Bad form: CM Lonnell Matthews sends constituents combined flood relief meeting info and Steven Turner campaign fundraiser ad

Thanks to Mike Peden for forwarding the e-mail below that CM Lonnell Matthews sent to his District 1 constituents. I am not sure whether this violates campaign ethics laws, but pigging-backing a fundraiser for a candidate for General Assembly with a mailer on North Nashville flood relief seems crude to me. Isn't sending out campaign material under the Metro government insignia plainly unethical?

Click on image to enlarge.

The false sense of connection in Metro Nashville Public Schools' social media & Twitter

I don't waste too much time analyzing why people follow me and then unfollow me on Twitter. I have my own reasons for following and I respect that others have their reasons for following me (or not).

But just this once I'm going to bust the chops of the Metro Nashville Public School PR flacks who maintain the district's regular blog and their micro-blog via Twitter.

MNPS started following my Twitter stream in early May and they even sent me direct tweets. I was impressed with the breadth of the coverage of many different meetings. I even defended them on Twitter when it was suggested that this single agency approach to blogging was limited.

It seemed like a good match: a committed public school parent, PTO member, and engaged family guy following the local public school blog effort. And things were fine between @MetroSchools and @micchiato as long as I re-tweeted them and complimented them. But shortly after I started criticizing MNPS for being insular and suggesting that privatization through charter schools was not a wise course of action for public schools, they unfollowed me.

I don't take their choice as a personal affront. For me it is confirmation of my perception that the local public school system is thin-skinned, insular, and walled off from the regular families it is supposed to serve by its own bureaucratic and marketing agendas. Hence, it doggedly follows local media, celebrities, influential politicos, the latest hip non-profits, non-government organizations who generally don't rock the boat, and a slew of sexy people without kids in public schools.

Meanwhile, I do not doubt that it imagines, spins, and markets its social media as tools that public school families can themselves follow for information. However, since the writers of @MetroSchools are not following the tweets of more public school families, theirs is a fake exercise in connection. MNPS on Twitter is just another tool for keeping their actual clients, public school kids and parents, distant from two-way lines of communication that give people a sense of participation in and ownership of public education.

Where do Convention Center Authority minutes reflect the decision to relocate the Greyhound bus terminal northward to make way for Music City Center?

After pointing out that the Convention Center Authority meeting agendas do not clearly notify the community of action to move the Greyhound bus terminal to Charlotte and 11th, I went back and looked through all of the minutes to see if the official CCA records reflect authorization for a new lease with Greyhound (signed on May 5).

I cannot see any record of authorization in the minutes; in fact, I cannot find a single mention of Greyhound in any of the minutes of CCA going back to October 2009 or in those of CCA's Construction Committee going back to February 2010. The Tennessean provides an unofficial written record in an op-ed written by CCA's Marty Dickens and MDHA's Phil Ryan, who along with CM Erica Gilmore tried last Friday to tamp down North Nashville frustrations over the hushed and veiled signing of the relocation lease. Here is what they wrote:

All these factors were thoroughly discussed at a meeting of the Convention Center Authority’s construction committee, before a recommendation went to the full authority for approval of a 13-month lease, with the option to extend the lease for an additional three months.

Note that these Courthouse insiders had problems recalling dates themselves, and they obviously could not depend on the meeting minutes to get their timeline straight between them.

Other actions CCA took are specifically described:

• "Mark Arnold made a motion to approve the Commonwealth Development Group, Inc. and Bone McAliester Norton, PLLC contract amendments" (misspellings not corrected)
• "Leo Waters made a motion to approve the lease agreement between MDHA and the CCA memorializing the Convention Center Authority's right to be on MDHA's property"
• "Leo Waters made a motion authorizing the Authority to accept the guaranteed maximum price in an amount not to exceed $415 million"

It seems curious and strange to me that the minutes would reflect in copious detail the other actions of the CCA and its committees, and yet not refer specifically to the Greyhound decision. Can you find any specific reference in the minutes?

There are a number of vague transcriptions where I guess the relocation discussion could be hidden. Here is one passage that tells us next to nothing and looks like a waste of space:

Leo Waters, Chair of the Construction and Development Committee, was then asked by Mr. Dickens to report. Mr. Waters gave an overview of what the committee had discussed. Larry Atema was asked to give a project update. There was discussion about the project and land.

Unless the Greyhound bus terminal situation lies somewhere between "project and land," there is no official evidence in the Metro meeting minutes that relocation or a lease were authorized. If the authorization happened, why was the CCA so bashful about publicizing it before the media found it and the community dragged the details out in the May 27 meeting? Did the Music City Center honchos figure it was so toxic that any mention of it would draw undue and unfriendly attention to it?

