Mayor Dean insists that we look on the bright side of personal tragedy

Homicides in Davidson County this year have surpassed the total number of 2011 homicides. Karl Dean, who has showcased two election campaigns with the promise of lowering crime, attempts to draw our attention to his silver lining:

[In a prepared statement Karl Dean told the Tennessean, "]Last year's homicide total was the city's lowest in 45 years, and the number of homicides this year remains below the city's trend for the past 10 years[."]

Hizzoner is adept at side stepping accountability for lack of follow through. If he wants credit when the crime rate is down, he should be willing to accept the responsibility when the crime rate goes up instead of shaking the stats until his own talking points drop out.

The wrong message to send on dealing with neighborhood crime

This year the Salemtown neighborhood association has made a troublesome shift on dealing with suspicious behavior that appears to me more about image-control of the brand than about effective community policing and crimewatching.

In previous years association officers encouraged neighbors to call the police directly at their urgent, but non-emergent phone number (862-8600) if any suspicious behavior was observed in Salemtown. The reason members were encouraged to call police on their own was that it usually got faster response and all calls were logged, which helped MNPD determine where future patrols were needed most. Notifying the association was encouraged as a second step, and I do not recall officers attempting to manage how witnesses reported back to SNNA.

In September of this year a message with the title "keeping it local" went out to the association from the SNNA board encouraging association members to contact board members instead of the police directly. The message prescribed "discretion" without "overreacting", and it advised that the "close contact" that the president had to the MNPD liaison for Salemtown could bring more police patrols.

In my opinion Salemtown residents are better advised to call the police directly at their "urgency without emergency" phone number to make sure that witness reports are recorded at the precinct. I do not believe that the association's officers should be filtering witness reports, soft-pedaling, or otherwise judging the validity of people's perspectives for MNPD.

In 8 years here I have watched crime cycles and police response. With two recent murders in or near Salemtown and suspicious activity on the rise, I would encourage my neighbors to bypass the association whenever they witness troubling activity and go straight to the police. Only afterwards should they report the activity to SNNA. And by no means should they abide insinuations that they are overreacting, unless they actually believe that they are or can be reasonably persuaded otherwise.

CRIME ALERT: Cabbie shot dead in Buena Vista

From WSMV:

A longtime Nashville cab driver was shot and killed early Friday inside his vehicle near the Germantown area.

Henry Moore, 69, was inside his Yellow Cab van just before 3 a.m. near the intersection of 10th Avenue North and Garfield Street.


Police said Moore had just been dispatched to pick up a fare at the intersection, and neighbors then reported hearing gunshots.

After he was shot, Moore's van crashed into a retaining wall nearby.

Investigators have not released any details on possible suspects or a motive in the shooting.

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.

Ingram uses charity as a weapon, and the casualties are likely to be children

The Nashville Chamber of Commerce is now threatening the Metro Nashville Public Schools for denying a charter school. While in my opinion charter schools are usually about class warfare (or at least about class "police action"), the latest Chamber behavior seems to me to ratchet the clash to a visceral level of "shock and awe". Why? Because the gilded blueblood who penned a letter to MNPS on behalf of the Chamber threw down his own personal philanthropic weight:

Ingram elite

The chamber, a key partner with Metro schools that had previously stayed out of the feud, characterized the board’s “mishandling” of its fiduciary responsibility as “especially galling” for those in the business community who have advocated for tax increases to “fully fund” the district's budget.

“...ultimately the accountability for the school system resides with the Metropolitan Board of Education,” reads the letter, penned by businessman Orrin Ingram, who chairs the chamber’s Education 2020 program.

“Accordingly, the school board is responsible for the restoration of the $3.4 million to MNPS from the state in a way that does not waste further effort and taxpayer money.”

Ingram, an affluent philanthropist and CEO of Ingram Industries Inc., concludes with a pointed handwritten note to school board chair Cheryl Mayes: “Until this issue is resolved and the $3.4 million is reinstated, my time, money and support will stay on the sideline!”

The words “time,” “money,” and “support” are each underlined for emphasis.

We live in a climate where schools have been systematically stripped of public revenues (which increasingly go to subsidize business start-ups and relocations, as well as to underwrite lobby groups like the Nashville Chamber of Commerce) and wealthy philanthropists and private enterprises are asked to take up the slack with voluntary donations under the auspices of "public-private partnerships". The Chamber's volley across the public school bow shows the real risk of these partnerships: delivery of underfunded public education to Nashville's children is threatened by the withholding of private donations that those children have come to depend on.

Crossing the line: let the kids eat cake

Given that Nashville public schools are disproportionately working- and lower-class compared to the private schools that Mr. Ingram is now more comfortable supporting, it seems to me that the philanthropist is ramping up class war with his money and power. Whether he cares or not, the public school kids are going to be the casualties of the shots fired. This tirade also exposes the distinct possibility that his charity is a cynical tool for currying influence and leveraging the political ends that he deems beneficial to him and his class.

Such philanthropy belies commitment to Nashville's children; instead, it smacks of venture philanthropy, which is intended to configure the political landscape in one direction and consolidate power in the hands of a few. Ignoring the class dimensions of this threat is to approach it from a sense of denial. MNPS's conflict with the state has spiraled out of control and upset patricians are trying to rein in a popularly-elected, spit-the-bit board, even if kids fall.

Charter schools cinch permanent underclasses who receive something akin to vocational education. "Creaming" (or skimming the best performers off the top of traditional schools for charter schools) along with Nashville's Chamber-influenced founding of "Academies" provide the assist.

Then, the kicker: middle-class charter schools like Great Hearts calcify class stratification and provide one more barrier between the elite, concentrated power of Nashville's wealthy and the unwashed masses. That is essentially what aristocrats like Orrin Ingram defend by threatening to withdraw charity from Nashville public schools. Most pathetically, the gentry are willing to use public school children as pawns, essentially re-victimizing them to get what they want.

The state victimized the kids once by withdrawing $3.4 million. Nashville's elite follows by flexing its muscles, and it victimizes them again by withholding private donations until MNPS backs off its defiance of the state. It is merely the dark side of the public-private partnership: a sinister expression of the union we want to believe is benign, benevolent, and beneficial. We should rethink our assumptions.

