Kerr errs on Amp opposition

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the hoop-like excuse that Metro Transit apparatchiks may have held "public hearings" before they settled on "the AMP" (east-west bus rapid transit connector) is no reason to believe that those hearings were effectively conducted for the public. Tennessean Gail Kerr comments this morning, "There were early public hearings on whether we should build a bus route at all, but there were sparse details at that point." This may seem minor to some, but it confirms my view that the process is more rigged to keep the public uninformed and destablized so that stronger trump cards can be laid later. The public hearings were designed to keep us guessing, not to bring us on board to reach a consensual decision in which everyone won a little of something.

The only other interesting point in Ms. Kerr's column is the ironic encouragement of people to attend public hearings now, as if the process is substantively different than it was. She seems to be merely saying of the latest hoops, "It's real this time around." I suspect that what is real is the opposition the Mayor is facing from the neighborhoods down low and from Tennessee Republicans up high. Four late-called community meetings seeking input looks like a mad scramble to lend legitimacy to a limping bus line.

Otherwise, Kerr's column is unadulterated garbage. She calls those of us who advocate a northward leg "snooty" because she alleges we believe that buses should serve mostly "lower-income people". Nope. I advocate a northward leg because it would serve mostly people. Not corporations. Not tourism. Not wealthy campaign donors. Not property owners with maximized property values. Nope. I believe that mostly average folks of various incomes are whom a Charlotte Avenue line would serve. Her preconceived notions about who lives in North Nashville may make her the "snooty" one.

But what ultimately makes Ms. Kerr's hard copy not even worthy of chucking into the compost heap is that she expects opponents of the AMP not to differ in their motivations and in their strategies for expressing dissent to an east-west connector. She bases her assumptions about the resistance on an email thread "obtained" by a couple of reporters. That's right. An email thread. One of the more mercurial, fluid and volatile forms of communication; an email thread. She relies on that to opine that opponents are not unified, to insist that we are "disjointed".

But Ms. Kerr is confusing her snapshot of a lack of consensus on how to respond to the Mayor's next gambit with a lack of purpose or a lack of solidarity. And keep this in mind: Ms. Kerr herself was coached by a PR firm in the past to flip talking points to Tennessean op-ed. By such flack standards, democratic consensus may appear to be "disjointed" and lacking in a common goal. It is not the failing of opponents of the AMP that they have different views on how to get to the shared purpose of defeating an east-west connector. It is Ms. Kerr's own failing to step outside of a world where coordinated selling points are spoon-fed to journalists.

With all of the backbone necessary to write a letter to the editor

This is priceless. The Metro Schools Director shows just how thin-skinned he is with a critical piece about his ethics from the same newspaper that is usually giving his policies free PR. But instead of facing reporters head on, Jesse Register sent his response in a letter to the editor. Hence, he controls the message hiding behind the gravitas of his title. Sufficiently impressed, John & Jane Q. Public?

Gail Kerr’s March 14 column states Mayor Karl Dean and I disagree about whether Metro Schools’ executive team should file disclosure forms. In fact, we agree. The Mayor wants Metro Schools executives to make financial disclosures, and the district is working on that now.

The existing MNPS ethics policy is modeled after the mayor’s ethics proclamation. The policy does not presently include a disclosure form, but we are working on one now that will do so and will be modeled after Metro’s. The district has sound financial procedures in place, and the disclosures will be an additional measure to promote accountability and transparency. The district’s financial disclosure requirement will be part of a Metro Schools policy and will include a list of positions included.

The implications are clear here: Metro government leaders render local news media their tools; report anything critical on his majesty Register and you won't see any future interview time for follow-up questions. Kudos to the Tennessean for fighting the good fight on this one, because Nashville's "alternative" press, SouthComm (Nashville Scene, Nashville City Paper, etc.) seems to be shying away from investigating the window-dressed Camelot of Metro government.

Left out of Register's spin: the fact that he hired his former employer, Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and paid them $700,000 for consulting work, after which they wrote a glowing report on his professional performance.

Maybe the director intends for us to forget that one. Or maybe he is saving his comments for a future letter to the editor.

MNPS Director failed to follow ethics policy, did not report gifts and favors and hired his own former employer as a consultant

Nate Rau reports that Metro Schools Director Jesse Register went 2 years without filing required disclosure forms:

After The Tennessean inquired about Register’s failure to file the forms, a spokeswoman for MNPS initially indicated he was not covered by the city’s ethics law or Dean’s executive order creating the disclosure requirements. However, Register’s employment contract contains a provision requiring him to comply with the city’s ethics law and Dean’s executive order.