Neighborhood concerns about increased crime around Greyhound bus terminal supported by media's statistical analysis

SouthComm's Stephen George has the numbers comparing the old Greyhound site to the new one at Charlotte & 11th:

in blog posts and at public meetings, many have argued that the Greyhound station will be a magnet for crime in their area. According to statistics The City Paper obtained from Metro police, it seems they’re right — at least to some degree.

A comparison of crime statistics stretching from Jan. 1, 2009, through May 27 shows that nearly 17 times more crimes and potential criminal activity were phoned in to Metro police from the current Greyhound location than the area around the proposed new one.

Most of the 314 reported incidents at Greyhound involved public intoxications, thefts and assaults. The 19 incidents at the new site were similar in nature.

What I learned from tonight's cover-your-ass-in-public meeting on the Greyhound relocation lease

My impressions of Erica Gilmore's public meeting on Greyhound's relocation held earlier tonight:

1. The best way to control imagined "You lie!" incivility in controversial zoning issues is to treat the few locals yokels who show up (a large number of attendees seemed to be Metro employees, politicos, and news media) as if they are in detention, restricting them to 1 minute each to ask questions and make comments.
2. If urban neighborhoods wanted to stop this specific Greyhound/Music City Center relocation, they had their chance during the Downtown Code community meetings a few years ago.
3. Given #2: any future community plan (e.g., the North Nashville Plan) better be formulated only by those leaders in the community who are psychic and can predict exactly where and when the Mayor's Office will be relocating businesses they don't want to see by their tourism attractions Downtown.
4. Neighborhoods lost opportunities to be informed by not being prescient enough to attend public meetings of the Convention Center Authority (CCA) where they could not give feedback, even if they were not informed by CM Gilmore (who has said that she only heard things in passing and found out about the decision in the media rather than by attending CCA meetings).
5. The CCA publicizes their agenda; community leaders can look at the agenda and clearly see when the Greyhound bus terminal relocation will be discussed if they exercise extrasensory perception (note an example agenda below):
   
   
   
   
6. The CCA meets the first Thursday of every month, and if working Nashville citizens want to burn vacation or sick days away from the job each of those Thursdays after 8:00 a.m., then they have the chance to find out more about controversial relocations by attending.
7. Greyhound has picked an undisclosed permanent location; you still don't have any say over it; your 1 minute for a question is up, next question.
8. I don't know how to interpret the conspicuous absence of Hope Gardens neighborhood leaders (who organized the well-attended and angry May 27 public meeting) at tonight's meeting.
9. CCA rep Holly McCall failed to follow through on her May 27 promise to release the Greyhound lease to the public. Instead, she sent it to CM Gilmore.
10. Given #9: I'm disappointed that CM Gilmore did not forward a copy of the lease to me given that she should have a May 27 e-mail from me requesting a copy of that lease from MDHA's Joe Cain as well as Mr. Cain's reply saying that CCA had it. Nevertheless, she promises to release it tomorrow.

CM Gilmore compares local Greyhound relocation critics to indecorous heckler, blames MDHA, MCCC for lack of transparency

In a Friday opinion column in the Tennessean, CM Erica Gilmore responded to those constituents who have been critical of the Greyhound bus terminal relocation and the seeming lack of transparency in zoning approval and in the lease signed with the Convention Center Authority. The first thing that leaps out at me about her self-defense is her comparison of the more expressive of her own constituents to Republican U.S. Congress member Joe "You Lie" Wilson:

“You lie” are the words that rang out in our nation’s capital this year as a member of the House of Representatives heckled the president during his address to Congress. Epithets were spit on several of our representatives and senators during the passing of the health-care reform bill. Need less to say, distrust is at an all-time high while civility is at an all-time low.

So in an environment where everyone is looking for someone to blame, about two weeks ago I received a barrage of calls and e-mails sharing every type of sentiment under the sun about the relocation of the Greyhound bus terminal.

CM Gilmore starts off with patent exaggerations about the blow back Metro is getting over this relocation. Everyone is not looking for someone to blame. Overgeneralizing about legitimate concerns, questions, and comments Ms. Gilmore should listen to as an elected official will not satisfy people who feel excluded from power moves affecting their community.

Ms. Gilmore herself has sent mixed messages to alarmed constituents on what she knew when. In a May 22 letter, Ms. Gilmore told neighbors that while there was some confusing back-and-forth over whether Greyhound was going to move to Charlotte and 11th, she did have prior knowledge. That letter seemed to be written with a air of reassurance rather than defensiveness.

