The Heartless Receive Their Satisfaction

MSNBC reported tonight that 1,500 New Orleans police officers have been pulled off the continuing rescue efforts in order to protect property from looters. An estimated 100,000 people are still trapped by flood waters and need to be rescued.

The Turn Has Been Made In Katrina's Wake

Now that New Orleans is submerged and the Mississippi Gulf Coast is in ruins, watch the conservative media's (including conservative blogger's) turn away from people and toward property. This is how some local conservative bloggers are starting to break: re-build New Orleans in order to get the flow of construction materials to help economic recovery vs. don't re-build New Orleans because it lies below sea level. Either way the focus is more on capital than on people. The focus here and here and here and here is on the mortal sin of looting, the highest crime against property, without reference people and how or why they loot.

A couple of years ago, I attended a conference at the University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast (survived Katrina's storm surge) down in Long Beach. I shuttled back and forth down Hwy. 90 (now laying in chunks) from Gulfport and Long Beach, past Pass Christian and over St. Louis Bay to New Orleans and back again. The differences between New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast are stark: New Orleans is urban, mostly African American, largely working class to poor; the Gulf Coast seemed like a string of small towns with big houses, all white as far as I could tell, and wealthy.

I cannot help but wonder, as the discussion has turned to protecting property rather than people, whether the differences between New Orleans and the Gulf Coast drive some of the conservative turn to property. It apparently does in Steve Gill's case: apparently, he wants to send all federal aid to Biloxi and Gulfport rather than to New Orleans, but only after he's seen a couple of looters shot. In a diatribe reminiscent of old school southern lynch-mob mentality he seems to think that popping a cap in a couple of New Orleans residents would be enough to scare the rest. Obviously "continuing their celebration of virtue," Nathan and Sarah at MooreThoughts also call for gunning down New Orleans looters first and asking questions later, as does Blake Wylie at NashvilleFiles.

Perhaps once disaster conditions clear up suspected looters should be arrested and given a proper trial. But in no case should a crime against property ever be worthy of a death sentence, with or without a trial. My God, where have our priorities and "virtue" sunk if we are killing people to protect material goods or to send a message to other looters? The so-called "Culture of Life" seems to take a back seat when property and capital are behind the wheel.

We hear hurricane survivors say constantly that they are not upset about losing all of their material possessions because they can always get them back; they say that they are just thankful that their lives were spared. Yet, when it comes to property, some of us inlanders are apparently willing to start up a turkey shoot and summarily end somebody else's life over material possessions.

And I haven't even raised the question of whether some of those looters might be committing a crime in the name of staying alive in a submerged disaster area without electricity, gas, water, or telephone service. But Aunt B over at Tiny Cat Pants does that much better than I can:

It was like someone flipped a switch and now the story was going to be about looters, not about victims, when of course, those are the same people. People who lost everything in the hurricane and the flood in New Orleans are the ones looting. There aren't any outside bands of bad guys coming in to swarm down on Walmart and steal diapers and dry shoes and dry clothes and food. Those are people whose whole worlds are destroyed.
Why are we vilifying them?
[Snip]The people I saw on MSNBC and FoxNews looting were black. Partially ... this is because most of the poor people in New Orleans are black. Partially, as Atrios points out, it's because, according to the media (the AP in this case), black people "loot" and white people "find" [emphasis mine]
[Snip][F]raming it as if people who didn't leave deserved to die serves two purposes. One, it lets the rest of us continue that comfortable lie that we would have handled things differently, if something like that happened to us. In the face of unfathomable tragedy, it's sad human nature to take comfort in feeling a little smug superiority.
But, more importantly, two, it distracts us from questioning why, after the initial event no one could do anything about, is the water in New Orleans still rising? Why is there still chaos in the city? Why isn't there an enormous army of National Guard troops down there with helicopters and field kitchens and medics and the training to go into desolate urban areas and search for people?

So, even if looting is wrong, we still must distinguish those who loot to take advantage of a situation from those who loot just to stay alive or keep their family alive. That's part of what a system of justice does. However, those who focus on property rather than people don't make such distinctions.

08/31/2005, 11:55, Update: Add Bill Hobbs to the growing list of local conservative bloggers who are extolling the virtues of shooting suspected looters in order to send a message to other suspected looters. God knows we can't replace a pair of Nike shoes, so let's trade a human life for it, shall we?

