CHAPMAN: ...With Gustav last year, Hurricane Gustav, and everybody was having to evacuate, and here I was up here, nothing. I called every one of my friends, offered to put them up, I’ll put you up, so forth like that.”
After surviving some 60 hurricanes over his lifetime, Chapman says it was odd not being there to help his neighbors.
CHAPMAN: “You help them board up and they come by your house and board up and maybe you go get a bite to eat together. It’s just such a different environment here, completely.”
We'll be returning to Morgan Park Community Center for this evenings Salemtown Neighbors meeting, which will start at 6pm.
Tonight, the Executive Board will propose an important series of discussions likely to take several months but critical to how our association considers and hopes to have an impact on our neighborhood. We'll be exploring ways to ensure that families of all types can feel comfortable living in Salemtown without feeling pressured to leave because of the neighborhood lacking an important resource. For families with children, these typically include safety, schools, and social outlets. For families without children, it might be as simple as ensuring that SNNA remains affirming of a diverse community, from twentysomethings to retirees. I don't think anyone on our board has expressed a desire to be exclusive, but I and others have heard concerns expressed about motivating factors for neighbors to leave Salemtown, and we'd like to begin to address these actively to the best of our ability. We hope you'll come participate in a discussion about whether this is a discussion and whether there are actions that it is appropriate for our association to become more deeply involved in.
We'll also get an update from our CAC about the community development block grant, and the Social Committee will make a recommendation about our participation in the Germantown Street Festival, among other items.
If there is any Metro government agency that validates every conservative critic of bumbling big government, it has to be the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency.
In what seems to be a never-ending, half-decade, grit-ground crawl to the end, MDHA steadfastly refuses to bring effective closure to the Salemtown streetscape project. The project was supposed to be done 3 years ago. After helping MDHA formulate the concept for the project, which was federally funded by a community block grant, citizen advisors like myself documented and reported conditions needing MDHA attention over the past couple of years. Some of the conditions were addressed, especially when they had the potential to blow up into embarrassing dramas for the housing authority..jpg)
However, MDHA left many other reported problems of the construction phase broken. These are all conditions that MDHA has promised from the beginning to fix because they happened during the construction phase.
As an elected streetscape advisor to MDHA myself, I reported a damaged traffic bulb at 5th Avenue North and Hume at a dozen meetings at least. The bulb had been damaged when first installed by a driver who likely was not accustomed to it. No problem, said our MDHA project leader. On numerous occasions she told me it would be repaired. I have yet to see it repaired, although she sent me an e-mail this asserting that private contractor, Sessions Paving, did repair it. Considering I pass by the damage several times a week, it appears to me to be a phantom patch.
Other conditions that I have been reporting for months (if not years) include elements like lampposts and signs that were built right into overhanging tree branches, some of which are not small, without any pruning being done.
In my opinion the lamppost installers treated their craft with hasty heedlessness that suggested a blatant disregard for our neighborhood, transitional though it might be.
When I asked MDHA to follow once again to have the contractor trim the tree branches back to prevent damage, the project director told me that the final inspection had been done, the limbs were now considered "ongoing maintenance," and thus not MDHA's responsibility. She said an inspector had already been with a "punch list" and certified that all of the conditions (including the damaged traffic bulb!) had been met satisfactorily.
I found this response unacceptable, given that at our last meeting MDHA promised to communicate with us about solutions and we were left with the impression that inspectors would be coming around with CAC members to verify that things had been fixed. So this is where things stand now: MDHA is washing its hands of the laundry list of items that they asked Salemtown to generate for them before the end of the project. 
We have no paper work from them that authenticates claims that inspectors when through and made legitimate reports addressing each of the conditions they asked us to identify. Their project director is assuming the bureaucratic posture that the conditions are someone else's problem.
So, I feel it my obligation to bring someone else into it to try and persuade MDHA to live up to their responsibility to Salemtown. The day before yesterday I e-mailed CM Erica Gilmore thusly:
CM Gilmore:
MDHA is claiming that they have done a final inspection of the Salemtown streetscape project and are closing it. As an elected Citizen Advisory Committee member I did not find out about this from MDHA project manager Linda Howard until I e-mailed her directly this week letting her know that some problems that I and other CAC members had identified for months still had not received a solution. Linda responded that the project was over and the solutions had already been provided. It was our understanding that MDHA would make an effort to have CAC members at the final inspection. That did not happen. We were also told there would be a final ceremony at Morgan Park. That did not happen.
Despite MDHA's unannounced closure of the project, I believe that as a CAC member I have an obligation to look at all final reports including the punch listthat Linda Howardusedherselfto certify that all the problems had received solutions. Please intercede with MDHA and ask them for copies of all documented conditions and proper documentation of contractor solutions to those conditions, includingLinda Howard'spunch list.
CM Gilmore responded that she has followed up with MDHA and that she will get back to me.
As their elected representative to this MDHA committee, I ask my fellow Salemtowners to back me up by contacting CM Gilmore (erica.gilmore@nashville.gov) and asking her to intervene and help bring MDHA back to finish the project that they have poorly managed. MDHA is dumping loads of their disposable income into the huge new Downtown convention center hotel project. With all of that money floating around it seems like they could come up with the pittance to solve the Salemtown problems they said they would address and finally close this project to everyone's satisfaction.