A tale of two cities, one of which being Nashville

At the behest of an "invite-only" nonprofit Germantown resident and Cool People Care President Sam Davidson, describes how Nashville is staking fresh claims on emerging, young-adult-oriented industry:

Nashville may be a bit new to the startup game, but it’s growing quickly. Having been known for primarily launching music or health care companies, it’s now growing tech companies, consumer products, and entertainment ideas.

Kudos go to organizations like Nashville’s new Entrepreneur Center, working hard under the leadership of Michael Burcham to provide incubation, knowledge, and pathways to funding for people with a great idea. Chapters like the local Social Enterprise Alliance are also helping to network and support entrepreneurs with a desire to make a profit while making a difference.

Top-notch schools like Vanderbilt and Belmont pump young talent into the local economy. Belmont offers a major in entrepreneurship too. Wonderful climate and affordable living are icing on the cake!

Not sure I agree that we have a "wonderful climate". This past summer was brutally hot, and our extreme storms seem to be more extreme than usual (the 2010 flood, a case in point). But that is not the point on which I want to dwell here.

Instead, I want to draw out a couple of things. One is that Sam evokes the name of the Entrepreneur Center, which almost exactly one year ago took up an extreme right-wing Twitter campaign and called upon Nashville entrepreneurs to protest the popular grassroots movement Occupy Wall Street. People are still scratching their heads over that one. That EC would veer to one extreme gives them less credibility in my book.

The other point is that the startup industry seems to dominate online buzz here in Music City, and the spin is constantly promotional and echo-chamberish. The reality at the moment is that the venture capital enterprise is contracting, spelling a belt-tightening future for entrepreneurs. Hence, the more heavily Nashville relies on startups, the greater the chance our economy will contract with it.

Compare Sam's glowing representation of a wide-open Nashville to The Atlantic Cities' consideration of "slow-and-steady" San Antonio, Texas shortly after that city's Mayor, Julián Castro, gave the key note speech earlier this autumn at the Democratic National Convention. It provides a more sober, chastened assessment about the economic diversity required for recession-proofing:

In our interview, Castro acknowledged that the bedrock of San Antonio's economy was not in bright shiny venture capital industries (in fact, the city's information sector is shrinking), but rather in safe and conservative industries that were largely non-cyclical, and therefore recession-proof. He further conceded that the city was blessed by the most uncontrollable factor of all: geography. "We've got lots of affordable land," he told me, which helps keep housing prices low. The proximity to the border creates a "constant supply of labor [that] feeds the hospitality industry" and keeps wage levels down ....

The upside of slow-and-steady growth is that when the world is falling apart around you, you look pretty good. In fact, San Antonio was perhaps the most resilient city in the 18 months after the crash precisely because so much of its activity revolves around government. The downside of slow-and-steady growth is that, well, it's slow. San Antonio is not a rich metro.

Nashville is not a rich metro either, a fact borne out by declining revenues for Metro services in spite of increasing taxes and the prospect of a budget crisis that a number of locals agree is immanent. Time will tell whether Nashville and its startups are more resilient than San Antonio. But naively buying sanguine assessments about the future of startups here may be self-deceptive and wishful.

The best? Really?

The Nashville Scene writers awarded the Belle Meade Country Club a "Best of Nashville 2012" award for "Best Breaking of Barriers" for slightly eroding its exclusive old rich white boy membership practice and stooping to accept its first token woman.

A country club, which by definition is exclusive, finally does a single thing right after a century of plantationesque wrongs, and the Nashville Scene gives them an award? Might the journalists be dumbing down the meaning of the term "Best of"? And do rich Nashvillians really need any more honors for hubris from the news media?

Businesses lost in Germantown

It has not been an easy autumn for food places that anchored mixed use at the intersection of Madison and 5th Avenue, North in Historic Germantown. At the end of July, the Cocoa Tree closed. At the beginning of September, Drinkhaus closed, and earlier plans owners had to reopen the business in a larger Germantown space folded as well (I had intended to blog on this closing weeks ago). This week a Germantown resident tweeted news that Zackie's hot dog business had closed (they had previously cut their operating hours). Today Zackie's had brown paper blocking the view through its large picture windows.

On a side note, the Silo restaurant recently opened at the same intersection, and it joins several other eating establishments that are still in business in Germantown. However, the retail space at the 4h and Monroe mixed use development is still empty as it has been for 4 or 5 years.

The 3 closures were all businesses that we patronized consistently and we are sad to see them go, especially at a personal level. Their walkability was also an incentive for us. The closing of Drinkhaus in particular leaves Germantown without a coffee shop, which makes no sense to me.

Hopefully, Salemtown residents who were keen to rezone our mostly residential properties for mixed use preemptively, without any developer plans, should take note of Germantown's trends. These closures should give all of us pause before rushing to rezone.

Buh-bye, Med Mart. Look Nashville, you have two convention centers!

Last February, readers, I told you that the Medical Mart, which Mayor Karl Dean promoted as a vital, job-creating replacement for the Nashville Convention Center and virtual compliment for the new Music City Center, was dead according to Cleveland news sources.

And, just like that, eight months later, Mayor Karl Dean is confirming that the Medical Mart deal is dead, with breathtaking lack of query now from Nashville's media, which breathlessly, seemingly unanimously, promoted Hizzoner's plan for a Medical Mart when its staging meant leveraging approval for the new Music City Center.

As bleated by WPLN and no doubt sponsored by the Mayor's Office:

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean sounds like he’s all but given up on the so-called med mart ....

Dean says the Renaissance Hotel, which is attached to the city-owned convention center, is interested in taking over some of the space. Dean says it’s a desirable piece of property that he’s not worried about sitting vacant long.

Not quite the optimistic narrative spouted out of the Mayor's Office and the media when the Music City Center was pitched to us. Now Nashville is simply "moving away" from the Medical Mart (even though 8 months ago we were limping toward it) according to the article by Blake Farmer, as if Karl Dean had never made certain promises under the pretense of building Music City Center. Would Music City Center have received quite as much promotional spin if Dean announced that his vision included the Renaissance Hotel shacking up in part of the old convention center? Doubtful.


Supplement: Jamie Hollin sees IQT lurking in the loss of Medical Mart. Given the Mayor's checkered past with IQT, Holins insights might not be far off.

Revolving sticker shock: unforecasted costs of Music City Center keep rising

I agree [the risk to other Metro services is] the downside of [building a new convention center]. But it's not the thing you go out there and tell people.

