Metro Council stops the Mayor's Fair Board appointment and a council candidate takes it personally

I, like many, received an email blast last week from Save Our Fairgrounds, one of the few groups that has organized and defeated Mayor Karl Dean soundly on one of his major sell-off plans. The blast warned of Hizzoner's latest bid to appoint Eric Malo to the Fair Board. SOF called our attention back to 2011, when Mr. Malo advocated demolishing the Fairgrounds racetrack, which he pinned as the culprit for the pollution of nearby Browns Creek. He also supported selling off the public property to private interests for construction.

The irresponsible claim that the racetrack is the cause of the pollution of Browns Creek, whose watershed parallels railways, crosses under roads and intersects interstates, is enough for me to wonder whether Mr. Malo can fairly serve on the Fair Board. After 4 years, I am still waiting to see some of the negative energy vented at the Fairgrounds turned into a positive collaborative watershed alliance between Mr. Malo's group and other community groups. Something like the Richland Creek Watershed Alliance is what I have in mind. If I had read somewhere that Mr. Malo had taken part in real watershed preservation since 2011, I would have a launch point for parting with Save Our Fairgrounds on his appointment.

However, there was nothing in the present coverage of the council debate last Tuesday (I watched the debate myself) to make me think that Mr. Malo had made moves beyond Karl Dean's plan to some larger vision. The council defeated the mayor's appointment to the Fair Board, and I have no problem with that. It is actually refreshing that the council debated one of the mayor's board appointments for once. They typically rubber stamp them.

As if on cue, another player from the 2011 unpleasantness, Colby Sledge, insinuated himself into the council decision not to appoint the mayor's man to the Fair Board. Mr. Sledge is now running for the council seat of district 17, and I guess he sees the board appointment as important to his current campaign because he tweeted:

What was the petty political agenda? Seriously? A grassroots group--opposing the mayor's plan to tear down first the Fairgrounds and then the attached racetrack and sell them to private developers--organized once again to oppose one of his appointments to the board charged with oversight on the basis of that person's support for the mayor's plan. They petitioned the council harder than Mr. Malo's supporters did. It is politics, but how is it petty?

It is surely nothing like the pettiness of Mr. Sledge (who again lives in council district 17) in inserting himself four years ago into the district 24 race to try to torpedo Jason Holleman's campaign because CM Holleman opposed tearing down the Fairgrounds. The pettiness was compounded by the already expressed sentiment that no one outside of Mr. Sledge's anti-Fairgrounds group, Neighbors for Progress, should have a say in what happens to the Fairgrounds.

But Neighbors for Progress, who launched a website that no longer exists to promote a tear-down petition that only garnered 500 signatures (after thousands were projected) and turned out 35 speakers at council public hearing as the other side turned out 3,000, appeared to be astroturf.  I have my doubt's that Mr. Sledge's group was ever anything but marginally "grassroots," particularly since under his leadership, the group's agenda seemed to shift with whatever tactical moves the Mayor's Office was making at any particular point of popular resistance, including Karl Dean's advocacy of Sarah Lodge Tally over CM Holleman in 24.

Maybe Colby Sledge could not muster any more popular support for Mr. Malo than he could for demolishing the Fairgrounds and then the attached racetrack. Thus, his "friend" lost a board appointment as a statement about the future of the Fairgrounds. But there was never a need to personalize this as candidate Sledge has. Maybe he should direct his anger at council "progressives" like Ronnie Steine, Megan Barry and Jerry Maynard, who could not line up the votes to appoint.

As for CM Steine, he could not line up votes because he was too busy concocting false analogies: Mr. Malo's past opposition to the racetrack versus council opponents of Music City Center construction who nonetheless support it now. Well, if any of the latter wish to seek an appointment to the convention center authority and CM Steine wants to organize community opposition to them, you won't hear complaints here. Good luck with that, councilman.

The irony here is that the council followed proper procedure, stunt-free, to defeat the mayor's appointment of Mr. Malo to the Fair Board; CM Steine has a track record of pontificating on following council process. He also has a knack for breaking with process when convenient for him to do so.

