The dance of the rubber stamp fairy: Metro Council goes through the motions of "considering" the bid to bribe Bridgestone to stay in Nashville

The gingerbread soldiers put up more of a fight against the mice army in the Nutcracker than Metro Council is mustering against King Karl's latest public-private partnership payola to keep the Bridgestone headquarters in Nashville. Two weeks ago the local news media reported the beginning of "the debate" on Bridgestone in council chambers; the council passed the deal on first reading without a peep.

They promise us now that the plan is up for second reading that they will actually discuss the question. Metro Council may have started their cursory chinfest on the mayor's corporate welfare plan but it looks much like the confabs the preceded other major subsidy proposals (like Dean's plan to build the Sounds a new ballpark). It is a foregone conclusion. This deal is predestined to win because this council rubber stamps everything Karl Dean proposes.

Here is what happened yesterday when Dean's deal was heard by the most important committee the council has. Not much of anything:

At-large Councilman Ronnie Steine, during a series of questions with Metro officials, alluded to a policy stance of Jeremy Kane, a mayoral candidate .... In a letter to council members over the weekend, Kane called for a reduction in the size of Bridgestone's property tax abatement in order to protect revenue that could be used on public schools.

Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling, who defended the administration's commitment to education, said that while one can always second-guess negotiations "this was one that was done thinking about the best interests of the city." He also suggested it would be difficult to amend the deal at this juncture.

"It would be very difficult to change what's been agreed upon at this point in time," Riebeling said.

At-large Councilwoman Megan Barry, another mayoral candidate for the 2015 race — and the only one among the five declared candidates who will take a vote on the Bridgestone deal — called the proposal "a really great deal." She said it would keep a major headquarters in Nashville, bring high-quality new jobs and reinvigorate downtown.

"We can take apart all the different pieces of this … There are probably pieces that we could refine and change, but that's not the deal on the table," she said.

The role of council in this process was defined by Mr. Riebeling's comment that the deal is already done between the principals (the Mayor, the Governor and Bridgestone), and the council cannot do much about it. This is the body we elect to represent us when Hizzoner will not, even though they have practically no power to do so.

Even if they did, CM Steine and CM Barry make it clear that they do not have the fortitude or the will to question the decisions that Karl Dean makes. Ronnie Steine has been unquestioningly loyal to the mayor since we forgave his unpleasant brush with the law and put him back in office.

For her part, CM Barry merely echoed the Dean administration's talking point that the Bridgestone deal is good for all of Nashville; just like she parroted his point that the opulent Gulch pedestrian bridge will inexplicably connect all of Nashville. What she will not address is the jeopardy placed on Metro services--sidewalks, school buildings. libraries, park programming, community policing, etc--by permitting one of Nashville's biggest employers to skip their property tax obligations for 20 years. $56 million is a lot of money for Nashville to risk losing and, per Karl Dean's usual script, Bridgestone is not risking a doggone thing.

But then again, neither is Megan Barry. She rarely has from her seat on the Metro Council.

I'll give mayoral candidate Jeremy Kane only partial credit for trying to set himself apart and prompt a more lively council discussion of the budget implications of Hizzoner's shortsighted trade-offs. It may seem noble to try to shield Metro school income from the brutal realities of selling off public goods to private corporations. (There is irony here given that Mr. Kane is an unwavering charter school advocate, and we see the damage privatization does to public education). However, in the breakneck shell game of Metro budgeting, shielding Metro school income can come at the expense of other services in departments that serve a clientele wider than and including children in public schools. In sum, his Bridgestone option is itself weak and impractical.

No Nashvillians should be put at risk so that Bridgestone can get wealthier than it already is. Maybe it makes no difference, given the Mayor's executive power, that Metro Council refuses to acknowledge that. But wouldn't it be quaint if for once they interrupted their dance and went through offbeat motions?


UPDATE:  According to one news source, our Deaniac overlords are enraged with the Kane mutiny. I wonder if Mr. Kane's rather limp waywardness opens up a place at Karl Dean's right hand for Megan Barry, who is forever loyal to Hizzoner:

The day after releasing the letter, Kane told the Scene he supports the Bridgestone package and wants it to pass. He veers away from anything that could resemble a criticism of the Dean administration, but the implication of his proposal seems clear enough: Could the city have gotten a better deal?

Behind the scenes, the Dean administration is livid that Kane made such a public display without approaching them for clarification.

If anything, this scores just how important loyalty is to the Dean administration. Remember how important it was in the George W. Bush presidency? It seems to have those proportions with Karl Dean. Any independent query draws their ire. All questions should be run by the Mayor's Office before they are made public. No wonder Metro Council is so whipped.

Another boring postmortem on this election past

I used to care more about electoral politics than I do now. I still go to the polls and vote as I did the day before yesterday. But the power of the two parties, the influence of campaign finance to predetermine elections, the blame segments of rightfully uninspired voters get for not casting a ballot and the shoving aside of everyday politics have all soured me of any enthusiasm for what is cynically called "participating in democracy".

I go to the polls, but I do not begrudge otherwise well-meaning folk who do not. I may still go to the church, but I, like many of you, have lost the religion.

Nonetheless, there is something instructive about the drubbing the Republicans handed the Democrats in Tuesday's mid-term elections. It is instructive for what it can tell the little blue island of Nashville, which is afloat in an even more deeply red state: progressives have got to curb their triangulation with the right and start taking bold stands on economic issues that affect people's everyday lives.

