out that all kinds of societal projects would break apart under the weight of corporate logic.

Here is the specific critique in the Chamber's "report card" to which CM Holleman's op-ed is responding:

Over the past year, it is clear that the Metro school board has struggled to articulate a common vision for the school system. This may be due, in part, to significant turnover on the board. As of August 2014, five of the nine members had served fewer than two years. Even more disruptively, some board members routinely criticize their director of schools through social media and news media articles between official board meetings, creating a perception of dysfunction and lack of leadership. Given these dynamics, we believe the board would be wise to invest more time and resources toward becoming a more cohesive governing body. We recommend that the school board recommit its adherence to policy governance by engaging in ongoing professional development. Engaging an outside trainer on a regular basis to work with the board on updating its policy governance model would ensure all members, regardless of length of tenure, have a thorough understanding of the model. In addition, these ongoing sessions could be designed to help the board accomplish necessary tasks, such as coming to consensus on expectations for their next director of schools.

Before we consider the merits the report card's argument, keep this mind: the Chamber of Commerce is a powerful lobby group that exerts pressure on local government to address their special interests. Methods they have used to collect data used to exert influence in the past were overseen by public relations and marketing firms, not independent researchers. The report itself is funded by sponsors and corporate partners listed on page 2. Whatever detached objectivity the Chamber may claim for its data now has to be qualified by its subjective use of money and power supplying and potentially biasing report results.

Such funding mechanisms for lobbying remind me of how public-private partnerships produce economic impact studies that are generally more reliable for influencing opinions than for discerning the truth.

Now to the merits of the arguments. It is frankly hypocritical for a business group to criticize a government body for a high turnover rate when the former has been shaken by unstable economies. Nashville has been beset by layoffs in recent years at some of the region's largest employers. Many here have witnessed laid off employees asked to leave immediately and escorted out by security guards. What kind of hits are long-term institutional knowledge taking in the private sector right now? Are local corporations not now hiring temporary workers and contracting out projects so that they avoid paying benefits and payroll taxes on full-time employees? Are businesses setting examples of low turnover rates in the first place?

On on that point, the education committee's choice to lob darts with terms like "freelancing" and "disruptively" so pejoratively at dissenting school board members is interesting, given trendy "disruptive innovation" and the hard-core realities of the economic system. The "sharing economy" in vogue now emphasizes "freelance" or contingent workforce, which could be the norm in a few years. So, is freelancing bad or good? One of the co-chairs of he education committee, Jackson Miller (who himself takes to social media to debate privatization of public education), has a background in the tech sector, which has "an appetite for disruptive ideas." So, is "disruption" bad or good?

The Chamber of Commerce's harsher judgments are based on ideas that are not even enduringly real in its own limited world. To speak so unambiguously, so moralistically to public education leaders is disingenuous. And frankly, the Chamber engages annually in its own pet projects (witness charter schools and corporately sponsored "academies") that disrupt and freelance in public education. Pot meet kettle.

But more to CM Holleman's point, the report card reflects an unabashed bias to take the power away from parents, teachers, principals, and voters and leave it to the whims of special interest groups and hired consultants (who stand to economically benefit from the report card's recommendation). Business lobby groups should be one among many voices with influence over the school board. PTOs, neighborhood groups, and community-based organizations, even if they do not have a lock on wealth approaching that of the Chamber, should have equal influence.

However, inviting more stakeholders leads to more dissent and the actual messiness of democracy. As if we have any other legitimate choice. To insist a democratically obligated board should subscribe to some cleanly-projected, top-down, squabble-free, market-based ideal that rarely even exists in the marketplace is partial, unreasonable and plain foolish.

In the spirit of Dewey, public education is supposed to develop children into critically thinking participants in a robust democracy that encompasses dissent as well as obedience. We do Nashville's children a disservice if we pretend--even on their behalf--that democracy is uncomplicated by dissent. What may seem like a good business model (dependence, docility, submissiveness, etc) is not always a good education model.

Ingram uses charity as a weapon, and the casualties are likely to be children

The Nashville Chamber of Commerce is now threatening the Metro Nashville Public Schools for denying a charter school. While in my opinion charter schools are usually about class warfare (or at least about class "police action"), the latest Chamber behavior seems to me to ratchet the clash to a visceral level of "shock and awe". Why? Because the gilded blueblood who penned a letter to MNPS on behalf of the Chamber threw down his own personal philanthropic weight:

Ingram elite

The chamber, a key partner with Metro schools that had previously stayed out of the feud, characterized the board’s “mishandling” of its fiduciary responsibility as “especially galling” for those in the business community who have advocated for tax increases to “fully fund” the district's budget.

“...ultimately the accountability for the school system resides with the Metropolitan Board of Education,” reads the letter, penned by businessman Orrin Ingram, who chairs the chamber’s Education 2020 program.