--Music City Center chair Ron Samuels in 2009

Despite our red-flag-waving common sense that projected costs for capital projects have a tendency to be low-balled for the sake of selling those projects to a reluctant audience, those of us who questioned Mayor Karl Dean's plan to embark on the largest capital project in Nashville history were scolded for our "negativism". I'm wondering whether Ron Samuels thinks now that it is okay to talk about skyrocketing expenses:

The cost to run the Music City Center in its first fiscal year of operation will be about $4 million more than previously projected, according to a budget approved by Convention Center Authority members on Thursday.

The increase is linked to the expected doubling of the Music City Center’s projected utility bill, which is estimated to total $5.3 million from July 2013 to June 2014. The authority had been working under the assumption that it would pay about $2.5 million in utilities in that one-year period, based on a demand and feasibility study of the Music City Center project generated by hospitality consulting firm HVS in 2010 ....

The variance exists because the HVS study was conducted around a building that had not yet been built, said Nashville Convention Center Executive Director Charles Starks, while the more recent number includes newer estimates from Nashville Electric Service and District Electric Service using more accurate information about the 1.2 million-square-foot building.

Remarkable that unflinching MCC spokesperson Holly McCall was not trotted out again to point fingers at Metro Council (and the constituents whom they represent) for the latest bad news. The traction to that rationalization must be missing.

The revenues to meet these obligations have to come from somewhere, and I doubt the bigshots in the tourism industry are going to take up a collection among themselves to bridge the gap between fairy tale and balance sheet. Besides, they have future election campaigns to finance.

Nashville broke ground on this big box and we bought it. And those of us who were realistic and didn't lose ourselves in the wet dreams of Music City Center boosters were right. Now we can only hope and pray that their fantasies will not continue to endanger the General Fund paying for most of what the people who actually live here enjoy.

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?

Did the Tennessean's education reporter tweet her meltdown at a teacher?

Journalistic professionalism ain't what it used to be:

In another tweet, reporter Fingeroot called the teacher and her companion "rednecks", and she seemed to suggest that the teacher was the cause of her son's absences.

Rather than projecting hostilities about after-work margaritas on Twitter, why not play nice while doing some sort of hard-hitting, investigative exposé that substantiates her claims that her son's absences are due to how his class is being taught?

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

Or they packed in charter school friends and students as PR insurance before they honored other "reservations"

East Nashville blogger, Sarah Martin, had a reservation to attend the "exclusive" Nashville screening of the controversial parent trigger flick, Won't Back Down, but co-sponsoring organization StudentsFirst did not honor it:

It was my intention on Monday to attend a private screening of “Won’t Back Down,” sponsored by StudentsFirst, with opening remarks by Mayor Karl Dean and a wrap up discussion panel. Unfortunately, StudentsFirst either miscounted seats or misunderstood what the word “reservation” means because I was one of many people with reservations who were told they didn’t have seats for the show. Oops. Fail.

Salemtown: now a neighborhood of service bays and easy interstate access

Technically, Salemtown extends into MetroCenter, since Dominican Drive (which runs past Starbucks to Rosa Parks Boulevard) is our recognized northern border. And we are getting a new car dealership as a neighbor, according to the Nashville Business Journal:

The 58,000-square-foot planned retail and service center is set on a 7.2-acre parcel. It will offer 61,540 square feet of outdoor display area, an 11,640-square-foot enclosed sales area and 42 service bays. The dealership will include a full line of new and pre-owned car sales as well as a Lexus service center and parts sales.

"Lexus bought this property about four years ago, and their development plans play perfectly into the major new interchange in the immediate MetroCenter area," said Todd Alexander, principal for Southeast Venture, which is the property owner. "It's a great location. You'll be able to see the dealership from the interstate, and MetroCenter's proximity to downtown and Interstates 65 and 40 will give potential buyers easy access into the new dealership."

Southeast Venture brokers Jimmy Pickle and Alexander and brokered the original deal.

"This is the first time that Lexus will have a retail and service center in Nashville's center, and we're very excited to bring Lexus sales inside Nashville's urban core," said J.R. Roper, general manager of Lexus of Nashville. "The finished dealership will provide 80 potential jobs to the area."

Thankfully, the interstate, itself a monument to automobile culture, sits between what remains of the mostly residential bulk of Salemtown and the increasingly commercialized northern section now dedicated to the great American love affair with cars.

Full disclosure: the Salemtown neighborhood association voted to approve the move of a resident's house several years ago to make way for the Lexus dealership. The homeowner requested the move and so we voted to support the request.

Werthan Packaging Mixed Use concept unveiled at community meeting

The site plan

SWH Residential Partners, Smith Gee Studio and Reno & Cavanaugh met with dozens of interested Salemtown and Germantown denizens at Morgan Park earlier tonight to introduce their proposal for the Werthan Packaging Plant property on 5th Avenue bordering the two neighborhoods.

The proposal includes an approximately 280-unit apartment complex (studio, 1 BR, 2BR; averaging 800 sq ft per unit) replacing the 1950s-style warehouse at 5th and Hume. It will also include retail space in a historic building at 5th and Taylor that developers hope will attract clients like the Turnip Truck market or a neighborhood pub. The Werthan Company will shrink to a smaller building farther away from 5th Avenue. The residential units of the main building will also clad a central parking garage for tenants and their guests. A green space will be installed along Hume that could be fit for townhouses farther out in the future.

Avenue elevation

The concept includes a dog park on the green space, a "European-style", pedestrian-oriented plaza with a water fountain on 5th, a sculpture garden with a water feature and small courtyards along Hume. Apartments along 5th will rise to an "industrial" 4 stories, with stoops to convey a "neighborhood-feel". As the building stretches toward Hume, the profile will drop to 3 stories with terraces to integrate with the smaller scale of Salemtown. Common spaces beyond the plaza would include a designated terrace for gatherings that developers told the group would be available for community meetings.

The part of the concept that made me sit up and take notice was a planned extension of 6th Avenue across Hume onto the Werthan property intended to shift large truck traffic serving the packaging plant out of the neighborhood and funnel it from Rosa Parks Boulevard to Hume and then to 6th inside the complex. In a few years when the plant moves totally off the property, the new 6th Avenue could be extended all the way to Taylor.