However, in Friday's column she refers to her prior knowledge as based on something more fleeting and cursory, a "mention in passing." Results that were a "little unclear" to Ms. Gilmore on May 22 became "shocking" the day-before yesterday, and the opinion piece seems self-defensive. In spite of her own indictments of relocation critics as blamers, she herself points the finger of blame for the artful, finessed decision at other parties: "MDHA, Music City Center Coalition [Authority?], and Greyhound."

But Erica Gilmore was not delivering the State of the Union as the American President when she drew community ire for not doing more, and relocation critics are not indecorous hecklers like Joe Wilson shouting in public that she is a liar. As an elected official she should be held accountable when Metro seals deals in her district, under her watch. And she should not try to confuse public accountability with coarse incivility. Her opinion piece is ironically disparaging toward constituents at this point.

Finally, she falsely insists that the only challenge with Greyhound is whether they keep their word that the lease is only temporary. There are a host of challenges beyond that, but let us assume for a second that every challenge with relocating to Charlotte and 11th is met and dealt with satisfactorily. There still remains one more test to pass: if they used the Downtown Code once to relocate temporarily, will they use it again to relocate permanently, perhaps farther north on Jefferson Street, closer to neighborhoods like Germantown and Salemtown? CM Gilmore has a long way to go to convince us that she is on top of affairs like this surely and critically enough to appreciate the risks to our neighborhoods.

Sometimes late is not any better than never: now that Greyhound signed a lease to relocate, CM Erica Gilmore schedules a public meeting

Since the Convention Center Authority's bid to sneak the Downtown Greyhound bus terminal to Charlotte Avenue and 11th Avenue North on the Q.T., the District council member, Erica Gilmore, has issued ever more formal media advisories. Today's is consistent with CM Gilmore's recent pattern of communication:



The release calls the relocation a "proposal." This is misleading if we are to believe what we were told at the Hope Gardens-sponsored community meeting last week: that Greyhound has already signed a lease. The Greyhound move to the old Hansen Chrysler dealership is a done deal. In fact renovations have already started and parking stripes have already been painted.

The first question that needs to be asked is why are the Metro media flacks who crafted this advisory for CM Gilmore spinning and distorting this as a "proposal" when the parties have all signed on the dotted line? I cannot see our neighborhoods having any influence at all now that the deal is contractual.

Therefore, the ostensible purpose of next Monday's meeting is to try and influence community opinions that seem to be weighing against the relocation and to try to soften the shock over the growing perception that CM Gilmore knew about the terminal agreement and chose not inform her constituents until reporters discovered the story. If the purpose of the meeting is to allow public feedback and influence, the timing of the meeting could not be worse. It should have happened before the lease was signed.

As it is, it would be more honest not to have another public meeting about Charlotte and 11th at all outside of those to which Greyhound has agreed in order to work directly with neighborhood associations to keep crime and blight in check.

After missing last week's meeting, MDHA is sending their executive (the beleaguered housing agency still controls business relocations in the convention center project). Police Commander Huggins was kind enough to attend last week's meeting, and his input will be welcome on Monday. The Metro planner still needs to produce a valid explanation for how the Downtown Code allows special relocation privileges for the Convention Center Authority without any input from community "stake-holders" affected by cynical Courthouse power moves.

However, it is a mystery to me why the Director of Room in the Inn is attending, other than the offices are near the Music City Center site, too, and hence, subject to relocation. One rumor I heard--denied by an CCA spokesperson last week--had either or both the Campus for Human Development and the Men's Rescue Mission being considered for relocation to Jefferson Street near Germantown. Other than considering other possible moves within the urban core what will Father Strobel be there to do Monday? Vouch for the way Greyhound terminal enhanced the quality of life on the block?

Finally, note that the Mayor's Office has still not committed to attend (they were invited to last week's Hope Gardens event), but maybe someone there wonders as I do where they will be allowed to park at the Downtown TSU campus. I have no idea where I will be able to park or if I need to load my pockets full of change to feed meters or parking attendants. That has me wondering why the powers-that-be did not schedule this meeting in a church or a neighborhood center with plenty of parking that people do not have to vet before they go. Why did Metro leaders not provide a more user-friendly venue for this public meeting?

Probably because it will not amount to a hill of beans anyway.

CM Gilmore needs to work more diligently with the North End neighborhoods to come up with solutions for tightening the Downtown Code so that neighborhoods receive early warning and proper notice from a transparent government in future planning. Otherwise, Monday's meeting looks like window dressing to me.

West Nashvillians to Mayor Dean: "Floodplain. We told you so. Time to reconsider police precinct plans."