Prominent Nashville Democrats clearly set themselves apart on social progressive issues like immigration, reproductive rights and gay/lesbian equality. But on the economic questions that hit blue-collar working people the hardest in an environment where the wealthy are the only segment to have bounced back from the recession nicely, these Democrats either are no where to be found or have consistently acted to undercut economic equity.

And Tuesday was a cautionary tale. Democrats with few exceptions were soundly defeated by the GOP. Why? Because running primarily on social progressive issues like reproductive rights may not get them all the way to the finish line with voters, and there are indications that support Democrats have enjoyed among women in the past eroded in this election cycle.

When Democrats dealt with economic questions they did not connect with voter concerns:

At the root of these concerns...are stagnating wages and the failure of the recovery’s gains to achieve wider, more equitable distribution. Democrats campaigned on a range of economic issues — the minimum wage, pay equity, student loan affordability, expanded pre-kindergarten education — but these didn’t cut through people’s economic anxieties, because they didn’t believe government can successfully address them.

“People are deeply suspicious that government can deliver on these problems,” Mellman says, in a reference to the voter groups that continue to elude Democrats. “And they are not wrong. We’ve been promising that government can be a tool to improve people’s economic situation for decades, and by and large, it hasn’t happened.”

Some Democrats may talk the talk of fair economic distribution, but many walk away from reforming power structures that make it impossible. Talking up what government can do and then walking away when the time is ripe makes disbelievers out of all of us. I frankly wonder whether Democrats collectively care about the cynicism they engender.

Furthermore, incremental campaigning proved to be a loser altogether on Tuesday. Democrats fall back on incrementally progressive initiatives like the minimum wage (which is not a livable wage) hikes; then guess what? The Republicans tactically soften on the issue and peel off votes the Democrats must have to win.

So, beating the Republicans and energizing voters requires boldness both on the campaign trail and in the halls of government.

Last year I pointed out that mayoral candidate Megan Barry (who has curiously been branded by some in the news media a "super progressive") has not done herself any favors with Nashville's king-maker class by being an incremental progressive on social issues while consistently voting in council to support business special interests while placing greater burdens on working men and women in Davidson County.

CM Barry's split-minded progressivism is emblematic of what is wrong with the Democrats. They are so busy triangulating to shore up their social progressive wing (against the Tea Party) while pandering to the pro-growth, pro-business lobby that they leave themselves open to Republicans. Even if Ms. Barry becomes mayor, she will govern much like Karl Dean has, and Mayor Dean has governed like a Log Cabin Republican. Ms. Barry will be forced to compromise with state Republicans who will be in no mood to broker deals for a blue atoll dwarfed by red-state upwellings.

Neither of those prospects are good for Nashville progressives as much as we may feel lucky to cling desperately to whatever is cast off from the wreckage. We should settle for nothing short of boldness.

What can Brown do for SouthComm?

It has been a while since a local reporter wrote the following about lightning-rod education reformer, Michelle Rhee, so it is time to see how the 1 1/2 year old copy stands up to reality. Writes Andrea Zelinski, circa January 2013:

Michelle Rhee is an icon of the education reform movement. She’s pushed to hold teachers more accountable for students’ performance, busted open the doors of school choice and shaken up the education establishment. She’s also thrown a few elbows and drawn criticism for her style.

A Tennessee transplant, she is turning her attention to schools in her new state.

The polarizing former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor heads up StudentsFirst, an education reform organization she founded just as she began setting roots in the Volunteer State. The group has already handed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to state-level political campaigns and a handful of local elections here, positioning itself as a force to be reckoned with.

Back when Michelle Rhee was a rock star, this kind of fawning coverage might have flown in spite of the protests of those like me who judged it to be a load of crap. Ms. Rhee was a celebrity, and aspiring news coverage seeks to hitch its wagon to a star above all.

Now, given what we have learned about the pitiful "movement" Michelle Rhee fabricated, the SouthComm interview appears to be folly without the slightest hint of courage to probe for the truth. One makes choices, and Zelinski's (or was it SouthComm's?) choice not to challenge Michelle Rhee is inane in light of the harder questions other journalists ask:

Rhee’s StudentsFirst campaigns have done little to animate parents. In Connecticut, an investment of about $700,000 produced a [Rhee head-liner] at the State Capitol ..., which drew only about 75 people. In Alabama, where StudentsFirst claimed 17,000 members, only about 20 showed up at a meeting she called at that state’s capitol.

Revelations about Rhee’s accomplishments while she was chancellor for Washington, D.C., public schools have also sullied her self-avowed reputation for “raising achievement”....

Darkening the pall cast over Rhee’s reputation is an unresolved cheating scandal on Rhee’s watch in D.C. The alleged scandals — and what, if anything, Rhee might have known about them — have never been adequately investigated....

the stench of questionable numbers is likely to follow Rhee wherever she goes, with any new appointment likely to prompt more questioning and investigation from journalists ....

Not only has Rhee’s reputation as a results-oriented school leader gone south, but her organization StudentsFirst is not doing so well either ....

