Further proof that conservatives do not object to government spending when it serves their own

These are the salad days for council member at-Large Charlie Tygard. Unlike the past, he is on excellent terms with the Mayor's Office, which is no big shocker. Bellevue just opened a new library and conservative CM Tygard was there for it.

Charlie's long Bellevue nightmare is over (CM Tygard in red-shirt).

Back in 2006 the news media reported that the previous mayor allocated money for a Bellevue library, but that CM Tygard (who was Bellevue CM then) told Finance Director David Manning that he would not build the library for "political reasons." Here is what the press did not report in 2006:

That's not all either Tygard or Manning said .... Tygard demanded that both Manning and [Mayor] Purcell explain to Bellevue residents why they would not be getting a library or more elementary schools. And then, he overplayed his hand: he accused the Mayor of spending less money on the Nashville community and more money on the courthouse and public square, which Tygard called, "monuments to government."

Manning countered with facts that we all know: this Mayor has spent more money on the neighborhoods than any other Mayor ever has or probably ever will. The Finance Director said that if previous mayors and councils had taken steps to maintain and repair the courthouse over the years, then Metro would not now be spending so much to do so now. He also took his own shot at the Metro Council by saying that the mayor spends more time out in the neighborhoods than any Council members.

Anyone who recalls what the Courthouse (and its raggedy blacktop parking lot) was like before the renovations knows that Courthouse Square is a magnificent improvement: a public space (with parking logically below ground) that is a testament to open spaces and free exchange. It is no more a "monument to government" than the new Bellevue library is.

Goodness knows, Bellevue needed a new library, but apparently government buildings are only good to CM Tygard when they serve his own home base. And he did not do those constituents any favors by lashing out at government buildings elsewhere.

Dealing with new ballparks as "the sporting arm of the real estate business"

First Tennessee Park luxury

I know that some conservatives (by "some," I mean "very few") take issue with subsidizing pro sports venues period. I do not take issue with the idea of subsidizing ballparks. What I have tried to get across in my reflections on ballpark subsidies is that if a government by the people is going to give private developers and team owners millions for new sports parks, then those parks better have public access and common goods commensurate with the free revenues the sports barons enjoy.

In most cases, and specifically in the case of the new First Tennessee Park for the Nashville Sounds, they do not. The Sounds owners are playing up their services for Nashville's rich: luxury suites, "personal" servers, the "private" club level, and "exclusive access" bars. Even the best field level seats are set at a luxury price and emphasize the networking executives can do.

First Tennessee Park luxury

Private, exclusive access? Funny, but I thought such access was what any ticket, regardless of price, guaranteed you. The idea that seats purchased at the club level with luxury boxes are more private than the purchased seats farthest away from home plate strikes me as redundant, unless by "private" the Sounds owners are referring to activity they hope to shield from transparency to other ticket buyers. I am keeping in mind that the property is owned by Metro, leased by the baseball club and is technically public.

A Wisconsin professor (who had conducted research on the Sounds old parent club, the Milwaukee Brewers) explains that the sports culture is completely different than it was a half a century ago when elites rubbed elbows at professional sporting events with working class people.

First Tennessee Park luxury

The problem Sean Dinces sees it that while we continue to expect more public tax dollars to be doled out for ballparks and stadiums, we also watch team owners accept that money as entitlement as they systematically exclude most of the taxpayers from whence the money comes. The problem starts with luxury suites, which "make fans inside them feel superior and those on the outside feel inferior."

First Tennessee Park luxury

He argues that liberals need to step up their game:

rather than bringing residents together, and rather than functioning as legitimate public goods, the current generation of publicly funded stadiums systematically exclude an unprecedented percentage of American sports fans.

Of course, decisively rebuking the rhetoric of teams and leagues will not, in and of itself, solve the problem. This is especially true in a day and age when decisions about stadium subsidies have been largely removed from the democratic process, and when franchises continue to wield threats of relocation like a sword above the heads of residents and municipal officials. Nevertheless, reshaping fans’ consciousness is a necessary starting point.

Ideally, fans should see an intractable antagonism between the potential of spectator sport as a community asset and its current role as a venue for taxpayer-funded consumption by a handful of urban elites. Critics must also stress that, despite what leagues want us to believe, fandom is not necessarily contingent on having a stadium — or even a team, for that matter — close by, especially when attending actual games is unrealistic.

In the short term, transforming this consciousness raising into effective resistance against the sporting arm of the real estate business requires wresting fiscal control away from politicians competing to offer teams ever greater sums of state, county, and city money. This means making anti-stadium-subsidy campaigns part of bigger struggles for social justice in cities, like the rise of a new radical unionism in places like Chicago or recent electoral successes by socialists in urban centers, such as Seattle.

The games will go on even if the handouts do not.

I have demonstrated on this blog over and over that throughout the planning and building of a new ballpark in the North Capitol area, people have been excluded from the political process by the Mayor, the Metro Council, Metro planners and the Sounds ownership. Just take a look at my past posts on the subject. Liberals in Nashville have failed to step up their game when it comes to challenging the logic that urban elites have exclusive rights to influence and benefits in what is a process and a real estate deal that was funded overwhelming by tax dollars that we have paid.

First Tennessee Park luxury

In my opinion, unless there is some liberal groundswell to challenge business as usual in these deals that serve "the sporting arm of the real estate business," we are only going to watch more and more people excluded from public enjoyment of the local professional sports scene. The next ones in line to get the shaft are the local baseball fans, many of whom have already been grumbling about the higher prices of Sounds' season tickets. Given that their tax dollars are supporting an ownership group that drives up prices regardless of the latter's windfall wealth, their grumbling is justified.


UPDATE: In May 2015, the Sounds engaged in a league contest to promote the "Best Seat in the House" in the minors. What seat did they nominate for best seat to vote for? Seats that most of us will never be able to sit in: the "Field Level Suites," which the club calls their "most luxurious and exclusive entertainment area."

The irony is thick in this one. Proverbial beauty contests depend on popular votes. To be popular means to appeal to the masses, not the elites. Yet, only elite groups of people can afford to sit in the ballpark's "most luxurious and exclusive" seats. If you're one of the $9.00 ticket holders on the left field berm, how is voting for the Field Level Suites in any way appealing to you?

