A BZA engineered for LED

The Tennessean catches up on a story that's been brewing since the Board of Zoning Appeals reversed Zoning's disapproval of a request to install a brightly animated LED billboard:

The Metro Law Department sued in Davidson County Chancery Court on Tuesday to reverse the Board of Zoning Appeals’ ruling earlier this year that Richardson Outdoor Advertising can build a 50-foot-tall digital billboard to replace a standard board at Bell and Murfreesboro roads ....

The Metro Codes department initially denied a permit to Richardson Outdoor Advertising last spring. The denial relied on a legal interpretation that digital billboards must be at least 2,000 feet from other billboards.

The BZA ruled in June against the denial, but I could not find any media reports on the roll call. The Zoning minutes only tell that the vote was 4-2 but they are not transparent about how members voted. I called Zoning and finally received a list of names of the members who voted to overrule the zoning and allow LED signage:

• David Harper
• Chris Whitson
• Mercedes Jones
• Stacey Garrett

The Nashville Business Coalition used allowance for LED billboards as a litmus test for candidates 4 years ago. A sign industry influence broker and NBC member held a post-election fundraiser for the Mayor to pay back some of his campaign bills. A little later NBC darling Chris Whitson was endorsed by the Mayor and approved by the council for an open slot on the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Has the BZA been moving toward opening the door to LED billboards? To some it seems so. Earlier this year a neighborhood leader attended a BZA hearing on an applicant's attempt to make an appeal for an LED billboard. She came away with two primary impressions. First, the applicant appeared to her to be testing the waters to see if a LED appeal could pass. Second, she wondered if some BZA members might actually be intent on permitting LED appeals based on their leading questions directed at community opponents:

• Why don't you want LED in residential area?
• What make you think having LED billboard nearby will affect the property value?
• The applicant is suggesting to lower the height and dim it at night, will you reconsider your opposition?

She wondered specifically about the propensities of David Ewing (voted against the appeal in June) and David Harper. Her perception proved right in at least Harper's case in the the latest appeal.

Whether or not Metro Law can turn this appeal around, the handwriting may be on the wall with regard  to the BZA's future intentions on LED billboards. The BZA does not appear to have been built to regulate or control Vegas-style signage dominating people's vistas. When a board is engineered to make it easier for industry to ignore community quality of life and do whatever they want, what choices are the rest of us left with?

Metro Legal dismisses Fairgrounds opponent's complaint against CM Emily Evans

Two weeks ago I blogged that I would be shocked and suspicious if Metro Legal found anything of merit in Nancy McCune's bizarre complaints against CM Emily Evans.

Earlier tonight Tennessean reporter Michael Cass reported on Twitter that the law department dismissed McCune's complaint.

That confirms what I already suspected: the only wrong here has been done by the accuser against a council member who has a spotless and honorable record of service.


UPDATE: From Metro Legal's evaluation.

Underscore that "if true" part.

Another spurious attack on CM Emily Evans

The day after Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr raged against CM Emily Evans for being uppity and doing what she was elected to do--ask critical questions on policies affecting voters--a supporter of Mayor Karl Dean's Fairgrounds redevelopment plan, Nancy McCune responded emphatically unimpressed with an outpouring of support for Evans on the Nashville neighborhood leaders elist. Ms. McCune insisted in no uncertain terms that she had "plural" interactions with CM Evans in the past and that she believes that CM Evans is "egocentric, close-minded and extremely negative."

Today Ms. McCune took her opinion of the District 23 Metro Council Member to a new level. She herself appears in a Tennessean story on her filed formal complaint to the Metro Clerk that she heard CM Evans tell Bells Bend supporter of race track demolition, Sumter Camp, that she did not want him to speak at last Tuesday's public hearing on proposed demolition. Ms. McCune told reporter Michael Cass:

“I was sim­ply appalled by the audac­ity that this woman would step through the door and say what she did,” McCune said. “Her tone was threatening.”

It is fairly clear from Ms. McCune's December elist comments that her opinions of Emily Evans were formed and conclusive before the Tuesday night meeting, so it is entirely reasonable to ask whether her strong opinions that CM Evans is close-minded and negative might have influenced her interpretation of a threat to Mr. Camp.