“Accordingly, the school board is responsible for the restoration of the $3.4 million to MNPS from the state in a way that does not waste further effort and taxpayer money.”

Ingram, an affluent philanthropist and CEO of Ingram Industries Inc., concludes with a pointed handwritten note to school board chair Cheryl Mayes: “Until this issue is resolved and the $3.4 million is reinstated, my time, money and support will stay on the sideline!”

The words “time,” “money,” and “support” are each underlined for emphasis.

We live in a climate where schools have been systematically stripped of public revenues (which increasingly go to subsidize business start-ups and relocations, as well as to underwrite lobby groups like the Nashville Chamber of Commerce) and wealthy philanthropists and private enterprises are asked to take up the slack with voluntary donations under the auspices of "public-private partnerships". The Chamber's volley across the public school bow shows the real risk of these partnerships: delivery of underfunded public education to Nashville's children is threatened by the withholding of private donations that those children have come to depend on.

Crossing the line: let the kids eat cake

Given that Nashville public schools are disproportionately working- and lower-class compared to the private schools that Mr. Ingram is now more comfortable supporting, it seems to me that the philanthropist is ramping up class war with his money and power. Whether he cares or not, the public school kids are going to be the casualties of the shots fired. This tirade also exposes the distinct possibility that his charity is a cynical tool for currying influence and leveraging the political ends that he deems beneficial to him and his class.

Such philanthropy belies commitment to Nashville's children; instead, it smacks of venture philanthropy, which is intended to configure the political landscape in one direction and consolidate power in the hands of a few. Ignoring the class dimensions of this threat is to approach it from a sense of denial. MNPS's conflict with the state has spiraled out of control and upset patricians are trying to rein in a popularly-elected, spit-the-bit board, even if kids fall.

Charter schools cinch permanent underclasses who receive something akin to vocational education. "Creaming" (or skimming the best performers off the top of traditional schools for charter schools) along with Nashville's Chamber-influenced founding of "Academies" provide the assist.

Then, the kicker: middle-class charter schools like Great Hearts calcify class stratification and provide one more barrier between the elite, concentrated power of Nashville's wealthy and the unwashed masses. That is essentially what aristocrats like Orrin Ingram defend by threatening to withdraw charity from Nashville public schools. Most pathetically, the gentry are willing to use public school children as pawns, essentially re-victimizing them to get what they want.

The state victimized the kids once by withdrawing $3.4 million. Nashville's elite follows by flexing its muscles, and it victimizes them again by withholding private donations until MNPS backs off its defiance of the state. It is merely the dark side of the public-private partnership: a sinister expression of the union we want to believe is benign, benevolent, and beneficial. We should rethink our assumptions.

Bass Pros gone wild

According to the Atlantic Monthly, a new report finds that over the past 15 years, cities and towns have earmarked $2.2 billion in taxpayer revenues to subsidize Bass Pro Shops in their communities. Bass Pro officials defend this sweetheart corporate welfare, which can drive smaller, locally owned companies out of business, by comparing their private enterprise to publicly held institutions like parks and libraries:

"These aren’t just stores – they are natural history museums," he says. "Every store is designed to reflect the unique natural environment of the area in which it is located." He adds that often a Bass Pro store is an anchor development that attracts additional retailers.

Nashville's Bass Pro

Then again, the amount of tax dollars that have been poured into these two companies would be enough to purchase every man, woman and child in the United States their own fishing pole.

Typically, these stores are financed through familiar economic development schemes like tax increment financing districts. Basically, a city borrows money by selling bonds on Wall Street and then pays off the debt with the increase in property or sales taxes generated in that TIF district.

At bottom Bass Pro is a profit making enterprise at odds with the more public purposes of municipal amenities that everyone has access to. So, comparing them to museums is a diabolical attempt to rebrand by erasing distinctions.

The City of Memphis has authorized the issuance of $215 million in bonds to fund Bass Pro even in the face of a report that finds that municipalities that bankroll Bass Pro have not always enjoyed the revenues and jobs that company PR flacks and lobbyists promise. The risks of handing over taxpayer money to the company can also lead to increased debt and unrealized tax revenues.

The only game in town: lay odds that Nashville was scammed by the banks, too

I've been a critic of the new convention center project in the past because the Mayor's Office was unwilling to go the extra mile to incorporate a 24/7 neighborhood south of Broadway into the project and because Metro funds for our services were obligated as insurance to get financiers to approve the project. Since the bank-induced recession set upon us a few years ago, I've also warned that the Music City Center's main financier, Goldman Sachs, should be suspect in its handling of financing for the project. Where is the caveat emptor?