Op-eds that rock: "every dollar doled out to a local corporation is one that can't be spent on something far more valuable"

If you have read this blog long enough, you know that I completely agree with these two local attorneys who take to the Tennessean to list the sweetheart corporate welfare deals--including First Tennessee Ballpark in the North Capitol area--that Metro under the Dean administration has brokered.

Daniel Horwitz and Mike Jameson go slow to explain the problem clearly to those who confuse willful self-ignorance with bliss:

The trope that Nashville's seemingly endless supply of tax abatements and economic development grants (two euphemisms for "corporate welfare") will ultimately "pay for themselves" is laughable.

Proof of that will come by 2016, when our next mayor — whoever that is — is forced to institute the largest property tax hike in Metro history just to cover the impending budget shortfall. When that happens, how many voters will look back upon our city's recent "investments" without regret?

Moreover, with local politicians clamoring to hand over public dollars to any business that even whispers about leaving town, why on earth wouldn't every other corporation in Nashville make the same threat? ....

Simply handing cash over to local corporations, however, can hardly be described as a "public investment." It's not. It also reeks of cronyism and incentivizes corruption. If Bridgestone ends up repaying Metro's current officeholders in campaign contributions a few years from now, will anyone really be surprised?

Rather than being real in their campaigning so far, nearly every mayoral candidate I've heard seems to act like they are in denial of gathering budgetary storm clouds. Each talks as if she or he would be a better Dean than Dean himself. In fact, they keep arguing that they will continue Karl Dean's insane corporate subsidies AND devote more money to neighborhoods and infrastructure. It is pure snake-oil, friends. Believe them at your own peril.

The chickens are eventually going to come home to roost for property owners and taxpayers. Someone is going to have to eventually pay for the bills Hizzoner is running up to keep his rave going. We may continue to join in the foolishness today if we wish, but the hangover is only going to be that much harder to deal with tomorrow.

In an unusual move, bill before council would send $100,000 to the Neighborhoods Resource Center

News reports last summer said that council member Scott Davis is a board member of Nashville's Neighborhoods Resource Center. CM Davis has introduced a resolution to take $100,000 from "the Undesignated Fund Balance of the General Fund of the General Services District" in order to fund a grant that would pay for some of the NRC's programs. The resolution has been introduced in council committee twice, and on both occasions deferred due to CM Davis' absence from the meetings. CM Davis deferred the bill in council a couple of weeks ago until February "to get information to council and to work a few things out."

This is not the first time the NRC stood to get contributions from Metro government. Back in the 2006-07 session, Metro Council approved approximately $100,000 for NRC from their "Discretionary Infrastructure Funds" pool which was used mostly for private non-profits organizations instead of public infrastructure. To be specific, the council had voted themselves $1.95 million in these "infrastructure funds" during the summer of 2006, but 80% of the money approved to be spent before the end of the fiscal year was privatized for organizations like NRC. Labeling them "infrastructure funds" was a monumental act of deception on the part of the Metro Council.

What makes CM Davis's resolution different is not the money to be privatized for NRC. What makes this proposal different is that it proposes to draw money from a fund that is not generally spent on anything but public infrastructure as far as I can tell. Here are the Metro departments that where these funds have gone in the past:

• Dept. of Health
• District Attorney
• General Services
• Farmers’ Market
• Codes Administration
• Office of Trustee
• Metropolitan Transit Authority
• Fire Dept.
• Metro Action Commission
• Public Works

In 2009, a $125,000 contribution was made from the undesignated fund balance to the Belmont Presidential Debate. Otherwise, the lion's share of these appropriations seem to pay for public infrastructure rather than for subsidizing private organizations.

I have tended to feel concern about NRC's collaborative relationship with Metro government over the years, and I worry that tying them to more public funding will blunt any critical role they might play when occasions call for dissent, not collaboration. I am also worried that $100,000 to NRC might be that much less money for authentic and legitimate infrastructure projects that need it. Finally, continuing to treat NRC as a private partner and extension of Metro government softens the Mayor's responsibility to fund a robust and responsive Office of Neighborhoods, and hence be accountable to constituents. As a private agency, NRC is ultimately only responsible to its board rather than to voters. In general, giving money to autonomous, unelected non-profits also gives elected officials separation and deniability if funds are not truly used for "the general welfare."

CM Davis owes taxpayers a clear explanation on why NRC is a more worthy recipient of these funds than Metro departments who have more direct influence neighborhood quality of life. It is not that I don't support NRC; I have yet to be convinced that this is a wise practice for fundraising and funding general services.


UPDATE: in December 2014, NRC sent out email blasts urging supporters to lobby for passage of the resolution. Here content from one such email:

CALL TO ACTION
On Tuesday night, Metro Council will vote on Resolution RS2014-1316. This resolution will provide the Neighborhoods Resource Center with partial funding, in the amount of $100,000.
We ask that you contact Metro Council Members immediately and encourage them to vote for this resolution.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we are within our rights to send this email requesting your support. We have provided a sample email and background information below.
We hope that we can count on your support and your action on this important resolution.

Jim Hawk, Executive Director
Mark Wright, Board President

Sample Email to Metro Council
Dear Metro Council Members,
I am writing in support of Resolution RS2014-1316. The proposed legislation will provide the Neighborhoods Resource Center with critical emergency funds that will, in turn, support neighborhoods across Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County.
I am a member of __________________ neighborhood and I have personally worked with the Neighborhoods Resource Center. I know that they have helped our neighborhood succeed and have helped us work more effectively with Metro government.
Sincerely,

Background Regarding this Resolution
July 2014

Over 75 neighborhood leaders and other key allies gathered for a series of meetings to discuss the financial crisis and offer recommendations. The leaders agreed that NRC was vital to the success of Nashville's neighborhoods. Dissolution was not an option.

Neighborhood leaders recommended diversifying NRC's revenue streams, which specifically included making an emergency request to Metro Council. Both neighborhood leaders and several Metro Council members wondered why this hadn't been done even before the financial crisis. Council Member Scott Davis was asked if he would champion the cause before Metro Council.

August 2014

A new Board of Directors and Executive Director were chosen.

In a two-week period, $10,200 was raised to provide for the mortgage and utilities for six months.

All staff were laid off.

The Board of Directors and volunteer staff began working on a funding plan that involved revenue streams from corporate gifts and sponsorships, foundations and grants, individual/household memberships, fundraising and events, and support from Metro Council.