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

And an affirmative answer to that question becomes plausible given that Mr. Camp himself denied those allegations in an interview with Cass:

Camp said Evans “was just sur­prised to see me there.”

“She said, ‘What are you doing in this line?’ ” Camp said. “Since we hadn’t talked, she wasn’t sure where I was com­ing from. … It cer­tainly wasn’t any­thing that was going to dissuade me from speak­ing or that I took offense at. Emily’s very bright and she’s very pas­sion­ate, and that’s usu­ally a good thing.”

Is a charge of intimidation plausible when the alleged victim expresses seeming warmth and no fear? It may be anecdotal for me to say it, but in no instance have I ever witnessed CM Evans act in the way that Ms. McCune describes, and like her I have observed the CM on "plural" occasions. I would honestly be shocked and a little suspicious if Metro Legal finds anything to make of this complaint, given Mr. Camp's comments.

One other thing to consider before taking this formal complaint as gospel is that Ms. McCune has made troubling statements about others before. She got into a tit-for-tat with Fairgrounds preservationist Lisa Leeds on a June 30, 2010 City Paper comment board, during which she referred to those who opposed demolition of the Fairgrounds as "knuckle-draggers." Consequently, the administrator of the neighborhoods elist informed members that he had "moderated" her, meaning that he temporarily blocked her comments for review before posting so to prevent the same personal attacks on the list (he revealed that Ms. Leeds had previously been so "moderated").

The upshot to that drama: the elist administrator told the membership that his concern was affirmed after Ms. McCune's husband sent her previously blocked comment that judged preservationists "myopic" to the elist anyway.

Finally, take a look at the recently released Metro e-mails on the Fairgrounds. An August 2010 e-mail from Ms. McCune to the Mayor's Office accuses Fairgrounds preservationists of "accosting" her (p. 24). The State Fair Director replied to the Mayor's Office that vendors were allowed to invite the preservationists and later that--under observation by Fairgrounds staff--the preservationists were found to be breaking no rules in asking people to sign petitions.

Am I the only person who sees a pattern of statements against demolition opponents that are exaggerated and overwrought? Shouldn't they give us pause before taking seriously the already tenuous and rather improbable charges that Ms. McCune leveled at CM Evans?

If anyone is willing to put their actual identity by their comments has any experience with CM Evans to substantiate Ms. McCune's allegations, then by all means comment away. But I will be strictly screening anonymous comments on this post, because some influential sources around town, whom the news media will not name, seem out to cut the council member off at her knees. I would not put it past them to make hay out of these wild accusations.


UPDATE: a commenter at the Tennessean claims to have been present for the exchange and corroborates Sumter Camp's denial to the paper that the exchange was unfriendly:

As it turns out, McCune has no idea what she’s talk­ing about. I was just out­side the council cham­bers when Emily Evans walked through. I didn’t pay any atten­tion to what she said to Mr. Camp, but from the way he responded to her, it seemed that he was a friend of hers. It doesn’t surprise me that McCune would make accu­sa­tions with­out know­ing what she was tak­ing about. It’s nice that that Mr. Camp was so easy to find, and explained what the con­ver­sa­tion was about.

Troubled by two details on the periphery of the James Weaver lobbying unpleasantness

Numero 1: CM Megan Barry has been mum on the question of James Weaver and the possible conflict of interest between being the Fair Board Chair and a lobbyist for CBL, which is negotiating the Hickory Hollow lease to take Fairgrounds refugees slated to be exiled by Mayor Dean.

However, CM Barry has been a professional ethics officer and a business ethics professor at Belmont. She campaigned for her office as the ethical alternative to Metro Council's status quo. So, why does it not behoove an ethicist qua CM to question Weaver's lobbying interests in the context of his Fair Board actions?

Numero 2: When a reporter asked Metro Legal Director Sue Cain about Weaver's possible conflict of interest, she replied that she did not know he was a lobbyist registered with Metro. Is Metro Legal not supposed to show more proactive curiosity about the lobbyists who have also been asked to be public servants on Metro boards? If the lawyers are not keeping up with this who is supposed to? Lowly bloggers?


