Will Obama Accommodating His "Team of Rivals" Create a Dysfunctional Regulatory System?

Look, if there is anything that Obama needs to get right beyond health care reform, it is setting up an above-reproach banking regulatory system that fires on all cylinders. His poorest performance so far is the slack he cut banks relative to every other failing industry that gets the back of his hand.

Word of internal feuds between two Republican hold-overs whom Obama is reportedly going to co-empower this week does not make me hopeful that we are going to get the swift and decisive banking reform that America needs:

Some of Mr. Obama’s advisers and some senior Democratic lawmakers have suggested creating a single bank regulator. But the administration’s current version, which could be announced as early as this week, would not combine the regulatory agencies. Instead, it would give Mr. Dugan and Ms. Bair significant new powers — and could intensify their turf battles.

The last thing we need on top of all of the guilt-free bailout money banks received from the Obama Administration is a fractious and lumbering regulatory apparatus filled with bureaucratic gears that don't mesh. If Obama encourages these two Republicans by giving them more power, they're going to create a mess with which their party will be able to beat liberals over the head and spank Democrats in general for years to come.

There is a thin line between the idea of a "team of rivals" and a dysfunctional family jockeying with each other every Thanksgiving reunion. The Obama Administration is poised on that line, ready to fall either way this week.

How the "Faux-Eco-Activist" Mantra "Clean Coal" Came to Be Repeated by a President

Have you seen the June issue GQ's piece on TVA's December coal ash spill in Kingston? It's a good one, and it has a recount of the influence of the "clean coal" lobby on public opinion and on President Barack Obama:

THE TERM clean coal entered the lexicon in its current faux-eco-activist incarnation—with the implication that coal can be a source of nonpolluting fuel, that it can be scrubbed of its toxins and its carbon dioxide rendered harmless—with stunning speed, largely in the past two years through the expensive efforts of two groups: the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a lobbying group for coal-burning industries, and the Hawthorn Group, a marketing firm hired by ACCCE.

They are quite proud of their success, too. In December, about the time of the Kingston disaster, Hawthorn posted a newsletter on its Web site extolling the “highlights of a recent grassroots campaign Hawthorn created and managed” for ACCCE. Leaving aside the fact that grassroots campaigns typically are not created and managed by hired flacks, Hawthorn did have much glad news to report. Throughout the presidential campaign, it had focused on “finding creative ways to increase the visibility of the issue and…demonstrating strong voter support,” which is marketing-speak for littering crowds with fresh-faced human props in shirts and hats screened with clean coal. Do that with enough “branded teams,” as Hawthorn calls them, at enough rallies; buy enough TV spots; plead your case to enough reporters, and eventually the idea spreads that coal is downright pristine—that it can even, as Hawthorn puts it, “be part of the solution to climate change.” It was genius, and extremely effective. By the fall of 2008, President-elect Obama and Senator McCain, their running mates and their surrogates adopted our language and included it as part of their stump speeches. ACCCE shaped the debate by finding supporters of the candidates and turning them into clean coal advocates.

Obama still talks about it, and he gets cheers every time. Because the public now believes in clean coal. Hawthorn polled what the firm considered “public opinion leaders” in September 2007 and again at the end of 2008 on, among other things, whether they favored burning coal to generate electricity. The first go-round was a split: 46 percent in favor, 50 percent opposed. But after a year of Hawthorn bleating “clean coal” over and over, support rose to 72 percent—and opposition nose-dived to 22 percent.

Results such as these would be impressive no matter what the issue. Yet they are especially so in this instance, because the idea Hawthorn is selling—Coal is clean!—is complete horseshit.

Atlanta Urban Designer's Decade-Old Pedestrian-Friendly Vision Helped by Grassroots Support

Rehabilitate the Beltline, and they will come. Gravel's paper won't stay relegated to dusty library stacks.

When MDHA Terminates Section 8 Housing Assistance

Salemtown has several Section 8 residences. Those are residences designed for low income folk who otherwise could not afford rent or mortgage. Section 8 residents receive Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) from the federal government through the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency. Sometimes MDHA owns buildings where Section 8 residents live. Sometimes they contract with private landlords to house HAP recipients.

In some cases (not in all) Section 8 residents in Salemtown have been suspected of selling drugs. Typically the suspected houses have a high volume of car traffic coming and going at any time of the day or night, but staying only a few minutes. In some cases the cars have license plates from other counties. In every case of a suspected Section 8 drug dealer that I can remember, teenage gang activity has also been present. MDHA says that they will not respond to reports of drug sales unless police make an arrest.

