When the local news media continues to rewrite catastrophic history to a national audience, hindsight of the Nashville flood is not 20/20

The most frustrating characteristic of the Nashville news media is that they rarely ask critical questions of their interview subjects regarding even the most commonly held fallacies. Last May as local feelings were festering in the wake of our 1,000 year flood that national media attention that was due us was too focused on the Gulf oil spill, a popular meme surfaced comparing Nashville's flood response in rather grandiose ways to the New Orleans response post-Katrina.

Having been focused on New Orleans doggedly during those dark days of Katrina and having witnessed problems in with emergency response in Nashville as they unfolded, I felt compelled to write a minority report rather than join self-congratulations and the revictimization of our wayward neighbors to the south:

Implicit in this preoccupied reaction is a response to the old nemesis, New Orleans. It’s a slam against another American community by placing ours on a higher moral plane ....

What is most striking in the Nashville narrative is that at its base it is a disingenuous re-write of history. It is a judgment call based on a fabricated all-things-were-equal scale ....

The rub, the difference here between these two cities is precisely evacuation. Mayor Ray Nagin declared a state of emergency and a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans two days before Katrina’s landfall and the failure of the levees. Consequently, 1 million people fled from the Big Easy in those 2 days. There was no evacuation in Nashville in advance of our 1,000 year storm event. Nobody knew what to do. Metro government was hamstrung because, unlike New Orleans and its recent history of hurricanes, we only had 2 or 3 other years in the last century to compare this event to. And hurricanes are not just big rain events. They are approaching monsters to coastal cities and the risk is certain.

We are here to take care of ourselves. And my suspicion of undue arrogance leads me to believe that had 1 million New Orleanians stuck around the Big Easy, they would probably be more competitive in showing a volunteer spirit. The people of New Orleans, outside of the lower classes who had no choice, would not be waiting on FEMA, which kept failing them so miserably, so spectacularly in spite of federal promises about rebuilding New Orleans to the contrary. Many would have been able to serve their community as enthusiastically as Nashvillians are serving theirs.

Source: National Geographic

Behind the Nashville hand-wringing is a tale of two cities, one moral and self-sufficient, the other unforgivable and incapable.

There were even more spot-on comments to my reflections on these fabrications last May:

This is really a tale of four cities. You are right on target with the implicit comparison of Nashville and New Orleans. But don’t ignore the explicit claim that people are nicer to each other here than in Los Angeles and New York City. This shows a fundamental ignorance of how people interact in those places. NYC is notable not only for people holding doors for each other; but you haven’t seen anything in casual neighborliness and helpfulness to strangers until you’ve seen how automatically passers-b help mothers with strollers up and down the steps to the subway there. But it, too, fits a narrative: the narrative that real human values can’t be found on the coasts.

Nonetheless, some in the local news media mark this anniversary of our disaster by continuing to implicitly transmit the grandiose meme that somehow, when the chips are down, Nashville is a cut above everyone else. The apples-to-oranges comparison with New Orleans continued over the weekend past to a national audience on public radio, and this time local reporter Blake Farmer maintained that Nashville serves as an inspirational "model for Alabama and other states" suffering under brutal weather.

There is a whole field of research out there called "non-profit and voluntary association studies" with social scientists without skin in the game who can be objective about why people feel motivated to volunteer in crisis situations. Volunteers have noble reasons; volunteers have less than noble reasons. The common denominator that they share is not their reasons, but their availability.

Likewise, there is no one reason why 20,000 Nashvillians volunteered to aid in flood relief last year. Some didn't want to wait for government. Some believed it was their moral duty. Some wanted to fight their own depression. Some wanted to feel useful making progress. Some wanted the networking opportunities. Some wanted to positively brand their business. Some were following the crowd. Some had ulterior motives of gaining an advantage over the less fortunate. Some wanted to maintain a favorable status with their employers who partnered with charities. Again, what these thousands shared was not their rationale for joining in the effort, but their availability. The NPR report reduced the reasons down to one and oversimplified local voluntarism to support the grandiosity of Nashville's flood narrative.

Full disclosure: I was among the 20,000 who volunteered. My family worked in two different aid distribution sites. When we heard that a South Nashville Egyptian community was suffering, we went out and bought supplies and nonperishable food, and helped their local leaders allot and distribute our donation door-to-door. I did not blog about this, because it seemed like self-promotion at a time when the attention needed to be focused on them.

But I blog on my own contributions a year later to say that I don't want to be a model for anyone else. As one of the volunteers "celebrated" by Metro government and the non-profit community today, my views ought to weigh in on this remembrance, too.

And in my opinion, it is presumptuous for NPR and self-aggrandizing for Nashville to trot us out nationally as a shining beacon for others who are suffering calamity right now. The last thing that Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Rome, Ringgold and everywhere in between need now is a celebration of Nashville's recent past. They just had a single history-making, beastly supercell tear through each of their communities. Memphis is about to be engulfed by one of the grand rivers of the world, the Mississippi. And yet, today, we're focused on us. It amounts to vacuous, hollow symbolism that draws our gaze away from our beleaguered neighbors.

If anything, our experience of coming out the other side of the hells of destruction that other people are in or just entering ought to give us pause, the humility to figure out what we can do to support them, not promote ourselves. And using New Orleans again as our own personal foil is both ignoble and revolting. We should expect more from ourselves and demand better from local journalists.