StudentsFirst, the lobbying and political actions firm Rhee started, is shutting down its Minnesota office due to a “changing legislative climate” .... Reporters at Politico noticed the office closing too and added in its daily newsletter that StudentsFirst has “pulled out of five states and laid off six staff members as the midterm elections approach,” shutting down operations not only in Minnesota but also in Florida, Maine, Indiana and Iowa.

Additionally, the reporters noted, “The organization hasn’t brought in anywhere near the $1 billion that Rhee confidently predicted she would raise when she founded the group in 2010.”

On the other hand, what StudentsFirst seems to excel at is funneling campaign contributions from its undisclosed financial backers to lobbying efforts and politicians, who are mostly Republican and mostly incumbents. So much for being a “change agent.”

The contrast between Andrea Zelinski's ode and the latest point-by-point interrogation of Michelle Rhee's actual career could not be more stark. Keep in mind that SouthComm fancies itself as "alt" journalism, but all the "alt" that we can learn appears to be elsewhere.

SouthComm is in a difficult place. They hitched their wagon to Rhee's star instead of at the very least playing devil's advocate, and now that Rhee's star is fading they don't have a shred of credibility left on the subject of education "Rheeform."

The only option they have left to save face is to gin up a promotional interview with Ms. Rhee's replacement in the anti-teacher niche, Campbell Brown, and hope she "transplants" to Tennessee, too.


UPDATE: There was evidence out there in January 2013 that Michelle Rhee was nothing more than a marginal "Tennessee transplant."

Unearthed in Salemtown: artifact connected to Germantown pharmacist and former political leader in Nashville

Earlier today I was doing some yard work and found a small medicine bottle near the back alley with the name "Gus A. Blodau" embossed on it.

Here is what I found out about Gus Blodau with some initial research. According to the 1930 U.S. Census, Gustave Aldophus Blodau was born somewhere in Tennessee in 1868 and married to Linda Hoff Blodau. He owned a pharmacy at the corner of 5th Ave. N. (at one point named "Summer St. N.") and Monroe St. The records seem to suggest that his father, John, and a son, George, died around that same intersection. Perhaps in the family home?

Here is what the 1913 Bulletin of Pharmacy says about Gus Blodau:

... a well-known pharmacist of Nashville, Tenn., has for years been conspicuous in the political life of the city. In 1889 he was elected to the City Council. He was re-elected to the Council three times, and during his last term was president of the body. Following this service, he was appointed a member of the Board of Education by one mayor, and reappointed last January by the present mayor. In this capacity Mr. Blodau has made several trips of inspection to different cities around the country, and has made a particular study of manual training. Much credit is due him for the excellent provision now being made for manual training in the new half-million-dollar high school under erection in Nashville [Hume-Fogg?]. Incidentally it may be said the Mr. Blodau is a firm believer in public ownership, and during his service as a member of the City Council he assisted Mayor Head in the installation of a municipal lighting plant, which has made Nashville one of the best lighted cities in the South.

I dug up interesting local history with the little bottle.

The question was "penetrating" and pointless

NPR journo Blake Farmer received high fives from other journos and school reformers this morning for his "penetrating question" (as Phil Williams characterized it) to Tennessee's teachers union president Gera Summerford:

What about charter schools? Summerford says they haven’t become “labs of innovation” like they were supposed to, though she admits she’s never been inside of one.

I don't know Ms. Summerford, but let's say she had been thinking like a savvy politico and made the anecdotal and symbolic (some might say cynical) gesture of visiting a charter school so that if a journalist asked if she had been in a charter school she could say, "Yes". If only that were enough. If this were to rise to the level of objectivity, Ms. Summerford would have to pick a representative sample of charter schools to visit, and then could she ever truly visit enough? Or would she like most thoughtful people have to rely on the data needed so that she could keep her daytime job and her union responsibilities? She would practically have to become a sociologist instead of a union leader to satisfy the questions and even then, there is the problem of interpreting the data.

Maybe the questions never end, which makes Mr. Farmer's particular query even more premature and pointless. It was an anecdotal question that would have been useless at the level of policy; although for the ax-grinders and red-meat throwers it was an opened gate to "what's wrong with unions". Journos remain gatekeepers of what counts for news.

But on that point about Mr. Summerford's union responsibilities: I fail to fathom why a journo would expect someone who is personally and philosophically committed to the right of collective bargaining to approach charter school corporations, which have committed themselves to dismantling teachers unions, for permission to access their property. The question is not, "Why hasn't she visited a hostile enterprise?" Frankly, why would she do so? Do we expect any other professional alliances to enter institutions bent on their destruction before we take them seriously?

Do we set the credibility of journalists on whether they are willing to enter the machinery of institutions devoted to dismantling freedom of the press? No. That's illogical and moot. We judge them by their stories and by the quality of their questions and many times by their unexamined biases.

Expecting union members to enter environments that are hostile to their collective bargaining rights is also unreasonable. And teachers are not bound to be politicos making staged appearances for the vivid presentation on the news. (An honest journalist will concede at this point the conflict between news media's commercial interest in provocative drama and canned symbolism vs. the journalistic interest in transmitting mundane, unjuiced information to audiences). That a local journo would expect otherwise is biased by definition. Sometimes you have to think outside of partisan politics rather than be captive to it; at least if you want to be considered by some of us as objective.