But there are other times where MDHA says they will terminate HAP contracts that have nothing to do with crime. In August 2005, the MDHA board of commissioners approved the following conditions for HAP termination:

1. Families who have been on the Housing Choice Voucher program for 10 years or more.
2. Families that have been on full HAP assistance for 18 or more months.
3. Families receiving HAP assistance in excess of $5,400 annually.

It would appear that Section 8 residents are not allowed to stay indefinitely in Section 8 housing, although they could stay up to 10 years. So, getting drug dealers out sooner is going to require help from law enforcement.

CRIME ALERT: Burglary in Germantown

This morning around 1:00 a Salemtown neighbor walking his dog told me that a Germantown home on the 1400 block of 5th Av N had been burglarized according to police on the crime scene. Reportedly, the burglar broke through a window to enter the house. Police have not provided any details or descriptions of the suspect(s) to the community.

UPDATE: From the Police to Historic Germantown, Inc. via the Salemtown Neighbors e-mail list:

On Saturday June 13, during the afternoon or evening, a burglar broke in to 1410 5th Avenue North while the residents were away from home. The thief stole many items, including electronics such as televisions and computers, and gained entry through a window at the back of the house which could not been seen from the street.

The intruder broke the window glass and apparently was cut, as blood was found at the scene. The Police CSI unit took blood samples and is checking for a match. No other information is available at this time.

Journalist, Heal Thyself

Ruthie Foster may not have meant these "Heal Yourself" lyrics for journalists and other public relations artists, but I find them apropos:

You're the gate-keeper of the barriers.
You wanna blow away diseased carriers.
Said you don't want to need or have to know about it.
All you wanna do is control it.
You better think 'bout healing yourself, child – Hey
Heal yourself. Oh, yeah.
Well, it's time to hear somebody,
And it's time you need somebody.
Well, it's time to put down the stone
'Fore you wake up one day
And find your time is gone. gone, gone, gone.

Planning Takes Care of Churches, But What are They Prepared to Do for Neighborhoods?

There a couple of things hanging with me this morning about last night's long public hearing on LED billboards in residential areas. One is that Commissioner Stewart Clifton claimed that the LED task force, selected by Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors, had a representative contingent of neighborhood leaders of diverse opinions. By my count there were 2 or 3 neighborhood leaders on the group of 20, and I do not remember any of them being vigorous opponents of LED billboards before the task force was convened. A couple seemed to come away opposed to the task force recommendation.

The rest of the group included LED-leaners like church leaders and sign industry reps., council members and lawyers, lobbyists and chamber of commerce wonks, and Codes and Planning officials predisposed against a ban of LEDs from residential neighborhoods. Needless to say there were a lot of raised eyebrows in the room at Mr. Clifton's argument. Vice Mayor Neighbors could have chosen from several LED opponents who had done their homework and delved into sign issues in ways that the Planning staff failed to. But she chose no opponents to balance the conclusions.

Secondly, Mr. Clifton mentioned that a primary interest behind the favorable conclusions the LED task force gave to commercial-style diode signage in residential areas was that it desired to do something to help churches and agencies, since they are part of neighborhoods, too. But wait a minute. No one opposing LED signage wants to curtail privileges that private organizations get from locating in neighborhoods. Just being in a residential area gives these institutions some stability and security that they might not enjoy being in commercial zones.

So, what does the preferential option for LEDs have to do with treating churches like an equal neighbors? As one opponent said during the public hearing, churches seem to want it both ways: the desirability of a residential locale and the marketing blitz of commercial zones. What favor has the LED task force and Metro Planning extended to neighborhood groups (which would not even be able to erect LED signage to promote themselves under the new law)? And what benefits do churches and non-profits actually bring neighborhoods? We no longer live in a parish-system era where churches have mutually beneficial hyper-local relationships. Churches are generally a reflection of automobile culture, and their clientele drives in from outside their neighborhoods. How are they anything other than fillers of space vis-à-vis neighborhoods?

