Love-Hate Mail
Puff, Puff, Purcell
Three columns into John Spragens’ puff piece “After Purcell” (April 27), a fawning speculation on the legacy of Hizzoner (bless you!), the mayor, I began circling and highlighting tidbit excerpts that were particularly inane, naive or conspicuously unaddressed. By page five, this had progressed into a full scale, multicolored, copy editor markup; a ranting Crayola diatribe spilling over Spragens’ flowery text, filling the margins with vulgar pejoratives and an unwarranted display of exclamatory punctuation.
Why am I so angry with this mayor? Perhaps I perceive Purcell as a once good steward of the public trust, now transformed. He enjoys holding office as mayor of Nashville while serving as co-chairman of Partnership 2010, the economic/business development initiative of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, despite the inherently disparate, if not conflicting, interests of the business community and the taxpaying public who voted him in to serve as their mayor.
Maybe his approval of yet another professional-sports/corporate-welfare sweetheart deal, with its brazenly Bredesen-esque end-of-term timing, reminds me of the fundraising pay-back from Bud Adams to Bredesen’s campaign for governor or the hideous costs and details still unraveling from the Titans and Predators deals. Or I might be upset that despite two fat property tax hikes to pay for the sports and the arts and the museums, my neighborhood still floods when rain water gets backed up in Metro’s poorly maintained and funded drainage easements (a.k.a. Lake Crieve Hall).
A disturbing trend in government is the increasing focus on corporate interests while providing fewer services for the public. Businesses should be subject to the natural forces of the marketplace, directed and protected by their boards and attorneys. We the people have our councils, our mayors, etc. We should demand their undivided attention and their exclusive service. If we do not, you can be sure the lobbyists will.
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GARRETT DAWSON
P.O. Box 1800, 67013 (Antioch)
Garrigan’s balls
Liz, that sure took some balls to diss Leadership Nashville! (“Elitism, Retro Style,” April 27). Thanks for voicing what lots of us think! Maybe this will force them to take a look at their organization and consider “second tier” leadership?
ADRIENNE CHASE
coach@adriennechase.com (Nashville)
Overstatement on the overlay
It’s disappointing to see Mr. Lambert continue the campaign of lies about conservation zoning in Sylvan Park (“Love/Hate Mail,” April 27). Mr. Lambert claims defeat of the overlay came because “600-plus Sylvan Park residents” opposed the measure. This is false. About 40 percent of the votes in opposition were not neighborhood residents. They were absentee property owners who voted rental properties or vacant lots. One actually voted 33 times against the overlay.
Mr. Lambert failed to mention that the results of the council straw poll came on the heels of a mysterious “push poll” conducted by paid pollsters in Ohio who blanketed Sylvan Park with blatantly false information just days before the council-sponsored ballots were mailed.
Some of the classless tactics used by Mr. Lambert, Ms. Ferris and others opposed to an overlay ranged from sending out mass mailings filled with personal attacks and grossly false statements about the overlay to even scaring the elderly on their doorsteps by falsely stating that the overlay would prohibit wheelchair ramps.
Everyone has the right to support or oppose the use of conservation zoning, but no one should praise the tactics used by overlay opponents in Sylvan Park.
PATRICK MERKEL
patrick.merkel@comcast.net (Nashville)
I’ve even seen him in Birkenstocks...
In “A Web of Conflicts” (April 20), the Scene notes that you consider yourselves “truth seekers and truth tellers.” With that in mind, I thought you might be interested in accuracy when it comes to an ideological label for Congressman Jim Cooper, the future employer of Scene writer John Spragens.
A few weeks ago Spragens noted that he was preparing to go work for “conservative” Democrat Congressman Cooper (“Big Tent Made Small,” March 16). Last week Liz Garrigan tagged him as “very conservative” (“A Web of Conflicts”). The “conservative” label could only be applied to Cooper from the far left-leaning ideological perspective of the Scene and his captive-interest writer Spragens.
The American Conservative Union ranks Cooper as the second most liberal member of the Tennessee congressional delegation. For example, in 2004 Cooper was rated the most liberal member of Congress from Tennessee with a 13 percent conservative voting record. Congressman Harold Ford Jr. had a 21 percent rating by comparison. Other Tennessee Democrats posted considerably more conservative voting records: Gordon 42 percent, Davis 56 percent, Tanner 43 percent. (As expected, the real conservatives were Republicans: Blackburn 100 percent, Wamp 88 percent, Alexander 92 percent, Frist 92 percent.) In fact, Cooper’s 2004 rating was very similar to noted New York conservative, Democratic Sen. Chuck Shumer’s 12 percent rating. Cooper’s career ACU rating of 23 percent does compare very favorably to Harold Ford Jr.’s 19 percent, who is probably seen as a “conservative” from the Scene’s perspective as well. (Source: www.acuratings.org/2005all.htm#TN.)
Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal activist group, also does congressional ratings. In their rating system a high score indicates a more liberal voting record. Congressman Cooper rated the most liberal member of the Tennessee congressional delegation for 2004 with an 85 percent rating, while Davis (60 percent), Tanner (60 percent), Ford (75 percent) and Gordon (75 percent) all posted less liberal voting records. Blackburn (0 percent) and Wamp (0 percent) provide additional evidence of how liberal the so-called “very conservative” Cooper votes in Washington, as opposed to how he may sound to The Tennessean. (Source: www.adaction.org/ADATodayVR2004. pdf) Cooper and Spragens may be able to deceive the Scene into believing the “conservative” label applies to the congressman (when it suits his purposes), but the ACU and the ADA, who seemingly agree on nothing, have finally agreed on one thing: Congressman Cooper is not a “conservative.”
STEVE GILL
steve@gillreport.com (Nashville)