Although his disclosure statements for the two missed years are now on file with the Metro Clerk, taxpayers remain in the dark about what gifts, travel, meals and tickets to events Register has received since he was hired by the district. Citing advice from the Metro Legal Department, Register left that section of the disclosure statements blank ....

Once the provision in his contract was discovered, Register filed the form for 2011 on Feb. 21 and the form for 2010 on Feb. 23.

On all three of his forms to date, Register has elected not to disclose trips, gifts, meals and other benefits provided to him because of his role as the director of schools.

This apparently looks infectious to Mayor Karl Dean, up until now Register's partner in education reform crime, because the Mayor's media herald, Gail Kerr, followed the story with an editorial distancing Dean from Register (Kerr even goes so far as to spin Dean as a reluctant Register supporter, much like he was once spun as a hesitant candidate for the Mayor's Office).

Just as troubling as the information about which Mr. Register is not being transparent in 2010 and 2011, is 2009 report that he hired former employer Annenberg Institute for School Reform and paid them $700,000 for consulting work. In 2011 the Annenberg Institute issued a report about MNPS that gushed in its evaluations of Jesse Register, according to the Tennessean. Register had recommended Annenberg to the school board to conduct the evaluations.

These events smell rank to me. The news is rife with conflicts of interests, and until we see the full ethics report, the conflicts could be judged as unethical. If Metro Nashville Public Schools is going to wipe away conventional education and implement "reform" (an ironic word when fraught with these ethical dilemmas), they better make sure that all of the analysis performed and the data collected is not tainted by favoritism and cronyism.

Gail Kerr with the talking points on the "self-mutilation" of Brady Banks

Tennessean political columnist Gail Kerr has apparently received her talking points from the 1 Public Square Glitterati on the whole affair of the council member who allegedly attempted to traffic sex in MetroCenter.

The shorter Kerr:

• He was stupid to get caught at indiscretion.
• Only time will tell whether the short but happy political life of Brady Banks and his potential as the next hip thing in the Tennessee Democratic Party are ruined by his alleged peccadillo.

It makes for a rather interesting (and by "interesting" I mean "shallow") tractate on moral reasoning in politics (or in Kerr's case the absence of moral reasoning in politics, since the moral question seems only raised by Banks getting caught).

However, what becomes apparent is that the chatter class intends to fill the void caused by its own immediate silence after the transgression with more uncertainty about ethical questions and wobbly reputations.

One thing is certain: the political rehabilitation of Brady Banks begins by holding him up to come-back-kid stories like Bill Clinton and Ronnie Steine, and Kerr obliges. The power calculators downtown (and on Capitol Hill?) no doubt intend to keep any future options open.


UPDATE: Consider the contrast between the license Gail Kerr gives the council member to her morally loaded description of the other possible person engaged in the black market transaction as a "whore". She calls Banks an "idiot", but that does not have any of the indelible sexist baggage that "whore" does.

When one is embedded, occupying only seems mushy

Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr is getting kudos for writing an editorial criticizing Governor Bill Haslam for cracking down on Occupy Nashville last week. But it was not like she was exactly supportive of Occupy Nashville:

With no clear goals, agenda or leader, Occupy Nashville was a murky movement with a mushy message that probably would have fizzled.

Occupy Oakland on General Strike today
moving to shut down the Port of Oakland

This comment is so disingenuous. If Occupy Nashville had called for a general strike, closed down banks, and drew thousands to march on a major trade center like Occupy Oakland did, they would be a hard target for Gail Kerr, who once treated Bob Corker as a superhero for taking on unions. Nashville's chapter of Occupy Wall Street could take a firmer, clear stance and open itself to Kerr charges of being blinded by union loyalism.

But Kerr is also misleading. Occupy Nashville has been transparent about their goals and agenda. First they intend to occupy public space to the end of supporting Occupy Wall Street in New York City. Wall Street is the center of American power, so it makes sense. They also intend to hold General Assemblies to involve anyone not plugged into the 1%'s power grid in an alternative political process. They are exercising open-ended democracy for people without money or power.

Occupy Wall Street has, as of this writing, issued no bullet-pointed list of demands. It has set forth no litmus test for would-be members. And that seems to be part of the point: tolerating contradictions, keeping the conversation open-ended and welcoming all comers.

In the process, they are developing other goals. They have been clear that their protests intend to express organic opposition to banks; nationally, Occupy has won victories that no newspaper columnist has, like changing the media discussion from the deficit to joblessness and motivating banks to drop debit card fees.

Finally, if the movement has no clear leaders they also do not have figureheads who, like some corporate newspaper columnists, can fall prey to temptations of political influence and wealth on various issues unoccupied by ordinary people.

