Media Starting to Stand Up to Cunningham and TTR

Kudos go to the the Tennessean for finally standing up to Ben Cunningham's urban myth and his comparisons of taxpayers to rats leaving a sinking ship. They mention some of the other reasons for outmigration that I cited yesterday. They also raise the question of the selective application of the myth to property taxes rather than to regressive and conservative-preferred sales taxes:

[I]f property taxes drive people from place to place, shouldn't the same logic hold true for other taxes, such as those on goods and services, [MTSU researcher David] Penn wonders.
"If you look at the sales tax rate, the sales tax rate one would pay in Nashville is actually lower than Murfreesboro — a little, not a lot — but it's lower," Penn said. In Murfreesboro the combined state and local sales tax rate is 9.75 cents on the dollar, as opposed to 9.25 cents in Nashville.
"If you look just at the sales tax rate and argue that that's the most important thing, then from that you would expect to see people moving from Murfreesboro to Davidson, and that's not happening," Penn said.

In contrast to the Tennessean, this morning's Nashville City Paper merely pits Cunningham against Metro's legal opinions. No questioning the veracity of Cunningham's urban myth there. TTR gets a free pass in the NCP.

Both stories provide anecdotal individual interview responses from TTR supporters who want less urban services. They can be easily cancelled out by anecdotes from city guys like me: I want my urban services and I want them run efficiently. I understand that takes revenue and constant oversight by voters. I'm not moving and I don't want TTR, suburbanites, or voters pissed off at the Titans deal trying to strip away the first-responder, public works, and police security services that I am entitled to as an urban taxpayer. If they don't like their services, they can go to Bucksnort.

On the Crime Front: Looks Like Progress in Salemtown

On my way home this afternoon, I drove by a widely purported drug house in Salemtown (5th Av., north of Garfield) and saw that the house was empty, and work crews were stripping the vinyl siding, breaking windows, and gutting the dry wall. It looks like the suspected drug dealers are gone and that someone is renovating the house, which would be great news!

Blue-Dog Wal-mart Degrees and the Absence of Any Foresight

The Governor's proposal of "Wal-Mart degrees" has to be at once the high-water mark of Blue-Dog Democratic initiative and thus the low-water mark of general Democratic vision. The political head of the state party seems to totally lack any kind of prescience or passion for a better life with greater opportunities for all. Governor Bredesen appears to be content with a workforce that simply gets by in the service sector, while the middle class shrinks and the divide between poor and rich grows.

Some might call this "Wal-Mart degrees" initiative lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness; I would compare it to holding a wickless candle but trying to light the wax regardless. It is a regressive and ineffective agenda for our future. It is a concession to the status quo and to the corporate guardians of this mess that we are in. It is digging the hole deeper for many families who need real opportunities, rather than half-baked ones. Worst of all, it may show that the Republicans no longer have to worry about the Tennessee Democrats, whose hope for the future seems to have gone belly-up.

Parks Department Waiting Game

If you are like me, you are wondering, after a year has passed, where are the $200,000-worth of improvements to Morgan Park that were promised to have happened over a period of a few months? We were supposed to see a greenway spur and greenway extension through Germantown, new gardens, modifications to the baseball field, and a brand spanking new playground. All we have seen so far are some minor upgrades to the Community Center, some attractive old bushes pulled up by the roots, and some small saplings placed in straight line rows after some random old hackberries were cut down. It does not look like $200,000-worth of improvements to me. In fact, calling the removal of stately bushes and the planting of tiny little trees "improvements" is charitable, in a bend-backwards-until-your-spine-snaps kind of way. I'm not impressed so far.