The apartments

Attorney David Kleinfelter emphasized to the group that the design had to be inspired by the internal design of the Werthan property itself and that developers took their cues from Werthan Lofts on Rosa Parks. Hunter Gee added that the project was also intended to weave or knit Salemtown and Germantown neighborhoods together. John Tirrill commented that the complex was intended to be marketed to various age groups and that they were not interested in merely pulling in party-oriented young people.

The meeting lasted a long time, but afterwards I told the development team that while I am not wild about apartments, I am a realist about what banks require in these times. I emphasized to them that I could support this concept if no drastic changes were made. What is particularly attractive to me about it is that they intentionally focused on street traffic and have what appears to me to be an effective strategy for limiting large truck traffic on our smaller streets. Extending 6th is an impressive solution because it creates residence fronts in the complex on four sides and it efficiently moves commercial traffic away from Salemtown. I did suggest to the team that converting the intersection of 5th and Hume to a 4-way stop (currently a 2-way stop that facilitates truck traffic) would compliment their transportation plan.

Hume elevation

Putting up more stop signs along 5th would also serve their goal to make the avenue more pedestrian-friendly. In my opinion, a number of people here support repurposing 5th away from an automobile pass-through avenue, making it more of a complete street. In turn, that would make Morgan Park across the avenue even more accessible.

I don't have a problem with the scale because Werthan is already industrial and it sits on the border of two smaller-scale residential areas. Their claim that the scale will integrate into the style of both neighborhoods seems convincing to me. If they pull off a tenant for their retail building on Taylor like the Turnip Truck or a pub a coffee house/cafe it would be a coup. But building high-density residential along 5th increases the chances of attracting businesses. There is still the gnawing fact that demand for retail space seems to be shrinking rather than moving in Germantown (excepting a few stalwarts like Germantown Cafe and newcomer Silo). Hopefully, the dog park will relieve Morgan Park of the crush of higher density dog owners who treat it almost exclusively as the place to take their pups for a poop.

Talking over the context

If the developers are indeed serious about the integration with the community, their commitment to providing public access to the plaza and meeting areas, smarter growth and sustainability, I can easily support this concept (unless, of course, it undergoes substantial changes unannounced earlier tonight). They effectively and assertively addressed any concerns I had about development of the Werthan site, which sits but a stone's throw from our home. I do not see any reason to oppose it.

"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?

Bells Bend farms live, May Town development is dead

I have steadfastly followed the prospects of the residents of Bells Bend for several years now. Including news last year that Nashville Yazoo micro-brewery had developed a partnership with local organic farmers to bring hops to local beer production.

Of course, what spurred my interest in Bells Bend long before that was the cause to save the farmland from May Town developers who wanted to flip it into a second downtown without regard for community planning or the wishes of Scottsboro-Bell Bend who would have been displaced by developers's sprawl. The developers put a full court press on North Nashville to try and convince us that the trickle-down jobs that would result would benefit us. Many of us here did not buy the pitch. West Nashvillians who would have been inundated by extra traffic resulting from three new state-built bridges across the Cumberland River also had something to say about the matter. And many, many other Nashvillians were sympathetic because they knew it could have just as easily been them facing bulldozers and unsmart growth. Opponents of May Town grew and galvanized to support the cause.

Now a whole lot of people beyond concerned neighborhood leaders are celebrating the partnership between Yazoo and Bells Bend. Check out Nashville Scene on the bandwagon:

In this autumn's batch of Yazoo Brewing Co.'s pale ale, one flavorful adjective will trump the rest: local. Because the bright-citrus-and-cilantro-scented hints of fresh-cut grass on the head of the limited edition Bells Bend Preservation Ale come courtesy of hops grown in the fertile fields of Davidson County ....

In recent years, the rural area, minutes from downtown, has been the target of development efforts, such as the proposed May Town project. Residents objected to the mixed-use development, fearing it would flood their quiet country roads with traffic and end life as they knew it in the bucolic acres near Scottsboro. They organized, branding their cause with the lyrical logo of whooping cranes, in honor of two endangered birds that took up residence in a Bells Bend field.

The May Town controversy subsided when city officials denied approval for the project, but the whooping crane remains a symbol of the community's commitment to preserving its open spaces and agriculture. This fall, the bird is also the symbol of Yazoo's dry-hopped beer.

The May Town drama did not just subside because of city officials who did not go along. It also ground to a halt because of the hard work and organizing of neighborhoods across Nashville who wrote letters, cajoled council members and commissioners, showed up for every public meeting, and held their own meetings to strategize against the public relations campaign conducted by wealthy developers, pitch men, and lawyers. I tried to document as much of the story as possible here on Enclave because I do not believe it should be forgotten.

I'll continue to watch the annual celebrations of Bells Bend--which now has a sustainable, self-perpetuating relationship with a successful local entrepreneur--content in the knowledge that I joined something larger than myself, a throng of other leaders whose conviction to save rural Bells Bend from urban sprawl made these days possible. I am thankful for that.


UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I remembered how proponents of protecting Bells Bend (agri)culture were labelled "NIMBY" ("Not In My Back Yard") and cast as negative for opposing May Town. It was always clear to me that the neighborhood leaders taking on the developers were positive, progressive actors in the story and that they were "QIMBY" ("Quality In My Back Yard"). Quality is exactly what they got in the organic production of hops for Yazoo to craft a new line of ale.

The project to preserve the historic Fehr School building passes Metro Council's first reading

Longtime readers of this blog know that preserving Fehr school for public, educational purposes has been a goal of mine for years now, one that I have consistently advocated over and over again.

I'm pleased to report that Metro Council approved CM Erica Gilmore's bill that would protect the endangered building from demolition or radical alteration of the building without approval of the Historic Zoning Commission based on recognized preservation standards, with one exception. Here is the meat of the ordinance:

Title 17 of the Code of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, is hereby amended by changing the Official Zoning Map...as follows:

By applying a Historic Landmark Overlay to the Fehr Elementary School property located at 1622 Fifth Avenue North (2.21 acres), and the Warner House property located at 1612 Fourth Avenue North (0.2 acres) being Property Parcel Nos. 060 and105 as designated on Map 082-05 of the Official Property Identification Maps of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, all of which is described by lines, words and figures on the attached sketch, which is attached to and made a part of this ordinance as though copied herein.