It is a shame that it took Bill Haslam's stumblebum crackdown on freedom of assembly for Gail Kerr to attend to the OWS movement, but this protest extends beyond easy constitutional problems that beg editorial grandstanding. It is a movement focused on authentic democracy and an economic revolution that probably makes embedded journos like Kerr nervous when they're not writing PR for the rich and famous.

Cleveland Park notes: Highland Heights charter school building was not at risk of being torn down

Compare and contrast.

Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr in July:

[The historic Highland Heights school building] on Douglas Avenue just off Dickerson Pike, is partially occupied by KIPP Academy, a growing, successful charter school. But a plan [that is, Mayor Karl Dean's plan] to spend $9.54 million to renovate the building, part of which went up in 1930, may cost more and require another allocation from city coffers. The building is in horrible shape. Recommendations will be made by November or so on whether it can be saved, scrapped or some of both.

From the August Cleveland Park association meeting minutes:

Gracie Porter from Metro Schools
-Learned that the Highland Heights school was to be demolished from
the newspaper
==========
Majel Carr from Metro Gov’t
-Building belongs to General Services
-10 Mil came out of Council and the mayors office
-Estimates more spent on the Highland Heights building in repairs than
Metro schools in the last year

Final Word: There is a plan to go forward and RENOVATE this building.
There was never a plan to demolish and build new.

So, Kerr seemed to be incorrect in saying that the building could be scrapped and insinuating that its "survival" was at stake.

Two other things to note in the minutes. First, consistent with criticism I have heard from other elected officials, news of Karl Dean's big plans tend to be conveyed first in Tennessean talking points rather than directly to officials. Second, after November Metro could spend more on a charter school facility than they spent on public school facilities last year.

HT: Mike Peden

That ingratiating Tennessean formula

John Arriola's misuse of Metro revenues is maddening enough, but news that paid PR firms and Nashville's local daily were in on the marketing of Arriola is beyond stupid. Witness an excerpt of the email correspondence from Amanda Virgillito Saad, Andrews Agency PR flack, to Clerk Arriola via NewsChannel5, which seems to perpetually kick Gannett butt on stories that embarrass Metro government bureaucrats:

l'm happy to report that the Tennesean does plan to cover the office move with a positive story. Right now the plan is a news story plus a great column from Gail Kerr. l'm still waiting for further details, but l'd love to go over talking points in advance.

We share no common frame of reference with 1961 thanks to the student catalysts of 1961

I have questioned before misguided attempts of some who misuse the Civil Rights Movement in the news media by comparing it to benign current events. A couple of weeks ago columnist Gail Kerr seemed to feel that the best way to honor the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides was to compare the Nashville students who risked their safety, their lives by testing desegregation on interstate buses with Nashville student movements today as they editorialize in campus newspapers and demonstrate on uncomfortably cold days.

Hardly comparable to sending protest emails or tweets

As far as I know, none of the Vanderbilt, TSU, or Belmont students protesting lately faced the risk of injury, death, imprisonment or expulsion from their universities. It is not denigrating the protest of today's students to argue that the protests of 1961 faced longer odds and more dire consequences than anything students face in 2011. It does not take away from the importance of contemporary causes to argue that the memory of 1961 needs to be safeguarded against trivialization through apples-and-oranges comparisons.

Dean's confederate Kerr to critics: STFU!

In today's edition of the local daily, columnist Gail Kerr--who once received PR coaching to support the Mayor's Office at a $2,500 cost to Metro taxpayers--is back, and her unexamined, mercenary shilling for Karl Dean is the same as it ever was.

I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah. But she seems to like doing it.

Kerr's formula is consistent with an earlier column where there were "5 or 6" Dean critics mentioned, but at least she's not suggesting this time that without this Mayor Nashville would be facing a horrible catastrophe, and at least she avoided unwarranted, apoplectic attacks on individual Dean critics by name.

At this rate, the Tennessean may award Karl Dean their Tennessean of the Year Award for the second year running. Everything Gail Kerr does to help that cause has to be appreciated at the Courthouse.

Blogger responds to the Dean administration's rather nebulous and problematic hire in challenging budget times

Nashville's women's health news blogger, Rachel Walden, would like an explanation from Mayor Karl Dean's office on their decision to throw $60,000 at former Bredesen Parks Commissioner Jim Fyke based on vague rationales:

The Finance Director is quoted in the article saying things that make it explicitly clear that this was not an existing job opening, one with clearly defined responsibilities and needed qualifications, that other people were able to compete for.

“We’ll assign him projects as they arise on a case basis.” Because they were “just talking” (hello, good ole boy network), and thought he could help.

You know who actually knows what they’re supposed to do and could use more money? Who would just love to have somebody around to do whatever needed doing, or at least the $60,000 a year?