Planning Commission Defers Tygard's LED Billboard Ordinance after an Avalanche of Opposition

Several Planning commissioners looked a little skittish at tonight's public hearing on the LED billboard ordinance after an hour or two of listening to over 25 opponents (several of whom represented neighborhood associations of many members) criticize the measure and of their own casting about for solutions that could please commercially-minded but community-based non-profits and appease the throngs of opponents (200 e-mails opposing LEDs had been received), who seemed as mobilized by the proposal as they were before it spent months being tooled by a task force.

Initially bucking the favorable recommendation of the Planning Department, the commissioners voted to defer their vote on the ordinance until August 1 after Planning Director Rick Bernhardt mercifully offered them three options for causing a delay in the Metro Council public hearing of the LED bill on July 7. The Director told the group that he had already powwowed with the Planning and Council lawyers to produce workable solutions based on the charter and council rules. Charlie Tygard also promised to defer the bill at the July 7 public hearing.

Until that point it seemed to me that their vote was angling against neighborhood leaders. The commissioners who seemed to speak most critically of the ordinance were Andree LeQuire and Hunter Gee. Those who advocated voting with Charlie Tygard were CM Jim Gotto and Tonya Jones. Leaning toward advocating were Stewart Clifton, Phil Ponder and Derrick Dalton. Sitting on the fence were Judy Cummings and Victor Tyler. Chair James McLean did not weigh in with an opinion. The deck seemed stacked against opponents to me.

I was generally impressed by the arguments of the opponents during the public hearing. I thought that they did a better job than they did at last year's public hearing and their arguments seemed tight and reasonable to me. There seemed to be a lot less of the high-hat language of sign clutter and visual pollution. Instead, opponents seemed to engage practically the impact that the ordinance would have in their neighborhoods. They challenged the Planning Department to find out whether LEDs could negatively affect property values and to launch studies to see whether LEDs in fact made a difference in church attendance before making blanket zoning decisions across Davidson County. (However, let's not forget that this is the same Planning Department that recommended the May Town proposal last year with no independent traffic or economic study because they claimed they did not have the money to study).

But things seemed to turn against opponents when the commission gave Mr. Tygard more than 10 minutes to speak after he asked for "latitude" because he was the only proponent to speak during the public hearing. No churches, non-profits, or community centers showed up. CM Tygard used large chunks of that time to impugn the opposition as too emotional, a previously-used meme which was repeated later by a couple of commissioners in their discussion, including Stewart Clifton. And yet, Mr. Clifton turned around and seemed to suggest that proponents of LED signs may not have shown up because they were intimidated by the well-organized opposition; that suggests that the pro-LED response was driven by emotion, does it not?

Regardless, I think the charge of relying on emotion was a brash attempt to discredit the strength of the opposition. And the commissioners and bill sponsor who raised it failed to give any examples. It was a red herring. Mr. Clifton iterated that the commission should not be swayed by how well-organized or how large the opposition was but should judge the reasonableness of their arguments; not that he spent much time doing that himself. Emotional arguments occurred on both sides of the issue, and they can be best dispensed with by focusing on the well-crafted arguments.

In my opinion, the commission's deferral serves all sides in the controversy. Mr. Clifton asserted that appeals to popular opposition are better put to the Metro Council than to the Planning Commission. He maintained that the commission should make its decisions strictly on "land use" rather than popular will. That's fine to a point, but why does the commission have public hearings? And why have I heard so many times from various commissioners that feedback from the neighborhoods makes a difference to their decisions? At least one commissioner disagreed with Mr. Clifton, maintaining that consideration of public opinion brings practical factors into the discussion so that land use decisions can be better informed. However, I do think that the deferral allows the commission to shake off the popular pitch forks and to come to a mutual decision in a "workshop" free from public pressure. They promise that they intend to find a way to prohibit council from running trick plays with the ordinance to continue to allow spot zonings for LEDs. We'll see.

And while some opponents seemed frustrated with the delay in a vote, I saw it as a net gain given the unfortunate scheduling of the Metro Council public hearing so close to the July 4 holiday when many opponents would be distracted with travel and family plans. The deferral buys the opposition more time to continue to organize, to motivate council members to vote against Tygard, and to turn out massively for the council public hearing. While I don't underestimate the power of a commission vote against the bill (which would raise the council's approval bar to a supermajority or 2/3's vote), I think the opposition needed more time than 3 weeks to prepare. And I would frankly be shocked if the commission voted against Tygard. The public opposition seemed to stagger them some. It may be a close vote, but it looks like to me they are going to recommend the LED-billboards-for-neighborhood bill with conditions. They just seemed ready to get out of the harsh light of public attention to do so.

