Shame on President Trump for using the term "shitholes"

Shame on President Trump for using the term "shitholes" to refer to certain countries, assuming he did in fact use that term.  He should have referred to the countries in question as disease-ridden, crime-ridden, poverty-stricken, corrupt, dysfunctional, unstable, dirty, shabby, third-world countries.  You know, the kind of places we think of as "shitholes."

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Southeast Nashville Conservatives' Breakfast topic is the impact on the Fairgrounds of the MLS Soccer Field. Sat. 1-20-18

Location: Shoney's (Nolensville Rd & Thompson Lane)
Saturday, January 20th
Social &  Breakfast 9:00 - 10:00 am
Program begins at 10:00 am
**Note the time change

Speakers: DCRP Chairwoman Melissa Smithson & Jim Roberts will provide a behind the scenes update of the Fairgrounds versus the impact of the MLS Soccer Field.

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Transit plan supporters outnumber critics at public hearing

I have quickly sampled this three and half hour public hearing but I have not yet watched this video but intend to do watch more of it. If any speaker says anything brilliant I will tag the timestamp. Look for "update," to see if I have posted a timeline notation or provided additional commentary.

According to news reports, proponents showed up early and took all the seats. The Tennesseean says the public hearing was very one-sided and was less a barometer of public opinion and more a sign of months of organizing by the Transit for Nashville Coalition. Here is a  link  to the Tennessean report.

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Barry buckles to pressure. Backs down on closing General

Mayor Megan Barry has buckled to pressure and delayed until the end of 2018 her decision to close General Hospital. As expected, members of the Black community had denounced and resisted her decision but in recent days one of the members of the Council who is considered a conservative came out in opposition.

General Hospital is a failure and cannot fill its beds and serves very little purpose, yet the Black community see Meharry General Hospital as a source of pride. Nashville General is the teaching hospital of Meharry Medical College. Meharry is the second largest educator of African-American medical doctors and dentists in the United States and has the highest percentage of African Americans graduating with Ph.Ds in the biomedical sciences in the country.  Should General close, the mission of Meharry Medical College would not be jeopardized. Meharry recently partnered with HCA to train at TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center, a hospital in HCA's TriStar Health subsidiary.

General Hospital has long been a money pit. In the last two years the Hospital has sought $26 million in emergency funding  in addition to a $35 million annual subsidy from the Metro Council.  As reported in The Tennessean recently, a recent audit found that the hospital, "failed at basic bookkeeping, unable to keep track of patient payments and major expenses."

While poor management is obviously a problem, the real problem with Nashville General is that  no one wants to go there.  Metro jail inmates without insurance needing hospitalization have no choice and are sent to General and there is a financial incentive for Metro employees to use General but it still cannot fill its beds. The facility is  licensed for 150 beds, staffed for 114 and has an average of 44 beds filled a day. Metro General should have been closed fifty years ago.  Ever since the advent of Medicaid there has been no need for a city charity hospital and the reason it has been kept open is purely political. There is no federal or state law or metro charter provision requiring the city to operate a charity hospital.

I thought it took courage for Megan Barry to propose closing General. It did, but unfortunately Barry did not have the backbone to follow through and rally support. Facing other issues, such as pushing her transit plan, I doubt the mayor will invest political capital in trying to build support for an end of year decision to close General.  We are probably stuck poring more money down this rat hole for many more years to come.

For more on General see the following:
Mayor Megan Barry delays closure of inpatient care at Nashville General Hospital
Why is Steve Glover fighting to keep General Hospital open? Very disappointing. 
The Tennessean, December 17, 2017: Future uncertain for Nashville General CEO amid mayor's plans to end inpatient care.
The Tennessean, December 15, 2017:  Hospital landscape in limbo as questions swirl over Nashville General's fate
The Tennessean, December 14, 2017: Audit: Nashville General plagued by financial mismanagement despite progress. 
For previous reporting on Metro Nashville General issues covered in this blog, follow this link.   

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Why is Steve Glover fighting to keep General Hospital open? Very disappointing.