June's Rolling Stone politics piece by Matt Taibbi on the conspiracy by the banking "cartel" to pilfer wealth from municipal bonds issued out of places like Nashville makes me even more concerned about our capital projects, and especially the largest capital project ever launched here, MCC:

these three Wall Street wiseguys spent the past decade taking part in a breathtakingly broad scheme to skim billions of dollars from the coffers of cities and small towns across America. The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes – from "virtually every state, district and territory in the United States," according to one settlement. And they did it so cleverly that the victims never even knew they were being ­cheated. No thumbs were broken, and nobody ended up in a landfill in New Jersey, but money disappeared, lots and lots of it, and its manner of disappearance had a familiar name: organized crime ....

In the years since the economic crash of 2008, we've seen numerous hints that such orchestrated corruption exists. The collapses of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, for instance, both pointed to coordi­nated attacks by powerful banks and hedge funds determined to speed the demise of those firms. In the bankruptcy of Jefferson County, Alabama, we learned that Goldman Sachs accepted a $3 million bribe from J.P. Morgan Chase to permit Chase to serve as the sole provider of toxic swap deals to the rubes running metropolitan Birmingham – "an open-and-shut case of anti-competitive behavior," as one former regulator described it.

More recently, a major international investigation has been launched into the manipulation of Libor, the interbank lending index that is used to calculate global interest rates for products worth more than $3 trillion a year. If and when that case is presented to the public at trial – there are several major civil suits in the works here in the States – we may yet find out that the world's most powerful banks have, for years, been fixing the prices of almost every adjustable-rate vehicle on earth, from mortgages and credit cards to interest-rate swaps and even currencies.

Taibbi goes into detail describing the charges that cities and towns were gored for revenues slowly and deliberately for years. As the federal prosecutor put it, banking grifters colluded to lie to and cheat municipalities through a bidding process that was supposed to protect the latter.

So, I ask again, should we just blissfully assume that Nashville, especially during Karl Dean's tenure of breathless capital spending and bond issues, has not been the mark in the banks' confidence game? Why does Goldman Sachs get the benefit of the doubt, given their checkered past?

Salemtown developers allow nearly rezoned properties to blight

The rezoning request for Salemtown properties at 6th and Garfield, which generated sparks on the neighborhood elist a few weeks ago, breezed through a May 1 public hearing with no comment:

[CM Erica] Gilmore requested a hearing from the public on this bill which had been previously advertised. The President asked if anyone desired to be heard for or against the bill and no one came forward to be heard. The President declared the public hearing closed. Ms. Gilmore moved to pass the bill on second reading, which motion was seconded and adopted by a voice vote of the Council.

Without any further objections at the council's public hearing, passage on third reading is a done deal at this point. Even with the way cleared for Roy Dale and Robin York to realized their concept, the vacant property they will build on has deteriorated into an overgrown, vermin-infested, trash-catching, codes-violating mess. Here some photos I took of the southeast corner of 6th and Garfield yesterday:

I have listened to both developers and Salemtown's association president preach to neighbors that the way to clean up vacant lots is to give developers a free, unchecked hand to build. Well, these developers enjoyed objection-free public hearings both at the Planning Commission (which I attended) and the Metro Council (which I did not attend), and yet they still neglected their responsibilities to care for their property. It is now a health risk and quality-of-life nuisance for Salemtown.

Look at the photos and convince me that we are not supposed to question the quality of their product when it is eventually built. We're supposed to believe that they give a flying fling about Salemtown?

State venture capitalists who subsidize pro teams usually derive more benefits from those teams than constituents do

In her book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein observes that in the wake of disaster profiteering developed over the last 50 years, government has shifted from the role of an administrator managing contractors to "a deep pocketed venture capitalist" that provides seed money and becomes a customer.

Klein's point is particularly salient with regard to Metro Nashville's relationship to the corporate entertainment industry. The Tennessee Titans agreement organized by Phil Bredesen includes kickbacks to the team from Metro Water Services revenues and the Nashville Predators get to keep sales tax revenues from non-hockey events at Bridgestone. Metro Nashville does not treat these arrangements so much with an air of administrative oversight, but it projects itself an equal partner in the "private-public partnership," insisting that the hard-to-demonstrate economic impact is huge.

Sacramento, California is in the process of reviewing its relationship to the NBA's Sacramento Kings franchise with some of the same themes heard in Nashville. One observer notes the difference in findings on economic impact from different sets of researchers:

When the study is completed by paid consultants prior to the public money being spent, the benefits from sports are numerous are large. However, when independent researchers – who are not paid by professional sports teams or leagues – look for these benefits after the fact, evidence of more jobs and economic growth are hard to find.