UPDATE (Numero 1): CM Megan Barry is one of the co-sponsors of the Hickory Hollow/CBL lease bill that is up for 2nd reading on Pearl Harbor Day (Dec. 7). Is her sponsorship keeping her from engaging the ethical dilemmas of CBL lobbyist James Weaver's Fair Board duties?

Flood victims revictimized: another Metro identity breach of citizen personal information

A couple of days ago local tweets started crossing my feed that some flood victims' personal information, including bank account numbers had been posted on the Metro Tax Assessor's WebPro government site. Here is the Tennessean's follow up on the story:

Three property owners had private information exposed on the county web site, according to the Assessor's office. Rooker said he was first made aware of the information being posted by the Metro Legal Department this morning. As originally reported Dozens of flood victims seeking property tax relief may have had personal documents like checks [to pay for repairs] posted for public view on the Davidson County Assessor’s web site.

This is at least the 5th data breach of Davidson County citizen information since 2007, when laptops containing personal voter information where stolen from the Metro Election Commission. A Metro computer security laptop was stolen from a car shortly after that. Another incident involving exposure of 18,000 Metro Public School students' and 6,000 parents' personal information on Google occurred last year. Earlier this year an employee with Policy Studies, Inc. was given access to private Metro child support records with information like Social Security numbers, which he promptly attempted to sell.

Government just keeps privatizing more and more of its functions involving sensitive personal information without any accountability. Worse, yet, the information keeps getting breached. This running government like a business project does not seem to be working too well, especially for average Nashvillians. In the latest case, those who have already been victimized by May flood waters were revictimized by exposure of their identities.

Justice Department Reaches Settlement with Metro on Zoning Issue

Suburban NIMBY got Metro nowhere, but the end--to the tune of $70,000 so far--is in sight:

The settlement, which must still be approved by the court, requires the Metropolitan Government to train nearly 100 employees and officials who make zoning and land use decisions on the requirements of the FHA and RLUIPA, to appoint a compliance officer to receive complaints and ensure compliance with the settlement, and to provide periodic reports to the Justice Department. As part of the settlement, the Metropolitan Government rescinded the amendment to its zoning code that affected Teen Challenge and adopted a reasonable accommodation policy for individuals with disabilities.

The Metropolitan Government will also pay a $20,000 civil penalty to the United States and $50,000 to participants in Teen Challenge’s program. Monetary relief to Teen Challenge is being determined by the final court order in the related case of Teen Challenge International, Nashville Headquarters, et al. v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.

When this blew up in the local media, the blame was placed almost exclusively on Metro Council, but just keep in mind that no council zoning issues pass without a Mayor's signature.

HT: R. Neal

Shouldn't Metro Legal Have to Explain Their Decision?

So, now we know that Eric Crafton's local referendum organization received 90% of their funding from a Virginia-based pro-English group. That would seem to minimize the chances that an individual donor would have been the target of threats.  So, why would Metro Legal risk setting a precedent of political cover for future candidates, a precedent that does not ever seem to have happened in the past?

It is clear that Eric Crafton mislead the public last week when he argued that 90% of his movement's donations came from people giving less than $100 apiece. Even the best kept astroturf can never really look grassroots. I simply fail to understand why Metro Legal would give Mr. Crafton any credibility by delaying the transparent disclosure of his true corporate sources far away on the east coast. How are Virginian nativists under any greater threat than a local donor who supported English Only's opponents?

UPDATE: From the WTF?! Department via the Tennessean:

Cain told Election Administrator Ray Barrett in an email at 7:39 a.m. today that there was no evidence of "a substantial risk of bodily harm from a perceived likely threat."

These are serious allegations. I would think that Metro Legal would need to demonstrate that the perceived threat to a large anti-immigrant organization was more real than imagined before delaying transparency that could effect the vote. Or else, candidates in the future can just write letters willy-nilly to Metro Legal saying that they perceive a threat and they want their donor information kept secret until after the election and beyond.