October 2014

NRC began launching its new Individual/Household Membership Program, submitted grant proposals and started work on a 2015 Corporate Gift and Sponsorship Program.

November 2014

The Neighborhoods Resource Center held a series of open public meetings to discuss progress and plans to diversify funding. Leaders were again asked if NRC should move forward on a funding request to Metro Council (Unanimous Agreement to move forward).
After obtaining support from the Mayor's Office, Council Member Scott Davis moved forward and submitted his proposal to the Finance & Budget Committee.

December 2014

Resolution RS2014-1316 is submitted to Metro Council for action on Tuesday, December 16th.

To date, supporters of the Neighborhoods Resource Center have secured over $55,000 in funding. NRC is projected to raise an additional $77,000 (from sources other than Metro Council) by the end of our fiscal year in June.
PLEASE CONTACT METRO COUNCIL TODAY

Worth underscoring are the facts that unanimous agreement was expressed at public meetings for lobbying Metro Council for subsidies to keep NRC going and that they required support from Karl Dean before moving forward. CM Scott Davis withdrew the funding resolution at the last council meeting. Curiously, the NRC board had requested the withdrawal. I have seen no follow-up correspondence from NRC explaining the course change.

Not good for neighborhoods: a case of false equivalence as reported in the Tennessean

I was not present at the mayoral candidates debate this week, but Tennessean reporter Joey Garrison, who was there, reported thusly:

Phil Bredesen built an NFL football stadium and a downtown arena. Bill Purcell stuck to sidewalks and community centers. Karl Dean built a new convention center and a minor league baseball stadium.

Legacies of Nashville's last three mayors were presented that way at a mayoral candidates forum Wednesday. Those vying to be the next mayor then answered a simple question: "What will you build as mayor?"

But rather than reeling off big-ticket projects, a few of the contenders on hand turned their attention more to neighborhoods.

Garrison somewhat framed the focus of the debate around future construction projects. Framing is an interpretative, not an objective move. Nonetheless, he seems to say that the moderator, news corporation president Chris Ferrell, cited the three preceding mayors as all building along the identical lines of "big-ticket projects." Giving Garrison the benefit of the doubt, I would argue that Ferrell's own framing is not just subjective, but it skews the facts into a fallacy of false equivalence.

Neither Garrison nor Ferrell (reportedly) mentioned the singular glaring difference between the three mayors as framed: Bill Purcell's projects were Metro infrastructure projects that primarily and directly benefited the people who paid for them and used them. Sidewalks and community centers benefit all Nashvillians, not just the business class. They are neither limited to those who pay admission fees nor excluded to visitors from out of town. They address common goods of the local citizenry.

Both Bredesen and Dean have been primarily subsidizers of the business class. Stadiums, arenas and convention centers primarily benefit the corporations, industries and professional groups in entertainment and tourism. They benefit those industries while Metro mitigates the risk of private investment by committing public taxes to private-use facilities.

Bredesen and Dean at least acknowledged in their more honest moments that the goods to the larger Nashville community in their "big-ticket projects" were secondary. Many would add that they provide only trickle-down scraps to the Metro taxpayers, who are on the hook for all of these venues if they fail to live up to projections. In some cases they obligate Nashvillians even if they succeed: the NFL football stadium transfuses millions of tax dollars every year from public infrastructure services (Metro Water) per the contract signed by former Mayor Bredesen (the contract runs through 2026).

Framing the different capital spending priorities of the various mayors on the flat is not just incorrect, it invites the new crop of mayoral candidates to level all such spending as the same. That is potentially hazardous for the neighborhoods that these candidates claim they will attend to. There is a qualitative difference between a community center and an arena. Both of these news men should acknowledge that difference and hold the candidates accountable for doing so.

David Fox and Megan Barry say they would be powerless to stop business as usual

During coverage of today's mayoral candidates debate local reporter Steven Hale tweeted points Mr. Fox and CM Barry made about Metro's sweetheart subsidies for corporations and developers, and I could not let the moment pass without reference to the obvious:

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.

Without warranty of community benefits, meaner streets can follow urban growth

"From the looks of things, Stringer Bell's worse than a drug dealer .... He's a developer."

-- The Wire (HBO)

No, not all developers can be compared to drug dealers. However, the point I take from the exchange between police detectives in the wildly popular HBO series, The Wire, is that a cartel of real estate growth and development exists that can displace people and destroy communities faster and more efficiently in pursuit of self-seeking ends than any black market ever could, precisely because the former is legal and planned with the blessing of powerful politicians. Legitimacy allows developers to distance from the more jarring and damaging effects of growth they cause local communities.

Whether or not individual developers act responsibly is no counterbalance to an economic system that steamrolls over democratic process and rarely delivers benefits to the degree promised, even when the scale used is trickle-down.

Attempts to balance the power of land development syndicates with the interests and common goods of local communities are uphill battles.

Even in places outside Nashville where meaningful attempts are being made to check the snowballing power of the real estate industry, bolstered by government giveaways, the sledding is tough:

Backers of a controversial proposal to impose new rules on developers looking for a Detroit public subsidy are counting on support from the small business community to combat the notion that the rules would be harmful to the city's growth.

The small business community's help could be critical as Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones prepares to reignite the debate early next year over the proposed community benefits ordinance, which Mayor Mike Duggan, the Detroit Regional Chamber and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation oppose.

The small-business effect on the debate was evident earlier this month when the Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce, which represents thousands of neighborhood businesses in Detroit, joined the fight to block an attempt during state lawmakers' lame duck session to preemptively ban Detroit or other cities from passing a community benefits ordinance ....

The proposed community benefits ordinance would require certain developers seeking a tax break from the city or other public subsidy to enter into an agreement with community members that could address local hiring, environmental impacts and other community concerns.

Accountability is "controversial."

Of course, Detroit's "growth" lobby groups oppose any attempt to demand public accountability for developers receiving tax dollars, because accepting responsibility for their actions and being held to standards equals "higher costs and red tape." How can taxpayers claw back any of their revenues when developers fail to deliver if some sticks are not written into law with all of these carrots?

Nashville neighborhoods could use protective legislation like a community benefits ordinance. However, with a Mayor and current Metro Council exclusively obsessed with economic development over public infrastructure, such an ordinance would never enter the equation.

And then there are the local developers and construction companies who keep lobbying, financing and pressuring the already compliant politicos:

Metro Councilwoman Erica Gilmore wants to impose new rules barring construction louder than a certain decibel, between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. [in Midtown].