This is what the Charlotte Avenue lacation for Mayor Karl Dean's planned West Precinct Police Headquarters (the old Bob Frensley car dealership) looked like on May 2 as flood waters around Nashville rose:

During the controversial planning stages of relocating the headquarters, neighborhood associations and a Richland Creek watershed group warned the Mayor, Finance Director Rich Riebeling, and former police chief Ronal Serpas that the old Frensley plot was in danger of flooding, but the Mayor's Office ignored the warnings and pushed past the public opposition.

Instead of pausing in the wake of the flood to reconsider, Mr. Riebeling is now suggesting more expensive, environmentally insensitive plans to build a new headquarters on the flood-prone site, even as Nashville accumulates private property that sits on floodplain elsewhere to stop future destruction and even as those plans might violate the Mayor's own green initiative.

Neighborhood leaders are once again organizing to oppose Courthouse foolishness. West Nashvillian Trish Bolian writes GCA News:

As most know, that part of Charlotte was under torrents of water when Richland Creek became the equivalent of a raging river. Buildings on the former Frensley site elected for the relocation of the police needs addressed above were flooded and surrounded by raging water. Almost right next door at Pep Boys, employees and customers had to be rescued by boat and this was on Saturday before the full force of this water was felt on Sunday.

Here is what security cameras inside that Pep Boys caught of the creek flood overwhelming their building:

Trish continues:

The first action then taken was to ask for an easement of that area violating the mayor's own Green Initiative and pledge to protect the creeks and waterways! Then the floods. Note: not only is this in the flood plain much of it is in the flood way! Taxpayers are on the hook to spend $10 MILLION more to erect this building! Had the precinct been opened there, police cars would have been totally under water, the building greatly flooded, equipment and computers lost, DNA evidence washed down Richland Creek! Basically the second largest police precinct in the county would have been "down".

Another leader, Kathy Baker, reminds the Metro Finance Director in a direct e-mail that he ignored community warnings:

If nothing else you owe the citizens of West Nashville a debt of gratitude. We got this purchase deferred and later got the creek buffer variance deferred so the building process could not move forward. We knew all along it was a bad decision to purchase this piece of property but you wouldn’t listen. Council wouldn’t listen. If you had your way the building would have been in progress and what construction had been done would have been lost ....

When Richland Creek Watershed came to our meeting and told you about the issues with the creek you said “don’t worry about it, we’ll figure that out as we move along.” In their application to the stormwater committee, the engineers said:

“we have not submitted an alternate plan because we see no option to fully restore the buffer and still provide the facilities required for the new precinct and crime lab.”

Really? No one checked that out? We warned you ....

We showed you maps and pointed out that this property was in a flood plain and what happened? It flooded.

What would have happened if the precinct had been built according to your plans? ....

The people of Nashville would have wanted to know “what were you thinking building a police precinct in a flood plain?” You might be tempted to say (and some have said) – this is a 500 year flood and, chances are, nothing like this will ever happen again. But this is not a 500 year flood plain, it’s a 100 year flood plain and parts of it are in the floodway and it will happen again ....

I’m mad at you for not really listening to us. I’m mad at you for standing in the doorway at our meeting with your arms crossed refusing to come into the room and engage and hear what we were saying. You thought that we were simply upset about the precinct moving away from our neighborhoods, and said as much, when what we were actually saying was that this property, in particular, had not been properly vetted ....

It’s time for you to admit you made a mistake....we don’t even have an architect’s drawing or a budget, stormwater would not give you a variance on the creek buffer (and you shouldn’t have even asked for one), and the place has flooded. We must at least consider the possibility that the precinct should not be built here.

Finally, West Meade leader Mina Johnson appealed directly to Mayor Karl Dean via e-mail:

I ask you if it is truly our best option to build a new West Precinct police station and DNA lab on currently proposed 5500 Charlotte Pike?

We know more that 4.2 million dollars has invested into this location thus far. Regardless is it absolutely our best option to spend another 10 million plus dollars to continue the project on the current location despite of Metro's Floodway and Floodplain buy out plan underway[?]

What exactly has to befall the Mayor's Office before it will start listening to the wisdom of the community and watershed specialists or start abiding by its own green initiatives? What reason outside of sweetheart ties to auto dealer Bob Frensley does Metro have for steamrolling this ill-fated police precinct plan? If colossal floods do not turn Rich Riebeling's boat around what will?