Baade and Matheson offer three reasons the impact suggested by proponents of sports fail to appear:

• The Substitution Effect: Sports are just one form of entertainment. If the Kings didn’t play in Sacramento, the people in Sacramento would simply spend the portion of their entertainment budget currently dedicated to the Kings on something else (i.e. dining out, movies, etc…).
• The Crowding-Out Effect: Sporting events attract crowds. When people know those crowds are going to appears, those who are not attending the sporting event tend to avoid the general area. For example, Baade and Matheson note that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing failed to increase the number of tourists in Beijing in August of 2008 relative to what the same city saw in August of 2007.
• Leakages: The Kings do employ very high-priced labor. But many of those players probably don’t live in Sacramento. This means that the income earned by these players doesn’t stay in the Sacramento economy.

Given these three effects, the empirical evidence suggests quite strongly that sports do not create many jobs or generate much economic growth. And such evidence has proven to be quite persuasive. In fact, a survey of economists by Gregory Mankiw noted that 85% of economists agree that local and state governments should not subsidize professional sports. Mankiw also notes that only five issues have more agreement among economists.

I would imagine that elected officials who provide venture capital for pro teams are the ultimate winners for the influence created in attracting pro sports to cities. However, it really is a matter of devoting everyone's money to businesses that benefit a relatively small number of people.

HT: Jamie Hollin

Facebook is not a good neighbor, which is not good business

It is bad enough when relocating companies make it sound like they make your community better simply by relocating along side you without reference to the quality of jobs they provide, to the risk to your quality of life from their by-products and to the quality of neighbors they are after they move in (keeping in mind that the executives will not likely be living among you).

But when an incredibly wealthy company moves in and promotes itself not as primarily profit-driven but as a catalyst for the sake of community, and then it exploits everyone else in the neighborhood, it is beyond stupid:

It should thus come as no surprise that when it comes to dealing with governments and communities, Facebook is just as self-serving as any corporation not pretending to be on a social mission. This is demonstrated most clearly at its data centers.

These facilities, also known as server farms, are large collections of computers that power online networks. They use vast amounts of power and thus are located in rural areas with cheap electricity. Being highly automated, they create few jobs -- yet Internet companies take advantage of the desperation of local officials for investment of any kind to obtain substantial economic development subsidies.

Facebook announced in January 2010 that it would build its first data center in central Oregon, choosing a location in the economically depressed town of Prineville that was part of an enterprise zone, thus making it eligible for property tax breaks for up to 15 years. The company later began expressing public concerns about how its intangible property would be taxed. In recent months it has been pressuring state legislators to restrict the ability of the state revenue department to assess data centers as utilities.

Even in social media, especially with wildly popular Facebook, there is marketing and then there is the truth. Communities who commit to these companies may think that they are on the cutting edge, on their way to becoming the next big tech bubble. But tech companies are not any further above any other company at head-faking with the novelty and driving to bling.

State bill moving with the help of advertising lobby to trump municipal regulation of digital billboards

We have fought the good fight locally to keep keep digital signs and billboards out of residential neighborhoods. However what if the red-state Tennessee General Assembly, buoyed by lobbyists, decided to pursue what would amount to a nuclear option on local regulation of commercial LEDs? It is happening in Utah:

Senate Bill 136 would allow companies to convert their traditional billboards to digital ones without requiring the approval of city governments - a move St. George officials say could have a detrimental impact on people living nearby ....

Proponents of the bill ... say businesses should be allowed to advertise and shouldn't be punished because they use certain methods or technology.

City Councilman Jon Pike said there would be more than a few outraged residents if current printed billboards were converted to bright digital signs that had the strength to project light into people's living rooms.

"These digital signs go a long way and can be very bright. We don't want to have these signs be so bright they light up the residents' windows at night," Pike said. "We don't want a proliferation of electronic billboards. We've said we'd like to preserve our ability to regulate as much as possible the billboards in our community."

There is a new study out that finds that billboards negatively affect the values of neighboring properties and that cities with strict billboard controls are more prosperous than those that have less strict ordinances. Given that it is the best interest of property owners to protect the value of their properties, given that it is in the financial interests of cities to maximize property taxes by supporting higher real estate values, state governments ought not to intrude into local regulations on businesses that threaten residential property values as well as quality of life.

Nashville "non-profit" Entrepreneur Center receives millions in government subsidies, and then "counterprotests" Occupy Wall Street

Shorter Entrepreneur Center social media content strategy.

I blogged on the Occupy Wall Street occupations almost 2 weeks ago, about 10 days after they started in New York City. By then Occupy groups were spreading around the country, including cities in Tennessee. Today a poll came out showing that a majority of Americans know about #OWS and more view it favorably than negatively. This movement is looking increasingly like the protests for reform and revolutionary democracy that have encircled the globe since the "Arab Spring" earlier this year.