UPDATE: Nathan Moore posted the entire text of the Cain's letter to Barrett at his blog:

I have carefully reviewed the cases related to the disclosure of the names of the contributors that were listed on the reports filed yesterday. After reviewing the concerns raised initially by Jonathan Crisp, President, Nashville English First, in light of the standards set in Kallstrom v. City of Columbus, 136 F.3d 1055, and Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, it is my opinion that you may release these reports to the public. To reach the Kallstrom standard, there must be evidence that “the release of private information places an individual at substantial risk of serious bodily harm, possibly even death, from a perceived likely threat.” Kallstrom at 136 F.3d at 1064.

The “threats” alluded to in Mr. Crisp’s letter and the attachments do not evidence a substantial risk of bodily harm from a perceived likely threat. This coupled with Mr. Crisp’s conversation with you yesterday indicating that he no longer objects to the release of the reports convince me that these records are public records that must be released in that not even Mr. Crisp, who originally raised the concern, believes there is any substantial threat.

I appreciate your patience in allowing us the opportunity to review this matter.

Sue Cain
Director of Law

What Kind of Precedent Exists for This?

Metro Legal is not releasing English Only's donor list because former Davidson Co. GOP Chair Jon Crisp sent them a letter requesting a delay saying the donors could be subject to threats.

What campaign donors are not at risk of threats when their names are released? Why should English Only's donors receive any more government protection than the rest of us who would donate to campaigns? Has Metro ever delayed release of donor information in the past?

Media Matters, Except in the Local Paper

Once again in a follow up to last night's predictable Council vote to give religious-based halfway houses special considerations in zoning issues in the wake of a lawsuit against Metro by a religious-based halfway house, one local paper avoids laying any fault at Metro Legal's or the Mayor's Office doorstep in rehashing their time-line of precipitating events.

I've admitted that I'm torn on this bill given that I don't think rural areas should generally be exempt from social and charitable services.  However, I don't think that history should be revised to saddle Metro Council with the responsibility for this mess.  Red lights and alarms did not seem to be going off in Karl Dean's Legal Department back in late 2006 and early 2007 when the thorny rose first bloomed.  But the mayoral honeymoon being what it is, even with the media, that is an ignored narrative, a boat they dare not rock.

The Muse is Vindicated

Other good dates to avoid public scrutiny include those near the 4th of July ....

- - Developers' Playbook, Occasional Muse

Next week's Metro Council agenda is out, and almost as if Nashville's legislative body took its cue straight from the developer's playbook, the meeting is dominated by public hearings on 20 rezoning and planning requests. July 1 does not seem very convenient for the public to attend hearings designated for them; in fact, it seems most convenient for Council Members and developers because of the broader inconvenience.

Also on that agenda is perhaps this Council's most significant black mark, the do-over bill to include controversial rehabilitation services within agricultural zoning, which was prompted by investigations by the Bush Justice Department. But it was also a black mark against the Purcell Administration and Karl Dean's Legal Department, since the original bill passed by the Council in 2007 should have been reviewed by Metro Legal in 2006, and could have been vetoed instead of being returned unsigned.

All in all, it looks like a pre-holiday, conflict-avoidance slate of public hearings.

Just Get the Money They Owe Us and End It

Why even give Wackenhut a second chance to justify their contract with Metro? I see the Wackenhut SUV driving around streets in Salemtown on a daily basis, and I always wonder what it is about our neighborhood that draws the security guards away from their Metro Water Services post on 3rd Avenue, North.

Nothing's Right. I'm Torn.

As for Tuesday night's council attempt to put rehabilitation services in agricultural areas like Goodlettsville:

On the one hand, with recovery facilities, homeless shelters, and social services packed into urban neighborhoods where I have lived, it is hard for me to have sympathy for burden-free rural residents who are NIMBY about bearing some of the load for rehabilitation services. On the other hand, since when does the Bush Justice Department have any credibility on enforcing the law of the land, given that they are selective enforcers? On still another hand, a law suit involving fair housing could cost Metro a bundle and Nashville has no bundles. On the other of another hand, it was embarrassing to listen to CM Jerry Maynard on Tuesday night give a sermonette on his parochial Bible from what is supposed to be his neutral and broadly representative position on the council in order to defend Metro Legal's attempts to placate the Bush Justice Department.