Steve Glover, fighting to
Keep General Hospital Open

According to The Tennesseean, a bill has been filed by two metro council members to force the city to keep General Hospital open for at least a year and a half.  The sponsors are Erca Gilmore and Councilman Steve Glover.  Steve Glover! I am shocked.  I expected push back from the Black community and from some super liberals in the Council and am not surprised that a Black council member would introduce such legislation but fiscally responsible members of the Council should be rallying behind the mayor on this issue. Councilman Glover is thought of as one of the conservatives in the Council. He is a Republican. If Steve Glover would like to explain why he is taking this action, he is free to leave a comment.

Member of the Black community see Meharry General Hospital as a source of pride. Nashville General is the teaching hospital of Meharry Medical College. Meharry is the second largest educator of African-American medical doctors and dentists in the United States and has the highest percentage of African Americans graduating with Ph.Ds in the biomedical sciences in the country.  Meharry recently partnered with HCA to train at TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center, a hospital in HCA's TriStar Health subsidiary. Meharry's mission will not be jeopardizes by the closure of General.  Despite serving very little purpose for the city and despite there being no law requiring the city to operate such a hospital, no previous mayor has dared to antagonize the leadership of the Black community by proposing to close General Hospital.

In the last two years the Hospital has sought $26 million in emergency funding  in addition to a $35 million annual subsidy from the Metro Council.  As reported in The Tennessean recently, a recent audit found that the hospital, "failed at basic bookkeeping, unable to keep track of patient payments and major expenses."

While poor management is obviously a problem, the real problem with Nashville General is that  no one wants to go there.  Metro jail inmates without insurance needing hospitalization have no choice and are sent to General and there is a financial incentive for Metro employees to use General but it still cannot fill its beds. The facility is  licensed for 150 beds, staffed for 114 and has an average of 44 beds filled a day. Metro General should have been closed fifty years ago.  Ever since the advent of Medicaid there has been no need for a city charity hospital and the reason it has been kept open is purely political.

Finally, surprisingly,  a liberal mayor is showing the courage to close this money pit and instead of being cheered on and supported by a Republican in the Metro Council, she is being sabotaged.  I am very disappointing. If you see the mayor encourage her to stay the course. If you interact with your council members, please tell him or her to support the mayor on this issue.

For recent news regarding Nashville General, see the following.
The Tennessean, December 17, 2017: Future uncertain for Nashville General CEO amid mayor's plans to end inpatient care.
The Tennessean, December 15, 2017:  Hospital landscape in limbo as questions swirl over Nashville General's fate
The Tennessean, December 14, 2017: Audit: Nashville General plagued by financial mismanagement despite progress.
 
For previous reporting on Metro Nashville General issues covered in this blog, follow this link.  

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Senate confirms Nashville attorney Chip Campbell as federal judge for Middle Tennessee

The Tennessean reports,  Senate confirms Nashville attorney Chip Campbell as federal judge for Middle Tennessee.

Chip Campbell is the son of  Bill and Beth Campbell. Beth is a Republican work horse and is well know in Republican circles, having worked tirelessly in numerous political campaigns.  She is a former member of the Tennessee Republican Party Executive Committee and is currently serving as a member of the National Republican Executive Committee.

The Senate voted 97-0 on Tuesday to confirm  William “Chip” Campbell Jr. to become a U.S. District Court judge for the state's Middle District, which includes Nashville and the surrounding counties. He is an attorney in the Nashville office of Frost Brown Todd LLC,

Congratulations Chip, Bill and Beth!

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Pro-Life Vote Upheld on Amendment 1. Judges Rule Unanimously Against Planned Parenthood

Tennessee Right to Lifem JANUARY 9, 2018 - In a resounding victory for pro-life Tennesseans, Judges on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals have rejected a pro-abortion effort to overturn the 2014 voter passage of Amendment 1.   

"Although the subject of abortion rights will continue to be controversial in Tennessee and across our nation, it is time for uncertainty surrounding the people's 2014 approval and ratification of Amendment 1 to be put to rest," wrote Senior Judge David McKeague, a 2005 appointee of George W. Bush. 