Some Germantown folk told me that the Parks Department told them that they would be working on greenway connectors this summer. Well, the summer is almost over and there is no evidence of any greenway work. So, I took it upon myself to follow up with Metro Parks and to find out what gives. Here is the response I got back from Director Roy Wilson:

Our designers (Gresham Smith and Carol Ashworth) are working on the alignment of the greenway trail from Downtown to MetroCenter and the spur section through Morgan Park and are putting together the bid documents so we can begin construction. We have also designed the new playground and are securing estimates for re-fencing and site amenities around the park. In this year's proposed capital funding, we are proposing $400,000 for renovation of the center. There is no holding pattern, but we are trying to get all of it pulled together.

Therefore, we are playing the waiting game around Morgan Park. Unfulfilled promises linger and await designers, bidders, and worst of all approval by the Metro Council. We've seen what bad things happen to budgets that fall into Metro Council hands. So, at this point, anything can happen, but one thing is assured: it will continue to be a "few months" at the very least before the improvements of Morgan Park commence. Let's hope we are not still waiting next August.

Tuesday's Canard Is Full of Crap

Today's Nashville City Paper promulgates the knee-jerk, sky-is-falling fatalism of the Tennessee Tax Revolt (TTR):

[Ben] Cunningham said he believes higher property taxes are spurring Nashvillians to move out of the county. "If you look at migration patterns over the last ten years, its [sic] very clear that people are voting with their feet and moving out of Davidson County to the doughnut counties, into Williamson and Sumner and Rutherford and those counties. Or new people coming into the area are choosing not to move to Davidson County, they're choosing to move to these other counties," Cunningham said.

What is "very clear" is that TTR will stoop to broadcast any urban myth that discourages any tax, anytime, anywhere. If it means more signatures for their petition, defamation of urban life is no object to TTR. And blatantly arguing that Nashville is hemorrhaging residents constitutes a false verbal assault on our community; one which should not go unchecked.

So, it is time to debunk Cunningham's fable with some previously published facts:

• People leaving cities is not news. It has been a post-Depression, post-WWII phenomenon that was most appropriately entitled, "White Flight." Race was the first cause of our overly Caucasian suburban growth. Race got the ball rolling.
• Now people leaving urban areas for suburbs give various rationales for doing so. Some include taxes, some don't. Reasons include: 1) better schools, which will require higher taxes as outmigration increases size; 2) lower crime, which also requires revenue influx to maintain; and 3) the ability to buy more property for the same money. That last one is the cost-benefit trade-off for outmigration. Land in all urban areas, not just Nashville (which is considered one of the most competitive urban markets in the country), is more expensive than in the suburbs and in the ex-urbs. It stands to reason that you can buy more land the farther you are willing to commute. The cost-benefit trade-off for moving closer in is paying less money and personal time for transportation costs.
• Relatively low gas prices and affordable automobiles throughout much of the 20th Century gave suburbanites a mode for flight. Of course, that is all changing now, and with a vengeance.
• The growth of the suburban counties around Davidson is no different than the growth of suburbia everywhere, because of greater demand and higher density closer in. According to market principles, if there is a massive flight away from Downtown Nashville, then urban real estate prices should go down, not up, as demand weakens. Yet, urban real estate prices continue to trend up. That makes it tougher for lower class residents who are squeezed by higher sales taxes, higher wheel taxes, and their inability, unlike upper middle class Nashvillians, to move to outlying suburbs.
• Lower class residents stand less of a chance moving to a Franklin suburb than they do surviving in Davidson County. Don't let conservatives convince you that lower class residents are moving out in droves for lower taxes. That's just their worst nightmare. If people are moving to surrounding counties from the Metropolitan areas, then greater demand will be placed on government services in those areas, which in turn would call for higher taxes. The logic is self-defeating. I already intimated this point, but it needs to be iterated.
• Many suburbs are absolutely NIMBY about social services, which are disproportionately borne by urban communities. When urban neighborhoods are oversaturated with services that bring in folks facing transitional stages who usually do not live in the same neighborhood, it spurs greater outmigration to neighborhoods that have fewer or no social services. If services were more equally distributed between city and suburb, then we would see a corresponding slowing of outmigration.
• There are other variables that critics ignore in their attack on taxes. Population growth leads to upper middle and upper class "overflow" from urban into suburban areas. Gentrification and its sibling, "in-filling," are exploding in Davidson County like in other metropolitan areas. These are almost exclusively middle class processes of revitalization of urban neighborhoods. If the middle class were not returning or staying in Davidson County, then these processes would not occur at all, let alone proliferate.
• Last but not least: the idea that suburbs provide all their services without someone paying for it is itself a myth. Remember Spring Hill's cut of property taxes to zero while still providing quality services for their residents? Somebody pays for it, and that somebody is the State of Tennessee, you and me. That means that Spring Hill is making it even more expensive to live in Nashville, just by accepting "state-shared" money and cutting their property taxes. And then they have the nerve to treat urban life as a patsy to attract more people to live in the 'burbs and to increase their tax base!