Another indication that #OWS is gaining momentum is the knee-jerk way they are attacked not just by right-wing political groups, but by other organizations not known for sniping in political debates. Take Nashville's Entrepreneur Center. For some unacknowledged, inexplicable reason the Entrepreneur Center decided to "counterprotest" Occupy Wall Street by trying to encourage its 2,000 Twitter followers to tweet against #OWS with a hashtag (#Iamthe53) originally promoted by an arch-conservative redstate.com blogger. The Entrepreneur Center's twitter stream issued a curiously polarizing battle cry:

What exactly does the Entrepreneur Center stand for again?

And the surprisingly unabashed partisanship and callousness toward dissenters, who have the right to assemble and demand industry reforms, was only the first problem for what should be a more neutral resource center for small businesses.

The counterprotest posturing is also problematic because the Entrepreneur Center, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, just received one of the largest grants from the federal government Economic Development Administration in Tennessee history ($2.5 MILLION). That money is designated by the federal government for flood recovery, but in effect it also alleviates the center of costs it might incur by continuing its private mission in Rolling Mill Hill development. This list of heavy-hitters in venture capitalism, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, law, and health care suggests that the Entrepreneur Center is not hurting for money or influence.

This appears to be an influential special interest organization, subsidized by our tax dollars, taking a side against ordinary people who themselves are trying to leverage wider opportunities for other ordinary people at the grassroots because they themselves do not have the financial resources so readily available to wealthy EC leaders. EC counterprotesters are obviously willing to beg federal grant money that the rest of us help pay, that allows them to organize their increased resources to maintain political influence. However, rather than being satisfied with what they have they begrudge others--many of whom have been cut out of the system--for mobilizing the only shared resources they have: the masses who push for social change from the bottom.

When I pointed these problems out to the unidentified Entrepreneur Center social media manager tweeting on Friday and asked for an inventory of corporate welfare they were receiving from taxpayer dollars, all I received back was a reiteration of their company's stated goal:

So, again if their purpose is to aid entrepreneurs with their businesses, what business does the Entrepreneur Center have taking sides in social protest through social media while promoting conservative Republican attempts to torpedo Occupy Wall Street?

As I write this, #OccupyNashville is camped at Legislative Plaza near the state capitol in a departure from the focus of other Occupy groups, which are trying to occupy economic institutions (like the Wall Street financial district). Since so many protest groups hold their demonstrations at Legislative Plaza, Nashville's occupiers look merely like another in a long string of protesters, including the Tea Party. I am clueless and puzzled by why Legislative Plaza was chosen, when it seems to dilute the difference this movement intends to make.

Changing the system cannot start with protesting government, because corporations own government. Legislative Plaza seems to be a diversion. Might I suggest that a good place to take the Occupy Nashville protest would actually be places like the Entrepreneur Center where movers and shakers are. The idea of flood recovery money going to a business special interest group that is now attempting to counter dissent is dramatic, and it underscores the caste system dragging our country to hell. The dissent needs to be registered at places like 105 Broadway, Suite 200, Entrepreneur Center central, because the non-profit entrepreneurs seem to be inviting a fight.


UPDATE: I just found out from City Paper reporter, Joey Garrison (who is doing a story on the Entrepreneur Center's "counterprotest"), that EC has scrubbed their #iamthe53 tweets from their Twitter stream (there was a second one blaming stock market uncertainty on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Bill and Barack Obama's health care initiative). Fortunately, I saved a screenshot of the EC tweets, because I've seen this happen too many times. You can view their tweets in the middle of the post above. I have never understood why people who delve into social media think that you can simply wipe a dubious history out of existence. Their counterprotest really happened, and I have the shot above to prove it.


UPDATE: When contacted by Garrison, the Entrepreneur Center's PR specialist did not acknowledge the partisan tweets or claim any error in their communications tactics. He did equivocate and walk back the non-profit's earlier stridency:

“Within the bigger context of economic development and job creation, there is frustration across the country about the status of the economy,” Clay Jackson, the entrepreneur center’s director of marketing and communications told The City Paper. “The Occupy Wall Street protests, as such to me, are very undefined as far as what their goals are.”

Jackson seemed to downplay taking sides in the ongoing protests.

“The [Entrepreneur Center] stands behind people who are trying to create jobs and build companies,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s a side for us to fall on within that debate. If you see us as weighing in, it’s weighing in on the side of people who are trying to create jobs, to build great companies.”

Blah, blah, as such to me, blah, blah. That obfuscation seemed to provide the perfect hazy background for a blog post at the Entrepreneur Center site (like the tweets, anonymously written) which transformed the non-profit's social media content from hard-right hippy hater to granola-crunching tree-hugger merely observing Occupy Wall Street:

The national dialogue about Occupy Wall Street, greed and profits creates an excellent opportunity to talk about social entrepreneurs ....