An exception is being granted to allow the Metro Action Commission, which has dug in its heels against this preservation of this Civil Rights era jewel for months, insisting that it be allowed to make any changes to the building that the federal government might require, even though there were no examples ever given to the neighborhood of what those requirements might be. And given what I was told during a phone call last spring from CM Gilmore, the Metro Action Director seems to have flip-flopped after dropping the exemption requirement. Section 2 of the bill contains now includes their exemption:

Be it further enacted, that any restrictions on the alteration of structures created by the designation of the Fehr Elementary School and Warner House as Historic Landmarks shall not prevent the Metropolitan Action Commission from making necessary alterations required by the federal government to the structures located on the properties identified in this legislation or require the Metropolitan Action Commission to seek the approval of the Historic Zoning Commission for such alterations

.

As long as the term "necessary" is not defined loosely or broadly, then MAC's exception might not present problems. Although, MAC is also exempted from any public process where their plans would be made transparent in the approval process before the HZC. In principle, I do not believe that exempting a Metro department from a rigorous public process is a wise practice. This will force concerned citizens to stay on top of capital budget requests from MAC and to contact our elected officials in Washington about reviewing any federal requirements MAC claims it has to radically alter this living museum.

It's not a perfect bill (few are), but I suppose it is the best we can get given the preferential option Metro Action leaders seem to be reserving for themselves to the point of halting Salemtown's long-held goals of preserving Fehr. I strongly recommend supporting Erica Gilmore as she does what she can with this ordinance to preserve Fehr based on landmark status standards. Given that Metro Action got exactly what it wanted, there should be no more obstacles to quick and painless passage.

Postscript to Metro Parents Advisory Council dust-up over the promotion of parent trigger film

Parents & teachers protest NYC opening of
"Won't Back Down" (credit: Occupy Education)

I did not attend yesterday's screening of "Won't Back Down" but I did hear that Parent Advisory Council Chairperson, Erica Lanier (who sent an invitation addressed to "families of Metro Schools" to the event with an advertisement attached that PAC was a co-sponsor) was one of people on the panel during the discussion time. That explains a lot to me about this. Other PAC leaders responded to my blog post on Ms. Lanier's invitation by insisting that PAC never even discussed the film event, let alone sponsoring it.

In the meantime, this affair has taken a different twist; one that I never would have expected.

A few of days ago I spoke with a senior leader in the school district who told me that Erica Lanier has been claiming I misquoted her in the my blog post on the event. Specifically, she reportedly alleged that the email that I cut-and-pasted directly to the post as her quote was misquoted. I categorically denied the charge and pointed out that the email went to a number of parents and other people from the Jones Paideia PTO gmail account, so I'm not the only one who can verify Ms. Lanier's original wording (assuming that it was not changed by the two parties who forwarded it from Ms. Lanier to my mail box). In fact a few people have approached me and said they received the exact wording that appears on the blog, too.

Nonetheless, there is one thing I don't understand, assuming that reports are correct and the sitting PAC Chair believes that I changed the message of her invitation. She did not mention such charges a week ago when she sent me her first reply to my criticism of the reported endorsement. If I were her and I honestly believed that someone had been messing around with my emails, I would not mince words. The first thing I would write in my reply would be, "These quotes you forwarded to me under my name are not my words. I never wrote this as it is. Either you or someone else has tampered with and altered my words to say something I never wrote. Here is exactly what I wrote .... [etc]."

That is exactly how I would have replied if I were her and believed tampering was afoot. But the chairwoman chose to defend the invitation against my concerns last Tuesday as well as make some supportive points about the California-based group behind the parent trigger.

So, I do not get these belated allegations of tampering with her email, and not just because other people at Jones received it, too. The allegations also make no sense given their timing after, rather than before, this interaction went even more public on here on the blog.

Below is the entire email thread of our exchange. The only changes I have made to it were to format to fit this column neatly and to remove personal and contact information to protect the privacy of others (edits are italicized). I have done absolutely nothing to alter the substance or points in any of the emails, hers or mine. The first email in sequence is Ms. Lanier's last response to me, which is where I would expect to see the charge that I altered her original invitation to appear:

Erica W. Lanier [email address snipped]     Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 10:39 PM
To: Michael Byrd [email address snipped]
Cc: [email addresses of the PTO, several public officials and a reporter snipped]

The PLT which is the training, development and support team of PAC is not endorsing anything. We are offering an opportunity for equal voice and dialogue. The movie is actually losely [sic] based on Parent Revolution a very real and active parent group based out of California.

As the attached email forwarded by one of our parents states we will have a panel discussion after the movie. This would be a great opportunity for you to share your views. I hope you will register and attend. What PAC does endorse is......"Your voice matters. Make it heard." Our concerns are not being for or against charter schools, but rather advocacy for quality schools and equity of resources to all students.

As of last year MNPS had 144 schools. Neighborhood schools, magnet schools, charter schools and other speciality schools. All have both successes and failures. All educate our children.

And at the end of the day that is the real concern, our children. To be the best possible advocates for our children do we need to isolate ourselves from any discussion or sharing of ideas. Knowledge is power. I welcome powerful advocates for quality education.

Again I hope you can attend and participate in the discussion that will follow the movie.

Erica


Michael Byrd  [email address snipped] wrote:

Ms. Lanier:

Some parents do not support the privatization of our public education through charter schools and the shifting of resources away from public schools to education corporations, which are free to select a few Metro students and reject many others. Some of us are concerned about the private wealth and political influence being pumped into the "parent trigger" movement by pro-charter groups and politicians.

Why is our advisory council, which is supposed to represent all voices of public school parents, seeming to take sides in this debate by co-sponsoring a pro-charter film (which is not a factual story, by the way) with a charter lobbyist/advocacy group? Shouldn't the Parents Advisory Council be striving to bring more balance to this event by suggesting alternative viewpoints or contrasting films more critical of what appears to be a headlong rush to charters?

If the Parents Advisory Council is interested in balance and fairness, I would recommend that they consider this film from the Grassroots Education Movement for screening, too: http://vimeo.com/41994760. By all means, advance the debate on education, but please make sure that the debate remains diverse and inclusive of all voices.

Regards,
Mike Byrd
[offline contact information snipped]
(4th year Jones Paideia parent)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: M K [email address snipped]
Date: Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 8:08 PM
Subject: FW: "Won't Back Down" Exclusive Screening
To: [email addresses snipped]

__________________________________________
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:46:00 +0000
From: [email address snipped]
To: [email address snipped]
Subject: Fwd: "Won't Back Down" Exclusive Screening

Good evening families of Metro Schools. The Parents Advisory Council has been asked to partner with the Tennessee Charter Schools Association and Students First for the following movie premiere at Opry Mills Movie Theatre on Monday, September 24, 2012 at 6 pm. We will begin promptly at 6 pm with remarks by the Honorable Mayor Karl Dean, followed by the movie and a panel discussion to follow.