Courthouse elite on billboard baron's guest list

From left to right, Finance Director Rich Riebeling, head Metro tax collector Charlie Cardwell, Metro Clerk John Arriola, and the Mayor's dapper deputy Greg Hinote enjoy a back-slapping good ole (boy) time at a recent fish fry sponsored by influence-peddling business leader Bobby Joslin. For his patronage of Metro big shots, Joslin (who is also a power broker with the Nashville Business Coalition) enjoys an appointment to the Airport Authority. But you can bet Metro executives show up when Bobby adds them to his guest list, even when flood recovery is less than a month old.

Local environmentalist learns of flood fuel spill in North End, takes soil samples toward solutions

I received this e-mail 5 days ago from one of the sisters who own ASK Apparel (emphasis mine):

Hello Mike --

I wanted to let you know that I took some soil samples today from along the North End Greenway (in the general vicinity of January Environmental at 91 Van Buren) and from Morgan Park to have them analyzed for heavy metals / organic pollutants. I was clued in to the spills there through your website -- thanks.

I am doing a project called re:seed that will open at Blend Studio on Saturday, June 5th (more info at www.alesandra.net). Basically, I am asking people to help identify sites affected by floodwaters and then scatter seedballs of remediating and soil-building plants (sunflower, mustard, cilantro and soil-building red clover) on them.

I am running soil tests on (at least) six different plots that I have identified that seemed to have some sort of chemical / pollutant spills - the North End Greenway and Morgan Park are two of the sites. I'm going to run follow-up tests once the growing season is over to see what impact (if any) growing the phytoremediating plants has had.

I am approaching this more from an art perspective (getting people involved in their immediate surroundings and in acts of restoring their community), and I recognize that just scattering seeds isn't going to be enough if there is a serious chemical contamination problem. However, there's not a lot of research on on-the-ground, "grassroots" phytoremediation, so this is also an opportunity to see if these sort of efforts actually help to improve soil / remove contamination.

All the results from the soil tests will be posted on the alesandra.net website, but I'll also make sure to send them to you directly as well, if you are interested.

Going by the greenway today, I was really struck by how much dust is still around -- the wind picked up and dust was blowing everywhere -- and by how strong the smell of sewage and petroleum still is :-(

Also, I am not sure if you are aware of this, but there are a series of EPA reports on the Tennessee floods: http://www.epaosc.org/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=6035

The reports enumerate some of the sites where spills were identified, and make for some interesting reading.

Thanks for your informative posts! Hope all is well.

warm regards,
alesandra bellos

Where in the world is the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods?

That is Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods Director Billy Fields in blue standing in the Office of Emergency Management talking with Mayor's Office staffer Toby Compton (in orange) among others. I cannot tell whether they are discussing emergency management or the handicap of pro golfers competing in the tournament broadcast live on the OEM monitor on the wall. If the tournament is the Byron Nelson Golf Classic, this photo was taken last week.

Packed angry room tonight dealt with Music City Center domino falling on urban core neighborhoods

I confess that when I arrived at tonight's community meeting on the relocation of the Greyhound bus station from the Downtown core to 11th & Charlotte, my feelings were tempered and cool. My lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with a lack of priority about this insulated and hushed-up move. Instead, it had to do with the fact that I've been waving red flags for months about dominoes bound to fall in the wake of the Music City Center; so, I wasn't shocked or surprised Metro's top-down, insulated habits of ruling over locals rose up to bite nearby North End neighborhood Hope Gardens. The transitional and blighted businesses Downtown have to go somewhere now that the new convention center is going up. We broke ground and bought the fallout.

However, I do not think that I was prepared for the abrupt confession by a Metro Planner that the move is permitted because of the Downtown Code (DC), which Metro adopted this past February. The DC was intended to be an expression of progress set out by the community in the 2007 Downtown plan. It was intended to remove obstacles for builders in order to develop "vibrant neighborhoods" that attract more people to live and work Downtown. I was incensed in this meeting, as I sensed others were, that Planning and the Convention Center Authority (CCA) were using the relative freedom granted in the DC as a loophole to drive the Greyhound terminal relocation through.

In my opinion the planner was so busy justifying the adherence of the relocation to the letter of the DC that she could not see the violation of the spirit of the code. The CCA was hard pressed by its failure to place the terminal on Murfreesboro Road because of shrill opposition. However, one Charlotte Avenue business owner suggested that sign kingpin and Metro backroomer Bobby Joslin had something to do with discouraging the move south, closer to his little empire. CCA spokesperson Holly McCall chimed in that the latitudes of the DC did not extend down Murfreesboro Road. A local resident retorted that Hope Gardens was being punished for attempting to be more progressive in helping formulate the DC than Greyhound opponents further south.