Remembering the Great Nashville Flood: unpublished photos from May 2-3, 2010

Today is the anniversary of the day it started raining to such a historical degree that the flooding around Middle Tennessee in the days that followed was referred to as a 1,000-year deluge. Last year I published a large number of pictures I took in my inundated north-by-northwest community during those days. Here are some that did not make on to the blog until today:

Country Music Marathon 2011 photos: North End spectators

2011 Country Music Marathon photos: "Separation"

Country Music Marathon 2011 photos: leaders through the North End (mile 12 & mile 15)

David Kellum (7) leads near Salemtown and held on to win the men's marathon

Edwin Romero--in 2nd place through the North End--would finish 3rd

Giovanny Amador finished 4th

Tennessean Scott Wietecha would finish 2nd

Men's marathon winner David Kellum leads at the 15 mi mark on Rosa Parks

Laura Portis, who led the women through the North Nashville legs, finished 2nd

Women's marathon winner, Ruby Milena Riativa, was in 2nd place at 12 mi

North Nashville flood recovery lags: witness a "ghost town" neighborhood

Like in just about every other way, North Nashville is left behind in flood recovery as we near the 1st anniversary of the Great Nashville Flood. A story of suburban West Hamilton Drive from WPLN:

The retired firefighter has done everything he can to bring his own property back to normalcy, but the view from his front stoop is still much like it was in the weeks after the flood. “So what you do,” he says, “you just try to like–you see it but you don’t see it. You just kind of block it out your mind.”

“Some of the feelings that are brought up when you look out at a neighborhood that you truly cherish and see it’s not what it once was, that sense of loss can be reinforced.”

Photo credit: Cedric Smith

Brandon Hulette works for the United Methodist church, helping flood victims fix up their homes and rebuild their lives. Hulette says you can’t recover fully until your neighborhood does.

For background of the May 2010 flood's impact on the Bordeaux neighborhood jump back and see Betsy Phillips' personal account:

we found a neighbor's house in the road at the corner of Buena Vista and Hummingbird. Not a mobile home, an honest-to-god house that moved off its foundation and on down the street.

People were out. Some were milling around, checking in with each other. Others were already setting furniture out in the yard to dry out. The front yards on West Hamilton are full of other people's garbage, some of it probably mine.

Tucker Road doesn't go across Whites Creek anymore. At least, not for a while.

The neighborhoods Mayor

For 4 years now the Mayor's Office has been running a bait-and-switch against neighborhood organizations. In 2007 Karl Dean held a single "connecting communities" meeting, generally ignored neighborhood leaders' concerns and questions, and redirected attention to the mantra of education and schools. In 2008, the Mayor's Office in an newspaper article on neighborhood issues insisted that education and public safety were "the" neighborhood issues without reference to any other priorities. In 2009, the "Mayor's Night Out" meeting dedicated to neighborhoods was poorly communicated, and conditions that community leaders expressed as needing attention were not followed-up on. In 2010, Mayor Dean totally undermined an Antioch community task force's recommendations in order to attempt to dump Fairgrounds vendors into Hickory Hollow mall, insisting that he was helping Antioch and South Nashville neighborhoods and not the wealthy development interests behind the deal.

So, you will excuse my jadedness about the spate of "neighborhood gatherings" the Mayor has suddenly scheduled in 2011 to boost his re-election campaign and to gloss the thin veneer of grassroots. The first one was held in March in Madison under the auspices of a "food drive." Here is the Twitter exchange between me and one of the Tennessean reporters' feeds on the subject:

Michael Cass: Dean planning "neighborhood gathering" in Madison this weekend, asking supporters to bring food to donate to Second Harvest Food Bank
Me: Isn't that "neighborhood gathering" actually a fundraiser for the Dean campaign?
Cass: The announcement I saw only mentioned bringing food for Second Harvest, but I'll check.
Cass: Campaign says it's not a fundraiser; people can give if they want but aren't expected to.

Mayor Dean chooses to burn Metro cash reserves rather than to raise taxes during his reelection year

Apparently, the boldest plan Mayor Karl Dean proposed in today's "State of Metro" agenda is to use federal funds to motivate Nashvillians to stop eating to extremes. But aside from acting the Diet Tzar over money headed in from elsewhere, the Mayor, who intends to keep his office for a second term, has no intentions of raising revenues before the election to fill the expanding chasm between income and expenses:

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean is choosing to dip into the city’s reserve fund to balance next year’s budget .... to avoid a property tax hike.

“The alternative of asking our citizens to pay more in property taxes while they struggle to make their own ends meet would not have been the right thing to do. This year, our approach to the budget will be the same. We will not raise property taxes.”

Asked if the city could go another four years without a tax increase, Dean – who is running for reelection – said he wouldn’t speculate.

I have seen nothing to indicate that the Mayor has plans for Metro to pay what amounts to a self-loan back to the schools' rainy day fund in the future.

Charter schools: emblematic of our zero-sum culture

A relevant exchange between father and daughter in last season's HBO series "Treme," set in post-Katrina New Orleans:

Sophia:      Where'm I gonna to go to school?
Creighton:  Tulane's working on something for faculty kids. Lusher.
Sophia:       Lusher's not a high school, Daddy.
Creighton:  They're adding high school.
Sophia:       Plus it's public.
Creighton:   Not anymore, it's charter.
Sophia:       Where are they going to put the high school?
Creighton:   They're taking over Fortier.
Sophia:       What about the Fortier kids? Where are they going to go?
Creighton:   Somewhere else, I guess.
Sophia:       That's not fair.
Creighton:   Probably not. That's where we're at now. You want to go to school in New Orleans? So this is how it works. It's a zero-sum world, honey. Somebody wins. Somebody loses.