The problem here is the typical journalistic fallacy of false equivalence caused by strictly defining two polarizing sides of a debate and setting up interview questions at a mean between them, based on the talking points of each. That mean is often assumed to be objectivity or neutrality. Here is what I consider an expression of the fallacy of false equivalence in journalism in the context of a defense of Mr. Farmer's interview:

However, defining two sides who do not share the same in priorities or character, and then creating a continuum on which one sits between them is itself as subjective and as predisposing as the two sides staking out a position.

The angle of interview questions is fabricated by the ideas the journo subjectively considers significant. Setting oneself up as a pseudo-moderate of sorts is no less partisan than interviewees one pushes to the poles. There are a host of other questions and considerations that should come up for discussion and that are relative to the issue of privatization of public education that also go ignored and downplayed under the false auspices of being neutral. And those questions are buried further by self-congratulation when these journos judge their neutrality as confirmed by criticism coming from the predetermined left and right.

So, even to charge a journo with not asking an objective or relevant question in the end gets one dismissed as "liberal" or "conservative", thus vindicating journalism's otherwise subjective projects. That's no way to handle a legitimacy crisis.

Nashville said to be possibly taking a giant leap ahead on Tuesday (but likely leaving North Nashville behind)

The Obama Administration is reportedly going to roll out its 2015 budget today, and the Mayor's minions are all abuzz that POTUS may drop $75 million on Karl Dean to run his bus rapid transit line down West End almost to Belle Meade. The excitement and the predictable blowback at Hizzoner's self-imposed blindness catalyzed by power and money has gone national:

For Nashville, the backlash calls to mind a recent battle over the planning of the city's half-billion-dollar convention center, which opened in May, and was a cornerstone of the administration of Dean, the second-term Democrat who has the support of the chamber of commerce and the business community writ large. Some residents and elected officials derided the project as a publicly funded gift for tourists. A similar line of attack has been heard over the particular route planners chose for the Amp.

"This bus gets the tourists from downtown to the nicer restaurant/bar district," as one elected official recently put it. "The concept is: we're not building a transit system for Nashvillians. We're building a fun bus to run tourists out to West End and the cool bars."

If President Obama does award Karl Dean a huge grant to build a new transit line for a corridor that needs it less than any point north or south of downtown, it will merely the latest stanza in the dirge I sing for the support I once held for Barack Obama.

The President's stimulus package, if properly funded, could have been a dramatic turnaround for our nation's cities and our national workforce. It was constricted by a leader who has preached the virtues of bringing the unrepentant, uncivil GOP along.

Obamacare is not much more than Romneycare.

Federal education policy has been directed at privatizing public schools and managing high-stakes testing with an eye to giving big business more control in school districts.

Our foreign policy continues to be marred by Bushian tactics, including the civil-rights-violating detention of prisoners. Mr. Obama's drone-slaughters of civilian targets have far exceeded anything Dubya ever did.

And now, instead of granting rapid transit in working-class communities or in neighborhoods predominated by people of color, President Obama may reward Nashville for serving the entertainment and tourism industries one more time before Karl Dean leaves by subsidizing party buses to run visitors to-and-from their hotels, bars and honky tonks quickly.

A President who has been more comfortable serving up tepid Republican pablum may enable a Democratic Mayor who is himself a nice fit for red-state, neo-liberal Tennessee politics.

If Nashville wins this grant today, then it could complete Karl Dean's tenure of serving Nashville's wealthy and influential while leaving communities like North Nashville behind. The Amp is the perfect compliment to the Music City Center. If funded it will be a subsidized pleasure line on which tourists can depend.

And those who make promises that it is only the first step in BRT extended to underserved communities cannot back up those promises. Despite their empty promises, they are going to stand by this Mayor to the end. It's not illogical. If you want to play, he's the game in town. However, Mayor Dean--being term-limited and having higher political aspirations--will never have to be accountable to deliver on those promises.

If the federal government does come through, I predict that in a few years, when we're told there is no more grant money and the budget is too overextended to serve places like North Nashville, Amp supporters will be eating their promises. The best thing that can happen now to bring everything and everyone in Nashville back down to earth is that Obama finds another neo-liberal Mayor elsewhere to support in 2015.


UPDATE:  The Obama transit dept. is recommending $27 million next year for the Amp. If approved it is a little more than 1/3 of what the Mayor's Office wants. So, which 1/3 of the project will get built and which 2/3's waits to see if federal money shows up in 2016, 2017, 2018? Downtown to West End gets BRT first? Without $75 million in 2015, how much longer does North Nashville have to wait for its promised bus rapid transit lines to materialize?

Also, consider this one: “Evidence suggests expanded rail operations produce higher ridership gains than more bus service.” There is a reason the BRT grant is called "Small Starts". It is not nearly as bold as rail, which would create more ridership. The fact that BRT is cheaper, but limited to the hotel and entertainment corridor suggests that the Mayor's Office not only plays it safe in choosing locations, but does so on the cheap. Rail would have made a bolder, more attractive statement.

Look who is giving Karl Dean some stiff competition in the contest to transfer huge sums of public wealth to private corporations

At a time when a state Senate finance committee has found that Tennessee revenues are down because of the sweetheart corporate giveaways, Republican Governor Bill Haslam not only wants to entitle the Sears Corporation to around $100,000 per job it creates here, but he intended to give away the Tennessee Tower, too:

In a script for Gov. Bill Haslam to read on camera -- prepared in 2011 by his Department of Economic and Community Development -- a most unusual offer was drafted to try to entice retail giant Sears to relocate its corporate headquarters to Tennessee.