Many people aren’t aware of “social enterprises,” or “social entrepreneurs”, so I’d like to elaborate. Social enterprises run the gamut of donation and grant driven non-profits to corporations that adhere to the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit.

Social enterprises are “mission-based” organizations as opposed to pure profit-based organizations and as a result of progressive businesses like Ben and Jerry’s, Toms Shoe’s, and local example Magdalene, Inc, (Thistle Farms), social entrepreneurs are changing the world.

At the EC, one of our 4 key verticals is social entrepreneurship, because building good businesses also requires building businesses that do good. The status quo of the pure profit driven corporation has changed a lot over the past several decades, and some of the greatest innovation is created by social entrepreneurs who build businesses that do good.

Commence organization re-branding. A couple of us tried to hash out EC's about-face on Twitter with the blogger, who proceeded to invite us to support the non-profit's "green" initiatives while still failing to answer my questions about how much federal, state, and local welfare they receive for their "mission".

Excuse my cynicism, but does the Entrepreneur Center's flip-flop seem convenient to any one else, given the timing of the City Paper story?

Exactly what is wrong with journalism and why journalists do not get social media (beyond its shallow advertising potential)

From the Twitter stream today following the Tennessean's event to explain how the news media uses Twitter, Facebook, etc:

Tennessean uses social media to protect their brand, engage their audience and as a customer service tool

Notice that nothing was said about using social media to uncover ignored and subverted news or to act as a social or political force countering or revealing information beyond the approved orthodoxy (hence, to be the Fourth Estate). Nothing about speaking truth to power, come what may, for people not at the table.

I've insisted for some time that journalism today is less about playing a critical role in society or reporting news beyond the spin, and more about public relations, branding, and promotion of friends and associates through advertising. (Note that their "free" Wednesday papers thrown on lawns are exclusively advertising now; no news at all). In essence, journalism is not a power to which we can turn as an alternative to the party line or the corporate talking points. Instead, local journalism, especially that exercised at the Tennessean, sells and brands exactly like the elite powerbrokers do.

The more journos use social media to defend their product rather than act for the sake of the common or a principled good, the more they slip from a seat of legitimate gatekeeper of information. Hence, we need social media and blogs in particular to get information past the disingenuous branding and the flackery of the Tennessean. Reporters already crowd Twitter for specific reasons and hawk their product to many, many audiences. If we fail to strive to keep social media an authentic alternative then it will be colonized via this generation of acquisitive journalists by government power and corporate money. It will be sapped of its peculiar and distinct potential.

For more on what's happening inside the Tennessean's social media event tonight, jump to their Twitter hashtag (#) stream (you may have to scroll through some obtuse participant tweets to get to the corporate sales jargon dispensed by the Tennessean's social media evangelists).

"The governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs [Music City Center financier] rules the world."

A trader describes how the big financial institutions believe "the market is toast" and how Goldman Sachs does not care, but is prepared to make a lot more money off the coming crash:





If Goldman Sachs believes "the market is toast" and they don't care about the victims of the carnage, might they be hedging and betting against subsidized capital developments here in Nashville?


UPDATE: Ray Medeiros underscores the problem. Goldman Sachs is like a plague of locusts that comes in so bent on devouring what they can get that they destroy links in the food chain vital for everyone:

Companies like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, hold more influence on a company than the consumer or the small investor, like average people that have a 401(k). Wall Street firms are in the business of investments, and they need to make as much money as possible, even if it ultimately ends up destroying the manufacturing sector of the United States economy.

Even if it ultimately ends up destroying various local economies in Nashville, TN.

These are the companies that the Mayor's Office, and Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling in particular, are looking to for guidance on large-risk finance decisions like the new convention center. Supporters of Mayor Dean tell us to trust the process and that we don't have any choice but to work with companies like Goldman Sachs if we want Nashville to grow.

But every once in a while we get a glimpse like in the video above of how far out on a limb the Dean administration may have stuck us. For their part, Goldman Sachs wagers on when that limb could break, reserving the privilege to walk away with Metro dollars either way. This is all too precarious.

Sarah Lodge Tally and her law firm benefit financially from her support of Music City Center construction

Sarah Lodge Tally rose a bloody big stink about CM Jason Holleman not supporting the Music City Center and lest we think it's all about fawning on Hizzoner, the Tennessean reports that she has some flesh in the convention center game beyond political ambition:

A candidate in a high-profile Metro Council race could have a conflict of interest on some matters involving the Music City Center, which she has criticized her opponent for not supporting.

Attorney Sarah Lodge Tally, who is challenging Councilman Jason Holleman in District 24 in West Nashville, works for Miller & Martin, the law firm handling convention center land acquisition for the Metro Development and Housing Agency. Miller & Martin has collected $1.6 million in legal fees from the city

The stand of Sarah Lodge Tally looks even less principled now.