Part of the reason why I am so appalled by Democrats' support of charter schools is that it is pompous, yet poorly disguised social Darwinism that helps a fraction of the children that require help. It's a zero-sum equation packaged and branded as an opportunity for a disadvantaged generation.

Yet, because of government subsidies, a lot of Democrats (let alone Republicans) stand to make a lot of money off the charter "movement," which exploits the desperation that many parent feel about public schools. I don't know which is more despicable: Republicans, who celebrate the zero-sum game, or Democrats, who participate in under the guise of helping a tiny sliver of the truly disadvantaged for the empty symbolism and the economic opportunities.

About Tennessee Republicans' attempt to micromanage Metro Nashville

An Enclave reader writes to express dissatisfaction with the failure of the press to draw out the hypocrisy of a Williamson County Republican's attempt to kill Metro Nashville's non-discrimination ordinance from the top-down in the General Assembly:

Did you know State Representative Glenn Cassada opposed the Metro anti-discrimination ordinance against GLBT and wants to overturn it?

Did you know Cassada doesn’t live in Davidson Co?

Did you know Cassada has worked for the Pharmacy giant Merck/Schering Plough in the animal health division of for the last 23 years?

Did you know Merck/Schering Plough has its own diversity program for both employees and suppliers (http://www.merck.com/about/how-we-operate/diversity/employee-diversity.html)

Did you know Merck/Schering Plough celebrates it number 9th position in the Top 10 companies for GLBT employees (http://www.merck.com/careers/life-at-merck/diversity-recruiting/home.html)

Did you know the company Cassada works for has its OWN supplier diversity definitions (http://www.merck.com/about/how-we-operate/diversity/definitions.html)?

If it is not bad enough that Tennessee Republicans look dishonest on this red-meat issue, the Out and About blog points out that they are on the same side of Tennessee history as the 1920s Knoxville Ku Klux Klan.

That's cold: caught burglar breaks into Metro Action/Head Start classroom, steals computer

A message forwarded to the Salemtown elist from MAC official Cynthia Croom:

We had a break in [at the Fehr School building in Salemtown last night] and I am glad to say the individual was apprehended. It appears he took one of our classroom computers that we utilize for the [at-risk] children. The alarm system picked up the break in and Metro was dispatched.

Dean's confederate Kerr to critics: STFU!

In today's edition of the local daily, columnist Gail Kerr--who once received PR coaching to support the Mayor's Office at a $2,500 cost to Metro taxpayers--is back, and her unexamined, mercenary shilling for Karl Dean is the same as it ever was.

I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah. But she seems to like doing it.

Kerr's formula is consistent with an earlier column where there were "5 or 6" Dean critics mentioned, but at least she's not suggesting this time that without this Mayor Nashville would be facing a horrible catastrophe, and at least she avoided unwarranted, apoplectic attacks on individual Dean critics by name.

At this rate, the Tennessean may award Karl Dean their Tennessean of the Year Award for the second year running. Everything Gail Kerr does to help that cause has to be appreciated at the Courthouse.

Hip Hop Kids don't want to hear negativity

Remember the SNL Hip Hop Kids skit where straight questions didn't fly?

Jo-Jessica:  Yo, why'd we take a shortcut through a mine shaft in the first place?

Trey-J:        Negativity ain't helping, Jo-Jessica

Every once in a while the Justin Timberlakes of the local social networks will lob a "Haters gonna hate" at me, and I cannot help but hear: "Your negativity ain't helping, Jo-Jessica." Maybe Trey-J would rather I dance it out.

Nashville-based company signs Canadian conservation agreement, but did they also get permission to pollute?

CTV reports that the L-P Corporation has signed a landmark conservation agreement that allows their vendors to hold them accountable for "sustainable harvesting":

Nine companies – from newspaper and magazine publishers to office supply retailers to consumer products companies – are part of the new Boreal Business Forum. The roundtable group will meet regularly to monitor progress made by 21 member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) who signed on to the conservation deal last year.

Among the goals of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement are more sustainable harvesting practices and habitat protection for 72 million hectares of forest across the country.

FPAC companies – including .... Louisiana-Pacific Canada Ltd. – have committed to suspending logging operations on nearly 29 million hectares and implementing conservation plans for endangered woodland caribou.

It may take a mogul to move the Mayor

I was struck by sequence of events in the process by which Mayor Karl Dean made the decision to do the right thing on nondiscrimination and Metro contractors (as unpacked in the Tennessean). Apparently, it took a mogul to help the Mayor decide:

Nashville music mogul Mike Curb and Mayor Karl Dean unexpectedly crossed paths [in February] on separate business trips to Southern California.

Campaign behind the curve?

According to a specialist on local governments and economic development, outsourcing government functions (a.k.a. "public/private partnerships") does not live up to the cost savings promised and is actually the wave of the past, not the future:

Privatization peaked among local governments in 1997. From 1992 to 1997 new outsourcing contracts accounted for 18 percent of all service delivery, while in-sourcing was 11 percent. The ratios shifted in the 1997-2002 period with in-sourcing exceeding new contracts out by 50 percent. From 2002 to 2007 the rates were about equal (new contracts out were 11 percent, contracting back in was 12 percent). So the pendulum swings.

So, is this tweeted talking point pushing the envelope or falling behind the curve?

What community input?

