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Editor's Note

Rush to the Rescue Limbaugh praises Thompson, but can anything save his campaign?

 

 

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Rush to the Rescue Limbaugh praises Thompson, but can anything save his campaign?

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Have Water, Will Runoff Give the gifts of water retention and conservation this year

Ping-Pong Please The lottery’s computerized drawings have tampered with faith among players

Off the Record Amy Grant talks about her new book, her divorce and subsequent marriage to Vince Gill, ‘easy’ hair, teenage crushes and more

Afflict the Afflicted When a columnist returns from a cancer fight, what does The Tennessean do?

Thanks for the Living Wages

Nice Guy Finishes First Dean beats Clement in electoral showdown between old and new Nashville

 

 

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Liz Garrigan

Liz Garrigan is editor of the Nashville Scene

 

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The group’s so-called “public awareness campaign” is expected to launch officially with a press conference in the next week, Brumfield says. Directors of TAG have already been named: president Rusty Siebert, who is the former director of TennCare; vice president Susan Kaestner; and secretary-treasurer Crom Carmichael, a local conservative.

“Lee Beaman has loaned TAG money, but once things get up and going, the loan will be paid by donors from across the state,” Brumfield says.

Though the $4 million annex to the governor’s mansion is part of a $12 million overall renovation that is being financed largely with private donations, indignant neighbors nevertheless are now using an opposition strategy whose talking points peddle fear that taxpayers ultimately will be burdened with a project they say is sure to go over budget. This is in contrast to the textbook NIMBY hostility they have voiced up until now.

“This is an issue that will have significant impact on all taxpayers,” according to a talking-point document that Brumfield authored. “They’re projecting $3.84 million in taxpayer money to pay for this. Of course, that’s the starting point—government projects always seem to go up from there, don’t they?”

The same document compares the size of the proposed underground facility at the Executive Residence with that of the East Room of the White House: 13,000-plus square feet compared to 4,000. “Is the State Building Commission saying that Tennessee needs a ballroom over three times the size of what the President of the United States needs to entertain dignitaries and heads of state?”

The neighbors say they want “a fair hearing of our concerns...and notice to be published statewide so all taxpayers in the state have ample opportunity to participate. Again, this project is to be funded by taxpayers from Johnson City to Memphis.”

Beaman, who lives near the Curtiswood Lane Executive Residence, told The New York Times last week that the plans for the governor’s mansion redo seem odd coming from Gov. Phil Bredesen. “This is so totally inconsistent with what I would think his overall philosophy would be. I’m scratching my head saying, ‘Where did this come from?’ ”

Meanwhile, Beaman and TAG seem to be working in concert with a conservative outfit called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which is saying that Conte has deliberately “deceived” Tennesseans about the cost of the proposed facility.

“The first lady has turned the Governor’s Mansion into a house of horrors for taxpayers,” Drew Johnson, president of the group, railed in a press release this week. “If this bunker is built, it will become an underground fund-raising Mecca for incumbent governors and their political parties. It will go down as the single most inappropriate use of tax dollars in the history of Tennessee.”