Geez. I don't know which way to fall on this one. There is no good position.

Metro Barely Smacks Wackenhut; Class Action Lawsuit Reaches Farther

The Tennessean reports this morning that Metro's Legal Office is asking private security contractor Wackenhut to pay $100,000 for the $109,000 mailing Metro Election Commission is paying to notify all Davidson County residents warning of Christmas Eve laptop theft (which means, I guess, that Metro rather than the state funds MEC mailings--hasn't the State been conspicuously mum on this matter?). This seem like the bare minimum that Metro should do, and it seems to me that they need to be more aggressive; or as one interviewed lawyer put it, "Notification is no solution. You've got to be proactive and go out there and protect people's identities aggressively." And more aggressive is just what a reported class-action lawsuit being put together against Metro, Wackenhut is. Metro and Wackenhut should be doing more to protect the voters who have been put at risk by their security and protocol failures. If they don't choose to, then they should be forced by the courts to.

Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood Association Sues Metro

Neighborhood leaders cite concerns that a new teacher training center at Eakin Elementary will increase automobile traffic. They also argue that the plan should have gone to Metro Council for approval before construction started.

At Large Candidate Hostettler Mulling a Legal Challenge to the Election Results

From Mr. Hostettler's Friday Press Release:

Philip Hostettler, a Metro Council at Large candidate for the 2007 election, is quickly working through the details and paperwork for the purposes of applying the law regarding Term Limits. The People of Nashville and Davidson County, by a referendum election in November of 1994, voted for Term Limits, effective January 1, 1995. Incumbent candidates Charlie Tygard, J.B. Loring, Ronnie Greer, and John Summers, are finishing up with their two consecutive terms in the Council and under Article 1, General Provisions of the Metropolitan Charter, may have been ineligible to run for office again and blocked Hostettler from making the runoff. Hostettler received numerous calls on Friday August 3rd, one day after the election, ranging from first time candidates to former council members, about challenging the opinion of one former Metro Law Department Director, James Murphy, III [who ruled that two-term district candidates may run in at-Large races].

I hope he goes for it and wins.

This Is Turning into a Rout

According to the Richard Lawson at NaPo: today Metro found the Nashville Sounds in default of its current Greer Stadium lease for failure to upgrade the stadium so that it complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Forget just defaulting on the Downtown ballpark MOU; now the Sounds are in hot water regarding the ADA and probably justly so, since Metro has been sued for Greer's noncompliance in the past. The lease ends in 2008, which means that they could be homeless after that.

Metro Tax Money Funds Ministry to Transport Masses to Christ

The latest Metro Council resolution designed to send almost $14,000 to a church camp that would support the Churches of Christ parochial devotions to the Christian Bible motivated me to take a second look at a previous bill that handed Nashville Inner City Ministry $5,000 in collected property tax money for their bus ministry.

According to the resolution adopted by the Metro Council and signed by Mayor Bill Purcell last January, the money shall be used to pay operating costs for buses to take youth to Life Skills classes, which the ICM has described as both biblically-based and not biblically-based.

But buses themselves are characterized by ICM on its website as having a proselytizing purpose:

we are a bus ministry and the bus is our major tool in bringing the lost to Christ.

The ICM head driving instructor underscores the mission of the buses that Metro is partially funding:

As long as there are people that need to know the Lord they will need to be transported in mass to a place of learning, and the bus is the best tool we have NOW.

The Nashville Inner City Ministry wrote one contrary statement to Metro Legal in order to secure $5,000. That statement said that the funds would not be used to promote religious beliefs. And yet, even the transportation that the funds will support is characterized by the Ministry itself as a "tool" for "bringing the lost to Christ in mass." Does Metro Legal not check out the published statements of these organizations?