So, spare us the crocodile tears, Mr. Sledge.

Again, this was not about Mr. Malo. The mayor lost this appointment because he tried to place someone who previously echoed his own will-to-demo and penchant to sell off valuable Metro resources. Loyalty tends to trump rationality in his administration. This was also about Mr. Dean and his preference for running end-arounds on democratic process. The track record is clear: the convention center, a Hickory Hollow flea market, the Fairgrounds, the Sulphur Dell ballpark. Those are just the ones that come off the top of my head. (For what it's worth, there are rumors circulating that the Fairgrounds question was deliberately kept out the Nashville Next planning process to avoid the recurrence of embarrassment in the Mayor's Office; I guess there was not as keen an interest in sparing Mr. Malo disappointment).

Karl Dean's decisions express a disdain for democratic process when it does not line up with his growth agenda. Checking this board appointment is not petty. It represents one of the few instances where grassroots organizing keeps the mayor from overreaching and padding the incomes of wealthy developers.

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.

Controlling public meetings amounts to controlling outcomes

As we rapidly approach one of the first announced community meetings on "the Amp" bus rapid transit system connecting East Nashville and Downtown to West End, the Mayor's minions continue to insist (debatably) that the public has been given fair opportunities to address the questions of when and where rapid transit will go. The Mayor himself disqualified North Nashville from the process, saying that we should have read his mind and kissed the ring years in advance if we wanted to be considered worthy of rapid transit.

The Chamber of Commerce (which supports Amp) hired a lawyer-up public relations firm, which suggests to me that these meetings are going to be more bully pulpits for making the sale of AMP than they are open town hall meetings for gathering input from you and me.

Metro has a particularly heavy-handed history of conducting community meetings, whether it be holding meetings at days and hours inconvenient for most people to attend, not plainly specifying in published agendas that certain questions were up for discussion, couching issues in specialized jargon that makes average heads spin or strictly controlling how questions are asked to discourage messy democracy. These tactics become especially nasty given the strong executive form of Metro government, where voters have very little influence after elections on the Mayor's Office.

I've documented over and again here the draconian tactics that are used in the planning and rezoning process by Metro officials, but I went back through my emails people have sent me from community meetings they attended to find more examples.

One that stands out was related to me by Mike Peden. Last winter CM Edith Langster, empowered by a couple of developers and Metro Planning, filed a Midtown rezoning request to allow a number of properties to be exempted from a compromise supported by the community in 2012 to prepare for overlays consistent with the Midtown Community Plan. Community plans are heavily influenced by participatory public meetings periodically held.

Leaders in the community expressed concern by email about Langster's bill. Metro Planning held a community meeting last March and CM Jason Holleman encouraged constituents to attend saying of Langster's proposal that it would not provide "protections for individually National Register Eligible/National Register Listed buildings and design guidelines will not be included for the area around Elliston Place".

Mike attended the meeting and related what he witnessed:

The room was packed. Several people had to stand.

The attorney from the Planning Office that spoke is clearly in favor of ... CM Langster’s proposed rezoning. He spoke as if that bill has already passed.

There were several questions raised about transit and MTA, but he made it clear he was not going to discuss that issue.

Jason Holleman attempted to ask questions but the attorney from Planning would not allow him to speak. He said that is why they requested everyone write questions on the cards so he would not have to get into a one-on-one discussion with anyone

Community plans always involve discussions about transit options, so why should they be prohibited by a lawyer in a community meeting? Less than a month later a Metro Planning spokesperson would tell a Vanderbilt writer of a "cultural shift" prompting zoning changes in Midtown that included the need to "cut down expenditures on gas". If planners can bring up transit as a motivator for their policies, why can't the community raise the question with planners in community meetings?

Also, requiring questions on note cards is just another way of keeping the unwashed masses at arm's length. And shutting down a council member with questions about impact on design and preservation seems extreme.

But these are the kind of tactics you have to watch out for in the upcoming community meetings, which they tell you now are about getting more of your input. Will they listen and incorporate input? Given the track record, I am not a believer.

