Political Notes

Summer Lights, Nashville’s annual downtown festival of music and art, has been plagued by bad weather and, as a result, by financial struggles. Now the sponsor of the festival and Mayor Phil Bredesen’s office are both having second thoughts about whether the event should continue.

“We need to take a long, hard look at this,” says Vicki Oglesby, director of the Mayor’s Office of Film and Special Events, adding that the festival has “been tried just about every way.” She also notes that Summer Lights is the Greater Nashville Arts Foundation’s main source of funding. “And, you know, if it rains, then there’s not a lot of money coming in to their coffers. I think that’s what they’re struggling with. We just need to take a look and regroup.”

Every year Metro spends approximately $65,000 to provide support services for the May festival, which offers a diverse mix of musical performers and other arts activities. The Metro Courthouse parking lot is cordoned off for several days to make room for stages, rows of portable toilets, and food vendors. Metro also picks up the tab for the cleanup and sends workers out to bag parking meters on closed streets.

But Metro may have had enough. Last year, the tab for Metro services rose to approximately $90,000 because of expanded stages and because some offerings were moved to Municipal Auditorium. After learning that the Greater Nashville Arts Foundation may sell the rights to the event or cease to be a not-for-profit organization, Bredesen has chosen to hold off on committing those city services for another year, Oglesby says.

Officials with the Foundation could not be reached for comment, but Oglesby says the organization is trying to make a decision about its future as a not-for-profit group. She says that, if the Foundation sells the rights to the “Summer Lights” name, Metro will not automatically agree to provide services free of charge to the festival.

According to Oglesby, the new sponsor “will have to be another nonprofit organization” if Metro is to chip in its services. “The buying of the name does not ensure city services,” she says. “The mayor would have to make the decision. Even if another nonprofit does step up and purchase the name, it doesn’t guarantee that there would be another Summer Lights.”

Bugging Bart

Sixth District Congressman Bart Gordon’s two-time former opponent Steve Gill isn’t interested in another congressional candidacy—at least not now. Busy with a new publishing venture and his legal practice, Gill has put campaigning aside.

Meanwhile, Dennis Nordhoff, another conservative Williamson County attorney, has entered the race for the Republican nomination against the Sixth District Democrat. Young Republican Walt Massey also wants the chance to challenge Gordon in the general election. Apparently, Nordhoff is targeting a very specific audience. He’s running radio ads immediately after right-winger Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and just before the abrasive Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

“Hey, conservatives, tired of getting kicked around in Washington?” the ad begins. “Now you’ve got a new fighter in the 1998 race against Bart Gordon.... Hi, this is Dennis Nordhoff, and I’m concerned that our conservative issues are getting lost in Washington.”

Someone needs to tell Nordhoff there’s a Republican majority in Congress.

He keeps on running

John Jay Hooker, who has become the state’s most passionate advocate for campaign finance reform, plans to shine the reform spotlight in two political races next year.

Hooker plans to run against Davidson County’s top prosecutor, district attorney Torry Johnson, in May of next year. Then in August, Hooker says, he will run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

“I don’t expect to win,” he says. “But I’m going to campaign in every county of the state. I’m not going to accept a campaign contribution from anybody, but I’m going to force them to debate me about campaign finance.”

Hooker, who argues that political campaigns should be funded by the government, joins two other likely Democratic candidates—East Tennessee businessman Doug Horne and Memphis-based iconoclast Steve Cohen—in the gubernatorial race.

Robed romance

The Metro Courthouse seems an unlikely setting for a love story. It is, after all, the place where people file for divorce and where nasty child custody battles are waged.