I look forward to seeing you there. Please register in advance to reserve your seats.

Erica W. Lanier
Parents Advisory Council Chair 2010-2013
Parents Advisory Council’s Leadership Taskforce (PLT)
“Your voice matters. Make it heard.”

These events seem to have taken a nasty turn that I did not anticipate in trying to express my dissatisfaction with messages conveyed by one of my PAC representatives about support for Nashville's parent trigger celebration. I find it troubling that my honor is being questioned, but more importantly I find it distressing that a MNPS spokesperson is reporting what I interpret to be defamatory actions on the part of the PAC Chair toward a concerned parent. It is particularly vexing given that I spend so much time when I blog hunting down quotes and linking the contexts for them copiously.

I sense now--despite the tagline in her signature--that my voice does not matter and it will not be heard.

Belle Meade council member appears to have itchy trigger finger

(Full disclosure: I have been openly one of the strongest supporters of Emily Evans many times on this blog, which makes this post a difficult one for me to write.)

During an online discussion tonight on the possibility of a parent trigger Metro Council member Emily Evans tweeted:

Note that she did not include teachers in the trigger equation of being "driven bw district and parents". That exclusion seems par for the ambivalent course that trigger fans seem to tee off on. Triggers channel parent anger not in democratic or progressive ways, but in ways that promote privatization of public education and increase public subsidies for private enterprise. The trigger is a deliberate wedge between organized parents and organized teachers, both of whom can usually be brought together to act for the greater good of public school kids. It is divide and conquer, and the conquerors are partisan politicians angling for influence and wealthy corporations drooling at tax revenues. So, Ms. Evans' omission of teachers is not inconsequential in my opinion.

And then there is that unabashedly curious and deliciously contradictory claim she makes that "this acrimony" (by which I assume she means the controversy engendered at every stop around the country by the parent trigger tour) is not of Nashville itself. The parent trigger is an unrealized project that started in California by charter school leadership shortly after former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed education reform legislation. The group founded by a charter school leadership to promote it, Parent Revolution, is not even located east of the Rockies, let alone east of Little Rock.

The parent trigger "movement" itself is astroturf alien to Nashville, and yet, the kumbaya that Emily Evans predicts can happen with a trigger inspired from the outside is somehow indigenous and home-grown? Maybe she is doubling down that certain voices in Karl Dean's Nashville will be ignored or yelled down and that the debate will not turn against her bid to bring charter schools to wealthy Belle Meade. Otherwise, her minimizing of local opposition to the parent trigger (which is as honestly found as her chosen hard sell) seems to me at my most charitable moment utterly passive-aggressive.

I'm originally from Texas, so I guess I am ultimately an out-of-towner. I have lived in Nashville half of my life (since 1989), but maybe I still don't qualify as local. However, I do have two daughters both of whom were born in Nashville. My daughters attended or are attending Metro public schools. So, perhaps being the parent of these two MNPS daughters should qualify me to take issue with Ms. Evans' latest pet project without the insinuation that my dissent, that our dissent is not authentically Nashville.

I have skin in this game and I am a Nashvillian. No degree of gainsaying by charter promoters will change the fact that I am here and I will speak out prompted by nobody from the outside.

CM Evans has gone from being one the bolder mavericks on Metro Council to one of the most risk-averse members in my book. She struck me as an uncritical advocate of charter schools back when the Great Hearts project started taking flight. I've not been this disappointed in her since she voted for Eric Crafton's English Only. It seems her tenure on council, which for a couple of years roared like a lion on funding the new convention center, is ending about as gritty as a lamb.

Pushing through a parent trigger in Nashville is not going to give parents more power simply by flipping a bona fide school (in Evans' district the average school would not be facing challenges of serving working class or impoverished families) to a privately-run charter school. This needs to be heard going away: the parents may end up left out of the equation after the trigger is squeezed. And there are devils they do not know lying in wait. If this is to be a fair debate on parent trigger it cannot be stacked in favor of the promoters to the exclusion of the critics or of the risks involved. Emily Evans at least owes the public debate more than trying to sway it from her position of influence with prejudiced outsider/insider spin.


UPDATE:  In a tweet earlier tonight from the Nashville screening of the parent trigger promotional flick, "Won't Back Down," Nashville City Paper reporter Joey Garrison tweeted:

This film paints teachers' unions as out-of-touch with the wrong priorities, and characterizes school districts as bureaucratic wrecks.

His observation is consistent with what I wrote earlier about the ill will trigger proponents tend to bear toward unions.

Cancelled conventions at Music City Center cost Nashville

Nashville is already shelling out $678,000 in taxpayer dollars to cover the losses of two conventions originally booked for the new, historically expensive Music City Center. Crane Watchdog culls the details:

Two associations, the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association (HPBA) and the Technology & Maintenance Council of the American Trucking Association (ATA) were scheduled to hold conferences at the center more than a month before the building was scheduled to open ....

Now the associations have made the decision to relocate upon news that construction will not be fully completed before their events. Of the two shows, one will remain in the area while the other has relocated to Florida. Aside from the tourism loss ... that the government is paying "more than $678,000 in taxpayer dollars to make restitution" to the two associations.

The payout approval is also documented in the July 12, 2012 Convention Center Authority meeting minutes. The minutes confirm the payment amount demonstrating that the Authority will pay the ATA $110,000 and also reduce the rent for future convention in the years 2015-2017 from $35,000 per year to $0.00 per year. In addition, the minutes show the Authority must pay $568,153 to the HPBA. All of these fees cover a cancellation fee, assist the groups with other expenses necessary for relocation, and cover additional expenses that would not have been necessary if the events had remained at the Music City Center.

However, convention center spokesperson Holly McCall essentially puts the blame on the Metro Council for the unplanned expenses:

The Music City Center isn't scheduled to open before May 2013, so why did the center agree to book them a month before?

"These shows were booked back in June of 2009," said McCall. "That's when metro council originally looked at voting on the convention center. They ended up not voting on the convention center until January 2010, which set us back 7 months."