The Sears effort was dubbed "Project Neptune."

"We're so committed to making your new home in Tennessee that we are prepared to offer you one of the premiere buildings in Nashville's thriving downtown," the script read.

"Our state office building, the Tennessee Tower, can be an instantaneous and immediate home for Project Neptune's corporate headquarters. This highly visible and historic building offers over 600,000 square feet of prime office space -- located conveniently across from Legislative Plaza and a stone's throw away from my office in the state Capitol."

Obscene corporate welfare is in no short supply here in Nashville, regardless of how strapped government budgets are.

Kerr errs on Amp opposition

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

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

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

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

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

State of Tennessee most concerned about adding more parking for more cars with a new Sulphur Dell ballpark

Mayor Karl Dean pow-wowed with Tennessee's Republican Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey to lobby for a new ballpark on state-owned land at Sulphur Dell (near Bicentennial Mall State Park). Currently, the only transit plan Hizzoner has for the site is not much of one: it has the fans driving their own cars to games, which seems to be right up the Republican Speaker of the Senate's alley. Lt. Gov. Ramsey wants Mayor Dean to give him more black top:

The state's primary concern is with how much additional parking it can get by giving the city some of its property, said Ramsey. He said the city has agreed to add more parking spots to accommodate the state.

“The person that wants it gives up a little bit more and I want to make sure that’s what we end up doing,” Ramsey told the Post. “I think there will be a solution to this.

“Obviously, I think it would be an economic development tool here for Nashville and I’m a huge baseball fan myself and I agree the Sounds need another stadium. But my job is to protect the state’s interest in this and to make sure that if we’re donating some land, that we get something at least equal if not greater in value back. And so we’re looking at the parking garage and everything else there that can come with that.”

"Equal or greater value" logically means more cars on the roads around Jefferson Street, Rosa Parks Boulevard and the adjacent North End neighborhoods. If you provide more spaces for parking, then the cars are going to come. How is that a sustainable or complete-street transit plan for game nights?

In the interest of full disclosure

Several years ago Hope Gardens association president Jason Powell contacted North End community leaders to bring together "champions" whom he said could give life to a plan for a new ballpark in the North Capitol area. The "champions" never really materialized as a bona fide grassroots movement here. The "champions'" Facebook page lay dormant for 2 years before cranking up again with the Mayor's formal announcement several weeks ago. Now, as a prominent Democrat and State Representative from south Davidson County's 53rd District (but still a cheerleader without a grassroots ballpark movement), he celebrates news of the Mayor's Sulphur Dell announcement:

It may very well be a big fly for local property owners, especially since the news media is passing around projections that land values here will soar:

The impact a new ballpark could have on that area will be similar... [to] the ripple effect Music City Center had on SoBro, where property values have in some cases tripled in recent years.

If the project becomes official, look for property values to initially jump around 15 percent, [real estate broker Grant] Hammond said. Once construction is underway, Hammond expects prices to climb again, about 25 percent higher than now. Once completed and the buzz of the new stadium is at its peak, Hammond anticipates values will be up about 50 percent from today.

Hammond, who was planning on selling one of his investment properties in Germantown next spring, said he now plans to hold on to the condo until the first season of baseball in the new stadium.

“It could be a remarkable little ride for Germantown,” Hammond said.

With Germantown already flourishing, the biggest impact might be most noticeable in the area’s other neighborhoods.

“Hope Gardens and Buena Vista are seriously underdeveloped,” Hammond said. “That all turns around the moment they open the stadium doors. Those neighborhoods need some sort of big development to be the spark.”

After looking at the Metro property records, I can certainly understand why State Representative Jason Powell is excited about a new ballpark; he co-owns 3 properties located in Hope Gardens and 1 located at Buena Vista Heights/Jones Buena Vista. These are both neighborhoods that are identified as the biggest gainers from a new ballpark. Hope Gardens itself lies blocks away. String half-a-dozen Prince Fielder home runs together end-to-end, and Hope Gardens is that close to Sulphur Dell.

All of us who own property close to a new ballpark stand to benefit financially from a rise in property values a new development would bring. So, I do not blame the Democrat for acquiring investment properties over the last 4 years with hopes that their values will rise even though he does not dwell here any more. However, those of us who continue to live here have to worry about more than a return on real estate. We have to worry about protecting our families' quality of life from malignant growth and shortsighted planning. We have to demand smart, managed growth and planning for sustainability and respect for community character.

I'll say it again: I acknowledge Jason Powell's right to buy up as many properties as he wants and maximize their value to his heart's content. It is America, after all. I also acknowledge his right as a state legislator to maximize his relationship with the coattails of Mayor Karl Dean, who admittedly is the Tennessee Democratic Party's great red-state hope to beat a Republican somewhere sometime in the future. Bucking Karl Dean on a ballpark would not help a guy still fresh in his first state office (after running and losing here in our North Nashville district) and still flush with political aspirations.

But the quaintly walkable tableau that Jason Powell illustrated 3 years ago--as a spokesperson from my community to a Tennessean audience--now rings hollow, given that he presently lives close to the Nashville Zoo and leaves his real estate next to Sulphur Dell:

The neighborhoods, businesses and developments around Sulphur Dell are vibrant, supportive of a new ball park and poised for further growth. Downtown work­ers and residents, in addition to the surrounding neighborhoods of Germantown, Buena Vista, Salemtown and Hope Gardens and condos in the Sulphur Dell area, have the popula­tion to anchor attendance at games.