For the time being, Gilmore has tabled her bill in reaction to complaints from builders and developers. They're taken aback by the bill, arguing that the proposed restrictions would cost them money, make their projects take longer to finish — and be more disruptive because they'd have to do more during the daytime traffic.

Gilmore said she's fielding a growing number of complaints from residents of buildings in Midtown and SoBro, and on Church Street, who say construction is disrupting their sleep.

But CM Gilmore is also getting complaints from the big hotel chains who have to comp their guests for late night noise from the construction sites where their competitors plan to locate. If this were anything but a thunder battle between competing stone giants (don't forget the nearby penthouse condo owners), I doubt it would get as much attention. Your average urban residential community is usually outflanked and defused by now.

Karl Dean wants to be known of late as the kinder and gentler mayor

We shouldn't be shocked that the same Tennessean newspaper that anointed Nashville Mayor Karl Dean back-to-back "Tennessean of the Year" (2010, 2011) published another obsequious editorial this week, penned by Frank Daniels III, celebrating Hizzoner. (An interesting side note: former Tennessean reporter Michael Cass wrote both "Tennessean of the Year" tributes to Mayor Dean; Mr. Cass was recently hired to be the Mayor's speech writer.) Nashville's daily paper has been an unfailing, unflinching advocate of this mayor his entire tenure in the Courthouse.

The editorial provides a rebranding of Hizzoner into a kinder and gentler mayor than he has actually been when attempting to and succeeding in his steamrolls of expensive capital projects that benefit wealthy campaign donors more than common neighborhoods.

Somewhat insulting our intelligence, Mr. Daniels III claims that Mayor Dean lavished "lots of sidewalks" on us, when in reality so many communities outside of downtown languish with no pedestrian access and egress. Some parents still have to walk their kids to school on streets close to dangerous traffic for lack of sidewalks. It was only when he needed council votes for an $18 million downtown luxury sidewalk that Mayor Dean offered to be kinder than usual to other neighborhoods. Otherwise, his spending on community infrastructure relative to his sexier projects has been stingy.

Try to rebrand Karl the Kind as they might, the newspaper cannot convince some of us to forget the original, industrial-strength brand of Mayor's Office that has benignly neglected communities for years.

Today is the one month anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown and none of Nashville's mayoral candidates have put forward policy ideas on police brutality and militarism in black communities

Photo credit: Al Jazeera America

One month ago today Michael Brown was shot dead by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. It was an infamous event that ignited anger and concern around the nation. There were mass protests around the country, especially after militarized St. Louis County police cracked own on organized local demonstrations. Social media coverage blew up and forced city politicians hundreds of miles from St. Louis to deal with the fallout. The federal government is currently investigating how police handled the shooting and the social protests with the possibility that any militarized police force that has used military weaponry against protesters could be forced to return the grants.

In late August local congregational leaders in Nashville sponsored a standing-room-only town hall meeting in North Nashville marked by unease, consternation and qualified support for Nashville's police department, their double standard toward non-white communities and their own military arsenal gained through federal government grants. Police officers were prompted to account for the ways they have used military weaponry in service of the public.

That meeting was attended by the candidates who have announced their desire to take over the Mayor's Office next year. One would think that after Ferguson shook the country and after the shock waves were felt in Nashville that this all-white slate of candidates would be articulating some kind of policy options for checking militarized policing in Nashville. Maybe I have not looked in the right places, but I cannot tell that they have proposed any changes to the Nashville status quo. Maybe they believe the don't need the votes.

I searched local news feeds.

And I looked at their websites. This is what I found there as of today.

School reformer Jeremy Kane is otherwise a blank slate. He says nothing about his policy ideas on the issues, preferring "to hear" your ideas for Nashville on his website. He has an air-brushed PR video on the main page that basically retreads Karl Dean's three-headed campaign hellhound: education, law enforcement and economic development. He adds reformer jargon to public education like "collaboration," which is typically code for "privatization" (subsidizing private enterprise with Metro revenue that would otherwise be used for public programs).

I cannot find any evidence that candidate Kane has said a thing about policing Ferguson or the militarization of police forces. Does he believe that charter schools are the answer? He attended the August 21 town hall meeting on Jefferson Street, but his only response to that was to thank the organizers of the event on Twitter.

Megan Barry has gone farther than Jeremy Kane in giving some detail to policy questions on her website, but those details do not seem to be updated in the last month with all of the unpleasantness arising from the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson. In her public safety meditation, she vaguely refers to the justice system "treating everyone the same". She makes no specific reference to racial inequality when she fleshes out what she means by that. She says nothing about curbing the excesses of police militarism and brutality even as she touts her council votes in support of increasing the number of cops on the streets, which is only a good thing if cops are treating everyone even-handedly (as we heard at last month's town hall, they are not).

Candidate Barry offers no indication that she supports citizen advisory committees to watchdog the actions of police armored to the hilt with weapons of war. And I have already pointed out that she seemed to deny that the injustices of Ferguson are likely to happen in Nashville based on nothing but a metropolitan structure of government. As if individuals who work for Metro government cannot make bad decisions.

For his part, Charles Robert Bone has been quieter than the rest on the question of race, police brutality, and military toys for cops. Mr. Bone seems satisfied in his website comments with the direction Nashville has taken on public safety, and so I am growing to expect little illumination from him on how he would address policing problems that affect North Nashville more than other parts of the city.

So, we have three candidates for the county executive seat, none of whom have committed any public promises that they will order policies that protect communities from militarized police. A month after Michael Brown was shot dead (according to witnesses with his hands in the air), weeks after the protests shook our country and North Nashville held a town hall meeting, how can Jeremy Kane, Megan Barry, and Charles Bone remain unaccountably quiet on what they might do to forestall the repercussions of these troubling times? How can they vie for the most powerful seat in Nashville without any clear ideas for preventing Ferguson from happening in Davidson County?

Do campaign donations matter to community revitalization?

State Rep. Powell

During and after a town hall meeting held in South Nashville a little over a week ago, I received some email correspondence from Mike Peden about important questions he had for elected officials about the community impact of developments. The companies funding those developments, Advance Financial in particular, have political action committees that dole private campaign donations to candidates for public office. Mike gave me permission to piece together his emails here into a narrative for the sake of underscoring the influence that money has over growth that can undermine our quality of life.