From a curious article announcing but not explaining "community input" on a proposed Nashville ballpark for the Sounds:

Nashville is seeking community input regarding alternative ballpark locations for the Nashville Sounds ..., providing a breath of fresh air to the proceedings ....

the city is taking a more deliberative approach to the new-ballpark issue. The former Sulphur Dell site has been mentioned prominently as the potential new-ballpark site, though there are plenty of issues (parking, state of the surrounding neighborhood) with that site as well, nostalgia aside ....

Last fall the Sounds started working with University of Tennessee College of Architecture graduate students and the Nashville Civic Design Center on alternative ballpark sites. The results of that work is now on display at the Center, and officials there are hoping the proposals will spur further discussions about potential ballpark sites.

I have seen no reports of open community events sponsored by city officials soliciting community feedback.

I have seen Friends of Sulphur Dell, a coordinated, on-message group of unqualified ballpark supporters, dedicated to shaping public opinion to a new ballpark in the Bicentennial Mall area.

Land Trust for Tennessee webpage focuses on private, gated park that thrives on "exclusivity"

I find it interesting that the Land Trust for Tennessee is promoting a belated announcement of "Nashville's Open Space Plan" Thursday morning with Mayor Karl Dean. It is interesting enough that a high profile Bredesenista was brought in to get this project back on track. But even more interesting to me is the tension between the concept of open space promoted at the Land Trust's website with a picture of Adelicia Park, a gated park only accessible by residents of Midtown's swanky high-rise, "The Adelicia." Celebrity and penthouse luminary Taylor Swift has access to the park, and The Adelicia promotes its "open" space as their residents' own "idyllic escape" and a private space of "exclusivity."

Erica Gilmore leads on nondiscrimination requirement for Metro contractors but likely to no avail

CM Gilmore quarterbacked the nondiscrimination bill to passage last week over the opposition of conservative CMs:

Jim "Judgment Day" Gotto

What the report does not show is conservative Jim Gotto--who is also a Republican state representative in the Assembly--suggesting that a nondiscrimination requirement might have lead Metro to avoid hiring the highly specialized water filtering services of a company during last May's flood. That's right. Mr. Gotto insinuated that our very access to clean water in a catastrophic flood depends on Metro not having an apocalyptic ordinance that would require city contractors to include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policy.

You can observe the Nashville flood anniversary by celebrating a re-election campaign

The Dean for Mayor re-election campaign refuses to let any solemn observance of a 1,000-year flood event distract from its mission to put its candidate back in the Courthouse for a second term. Today the Dean for Mayor shop sent an email blast from the Mayor's Office announcing the May flood observance with a campaign flair. The Dean team has been confounding campaign and Mayor's Office as highlighted below for a long time:

Click on image to enlarge

Tennessean reporter Michael Cass contacted the Mayor's Office, which as usual minimized the dilemmas caused by their behavior, and they even tried to credit the campaign as a service to save taxpayer money with the email blast.  Cass also noted that Karl Dean's original campaign kicked off at the very Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge where the campaign continues on May 2, 2011.

I might be overreacting to a coincidence of the flood being linked to re-election aspirations, unless I'm not.

About those journalistic double standards that render the journo part of the story

Here's your difficult truth: Your guy [referring to Darden Copeland] is as much a part of the "elite" you rail against as [James] Weaver or anyone else. Sorry, dude.

- - Local newspaper editor Stephen George to the person he believes me to be

I've got to hand it to George. At least he was willing to put his name by his uncorroborated comments. Typically when I get accused of being a tool (or, in George's words, "angling" online writing in coordination with PR firms and lobbyists) it is the anonymous trolls spouting bottomless conjecture they wouldn't sign their name to. But Stephen George incorrectly tweeted that the PR specialist hired to mobilize the movement to preserve the Fairgrounds was "my guy," which indicated to me that I was among the unnamed whom George speculated Darden Copeland "harnessed."

After being swallowed up by chatter on Sulphur Dell ballpark, the question of long-planned African American culture museum resurfaces

Last month I openly questioned why top-down discussions about a proposed ballpark at Sulphur Dell--generated mostly by a campaigning CM Jerry Maynard--have mowed down older plans for building the Museum of African American Music, Art, and Culture at the corner of Jefferson Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard.

This week CM Erica Gilmore's Office sent out an e-mail that includes an update on the museum:

Community Meeting

Goodwill Industries

1000 Herman Street

Nashville, TN 37208

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

6:00PM

Update and Renderings from the African American Museum, Director Paula Roberts

Let's hope the focus on development gets back on the long-term and older commitments instead of chasing election-year dreams of a ballpark that help sweeten campaigns but don't help our North Nashville community at this point. Local news media still hasn't touched the question of the museum in a long time.

Newspaper repeats: TDOT says that stopping noise they make possible is Salemtown's task

I was wondering when this story was going to show up. Given that this project started almost a year ago, the Tennessean seems to be playing catch-up at a very late stage. Reporter Nancy DeVille sort of portrays some of the frustrations Salemtown residents have expressed with TDOT:

Enclave was first to break this news in February confirmed today: Dean hires another Bredesenista while pressing for department budget cuts

Press release from the Mayor's Office confirms news I broke February 7:

Former Bredesen Staff Member Appointed Chief Administrative Officer
in the Mayor’s Office

Mayor Dean keeps CM Gilmore close-hauled on regs on businesses subsidized by Metro

From this morning's Nashville Business Journal:

Metro Councilwoman Erica Gilmore withdrew a bill Tuesday that would have required companies receiving economic development incentives to disclose internal demographic information, such as race and gender.

The bill was up for second reading, and would have required passage Tuesday and one more time before going before Mayor Karl Dean. Gilmore said after speaking to Dean and business representatives that she’d decided the bill was “a little restrictive.”