The location is already well-suited for professional baseball. Imagine grabbing a meal in Ger­mantown or at the Farmers Market, then relaxing at Bicentennial Mall before strolling to the ballpark to catch a game ....

If you build it we will stroll. Well, some of us will stroll. Rep. Powell will not because he no longer lives here. He owns property here. He will be driving to Sounds games at Sulphur Dell.

That is a proposition different than what our neighborhoods will actually face with the onslaught of traffic, the absence of transit plans, the ulterior motives of developers and the shifting goalposts of the community planning process along with the politicians who debase it. At least he has the certainty of greater property value without the challenges of living next to a large entertainment venue. Even so, he also should disclose the fact of his holdings whenever he uses the visibility of his office to tout the new Sulphur Dell.

Whether or not a Sulphur Dell ballpark might be a home run for all of us who live around it is still up in the air. For State Representative Powell it would appear to be more of a walk-off home run.


UPDATE: I guess none of us should be surprised that on opening day of the ballpark (April 17, 2015), Jason Powell is gushing about First Tennessee Park.

Putting himself center: Jason Powell

I think back to those heady days of "Friends of Sulphur Dell" when he was gathering a few friendly neighborhood representatives (ignoring those with questions) and touting his movement as "grassroots," never characterizing it as his own. I suppose it is a lesson in the idea that winners write history, but now Mr. Powell is claiming "the push" for himself. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised by this either:

Elected officials are known for shameless self-promotion, but in this case Mr. Powell should be more honest and concede that he had very little to do with the building of the ballpark. In 2013, it became obvious to all that the real puppet master was Karl Dean. Everything else was pure theater.

Modeling "the best" at Stand for Children?

Stand for Children is widely acknowledged as an organization that consistently takes stands at odds with the the public school teachers who serve our children. They are a major player in the school reform movement, and the Tennessee branch sat silently by last September when the state education commissioner Kevin Huffman punitively defunded Metro Schools. But they have never missed a beat hammering away at teacher performance as the cause of poor student outcomes while ignoring the socio-economic conditions at home that crush opportunities for children.

Stand for Children Tennessee blogged a post today hailing Commissioner Huffman's plan to lash licensure to perceived performance. For the time being I'll set aside the questions of judging teacher performance without reference to causal factors outside the classroom and of forcing educational missions into business-oriented frameworks for which reformers like Huffman have a knack.

What caught my eye in the SFC policy analyst's blog post were several grammatical errors that did not themselves embody excellence.

[sic]

I try not to pick on people about grammar. Goodness knows, I make my own mistakes on that score. But when education reformers with reputations for attacking teachers in general and teachers unions in particular mar their own writing with grammatical mistakes (even as they presume to prompt teachers on how to be "shining examples" and "the best and brightest"), I am bound to point out the hypocrisy. If you demand modeling "the best" for our kids, then you better set an example yourself in your written demand.

There were other problems beyond an errant misspelling in the blog post. How about a glaring sentence fragment in the original?

The Department has recommended that several changes be made to the teacher licensure structure to not only streamline the system, but raise the standards in the teaching profession. These changes hope to ensure that obtaining a teacher license

[sic] Currently, the system for licensing teachers has a few flaws.

Again, I do not usually play the grammar monitor. I tend to prefer to be charitable about such errors because I understand blogging is sometimes a difficult activity. And frankly, debating ideas is more interesting to me that grousing over grammar.

My criticism is ultimately not about correct grammar, it is about the holes in Stand for Children's agenda: I cannot let slip the poor paradoxes of purist organizations that claim to demand excellence from people, many of whom are dedicated to serving our children even under impossible conditions.

"Customer service" as in "Don't accuse customers with legitimate concerns about their safety and water quality of being terrorists"

If the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has not damaged its reputation enough by approving questionable landfills (like the one near Salemtown), misleading the public about safety risks or releasing post-catastrophe test results not quite as revealing as others, now comes word via one of their bureaucrats that criticism of TDEC's handling of our water sources may lead to being branded "terrorists":

In an audio recording ... TDEC Deputy Director of the Division of Water Resources Sherwin Smith says, “ ... you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered, under homeland security, an act of terrorism.”

TDEC spokeswoman Meg Lockhart said in a written response to questions that Smith regrets his choice of words.

“The department is working to address this issue, and to provide broader customer service training for all employees,” Lockhart wrote.

Aside from TDEC's rather feeble attempt to repair the department's marketing strategy to its "customers" (which seems really just more of the same foolishness) how is Mr. Smith keeping his position while falsely accusing Tennesseans with valid concerns about their water quality of being terrorists? And terrorism has come to mean so many things when attempting to quash dissent, that it means nothing at all:

Anything is an act of terrorism, even complaining about water quality. If the state disagrees with the public's assessment that the water is so hard it's best consumed with a chisel and a fork, they're now on The List and should know that any attempts to board a plane in the future will require a full-blown molestation of their person and carry-on luggage. 

I realize that because they are bureaucrats, government officials can often go on absorbing these embarrassments with an wavering sense of job security, but eventually the hubris and intimidation has got to catch up with them, even in a red state.