Metro will pay $25 million next year to cover the cost of the land....That money will come from the coffers of the Metro Development and Housing Agency, where city Finance Director Rich Riebeling says it’s been waiting for a project.That is, if the project indeed generates that much money for the next 20 years. This Metro Finance Director is averse to "ifs" on capital projects. However, if it does not generate $103 million, then the General Fund used to pave roads, maintain libraries, and keep community center programming afloat will be raided to prop up the monument to the tourism industry. The Metro Council made sure that those revenues will be committed by approving the Mayor's plan without protecting the General Fund. And note that some General Funds will be obligated even with the $103 million, since the money will come "largely [but not only!]" from project revenue.
Metro will also pay another $103 million over the next 20 years. Riebeling says that money will come largely from tax revenue the project itself generates.
public interest in the Gulf saga may have even exceeded the level of mainstream media coverage. According to surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, often between 50% and 60% of Americans said they were following the story "very closely" during these 100 days. That surpassed the level of public interest during the most critical moments of the health care reform debate.The Nashville flood occurred less than 2 weeks into the greatest environmental disaster in history. The oil spill story dominated the news for 100 days because the public interest in it was insatiable. The flood came, receded, and recovery happened for much of Nashville. The spill just kept going for weeks and weeks into an uncertain future.
Budget and Finance -- Megan BarryAll but one of these committee chairs voted yes to Mayor Karl Dean's convention center project. Looking at this list could make one wonder whether the Vice Mayor believes administration critics have the ability to lead Metro Council. Particularly noteworthy is CM Barry's appointment to the Mayor's little resolution compressor, the Council Budget and Finance Committee.
Charter Revision -- Randy Foster
Codes, Fair, and Farmers Market -- Vivian Wilhoite
Convention and Tourism -- Rip Ryman
Education -- Erica Gilmore
Federal Grants Review -- Frank Harrison
Health, Hospitals and Social Services -- Jim Forkum
Parks, Library, and Recreation and Public Entertainment Facility -- Jerry Maynard
Personnel-Public Information-Human Relations-Housing -- Parker Toler
Public Safety-Beer and Regulated Beverages -- Edith Taylor Langster
Public Works -- Jim Hodge
Rules-Confirmations-Public Elections -- Greg Adkins
Transportation and Aviation -- Anna Page
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Along with CM Ronnie Steine, she represents the path of least resistance to Karl Dean.The Greyhound Bus company will be holding an open house for Hope Gardens and the other surrounding neighborhoods. Following our public forum and demands about the operation of the temporary bus terminal, Greyhound agreed to an open house where neighbors could see the new location and address any concerns. Please plan on stopping by the open house.
An announcement from Chris Clarke at the Tennessee Women's Theater Project regarding cultural events here in the North Nashville community (the first three are at the Z. Alexander Looby Theater, 2301 Rosa L. Parks Blvd, Nashville 37228):Tennessee Women’s Theater Project Announces 2010-2011 Season
According to Chris, tickets for the Looby Theatre shows are $15 for adults, $12 for students and seniors, and $10 for Thursday shows. For more information and reservations call 615-681-7220 or jump to www.twtp.org.Tennessee Women’s Theater Project has scheduled its 2010-2011 season of professional theater, presenting two plays new to Middle Tennessee audiences, and the return of the company’s annual Women’s Work showcase of performing and visual arts.
- October 1 through 17, 2010 - Unravelling The Ribbon. This is the US professional premiere of an acclaimed Irish play about the effects of breast cancer on three women. 7:30 pm – October 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15 & 16. 2:30 pm – October 3, 10 & 17.
- February 25 through March 13, 2011 - Impressionism. This gentle romantic comedy, set in a small art gallery, shows how love can heal broken lives. 7:30 pm – February 25, 26, March 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 & 12. 2:30 pm – February 27, March 6 & 13.
- May 6 through 23, 2011 - Women’s Work 2011. Our fifth annual showcase and celebration of performing and visual arts created by women. Presenting artists to be announced. 7:30 pm – May 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20 & 21
2:30 pm – May 8, 15 & 22.- Warriors Don’t Cry on tour 2010-11 – we’re taking our celebrated one-woman show, based on the memoir of Little Rock Nine member Melba Pattillo Beals, on tour to schools and other organizations, including some two dozen free performances in Metro Nashville high schools.
For city parks to be successful, they need great water features. Yet it takes money to maintain them, and neglecting such facilities can make a real negative impression on visitors and residents.A fountain installed last year at Morgan Park--later than originally planned--worked well for the October 2009 opening ceremony, attended by council members, Vice Mayor, and German dignitaries. It functioned normally for a few weeks after that.
Lately, a homeless man has taken up residence on the benches at the bottom basin. The trash can overflows with meal rubbish, including single serving cereal boxes, yogurt cups, and coke cans. Parks should increase its trash pick-up with the new resident so that the overflowing garbage does not match the negativity of a poorly functioning fountain.