AMPscam: in the absence of studies "presume" the studies

And "forward" ain't "northward"

Because of family illness, I did not have a chance to watch Metro Council proceedings on the Mayor's budget proposals last week live. Yesterday, I started going back and watching the video from the last meeting. I was particularly interested in CM Josh Stites' amendment for bus rapid transit that would have required a study of alternatives to the Mayor's Office selection of West End be included as part of the bond resolution.

The amendment had received a good amount of media attention, which is likely one of the reasons it also was opposed by 3 different CMs before debate was cut off prematurely. The points expressed against the clause were all feeble. Peter Westerholm trotted out, as if on script, the same tired talking points he has in the media. Jason Holleman, who said he shared some of Stites' concerns, argued that he received assurances that Mayor Karl Dean would consider alternatives in the future and that we should place trust in those assurances.

But the weakest tea of all came from CM Jerry Maynard, an at-Large who often self-styles as a North Nashville representative. In his comments to council lawyer Jon Cooper and then to CM Stites on the amendment, Mr. Maynard ran interference for Hizzoner:

Cooper: [I]t's included in the initial bond resolution as part of the project to be funded.
Maynard: If we pass this, what impact will it this have?
Cooper: If MTA has already done such a study, then that would satisfy [Stites'] clause ... [MTA] would have to answer that, but if funds have already been spent for that study and they don't need to do that, then they could show that they have already satisfied that part of the study.
Maynard: Based on the comments that I've heard from [Mr. Ballard] and others, that they have looked at other routes and determined that West End would be the best place to start. I think you could presume that a study has been done of alternative routes and I would aks if CM Stites would withdraw his amendment.
Stites: If [studies] have in fact already been done it would be best to leave the amendment in; and then, if the studies fulfill or meet the amendment then it would move forward

Plainly, all CM Maynard had to do if he wanted to put to rest the question of whether West End is the best alternative is hold the alternative analysis up and refer to the sections that considered options like Charlotte Pike or Gallatin Road. Why not simply read MTA's conclusions, if they exist, to the council? Instead, CM Maynard lectured those with honest questions to "presume" that MTA has done the studies absent any transparent data.

Either the data on alternatives to West End doesn't exist, it is being hidden from the public or all of the Mayor's supporters are willing to jettison transparency and openness in government in the name of placing blind faith in both Karl Dean and MTA. In any one of those scenarios the principle of informed consent has been violated.

So, Jerry Maynard sowed seeds of doubt toward an entirely even-handed, fair proposal, and then North Nashville CM Walter Hunt called for the question, effectively terminating any more debate on adding alternatives analysis as a requirement of the bond resolution. Despite the fact that the Mayor's BRT/AMP plan excludes North Nashville from access to the transit cash that could roll in, none of the North Nashville CMs present--not Matthews, not Harrison, not Langster--raised any questions about alternatives. They all seem to have acquiesced to the Mayor's Office, as has a majority of the council, which voted down Josh Stites' attempt at fairness.

The final report on BRT assumes the West End corridor from beginning to end. The "Alternatives Evaluated" sections only consider alternatives in modes of transit (for instance, light rail vs. BRT) rather than alternatives in corridors considered. The only consideration given to other areas for BRT are for speculative, future possibilities that will no doubt compete with one another. There is nothing to suggest that Charlotte Avenue or any other North Nashville corridor will get consideration over say, connecting the east-west corridor with 21st/Hillsboro to Green Hills. The absence of any consideration in the final report of other corridors further underscores the probability that the analysis is not open to public discussion (and Metro does not make access to this limited report easy, charging a chunk of change to acquire it).

And one more thing. CM Bruce Stanley's earlier comment (in a different context) that a number of council members have been kept in the dark on BRT/AMP sustains my perception that the Mayor's supporters have not been on the up-and-up about the viability of all options. It seems that even council members are voting on this initiative from a position of ignorance or a tacit acknowledgement that the deal was done on arrival. Even its council supporters can only refer to nebulous faith and presumption absent any hard data. That is no way to serve the public on such an important question concerning so much money.