Tennessee Right to Life expresses profound gratitude to the many supporters, advocates, and voters who sacrificed to see Amendment 1 placed on the ballot and passed by public vote. It was made necessary by a radical pro-abortion decision by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2000 which wrongly declared a so-called "fundamental right to abortion" in the Tennessee Constitution thereby making enforcement of common-sense protections impossible in Tennessee. 

Passage of SJR 127 and Amendment 1 remained the top priority and legislative goal of Tennessee Right to Life for more than 16 years.

"Today's ruling is vindication of the state's amendment process and victory for the thousands of pro-life Tennesseans who sacrificed to see Amendment 1 passed," said Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life. 

"We are grateful to the legislators who placed the amendment on the ballot, to voters who approved it, and to the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Coordinator of Elections who all worked tirelessly to defend it," said Harris. "The voices of Tennessee's voters have been heard and, as a result, public policy decisions on the matter of abortion can be rightly debated and determined by the people's representatives."

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What to do about Mass Transit and traffic congestion

by Rod Williams  - All of the candidates for mayor have issued statements or published position papers addressing the issue of mass transit and traffic congestion.  Polls of what Nashvillians care about list mass transit and traffic among the top issues. The long hard-fought battle to stop the AMP caused people to focus on the issue of mass transit.  And, people’s own personal experience of dealing with Nashville traffic has elevated the issue. I have lived in Nashville most of my adult life and I remember when we could brag that Nashville was a “15-minute city," meaning you could get anywhere you wanted to go in fifteen minute. That changed a long time ago.  Traffic is a serious issue and good big cities have mass transit. It is fitting that traffic and transit are important  issues.  Below are my thoughts on the issue.

I want to see Nashville develop a system of mass transit that uses the private sector to the largest extend possible.  I would like to see us transition from a public mass transit system to a private mass transit system.  I would like to see us do things never done before.  We should break new ground. We should be known as the city with a great transportation system primarily dependent on the private sector to provide the service.  We should privatize mass transit.

By “privatized” I mean both fully privatized non-governmental transit, and public-private-partnership and out-sourcing, private companies hired by government to provide transit services.  As an example, Uber is a fully private operation with no government subsidy and minimal regulation.  Airport-hotel express bus service is private form of mass transit. A private-public partnership may be that a company builds a light rail line and operates it, for instance from the airport to downtown, and we lease the rail line for 75 years.  Some turnpikes are built like this.  Hiring a private firm to provide a service is the way the state often houses prisoners and the way we pick up most of the city’s garbage.  

We need to seek a unique solution:  If I were mayor I would seek out consultants who have experience in successful cost effective mass transit relying on private providers.  If we cannot find a consultant with a track record of doing this, we could do it ourselves.   I would call Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, Grayline, Megabus, and others to the table and ask for RFP’s for moving masses of people efficiently.  These app-dispatched type companies like Uber and Lyft are relatively new.  They have made lots of money and have lots of money to invest and they may be looking for opportunities to grow.  Brainstorm with them. Invite them to help us solve our transit problem.
 

Look at Megabus: For $10 one can go from Nashville to Atlanta on a Megabus.  Would Megabus want to take over a Nashville Express bus services?  Or, maybe Grayline?Remove prohibition against private companies competing with the MTA.  At this time probably no company would want to provide a purely private bus service but we should remove the impediment if one did want to.  We should change the environment to one that welcomes private solutions, competition and innovation instead of a climate that penalizes private solutions. 

Remove the requirement for a 'certificate of necessity' before one can operate more cabs or start new cab companies.  The only logic for restricting supply of taxis is to protect those already in business from competition. Taxis are not mass transit, but they complement mass transit.  For one thing, they get people out of their private car and once one has become accustomed to not driving their private car, then other forms of transportation may also become more attractive.  Also, if one takes a bus from Murfreesboro to downtown, often one must still get somewhere else.  Taxis can take you the few blocks or miles from the end of the bus line to where you need to be.  Also, taxis do not need to park downtown for 8 hours at a stretch and if we had more taxis in use there would be less demand for more parking.