Ben Cunningham may fight against all taxation to his heart's content. But as a proud Nashvillian, I have to say that I wish he would leave our city out of his urban myths.

Tennessee's "Character Cities"

I write quite a bit about values and I believe that we should not cede them to conservatives. While I have engaged the subject of character less than values, I feel just as strongly that progressives should be intentional about character. The root of the English word "character" is the Greek word for a mark impressed on coins; such an enduring mark gives distinction of one from another.

So, it is with some interest that I have been reading about cities that have either adopted curriculum or received help from the International Association of Character Cities (IACC). After reading a Texas Observer article on one such community, I was impressed by how the conservative emphasis on character confuses character with unquestioning submission to authority. That is not surprising, since the IACC is a division of ultraconservative evangelist Bill Gothard's controversial "Character Training Institute."*

It is ironic that the conservative interpretation of character has little to do with distinction or uniqueness and more to do with obedience and conformity. The conservatives are also just plain wrong in defining character by the extremes of dominion and submission; Aristotle, the classical father of character development, maintained that character had to do with balance or hitting a mean between extremes. Hence, extremes of dominion and submission actually enslaved and eventually killed character. So, the extremist view taken by these "Character Cities" is more perilous than healthy for character development. And one has to wonder about the agenda of so-called "Character Councils" in some of these cities.

Are there any Tennessee cities listed as IACC-affiliated "Character Cities"? Indeed. They include: Elizabethton, which is in far east Tennessee and Hohenwald, which is about 100 miles south of Nashville. Keep an eye out, though. They might be looking for other local communities to recruit.


*Bill Gothard is a professional theorist on how family units ought to work; the problem is he lacks experience: he neither is married nor has children. He maintains that wives should submit to their husbands and he came up with the analogy of husbands as hammers, driving nails (their wives) into their children (a.k.a. "wood"). Does that sound like the idea of an exemplar of good character? By the way, he is also popular in home-schooling circles.

BREAKING: Police Report Incident Involving Armed Suspect At 5th and Church

Just got word from the police that there was some kind of incident involving an armed suspect at the corner of 5th Av. and Church St. and that they are currently looking for the suspect. Police encourage neighbors to stay inside homes with their doors locked for the time being.

Proposed 8th & Hume Development Goes Before the Planning Commission This Week

The Metro Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on Thursday, August 10 (4:00) on requested zoning changes for a proposed development at 8th Av. & Hume St. in Salemtown right next to the Werthan Complex. I provided the details on the proposed development last January, and Core Development attended a Salemtown Neighbors meeting to discuss their plans with the association. I understand that the plans have not changed and that they have been approved by a design review committee. The plans are mixed-use and they include lofts and townhomes.

I see no reason to object to this at the Planning Commission on Thursday, unless the Planning Department sees problems that I have missed. The wild card is as always Council member Ludye Wallace, if he attends Thursday. If approved by both the Planning Commission and the Metro Council, the project will undergo detailed planning in 2008.

Development Goes On In The North End

Even though the North End has experienced delays and at least one cancellation of planned developments, new builds continue to appear at a remarkable pace.