The Nashville Public Library.

Or the Metro Department of Health.

Or schools, or any number of other departments with real missions to help real people. Real services that people of Nashville need and deserve, in department that struggle to do everything that needs doing with the limited-and-being-cut funds available.

Interesting that over a year ago Tennessean columnist and Dean supporter Gail Kerr telegraphed the idea of Metro government re-hiring Fyke to the newspaper's expansive readership.

While Rachel does not want to go too hard on Fyke himself but focus on Mayor Dean and his Finance duputy, Rich Riebeling, Fyke does not have an uncheckered rep here at Enclave. How could he in good conscience take that much money when year-after-year Metro departments are asked to slash their budgets?

The false choices of a nostalgic Tennessean columnist

Gail Kerr poses the Fairgrounds friend to get to her misleading point that advocates of the Fairgrounds advocate doing nothing:

Surely ... fairground supporters do not really believe that it's good government for city leaders to sit back and do nothing purely to preserve nostalgia. Imagine what downtown Nashville would look like today if that had been the policy over the past three decades.

I loved Fair Park. It closed down years ago, of course. They finally had to tear down the rotting, termite-eaten roller coaster.

But no one can tear down my memories.

Beyond Ms. Kerr's strawman fallacies, Fairgrounds supporters have asked Metro government over and over again for renovations and improvements to the parkland. Those requests have been neglected and ignored. The Mayor is only recently getting around to Brown's Creek mitigation and redevelopment proposals, and it took a 1,000 flood to prompt him to consider that.

In the end, even if we accept news media premises that progress must be made at the Fairgrounds rather than doing nothing, why should we accept that Karl Dean's sell-off of public land to private real estate interests is the best means of wrecking rotten roller coasters?

Has Gail Kerr been coaxed or coached to merchandise the Mayor's Office?

Last Sunday's column by Gail Kerr on possible challengers in the next mayoral election perpetuated the perception that the Tennessean writer is in no sense of the term an independent journalist, but a professional PR flack functioning as the sounding board of the increasingly powerful Metro government executive.

Karl Dean goes into the next election with a campaign machine firing on all cylinders. Those cylinders include his administration, the private sources of wealth and influence behind his administration, and the corporate media, which moves too easily between political parties, press, and PR enterprise. This synthesis, this syndrome of kingmaking is on display practically every time Kerr writes a column on Metro politics, every time the Tennessean neglects pushing ahead less than flattering stories about this Mayor.

However, perhaps it was never more on display than in 2008. Kerr's Tennessean was caught in that web between a prominent Nashville PR firm (founded by former pro journalists) and the Mayor's MDHA boys, who were vested with working with that firm (McNeely, Pigott, and Fox) to hard sell a new convention center to a Nashville community reeling in the throes of economic recession. At the time--with Tennessean reporters and columnist doing interviews and meeting with McNeely Pigott, and Fox spin merchants--it wasn't the paper that broke a story of huge Metro budget overages to MPF, but NewsChannel5.

And after the NewsChannel5 story broke, we found out that PR pros had huddled with Gail Kerr to coax or to coach (depending on whose interpretation you buy) a story favorable to Mayor Dean. I obtained a copy of the MPF statement billing MDHA for hours worked on selling the Music City Center to Nashvillians. I extracted the sections of the bill that include the hours spent on work aiding and abetting Kerr, and they are posted below (I highlight her line items and inset her picture):

Was Kerr merely coaxed or coached? I have a hard time believing that if this were merely a matter of MPF working for its client Metro government to inform the media then so many hours would be spent with Kerr. Does it take more than a lunch or a couple of phone calls to inform a journo? Also, there seems to be at least one coordinated meeting between Kerr and major Metro players, MDHA's Phil Ryan and Finance Director Rich Riebeling. If MPF is only helping her with research, why have meetings with Metro officials, other than to make sure that everyone is on the same page? Coordination goes beyond education.

Finally, that manufactured letter to the editor does not pass the smell test for me. Even by itself a PR staffer paid to write a letter to the editor seems like a scheme that violates the community spirit of "Letters to the Editor." However, the appearance that the letter was synchronized with a lengthy series of prep events for Gail Kerr is even more unsettling. Was there ever a chance such a letter would be rejected, and thus an investment lost? Other investments were made. The marketing organ for Dean's capital project had received donations from the Tennessean. The newspaper had skin in this game, so what are the odds that a professionally prepped letter would be published? And later, the Tennessean endorsed the new convention center as if they were doing so merely on the merits, if not on principle. It all smells rotten.