My frustrations failed to be allayed by Ms. McCall, who admitted that they never bothered to inform the local community that they were signing a contract with Greyhound for 11th & Charlotte because they were not required to. (Yes, to my bitter surprise, the contract has already been signed; so, effectively no other regulations can be mandated). But I was also just as frustrated with some in the audience who seemed shocked that no neighborhood representatives were on CCA. How many keep themselves willfully ignorant about the insular process Mayor Karl Dean uses to appoint boards and committees? Why do neighbors continue to assume that they can support Courthouses pet projects like Music City Center and that they have any control at all over the hyper-local repercussions of construction?

I appreciate that neighborhoods like Hope Gardens, Germantown, Buena Vista, and Salemtown are going to band together now to work to close the Downtown Code loophole that could allow such Music City Center fiascoes to spread north to Jefferson Street. I appreciate that Grayhound promises to work with neighborhood leaders to make sure the blight and crime associated with the terminal does not build. But where was the vigilance a few months ago when the convention center was just a concept? Surely, neighbors didn't believe that Music City Center was going to be all fairies and waterfalls like the Music City Center Coalition wanted us to believe. One of the items on the bill of goods we bought was an open door for the Courthouse culture to twist a well-intended building regulation into a cynical tool for selfish ends.

All anyone has to do is consider the fact that the Mayor's Office was invited to tonight's meeting. Karl Dean sent no one. No one. This was a meeting tailor-made for the empty shell that was once the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods. Yet, the Mayor could not muster anyone from that do-nothing department. Before you buy the line that the Mayor's Office cares about the concerns of neighborhoods, consider this important North Nashville meeting that received nothing beyond its benign neglect.

Last, but not any less deflating, was acknowledgment that the CM for this district, Erica Gilmore, had known about the relocation and the lease signing for some time without informing her constituents. This is beyond befuddling. It is something we came to expect from Gilmore's predecessor, Ludye Wallace (who happened to be there tonight while she was not). While CM at-Large Jerry Maynard attended and spoke, he seemed at a loss when addressing Ms. Gilmore's knowledge and support. All he told us was that he was aware that "certain government officials" knew about the contract with Greyhound. A few days ago Erica Gilmore sent a personal statement to relocation critics, and then later she issued a second one that looks formulated by communications staff jargon hounds.

I left the meeting more disillusioned and annoyed than when I entered it the realist. It amounted to Metro-crafted insults on top of what I see as the community's self-inflicted injuries. It may have been an important community meeting, but it was not a good one for me. I could be getting too old for these confidence game confabs. The one redeeming quality is that the Courthouse showed how low it is willing to stoop with the Downtown Code. In the future none of us around the urban core should be caught off guard by the scope of this particular depravity.

IMPORTANT MEETING TONIGHT!! On Greyhound Bus terminal relocation northwest of Downtown

From this morning's Hope Gardens e-list:

Time: May 27, 2010 from 6pm to 7pm
Location: First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill 625 Rosa L Parks Boulevard
....

Hello all,

If you haven't heard, we are getting the greyhound bus terminal in our area. Many of us oppose this and have been working to get rid of the terminal. Supposedly the terminal will only be there for 15 months (too long in my opinion, but not permanent).

That said, we've learned our lesson about trusting the nashville government. Last year we were promised that our children would always have the option to go to the Hillwood cluster (good schools) over our zoned school district (bad schools). They lied to us. We do not have that option. So we need to make sure they keep their promise that this is only temporary.

We believe this is a very undesirable thing to have near us. Murfreesboro road residents felt the same way and defeated a relocation to their area last year.

John Shenk has scheduled a meeting tomorrow with the government agencies responsible for this secret move (no one was told / consulted about the relocation of the terminal. -- though Erica Gilmore knew she did not tell any of us). The media will be there. We need you there. We need as many people to come as possible to show strength & solidarity in our numbers.

On a related note, I've left a message with Joe Cain at MDHA to call me in order to request a copy of the lease between the Convention Center Authority and Greyhound. This lease should be public record. I'll keep calling Mr. Cain until I get a response, and I'll go over to MDHA later if I have to.

Yesterday's urban rainbow

Got some photos of last evening's rainbow that appeared on the heels of a thunderstorm Downtown. One is posted on my tumblr page here.

Still no word on toxins dumped on North End greenway during historic flood

I believe that these young trees on the Downtown Connector and Magdeburg/Morgan Park Greenways show evidence that some chemical or fuel substance washed across the park land with the flood. These rings, rising as high as 3 feet on some trees, are traces to me that raise questions about whether the Greenways are actually safe to use (click on photos to enlarge).