According to Mike, elected officials in attendance included state representative Jason Powell, CM Fabian Bedne and CM Jason Potts. Also attending representing the Mayor's Office was Daniel Wainwright. Mike has an office on Nolensville Pike and he says that he is particularly concerned about the impact of the growth of high-interest payday lenders along the corridor. Given that the town hall meeting encouraged questions about "revitalization of Nolensville Pike", Mike had some questions for Rep. Powell in particular:

I asked him how much money he has taken from the payday loan industry and he refused to answer.  He has, of course, taken several contributions from them.

I spoke to him on the phone a couple of months ago and he told me that he has no problem with payday loan stores, and that he knows the people at Advance Financial, and they are "good people".

Nolensville Pike

Mike tells me that everyone he talks to in South Nashville has a problem with the explosion of predatory lenders. It seems to me an entirely fair question to pose to any elected official who has influence over how a community grows and develops: have they accepted funds from owners of those shops? If they have, it should be stated unequivocally so that voters can determine for themselves whether such influence over quality of life suits their interests.

Not everyone who attended the meeting was happy with Mike for raising questions about the influence of the donations of predatory lending companies on conditions along Nolensville Pike. He forwarded me emails that accused him of having a "political agenda." How is it a political agenda to ask a politician to identify the sources of his financial support which might lead him to support certain developments that neighbors have issues with? It seems common sense to me.

I remember that right after CM Erica Gilmore was elected the first time to represent the district where I live, a Germantown leader told me straight up that several people in that neighborhood donated an impressive amount of money to her campaign to leverage their historic overlay, which she eventually took to passage. People understand that this is how the system currently operates. There is no other agenda in learning about who is beholden to whom. It is a natural question we should be asking.

Jason Powell's second quarter campaign finance report shows a $1,000 donation from the Advance Financial PAC. What is the harm in asking Rep. Powell to be publicly accountable to South Nashville constituents for the wealthy special interests that could influence how he supports revitalization along Nolensville Pike?

The lawyer that Hizzoner is, he won't do much more than he is legally obligated to

Disturbing patterns keep popping up in the Mayor's behavior: he excused Metro Water's dump of toxins near Salemtown saying that they complied with the state's environmental standards; he excused Metro's lack of robust remediation of soil excavated for the new Sulphur Dell ballpark insisting that he was in communication with the state and soil like Sulphur Dell's existed everywhere Downtown.

Now his response to the American Indian Coalition's frustration with his handling of sensitive archeology in the area of the new ballpark seems to be cut from the same legalistic thought:

the group wants Metro to delay or stop construction at Sulphur Dell because of its deep Indian history. Representatives from both sides met Thursday for another discussion on the issue.

So far, the city has made no plans to stop construction. Instead, they're offering to construct a wall along the greenway to honor the history of the area, as well as some artwork to go near the end of Fourth Avenue.

"That to me is minimalization and we're tired of being minimalized, American Indian people. We are tired of being just given the very least,” said Albert Bender with the American Indian Coalition.

The Office of Mayor Karl Dean said it’s complied with all state regulations for building on ground containing artifacts.

Doesn't bold leadership require at some points going above and beyond lawyerly arguments of what is required of Metro by state law? Instead of strictly what the law demands to protect the wealthy financial interests backing this project, why not try to strike a balance with all parties as equals in this debate? AIC has excellent points about the costs of culture and history that eclipse mere temporary motives of developers:

"There is evidence of a huge, huge Native American city - Native American metropolis, ancient American area," said Albert Bender, with the American Indian Coalition.

Archaeologists were excited when some Native American salt vessels recently turned up at the Sulphur Dell construction site.

They would like to see the construction of the new Nashville Sounds stadium put on hold to further study the findings, but that is unlikely.

"That's our priority that they will open up the excavation process so that more field recovery work can take place, because there is a treasure trove of knowledge waiting to be unearthed. And the knowledge is incalculable compared to any type of delay that may result from the construction of a ballpark," Bender said.

The artifacts include broken pottery from a salt factory dating back to 1150 A.D. But the digging to find more artifacts has stopped and construction of the ballpark is moving ahead.

"Now we've capped that with some dirt, and we suspect there are other things out there. But it's not going to be coming into place as part of this construction process," said Ronald Gobbel, with Gobbel Hays Partners, Inc.

Again the parallel is striking: when the Dean Administration was covering its collective ass on its new toxic landfill near the Cumberland River here, the bureaucrats justified it by insisting that they were going to "cap" the carcinogens with some dirt. So, down below dirt in our community is a toxic dump that we need protection from and a prehistoric metropolis that should be a source of pride and continuity of place. Karl Dean would rather bury both and appeal to the law in his defense.

This Mayor's term is nearly up and there is no hope of him changing his pharisaical ways any time soon. He wants to get this ballpark done before he leaves office so that he can throw out the first pitch as the guy who built it. It will be The House That Dean Built. We can only hope that the next Mayor is less prone to sticking to legalistic ways of governing this city. We can only hope that she or he has a vision that encompasses the past as well as the future.

Local news media prompts more questions instead of hunting down answers

The hemorrhaging of strong writing continues in the traditional news media.

On the one hand, the Nashville Scene reports that the Tennessean just lost their best investigative journalist, which is sad since the Tennessean rarely bothers investigating much of anything any more. Tough questions are left to be asked by outsiders.

On the other hand, the Tennessean's business section has an intern running down stories and writing copy. Part of that copy regarding the AOL founder's recent visit to Nashville's Entrepreneur Center was "mistaken":

The startup locations Case toured — Bow Truss Building, Marathon Village and the Trolley Barns — were historical buildings left in disrepair for years and just recently renovated by the newly founded Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

To get government funding to renovate these buildings, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center raised funding from private sources and then asked the city to match this funding instead of asking for city funds first.

"(That made it) an easy yes for the mayor," Burcham said, "because there was no risk involved."

To their credit, the Center quickly responded when I tweeted about the intern's mischaracterization of the history of Nashville's historical buildings:

The Tennessean's business section editor came to the defense of his intern saying that the center did raise a lot of funds, which is not the same thing as getting millions in federal aid, a new office above the 2010 flood stage from Metro's own powerful real estate broker (MDHA) and a lot of help from the Mayor's Office. Government seems to have had as much to do with the renovations (not excusing them for their decades of inexcusable neglect of the trolley barns) as did the Entrepreneur Center itself. It seems like a seasoned reporter might have recognized that, and been less likely to leap to the conclusion that EC did it all (as well as Marathon Village renovations!)