I supported our CM's bill before withdrawal because it is the right thing to do and not an onerous requirement, given that these businesses would benefit from the public dole. They would not apply to just any business. I am disappointed that CM Gilmore bowed to the Mayor's tendency to overreact to any requirements that do not come directly from Finance Director Rich Riebeling's little camarilla of influence.

A long time coming and going

MAC's new home come June

After listening to the Director of Metro General Services tell the Mayor during budget hearings last week that the administration of the Metro Action Commission would be moving from their long-time Salemtown home at the historic, but service-delivery-challenged Fehr School building, I grew concerned. My worry was that Metro might be splitting the executives and keeping the services here, which would not solve the problems that MAC and Salemtown have had with dumping utility assistance delivery to needy families in a small school building with inadequate parking.

April storm takes down large Salemtown trees

One of those large trees was ours, which a neighbor reports was hit by lightning yesterday afternoon. So far estimated damages to property are over $1,000. And that's just the fence damage. There was some exterior house damage and tree damage that have yet to be estimated.

There is also a large tree down across 7th Avenue, North totally blocking the road.


UPDATE: A pro arborist told me today the tree was not hit by lightning but was blown down. Estimated costs of damages up to around $3,500.

Gruhn challenges Tennessean reporter's story

Fairgrounds preservationists sent out an email blast tonight that included a letter to the editor from well-known and reputable local businessman George Gruhn on a local organization's latest terms for the Fairgrounds:

The top of the page headline in the Local News section of the Sunday April 3 Tennessean entitled Neighbors Offer Racing Deal states "The South Nashville Action People neighborhood group has reached an agreement with fair board chairman James Weaver that would allow five racing weekends in both 2011 and 2012." implies in no uncertain terms that a final deal has been reached when in fact any such decision needs to be made by the full fair board which does not meet until April 5 and later in the same article it is mentioned that Weaver stated that he didn't know if the full board would support this so-called compromise he had worked out without consultation with other board members.

The South Nashville Action People group comprises a small minority of neighborhood residents. There has been no vote giving SNAP authority to represent people who live in this area. Furthermore it should be noted that the fairgrounds are a publicly owned facility belonging the citizens of Davidson County as a whole rather than the local neighborhood. The Metro Council has already passed legislation keeping the fairgrounds open and approving racing as well as other activities currently held at the facility.

SNAP makes third unilateral move against the Fairgrounds

There they go again.

First, the South Nashville Action People organization supported Mayor Karl Dean's plan to exile the State Fairgrounds Expo's fleamarket to Hickory Hollow mall and sell off the property to private developers. After the exile scheme crashed and burned, SNAP backed the Mayor's plan to keep the fleamarket for a short time but demolish the racetrack. Then that pitch was crushed by an opposition whose scale dwarfed the handful of SNAP reps we've actually seen.

A few days ago SNAP leaders made its third unilateral attempt to dictate its terms without direct negotiation with Fairgrounds supporters in Davidson County. Yesterday I obtained a copy of the SNAP document called "Community/Neighborhood Terms for a 2011-2012 Race Track Lease," which I posted at Google Docs. Look over the document and give your feedback in the comments section.

Doing it for the kids (the bling ain't bad either)

I received copies of emails that crossed between Mayor Karl Dean's office and officials of Building Excellent Schools, the contractor selected and paid $250,000 to start two charter schools in Nashville. I loaded these emails on Google Docs and you can view them or download them after the jump.

A number of questions arise from these emails:

• Why is the Mayor spending $250,000 on BES for two single, young adults (BES Fellows) from outside of Nashville to start charter schools?
• Did any of the $250,000 go to BES for writing charter applications for the Fellows? If the BES Fellows are not writing their applications, does Alan Coverstone or the school board know it?
• The influence of these charter management companies on Metro government is growing. Is the Dean charter school program an attempt to check public unions? Will independent charter schools have a level playing field to compete with the BES charters?
• Were the BES applications given extra time last year? Did the Metro department overseeing the selection process show favoritism to BES?
• How much money does Linda Brown at BES make? Is BES committed to non-profit transparency?
• Why wasn't the charter incubator open to all applicants? Are there no qualified leaders in Nashville?
• How will Metro insure that BES Fellows do not artificially produce higher test scores by getting rid of underperforming students and drilling others?
• Why did Alan Coverstone move to get the BES schools in quickly? How were the local applicants judged against the BES Fellows?

All the Mayor's men: no apologies for possible ethics violations

The last thing Mayor Karl Dean needs since kicking off his re-election campaign with a couple of rebranding efforts called "neighborhood gatherings," designed to frame him as in touch with communities, is embarrassing news that smacks of elitism. However, news did crop up today that Dean's closest advisers appear to be keeping sweetheart relations with a Metro contractor.

Dean signed an executive order in 2008 reiterating and amending the ethical rules of his predecessor:

This order applies to the Mayor and employees of the Mayor's office ....

No employee shall solicit or accept, directly or indirectly, on behalf of himself, herself, or any member of the employee's household, any gift, gratuity, service, favor, entertainment, lodging, transportation, loan, loan guarantee or any other thing of monetary value from any person who:

• has, or is seeking to obtain, contractual or other business or financial relations with the department or agency of Metropolitan Government by which the individual is employed, or
• conducts operations or activities that are regulated by the department or agency of Metropolitan Government by which the employee is employed, or
• has interests that may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the employee's official duties.