Look at how we pick up garbage:  I was in the Metro Council when we changed the way we pick up garbage. The city picked all up of it, it was a more labor intensive process and garbage cans were manually lifted instead of mechanically lifted and service was twice a week instead of once a week. We transitioned to a once-a-week, mechanical-lift, uniform-garbage-can system.  Metro still designs the routes and supervises quality but most garbage is now picked up by private companies.  This has saved metro a lot of money.  Garbage workers were some of the lowest paid employees in the city but disability claims and retirement was very expensive. Metro employees and the public resisted the transition to private companies collecting the garbage but the transition to the current system happened and it has worked well.  During the transition, Metro public works “competed” with private companies. The cost of metro picking up garbage was established counting all cost in order to measure and compare the deal we were getting from private firms.  If Metro could “bid” lower on a route than a private company, Metro continued the route.  Eventfully, private companies took over most to the routes. The city simply could not pick up garbage as cheap as a private company. 

My Thai observation #1: It doesn’t matter the color of the bus.  I did not know what I was observing at the time but as a young man I spent 15 months in Thailand. I was in the Air Force and I lived off base and enjoyed my experience.  I learned how to take the local buses and get around.  I noticed that on a bus route that I used, I sometimes caught a brown bus and sometimes a green bus, but the bus followed the same route and regular schedule regardless of the color of the bus.  It was only years later when doing some research on transportation that I realized that the local government set the routes and allowed private companies to bid on the routes.  On the same route,  one time the bus may be one owned by one company but the next bus may be a bus owned by another company.

My Thai observation #2:  It is not a taxi and it is not a bus. Often instead of catching a bus, I would catch another type service.  In Thailand, they were often mini- pickup trucks that had a top but open sides with benches facing each other on each side of the truck bed.  Later I realized this type service is called a “jitney” and operates in many countries, but we do not have it in America.  It is a service that operates on a relatively fixed route but can deviate a block or two off the route to drop someone off at their home or place of work.  With modern phone apps and almost everyone having a smart phone, I think an Americanized version of jitney service could work in Nashville.  Obviously, Instead of pick-up trucks however I would envision vans or very small busses. 
 

The Nashville Star has been a failure and not a model to follow. This 30-mile line starting in Lebanon was projected to move 750 per day but on average it only moves 550 people a day.  The fare box only covers only 15% of the cost of a trip on the train.  With an operating budget of $5.1 million, that is not a sustainable model.  Also it gets very few cars off the road.  If 550 people a day are taking the train, some of those would be riding with a spouse, or car pooling or riding a bus or not working downtown. So if we consider 75% of those riding the train would be driving a car that is only 413 cars taken off the road in that 30 mile stretch of I-40 or Lebanon Pike.  That is an insignificant number.

We do not need to widen roads. There may be bottle necks that could be improved, but widening roads is like solving a weight problem by buying a bigger belt.  Sitting in traffic is one of the “cost” that will result in people being willing to use mass transit and also influence people’s decision about where they live and work.

Not everyone minds their long commute. People like to talk about their horrible commute, but some people are accustomed to it and value the independence of their car and do not want to ride mass transit.  I think I would hate it myself, but some people have told me the ride home gives them time to unwind. They do not find it nerve wracking. They want to listen to their music or choice of talk show or sports and do not want to share that choice and they want to stop off at the grocery store on the way home.  Don’t assume people want to give up their car.  We are not now maximizing the use of vanpools and car pools and the express bus services. If we are not now maximizing alternative options, they why should we assume other options would get people to give up their car? There may not be as much demand for mass transit as some assume. Equal to the challenge of how we move people is selling people on the idea of using mass transit.  Don’t assume that if we build it, they will use it. 

Not every bus has to be the same.  Some millennial and young professionals may want luxury seats and Wi-Fi and a smooth ride. Recent immigrants living out Nolensville Rd may be happy with a school-type bus and lower priced service and greater frequency of service may be more important than a luxury ride. Let entrepreneurs have a chance to provide different models and see what works. What works on one route may not be the same as what works on another route.