I've tried to find out from Metro government officials if tests were conducted to identify toxins might have flooded from industrial East Germantown on May 2 and 3, but I cannot get a direct answer.

CM Gilmore's weekend e-mail about Greyhound terminal move

An anonymous commenter sends the following letter reportedly sent by CM Erica Gilmore last Saturday when the controversy over the Convention Center Authority plan to move Greyhound to the northwest edge of Downtown was growing:

From: Erica Gilmore
Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 20:35:34 -0500
Subject: Greyhound Bus

Dear Neighbors and Friends,

I would like to thank those of you who have called me or sent me an e-mail in reference to the Greyhound Bus station that will be located on Charlotte Pike.

First, I would like to say that I would never do anything to hurt our community or to jeopardize our safety. However, I find what we sometimes think things are simple when in fact they are never simple.

Yes, I had prior knowledge of the Greyhound bus station going temporarily on Charlotte. It was my understanding that the facility is temporary until the permanent station can be built. Secondly, it is my understanding that the Greyhound station will be unable to remain permanently in the area because of zoning that was provided for the Gulch and that it doesn't fit with the overall plan for the Gulch.

Several questions have been brought to me today that I am working to find answers to them immediately. The first is how long is temporary and the second is where will the permanent location be. Please know that I believe the questions are important to all of us and have sent out an e-mail and that I have called Crossland and Greyhound for this information. Because the location had been changed several times, at first Greyhound said that they were moving to the location temporarily and then they were not, and now they are. It has been a little unclear.

Please know that I will follow up with an e-mail to provide answers to these questions as soon as I have them. Thanks once again to those of you who trust that we are working together and that I am here for you and that I speak on your behalf and would not do anything to harm the community.

Most Respectfully,

ES Gilmore

I am troubled that the council member could have known of the Greyhound move but did not communicate it with neighborhoods before it hit the press on Saturday morning. Granted, she is not required to given that the move does not involve a zone change, but given the blight and crime associated with the Downtown terminal, community response deserved more of her consideration, in my opinion.

CM Erica Gilmore says she supports the community but she also supports controversial Greyhound relocation

With her own neighbors in Hope Gardens going ballistic and the nearby Salemtown association considering joining the opposition to the move of the Downtown Greyhound bus terminal to the northern Gulch area, District 19 council member Gilmore issues the following press release by e-mail a little over an hour ago (the emphasis on the Music City Center's part in this controversy is mine):

Gilmore Supports the Community More Safety and More Transparency

Council Lady Gilmore supports the community-Charlotte Pike should not be a final destination for Greyhound. In an e-mail released two days ago, Holly McCall, who represents the The Convention Center Authority, said "That the Convention Center Authority/MDHA recommended the lease for 13 months" for the Greyhound bus station. The Convention Center Authority is the governing body that made this decision assured Gilmore and constituents via e-mail that the lease is a gap-stop which means that it is a temporary location; and that Charlotte Pike is not the final destination.

The decision made by the Convention Center Authority was based on several factors: 1) it already fits into the allowed zoning for the commercial district,the fact that it already permits the zoning without needing any special variances or special use permits 2) As it was a car dealership, it proved economically efficient to retrofit for the terminal, and it is also close to interstate access, an important feature to Greyhound.

Gilmore believes as Nashville moves forward that transit is an integral part of the city's success and that businesses such as Greyhound should seize the opportunity to provide such a high quality service to citizens so that they can view the business as a part of the solution to the city's needed improvement for transit services, versus a safety hazard. "Unfortunately, because of citizen's perception of the business, they view it as a drain on the city when in fact if both the city and Greyhound would partner, the two could really offer some innovative high quality transportation to the residents of Nashville," said Council Lady Gilmore.

Additionally, Gilmore believes since the government has done such a good job in many areas of keeping the citizens informed, transparency still can be improved upon even when there are not zoning changes required by the Metropolitan Nashville City Council. "We must still find ways to keep our constituency informed with public notices through the various departments and agencies when there are no required zone changes, or special variances. We must get the message to our citizens that they are welcomed-we want their involvement.

Additionally, the different arms of government must work together in a coordinated effort through their City Councilmembers to make sure that citizens remain involved and informed. When permits are pulled for a Councilmember's district, the Councilmember should receive a notice even if it does not require special zoning or variances," said Council Lady Gilmore.

I'll look back through my e-mails but I do not remember receiving anything from the Convention Center Authority on this move. This episode supports public perceptions that Metro government led by the Mayor's Office refuses to be transparent to the community about decisions that affect us.

Any initial thoughts on Ms. Gilmore's support for both the community and the Greyhound terminal?