This entire context of government, media, and corporate intermingling makes unsavory Gail Kerr's continuing efforts to brand the Mayor's office in the next election run-up. The PR firm predictably insulted our intelligence by denying influence on Kerr via Twitter. The Tennessean editor predictably insulted our intelligence by denying influence on Kerr via editorial page.  But you cannot look at the bill of goods and eliminate the probability of some form of influence, some form of cribbing, some form of action coordination.

We really should not look to Gail Kerr for an independent and reliable account of local politics. She is perhaps the most dependent, most unreliable of the bunch.

About Gail Kerr's batty attack on reputable council member

Has Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr finally gone around the bend in her tireless quest to run editorial interference for Mayor Karl Dean? In this morning's harangue she seems to have lost her mind (and likely someone else's) by berating council member Emily Evans on behalf of the Mayor's Office, even to the point of smearing Evans' impeccable public service. In so doing, Kerr does news consumers who may not know Emily Evans well a disservice.

Here is Kerr's strange rage posing as political sapience:

Councilwoman Emily Evans [whom Kerr cites as being courted by Karl Dean's foes to run in 2012 2011]: Oh, she wishes. Dean probably does, too. Evans, for whatever reason, fancies herself as Dean's antagonist. No one is sure why she is so blatantly hateful to the current administration, but she makes no bones about it. If there were a Metro Council flag for "taunting," she'd draw repeated penalty markers.

To her credit, Evans has positioned herself to be a person who asks tough questions and looks at the fine print on deals the Dean administration brings to the Metro Council. The problem is that she often comes across as the class know-it-all who revels in media attention.

She has spent her first term on the council paying less attention to district-centric issues than countywide ones — her expertise is in the bond market, so that's a natural inclination. But it's been hard to see past that to find her vision as an advocate for anything.

It's easy to be against everything. It's harder to run for mayor and be for something. And that would be her downfall in a race against Dean.

Plus, who would finance her campaign? She would watch her Belle Meade district constituency dry up like leaves on hot air if she ran against him. Try her again in 2015, perhaps for an at-large seat or, if she can moderate her tone to be a tad less shrill, vice mayor.

Note that the apoplectic commentator did not bother to check with CM Evans to ask if she was a possible candidate for anything in the future. Ms. Kerr calls herself a pro journalist but she did not adhere to the basic journalist principle that counsels confirmation of speculation.

In fact, she does not show a lick of curiosity about CM Evans' initiatives, launching instead into a unrestrained and groundless assault rather than recalling how Evans championed several causes including stormwater fee increases that the Mayor's Office itself deemed important. I certainly remember CM Evans attending a Salemtown Neighbors meeting to discuss the fee increase and to address concerns some of us had about it. But she did not just go along blindly with fee increases, either. When it became clear that the Mayor would charge high-volume corporate stormwater generators less than the rest of us, she balked, showing an independence that many of us expect from our representatives.

Emily Evans enthusiastically supported stormwater fee increases to repair our decaying old infrastructure, but she also insisted that those fees be fair.

Contrast that to Dean supporter CM Megan Barry who blamed Evans for her own choice not to exercise independence against a flawed stormwater bill. Barry's general compliance and low profile does not inspire the disrespect of local journalists like Gail Kerr. In my opinion, that has something to do with gender bias. As local blogger Aunt B points out, Kerr is smacking Evans for being uppity and too intelligent when she would not do so to outspoken, independent men. I would argue that Kerr is willing to give CM Barry passes, yes, because she chooses to trail Karl Dean, but also because she is not unallied or bold on the big issues. That is consistent with gendered stereotypes.

As important as gender is in this attack, I continue to believe that the Tennessean as the press giant in Middle Tennessee is either going after any Dean opponent (especially when the arguments against the Mayor are gaining traction) or uncritically amplifying Courthouse innuendo without regard for neutrality or independence themselves. Just like Kerr impugned Evans this morning while insinuating without any substantiation that she wants to run for Mayor, other Tennessean writers have a history of uncritically transmitting ambition innuendo about outspoken CM Mike Jameson who was critical of Karl Dean's East Bank waffles. I will not deny that gender bias makes women easier targets; reporter Michael Cass did some research and development over a year ago on the-woman-is-an-uppity-showoff themes that presaged Kerr's invective today.

The big squeeze of the Tennessean's reportage is that research and development tends to mutate into search and destroy.

Evans at West Meade community mtg.
(credit: www.sharoncharney.com)

I am a regular reader of Emily Evans' blog and I have listened to some of her constituents who describe her service as tuned in and attentive to District 23 issues. She regularly attends meetings with neighborhood associations and she has worked with district stakeholders on zoning questions and greenway development. I rarely witness Tennessean reporters highlight those events. And frankly, it is fair to ask if Gail Kerr (or whoever might be co-writing her screed from the Courthouse) has ever attended one of those neighborhood meetings. How can Kerr accurately accuse Evans of neglecting "district-centric" issues from her editorial seat on Broadway without ever having observed Evans in action in District 23?