Mass transit and planning for development should coincide.  I have traveled quite a bit in Europe and in some other countries. A visitor to Europe may think the walled cities with big cathedrals and cobble stone streets are quaint and that everyone lives like that. If you take a train from one city to another in many of these countries, however, you will find that much of the population live clustered around railway stops at different points along the route.  One may pass through miles of sparse development or pasture and farmland and then come to a railway stop and there will be a population center with multi story apartment buildings around the train stop.  Should we build a light rail line or develop a Bus Rapid Transit route down Nolensville Road or some other major corridor, then land use planning should allow high rise, high density development of apartments clustered around the transit stop. 

We need greater density to make mass transit successful.  We should discourage rezoning of neighborhoods to single-family-only, should encourage zoning that allows auxiliary living units on residential properties (mother-in-law apartments) and increase density along major corridors, at mass transit hubs, or major transit stops.  This would also increase the supply of affordable housing. 

Express bus service is a “public good."  It is a given that getting more people to take buses from Murfreesboro to Nashville, or Gallatin or Clarksville to Nashville is a public good.  When someone takes the bus it makes the road less congested for the rest of us.  It reduces the demand for widening roads, reduces commute times for other drivers and cuts pollution by reducing idling cars.  It reduces poverty by making it possible for low-skilled workers to get to jobs, it increases disposable income and spurs economic growth by allowing people to spend more of their money on other goods rather than transportation.  Yet ridership is low. (I do not know the number, but know it is low. We need the numbers in order to say:  “X number of people commute from Murfressboro to Nashville everyday, yet only X percent takes the express bus service.”)  

Regional transportation is also a State public good. Metro should not pay the lion’s share for regional transportation. The more people who take the Murfreesboro to Nashville bus, the more it helps the State, since it reduces traffic on the interstate highway. We need regional support and state financial support for efforts to increase mass transit.  Our Nashville legislative delegation should advocate for regional transit to get TDOT support for every vehicle that is taken off a state road due to someone using mass transit. 

Express Bus service is a bargain.  One can take a bus from Murfreesboro t o Nashville for $4 for one trip or 20 trips for $70. That is only $7.50 a day!  To park at the 701 Church Street garage is $5 for one hour, $8 two hours, and a $13 daily maximum if one can find a place to park.  So to take the bus for a month is $7.50 x 20 days= $150 a month; to take a car is $150 parking (assume one leases a space by the month), gas $200 (assume a tank a week at $50 x4= 200) maintenance and oil changes assume $50 a month, and assume the wearing out of a car used mostly for work $400 a month. (Assume a $20,000 car for 5 years plus interest). So the cost of taking the bus is $150 a month and the cost of driving is $800.

So, how do we get more people to take the bus? Assuming it is a pubic good and we want more people to take the bus, and it is a bargain, why won’t people take the bus? It could be that it is inconvenient to be at the bus stop on time, one may want to stay in town to have dinner, one may have to pick up the kids or stop at the grocery store and the bus does not take you to the door of your business.  Other people may not take the bus because they just love their car, and you would have to pay them to take the bus.  However, many people do not know of the option of express bus service or have never even considered it.  One thing government does not do well is advertise its services and most of the time with good reason.  Most government services do not have to be advertised because people have to have them, want them or not.  Other services are government monopoly and people have no choice of provider. For other services, if more people use the service such as libraries or parks we will have to build more libraries or parks. However, getting people out of their cars can save money and solve a problem. We need to “sell” people on using the bus.  We need billboards and ads touting the benefit of taking an express bus service. Any RFP for a private company to take over an express line should include a proposal for advertising and increasing ridership and perhaps provide an incentive for increasing ridership.  Even if we do not privatize the line, we still need to advertise.