So, it's Metro Council's fault that convention center planners and schedulers took council approval for granted even though popular opinion was not strongly in favor of building it? According to the Metro Charter, council approval is part of the procedure for approving capital projects. It is not something that unexpectedly pops out of left field.

Rather than blaming the Metro Council, perhaps Ms. McCall should have pointed to the failures of the agency she represents for not planning some cushion for the probability that delays might occur in the council approval process.  The convention center authority should own the missteps in the timeline that caused them to fail to account for the messiness of public process. My guess is that the convention center leaders in 2009 were willing to risk the loss of individual conventions and public money for the immediate PR projection of inevitability that the claim "Conventions are already being booked!" was giving them.

The Metro Council can be ineffectual enough, but for convention center leaders to make them scapegoats for their own wasteful messes is cowardly and shameful.

Crime Alert Update: arrest made in the murder and dumping of homeless woman in Salemtown

From the Nashville City Paper:

Police have charged 56-year-old Napoleon Harvey with criminal homicide in the death of Stephanie Alexander.

According to police, Harvey admitted during a jail interview with detectives to killing Alexander after an argument in his car. He has been in jail on a parole violation warrant since Sept. 6, the same day Alexander's body was found in a vacant lot in Salemtown.

Announcement: upcoming community meeting on Werthan development

David Kleinfelter, who once served as Metro Planning's land development manager, forwarded me the following announcement today regarding an open meeting with developers and architects to discuss plans for the Werthan Packaging Property. He says that his group has mailed this notice to 520 property owners in the area of the property on the east side of Rosa Parks Boulevard:

Community Meeting

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

6:00 PM

Morgan Park Community Center

411 Hume Street

Nashville, TN  37208

SWH Residential Partners has a contract to purchase the remaining industrial part of the Werthan Packaging, Inc. property at 1515 Fifth Avenue North.  You are invited to a community meeting to see our proposed concept for redeveloping the property with a mixture of residential and commercial uses.

Our architects, Smith Gee Studio, will show a proposed site plan and elevations and will be available to answer questions and hear your comments and concerns.  Council Lady Erica Gilmore will also be at the meeting. 

We are not asking for any rezoning of the property.

If you have questions about this meeting, please email dkleinfelter@renocavanaugh.com or call 615-866-2320.

I've already jotted down some initial thoughts on this development. I look forward to hearing more details at the community meeting.

Trigger-happy Parents Advisory Council (UPDATED)

"Engagement Marketing" ad Parents Advisory Council
sent to our PTO [see "UPDATE" below]

Monday night the chair of Metro Schools' Parents Advisory Council, which tends to be the only parents group the school district listens to (at least that was the message I got early on from PTO meetings at my daughter's school), sent out the following email promoting the pro-charter, "parent trigger" film, "Won't Back Down":

Good evening families of Metro Schools.  The Parents Advisory Council has been asked to partner with the Tennessee Charter Schools Association and Students First for the following movie premiere at Opry Mills Movie Theatre on Monday, September 24, 2012 at 6 pm.  We will begin promptly at 6 pm with remarks by the Honorable Mayor Karl Dean, followed by the movie and a panel discussion to follow.

I look forward to seeing you there. Please register in advance to reserve your seats.

Erica W. Lanier
Parents Advisory Council Chair 2010-2013
Parents Advisory Council’s Leadership Taskforce (PLT)
“Your voice matters. Make it heard.”

Ms. Lanier was also one of three losing candidates for the District 5 school board seat election just passed.

What primarily raised my hackles about this email, which was received by our PTO membership, was the partnering of the parents' advocacy and advisement group with Students First led by controversial and conservative Education Reformer Michelle Rhee and with the primary lobbying group for charter schools to red-state Tennessee, TCSA. There were no other groups that PAC partnered with, no other films representing alternative points of view. This event is being staged and marketed by charter school advocates and our advisory council seems to be jettisoning its independence and evenhandedness to enable what amounts to some of us as propaganda*, especially when branded as truth.

So, yesterday I penned a letter to Ms. Lanier and copied it to my PTO leader, my daughter's principal, my school board member, my council member, and a local reporter covering the charter debate. PAC may be going into this event merrily, if not naively, but I at least want to offer a dissenting view in case they assume everyone is on board with them:


Ms. Lanier:

Some parents do not support the privatization of our public education through charter schools and the shifting of resources away from public schools to education corporations, which are free to select a few Metro students and reject many others. Some of us are concerned about the private wealth and political influence being pumped into the "parent trigger" movement by pro-charter groups and politicians.

Why is our advisory council, which is supposed to represent all voices of public school parents, seeming to take sides in this debate by co-sponsoring a pro-charter film (which is not a factual story, by the way) with a charter lobbyist/advocacy group? Shouldn't the Parents Advisory Council be striving to bring more balance to this event by suggesting alternative viewpoints or contrasting films more critical of what appears to be a headlong rush to charters?

If the Parents Advisory Council is interested in balance and fairness, I would recommend that they consider this film from the Grassroots Education Movement for screening, too: http://vimeo.com/41994760. By all means, advance the debate on education, but please make sure that the debate remains diverse and inclusive of all voices.

The PAC Chair replied last night with a tersely written email. What she did not say in it is just as important as what she did say. She replied with no examples of how our advisory committee had attempted to provide perspectives on transforming education at odds with the business models of the charter industry. In my opinion, the strongest response to my criticism is to list the ways that PAC remains a balanced group that shines a spotlight on all perspectives in a debate. She also failed to acknowledge the legitimacy of parents like me who have another view of charter schools. PAC's willingness to partner with the other sides of this debate would earn my appreciation.

Ms. Lanier did insist that PAC was not siding with anyone in the debate, even though her group forwarded the sales campaign materials to the PTO (even the ad website has the word "campaign" in the URL). She also argued that the movie is "loosely based" on "Parent Revolution" which she called a "real and active parent group". What she did not acknowledge in her letter to me is that Parent Revolution was started by a charter school operator, operates with a million dollar budget, and takes donations from pro-charter venture philanthropists with the Bill Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. It is not a bunch of PTO moms who got together and organized out of their own frustrations.

She also did not give many any details on how PR work (seems a strikingly appropriate abbreviation) in California led to successful triggers that inspired the movie. Fact is, there have been no successful triggers that could have inspired "Won't Back Down". The movie is a fiction. In fact, it was intended to be a fiction, according to one of its writers.