Salemtown development.

Germantown development.

Keep It Real In Oh-Six; Pickin' Up Sticks

Egalia tells us that President Bush is off once again on another vacation. It bears noting that this is the one-year anniversary of his most notorious one-month-long, Katrina vacation, where he was:

monitoring the storm from right there on the ranch
while simultaneously clearing out a dangerous branch

No doubt concerned about continued blowback from his administration's total mishandling of the disaster in New Orleans in '05, President Bush has cut his vacation this year back to 10 days, which would be his shortest one ever. I guess that is supposed to make him look more "on the ball."

Chris Cox reminds us why the President's approval ratings are in the toilet, along with his foreign and domestic policy:

City Paper Miscues Yet Again

A month ago I first heard about MDHA's cutbacks and lay offs from the community planner who works with our citizen block grant committee, so I was not surprised to see the story in this morning's Nashville City Paper.

I also was not surprised to see another NCP journalistic lapse, which was first identified by a member of the Nashville Charrette this morning. The original copy incorrectly reported that Joe Cain, "a primary player in the Development Office," had lost his job. In a scene reminiscent of an erroneous story on North End gangs, the NCP webmaster scrubbed their site of the following error that still appears in today's hard copy:

In addition, Joe Cain, director of real estate, lost his job in the downsizing.

Why doesn't NCP ever feel the need to post a correction rather than just a deletion of serious factual errors on the website? If past form holds, we won't see a correction in hard copy for days and when it does come it will be buried somewhere in back.

Backlash

With about 95% of the precincts now reporting, Gracie Porter looks like the unofficial runaway winner for the Metro School Board's District 5 seat, as she is enjoying about 55% (2,573) of the vote. Her three rivals are each netting below 20% of the vote. District 5 appears to have struck back at Council member Michael Craddock's backroom attempts--in cahoots with the Davidson County Republican Party--to misrepresent their interests on the Board of Education. The 17 Council members who voted with Michael Craddock may not have listened to District 5 voters back in May; but they sure as hell ought to be able to hear them in August.


08/04/2006, 6:00 p.m. Update: Bruce Barry writes a noteable synopsis of yesterday's BoE elections, including a dressing-down of what appears to me to be the Chamber of Commerce PAC's naked attempt to flex its post-election influence over our BoE.

NewsChannel5 Does Not Seem to Know Its School Districts From a Hole in the Ground

There I was a few minutes ago thinking about how great it was to be watching the minute-by-minute local election coverage on Channel 5+ (and all Steve-Gill-free!). Then as Chris Clark and Pat Nolan began to discuss the local school district races shortly before 8:00, up popped a NewsChannel5 map of the Davidson County School Districts with the numbers in the wrong places. The picture inset here is the correct MNPS map.

While Pat Nolan was talking about Gracie Porter's lead in east Nashville's District 5 race, the map had District 5 in west Nashville's District 1. District 1 was put where District 3 is in far north Davidson; and the map mislabeled District 5 as District 3. If that weren't bad enough, Districts 2 and 6 were flipped on NewsChannel5's map.

There I was ready to talk about how great their coverage is and 5+ cannot even manage to get their own local school districts labeled correctly. If they cannot call the districts correctly, how can I be sure that they're calling the races correctly?

Salemtown & Germantown Walk the Streets Against Crime

Last night's Walk Against Crime around the North End included over 40 people, doubling last year's Night Out efforts. Salemtown Neighbors was joined by several members of Historic Germantown and Salemtown TRUE association, and they all beat the heat by passing out candy and glow necklaces along the way to emphasize the National Night Out theme of lighting up the night. Police mounted on horse back and motorcycles escorted the walkers through the streets, and neighbors and children joined the parade as it wound through the North End.







08/02/2006, Noon, Update: John H. blogged this event and Kate O' livejournaled her perspective from the Germantown side.