Eye On The Ball, On New Orleans' City Neighborhoods (Updated)

In New Orleans urban neighborhoods, as in so many cities, poor and lower middle class folk are relegated to the cheapest, disaster-prone property. According to ABC News, a third of New Orleans residents live below the poverty level (which last time I checked was around $18,000). The poorest of the poor live south of Lake Pontchartrain. That's the much photographed area where the flood water is now up to their rooftops.

One in six of those residents do not have a car, and thus had no way out of town before Katrina moved in. 9,000 of those folk evacuated to the Super Dome, which had holes torn in its roof by Katrina. They slept on the floor and in stadium seats, only to be held in as trash stacked up around them and as moisture-saturated Dome facilities began to fail. Now, flood waters are rising to the point that they will threaten the Super Dome and those people are having to be evacuated to other facilities, according to tonight's CBS News.

Relocating 9,000 people sounds pretty daunting to me. I admit I do wonder how thin Louisiana's (as well as Mississippi's and Alabama's) National Guard is with units in Iraq. With FEMA calling this catastrophe "the most significant in American history," I imagine that evacuating people and protecting them is going to require a National Guard force of historic proportions. Thank goodness President Bush cancelled the last two days of his five-week vacation to "monitor" the situation.

BREAKING NEWS FROM ABC: Inmates at a New Orleans prison rioted in an attempt to take advantage of the catastrophe. They have taken hostages. The need for National Guard troops seems even more acute with this information.

08/30/2005, 10:00 p.m. Update: The Times-Picayune, whose off-line publishing capabilities were knocked out by the flood, is blogging their news.

Ethics And The Metro Council: Banning Meals-For-Deals Is An Appropriate First Step, But Only The First

September is upon us. That means it's time for the Metro Council to consider the question of ethics that they deferred at the end of June because the majority of them wanted to focus singularly on the budget rather than to multitask and to pass meaningful ethics legislation sooner rather than later. Unless they vote to defer it again, they are going to have to so something with their own Ethics Task Force's recommendations.

The first step at least 21 of them appear willing to take is to ban business and other private associations from providing their meals on Council nights. Unlike the current Council practice of accepting gifts over $25.00 without publicly reporting those gifts, the free meal program is not a huge influence-peddling mechanism. One free dinner from Group X is not nearly the same as accepting free Titans game tickets from Group Y's Personal Seat License or Season Suite arrangement. Therefore, the biggest ethics test for the Council is not this one. The biggest one is down the road: Council-at-Large member David Briley's bill requiring the Council's public accountability on gifts over $25.00.

In the meantime, I endorse the current bill that would ban free meals from private groups. It is an appropriate first step that at least indicates that members are willing to appear above reproach. I am disappointed to see that groups with whom I am sympathetic--like the Arts Commission, neighborhood associations, the education association, and Tying Nashville Together--chose to participate in the meal-for-deals program. I understand the logic of tapping into power networks, but the propriety of the tap-lines should have been questioned. Rather than raising red flags and asking hard questions, many groups just went along for the ride.

Having said that, I hasten to add that banning meals-for-deals does not go far enough as an ethical corrective. The Ethics Task Force did not even bother with it, because it represents such a piddling amount of money compared to unreported gifts to Council members. I hope that Council members Michael Craddock and John Summers and the other 21 sponsors of this bill aren't using it as a bone thrown out to us so that they can say they voted for meaningful ethics reform, while at the same time they both riddle Council member Briley's ethics bill and decimate the recommendations of the Ethics Task Force. Council member Charlie Tygard's resolution to defer ethics discussions to September was not a hopeful sign in June; even so, let's hope the meals-for-deals ban is a portent of important reform to come, rather than simply window dressing to cover the unchecked flow of gifts to Council members.

Is It Safe To Come Out, Yet?

The North End seems to have weathered Tropical Storm (now Tropical Depression) Katrina and come out unscathed. Only some small fallen limbs I saw laying around the neighborhood on my drive-about this morning. Not enough rain to indicate flooding beyond those run-off problem points we have every rain.

At 3:00 a.m. this morning the cable signal cut out on the televisions. I put on my rain gear and went outside for a while. Wind was gusting impressively and every once in a while I would hear a high-pitched whining like a combination of a car that needed its belts replaced and a siren. It was kind of eerie to hear, and nothing I have encountered in Salemtown makes a noise like that. Rain seemed to swirl dust-devilishly on top of the pavement and street signs swivelled and rocked back and forth during the strongest gusts. Clouds were barreling across the sky southeast-to-northwest in a matter of seconds.