CM Gilmore announces her re-election bid to Salemtown Neighbors, expresses her intention to lead with zoning variance

I wasn't present last night when CM Erica Gilmore addressed the Salemtown neighborhood association, but I got word from others who did that CM Gilmore announced her re-election for office and then expressed her willingness to support a zoning variance requested by a local developer for a 5th Avenue project. As I understand it she also expressed the concern that she might end up the target of criticism on this blog by risking support for the development in question.

Hardly.

Cumberland River Compact works with South Nashville neighborhoods on small but not insignificant steps to protect the Browns Creek watershed

Rain gardens can make a significant difference in controlling stormwater run-off and in naturally treating that water in the process. CRC's work in South Nashville matters if neighborhoods are on board with the project:

Boston's present may be Nashville's future

When the Music City Center is finished, Nashville will have 3 convention centers with 3 sizes, which will in theory attract more conventions. However, the city of Boston has 2 convention centers--1 large and 1 small--which cumulatively are not attracting more conventions. In fact, Bean Town's newest one seems to be killing business for the older, smaller one:

while the growth of the South Boston exhibition hall is undeniable, much of that business has come at the expense of Boston’s other convention hall, the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. Since 2006, five of the Hynes’s largest events have relocated to the newer, bigger hall, shifting visitors across town instead of bringing new ones from elsewhere.

And in those past five years, the number of hotel nights from visitors to the two halls combined is up only 9 percent, according to data provided by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. The new convention center alone was projected to have increased hotel nights by 18 percent in the same period, according to a 1997 study commissioned by a state-appointed panel, which also predicted the Hynes would not be hurt by the larger convention center.

Recovery of the Richland Creek watershed continues

Volunteers weathered cooler temperatures and the threat of rain to continue the project of restoration of Richland Creek in West Nashville:

The volunteers worked tirelessly and retrieved about 4 tons of flood debris. Many large floatable flood remnants easily could have made their way back into the stream, met up with the sewer line just downstream and created a blockage to stream flow. Volunteers from the Nations neighborhood understood the potential flood hazard and expressed gratitude for our event. Beside filling the roll of dumpster below, volunteers seperated out tires and hazardous materials for proper disposal and Metro trash receptalces to be returned for reuse ....

Our next Richland Creek flood recovery project is scheduled for April 9th at Charlotte Avenue and we need volunteers with canoes to help retreive debris from the steep stream banks. Contact us at rcwa@comcast.net if you can help.

Jerry Maynard running as "attorney of integrity" with ethical misconduct questions and suspension of his law practice

I still cannot find any reports that the suspension of CM Jerry Maynard's law license has ended. Not long ago CM Maynard expressly and in no uncertain terms told his fellow council members during one of their business meetings that he was no longer practicing.

Yet, he seems to have no reservation calling himself a lawyer on his re-election website, and he indicates that his practice is characterized by integrity while neglecting to mention the ethical misconduct questions alleged about him:

Meet Jerry

Pastor. Educator. Community Leader. Businessman. Lawyer. Political Leader.

These words all describe Jerry L. Maynard, II

....Inspired by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and the impact an attorney of integrity could have on a community, Maynard chose law as his profession. He earned his Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana..

Casting the net more widely on the census changes proposed in Metro Planning's "Alternative A"

A round-up of reactions to the first round of proposed changes to Nashville's council & school board districts, which were introduced a couple of days ago:

• According to one Nashville Neighborhoods elist report, Metro Planning promises changes to "Alternative A" even though next week they will be introducing an "Alternative B"
• I have posted the spreadsheet of Alt A district numbers with population and race/ethnic stats that a Nashville Neighborhoods elist member obtained
• One of the oldest neighborhood associations, Belmont-Hillsboro Neighbors, already wrote a letter to Planning opposing Alt A saying that having 2 council members would disrupt their work. (But wouldn't having 2 CMs give Belmont-Hillsboro twice as much influence as say Salemtown, which would only have 1 under Alt A? I do not understand the concern with the inconvenience, when the payoff might be more).
• Likewise, CM Anna Page erroneously refers to new council lines "dividing neighborhoods" in her current district. This is backward thinking. Council lines do not determine neighborhood boundaries. Neighborhoods define their boundaries. Or perhaps CM Page could show us how neighborhoods that are currently divided by existing district lines are disadvantaged by them (which would open a whole new can of worms about the disadvantaged in this council term).
• Blogger Mr. Pink at the Nashville Scene worries about either the logic or the aesthetics of putting one side of Hillsboro Village in one district and one side in another. But he ignores the fact that the main campus of Vanderbilt currently sits in one district while the university's residential college campus at Peabody right across the street sits in another with no apparent ill effects.
• Ever consumed with beauty-contest elections one local party insider/long-time Dean shill is hind-sighting and second-guessing the decisions of council candidates to focus on existing district boundaries in their run for office. Read at your own risk: grooming candidates for the Democrats often becomes more important than weightier matters of politics affecting our everyday lives.
• Alt A would put the State Fairgrounds in a different district than the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood. Currently, both are in the same district and the most vocal opponents of the Fairgrounds seem to come from that neighborhood.
• CM Erica Gilmore, whose run for re-election could be substantially affected by Alt A is "still processing" the proposal.

Subtraction by addition: Metro Planning shares their first recommendations for redistricting

Metro Planning Department's first proposal ("Alternative A") for council redistricting based on changes in the 2010 U.S. Census was put online yesterday. It caused a buzz in the social media. Planning's suggestions for District 19, which includes Salemtown, are substantial and significant for a district that had been considered within the allowable range for an "ideal population".