If opponents win this fight, they'll have to do so in Metro Council, even though I think Commissioners Gee and LeQuire deserve kudos for putting up their own opposition. Gee told the commissioners that he supports the LED task force's recommendation that the ordinance should not be passed unless there is enough money in the budget to enforce it. If he can find a way to convince the commission to make that condition an iron-clad limitation on council, I don't see how this ordinance wins in a tight Metro budget year.

Metro Lobbyist Joe Hall Won't Answer Direct Questions About Bells Bend Archaeology

We've seen Joe Hall of Hall Strategies on the wrong side of politics before. So, it's no surprise to learn that he is doing the bidding of the May Town Center development team and shielding them from charges of insensitivity toward the archaeological record of Bells Bend.

Try as she might Betsy Phillips is unable to convince former journalist Hall to divulge who conducted the archaeological study that he insists MTC developers have. He appears resistant to being transparent and forthcoming with details. Likewise, there is an impasse between Hall's words and those of the state archaeologist who already reported that no one with the MTC team has contacted his office to conduct surveys.

It would be quite natural to choose the word of an archaeologist over a lobbyist, but Betsy advances her own hypothesis on who did the surveys and when they were actually conducted.

Searching for Comparables

A Salemtown neighbor updates the association e-mail list regarding Tuesday night's disappointing meeting with MDHA regarding disclosure and accountability on the Salemtown streetscape project:

I ran across news of a new Williamson County streetscape project that might be of interest. [Tuesday] night, one of the CAC committee members asked to review past MDHA streetscape project budgets vs. actuals to determine if our project/budget mismanagement was par for the course, worse, or (God forbid) an improvement on previous endeavors.

We were told that our project was the largest MDHA had ever taken on, and that other streetscapes we mentioned (Dickerson Road, etc.) were not comparable because they were state projects that qualified for TDOT grants, etc.

Perhaps we could monitor the progress of this new project in Williamson County:

Franklin

Aldermen OK advertising for bids on Columbia Avenue Streetscape

By Mindy Tate

Editor

Franklin aldermen last night voted 6-2 to move forward with advertising and receiving of bids on the Columbia Avenue Corridor and Connector Streets project, although a motion to create an assessment district for the project failed 4-5 with Mayor John Schroer voting against creation of the district.

On the Columbia Avenue Streetscape project, a motion by Alderman Ann Petersen to put the project on hold and move forward with replacing the storm drainage and repaving the street at a cost of $320,000 failed 2-6, with Petersen and Alderman Dana McLendon voting for her motion.

"We have already invested a lot of money on Columbia Avenue and I think we need to go on and finish the job," said Alderman Ken Moore before voting against the assessment district.

If aldermen had voted to create the assessment district, it still would have had to be approved by property owners with 50 percent of the value of the assessment area, according to City Administrator Eric Stuckey.

The property in the project corridor has an assessed value of $8 million, officials said, while estimating the project may cost $4 million. Proponents point to redevelopment which has begun on the corridor, including the construction of the two-story Synergy Bank branch near Columbia Avenue and Ninth Avenue.

MDHA's position that there are no comparables with which to judge the Salemtown project seems disingenuous to me, given that during the interview process to select a landscape architect, one of the factors the selection committee considered was similar projects the firms had done in the past. I have a hard time believing that we could not find any other MDHA block grant project against which to assess the Salemtown project.

Not a Good Review of the Design of the Proposed Convention Center

One of my favorite Nashville Charrette commenters is holding court once again, this time on the Mayor's proposed Music City Center:

[I]f the convention industry suffers, this will become a bloated corpse on downtown. The streetside retail will help, but there is nothing civic whatsoever about this design. Token gizmo-green architectural "features" and redneck Modernist wavy lines will not save SoBro if this building doesn't generate enough foot traffic (through non-stop, year-round convention success? Give me a break!) to liven up its monolithic edges.