If anybody else knows of any damage in the neighborhood, please weigh in.

Municipal Net On The Way For Nashville?

According to today's Nashville City Paper, At-Large Council member David Briley is going to introduce a Council resolution on September 20 to create a task force to look into the feasibility of developing a municipal high-speed network. I support that resolution.

This news along with recent word that Google might be working toward building a free nationwide Wi-Fi network is promising, especially for those of us who think we pay Comcast and other private providers too much money for mediocre service. At least these prospects might get the small number of corporate providers in gear to try and make themselves better businesses, rather than sitting back and complacently limiting our choices to either speed or price.

Tropical Storm Katrina Seems Headed Straight For North-By-Northwest Nashville

Made my last minute rounds before the outer bands moved in. Picked up extra batteries, case of drinking water, and filled up the gas tank. Strapped everything down outside the house. Checked flashlights and gathered candles. Wish I would have bought a chain saw just in case large old trees come down. But I did hear that wind gusts are predicted at 30 to 40 mph overnight and tomorrow rather than the 70 mph predicted this morning. Ready or not here she comes.

Nashville Pastor First Makes Excuses And Then Misleads About Pat Robertson's Wish For Assassination

Jerry Sutton, whose Two Rivers Baptist Church hosted Just-Us Sunday II (or as Bill Maher put it on Real Time recently, "Justice Sunday II, Electric Boogaloo") appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews a few days ago and he defended Pat Robertson's advocation of assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez by first minimizing Robertson's intentions and then completely denying that Robertson said "assassination," even though Robertson apologized for saying "assassination" the day before. Some might construe the denial as lying on Rev. Sutton's part, but I'll leave that to your judgment. You will of course remember that lying breaks one of the Ten Commandments so prominently displayed at Two Rivers during Just-Us Sunday II.

Here is a partial transcript of the debate between Sutton and Matthews (via the Church-State Network):

MATTHEWS: I want to start with the Reverend Jerry Sutton, who is an evangelical minister. And he's a wonderful host to us when we went down to visit his great church down there in Nashville. What do you -- what should we make of Pat Robertson when he says one day, go kill that guy, and, the next day, says, never mind, like he is Gilda Radner saying, you know, never mind? Should we take him seriously?
SUTTON: Chris, I think that, in the situation here, that Pat was speaking off-the-cuff. Actually, he was speaking as political commentary. I don't -- from what I read in the transcript -- I didn`t see the show. I read the transcript. He sure seemed to me to be someone who was basically speaking as a frustrated American, more than an evangelical leader.
[crosstalk]
MATTHEWS: But didn't he say 23 times, something like that, that this action ought to be taken? It wasn't -- it wasn't really off-the-cuff, was it? This was a show that he could have corrected at any point during the show. He could have said, "I didn't mean to say, kill him.' " And he never did. He said "assassinate."
SUTTON: Well, I didn't hear the word "assassinate."
MATTHEWS: Yes, he used it.
[crosstalk]
SUTTON: I saw the word "take him out." Now, what I see here, though, is -- the question is this. Is the guy a danger and is he a terrorist -- a proponent of terrorism? And if he is, I mean, that needs to be looked at carefully, but Pat Robertson's not the
person to look at it carefully, and he's not the one who makes those kind of decisions.
MATTHEWS: Well, speaking for evangelicalism on the program tonight -- and I'm putting you in a big-time catbird seat here, Reverend Sutton, but Christianity, does it believe in assassination?
SUTTON: No, it doesn't. As a matter of fact, to talk about killing somebody because it's the best thing to do -- what I read was that he said it's better to take him out -- quote, unquote -- than to go to war against him, his country, for $200 billion. And it looked like he was framing it in an economic position. But, from my perspective, I mean, what he said was wrong. I think it was unwise. And if he had to do it over again, I would hope that he would be more careful in what he said.

Unless I miss my guess, Rev. Sutton even pulls a flip-flop at the end of that exchange.
On a related note, Jim Wallis, who will be at Vanderbilt on October 13 and 14 to deliver the Cole Lectures, was less evasive and misleading in attempting to hold Robertson responsible when he wrote this week that Robertson put biblical ethics and the Ten Commandments aside in advocating assassination. Wallis also called Robertson "an embarrassment to the church." Given Jerry Sutton's deceptive defense of Robertson, I would have to say that the local pastor is no less embarrassing to the Nashville religious community.