Beyond the inaccuracies in the story, other questions prey:

• The original print media stories reported connections between the Entrepreneur Center getting grant money and the purpose of the grants being to support Tennessee flood recovery. The EC moved from its 105 Broadway offices (which flooded and which continue to be occupied by other tenants) to the trolley barns (which did not flood). I don't understand why a government grant dedicated to flood recovery would allow EC to move rather than to repair its Broadway location. The Tennessean editor responded to me yesterday that the EDA did not require flood damage to get the grant. So, why did the original reports link the grant and flood damage as if the latter were a rationale? And why were other businesses allowed to take up space in the Broadway offices that flooded after EC left rather than Metro condemning the property as flood plain?
• In the 2011 coverage of the grant award, the partnering organizations that joined EC in the trolley barn promised that in return for government funding, they would create 300 new jobs in 3 years in Nashville. It is 2014, and I can find no independent source proving that they have created 300 jobs. Did they? If they did, how many of those jobs stayed in Nashville? How many left before the 3 year timeline was used up? I followed up this morning with both the Tennessean business editor and the Nashville Business Journal asking whether EC partners followed through with promised job creation. Neither have responded. It seems to me that independent proof that the jobs were created is vital to taxpayers believing that public funds were appropriately spent on private enterprise. EC received a staggering amount of public financing. Have they paid us back for our investment in them?

Mayor Dean's big, fat staff

We are going to be bombarded in lead-up to the the next local election by messages buoyed by funding from special interests who lust after a smaller, more pliable Metro Council to lobby. While there are segments of our community that are willing to seriously consider their bid to rewrite the Metro Charter in order to constrict popular representation at the Courthouse, I'm more worried about revenues Mayor Karl Dean dumps into a ballooning executive branch. This is a bloated staff:

Mind you, if the bid to reduce the size of the council is successful, district voters will only have 8 more people representing them than the Mayor has on a staff he pays to advance his pet projects. We're so busy pondering the question of whether a city Nashville's size needs one of the largest councils in the country that we're not bothering to ask harder questions about the financial drain of the Mayor's large staff. Here are three off the top of my head:

• Why does the Mayor need 2 (and in many cases 3) people to run his PR campaign? Janel Lacy had worked for Karl Dean for several years before former journalist Bonna Johnson was hired in 2011 as Press Secretary. Add to those two Courtney Wheeler, hired to direct the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, who seems to coordinate the Mayor's PR in the digital social media. The times I have seen Ms. Wheeler attend community meetings, she spent a lot of time talking to the news media rather than to neighbors. That's three people coordinating the Mayor's talking points. Why does he require that many? Why are public revenues spent on 3 people to broadcast messages?
• Why do we need an "Office of Innovation" when the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods and Mayor's Office of Economic and Community Development have been charged before with the duties of the innovation office? This looks like a duplication of services, unless my past concerns about MOON have come to pass, and Courtney Wheeler is spending more time on pitching the Mayor's agenda and less time on coordinating service delivery to the neighborhoods. The other troubling aspect concerns the disruptive connotations of innovation, which Jill Lepore described this week in The New Yorker: the innovative culture advocates an "idea of progress jammed into a criticism-proof jack-in-the-box". Mayor Karl Dean is not tolerant of criticism and he rewards loyalty. For his administration to plug into disruptive innovation is both predictable and alarming. For all the good this office might do, how is it disruptive to those of us not in power?
• Speaking of loyalty: what in the world is a "Director of Financial Empowerment" and why does Erik Cole qualify for the position? Never mind. I just remembered why.

Our Mayor is an executive who every spring questions whether Metro departments could operate on less money than what they had received the year before. Watching the way his own staff grows, I have to wonder whether he brings the hard questions to bear on his own department.

If he won't, then we should; especially as we are being lobbied to vote to cut our representation on the Metro Council.

Because the construction of a new ballpark is such a very special moment for North Nashville

From our WTH?! Department:

[Council member Robert] Duvall said Monday that Dean and other city officials rushed to get the Metro Council to approve [a ballpark at Sulphur Dell] without thinking it through.

“’Let’s get it over with’ was their attitude. It’s a done deal. ‘We have to move on to bigger and better things,’ they believed,” Duvall said.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, to hear that even a huge new capital project real estate grab in North Nashville may have been dealt with carelessly, cavalierly by the financing wizards in the Mayor's Office, who may view other parts of Nashville as more worthy of "bigger and better" attention. Shocked! (As if I could be at this point).

A few reflections for today's ceremonial groundbreaking for a new ballpark at Sulphur Dell

Leading off in the wrong direction: new ballpark's plate will face other way.

This evening Mayor Karl Dean is holding his soiree (today shutting down 4th Avenue and two state parking lots) to break ground on his new underwhelming ballpark for the Nashville Sounds. He has ordered infield dirt and home plate be set up on 4th, about a less than block away from where the new home plate will likely be. Fittingly, home plate is facing the wrong way. It is a metaphor for me on how this process has started on the wrong foot. Token, purely symbolic attempts were made to invite community buy-in. If this project starts going pear-shaped with cost overages or construction delays, Hizzoner and a few North Nashville council members are likely going to regret not getting more popular support before moving forward.

Instead, they have expressed garden variety meanness toward anyone with a critical question. Admittedly, it comes with the territory in politics. You ask questions about the Mayor's rapid bus plan, you get labeled as conservative and anti-mass-transit. You ask questions about the Mayor's Fairgrounds sell-off, you get labeled as anti-neighborhood and regressive. You ask questions about the Mayor's new convention center, you get accused of wanting to hold back growth in Nashville.

Likewise, you ask questions about the Mayor's ballpark and the process he undertook to make it happen in less than 6 months, and your love of baseball is questioned. (In some cases the invective is uglier). What is particularly troubling is when the meanness is expressed in emotional moments by your own council member, whose public comments seem to suggest that she only considers the emails of supporter of projects that she supports. It may be, as Erica Gilmore argues, "a strange kind of love of baseball" that insists that Metro government be accountable to constituents for its capital projects even when they involve the national pastime, but to question people's deeply held devotion to something when you cannot even seem to spell correctly the name of the ballpark whose history you claim to be celebrating in your new capital project smacks of hypocrisy. Questioning someone else's love of baseball or history when you don't seem to have a grasp on either yourself amounts to being the bad sport.

