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.

Could not contain my laughter on this one

The Tennessean's local beat reporter, who rarely writes a discouraging word about Mayor Karl Dean, attended yesterday's Lipscomb University panel discussion on neighborhood associations and tweeted the fawning comments of Colby Sledge (one of Cass's former colleagues who has also been a paid partisan flack and lately a public relations pro working with government agencies).

For someone like me, who has followed and documented the short but happy neighborhood attention span of Mayor Dean, Sledge's Lipscomb panel comment is over-the-top. At his very first summit with a lecture-hall full of neighborhood leaders, Hizzoner emphasized economic development as one of the primary means for dealing with neighborhood interests (cops and schools being the only others). The Mayor made no bold moves as his predecessor, Bill Purcell, had on infrastructure, smart development, or quality of life. The Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods rarely made the same splash it did under Purcell. When it did, it was drawing the ire of neighborhood leaders for giving their personal information over to the marketers of spam. Then when the 2007 election cycle hit, Karl Dean was suddenly remaking himself into "the neighborhoods Mayor", even though he had been more focused on helping big business with subsidies, tax breaks, and the largest capital project in Nashville history, which was devoted to the tourism industry.

Colby Sledge replaced Keith Moorman--who was trotted out to the Metro Council in 2010 to lend a neighborhoody rubber stamp to Hizzoner's plan to sell all but 5% of the non-flood-risk fairgrounds holdings to private developers (who have lots of bling to donate to election campaigns)--as leader of South Nashville Action People. Then came "Neighbors for Progress", a group that shot for 2,000 petition signatures to flip the fairgrounds the Mayor's way, but only got 500, and then showed themselves to be funded not primarily by neighborhoods, but influential Democrats and a 527 organization. With Sledge as its spokesperson, NFP flip-flopped on the fairgrounds question from relocating the flea market to razing the racetrack to trying to capture what council mandated as a broad community plan process. Then without skipping a beat, NFP endorsed Sarah Lodge Tally in a council district far away from the fairgrounds in what looked like a bid to give the Mayor a pocket vote 100% of the time.

Such a sliding scale of scruples should give those of us who are concerned about neighborhood issues pause.  The "emphasis on neighborhoods" Colby Sledge stresses suggests to me whatever will win for an up-and-coming red-state Democrat like Karl Dean. Consequently, neighborhoods seem simply a means to the end of greater influence and more donations with a head-fake of populism. We're in for another lean 4 years if the next Mayor treats neighborhoods as cynically and opportunistically as Karl Dean has.

Money, influence, Will Pinkston, and Metro Public Schools

Want to see something interesting? Take a look at a spreadsheet that a source put together to help me illuminate some interesting things about the donors of District 7 school board candidate Will Pinkston, who was also one of former Governor Phil Bredesen's hired goons. For my part, I would draw several things out as voters go to the polls tomorrow:

• Bredesen and the Bredesenistas have dumped nearly $10,000 into the campaign of a school board candidate (of all things) in what appears to me to be a naked attempt to prop up the former governor's influence across Nashville's power structures
• 96% of Pinkston's obscene total amount of campaign donations ($52,750) came from outside of District 7, further reinforcing my opinion that the District 7 race is more of a power grab from the outside than a good faith effort to improve our kids' education
• The teachers union and Michelle Rhee's PAC essentially cancel out each other's influence by each giving Pinkston $3,000. The history of union organizing is replete with ironies big and small, so there is no reason to overthink the self-defeating moves of the local teachers union except to point out that they put themselves in the same Pinkston boat with Michelle Rhee, who is consumed with eliminating teachers unions from the education equation 
• The Nashville Chamber of Commerce, which is pro-charter schools and pro-privatization, is going all in on the Pinkston poker game, their PAC splurging with $7,100 and various CofC principals parlaying $3,000. If money is power, then the Nashville Chamber is the power broker here
• An astroturf group with connections to Mayor Karl Dean is also linked to this donors list. Neighbors for Progress, a group designed to aid the Mayor's bid to flip the State Fairgrounds to private developers and to demolish its public facilities, donated $100 to Mr. Pinkston (who also worked for the Dean for Mayor re-election effort). NFP once provided an in-kind donation of over $3,000 on behalf of the council campaign of Bredesen pick Sarah Lodge Talley, for whom Mr. Pinkston provided black ops. Pinkston himself was an adviser to NFP and he donated $1,000 to them. Ms. Talley and her campaign treasurer have donated to Mr. Pinkston. The attorney representing NFP has also donated to Will Pinkston's campaign. Is all of this feeling a bit incestuous yet?
• While Moving Nashville Forward, another astroturf group with Dean connections, has not donated to Will Pinkston's campaign, the lawyer who set them up has donated. MNF received $26,000 from Karl Dean to grease the wheels toward passage of his latest budget
• Prominent state Democratic Party leaders put themselves knee-deep in the muck by donating to this hit man in a race in which they have no obvious investment. For instance, why should a Democrat running for Chattanooga Mayor care to try and help out a Nashville school board candidate?