And more:

You don't have to be an architect to have an informed opinion of what sort of civic realm you want to live in, to accommodate your life and the lives of your children, in your own damn town. It's one of the great lies of Modernist, so-called "High-Tech" design that you have to be an "expert" to understand the rigorous structural and aesthetic dynamics of contemporary practice. That's total nonsense. The forms and proportions of a building's façades and massing are only illegible to "non-specialists" if they are crafted by an illiterate, inconsiderate, or otherwise incompetent architect. The programmatic requirements of a building's interior can be quite complex, but they are never cooked up in the esoteric laboratory of a Taoist Master--they are, ideally, common-sense solutions to well-understood problems, and as such can be explained by any decent architect to any attentive "civilian." Think of buildings as analogous to biological systems: you don't have to know how a kidney works to know you think someone has a stupid haircut. This building may or may not have a functional kidney. It definitely has a terrible haircut, is missing several teeth, and is sporting the gaping mouth of an idiot. In other words, even if its interior will serve its purposes, its exterior is a terrific mess: ugly and stupid-looking.

It is abundantly clear that the designers of this ridiculous building did not understand, or acknowledge, the fact that a building this large, built at public risk, would need to have a lot to offer to the civic realm in terms of enduring beauty and timeless aesthetic merit, as well as at least a little bit of useful and flexible space. It is also clear that they believe they are going to build the first-ever monolithic trash-Modernist building that won't go out of style in five years--can you image how we are going to feel about ourselves when the largest thing in town is aging with the grace and dignity of a beached whale? ....

Maybe Nashville really has no clue when it comes to what makes civic architecture work, despite the Stern library, the Schwarz Symphony Center, and the better side of 2nd Avenue. I guess we are getting no better than we deserve: an ugly-ass warehouse for temporary foreigner storage. God help us if the obvious happens and the foreigners don't show up. We had the chance to build something flexible and lovely, and instead we bought swamp water. Wavy lines indeed! Apparently you could sell a dead dog to our city's mayor if you wrote "iPod" on it in silver ink.

It's darkest after the dawn preceded by the darkness

Paul Krugman says we're not out of the thicket, yet:

[H]as the economic news started to darken again? Up through about March, every report was worse than you expected, often worse than you could have imagined. Since then, most reports — although continuing to be bad in an absolute sense — have “surprised on the upside.” But my sense is that in the last few days we’ve been getting reports — Korean trade, Japanese orders, German exports — that are once again surprising on the downside.

This thing ain’t over yet.

Deep Thought

The Salemtown streetscape project is the largest neighborhood streetscape project MDHA has ever undertaken.

Why Ragan Smith is probably not the best choice for a landscape architect

In 2007 I sat on the MDHA selection committee that picked the landscape architect team from Ragan Smith, and I now rue my own judgment in rating them highly back then. When Ragan Smith made their pitch for the contract to the committee, they told us that they would charge no more than 10% for design and construction administration. We found out that, when the bill came in after their selection, they charged 13% for their services.

That was one of many painful surprises that the Salemtown citizen advisory committee, which made recommendations to Ragan Smith on neighborhood improvements, got last night when the MDHA community planner convened us to discuss concerns many of us had with a seeming lack of accountability. I have been asking MDHA for an income/expense vs. budget report for some time and they they gave us this minimal one last night (sans itemized expenses):

(click image to enlarge document)

What leaps out immediately to me on the form is that Ragan Smith's staff estimate of contractor bids on construction of the project (2nd table--$537,000) was way off the actual bids. When the neighborhood advisers met with the Ragan Smith leader of the project last January, he gave us a detailed, itemized budget list down to every street lamp and shrub neighborhood advisers recommended that was around $400,000.

When the CAC was asked last January to prioritize possible deductions (listed at the bottom of the document above) in case of cost overruns, the Ragan Smith leader seemed to downplay the chance of deductions, and so I did not feel the need to ask for some follow-up before contracts went out. However, because of Ragan Smith's estimate errors, significant parts of the project had to be deducted, and I regretted not demanding some follow-up.

The fact that Ragan Smith charged us more than they initially said they would to get the contract is like salt in the wound for me, given their underestimation of the bids that would come in and the cost of the project.

Plus, they made two other crucial errors in estimating costs. First, their electrical engineer miscalculated the cost of drilling for electric lines for street lamps, and they found out later that a more expensive technique will be required. Second, Ragan Smith did not calculate milling intersections into the construction costs of crosswalks; and then, either Public Works failed to tell them or Ragan Smith failed to discern that once they milled the intersections they would have to rebuild the sidewalk handicap access ramps.

As a result, 5 of the 6 of our proposed deductions had to be implemented, and Ragan Smith walked away with more money then they initially proposed taking. A friend who works for government told me last night that Ragan Smith should not have taken more than $60,000 from the block grant; that still would have been more than the 10% they sold themselves with.