For her love of the game, I'd be interested to know whether CM Gilmore has put her deposit down on season tickets in order to financially support the new ballpark she claims will "revive" Jefferson Street.

Are you crying?
There's no crying in baseball!

That is merely one of the questions I have going into this afternoon's groundbreaking. They deserve answers, not more hyperbole. Has the Mayor done the work on examining the area for archaeologically sensitive sites? Has soil analysis been done to test for contamination? Where will any toxic soil be dumped? What is Mayor Dean doing to protect historic buildings nearby? What will we do about traffic and parking? What are contingency plans for future catastrophic floods? There are a host of other questions I have heard asked that have yet to receive answers. Rather than lashing out at people who ask questions like this, rather than impugning their motives the Mayor's Office and its minions in Friends of Sulphur Dell should offer clear answers. This is baseball. It concerns our neighborhoods. We deserve more than tempestuous politics.


UPDATE: The Associated Press in a story on today's event repeats a meme that a new ballpark will end the 50-year-old deterioration of Jefferson Street. It also makes a claim that I have never read before: that Sulphur Dell was demolished due to the construction of the interstate, which is a dozen or so blocks away from the old ballpark site.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and the Nashville Sounds baseball team are hosting a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new minor league ballpark that will return Nashville baseball to its historic home.

The new park in Sulphur Dell will be near the site of an old downtown ballpark that was demolished more than 40 years ago to make way for an interstate and redevelopment. Those changes cut off the historically black neighborhoods of North Nashville from downtown, helping to drive those neighborhoods into an economic slump.

Residents and officials hope the new ballpark will help revive North Nashville, especially the central business district on Jefferson Street.

It looks like whoever wrote this piece is drawing information from a December report which made the debatable claim that our community "never recovered" from demolition of Sulphur Dell and the construction of the interstate.

The Tennessee Tribune offered a contrasting point of view to the AP last year:

“The interstate was only the beginning of the problem,” said Janice Jones, a retired nurse who lived in North Nashville for 55 years. “These hooligans moved in and starting committing crimes. It used to be safe here 40 years ago. Black folks were supporting each other and businesses were thriving.”

Jones paused to collect herself. “Now they’re over here killing each other and abusing drugs. It’s ridiculous.” Kassir agrees. “We showed unity back then. We supported each other. But somewhere in the years after segregation and Civil Rights, we lost our way and turned on each other. This neighborhood hasn’t been the same since.”

Not everything on Jefferson Street has gone downhill. In 1994, an organization was formed by longtime Jefferson Street residents, business owners, homeowners and developers called Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership to provide a jump-start to Jefferson Street.

I am sure that the Mayor's Office has no problem with the AP notion that a ballpark may save Jefferson Street neighborhoods after 50 years, thus making Karl Dean our superhero, but the facts and the truth seem to be more complex and nuanced. And the Mayor has not been attentive to North Nashville as a rule of his two terms.

As far as I can tell the folding of the previous minor league fanchise had more to do than the building of the interstate with the demolition of Sulphur Dell. And to claim that in 50 years Jefferson Street neighborhoods have done nothing but decline is blind to reality. The AP should get a grip and stop inventing news.

Do ballpark "partnerships" shelter developers from meeting their public obligations?

Mayor Karl Dean loves him some public-private partnerships. He touts them consistently when he is speaking from the stump. No less about the new Sulphur Dell ballpark "partnership":

I think the great thing about this is, because this is a public-private partnership — and it truly is a public-private partnership — you have two public entities, the state and the city government, along with two private entities involved. And because of the revenue generated and because of the contributions made by the Sounds and because of some different payments that we're already making that will go away, that will largely cover the cost of issuing the bonds.

Given his perennial commitment to them, I just always assumed he believed that all of those emerging on his watch were "truly public-private partnerships."

But for all of the positive spin of public-private partnerships, they have a dark side, which is rarely expressed in the media until after damage is done. Partnerships usually are not representative of or accountable to constituents since they rely on executive fiat behind closed doors to happen. By the time they get to legislative branches where constituents have more influence they are full-steam juggernauts. Sympathetic and loyal legislators run interference for the execs and kill most chances for public vetting.

Sports venue projects, even minor league baseball parks, are allowed to operate under the security of public-private partnerships, especially when they are run as non-profits, especially when they are overseen by tax-exempt governmental agencies. In Reno, Nevada the triple-A baseball team has a new ballpark, but the county government has been unsuccessful collecting unpaid taxes from the ballpark developer because of the partnership:

The “available legal remedies” for collecting the debt, however, are limited because of the public-private partnership involved in the ballpark’s construction, according to Assistant District Attorney Paul Lipparelli.

Typically, if a property owner stops paying taxes, the county can file a lien, auction off the building and use the proceeds to collect on the back taxes. But in this case, the Reno Redevelopment Agency — a tax exempt governmental entity — owns the ballpark. The agency leases the ballpark back to the developers for $1 a year.

Because the developers are using the tax exempt property for a profit-making enterprise, they owe property taxes....But the county can’t just file a lien, it would need to file a lawsuit to collect the back taxes.

At the heart of the tax dispute are the terms of the original deal the developers has with the Reno Redevelopment Agency to build the ballpark. Under that agreement, the developers expected up to $50 million in property tax revenue generated by growing tax collections within the redevelopment district to repay the construction loan. But property values tanked in the recession, leaving the agency in severe financial distress and with no way to make the payments to the developers.

In lieu of not receiving that money, Nevada Land LLC simply stopped paying property taxes on the ballpark.

So, the speculated wealth, guaranteed by ballpark boosters to come back to the local community when they were drumming up support, failed to come back. The maze the returns on investments have to run is more convoluted than ballpark supporters divulge. The money has to negotiate quagmires caused by turns in the economy, make its way through minefields of legal stipulations and contract disputes and avoid obstacles put up by partnerships that do more to protect the partners than the constituents who may or may not enjoy benefits that trickle out.

Because of the speed and secrecy of the Sulphur Dell deal, because of the work of Karl Dean's loyalists on the council, we still are learning about the details of the arrangement. I do not know whether a foundation will oversee the for-profit activities of the Nashville Sounds or the developers. I do not know what sort of oversight Mayor's Office of Economic and Community Development will have over the development. For better or worse, we will eventually catch wind of the details, wherein the devils lie.