Miffed East Nashville residents, jilted by Kroger, risk accusation of "class war" by the pinheads

When it comes to the class-based prejudices of wealth, some things never change:

Green Hills Kroger customers have applauded improved features such as a meat grilling station, beverage center and expanded seating area for Wi-Fi access, but Eastland Kroger customers view the upgrades to the grocery in one of the wealthiest parts of town as an insult.

“Kroger should make more of an investment in this thriving neighborhood,” said Elizabeth Bush, who lives on Woodland Street. “They have a vast group of folks who would shop there if they would fix the store. It doesn’t matter what your income is, you deserve fresh food” ....

The minor projects at East Nashville-area grocers still do not compete with the $1 million project that will be unveiled in a re-grand opening at the Abbott Martin Road location today, said District 6 Councilman Mike Jameson. The enduring issues with customer service, cleanliness and limited food options continue to keep a growing number of East Nashvillians away from their neighborhood store.

If East Nashville cannot siphon the channels of wealth flowing to West Nashville, economically diverse North Nashville is even farther out of the loop.

A promise Convention Center Authority PR Manager Holly McCall could not keep

This project [convention center construction] is not going over budget.

-- Music City Center Authority PR manager (former journo) Holly McCall
less than 10 months ago

Now, the Music city Center is way over budget; it'll have to pay $15 million more than it planned for this land. That cost is not in the budget of the project.
The spokesperson for the Music City Center, Holly McCall, said they'll have to do some number crunching. McCall said the Convention Center Authority will meet with the management team to assess the impact on the budget.

-- WSMV, last night

North End residents may recall that this is not the first time Holly McCall has failed her own word regarding convention center construction. A year ago she failed to follow through on a promise to Hope Gardens residents and other neighborhood leaders to release to the public the Metro lease for the Greyhound bus terminal, sending it instead only to CM Erica Gilmore. She had already admitted in a community meeting that she did not publicize the lease earlier to the affected community because she was not required to do so.

We've seen Ms. McCall's rather selective and convenient code of transparency when it comes to releasing information on convention center business. I have no doubt that her experience as a former journo will help her spin the budget overage such that earlier promises will appear not to be broken. And we are likely to get half-truths and carefully worded flackery that fails the nobler notion that public officials should be accountable for overspending public dollars.

Vanderbilt University accused of bankrolling African land grab and exploitation of farmers

When I was a university student, one of the prominent movements of our time was the one to pressure universities to divest from South Africa over apartheid. Now there appears to be a new form of exploitation of Africans and once again universities are invested and show no indication of divesting themselves without organized pressure from within their community. One of those institutions is Vanderbilt:

Nashville is also one of Goldman Sachs' clients thanks to convention center construction

It does not help local consumer confidence to know that there is a chance a major Metro financier could be designing things to enable its own profits while its clients lose:

A prosecutor in New York has subpoenaed Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs for information related to the financial crisis, a person familiar with the development said Thursday.

The broad request from the Manhattan district attorney, issued last month, stems from an April report by Senate investigators that accused Goldman Sachs of abusive behavior, according to the source.

The report said Goldman Sachs contributed to the financial crisis, partly by designing mortgage-related investments that enabled the firm to profit while its clients lost money.

We do have Rich Riebeling's word that Goldman would never do to convention center-related investments what it did to mortgage-related investments. Is that good enough for you?

This Metro contractor discrimination brought to you by your Tennessee Chamber of Commerce

Odd that private lobby groups, like the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, so invested in bringing in more jobs from corporations outside the state have been so instrumental in pushing legislation sailing through the State Senate that increases the chances that companies that have progressive hiring policies might avoid us. Local author of a council bill that would have required Metro contractors to provide workplace protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity reflects on current events:

It wouldn’t be as embarrassing if any of the arguments in support of the legislation held even a drop of water. They don’t. It’s been a campaign for the record books contrived on homophobia.

I am glad Nashville, for a limited time only, was able to show the world we are an inclusive city notwithstanding the acts of the majority of our state’s legislature. Options are being considered.

I look forward to the forthcoming data showing all the increased production of jobs and tax revenue as a result of its passage (at least the jobs saved as a result). The proponents of HB 600/SB 632 owe us that much.

The easy thing to do in this situation is to blame the Republicans. While they deserve a large part of the blame, they could not do what they do if it were not for a red-state culture that promotes or soft-pedals the regressive tendencies of growth and enterprise in Tennessee in the first place. But anyone who expects more from TNGOP is a socket-set short of a full toolbox.

Keep in mind that both the Nashville and Tennessee Chambers of Commerce, two of the more locked-in, mainstream lobbies, oppose the Metro initiative. That makes this prejudiced legislation legitimate. These bills are not just the anomalous products of fringe right-wingers on family and traditional values councils. They were belched from the very center of the wealthy business interests who fight every single regulation that comes down the chute, including ridiculously easy ones like requiring government contractors to obey some rules that nobody outside government has to follow.