Use Technology, synchronize lights, and build roundabouts and pedestrian passageways: My favorite bad example of uselessly sitting at a traffic light is Craighead and Bransford.  The light takes forever to change with traffic going neither direction.  Often I have been tempted to run the red light. This would be a great place to build a roundabout or turn the light to flashing red and flashing yellow after 8PM unless there is a function at the Fairgrounds.  I am sure this is only one of a thousand examples in town. I have traveled in Europe and I know roundabouts take some getting used to but they are safe and keep traffic moving. Also, by reducing idle time, they improve air quality and reduce air pollution.  All lights should be automated to be timed to move traffic most efficiently.  On super busy roadways with pedestrian traffic, we should construct pedestrian bridges or tunnels.  This will increase safety of pedestrians and reduce the light timing necessary for pedestrians to cross the road.  This would not be something for downtown where we want to encourage pedestrian traffic and slow traffic, but I am sure there are some areas where this would be beneficial, such in Greenhills. I have seen these used European cities. It works.

Make the city more walkable by stopping building sidewalks stupidly and require new developments to have a “pedestrian plan,” just as they must now have a traffic plan, a lighting plan and a storm water plan. I have examples of poor planning and building sidewalks stupidly that I could show you.  It seems as if some streets were designed to ensure people never walk. 

Most people do not work downtown.  A lot of people do, but I have never worked downtown.  If we moved masses of people from Murfreesboro to downtown, then how we would they get them to their jobs which are scattered throughout the city and the region?  Before we focus on a massive investment of a Murfreesboro to Nashville route or similar routes we need to figure out how to get people where they want to go once they get downtown.  Private paratransit could help accomplish this. 

We must realize that it is difficult to retrofit a city build mostly after the advent of the car to accommodate mass transit.  Cities with really good mass transit are cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston.  These are all cities that had large populations and were built prior to the advent of the automobile.  We should not over promise on mass transit. Atlanta has a large rail system but its job centers are not clustered, making that rail system less useful.  

Realize the future may be here before you know it and needs may change. It was not that many years ago that everyone did not have a smart cell phone. That technology has changed much of how we live from how we find places, connect with people, and decide the routes we take.  The demand on our roads and use of one’s own car may decrease. More people may work from home. UPS, Federal Express, pizza delivery and running to another office to deliver a set of document may be done mostly by drones in five to ten years.  To go somewhere, you may click an app on your phone (or key bob type device or whatever) and a driverless pod rushes to your house and takes you where you want to go. We will still need roadways but some problems may take care of themselves and it is difficult to plan for a future 75 years down the road when technology we have not even dreamed of yet, may appear at any time. 

This originally appeared in this blog on  July 15, 2015. In the mid 1980's I Iead an effort with my friend Roger Bissell to stop a proposed special tax to support mass transit. During that process I studied the issue of transit in some depth. Also from my service on the Planning Committee of the Council and work with an engineering firm I had more exposure to traffic planning issues. I believe the time is now to develop a primarily private forward- looking transportation system. With new technologies emerging we do not need to build the system of the past. Nashville could break the mold and do something cutting edge if we had the right leadership. Rod Williams

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Important public hearing on the mayor's transit proposal tommorrow!

This meeting will be packed with supporters for this proposal. For months the mayor has been building support. There are organization like Bike Walk Nashville and others who you can bet will be there in force. The proponents are organized but the opponents are not.  Unfortunately due to my personal situation, I cannot get away to attend this meeting. If only proponents speak up, members of the Council will think most people support it. Please show up and let your opinion be known.

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First Tuesday guest speaker is Ralph Schulz of the Chamber making the case for the mass transit plan.

From Tim Skow, Host of First Tuesday:

MONDAY .... January 8th .....is a '' YUUUGGGGE DAY'' ....

especially for all those who engage in the politics in and around Middle Tennessee ...

SOME ... will be prepping for the Opening the TN Legislature the next day.

Some  .... will be gearing up for the National Championship football game that night

Others .... will be working their way to see President Trump during his Nashville visit.

BUT...THE brightest minds engaged in Nashville's future and its political affairs ..... will be at the JANUARY version of 1ST TUESDAY dealing with Mayor Barry's plan to raise[and spend] no less than $5,400,000,000++ from Nashville taxpayers for Mass Transit.

Yes ....all the events will be memorable... BUT ... only one will impact the future of Nashville and middle TN for decades!

