Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Around Town / Phillips So, What Kind of Gift Did TSU Get Anyway?
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 8:38 PM
Today, Jack May said, "All we have asked for is an open and honest discussion on the merits of this project."
One wonders how you can have an open and honest discussion on the merits of a project when the people proposing the project lie on their zoning application about whether they've done an archaeological survey or when they lie about the true nature of the support they have for the project.
But the May Town Center folks have managed to get the support of the Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership and the Interdenominational Ministers' Fellowship, because these groups are excited by the land donation to Tennessee State University.
So, Nashville, let's talk frankly about that donation. Is it as wonderful as it seems? Pig or cat, my friends. Pig or cat?
Yeah, I wish I had better photo manipulation skills, too, but here at Pith, you get what you pay
Coming in from the river, also along Old Hickory Boulevard, is the squashed hexagon of the Research Park. Pay attention to the shape of those two blocks of land. Not to spoil what's going to happen later in the post, but you're going to see them again.
Meanwhile, let's talk archaeology. As you know, because I've been harping on it, we don't actually know how many archaeological sites there might be in the Bend or what their significance might be, because there never has been a complete survey of the Bend.
That means there never has been a complete archaeological survey of the May Town Center site, either, regardless of what the zoning application says.
We do, however, know where two major already identified sites are on the land that TSU is to receive. The presence of archaeological sites on the TSU land doesn't
And that's assuming that those two sites are the only two sites on the TSU land.
Any timeline or budget for the TSU projects that doesn't figure in the cost and time it will take to deal with those sites is wishful thinking.
But it doesn't take much imagination to guess that one of the reasons the Mays are happy to give that land to TSU is that now those archaeological sites are the university's problem, not the developers'.
What might be another reason?
I think there's a hint in the shape of the TSU land. Again, my apologies for the crappy
The Mays are giving TSU all the land in the flood plain.
They've kept the higher ground for themselves. And of course they would. Who wants to buy
Of course, if TSU is going to build there, they'll need flood insurance.
It doesn't matter how many community leaders and ministers they trot out to say how great it is, the truth of the matter is that this isn't just a gift from the generosity of the Mays' hearts. This is a gift that solves a lot of problems for the May Town Center folks, gives them enthusiastic advocates in North Nashville, and hands off some big headaches to TSU to deal with.
Maybe it's just me, but that rankles just a little bit.
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TSU is being used and made the fool at the same time. I would not expect anything less from Jack May and Tony G.
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Commentary: African American leaders show support for May Town Center
By ChatterClass
Progressives side against black community in fight over development.
By Richard Lawson
Standing at a microphone in front of church pulpit, Arnett Bodenhamer, a long-time leader in the African-American community, recalled a recent visit to a research park in Huntsville.
Cummings Research Park spans 3,000 acres of former cotton fields and houses many jobs because of the U.S. Army and NASA presence. Bodenhamer said those cotton farmers became millionaires.
“They no longer pick cotton,” he said at a press conference yesterday afternoon urging the rehearing of the May Town Center proposal.
North Nashville’s African-American voices have risen up yet again to say it’s time to do something for their area. They want May Town Center, seeing it as an opportunity for jobs and economic development around a Jefferson Street that has struggled for decades. They see an opportunity there along with a 50-acre research park for a reversal of what an interstate did to dissect their community decades ago.
But forget for a moment May Town’s pitch of an economic boost for the entire county or helping the African American community in North Nashville. Instead, look at whether Nashville’s so-called progressives are listening to the African-American voices.
Are the progressives tone deaf because of their own interests supported by arguments for preserving rural character, focusing development downtown and protecting their own mostly white neighborhoods? Are they really faux progressives?
Much of the May Town opposition came from West Nashville and its “progressive” council members. As it happens, an update to the West Nashville Community Plan is on the Metro Planning Commission agenda Thursday. That 210-page plan conflicts with May Town Center’s plans, primarily where bridges wouldn’t be allowed and road improvements made. New development? Good luck with that plan.
Supposedly that’s the plan people there want which seems to mean they want theirs while the African-American community in North Nashville can’t have theirs. Perhaps the African-American community needs to stand up at the public hearings for that community plan and blister it for lacking economic development foresight.
A poll the May family commissioned bears out the divide in what African-Americans across the county want. Larry Powell, a professor of communications at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, polled 400 random voters in Nashville found stronger support for May Town among African-Americans than whites. The poll determined that May Town could pass on a referendum.
May Town opponents no doubt will downplay such a poll as a contrived effort by the May family. But it’s difficult to ignore the voices.
At the press conference, leaders from North Nashville’s African-American community spoke passionately about the need for May Town Center and what it would mean to their community. They absolutely want the Metro Planning Commission to rehear the May Town proposal.
Sure, Jefferson Street has had issues in the past with leadership working at cross purposes, false starts and squandered opportunities. But nothing has come along with such potential as May Town Center.
“We do not need this to be a missed opportunity,” said Sharon Hurt, executive director of the Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership. “We need places of business here.”
Bodenhamer, the 76-year-old chairman of the political action committee Buffalo PAC said, “This will present more job opportunities for Nashville than seen for a long, long time.”
All of the televisions stations were there. The Tennessean wasn’t. That is fascinating considering that the paper was on the forefront of the civil rights movement in Nashville in the 1960s. The civil rights champion 40 years ago has relegated the desires of African-American leaders to “let’s move on” so as not to harm Bells Bend.
None of this is to say that the progressives don’t care at all. Councilwoman Emily Evans jumped up right away after the June 25 vote to make sure Tennessee State University got the 50 acres the May family promised for a research park.
That’s nice but it’s little consolation. What good is a research park with a rinky-dink road as the only access leading to it? For that park to work, Old Hickory Boulevard needs widening. But wait, Bells Bend folks have kicked and screamed over such plans in the past.
Success for a rehearing rests on technicalities. Opponents now want to invoke Robert’s Rules of Order to effectively say why a rehearing shouldn’t happen yet they are content on that they won pretty much by throwing the rules of order out the window.
In just one example, the commissioners were discussing the May Town proposal as part of the alternative development area plan approval process when they should have been discussing only the ADA.
Bodenhamer, who also is chairman of the Metro Sports Authority, said the commission’s attorney, Doug Sloan, should have been more assertive in straightening it all out during the meeting. The authority’s attorney doesn’t hesitate, he said.
Perhaps, Don Jones, the longtime Metro Council attorney, should make a guest appearance. He, too, didn’t hesitate to set things straight in his years of sitting to the right of the vice mayor.
The simplest solution would to just rehear it and have a straight up and down vote that follows the procedures perfectly with no twists and turns of language to thoroughly confuse people. If the opponents are so confident, then why not rehear it?
That way, if it fails, then the faux progressives can at least say, “We heard you on that one.” There’s still the overall issue of whether the faux progressives have heard the African-American community in general with May Town but granting the rehearing would be a first step.
I'm actually of the opinion that there should be a rehearing so that there's a clear up or down vote, so that no one feels later like someone pulled something over on someone else.
But I also think we need to talk frankly about how a development that would be, for all practical purposes, in West Nashville, is going to aid North Nashville. And why anyone in North Nashville would trust the word or promises made by a group of people who can't even be honest on their zoning application.