Historic Germantown Cancels NNO Cook-out

The Germantown neighborhood association's "Night Out Against Crime" cook-out scheduled for tonight has been cancelled due to concerns about the heat. Some members say that they plan to join with Salemtown residents in their Night Out walk this evening beginning at 6:30.

Backyard Tao: A Monarch in Our Garden

Willie Defends the Chicks

Not only does Willie Nelson defend the Dixie Chicks for their 2003 comments critical of George W. Bush in this week's Time magazine, but the Highwayman also refers to his own criticism of the President, which was also made overseas:

"I said 'He's not from Texas and he ain't a cowboy, so let's stop trashin' Texans and cowboys.' It got a little chuckle, but I didn't get run out of the country."

God love you, Willie.

Never Saw This Neuhoff Coming

I am literally without speech.

Here's Neuhoff as it is just for some perspective:

Hang Fire

There's a big debate raging over at Kay Brooks' blog about the school board candidate's controversial views on including Intelligent Design (ID) in science curriculum, on requiring school uniforms for students, and on publicizing her home-schooled children's test scores. I do not know where she has had her ammunition for this campaign stored, but she's not getting clean shots off in the local culture war she's championing.

There is a way to allow ID to be taught in public schools without threatening scientific method or promoting religion: as a social theory in a philosophy or a civics class. However, she does not seem to grasp the difference between social theory and scientific theory, so she does not seem to be persuading parents who want their children to be taught serious science, and thus, stay cutting-edge and competitive with the rest of the world.

The subject of school uniforms seems a grayer area, but I agree with the comment:

[With school uniforms] you'd have administrators with an additional "discipline" issue to deal with and enforce. They'd be with kids in the office more rather than observing teachers, helping their classroom management and instructional effectiveness, and accumulating evidence for the dismissal hearings before the board.

Or it means additional tax money to pay for extra staff and/or time to pay for policing the uniform policy. But Kay has already argued that public schools get too much money for things she claims are not directly related to education:

1. "transportation, feeding, discipline, health and counseling"
2. "Pre-K classes"
3. "afterschool programs"

And now she would promote a potentially expensive uniform program that in her words "isn't really education"?

Finally, Kay seems too defensive about publicizing her children's test scores so that voters can judge her in the same way that she has asked them to judge Gracie Porter in light of the scores of children in Porters' charge. This gets to the heart of the problem of a home-school mom running for office: unless she has some kind of demonstrable track record in education or in local public school culture, she seems to have no business running for office. Kay has entered the public square as a candidate for school board. Her primary qualification is that she is the sole administrator and educator responsible for her children's academic performance. She subscribes to the idea that testing is the primary means of judging whether teachers, principals, and public servants are doing their jobs. Even so, she still will not publish her children's test scores so that the voters can decide whether she is doing a better job than her opponent?

I'm not saying that home-schooling moms in general should be required to advertise their children's test scores, but once they step out of private life in order to run for public office and once they skewer opponents on test scores, shouldn't they be expected to give voters some idea of how they have performed themselves as educators? Kay doesn't seem to think so. She wants to have it both ways. And thus, the problem of a home-school mom without experience running for office.


07/30/06, 5:30 p.m. Update: See the first comment below for the best evaluation that I've seen of the problems facing this school board and the inability of either Kay Brooks or her critics to address the real issues of education beyond the symbolic ones of culture wars. Particularly insightful is the criticism of those who speak of Kay Brooks as some kind of true agent of change (or in A.C. Kleinheider's starkly symbolic and practically vacuous terms "the definitive agent of change" in contrast to "the candidate of the system."). We are indeed guilty of allowing the culture wars to distract us from the real issues of education policy. So, by all means, let's get back to reality.

Live Webcam of Public Square & Courthouse

The Metro website has added a live webcam shot of the progress in construction of the new Public Square and the renovation of the Courthouse. The camera sits atop the Parkway Towers. Metro also has a camera atop the Stalman Building from the opposite angle, but it does not seem to be operational.