I wish I could say that I believed this hit job were all of Gail Kerr's volition, but I honestly do not. At the very least, some insider somewhere is feeding the columnist capricious speculation with no shred of evidence in a mean attempt to smear. This is attempted character assassination pure and simple by someone who has something to lose from Evans' combination of constancy and honesty. Someone with despicable political habits, a grudge, and too much latitude is targeting Evans because her service is somehow a perceived threat. It serves none of us well.

A tough year for CM Jerry Maynard, Esquire

CM-at-Large Jerry Maynard saw his law license suspended by the Supreme Court last January because he failed to respond to a complaint of ethical misconduct. According to the Nashville Post, the grounds of the suspension lie in Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr's disclosure that Maynard worked in a legal capacity for a North Nashville health center while serving an earlier suspension.

Then last July a petition for discipline was filed against Reverend Maynard (yes, he is also a senior pastor of a Clarksville congregation as well as a former professor of law and ethics and member of the Democratic Party Executive Committee). I cannot find any details on that filing, but reportedly, CM Maynard appears to be in the more formal stage of the disciplinary process at this point. Here is how that is said to play out:

At the end of the informal phase, disciplinary counsel will reach a conclusion about what should happen next. If you have not been able to convince disciplinary counsel that the matter should be dismissed, then the informal, investigatory phase of the process is going to end one of two ways: either the Board, through Disciplinary Counsel, will propose some form of public or private discipline on your license, or the Board will publicly file a formal petition for discipline against you thereby beginning the second phase of the process. Are you convinced you need a lawyer yet?

The second phase looks a lot like the pursuit of a civil lawsuit with a three-member hearing panel playing the part of the judge and jury. You will have to file an answer to the petition, the hearing panel will enter a scheduling order, there will be discovery including the right to take depositions, and ultimately you will try your case to the hearing panel. The hearing panel’s ruling can be appealed to circuit court or chancery court and, from there, directly to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Because of a change in disciplinary procedure a few years ago, once the petition for discipline has been filed, the whole proceeding is public like other civil lawsuits. Significantly, this also means that the respondent lawyer’s ability to walk away with a private reprimand is now gone. Once this Rubicon has been crossed, a lawyer has to either win the case completely or face some form of public discipline, as the lowest form of discipline that can be imposed by a hearing panel is a public censure.

I cannot imagine this is good news for the CM, who was elected to represent all of us as "at-Large," but it should be a consideration if he decides to run again.

I have heard that CM Maynard is going to lead the Mayor's effort at Tuesday night's council meeting to beat the opposition to selling the fairgrounds to private developers. His checkered ethical history will not exactly give a boost to that cause. Actually, his deal to be one of Karl Dean's advocates for redevelopment may be an extension of his seeming penchant for misconduct.

Is the "Re-elect Karl Dean" campaign underway or not? And was he the only man who could have saved us from the May flood?

Any political realist will acknowledge that the campaign for mayoral elections never really ends. Nonetheless, the news media seems to require harder proofs for demonstrating campaign mode, like overhead and paying their media corporations advertising revenues that helps journalism float. But sometimes the media hedges bets.

One the one hand, according to one recent Tennessean story, Karl Dean hasn't even begun to fight:

There's been no formal announcement, no full-time campaign staff, no office, no advertising, no Facebook page.

"I've raised some money, but I haven't organized a campaign or done anything," Dean said in an interview last week.

On the other hand, Gail Kerr, in what looks to me like an attempt to soften any perceptions of unpreparedness that come with reluctant candidacy, 24 hours later repackages Michael Cass's reportage:

The obligatory staff, balloon-laden announcement, daily e-mail missives and Facebook page do not yet exist.

Who can blame him? Why bother yet? With the exception of the endless back-and-forth over the state fairgrounds, every thing on Dean's to do list is steady-as-she-goes. Watching Dean's development as a civic leader has been fascinating. He came into office with staffers who were pretty good at getting their guy elected but not necessarily skilled at governing. They go into next year's re-election as a cohesive team that knows how to do both.

Gail Kerr continues to regale us with the legend of grooming the reluctant candidate into the ultimate governator. Accordingly, Mayor Dean may lack a certain savvy that comes with running a campaign, but that also makes him innocent of any cynicism that plagues political decision-making. In Ms. Kerr's narrative he might as well be a Clark Kent character who dons the cape of politics when forced to. And the May floods forced him to:

He has worked through his tendency to act only after a lawyerly exploration of every angle. Dean is still deliberative, but he turned a disaster into triumph with quick action after the flood.