District 19 council member listed among others on developer's "secret tapes"

Over the weekend the Tennessean reported that "secret tapes" exist that contain 40 hours of conversations between a May Town Center developer and over a dozen council members regarding his team's plan to build a sprawling "second downtown" on Bells Bend. Noteworthy is the mention of District 19 CM Erica Gilmore:

 

By early 2010 — when the first recording was captured — May Town leaders had turned their attention from the Metro Planning Commission, where the development had stalled in a 5-5 vote, to the 40-member council, where the project needed 27 votes for approval because of the planning commission setback.

Ultimately, the council in March 2010 voted to defer the May Town project indefinitely.

According to May’s recent filing, plaintiffs secretly recorded conversations with council members Megan Barry, Phil Claiborne, Tim Garrett, Erica Gilmore, Jason Holleman, Edith Langster, Lonnell Matthews Jr., Jerry Maynard, Bruce Stanley, Ronnie Steine, Charlie Tygard, and then-council members Michael Craddock, Randy Foster and Jim Hodge. It also cites “others.”

The parties discussed the project, speculated about votes and offered their impressions of Jack May, Mayor Karl Dean, Tony Giarratana and others, according to the brief.

The Metro Planning Commission refused in a close vote to approve the proposal, which put the burden on Metro Council to approve it only with a super-majority. The proposal was eventually withdrawn, so we do not have recorded votes of these CMs.

However, some of these council members made their opinions clear during the planning public hearing process. Here is an excerpt of the May 2009 public hearing minutes:

Councilmember [Mike] Jameson first explained that he was asked by Councilmember Barry and Councilmember Cole to include their names as part of the record as expressing their opposition to the proposed May Town Center. They were unable to attend the meeting....

Councilmember Holleman acknowledged Councilmember Matthews support for the May Town Center, however, expressed his concerns with respect to the May Town Center development affecting the entire region as opposed to only Council District 1. His district is in the pathway of connecting this development to the rest of the city and he expressed his concerns regarding its impact on District 24. He explained the work that he and his constituents have completed on the West Nashville Community Plan update and spoke of how the May Town Center would impact their transportation network and infrastructure. He also explained that he and his constituents have not had the chance to review the Traffic Impact Study recently released from RPM and would like for the Commission to allow them an opportunity to review the study and provide their comments regarding the study at the next Public Hearing scheduled for June 25, 2009. Councilmember Holleman then pointed out some of the highlights included the Traffic Impact Study and how they would directly affect his district. He requested that the Commission deny the zone change request until he and his community can further digest any impacts on their district.

Councilmember Craddock expressed his support for the May Town Center development as the project is a good quality development; and that the proposal would lessen the burden on the Nashville’s taxpayers. He spoke on the issue of spiraling property taxes and the need to seek good quality development to further enhance the City of Nashville. Councilmember Craddock then acknowledged the importance of not allowing a development of this size to adversely affect surrounding districts and to need to find the best way to implement the project for the betterment of all living in Nashville.

Councilmember Matthews .... stated that over the year, he has obtained the necessary information in which he could now support the proposed May Town Center development and explained all of the positive attributes that could be derived from the development. Attributes such as increased jobs for the area, and additional opportunities for corporate relocations to the City of Nashville .... He stated he would assist the bill as it makes it way through the approval process at Council .... As Councilmember Matthews closed, he explained all of the conversations he has with all involved parties and expressed his support for the May Town Center.

I attended that public hearing, and I do not recall seeing CM Gilmore. I am curious about what her views on the May Town Center proposal are on those "secret tapes". I am also wondering, as a constituent, whether I have a right to know what my CM says to developers about voting intentions on significant projects.

Sweet deal for a local church or necessary edition to the neighborhood?

Local government watchdog, Mike Peden, wrote me today with the following in the run-up to tonight's council meeting:

This is the cost for the new 12” water main for the Church of Christ on 40th Ave N – almost $800,000. This bill is on the Council agenda tonight.

The church is contributing $20,000.