The Grace of Doing Nothing

When we do nothing we are also affecting the course of history. The problem we face is often that of choice between various kinds of inactivity rather than of choice between action and inaction.

--H. Richard Niebuhr, The Grace of Doing Nothing

Various parties, including the Tennessean, are getting riled up at Reverend Fred Phelps and his sect coming to Middle Tennessee to protest at the funerals of slain soldiers. Radio DJs, bloggers, and organizations used the weekend to whip up anti-Phelps emotions and they encouraged people to turn out at the funeral for a "counter demonstration." Mobilization seemed to be this weekend's watchword.

I believe that responding this way is a mistake. In fact, I believe that responding to Rev. Fred at all is a mistake.

I believe that those who publicly decry Fred Phelps and show up to wave placards in his face are playing right into his hands. While they think that may be beating his hatred down with sheer numbers and strong feelings, I believe that they are wrong. Numbers and feelings don't cow Rev. Fred. I believe that a popular outpouring against his crowd is exactly what Rev. Fred is hoping for.

Some who have known him very closely say that Fred Phelps is a man who "suffers from a mental illness that leaves him unsatisfied with life unless he can be responsible for the suffering of other human beings." And from what I have seen of Rev. Fred, the more suffering he causes, the better. This is guy whose church is held in the basement of his home with some of his immediate family members. Those are meager proportions, but hyper-Calvinists believe in an elect predestined by God for heaven over against the evil world, itself predestined by God to hell. The elect are an exclusive group, and Rev. Fred's family seems about exclusive as you can get. The strongly judgmental bent of hyper-Calvinism fits cleanly with the sadism said to be Rev. Fred's signature. He has created a siege mentality among his band and every time they go out to protest they call it an "epic."

Consequently, every detractor or heckler crossing their path is validation to them that the world is headed to hell. It is proof of their very message. And if a couple of Phelpsians suffer ridicule or even assault from hotheads on the other side, then all the better for Rev. Fred. That interfaces with both his purported sadism and the badge-of-honor mentality of the elect, who suffer the world's slings and arrows precisely because they are the elect.

Hence, they strike out even more demonstrably the more attention they get. They also seize on the latest high profile events to attach their cause to. They even tied their names to the Cindy Sheehan protest declaring both Ms. Sheehan and George W. Bush as equally "Hell-bound." So, when both mainstream and alternative media sources demonize the Phelpsians and glorify the counter-demonstrators, they in effect embolden Rev. Fred, who is even now probably gearing up for his next circus elsewhere. The Tennessean article is positive press to them. They may also post their own pictures of counter-demonstrators at the this weekend's funerals. They may use them to argue that the "hundreds of people" who showed up to shout Rev. Fred down are hypocrites in their own "hatemongering," as they have before.

So, whenever Rev. Fred shows up in Nashville again--and he will--I would like to recommend H. Richard Niebuhr's idea that there is a grace in doing nothing in response. Inactivity or choosing not to react may have political affects we had not considered in our rush to demonstrate against such hatred. Action in the form of counter-demonstrations are ultimately destined to fail, because they simply encourage Rev. Fred to try to make people on all sides go on suffering. There is a time for counter-demonstrations, especially when those protests call for greater risk and sacrifice than driving your car out somewhere and holding up signs or yelling at some inconsequential pastor from Kansas.

But there is also a time not to respond to hatred. Rev. Fred's brand of hatred is obvious to everyone. He's did us a favor long ago by calling attention to his hatred, which is obvious even to children. We don't need to see it over again to see it for what it is and oppose it. We can see the dragons we are up against with his band. But those dragons become more furious and more winged the more we publicly contest them. So, we should consider the "kinds of inactivity" as our response to those dragons.

Harder to see are the more insidious forms of hatred and discrimination by groups much more mainstream; groups like right-wing evangelical Christians who say they don't hate gays and lesbians, but then turn around and compare them to child molesters and murderers. More difficult is the concealed contempt of those who refuse to concede that gays and lesbians deserve equal access to the same economic and political benefits of marriage that straight people currently enjoy. Such hatred is much harder to spot, more entrenched in dominant culture, more costly to confront, and hence, worthier of counter-demonstrations if we are truly serious about confronting hatred.

Fred Phelps, on the contrary, is only worthy of the grace of doing nothing.