Can you imagine any of the men who lost to Dean leading Nashville through that? The image that comes to mind is a city without drinking water for months. Makes you shiver, doesn't it?

Gail Kerr did not stop with deftly flipping the checkered image of practicing law into an appealing alternative (see: Atticus Finch), but perhaps she strained credulity by planting the ridiculous notion that Karl Dean was the only person who saved us from catastrophic thirst for lack of drinking water. That ignores the good fortune that both Nashville and Mayor Dean enjoyed last May and it minimizes the role that other leaders did and could have played. I distinctly remember witnessing mistakes in flood calculations and seemingly uninspired Metro workers pacing at river's rising edge unsure of what to do next. But history is written by winners, especially those who have story tellers who seem more like Stephen Root playing "Suds" than independent, critically reflective journalists.

It is confusing enough that journalists are waffling and spinning on the question of whether the Dean campaign has actually started. Karl Dean's own e-mail correspondence confuses the issue. He sends out newsletters from the "Office of the Mayor" that are paid for by the "Dean for Mayor" campaign:

Mayor's Office e-mail or Dean re-election campaign e-mail? 

The truth is that the campaign has been going since the last election despite the news media's naked attempts to write Mayor Dean's political aspirations out of the governing equation. While it may not be illegal for the Dean Team to use the mayor@nashville.gov or other resources in the Nashville Mayor's office to help the Mayor get re-elected, they tend to confound the office and the campaign with an opportunism that may not interface with our general welfare.

Who needs political consultants when journalists can do the dirty work for free?

Jay Voorhees parries columnist Gail Kerr's recent swipe at Metro's services to the poor as well as her play of the race card when class was the suit laid:

It’s the last sentence that really bothered me, the one about the hospital being “money losing” and implying that the only support for the institution in by the Black Caucus. Yes, the hospital is running at a deficit this year, but it is a deficit that Rich Riebeling approved. The hospital has worked hard during the past four years to become as efficient as possible. When they mayor demanded a 10% cut in the hospital subsidy last year, the hospital informed the mayor’s office that they could not meet that target without cutting services, such as the outpatient cancer chemo clinic, which is the last line of treatment for the poor who have cancer. The mayor’s office did not want to be accused of harming poor people, so the hospital was told to leave the $1.5 million dollar deficit in the budget, and that they would deal with the shortfall later in the year through other means. This year, the hospital is in better financial shape than it’s been in for many years, however their budgeting was on the money and they are still projected to have a $1.5 million deficit, mainly because we as a city would not adequately fund the health care needs of the poor. The big problem facing the hospital, a problem that you have never addressed, is the $10 million dollars in TennCare cuts facing Metro General and the $25 million in TennCare reserves due to the hospital that are not being shared by the governor. Yeah, Metro General has huge problems ahead, but they aren’t of their own making.

As for the support for Metro General, I think the 70 plus pastors, imams, and rabbis from throughout Nashville who signed a letter of support for the hospital would be surprised to learn that the black caucus was the only supporting agency. I think the 200 folks who gathered on the steps of the Metro Courthouse would likewise be surprised, as would the members of SEIU who have a personal interest in the well being of the hospital.

Gail, Gail, Gail… it’s hard to understand why you seem to want to come after the hospital. Could it be that poor folks don’t buy your paper? Or maybe there are folks in the administration that have an ax to grind with certain community leaders who have pushed hard against the administrations ambivalence toward the need for a city supported (not run) safety net hospital, and have sold you a bill of goods.

The timing of Ms. Kerr's comment relative to upcoming budget discussions is suspicious given that a couple of months ago she bayed about former Parks Director Roy Wilson while the Mayor's Office started turning the screws leading to Mr. Wilson's December 31 exit. One wonders what Rich Riebeling has in store for this North Nashville Metro health service.

Tennessean helped finance convention center lobby group with $15,000 donation

The Tennessean released the list of donors who gave half-a-million dollars to the lobbying effort to build the Music City Convention Center and the Tennessean is itself on the list. Usually reliable Tennessean reporter Michael Cass didn't mention that last detail. The Tennessean's competition did not fail to mention it.

It seems as obscene as Jeff Woods characterizes it:

Remember when McNeely Pigott & Fox was under attack for blowing a half-million dollars of taxpayer money to flack for the Music City Center? Among the other ridiculous expenses, reporters noted the galling tidbit that it cost all of us $2,500 for MP&F to coach Gail Kerr on how to write a puff piece for the new convention center, which she dutifully did.