There is nothing but that church and some duplexes between Charlotte and Catherine Johnson Pkwy. The church is currently building a huge addition.

Mike also tells me that he has emailed his council member Jason Holleman and the bill sponsors (Edith Taylor Langster, Sean McGuire, Walter Hunt) a number of times without getting any replies.

Is a "North Nashville Collaboration" collaborative when not all of North Nashville knows about it?

I received this Metro Nashville Public School announcement/invitation from the Salemtown elist today. It was actually forwarded as an attachment that Sylvan Park CM Jason Holleman sent to his constituents with the message:

I plan to attend this event on Thursday, and I thought you might be interested as well. I greatly admire organizer Alan Coverstone's forward-thinking approach towards making our schools -- and our community -- better, and I think that this event will be well worth your time.

Hope to see you there!

Thank you,

Jason Holleman
Metro Council, District 24
4210 Park Avenue
Nashville, Tennessee 37209
615-269-6365

For those who do not know, Mr. Coverstone is a private school product and a former private school Dean. He has been put in charge of Metro's charter school program, essentially privatizing our public education system. So, the collaboration-language of the invitation sounds odd if written by Mr. Coverstone. "Together we can make sure the Jefferson Street corridor is an essential destination" with a "meaningful discussion to identify new and exciting ways to support each other" sounds cryptic when coming from the charter schools division.

"Collaboration" assumes inclusiveness, but this invitation has not been sent to all of us in North Nashville. To disguise something limited in scope under jargon of inclusion bugs me. But collaboration also assumes listening to dissent. If this meeting is really about poaching resources and high-performing students out of existing schools for privatized charter schools, I intend to dissent. My guess is that what we will hear from this meeting is a shiny new initiative that we will have no choice but to accept.

Anyone heard anything about this "collaboration" that they care to share?


UPDATE: Yesterday I sent the following email to a couple of school board members, a Metro address I assume might be Alan Coverstone's, CM Jason Holleman, Metro Schools communications office, MNPS customer service, and CM Erica Gilmore:

Regarding the attached invitation: if this event was intended to be a "collaborative effort" between MNPS and North Nashville, why didn't some of us in North Nashville, especially those of us with kids in public schools, receive notice of this until this late date?

By the way, the author of the invitation omitted Jones Paideia and Hull-Jackson on the list of public schools mentioned on the invitation.

As a North Nashville public school parent I am supremely disappointed in the seeming lack of care in communication of this event. To find out second-hand in an email that CM Holleman originally directed to his constituents is really bothersome. If it was planned with community input, we were also left out of that stage.

Can anyone shed some light on what is behind this event in our zone and why no apparent effort was made on the Metro end to communicate with all of us?

The only person to respond so far is CM Gilmore, who writes that Alan Coverstone is the organizer and that he left a voice mail for her about it last week. They have not been able to speak with each other about it yet.

Why is Coverstone focusing on CMs and not on PTOs, neighborhood associations, or other community groups to communicate this event that he claims will "support the great work of ... neighbors"? This still smacks of elitism to me.


UPDATE: MNPS customer service responded to my email above. Their reply fails to clear up in my mind why this event was not communicated to all of North Nashville. On the contrary, they seem to insist that posting the announcement on their crowded, information-saturated website for North Nashvillians to stumble across and sending out a few emails to unidentified "contacts" is effective communication:

The idea for getting together is to better connect our students with their surroundings. We are asking everyone to spread the word, and we appreciate any help in doing so. The announcement of the North Nashville Collaboration is posted on the MNPS homepage has been sent and forwarded through e-mail by a scores of community contacts, and has been relayed directly through conversations with the intention of reaching any and all stakeholders.

We are starting a conversation and everyone is invited!

It is obviously going to be a battle of attrition to get to the bottom of real intentions behind limited communications and real agendas of this event. Given a Metro climate under Karl Dean that puts transparency in the back seat, I do not expect it to be easy.


UPDATE: We went back over our PTO notes from the last meeting. No mention of this collaboration. We also checked around at Jones Paideia Elementary without finding any indication that school officials know about this meeting.