Here is a superimposed map of 19 and the new alternative, District 13:

Current Dist 19 is outlined in purple. Proposed Dist 13 is outlined in red.

Metro paying top dollar for young charter starters

A Boston charter school company is dropping almost $100,000 of what Metro is paying them on each of the nuclear-family-free twenty-somethings hired to get new charters running. Nice work if you can get it:

Nice press if you can get it. In the meantime, my kid's unglamourous, underfunded North Nashville public school suffers for a lack of operating personal computers in the classrooms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CRIME ALERT: Salemtown burglaries

Via the Salemtown Neighbors e-list:

Just wanted to let everyone know that my garage was burglarized last night. They got lawn equipment and tools. Unfortunately, they chose the one window in the garage that did not have an alarm sensor when they entered the garage. Be on the alert. Someone also broke into my neighbor's garage two doors down from me a couple of weeks ago and got some of the same type of items. If we get any leads I will let you all know.

Community leader disputes council's minority candidates

Local Nashville blogger, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and fashion specialist Genma Holmes challenges those council candidates running for re-election on the claims that commitment to minority spending on the convention center project has been met (you may remember that I recently posted a podcast of Jerry Maynard making those claims):

local elected officials who represent the poorest residents in Nashville voted to fund a project to bring visitors in a down economy with tax payer dollars based on property taxes when a large number of Nashvillians have lost their homes to foreclosure. Brilliant!

The [Music City Center] Project has had its share of controversy which is being swept under the rug now that 2011 elections are around the corner. We are being given the three-piece-chicken-and-biscuit-special speeches while ignoring what the community of color has really gotten from the project. A wing, a dash of hot sauce, with prayers on the side. “We are getting 20% in minority spending”, I have heard a few potential candidates say lately. No one has asked the obvious follow up, “20% of what actual dollar amount?” Please.

The Mayor’s chief cheerleader for the MCC, Walt Baker, was revealed as a racist, at least in his emails. The PR firm debacle was all over the place. And very recently, Metro Finance Director, Rich Riebeling, one of Mayor Karl Dean's top advisers, failed to disclose fully personal business dealings with a prominent attorney and a local engineering firm, which have both won large contracts for the downtown convention center project. Wonder if any color folks bid on those contracts?

A local news media outlet finally asks critical questions about Karl Dean's Japan trip

As published in this morning's Nashville Scene, Liz Garrigan asks the same questions I've been asking of the Mayor's decision to go to Japan since he left last Friday:

Dean is in Japan, of all places — commingling an economic development trip with a spring break family getaway. Think about that for a minute. The country first suffers an earthquake, then a tsunami that causes more damage than the earthquake. So the mayor's response is to call and ask whether he should postpone his economic development trip? "The mayor conferred with the consul general of Japan in Nashville before proceeding with the trip," a mayoral press release Friday read. "Consul General Hiroshi Sato ensured Mayor Dean he would not be in the way."

So Dean packed up his iPod and his rep ties and hopped aboard a flight to Asia, a move any freshman political science student would find misguided.

"Karl Dean, our little ol' mayor, is over there running around the Japanese countryside!" Craddock practically exclaims. "I just don't understand that to save my life. I just told my wife, I don't know who advises the mayor, but surely they'd have told him, 'Postpone your trip, brother. This is no time to go to Japan.' There is a pattern to this kind of behavior."

That may be the first time I've ever agreed with Michael Craddock.

Now I understand the difference between an editorial and reporting, and I acknowledge that Garrigan is making claims that reporters cannot make. But reporters did not have to make editorial assertions last week to simply ask the question: "How is an economic development trip (assuming it was really that) or a family Spring Break vacation to Japan essential during quakes, tsunamis, and nuclear plant failures?"

Compare and contrast: Karl Dean's Japan "junket" not for economic development opportunities after all?

The Mayor's press release on March 11:

Mayor Karl Dean is traveling to Japan as a guest of the Japanese Government today through March 20 to explore continued economic development opportunities between the city of Nashville and Japan ....

“Nashville is increasingly becoming an international city and international companies play a significant role in our local economy – Japanese companies specifically,” Dean said. “This visit ... will hopefully allow me to bring back ... new opportunities to our city as we continue to stay focused on economic development."

The Mayor's comments to the press today from Tokyo via Channel 4:

The mayor said this is not specifically a business recruiting trip, so no big economic development deal or announcement should be expected.

So, did the Mayor go to Japan for new economic development opportunities or for a family Spring Break vacation?

The radiation catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi and Mayor Karl Dean's "essential" travel

Since I last posted on Mayor Dean's trip to Japan on Friday in the immediate wake of earthquakes and tsunamis, things continue to get more critical for the island nation with the number of Japanese missing or dead topping 5,000. Tonight at a nuclear power plant 135 miles from Tokyo (where Mayor Dean and his family are staying) plant workers and news media have been ordered to evacuate because radiation has reached 400 times the legal limit. To compound the disaster, winds are reportedly blowing from the leaking plant toward Tokyo, and Geiger counter readings in Tokyo rose to "worrisome" levels at one point.

As the situation gets more and more grave in Japan's crisis, the questions a handful of us have been asking about the wisdom of Karl Dean's mission to Japan become even more poignant.

I am not the only blogger raising these issues. Catherine McTamaney blogged an impressive list of reasons why Mayor Karl Dean's trip to Japan right now is outrageous. They are all worth a read, but I particularly wanted to draw your attention to her point that Japan's cultural code of honor would have obligated Mayor Dean's hosts to say "yes" if he had asked whether he and his family should have come to Japan last Friday in the wake the quakes. The ball really was more in the Mayor's court to take the initiative and postpone this ill-advised trip while assuring Japanese officials of support during these catatrophes.