The Good, The Bad, And The Bureaucratic

The Good: I was totally, but pleasantly surprised to see a Metro Water official show up in front of my house last Wednesday morning after Tuesday night's Wastewater meeting, after which several of us spoke with Public Information Officer Sonia Harvat (tel.: 862-4494; e-mail: sonia.harvat@nashville.gov) in order to get Metro's response to water run-off problems in various parts of Salemtown. (Shannahs relates her post-meeting experience here with Metro Water's responsiveness to a water run-off problem on 4th Ave., requiring the imput of the brown-clad UPS guy, too). I told Ms. Shervat that last fall, after repairing a sewer line in front of my house, the pavers did not level the new asphalt they put down against the old asphalt. As a result, water backed up at spots in front of my house depositing silt and, during the winter, road salt and sand, which made the curbside parking more unpaved than paved. I also let her know that in the spring I shoveled and removed a wheelbarrow full of salt and sand from the curb. I never expected such quick turn around, and my guess is that the amount of problems reported and/or criticism fielded the evening before must have made an impression.

The Bad: After inspecting the newer asphalt patch and listening to me recount the drainage problems for several minutes on Wednesday morning, the Metro Water official told me that he was not sure that the problem could be fixed. That's not what I wanted to hear. He said that he would check with Public Works to see if the run-off channel could be "milled," but he seemed to hedge. He told me that he was not sure that milling was possible without creating more drainage problems below the curb. I tried to gently remind him that the sewer workers were responsible for the problem, since they repaired the street, which didn't seem to impress him at all.

The Bureaucratic: He responded that the real problem was unplanned and uncoordinated growth in the neighborhood. He told me that the Salemtown sewer lines were 100 years old and that in some cases there was no line left and that dirt was the only thing channeling sewerage. He blamed the developers and he blamed the lack of planning on the government side. He pointed down the street to some duplexes that were being built and told me that the sewer problems were due to developments like that one, where two houses were put on a lot designed for one house. He suggested that the problem might not be fixed until the street was re-paved, which might not be until 2010. That wasn't good enough for me. I just wanted the water run-off to be fixed before the winter arrives and requires more salt and sand to be dumped in the road.

Postscript: I don't totally disagree with the Metro Water official that development needs to be balanced by proper planning. I'm also not naive or dishonest enough to suggest that a free market could solve these development problems. But it's like a builder told me later when I related this story to him: many of these officials are less interested in proper planning than they are in protecting their own turfs and making sure that they are not blamed for problems, even if they are responsible for them. "Proper planning" is thrown up as a smokescreen to obscure accountability. That's the risk and danger of bureaucracies, whether public or private. The official's response to me might have been honest but we all need to keep in mind that he could simply be responding to a problem by shielding himself from blame and responsibility. The builder told me that Metro Water charged him $500.00 per duplex to hook up the lines. I don't know where that money goes, but that knowledge sure cut into the credibility of the Water official's complaints about new builds on old properties. I'll keep an eye on this situation and I plan to follow up with Ms. Shervat until somebody does something to fix the water run-off problems.

At Neuhoff In East Germantown At Dusk

2019 UPDATE: the largest building (in the background of the second photo I took above) is on fire today, August 29. That building is reportedly vacant. The Nashville Fire Department tweeted the photo below.

The Neuhoff Complex was bought earlier in 2019 by an Atlanta developer for over $26 million. All of the occupants in the complex had reportedly been told that their leases would not be renewed at the time of sale.

Pushing 10,000

Enclave has nearly reached 10,000 total pageloads. When I wrote my six-month anniversary entry less than 3 weeks ago, I had just hit the 7,000 pageload mark. 3 weeks since equals 3,000 more pageloads, and it puts Enclave at a rarified threshold--for a hyper-local blog in its first year--much sooner than expected. Back on August 9, I thought if I might be able to reach 10,000 before Christmas, I would be fortunate. Never did I assume that Enclave would reach the magic number before the month was out.

I want to make sure that I express my thanks to all those who stopped in to check my little hyper-local blog out, especially those of you who keep coming back.

More Crye Leike Controversy, Updated: Formal Complaint May Be Filed With the Tennessee Real Estate Commission Against Terry Rymar

Readers who have returned to the comments section of this week's Crye Leike entries during the overnight hours will have noticed that ShannahS has announced her intention on Enclave to file a formal complaint to the Tennessee Real Estate Commission concerning Crye Leike Realtor Terry Rymar's allegedly questionable and possibly unethical business practices in Salemtown.