Early this morning I finally got a response from Alan Coverstone:

I asked lots of people o help spread the word, and I know you are helping as well. It is a conversation starter, not an official business meeting. Everyone is welcome.

Hope to see you there.

I'm skeptical about this because in order to get MNPS to engage PTOs and community leaders we usually are restricted to speaking with our school's 2 representatives on the district's Parent Advisory Committee, who take concerns to MNPS. Otherwise, we are invisible. I cannot even get my own School Board rep, Sharon Gentry, to reply to any emails I send her way. At the one community meeting I've seen her speak she seemed aloof and dismissive of community concerns. We will see what happens at the "collaboration." My guess is that it will be an attempt to market the mirage of charter schools to desperate parents.

Watchdogging for any progress on nondiscrimination beyond the shallow symbolism of council votes

Almost exactly two years ago the local GLBT tabloid hailed the council vote for adding sexual orientation to Metro's nondiscrimination policy:

Sponsored by freshman Council member Megan Barry and co-sponsored by nine other members, BL2009-502 ensures that Metro employees who feel they have been discriminated against based on either or both of these issues now will have redress within the personnel system.

Not so fast. Discrimination watchdogs have been testing the rhetoric that catapulted Megan Barry into the social progressive pantheon against the reality of existing Metro policy. Passage of Barry's bill turned out to be the easy part. Implementation? Not so much.

Take Mike Peden's case: he has been looking past all of the hoopla and pronouncements of success since passage of BL2009-502 and he is alarmed by the slow walk of implementation. About 10 days ago he sent me an email with a link showing that the Nashville Area Metro Planning Organization's expressed hiring policy in an announcement of a planner opening did not include gender identity or sexual orientation.

Here is how the relevant section of the nondiscrimination statement was printed on August 23 on the MPO site:

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer

The Planning Department does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, sex, color, national origin, religion or disability in access to, or operation of, its programs, services, and activities, or in its hiring or employment practices.

That motivated Mike to start contacting Metro Planning staffers and council members to get answers on why both Planning and the MPO were dragging their feet after two years. And those answers did not come easily, quickly, or clearly.

Mike started with the compliance officer of Metro Planning. He asked her the straight-up question, "Which statement [the MPO site's or the Metro government's site's ] is correct for your organization?" The compliance officer, Josie Bass, replied that the MPO's site was correct. She told him that the organization met the minimum federal requirements under law but that could be changed at a future review. Not satisfied, Mike responded, "Is the person being hired for this position an employee of Metro Nashville? If so, then shouldn’t Metro’s statement apply? Are you an employee of Metro Nashville?" Ms. Bass sent back a single "Yes." Mike asked her to clarify what she was saying "yes" to and she wrote back, "Yes, they are a metro employee and yes, Metro non discriminate statement does apply." At that point Mike shared his confusion with me and I have to admit I did not understand how the Metro policy could apply when Ms. Bass had said before that the MPO statement met minimum federal requirements.

In the meantime, Mike contacted CM Jason Holleman and at-Large CM Megan Barry about the loophole. They did not exactly clarify the issue for him. CM Holleman wrote that while MPO used office facilities it was not exactly a "Metro entity". Holleman also said that not all of MPO employees' salaries are paid by Metro and thus they are not classified as Metro employees. Mike's correspondence with CM Barry included the following judgment from council attorney Jon Cooper:

If Metro is the one hiring these employees, then yes, the nondiscrimination policy in Sec. 11.12.130 should apply. However, the MPO is really a creature of federal law. It is comprised of representatives from the federal, state, and local governments, and represents seven counties and the cities within them. So, it is not just a Metro organization. Just because Metro employees work with the MPO does not mean MPO is bound by our nondiscrimination policy. It only prohibits the Metro Government from discriminating in employment practices.

Mike replied with the clear statement, "I would just like an answer -- yes or no -- either they have the policy or they do not." Both Barry and Cooper stated unequivocally that they do not. Mike still does not get it because all of the employees of MPO are listed as Metro employees.