But the unpleasantness in Reno makes me wonder if Nashville is set up to lose a few shirts in the Sulphur Dell deal as well.

Metro's Midtown "Open House" on the Amp threatened to turn into a town hall meeting earlier tonight

".... go to Cleveland. See what a mess it is."

Tonight's Midtown transit "open house" or "workshop" (or whatever officials are deciding to call it at the moment) nearly busted out into a full blown public hearing on the east-west connector after one person in the audience asked an Amp engineer who was finishing up at the podium if he would take questions from the floor.

The citizen expressed his opinion that he did not think that projections could be correct based on his own experience with metro transit. The engineer moved to the fellow and started answering his questions as if they were having a one-on-one, and someone else in the crowd spoke up and asked the engineer to use a microphone so everyone could hear him. The engineer declined to grab the mike and expressed his own wish that all questions be expressed at the tables.

I wondered why he seemed resistant to fielding some crowd questions before turning to the tables. As I saw it he could have answered and parlayed the group to dispersing more diplomatically without seeming so bent on individual conversation. If the reticence to discussing these issues is about controlling the rabble, it really does hit me the wrong way.

In the meantime, a third attendee spoke up and encouraged others present to go to Cleveland and see "the mess" that a similar system is there. Pitchforks were starting to emerge. Meeting organizers seemed on the edge of losing control to the masses.

But there was a lull, then some aside chatting, and before anyone else had a chance to take the floor, engineers regained control and got those in attendance to the tables where different members of their team could manage expectations.

Crisis caused by uppity populism averted.

Crowd backed down the hallway, the foyer, and outside.

In the meantime, people were still trying to get into the main room, but the crowd was stacking up in the hallway and out the front door. I actually left 20 mins into the meeting because I felt guilty about taking up space when I had already attended the East Nashville meeting. I asked one member of the design team whether they were expecting this many people. I learned that they were not either tonight or in East Nashville the night before last. I joked with another official as I was leaving whether the number of people in the building was a fire code violation. The reply: "I plead the 5th". When I got outside to my car, there were yet others walking through the parking lot to the building and I saw several cars circling and stalking potential parking spaces. As soon as I backed out one of them grabbed mine.

Before I left I heard interesting things. First of all, the engineer at the podium said with emphasis, "In no way are these final designs, yet". I do not recall him saying that in East Nashville. If he did it was not with as much verve or I would have remembered it. Whether he felt like he did not need to make the point across the river or whether this was an attempt to be more measured, he left himself wiggle room to refer to this stage as a "visioning" process. Although again, even if a final stage is "only" 30% complete, a good part of the vision seems already achieved. Haggling over the details at specific intersections does not seem like "visioning" to me.

I heard many more concerns expressed at this meeting than in East Nashville, particularly about where bus riders would park around West End, whether 5,000 riders per day with Amp was believable, whether historic preservation would be endangered by infrastructure changes and whether adding extra lanes would create more snarl. I was in earshot of a woman who exclaimed that, given the current parking situation along West End, there was absolutely no way that riders would be able to find parking to catch the bus. I heard one design team member tell one concerned transit rider asking for ridership comparisons to projections that he did not know what the current daily ridership was.

As I left, I noticed a police officer who seemed to be letting people into the room as others like me exited early and I wondered, with this much unexpected popular response to a transit proposal, pro and con, should not the public meeting process have started long ago with honest communication so that we would all not be so caught off-guard now? More specifically, why weren't we permitted to "vision" long before the transit authority reached 30% of the final stage of the project?

UPDATE: Rather than simply reporting the news, the Tennessean is resorting once again to bias by speculating in their report about how many green and red reps attended. Just like in East Nashville, most of those I saw in attendance had no form of pro or con signifiers displayed, so why does Brian Wilson feel emboldened to say that there was "balance" between pro and con? Did he interview every single person? I doubt he will share his method of counting, but it cannot be very scientific. There could have been many different points of view beyond simply polarized opinions, and it really is unfortunate when the news media fabricates "facts" instead of conveying them.

Ballpark cost overruns already: what we should have been told before Erica Gilmore and Jerry Maynard rammed the Sulphur Dell deal through council

This troubling bit of Sulphur Dell news trickled out on December 31, which means that it was likely muffled by the holidays and that many might have missed it:

construction firms told Metro what it would [actually] cost to build a new baseball stadium for the Nashville Sounds.

But Mayor Karl Dean’s administration said the new facility will come in on budget, despite the builders’ initial estimates running some $5 million higher than city officials said a new ballpark would cost before public financing for the project was approved.

A procurement evaluation committee has selected a team led by Bell & Associates Construction to build the ballpark, which is scheduled to open in April 2015 with room for 10,000 fans.

Now we see why this deal had to go through before everyone started paying attention to Metro government shenanigans again in the new year. If your council member voted for this plan and it does run over budget, blame him or her for lack of proper oversight.

In Memphis in the meantime, the city council has worked out a deal to buy their minor league stadium, AutoZone Park, with guarantees from team and corporate sponsors. On first blush, the agreement looks much better for Memphis than Sulphur Dell does for Nashville. The Memphis Redbirds will now be owned by their parent club, the St. Louis Cardinals, who have agreed to help pay for stadium improvements and for marketing. Both the St. Louis team owners and corporate sponsor AutoZone have agreed to help the city pay off the debt from the bonds financing the deal if sales tax rebate revenues don’t meet projections. What got the Redbirds in trouble in the first place were bond holders trying to flip muni-debt.

And get this: there were Memphis city council members holding out against the deal until it was reworked more favorably for the city.

In Nashville we have no assurances from the Sounds owner (who strikes me as more of a real estate mogul than a baseball guy) and corporate developers that they will help Metro out if projections are not met by realities. That's because the sponsors of the Sulphur Dell bill--particularly Erica Gilmore and Jerry Maynard--discouraged any obligation whatsoever on these private interests to help Metro out if the dreams do not come true.

Maybe I've grown accustomed and calloused to the horsewhipping of Nashville politics, so I can't grasp the regressive holes in the Memphis deal like some critics, but I wish we would have had the Memphis city council representing our city on the Sulphur Dell deal. "Piddly" guarantees are better than no guarantees.