The idea of a trigger sounds good to frustrated and angry parents, who desperately seek solutions but who often are not aware of the ulterior political agendas they end up supporting by embracing the trigger. The reality tends to prove to be emptier and more regressive than anticipated.

Finally, Ms. Lanier maintained that dissenting views like mine would be accommodated during the panel discussion time. It is not clear to me that dissenting views would even be sitting on the panel. So, why should I hope to have my views acknowledged during that discussion? I could not even have them acknowledged after contacting my PAC leader.

_______

     *One of the pioneers of "parent trigger" lobbying is the American Legislative Exchange Council, which holds closed-door pow-wows with conservative legislators to craft extreme bills with the least resistance.



UPDATE: The Vice Chair of the Parents Advisory Council comments below that the invitation to the "Won't Back Down" event was never planned or authorized by PAC or the Leadership Taskforce. I attended tonight's PAC meeting. While the subject did not come up in the district meeting, an MNPS administrator told me that they would not authorize such an invitation either.

Looks like a rogue invitation to the parent trigger event, which gives the event even less credibility in my book.


UPDATE: I took a screenshot of the advertisement for the Nashville showing of Won't Back Down, which was somewhat different than the ad for both Memphis and Nashville showings (inset screenshot above). The Nashville ad was attached to the email originally sent from Ms. Lanier and forwarded to our PTO group. There is no mistaking that the ad states that the Parents Advisory Council's Leadership Taskforce "is partnering" with the Tennessee Charter Schools Association and with Students First "to host an exclusive preview" of Won't Back Down:

PAC leaders have separated themselves from claims of the partnership. I'm updating this because it seems pretty clear to me that Ms. Lanier's email included some professional advertising work by people who intended to suggest to us that the Parents Advisory Council endorsed their campaign without the permission of PAC. I'm wondering whether anyone at PAC will investigate how this happened.

Populist when convenient

What's rich about the Nashville Scene blog playing the populist card today against West End residents who don't want to see East Nashvillians riding rapid transit in their part of town: the journos' populism has been stone cold silent in response to their parent company's moving the summer event "Movies in the Park" from Centennial Park to pastoral Belle Meade after some urban anomie (apologies to Emile Durkheim) bit them last year.

Do they really expect to have any street cred in criticizing Nashville's westward patricians given what looks like their company's own garden-variety white flight from urban grit?


(Full disclosure: I have lived in the West End area and in the Five Points area of East Nashville in the past. While I have no firm allegiances, given my current status as a North Nashvillian, I agree that the more pretentious part of Nashville lies to the west).

Politically connected news media board president compares school board decision to segregationist governor

The president of the board of directors of the parent company of the Nashville Scene and the Nashville City Paper, Townes Duncan, is a charter school advocate. He is such an avid advocate that he started a PAC to elect pro-charter candidates to the school board with a family member of Mayor Karl Dean, who also happens to be a fan of charter schools. Mr. Duncan sent out an e-mail blast last June when the school board deferred consideration of the application of Great Hearts Academy, suggesting that the board was ruled by "Forces of Darkness" who place "adult needs" over student achievement.

Last night the school board, in defiance of a state order to accept the Great Hearts application, took the surprising step of denial of the Arizona-based charter school's application. Predictably, Mayor Dean indicated that the denial was illegal.

For his part, Mr. Duncan fired off a tweet that compared the Metro Nashville school board decision with the 1957 segregationist actions of Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, blocking the Little Rock Nine in order to appease racist anger at federal desegregation orders:

I guess if you are tight with this Mayor you can get away with comparing declining the application of a private corporation to come in and privatize public schools (based on the faulty, unexamined, undemonstrated logic that charter schools will stop affluent parents from pulling their kids out of Metro schools) with denying African American children their constitutional right to public education.

Charter schools are essentially "public" private schools that take applications. Hence, they can deny students access themselves free from bureaucratic obligation. But somehow, Mr. Duncan twists that reality to a level equal to the noble cause of granting free access to public education to all people irrespective of character, creed or color. Obviously, up has become down and inside has become out in the newspeak of privatized education.

Not from last night's school board meeting:
Faubus plays to all-white crowd & confederate flag

For my part, I believe Great Hearts will eventually win approval because MNPS Director Jesse Register has already started Metro Public Schools down the slippery slope of privatization. So, I don't understand the dust-up by fans and evangelists of charter schools. They are overplaying their hand with the whining. At last night's meeting, the establishment of Metro charter schools was cited several times as precedent for accepting other comers like Great Hearts. So, it's just a matter of time before Great Hearts wins this, in my opinion. But just like there is no basis for the argument that charter schools will retain wealthy parents, so there is no evidence that charters perform any better than bona fide (a.k.a. "neighborhood") public schools.

And there is no need for charter supporters to make ridiculous comparisons to civil rights history. For Mr. Duncan to take the low road of specious comparisons while Mayor Dean kicks at the decision from on high may leverage a different board decision in the future, but neither will change the realities of education or those of history.


UPDATE: And 24 hours later, the Nashville Scene editor updates to get out front on the story of his company's board president's regrettable tweets. Jump to the slow-pokey post. Not exactly breaking news.

CRIME ALERT: body found near 5th and Buchanan

From NewsChannel5:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A man mowing a lawn discovered the body of a woman in North Nashville.

The discovery came around 11 a.m. Wednesday at 5th Avenue North and Buchanan Street.

Police responded to the scene to investigate. Officials did not disclose if the woman's death could be ruled as suspicious.

Crime scene investigators were working to determine how the woman died and how long she had been dead.

It was unclear if police knew the woman's identity.

UPDATE: further media reports indicate that the woman had been murdered by means of blunt force trauma elsewhere, and then the body was dumped here.


UPDATE: Victim identified. Again, NewsChannel5 with the details:

Metro Police have identified the body of a woman that was discovered in North Nashville Wednesday.

Police said the woman was identified as 39-year-old homeless woman Stephanie K. Alexander. She appeared to have been killed by blunt force trauma.

The discovery of Alexander's body came around 11 a.m. Wednesday at 5th Avenue North and Buchanan Street. Terrence Parrish was cutting the grass and he smelled something, but said he thought it was perhaps a dead rodent or a dead snake.

When he finished mowing, Terrence found Alexander in an alley filled with weeds.

Police continue to investigate. No arrests have been made.
 

UPDATE: Jump to news of arrest.