In the wake of all of this I went back to check the webpage where the MPO opening is advertised with Planning's nondiscrimination statement, and lo and behold, someone had revised the statement and added "gender identity" and "sexual orientation" since Mike had first noticed the webpage on August 23:

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer
The Metro Planning Department, on  behalf of the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed or disability in admission to, access to, or operations of, its programs, services, or activities. Discrimination against any person in recruitment, examination, appointment, training, promotion, retention, discipline or any other employment practices because of non-merit factors shall be prohibited.

I don't know how much influence Mike's tenaciousness had over the re-writing of the statement, but he remains dissatisfied with the limited reach and loopholes of Metro's nondiscrimination policy.

I agree. It's not the vote, but the implementation that matters most.

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

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

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

Not even handing out t-shirts could make them grassroots

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Neighbors for Hypocrisy

Remember how 35 members of Neighbors for Progress stood in a Metro Council public hearing last January and stipulated that their opinions of how redevelopment should occur at the Fairgrounds count for more than those of anyone else who lived farther away?

Well, it takes a lot of nerve for Colby Sledge and his gang to go outside of the Fairgrounds area to try and influence the re-election chances of a West Nashville CM simply because he did not agree with their opinions (or maybe they realize they can't beat the referendum and they're trying to pack the council with Deaniacs like Sarah Lodge Tally):

Hey, West Nashville, do you know what Sarah Lodge Tally meant?

Jeremy Kane did a bang-up job of live tweeting the debate between CM Jason Holleman and Bredesenista challenger Sarah Lodge Tally last night. At one point in the debate, Kane quoted Tally as saying of the West Nashville Community Plan, "Tally wants reasonableness and balance. Focused on collaboration." Does anybody know what she meant? Is there an unreasonableness or imbalance in the community plan?

The West Nashville Community Plan has been used by neighborhood leaders to resist building major bridges across the Cumberland to May Town Center sprawl slicing up and rendering communities in Sylvan Park and Charlotte Park pass-through neighborhoods. And the plan has been used to fight flipping a residential zone along 43rd Avenue North into an industrial one to expand blight a business had already created.

Sarah Lodge Tally is a product of the Bredesen mentality, a mentality which gave preferential option to industry rather than striking a balance between community and economic development. I just wonder what her notion of balance on the community plan would be. What would the implications for sprawl and industrial expansion through neighborhoods be if she had her way with the West Nashville Community Plan? Jason Holleman was specific about his planning concerns about the bridges for May Town in 2009. Is Sarah Lodge Tally going to be specific, too?

Jason Holleman not hated by some regardless of Jeff Yarbro's fail (with Karl Dean's endorsement) against Doug Henry

Over at Just Nashville, some commenters are sharing their admiration of CM Jason Holleman:

[Sarah Bellos:] I am a very active member of the community food security and urban food movement. CM Holleman has been a tremendous supporter of our cause and in actually asking what we need, not just assuming that as a politician he has the answers to what is happening and needed in our communities and to more effectively do our work. I believe we need more Council members like him and thank him for his service during the flood all across Nashville.

[Yvonne Eaves:] I have called West Nashville home all my life. During the last council election I did not support Jason. Four years later, I can honestly say Jason has proven to be a community leader. Jason makes an appearance at many community functions. He listens with his heart, he wants to serve is community. It it apparent that he is willing to do his very best for his district. I am proud to say Jason Holleman is my council member. I am even happier to say Jason and his family are good neighbors.

Righting a past wrong and helping pay for environmental impact of growth

Two independent council members are bringing back up an initiative this Metro budget cycle that Mayor Karl Dean and his council marionettes fought the last time stormwater rates were considered:

Photo credit: EPA Smart Growth

Two Metro council members are working to help small businsses.

Emily Evans and Jason Holleman are working to restructure or remove a cap from storm water run-off fees that some businesses claim is hurting their bottom line. The fee covers the environmental concerns for disturbing nature by building.

There is currently a $400 cap for building above a certain size, which small business owners say is unfair, because it gives bigger businesses a break.