ShannahS maintains that she was told directly by Ms. Rymar that a new property "listing has a contract on it for the asking [price of] $187,000.00, but that it needed a mere $50,000 to rehab the house" on 5th Ave., North. ShannahS also says that Ms. Rymar stated that ShannahS could then turn around and "easily resell for $320,000." ShannahS tells me that she believes that Ms. Rymar has misrepresented the rehab and resell figures; she also says that Ms. Rymar is unethical for giving home owners definite figures that they can get for their homes and for giving buyers definite figures that they can get for rehabilitating homes that they buy.

ShannahS also tells me that she believes Ms. Rymar mislead her on the square footage of the house in question and that Ms. Rymar told her that the only work that needed to be done was gutting and upgrading the house's kitchen even though ShannahS knows that a previous buyer's inspector found a cockroach infestation and mold problems, which are unfavorable and poor conditions Ms. Rymar did not mention in their conversation about the property, even though their mention would probably affect the price of the property.

I have already maintained that I have heard and now believe that Terry Rymar preys on the wishes of long-time home owners here in Salemtown by promising them inflated, exaggerated returns on their real estate investments. It's time for somebody from the State to investigate this matter and if necessary either discipline Ms. Rymar or put the continuing allegations (which I've heard from buyers, sellers, and builders) to rest.

08/27/2005, 10:35 a.m., Update: Check out Benjamin VH's blog for recent conversations between neighbors concerned about Terry Rymar and their perceptions of the current controversy. See his comment section in particular.

Morgan Park Renovation Coming, Reports Tennessean

The Tennessean's Nancy Deville reports this morning that Morgan Park is due for $200,000 in renovations over the next few months. Those renovations include: "a walking trail, gardens along the trail, modified baseball field and new playground," which are funded by the Parks Department's Parks and Greenways Master Plan.


At the Central Wastewater meeting on Tuesday, I had the opportunity to speak with Germantown patriarch Ernest Campbell, who suggested to me that one use of Salemtown's block grant might be for the renovation of Morgan Park, a goal that he and his wife have been pursuing for awhile.

With this news that the Parks Department is funding renovations, spending block grant funds on Morgan Park might not be an option since those funds have to go to projects that are currently not funded by Metro. The slated renovations, which include long-overdue upgrades to the Morgan Park Community Center, could ostensibly move Morgan Park further down the list of priorities of possible Salemtown enhancements, since there could be a host of other needs around the neighborhood that Metro is not planning for. Then there is also the issue of boundaries: Germantown expanded its boundary to Hume St. not too long ago to encompass Morgan Park. Since the block grant area falls north of Hume, I'm not sure grant money could go to Morgan Park. These are questions I will raise at the Block Grant Citizen Advisory Committee meetings beginning September 13.

In the meantime, our venerable old park in the North End is due some lavish and extended attention, so I am glad to see Metro spending $200,000 on Morgan Park. That is tax money well-spent. Salemtown Neighbors partnered with Morgan Park Community Center back when the facility needed some attention and we'll be there to enjoy the facility upgrades.

"Camel on the ceiling. C ... c ... C."

Rat Pellets To Neighborhoods

Yesterday I intimated that the mainstream print media pretty much ignored the August 23 proceedings of the Central Wastewater Treatment meeting at Neuhoff, which Enclave exhaustively chronicled. Neither of the Nashville daily newspapers gave any indication that a reporter was present for the meeting.

No stories appeared in either the Tennessean or the Nashville City Paper with details about the meeting other than Nancy Deville's Tennessean piece that came out before the proceedings. The Tennessean didn't even mention the meeting yesterday; not even in the North Nashville section of the paper.

The NCP published a piece yesterday by Craig Boerner, which looked more like an advertisement for Metro Water Services than a report on the meeting. It is the standard puff piece that probably followed a press release. It simply describes what the new biosolids buildings will do once built, as told by Metro Water's communication liaison, Sonia Harvat (who was also interviewed by Deville beforehand). Boerner did not even reference the meeting, let alone give any neighborhood responses, choosing instead to channel Harvat on how the fertilizer produced by the new human waste facility would resemble "rat pellets."

Reporter Bill Harless, who covers neighborhoods for the NCP, was silent on neighborhood response to the meeting. I understand that he was covering the Brentwood City Commission on Monday night; he published something on that yesterday. And it looks like while he was there he milked a second story on a Brentwood police charity for today's edition, but he wrote nothing on the North End response to the wastewater meeting, either before or after the meeting.

All in all, the print media's showing on this important meeting was truly poor and barely extant.