Advance Financial's campaign contributions evade tracking

After I posted on a Facebook discussion of Germantown's new predatory lender, Advance Financial, I received the following observations from Mike Peden (who single-handedly tracks campaign finance) on the lender's influence:

Advance Financial is making political contributions two ways.

They are making donations as "Advance Financial" and as "Advance PAC" [political action committee].

"Advance Financial" can make unlimited contributions to PAC's without filing a disclosure, which is the case with the $10,000 contribution to Tennessee First.  But they cannot make a contribution directly to a candidate without filing a disclosure.

"Advance PAC" can make contributions to other PAC's and candidates, but must file a disclosure.

So, you cannot tell how much Advance Financial has given just by looking at the Advance PAC disclosure.

It is very confusing.

I am convinced that the purpose of the loopholes and misdirection of campaign finance is intended to be confusing so that influence and power are hidden from communities who would stage popular revolts if they could see through the ruse.

Mike's comments further sustain my point that letting businesses off the hook with arguments like Ron Wynn's (that they are just trying to make a buck) is irresponsible and naive. They system of planning and zoning is gamed, juiced and lubed by business money, and the entrepreneurs and executives, as well as the politicians they woo, should be held personally responsible for the maze and the mess.

Middle Tennessee's own Jim Cooper votes with Republicans, against hurricane victims

Nashville's Jim Cooper turns away from Rockaway (NYC)

So, Congress's response to the disaster along the east coast caused by Hurricane Sandy has been late and limping, very much unlike their response to Middle Tennessee in 2010 after our "1,000 year" flood. I fully expected most of the Republicans and maybe a few lunkhead Democrats to kick some recovering northeasterners while they are down.

But take a look at the identity of the only Democrat to vote against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy:

A very big thing happened last night in the House of Representatives. For the second time this month, Boehner broke the Hastert Rule. The issue was Hurricane Sandy relief, a follow-up vote to a smaller package approved earlier this month. It passed, but the important thing is how it passed:

Yeas: 241 (192 Democrats, 49 Republicans)
Nays: 180 (Rep. Jim Cooper + 179 Republicans)

For his part, Congressman Cooper issued a press release:

Congress should make at least some effort to pay for a portion of disaster relief. I voted for federal aid for Nashville flood recovery in 2010, and that bill was partially paid for. So were the Hurricane Katrina bills I supported. And Hurricane Rita, and Hurricane Wilma, and Hurricane Ivan, and Hurricane Isabel. Why can’t we find even partial offsets for Sandy?

Yesterday’s votes came during a national budget crisis while America is officially out of money.

Jim Cooper is so set on "fixing" Congress and the national debt that he is willing to cast a symbolic vote against the welfare of one-time disaster victims. Okay. So, he got to send his message of fiscal responsibility and dealing with deficits one more time. How is that supposed to help someone whose life has been arbitrarily destroyed by a historic hurricane? Seriously. He cannot make any exceptions in extreme cases to his pay-as-you-go rule?

A couple of years ago, Mr. Cooper went ballistic when the Army Corps of Engineers chose not to produce a report on Nashville's 2010 flooding due to budget considerations. In another press release he said:

This is completely unacceptable. I am stunned the Corps doesn't feel it is necessary to investigate their response to a multi-billion dollar disaster.  The people of Middle Tennessee deserve answers.

This shows a serious lack of accountability and leadership at the Corps.

So, when the Corps makes a decision not to spend money on the Nashville flood follow-up due to budget considerations, it is "unacceptable".  However, Mr. Cooper voting not to support federal aid for stricken eastern seaboard communities based on budget considerations is acceptable. Using budget considerations as a strict rule obviously cuts both ways.

The precedent for federal aid to disaster victims, as he points out, has already been set. Using the budget crisis as an excuse for neglect of nature's latest victims looks like he is treating them as a means to serve his own ends in Washington. Heaven forbid Jim Cooper let human suffering stand in the way of his Blue Dog Beltway axioms.

Memphis raises taxes to subsidize privatized schools

Shelby County is raising taxes on the backs of its most vulnerable so that charter school operators are subsidized to ply their trade in Memphis:

The County solution: raise the sales tax another penny, which will push this most regressive tax (which includes taxing food) to over 10% (TN is #1 in the nation for highest sales tax).  Oh yes, and in the meantime, reduce property taxes so that the immeasurably unfair tax on the poor will be even more so.

Projected take?  About $54 million, which would cover the annual amount estimated by the State to cover the loss of revenue to fund the new charters.  Meanwhile, the charters under the new State Recovery School District (RSD) (think NOLA) will get to take over the school buildings that are being closed to create charters.

The corporations that run these charters, then, will have huge advantages over non-RSD schools, so the State, in effect will be the ultimate decider on which of these "market-based solutions" get to thrive as the 21st Century solution to the "white man's burden" in Memphis.

Bill Gates and Tennessee Stand for Children also had a hand in Shelby County's raising of taxes for resegregating schools as orchestrated by red-state Tennessee. Things are getting ugly in Memphis.

The better part of valor is discretion

We have met the enemy and he is definitely not us.