CM Evans already made an elegant case at her blog for why fair stormwater fees are good for all. Nonetheless "progressive" CMs like Megan Barry, Ronnie Steine, and Erik Cole voted against fairness and with Karl Dean on this. We will see if an election year and less than satisfactory budget conditions cause the Dean Machine to back off giving big business water big breaks and saddling the rest of us with carrying a larger portion of the weight for water treatment.

This issue proved to be somewhat of an embarrassment for Megan Barry. Will she risk that again or incline toward a greater sense of justice?

It took a while but balanced minority opposition to the Mayor finally formed

Back in 2008 when it seemed like the only council member willing to take on Karl Dean publicly and assertively was Mike Jameson, I openly wondered whether this submissive Metro Council was even worse than the conservative-dominated previous council that battled former Mayor Bill Purcell at every turn. Then came the Dean plan (supersaturated with donor influence) for a convention center, which was not exactly popular, and more CMs stuck their necks out to oppose the Mayor. The Fairgrounds debacle, and the botched handling of it, finally made opposing Mayor Dean permissible and the council's minority opposition wing of liberals and conservatives solidified.

This morning's Tennessean ponders the unlikely coalition as it stands:

Hollin and Craddock are at the heart of a coalition of progressive and conservative council members who have regularly opposed Dean’s agenda on high-profile issues. It brings together pro-neighborhood, pro-environment council members like Emily Evans, Jason Holleman and Mike Jameson with social and fiscal conservatives like Eric Crafton, Jim Gotto and Robert Duvall, forming a vocal minority.

Evans said the pairing isn’t that surprising.

“The convention center (debate) was really about fiscal responsibility,” she said. “Being a fiscally responsible government tends to be a hallmark of both progressives and conservatives. I put myself in both categories. It’s just a common theme.”

The progressives Michael Cass lists in the story have generally been the ethical cream of the council bunch over time, even as unsubstantiated mud was slung at them in the print/online news media by the Courthouse innuendo hounds every time they dared to criticize a Dean plan. Cass also inventories the coalition--including the "progressives"--that appease and buckle to the Mayor's Office on every initiative that I can remember. Jerry Maynard and Ronnie Steine have had their ethical stumbles in the past and I'm not exactly inspired by the quality of their leadership even as the dogs of Dean give them a pass on any criticism.

That brings me to Dean spokesperson Janel Lacy's purported declination to "publicly criticize" the council's minority coalition. The Dean administration does not publicly criticize his critics because it does not have to. On just about every major policy initiative (the convention center being the most obvious), it has hired consultants and anonymous trolls to do the attacking for them. With a generally compliant news media, Karl Dean can take the high road and let the hatchet men do the dirty work. While the thugs and mercenaries have taken some below-the-belt shots at the council's independent progressives like Hollin, Jameson, Holleman, and Evans, the mud simply will not stick.

If the Metro Council had been more progressive on stormwater fees 2 years ago, how many projects would be done now?

I wonder how those self-styled progressive council members, Megan Barry, Erik Cole, and Ronnie Steine feel about their vote 2 years ago this month against a real progressive attempt to remove Mayor Karl Dean's arbitrary stormwater fee cap on businesses. I wonder what they think about the fact that less than 250 stormwater projects have been completed in 2 years. I wonder how many of the 3,200+ undone stormwater projects might be completed now had they opposed the regressive Dean fees and helped Jason Holleman and Emily Evans drum up more votes to draw the demands on paved-over businesses equal to less-paved residences:

Two years ago, Councilman Jason Holleman proposed a fee structure that would have charged commercial landowners in direct proportion to the amount of impervious surface they own.

While the current system caps the monthly fee at $400 for landowners with 1 million square feet of paved surface, Holleman's proposal would have removed the cap.

"Put simply, the more you pave, the more you pay," Holleman said, adding that his proposal would also reduce the monthly fee for owners of small and midsize commercial properties ....

"Obviously we need to do more, and the May flood highlighted how much infrastructure work there is to do to meet the backlogs and meet the needs of our citizens," Holleman said.

Finally, I wonder why the news media won't hold CMs who vote with the Mayor accountable for unrealized expectations.