At the time, Tennessean editor Mark Silverman was outraged that any other media outlet would question the heretofore unsullied integrity of Nashville's mighty Gannett product .... Silverman tossed out a slew of defenses. Among them: The paper's newsroom staff signs ethics agreements pledging not to favor one side or take gifts from anyone.

So what are we to think now that the Music City Center Coalition has made public its list of donors? You guessed it--that little mom 'n' pop outfit known as The Tennessean is on the list for giving $5,000 $15,000. The ban on gifts must apply only to largesse coming in to the newsroom grunts.

Bruce Barry also weighs in against the Tennessean's defense that its contributions were made by a hived off business arm of the Gannett Corporation:

It is not business as usual for media operations whose main focus is news to donate to partisan political causes lobbying on controversial political issues that the news side is covering. We're not talking here about some far-flung conglomerate that happens to include a newsroom among vast holdings; this is a political contribution by the goddamn newspaper ....

The problem is that the appearance of such a naked conflict of interest compromises any claim to newsroom neutrality or impartiality. You manage a conflict of interest by eliminating the conflict, not by asserting afterwards that it had no effect on the purity of your motives or actions.

The negligent attitudes toward ethics at the Tennessean continue to grow in the wake of the Music City Center debate. It's difficult to look at a $15,000 donation and wonder whether their commitment to MCC made them late to news of unthinkable costs overruns months ago in the campaign to woo Nashvillians to the project. It's also hard to consider that sum of money and not think that the more recent op-ed exaggerations about MCC critics were not accidents.

The Tennessean has been giving MCC free publicity for more than a year, and now we learn the troubling news that the paper paid handsomely to bankroll the MCC campaign. They have risked their credibility as neutral journalists.


UPDATE: In his latest writing, the Tennessean's Michael Cass acknowledges the $15,000 donation, but excuses the editorial staff for not knowing. He also minimizes the half-a-million total corporate donations that drove the lobbying effort by suggesting that it was the Mayor who was the strongest impetus. And the $450,000 Metro budget oversight that involved attempts to influence public opinion on the Music City Center is treated like petty resistance to mayoral resolve.

I would respond to Mr. Cass that such reporting does not alleviate concerns based on perceptions that the Tennessean is predisposed to support the Mayor's financing plan for a new convention center. The Gannett Corporation is not going to invest $15,000 without insuring a yield with positive press.

The Wrath of Gail Kerr

After a few months of duress for being coached by PR pros on the Metro dime and writing rah-rah fluff for Mayor Dean's convention center plans, Gail Kerr finally lets loose on the shamefully small number of council members who have dared to ask critical questions.

There are five or six council members who will obviously vote against it. Heck, they've been voting against it since day one, and anything else Dean proposes. They bad-mouth the plan and the mayor and everyone who supports it.

They sound exactly like the council members who fought the downtown arena, library, and bringing the Tennessee Titans here and building them a stadium.

The current Always-Anti complaint is that Dean presented this piecemeal, so that too much has been done to stop it now. They call it the cart-before-the-horse.

But if Dean had brought the entire convention center package to them at the first of this year, sans the actual financing, they would have bellyached about that, too.

Notice that Ms. Kerr mentions no names in her blind bombardment of those who didn't simply go along, but she must be referring to at least a couple of council members who are consistently above reproach: Mike Jameson and Emily Evans. Too bad Ms. Kerr lacks the fortitude to call them out by name and explain to her readers exactly how she believes they are mistaken. Instead, she trots out the same predictable screed we read over and over in her columns against the unnamed who would have opposed every attempt to rebuild downtown into a developers' and entertainers' dream at any expense to Metro taxpayers or to livable urban neighborhoods.

Understandably Gail Kerr is apoplectic. She's caught fire for her penned pandering to the powers-that-be. But that is still no excuse for conveniently ignoring facts. It's easy to pimp the Titans bandwagon now that they've overcome 0-6 impressively even as she fails to mention that funds are drained from our Metro Water Services to subsidize the team. As if the cost is not worth mention. She also should have pointed out that one convention center opponent, Emily Evans, has not opposed Karl Dean on everything sports-and-entertainment-growth-related. As if the truth is inconvenient. To the chagrin of some of us, Ms. Evans supported the Mayor's plan to shore up the flagging fortunes of the local pro hockey team.

But Gail Kerr rarely lets facts stand in the way of her mission to make pro journalism the lap dog of government fiat. Instead, she channels Spiro Agnew, as if any honest questioning or loyal opponents are "nattering nabobs of negativism" on every issue at every moment. She's behaving badly. It's bound to be laziness, arrogance, or just plain flunkiness. Rather than producing an actual argument against the opponents on this issue, she apparently intends to see the project through in spite of the embarrassment she causes herself over it.