Music City Center fallout close to their neighborhood angers some Hope Gardens leaders

Music City Center construction effectively moved the blight and crime of the Greyhound bus out of Downtown and sandwiched it between the Fisk Area/Gulch/Hope Gardens neighborhoods in an abandoned car dealership.

Hope Gardens leaders expressed anger yesterday on the neighborhood e-list after finding out about the plans through the news media. They are also organizing to fight the move:

We have just learned that the work going on at the corner of charlotte & 11th (Map) is going to be the new location for greyhound.

Though this is just a "temporary" relocation -- temporary may be a year or years. They are spending $500,000 on the remodel and plan to occupy as of June 2nd.

Other communities have banded together to make sure that this did not happen in their neighborhood, one such example is Murfresboro, which is NOT a very nice area. See this article: http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-business/chatter-was-greyhound%E2%80%99s-bza-debacle-not-bungled-it-seems

Here is all of the public notice that we received: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100522/BUSINESS01/5220321/Nashville+Greyhound+bus+terminal+gets+interim+home

And the reason is obvious, they got their canned cleaned last time, so they SNUCK this in.

We are meeting tomorrow at 11AM at the community center to stop this.

Our strategy is 4 fold:

1) Political : rally the neighborhoods & gulch residents to stop this

2) Legal : file an injunction

3) Media : get the media to shed light on the fact that our community did not have a voice in this at all

4) Economic:

- Crosland must clean up all 24 acres that they have in preparation for this nuisance

- They need to remove foliage, manicure, remove any "hiding places" where crime elements will be harbored and add lighting

- Contact the owner at the Velocity building (where there is very little occupancy) and get them on our side

- Get businesses around that are to turn against it.

A West Nashville neighborhood needs your help

In the Robertson-Urbandale-Nations neighborhood, an industrial site landowner has been buying up residential properties and now wants to convert an entire block to industrial land-use, including having Metro abandon an alley so that he can swallow up the remaining houses.

Neighbors are organized to stop the rezoning from residential to industrial and they ask for other concerned Nashvillians' support by signing their petition. As you can see by the photos of the neighborhood residences compared to the hard-core industrial site above, rezoning would only spread blight further into the community.

If the rezoning is approved by the Planning Commission in June and later approved by the Metro Council, a precedent will be set that could encourage the business owner to eat up other residences in surrounding blocks and eliminate alleys to consolidate everything into big-box blight.

This West Nashville neighborhood is fighting for their quality of life, community character, and home values just like the rest of us would if we faced unchecked commercial growth where we live. Please support these folks just as you would like support if in their position. We could find ourselves facing the same challenge some day while asking them to return the favor.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION!

2010 Nashville flood: birdseye impact on Salemtown

Now that Metro has made the May 2010 Nashville flooding maps public, we can compare the Army Corp of Engineer's inundation projection map from a few years ago to Metro's actual illustration.

2007 ACofE map of North End areas that could be flooded with a dam failure upstream

(click on image to enlarge)

2010 Metro map of flooded North End areas outlined in red

(click on image to enlarge)

The Corps map projects up to 15' over flood stage, while the May 2010 flood reached 12' above flood stage, so the maps seem consistent to me.

I have not seen any local reports on how high the crest got to the top of the MetroCenter levee (in fact, there has been no local coverage on the condition of the levee outside of some unexamined reports that engineers pronounced it safe to allow people back into MetroCenter). I assume that the reason MetroCenter did not flood more after the initial weekend rain event was because at 12' the river could not top the levee. On Sunday, May 2 a MetroCenter business owner told me that he had been on the levee and estimated the river to be about 6 feet from topping. The local Fox News station in MetroCenter showed footage on May 3 of their portion of the levee eroding from inside. The river did not crest until Monday night after MetroCenter was evacuated (jump to some photos of the river up against the levee on the morning of May 3).

While the 2010 flood did send a few Salemtown residents scurrying for higher ground and caused many of us some anxious moments at the prospect of evacuation, 3 more feet of water would have headed up farther into the center of the neighborhood if the 2007 maps are accurate. The lesson: it is imperative that our community support all efforts to maintain the dams upriver, especially Kentucky's Wolf Creek facility was could pose disaster for us more catastrophic than the May 2010 flood.

Here is the Metro photo of the sections of Morgan Park and Salemtown flooding as the stormwater sewers to the river backed up toward us.

It looks like it was taken in the afternoon before police shut down 4th Avenue, North, 3rd Avenue, North, and Hume Street (jump to a later photo taken at closed down Hume and 4th intersection later that evening closer to crest).

For many of us this was too wicked close for comfort.