Mayor Karl Dean left for Japan today. What part of that trip is essential given earthquakes and tsunamis?

Visiting Japan after an earthquake is essential. Visiting Antioch after February tornado, not so much.

Common sense dictates that, after the 5th largest earthquake in international history hits Japan producing destructive tsnamis and causing the declaration of emergency at 5 different nuclear reactors, travel to Japan at this time might not be the wise choice. But you do not even have to have common sense. The US State Department advised American citizens to avoid "non-essential travel" to Japan today.

Late crime report regarding Germantown mugging

Kim Unertl sent me this report back at the end of February and I simply forgot to post. Sorry to all, and especially to Kim. It is from the Historic Germantown newsletter:

The priest at Assumption [Church] was mugged at gunpoint Saturday night [February 19] while walking back from Kroger. There were several similar incidents around us. The police do not know if it is a male or female, but believe the crimes are drug related.

North Precinct police officers to be "proactive" in community over Spring Break to "root out gang influences"

School Spring Break is a good time to focus on youth crime prevention in North Nashville, because a lot of kids are in the 'hoods with not a lot to do. Too bad Metro Parks couldn't have coordinated expanded community center hours and programming in tandem with this increased community policing effort announced by North Precinct Commander Anthony Carter:

Urbanophile not feeling the love for Germantown

In a February post generally high on Nashville, urban analyst Aaron M. Renn seemed less than impressed with Historic Germantown:

North of downtown is a small historic district called Germantown. This was rather unimpressive if you ask me. I didn’t see much that was German about it. It sure isn’t Columbus’ German Village, that’s for sure. There were some restaurants there. I had lunch at one of them which, fortunately for them, I can’t remember the name of because it was terrible. This area is mostly older single family homes.

Mayor and Metro Police reducing the size of the North Precinct police force to increase suburban force?

The neighborhoods of Nashville's North End sit just across the interstate from MNPD's North Precinct. While we are in the Central Precinct, we are often keenly aware of the crime and police response to our north. At a recent Salemtown Neighbors meeting, a police officer compared the boundary between the central and north precinct as the line between crime-prevention neighborhoods like ours holding out increased criminal activities across the interstate.

The North Precinct was built 7 years ago, about the time we moved into Salemtown, to provide better security, more crime prevention for North Nashville neighborhoods. It stands to reason that building that new precinct represented a commitment by the previous Mayor's Office to devote public safety resources more equitably.

So, I do not know what to make of a report just coming from the Belmont-Hillsboro association that the more affluent suburban neighborhoods south of I-440 will be getting a new precinct seemingly at the expense of the North Precinct. Mayor Karl Dean's plan was announced at a crime prevention meeting held at Christ the King Catholic Church Monday night:

WWJD: Jerry Maynard tells 92Q of his plans to run for re-election in 2011

This morning Council Member at-Large Jerry Maynard was guest on Ernie Allen's regular Sunday morning show. Here is the entire podcast offered at 92Q:




Several points from the interview stand out to me in this election year:

Mayor's green public-private arrangement in limbo?

Curiously, over 2 months ago the blogger for the public-private partnership between Metro Nashville and The Land Trust for Tennessee teased us into expecting an open space plan by the end of January.

Spring Hill plans for Festival Tennessee without planning

Almost as long I have been blogging here at Enclave I've periodically written about Spring Hill, Tennessee. Or maybe I should say that I've blogged about the way Spring Hill has been used in local media as a conservative symbol for what is wrong with Nashville, what is wrong with property taxes, and what is wrong with urbanism in general. Since the beginning of the recession Spring Hill has suffered like many in Tennessee, and I have not heard those Spring Hill-as-beacon memes lately.

The latest news on Spring Hill makes its conservative Nirvana look desperate: the Mayor has an understanding with a developer from Las Vegas, who has a checkered past, to build a huge amusement park, NBA facility, charter school and meth rehab center in the community, collectively called "Festival Tennessee". The deal comes with no strings attached for Spring Hill and promises thousands of jobs in a facility rivaling Disney World. Something for nothing probably sounds sweet to those who have taken their lumps. For a community that has been reeling like the rest of us with housing market collapse and unemployment, chasing promises of a new Nirvana looks like clutching at straws.

"The Anatomy of the Sulphur Dell Sales Pitch" or "How Ballparks Become More Important Than Museums"

I am a huge baseball fan. I love the history. I love the game.

I have been to many Sounds games in the last 20 years. We were Sounds season ticket holders at one point. One of my prized possessions is a homerun ball hit out of Greer Stadium by Prince Fielder. Nelson Cruz's record-setting Major League extra-base hits in the 2010 playoffs reminded me of how he hit the league-winning homerun in 2005 as a Sound.

I participated in riverfront development community charrettes on locating a baseball field in places like the thermal plant site and the East Bank. I eventually grudgingly endorsed the ill-fated plan for the Sounds to move to a mixed-use development at the thermal site based on what seemed to be a minimal maintenance cost to Metro while keeping baseball in Nashville.

Quite logically this might lead you to believe that I would be a natural fit for a "Friends of Sulphur Dell" (whose main purpose is to, in the words of founder Jason Powell, recruit "champions" to promote a ballpark for the Sounds on the historic site). If that is the case, think again. I am a fan, but I do not forget that building a baseball field pretty much amounts to politics not to be treated blindly or uncritically.