Wastewater Wasting No Time On Construction, But Are They Wasting Our Time?

As not reported in any of today's mainstream print media, last night at the Neuhoff Complex about 40 people met to listen to and discuss the plans for Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. The footprint for the new campus appears in the picture at the right. 2nd Ave., North is the street running from the bottom to the top at the extreme left-hand side of the diagram. The Cumberland River would lie to the right of the picture, out of frame. The sidewalk running parallel to the right of 2nd Ave. is part of a new greenway to be installed connecting the greenway around MetroCenter to the North End. The managers of the project said that trees and other greenery will be planted along the new greenway. The various buildings around the campus will house the new biosolids process, which will include digestion and heat-drying. That process will convert toxic sludge--some days stinking up the neighborhood due to a current system that was suitable to the early 1950s, according to managers--to usable biosolids for fertilizer.

Managers told the attending residents of Germantown, East Germantown, and Salemtown that their committee had considered various options for a design based on the architecture of the neighborhood around the plant site. They decided to go with a brick structure for the main building on the campus that they said is consistent with the character of all three neighborhoods. When asked whether any actual neighbors from the North End served on the committee that picked the design, managers answered that one person from the North End was shown the plans, but that person did not have the power of suasion with the committee.

One long-time Germantown resident responded that he thought the building looked "like a prison." The pastor from a Salemtown church said he thought the building looked like the "top of a guitar," which he claimed would fit Nashville as "Music City." A couple of Salemtown residents told me afterwards that they were more concerned with stopping the odor problems than with architecture. Prominent North End developer, Skip Lawrence of Lawrence Bros. LLC, suggested that domed holding tanks be moved farther back behind the main building to enhance the neighborhoods' line-of-sight to the campus. Neighbors seemed quite prepared to provide a parcel of input, and they even got into a tank paint color discussion at one point. One could hardly blame their enthusiasm, given that the managers billed one purpose of the event as getting feedback from the community on their designs. This meeting seemed to be the only opportunity we have for input, since there were no residents serving on their Sludge Solution Committee.

The construction timeline starts next month with demolition and loud pile-driving which will start before 8:00 in the morning and will end before suppertime. Demolition is scheduled to run through the end of 2007. General construction is scheduled to run through the fall of 2007, and project completion is expected spring of 2008. In the meantime, other odor controlling processes that I have described elsewhere are being initiated.

My overall impression was that the meeting was pretty much what I expected. I was pleased to hear that a greenway was going in, and the fact that it will be across the fenceline from the biosolids buildings indicates to me that the managers are confident that the odor problems will be solved. Aesthetics are important to me, but placid olfactory nerves are a higher priority in this case. I was also happy that the managers assured some of us Salemtown folk with water drainage problems at our storm sewers that those problems would be addressed.

I was unpleasantly surprised that the managers seemed defensive at times. My impression was that they were thrown off and put off by complaints they were fielding from residents about the odors and about previous promises to blunt the stink before the last major upgrade to the Central Plant. Did they not prepare themselves for critical feedback? At one point, one of the project managers commented rather cavalierly that the purpose of the plant is not to manufacture waste but to dispose of it. That came off as premeditatedly callous in all of its self-evidence to me.

As far as I can tell, Metro Water has not attempted to build a neighborly working arrangement with the enclaves at the North End. Skip Lawrence made what I considered to be the most significant and constructive recommendation to the managers when he suggested that they host a get-together or a cook-out for their neighbors for the simple purpose of letting them get to know the people of Metro Water. I agreed with him that it would go a long way to helping their public relations in our community. Brooking the stench would be easier than it currently is if I knew that I had face-to-face relationships with the people who work right next door on solving the problem. This meeting did not have to be as rocky as it was; but some neighbors obviously feel that Metro Water is not being a good neighbor.

My perception was reinforced by one of the managers who deftly dodged a question that I put to the meeting organizers. I simply asked whether it was true, as one Metro Water supervisor previously told me, that days after holidays would be the smelliest days since truck drivers, contracted to ship out sludge to landfills, did not work those days. I got a bureaucratic response that "atmospheric conditions"--which Metro Water does not control--were the primary cause of odor problems on certain days. I was not satisfied with that answer. After the meeting I cornered the guy to ask him whether the previous supervisor had simply pulled the holiday explanation out of his butt (I did leave the double-entendre out of my actual question). At that point, the manager conceded that indeed contracted truck drivers did not work on holidays and that we should expect stronger odors afterwards. He also let me know that the truck drivers do not work on weekends and that we should expect Mondays to be bad as well.