And MDHA is not off the accountability hook either. Somewhere in the bowels of their administration building is a contract bureaucrat who negotiated the $68,000 agreement with the landscape architects. That person never met with us or talked to us about the bid/award process. Clearly they should have. Last night we asked the MDHA community planner to schedule a meeting with that person and our committee so that we can comprehend exactly what happened and why Ragan Smith cost our project so much more than they said it would (nearly $16,000 if you count the extra survey work they charged the grant for).

The MDHA community planner tried to get us to be more realistic last night about the bid process by pointing out that it is a free market and MDHA cannot do much about the unexpected overages. My response to her is: I acknowledge that the market determines the prices we pay. I also firmly believe in the spirit of a free market that we should broadcast our dissatisfaction with the profound disconnect between the product Ragan Smith initially marketed and the product that we actually received from them. Other potential buyers should beware when they go into the selection process with Metro government agencies (or anywhere else) that potential bidder Ragan Smith may not be the best choice in maximizing their resources.

Saving the Ancient in Nashville

The fight for Bells Bend has me working through Wendell Berry's decades-old compendia on protecting the "culture" in "agriculture." Berry engages the "Save the" communities and identity groups given rise by the reduction of everything economic to money and growth equations.

One such "Save the" community continues to grow in Nashville in reaction to the Bells Landing Partners' proposal to sprawl May Town Center, a "second downtown," across extant farmland as close to an American metropolitan city as farmland can get. Betsy Phillips joins the fight to "Save the Bend" by demanding important research on the historic and prehistoric significance of relatively untouched Bells Bend.

Phillips went to the Tennessee Division of Archaeology to unearth information that ought to give us pause before demolishing green space to fabricate a "green development." The state's archaeologist told Phillips:

"There are just over 60 recorded archaeological sites on Bell's Bend. This total does not include historic cemeteries or historic properties older than 50 years (50 years is the federal threshold for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places). These recorded sites span the entire prehistoric sequence (roughly 10,000 BC to AD 1500) as well as the historic period."

He said, "There have been several prior archaeological investigations within Bells Bend, although the Bend has not been comprehensively surveyed." I don't want to put words in [the archaeologist's] mouth, but I have to believe that when you're talking about twelve thousand years of habitation and the Bend not being comprehensively surveyed, you're talking about the potential for finding more than just the approximately sixty sites archaeologists are aware of.

To my shock, Betsy divulges that there are no laws requiring that developers allow archaeologists to examine historic and pre-historic sites before moving earth, unless human burials are involved. Sadly, but predictably, no one with the Bells Landing Partners, the May family, or Tony Giarratana's development "team" has contacted the state to request examination of a site that could hold thousands of years of undisturbed records of human civilization in the Bend.

But the stinging irony is that Tennessee State University, which stands to inherit a nice chunk of flood plain with MTC construction, has not encouraged its sugar daddy developers to launch scientific study of the layers of history laying just under pasture and farmland. TSU is supposed to be a university, my people, a university whose vested interest should be in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding first and money second. TSU is pushing ahead to demolish vast tracts of Bells Bend as vigorously as the life-sucking developers are. There is nothing redemptive in that.

Betsy levels some stern questions that both developers and Metro government (Planning Commissioners, council members, and Mayor) should be addressing before pushing the MTC proposal through in the coming weeks:

[H]as anyone heard any accounting of how they're planning to deal with [Native American burial sites]? Will they work around the sites in order to preserve them? Will they work with the state to resolve archaeological issues? Have they figured in potential delays while dealing with this stuff? And what happens when the protests start, which they will, when you start to pave over and build on people's ancestors?

How the various parties answer the questions are the test of their character. Nashville itself is about to be sorely tested on how it preserves the ancient and historic records of those civilizations that preceded it and perhaps made its founding possible. Bells Bend provides a context and an ancestry for this city that can either be preserved by the community or exterminated by the earthmoving equipment of developers. Whether we acknowledge or deny that legacy as unbroken and inviolable is the test of our character.

And Still They Can Afford the Elite Brand of the Local NFL Franchise

Louisiana-Pacific laid off more workers last month; this time in New Limerick, Maine, and they blame it on the market rather than on bad spending habits.

Audit Concludes TVA Exercised Preferential Option for the Wealthy

The Tennessee Valley Authority gave a few wealthy and influential people greater access to shorelines to dock their big boats than they gave the masses.

