Bill Purcell has more in common with the brainy Ichabod Crane than the brawny Brom Bones. Nevertheless, the mayor is wielding his sword like the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. The latest head to roll belongs to Planning Commission executive director Jeff Browning, who announced his resignation at the commission’s Jan. 7 meeting. Browning follows General Services director Sam McPherson and Benefits Board executive secretary Jim Luther.
While the Metro charter stipulates that the director’s contract is with the Planning Commission rather than the city’s administration, courthouse insiders acknowledge that Purcell was the driving force behind Browning’s ouster. The consolation prize negotiated for Browning by attorney Tom White is a contract to serve as a consultant to Metro government until June 30. He’ll report to interim planning director Karen Nicely, who has served in the planning department for 26 years, most recently as assistant executive director.
Browning’s departure demonstrates that support for the Franklin Corridor has proven to be a fatal flaw for some Metro bureaucrats. In November, Browning angered the mayor by lobbying his commission for a thruway connecting I-65 and I-40 south of Broadway when Purcell had already gone on record as saying he wanted the road stopped at Eighth Avenue. Former Public Works director Marlin Keel was also a staunch Corridor comrade. Keel was transferred by then-Mayor Bredesen to the General Services department and has since left Metro government service entirely.
The makeup of the search committee for a new director illustrates the increasing influence of neighborhood and urban design advocates in the politics of planning. In addition to three members of the commission—including Metro Councilman Phil Ponder—and a representative from the mayor’s office, the committee will contain representatives of the Nashville Neighborhood Alliance and the Nashville Urban Design Forum. The committee will use a national search firm to develop a list of top-flight candidates.
The Neighborhood Alliance was founded in the mid-1980s to give a political voice to residents of inner city and mid-city neighborhoods, many of them historic. In recent years, the alliance has expanded its focus to include newer suburbs.
The Urban Design Forum is a more recent creation. In 1995, a collection of design professionals and preservationists who saw the Franklin Corridor as just the latest in a series of bad planning decisions, came together to develop a pro-urban strategy. The group staged a series of classes on the basics of good urban design and began to conduct monthly meetings on topics such as the best site for a new downtown library. In response to the forum’s advocacy, then-candidate Purcell pledged to establish an urban design center if he was elected.
According to Mayor Purcell, ”the search [for a new director] needs to be national, and I’m comfortable with the chair’s desire to use an outside firm to conduct it. My goal is fairly simple: the best planning director in the country, who understands us. I don’t see this as a choice between development and neighborhood. I think both can be upheld. And I also think our Planning Commission can find the right person in the near term. Then we can move forward on the separate and complementary urban design center.“
The local name most commonly mentioned to succeed Browning belongs to Ed Owens, the Planning Commission's former zoning chieftain who is now with Gresham Smith. But when contacted for comment, Owens said he ”appreciates the consideration“ but intends to continue his career in the private sector.