Local blogger Jamie Hollin doses political realism to Metro Nashville Public Schools should they have second thoughts about taking on Tennessee's state education commissioner for attempting to punish their denial of Great Hearts' charter application:

...if the money [$3.4 million withdrawn by the State of Tennessee] is deemed by MNPS to be immaterial and the vote is against litigation, then they will have one heckuva time explaining to the citizens of Nashville why our property taxes went up to fund schools. Their next trip to the Metro Council for funding might meet the proverbial buzz saw in their next budget request—to the tune of at least $3.4 Million.

Public officials should choose their battles. Future fights over Metro funding, complete with public hearings and letter-writing campaigns, look like slow, uphill slogs of attrition compared to the blitz they might launch in court to defend their legal rights.

Hizzoner casts his lot with the state: not exactly a profile in courage

Apparently, Mayor Karl Dean could not put aside his own personal fondness for the Great Hearts charter school company in order to lead a Metro agency out of a mess the State of Tennessee engendered. A Tennessean reporter tweeted Hizzoner's response to state action in September:

Mayor Dean said in interview that loss of state funds [due to declining one application for one charter school] is [Metro school's] problem. "They created it, and they need to figure it out."

Gadzooks. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the school board made a mistake. If you were the elected head of Metro government, the person who makes all of the budget decisions for all departments and agencies, is it the wisest course of action to cut loose an entire department or agency for a misstep? The alternative expression--"Regardless of what happens, we will find a way through this together. Let's pick up the pieces"--seems the proper course for those looking for a high road even when one has the opportunity to say, "I told you so."

Consider the fact that those adversely affected by the actions of the State of Tennessee are not powerful business interests who should be able to weather the lack of state funds, but the most vulnerable segment of the population: Nashville's public school children. Was it prudent for Hizzoner to take an adversarial posture with the state against a Metro agency when the latter had not violated anyone's civil rights and had not conducted themselves in an unethical manner? Was it wise to endorse the idea that the state should be spending less money on all Nashville children because a few middle class parents, who already have charter options, did not get the plum charter school they wanted close to their predominantly white neighborhoods?

How many times has this Mayor attempted to be our local Oprah with efforts like encouraging us to lose weight or to join his book club? He can weigh in touchy-feely over our personal lives, but he cannot have some compassion over the real risk to kids of red-state action?

And let's not forget one more thing: Karl Dean's campaign claims to fight tirelessly for full funding of Nashville's schools is fundamentally compromised by his stubborn willingness to side with the state and punish Nashville's school kids over a charter school application.

But let's end the dumb assumptions and let's get one thing straight: the school board made no mistake. For once, they did something right with a charter school application. And how much worse does Hizzoner's callous indifference appear in that light?

I just joined 360 other signers of a petition asking the State of Tennessee to deliver the funds it promised for Nashville schools

If you like me do not want to see our public school children suffer and our local autonomy eroded simply because one charter school application was denied, then jump:

Don't take $3.4 Million from Nashville Public School Students Petition | GoPetition

"Stand in Silence" instead of "Stand for Children"?

In the wake of state Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman's withdrawal of millions from Metro Schools after the school board's decision to deny the Great Hearts' charter school application, an Enclave reader emailed a query:

 [Why hasn't Stand for Children] made any public comment on decision to pull $3.4M from children in MNPS[?]

You may remember that Stand for Children bills itself locally as the "advocacy" partner of Metro Nashville Public Schools and facilitates the interest group "Friends of Metro Schools," which lobbyied to have Mayor Karl Dean's latest school budget passed.

They even produced a slick video during the budget debates to school the rest of us on the importance of "fully funding" Metro Schools:




"Our public schools will only be as strong as our community cares to make them." Mm-hmm. I would also add, "Our public schools will only be as strong as the State of Tennessee cares to make them". If the state pulls money out of public schools, Tennessee cares less about public schools.

I would also wonder along with the reader why SFC once cared so much about keeping schools "fully" funded when it meant a strategic win in Metro Council for Mayor Dean (and his future aspirations for higher public office), but now they don't seem to care enough to even peep about it.

Stand for Children seems to be sitting this one out.

But in deference to whom?

A familiar ring in this politics of non-profits

I have been reflecting on an interesting parallel, which I assume is purely coincidental, between the question of whether Moving Nashville Forward is a non-profit or a political action committee and confusion expressed here in 2011 over Stand for Children's (a non-profit) endorsing Karl Dean for Mayor.

According to MNF leader Erik Cole, his group is pursuing non-profit status that would permit them to keep the $26,000 that "Dean for Mayor" donated to their efforts to market Karl Dean's budget proposal in the run-up to the Metro Council vote earlier this summer. Cole told reporter Joey Garrison yesterday that his organization is listed as a 501(c)(4). Garrison could not find confirming evidence of MNF's non-profit certification. A source told me that according to the Tennessee Secretary of State's records, Moving Nashville Forward is not certified here as a 501(c)(4).

501(c)(4) is exactly the non-profit status that permitted Stand for Children to endorse Karl Dean for Mayor in the last election. Last year readers were wondering how a non-profit can endorse political candidate and keep its tax exempt status. SFC does it by maintaining two organizations under one roof: their 501(c)(3) cannot campaign; their 501(c)(4) can.

Incidentally, Moving Nashville Forward's co-principal, Francie Hunt, is the former Nashville Director at Stand for Children.


UPDATE: I cannot find Moving Nashville Forward listed in the Internal Revenue Service's Exempt Organizations Master File for Tennessee. That list includes 501(c)(4) organizations reporting to the IRS.