One of those wealthy and influential individuals was Heath Shuler, who could also pull some strings on a congressional subcommittee that oversees TVA:

an entity with ties to Shuler - a former University of Tennessee football star and Washington Redskins quarterback - received approval for a transaction that provided 145 feet of water-access rights along the shoreline of Watts Bar Reservoir in Roane County.

That entity, The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC, agreed to relinquish 150 feet of water-access rights in Rhea County and also provide about $15,000 for a bank stabilization project at a different location on Watts Bar Reservoir.

Investors in The Cove at Blackberry Ridge included Shuler, who was formerly a member of the House transportation committee's Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. That subcommittee is one of two congressional panels that provide formal oversight of TVA.

TVA may be giving the rich and famous special treatment, but they're giving the poor the shaft.

From Morgan Park to River All on Greenway Sidewalks

It's been almost exactly a year since I updated the progress of the riverside greenway system adjacent to Salemtown.  So, tonight I struck out to see if I could walk our dog from Morgan Park down to the Cumberland River all on greenway sidewalk.  I was successful, because Metro has finally connected the Mo Park greenway spur to the Downtown connector greenway, which now snakes past the new wastewater treatment facility before it plunges down the riverbank to a hairpin turn with an unobstructed view of the Cumberland. In the past I've had to take 2nd Av N to Cement Plant Rd to get to the MetroCenter levee greenway; now it's a more pedestrian-friendly jaunt.



The best part of the walk was the absence of wastewater stench so common in the past when walking by the plant. It looks like the new facility is doing its work to eradicate the past smells that resulted from loading trucks with treated sludge in order to haul it to distant land fills. The only smell I could detect was that of the new cedar railings lining parts of the trail.

Most of the newly planted flora along the way is doing well. However the section between 3rd and 2nd had some young freshly planted trees that look dead, even with some patches of moisture underneath them as if the water had come too late to save them. I'll be disappointed if Metro doesn't either rescue or replace them.

I was also hoping to see some trash cans and poop bag dispensers along the trail. Fortunately, I was carrying my own bags for the dog, but I had to wait to get back to Germantown to use a public trash can. Metro should provide amenities to encourage dog owners to pick up and dispose of pet waste properly. The trails could also use some lights for those of us out at twilight.

Otherwise, Salemtown's still-in-process connector to the Cumberland River oozes potential to be a great asset for the community.

MDHA Letter with Details of Deleted Streetscape Elements & Partial Budget Information

Per Enclave commenter Jim's request in an earlier post, below is a copy of the letter Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency sent at the end of April detailing the streetscape elements that were dropped due to cost overruns. Some clarifications: one of the eliminated elements at intersections were not "cotton ball" details but cotton boll details, symbolizing the neighborhood's historic working-class ties to the Werthan Cotton Mill. The letter's reference makes it sound like we were attempting to promote hygienic swabbing at the intersections.

(click on image of letter to enlarge)

Cooper Bucks the Blue Dogs?

From Mark Naccarato at Change that Works:

I have some REALLY big local news in the healthcare debate that happened over the weekend to tell you about.

Last Thursday, the Blue Dog Caucus (which includes Reps Cooper, Tanner, Gordon, and Davis) put out a statement that they would be against a public option plan unless it had a "trigger". I've attached some information on what the public option actually is and what the Blue Dogs said about a trigger. Suffice it to say, what the Blue Dogs said isn't surprising since many believe that the trigger is designed to give cover to conservative Democrats to vote for the President's plan while still staying in the good graces of their donors in the insurance, pharma, and healthcare industries.

What IS surprising is that Rep. Jim Cooper - at an OFA meeting at the TNDP headquarters in Nashville on Saturday - said that his "preferred position is to support Senator Chuck Schumer’s plan for the public option which has no trigger in it”. Here's ... Cooper saying it when I caught it all on video:

Let's be clear. If Cooper remains consistent with what he said on Saturday, he would seem to be at odds with the Blue Dog leadership. That's actually consistent with a rumor we are hearing from our DC office - that the Blue Dogs are not united against the public option. Cooper's statement is good news for our cause and it would be great if you could embed or link to this video. We need to make sure that we have Rep. Cooper on the record and that progressives, healthcare advocates (and the other TN Blue Dogs) all know that Cooper is standing with the President's core principles.