And adoption of that $5,000 resolution in January has set a precedent that will likely encourage the council to pass a second ICM resolution this Tuesday to send nearly 3 times that amount to the Ministry's church camp. How much tax money is Metro Council willing to spend on a ministry designed to bring the masses to their splinter faith?

Metro Council Members Intend to Send Almost $14,000 to Their Own Church's Bible Camp

A Metro Council resolution that seems to be completely off everyone's radar is one sponsored by Carl Burch, Jr. and Carolyn Baldwin Tucker (both of whom belong to Churches of Christ) to send $13,750 of collected property tax dollars to their denomination's Inner City Ministry (ICM). If approved next Tuesday, that money would be earmarked for a "Leadership Development Summer Camp" for 360 "selected youth," even though that camp appears to be focused on propogating a particular splinter of biblical religion.

In RS2007-1888, Mr. Burch and Ms. Tucker site the ICM's Life Skills classes, which have already been funded by the Metro Council in the form of a $5,000 earmark sponsored by Ronnie Greer. While the ICM sent a letter to the Council office denying that the Life Skills classes were biblically-based in response to expressed concerns about funding proselytizing ministries, their mission statement clearly says that they teach skills based on biblical principles.

The Inner City Ministry's call for volunteers says that full-time evangelists and life-skill counselors follow up with the families of children who attend the classes. If evangelists are involved, then public dollars are being spent on proselytizing families into Churches of Christ. The summer camp "allows middle schoolers and teenagers that have participated in [the] Bible class ministry throughout the year to spend a week at camp with their Bible class teachers."

I could not find any other information on the web or in the mainstream media giving any details about the camp here in Nashville. (That fact alone is a cause for concern). But a former evangelist who participated in the Nashville ICM and who currently works in the Mobile, AL ICM (both ICMs are linked on the Nashville ICM site) maintains a website that displays pictures and descriptions of children at the Alabama camp being lead in Bible study with captions like:

The alternate environment that camp provides helps to create a quality experience for the teaching of God's word through more than one avenue.

and

The relationship between mentor and camper started before camp, and as we can see from the photo below makes cabin devotionals an uplifting experience as these boys study the Bible with a Godly man.

Mobile camp mentors include evangelists and "missionaries," and if they have missionaries, there is proselytizing happening.

If there is any chance that $14,000 of taxpayer money would be going to camp bible devotionals like the ones pictured below (displayed on the Mobile ICM camp site), then approval by the Metro Council would be moving dangerously toward preferring and thus establishing a particular religion.



I am not opposed to bible devotionals nor to leading children in reading the bible, but I am definitely opposed to supporting those activities with neutral public dollars. When government establishes one religion, then all others are threatened. Oppose this funding bill!

Metro's Attorney on Ballpark Deal Lays Into Sounds GM

It is dog pile time on the inept Nashville Sounds' front office in the wake of their ballpark debacle, as the Post's Richard Lawson relays the Metro Attorney's criticism of GM Glenn Yeager and his numerous failures. Struever Brothers get in a few licks on the bumbling baseball brass in Lawson's piece, too. Karma is coming down.

Metro Legal Calls Metro Council's Monolingual Bill "A Surrogate for Racial Discrimination"

Bruce Barry at PiTW is first with the legal details on Metro's sentence against "English Only/First." Metro Legal believes it will violate the Equal Protection Clause; jump and read the rest. Bruce also published Mayor Purcell's entire comment on his veto. Here's one exerpt that just may hit you upside the head:

This ordinance was introduced last September and for the last six months the sponsors have been twisting arms and trading votes to get it passed. Some sponsors say it is an important law while other sponsors say it has no effect at all. The truth is that no one knows how this law may ultimately be interpreted. If this law takes effect, this city will be engaged in years of lawsuits testing the effect and constitutionality of the ordinance. That means hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees whether we win or lose, for no good reason.

Legal fees are bad and unneeded, yes. But that trading votes charge especially rubs me the wrong way. If it is true it means that the brand of vote trading that went on during the Kay Brooks/School Board fiasco never stopped. Given that Council Member John Summers inexplicably voted for the monolingual bill, I'm left to wonder what he got in return.