Yet, he could not bring himself to admit that in front of the group. So, I ask you: should we wonder why there are a few tensions between Metro Water and some residents in the North End?

Crye Leike A Waterfall With Faeries

Kevin Newman sent me the art on the right. In it he pays tribute to Nashville Is Talking Producer Brittney Gilbert's creative title used to refer NiT's readership to my blog entry where I discuss my issues with Crye Leike's fanciful, yet sinister illustration of a skinny house they intend to build in Salemtown.

The house is not so skinny in Kevin's illustration, but the gentle waterfall and the mischievous faeries do capture the mythico-idyllic proportions that must have been intended in the original drawing.

Thank you, Kevin, for capturing the essence of what this dwelling just might be; a truly magical place where the world is remythologized once again ... at least until the giant Monty Python foot appears and stomps it down.

Or Maybe The Better Term Is "Crye-Leike Hell"

Crye-Leike patrols 5th Ave. today. The green SUV is the only vehicle I see more in the North End than the ice cream vans that also swoop down and occupy our fair neighborhood during daylight hours.

This realtor is relentless! She is on Salemtown's old school like white on rice. Buyer beware, but also buyer be smart.

Some Realtors Can Make You Crye-Leike Heck

John H. over at Salem's Lots beat me to the punch on this property. But there is much more to say about it. It is a house-yet-to-be-built on the 6th Ave. property where tires were illegally dumped, which Enclave and WKRN covered months ago. And John is right: there is no background to any house in Salemtown like the one in the picture. (In fact, the picture is eerily Gilliamesque such that I expect the big Monty Python foot to descend from the top of the frame and stamp the house and the pastoral fakery behind it).

In reality, though, the house is slated to sit on a plot that is 20'x180'. As I pointed out previously, the lot is not actually 1618, but 1618 1. At some point, 1618 was subdivided. The builders, who have already gone to the Planning Commission for a variance to build the house as wide and as close to property lines as possible, are squeezing this house on a 20' wide lot. So not only is the "Fall In New England" backdrop unreal, but the scale of the house is also deceptive in the picture. By my calculations, I'm figuring a house like that sitting on a 20' wide lot would resemble something like the picture to the right and not the one above and to the left.

The tall thin house in New England is being offered in Salemtown by Crye-Leike for $299,000, and one of its amenities includes a "gated community." I don't see a gate or fence in the picture and the last time I checked, Salemtown is not a gated community, so I'm not sure whether the property will be gated or whether Crye-Leike has come up with a scheme to gate our neighborhood.

I am sure that Crye-Leike's Realtor, Terry Rymar, has earned somewhat of a reputation among some of us here for aggressively speculating properties and real estate prices. I'm not surprised that she is asking $299,000 for a tall, thin house. I have heard that Ms. Rymar has convinced some long time residents in older houses in need of some repair to put their houses on the market at prices comparable to and more than the newer in-fills that are being built around Salemtown and Germantown. I am told that her sales pitch is oversimplistic and often compares apples to oranges in the name of driving up the price (for instance, merely comparing the number of rooms between houses--in both new in-fills and older houses--without reference to the differences in condition of houses).

She dropped off a flier to all of the old house owners with these comments:

Property Owners in Germantown & Salemtown are currently in an advantageous position to sell their property. As the surge in renovation increases, the demand for property is escalating. "We are needing more properties to list for buyers to choose from." If you are ready to sell give us a call today!

In some cases, those houses are in need of repair to the studs. In others, those houses can only be torn down. (One builder who wanted to buy a Crye-Leike offering that contained what were essentially shacks that could not be renovated told me that he was not going to pay Ms. Rymar's asking price of $150,000 to buy shacks to tear down and build something else).

I don't object to Ms. Rymar's wish to make money. As a property owner and neighborhood resident, I do object to sharkish behavior that artificially drives up real estate values in the short-term (which is the only term in which Ms. Rymar makes her money) and sacrifices slower, measured, and more natural long-term growth. One neighbor told me that she confronted Ms. Rymar and told her as much one day when the realtor was showing properties to potential buyers. I wish I could have been there just to witness that.

08/23/2005, 2:25 p.m. Update: The Metro Planning Department actually gives the 6th Ave. property 5 more feet in width than Crye-Leike gives itself. To the right I have revised my adjusted mock up of the house accordingly.