There are enough lawyers and lobbyists donating to Will Pinkston to make my skin crawl; but much worse is the probability that the political connections of influence across this donors report reflect a concern not so much with the future of our kids as with the consolidation by the powers-that-be.

Anyway, that's my part. Go read the donors list yourself and let me know what you think. District 7 voters go to the polls tomorrow.

Deep Thought: making campaign promises she cannot ethically keep

If Sarah Lodge Tally honestly agreed to abstain from all votes regarding the new convention center because her law firm represents Metro in the real estate litigation, how would she have any power at all to fulfill her promise that she will support the new convention center on the Metro Council?

Sarah Lodge Tally's employer scratches Nashville Business Coalition's back; NBC scratches Tally's back

Ah, campaign finance and political action committees. And I think to myself, "What a wonderful world":

Sarah Lodge Tally's law firm PAC contributed $2,500 to NBC PAC a month ago

2 weeks later NBC donated $1,000 to the Sarah Lodge Tally campaign

Miller & Martin lawyers had already made many individual donations to their colleague, Sarah Lodge Tally, during the reporting period from April to June this year. The rich get richer.

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

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

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

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

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

Neighbors for Hypocrisy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Council candidates ardently welcome conservative business group's endorsements

During a chat with Megan Barry soon after her 2007 election over coffee, she told me that a star-chamber-like panel of members of the Nashville Business Coalition had called candidates in one-by-one to grill them with litmus test questions about allowing unregulated LED advertisement signs in neighborhoods. I had not paid much attention to them, but I came away from our chat with the impression that NBC is the extremist wing of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, which itself is not exactly averse to opposing regulation of business.

Some of NBC's tests for local candidates include the latter's preferential option for untrammeled business growth:

Aristocratic Sarah Lodge Tally sets 100% fidelity to Karl Dean as Jason Holleman's litmus test for re-election

Sarah Lodge Tally, who hails from old Nashville money and from the top of the local pecking order of political patronage, insists to the Nashville Scene that Sylvan Park CM Jason Holleman be focused on absolute dependence on Karl Dean for determining every single one of his votes:

In terms of larger citywide issues, this district is overwhelmingly — like the city in general — supportive of the mayor and his plan for Nashville and what he's done for Nashville in the last four years .... Councilman Holleman has not been supportive of that agenda, particularly with respect to the fairgrounds and the convention center. And folks in this district are generally supportive of the mayor and his plans, so they've been unhappy to know about the lack of support from Councilman Holleman.

That's quite a command for a TNDEM débutante to put on a serious CM who, though independent on a fraction of votes, generally votes with Karl Dean. Scene editor Stephen George reports that CM Holleman voted with Dean a whopping 85% of the time. Hence, to even call him "independent" is charitable and distinguishes just how meaningless the term "independent" has become in the Dean era. In fact, most of the council is abjectly Deanpendent most of the time.

The standard response of the Dean camp is a variation of the same theme they've used for years: the reluctant candidate. The heavy-handed Democratic Party toughs (like Will Pinkston and Dave Goetz) are working to torpedo Holleman while the Mayor can take the high road, posing like he has little knowledge of what's going on in Sylvan Park, like he's not tuned in to Sarah Lodge Tally's scrapes. As if the patricians don't associate. As if the Mayor's Office isn't drooling to control every single council vote for the next 4 years.

Is that really what you want, Sylvan Park? To turn your community into Karl's cotillion? If so, vote for Sarah Lodge Tally and hang some lace curtains. Or just sit back and watch, because this election looks bought-and-paid-for. Either way, I got your Sarah Lodge Tally campaign bumper sticker right here:

UPDATE: The Dean shill blogger and apparatchik Democrat prone to judge most local issues on whether they are good first for his buddies in the Tennessee Democratic Party cannot find fault with Jason Holleman. Further evidence that Holleman is too close to the Dean camp for Sarah Lodge Tally to snipe at his rare disloyalties. Isn't it odd that loyalty has become a cardinal virtue in the power structure of Davidson County Democrats along the same lines of the George W. Bush wing of the GOP? They'll kill off their own, if even slightly uppity, before they go after Republicans.