On that score, Democrats share some of the blame, and not just those voting for the state bills. Social progressives, in particular, who refuse to see any inconsistency between their embrace of untrammeled, unregulated, unbalanced growth and the private sector's will-to-power that rejects obligations share the blame, too. Maybe if some Davidson County Democrats had fought for a few other healthy constraints on the "business community," the latter might not be so emboldened to do what they will. Naively given inches, they take miles.

GLBT community organizers have done nothing that I can see to work with other groups fighting discrimination and the ill-effects of growth on poor and minority communities. They have gone their own way and hitched their wagons to politicians who seemed to side with them even when they would not fight for others. As the Metro ordinance goes down at the hands of the General Assembly, they have no broad coalition to call upon for assistance. Don't pity them, because they've been good about taking care of themselves. Let them believe they can get along fine without the rest of us.

In the end, until we start approaching Chambers of Commerce as powerful special interests who lobby against workplace reform (that is to say, until we put them in check instead of deferring to their networking opportunities for individual achievement) they will continue to be brutish. Let's hope one day red-state Tennessee, excluding most Republicans, wakes up and reels in some of the latitude it gives these bullies.

Karl Dean's Omni-potent hotel plan

Mayor Karl Dean has unveiled his new proposal for a hotel to go with the Music City Center and it includes our Metro government paying half the cost of the hotel while the Omni Hotel chain will be the sole owner. Sounds like a sweet take for Omni, including deferred property taxes. Heck, such largess has even got the adjacent Country Music Hall of Fame clamoring for some Metro hand outs to retire its debt. Mayor Dean seems to be putting our government in the business of corporate welfare à la Bredesen.

And the news about where revenues are going to come from looks even more interesting:

Metro will pay $25 million next year to cover the cost of the land....That money will come from the coffers of the Metro Development and Housing Agency, where city Finance Director Rich Riebeling says it’s been waiting for a project.

Metro will also pay another $103 million over the next 20 years. Riebeling says that money will come largely from tax revenue the project itself generates.

That is, if the project indeed generates that much money for the next 20 years. This Metro Finance Director is averse to "ifs" on capital projects. However, if it does not generate $103 million, then the General Fund used to pave roads, maintain libraries, and keep community center programming afloat will be raided to prop up the monument to the tourism industry. The Metro Council made sure that those revenues will be committed by approving the Mayor's plan without protecting the General Fund. And note that some General Funds will be obligated even with the $103 million, since the money will come "largely [but not only!]" from project revenue.

The other interesting Riebeling comment regards the $25 million that is just laying around over at MDHA waiting for a project. At a time when Metro departments are tightening their belts and cutting their budgets, at a time when we are losing services, MDHA has a pile of money laying around that was just waiting for a project like Omni? You remember MDHA from last August: they unapologetically, even arrogantly, overspent their public relations/media budget by $400,000. And now they have $25 million just laying around unused to hand out to corporate patrons of Metro government. Seems fairly convenient. I would like to know where those revenues came from. MDHA has a reputation for overcharging residents, hoarding from Uncle Sam, and underspending on housing maintenance. Their habits only seem to grow lavish when wealthy suitors come a'knockin. I would also like to know how those revenues might have been spent had the convention center proposal failed.

All in all, the Mayor's Omni Hotel plan looks up on economic development and down on community development. Sustainability and community are more like fractions than integers in this equation.

Brazen Bank of America about to pay out $4.4 billion in bonuses to bankers

Wouldn't you hate to see what the bonuses they lavish on bankers would be if they weren't trying to balance greed with a "general concern" for ridiculous Wall Street compensation levels? Using that claim to balance as pretense, Bling of America is set to dole out bonuses at a clip of $400,000 per person.

This is the same BofA that paid $3.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 to employees who oversaw losses of $13.8 billion in one friggin quarter in 2008. It's the same BofA that paid out preferred dividends when it should have been making cuts. That would be the same BofA that balked at paying its low level employees on Main Street what they earned one Christmas. You know: the BofA that coaches its debt collectors to deceive relatives into believing that they are obligated to pay the loans of the deceased.

Thank goodness they are doing society a favor with those bonuses. I would hate to see how they would behave if they were trying to take advantage of us.

CEO of convention center financier to get $100 million bonus, thumbing nose at President Obama

Goldman Sachs must be encouraged by the speed with which Metro is moving to build the Music City Center, since the primary financier of the project has a $100 million bonus to pay to its CEO alone. That astronomical bonus will set the benchmark for other finance industry CEOs. It also shows Goldman Sachs' contempt for President Obama's calls for greater corporate responsibility in this recession.