Plan to join us and invite your friends on MONDAY.... Jan 8th .... details follow. 

1^ST TUESDAY invites you to a $5,400,000,000 lunch

 No version of 1^ST TUESDAY has ever brought our Members and Guests a meeting  that has sooooooo much on the line for Nashville’s future.

Mayor Barry is proposing a new Mass Transit plan with a budget of over $5.4 Billion dollars. Her proposal encompasses a wide and complex range of topics critical to Nashville’s future…. Topics that include but are not limited to the following:

·        TRAFFIC !! traffic issues are approaching extreme with no end in sight

·        GROWTH! roughly 2,000 people a month are moving here !

·        FINANCIAL ISSUES !! Nashville isn’t made of $$. WHAT do is at stake?

·        COMPARABLE CITIES SOLUTIONS? Atlanta, Austin, Denver & others?

·        FACTS vs ‘’FAKES’’? … What concerns are REAL? Which are ‘’Bogus-BS’’?

[its already coming … AND… it is going to get even more outrageous ! ]

Therefore – we will have 2 meeting in JANUARY on Mayor Barry’s proposal.

 Monday – JAN 8^th  RALPH SCHULZ returns from the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and Members of Mayor Barry’s team will make their case. AS USUAL – the 2^nd half of our meeting with be a lively Q&A.

Details for 2^nd meeting will follow next week.

Doors at WALLER Law [511 Union St – 27^th floor] open at 11:00am. Event is $20 for Members and $25 for Guests. Lunch is at 11:30. Program at NOON sharp! Visit our website at www.1sttuesdaynashville.com and click on ‘’Join Us’’ to secure seats

[ if $25 ‘’Guest’’ gives you trouble …use the $25  ‘’Dues’’ icon instead ]

The GOOD news is that temperature will be in the 40s ! AND parking under the building for $7 !

SEE you on MONDAY … JANUARY 8^th … if not before!

Thanks,

Tim Skow

Host of 1^ST TUESDAY

ALSO: …. Just a reminder for those of you who missed being part of the toy fund drive … 2018 DUES are DUE !

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Being appointed by the Council to fill a General Sessions Court vacancy is no guarantee one will keep the seat, next election.

Recently in writing about the Metro Council's selecting of a General Sessions judge to fill a vacancy, I wrote the following: "Usually these vacancies get filled by a sitting councilman. Once elected, General Court judges seldom face serious challenges for reelection so getting the seat is almost like a lifetime appointment."

I was relying on  limited knowledge of former councilmen who were selected by the Council to fill a General Sessions Court vacancy such as Bill Higgins, Leon Ruben and Amanda McClendon. At one timeI think what I said was true, but apparently no so any more. In a Tennessean article today, Nashville Judge Sam Coleman draws 2 election challengers, the reporter writes: "The last three judges appointed by the council have gone on to lose their first elections. The most recent was former Councilman Mike Jameson, who lost to Rachel Bell in 2012 after Jameson had been appointed to the seat the year before."

I stand corrected. No longer does being appointed by the Council to fill a General Sessions Court vacancy guarantee one will keep the seat next election. I am please to offer this correction.

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Mayor's Nashville transit plan requires $9B for all expenses - nearly double the construction price tag. That assumes no cost overruns.

According to an article in today's Tennessean, Mayor's Nashville transit plan requires $9B for all expenses - nearly double the construction price tag.   This assumes no cost overruns. One would be foolish to not assume cost overruns. The average cost overrun is about 50% and many do much worse.  The Big Dig in Boston was approved in 1982 for completion in 1998, at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion.  The project was to re-route 3.5 mile of an interstate in downtown Boston and put in a tunnel under the city. It was finally completed 25 years later in 2007, at a cost that The Boston Globe estimated at $22 billion.  Nashville's proposal includes 26 miles of new light-rail, improved bus service and an 1.8 mile tunnel through limestone below downtown. If approved by voters I am betting the final cost of Nashville's transit program will be about $25 billion. In addition, the fare box seldom covers the operating cost and requires massive annual subsidies.

Transit project cost overruns (source)

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