HERE IN DISTRICT ONE

I live in Metro Nashville Council District One, on the northwest side of Nashville, about twenty minutes from downtown. We are at the end of a dead end road. I can walk out in my back yard naked. I can walk out in my front yard naked, as long as I keep an ear out for approaching vehicles. I’ve never had an embarrassing moment from this. Only the glow in the sky at night and the steady low rumble from a nearby interstate highway betray our proximity to a large population center. To our north and west, there is more, much more, of the same kind of back country. There are even creeks deep enough and clean enough to swim in, if you know where to go. The population is a mix of hip, urban refugees and the country people who have always been there. One of our aged neighbors was born in the house she lives in. She has never lived anywhere else.

To the east and south, it’s a different story. The first thing you find, heading south from our home, is a decidedly upscale neighborhood. The yards are full of signs for Howard Gentry’s mayoral campaign, because the neighborhood is almost entirely black. “The Black Brentwood,” I hear it’s called—but there is unease in this Eden. Joggers almost all seem to choose to exercise with a golf club or similar long, heavy object in one hand, and I don’t think it’s for weight training—it’s because, when you turn a corner in this “Black Brentwood,” you find yourself in another kind of neighborhood entirely, a neighborhood of rundown houses, of yards in which chained dogs have created packed, bare circles around their shabby doghouses, a neighborhood where the cars in the driveway are old and in need of bodywork and maybe have been there for quite a while. I never see joggers there, with or without golf clubs. There are big, open fields and shrubby woods along the lower reaches of White’s Creek just past this neighborhood, but they have “for sale” signs or “future home of blahblahblah church” signs prominently displayed. Further in towards town there are more shabby neighborhoods, and Clarksville Pike, which is a two-lane road up by us, widens out to eight lanes where it crosses the beginning of Trinity Lane. On Friday afternoons, Nation of Islam members walk out in traffic stopped at the light to sell newspapers. They never offer them to me.

Oh, by the way, our district also includes Metro Nashville’s main landfill, aka dump. And, just a mile or so south of us, developers simply flattened a hill in order to create a subdivision. But that’s in the Nashville urban services district, and our road is not.

So, it’s a very diverse district, with tractor-driving, cow herding country people at one end and urban blacks, rich and poor, at the other. The district has tended to elect blacks to council for many years. This year we find five candidates running for the seat; one is definitely white, three are definitely black, and one is running such a low-profile campaign that I have been unable to uncover any information about her. She’s not even in the phone book.

To be fair and random, I will discuss the candidates in alphabetical order. First off the block is Ken Jakes, who is the owner of Ellis Jakes Produce, an old-line Nashville produce wholesaler. He received mention on the Nashville Scene’s “Pith in the Wind” blog for giving away watermelons as a way to introduce himself to local voters. Writer Jeff Woods characterized this as “an act of political genius.” I just wish I’d known about it in time to run down to Clarksville Highway to meet the candidate and pick up my free watermelon! Pith in the Wind quoted him as saying, “I want to see honesty and integrity back in our council. They’re making allowances for fat-cat developers that they don’t allow for everyone else in Davidson County.” In an article in the Tennessean, Mr. Jakes sounds an eloquently populist note, saying, “I have had enough. I have had enough of the laws Metro government passes and enforces on the Nashville people. I am tired of the planning department making recommendations with total disregard for the people.” Based on these remarks, I wanted to find out more. Mr. Jakes does not have a website, unlike some candidates in this race, so I put in a phone call to him, and here’s what I found.

What seems to have specifically prompted his ire was witnessing what he considered a gross violation of the zoning law by Metro Council. When someone asks for a change in zoning for a parcel of land, they are supposed to have a specific plan for the land to submit along with the zoning request, including landscaping and a timetable for the project, but Metro has apparently granted Gaylord Entertainment a zoning change for a 100+ acre parcel near Opryland without a plan or a timetable. “It’s supposed to be available for public comment,” Ken complained. “How can the public comment on it if there’s no plan?”

He went on to say,“Gaylord is the best thing that ever happened to Donelson and one of the best things that ever happened to Nashville. I’m not anti-Gaylord, but Gaylord should not be above the law. A lot of people in this country think they’re above the law.” I decided not to get into national politics with the guy. Keep it local. Cowardly of me, perhaps. The line between discretion and cowardice is thin and cloudy….

We continued on the subject of the Nashville-Gaylord relationship. “Metro wants to float an $80M bond that will basically help Gaylord. I am opposed to that . We should not use tax dollars to finance private corporations.” Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

He continued, “I’m a business man, and I think we need to run Metro like a business. I mean there’s certain things, like Bordeaux Hospital, that are not going to make a profit and that’s alright. But in general, we should be behaving in ways that make good business sense.” When I asked him about the idea of widening Clarksville Highway, he said that without specifics, it would be hard to say. “I’m not anti-development, but I want whatever development happens to make sense.”

I was starting to feel like this was a guy I could live with as a council representative. I asked him if he was familiar with the concept of “Peak Oil.” He was not, but I explained it as simply as I could–the easy oil is gone and it’s going to get scarcer and more expensive from here and make everything else more expensive as it goes–”yeah, i think gas will go to 8$/gallon before it’s over—as far as switching metro vehicles to alternative fuels, I’m a businessman–give me facts and figures and I know how to decide.” Since I think that a lot of conservation decisions make very good economic sense, I felt more and more like this was a guy who would do some good on Metro Council.

So, I decided to try a sure-fire controversial issue—immigration, they call it. He stated his support for the English-first bill. “I feel annoyed when I get asked if I want to do my business in English or Spanish,” he admitted. “If people are here legally, fine, but they should learn our language. And we should crack down on the ones who are here illegally.” I am not one for telephone arguments, so I just let him know I disagreed with him and let it go at that, but since he’s probably going to read this, I’ll lay out what I think—for one thing, I think it’s easier to mull over written arguments than spoken ones, but, to the point, I see making accommodation for those who don’t speak English well enough to do business in it as no different from putting in wheelchair ramps. We need to make things accessible to the people who will use them, regardless of the language they speak or their ability to walk or climb stairs.

As for the many people who are in this country illegally, I think we need to acknowledge that they are refugees and that it is we who are making them a problem, not the other way ’round. People have been flooding out of Mexico and the rest of Central America because the ruling elites pushed NAFTA through and since then it has been destroying the social fabric of our country and theirs as it lines the pockets of their business leaders. The real solution to the immigration question is to make it possible for people to thrive economically in Mexico. As it stands, a major portion of Mexico’s foreign exchange comes from money orders sent home from America every Friday. I’m sure most of those folks would rather be home with their families. However, it benefits the elite to keep we the people poor, disorganized, and suspicious of each other, so don’t expect change from the Democrats either.

So that’s my report on Ken Jakes. Some positives, some negatives. At 48, he is the oldest candidate. I think his experience and practicality would be a good addition to Metro Council. So what if he’s a white guy? I know we’re the bane of the world, but there’s a place for everything and everybody….

Next for our consideration is William “Bug” Mason, who works in the advertising department of the Nashville Tennessean and is the son of a local minister. In a brief Tennessean interview, he championed the widening of Clarksville Highway, which immediately turned me off on him. He has a website which is peculiar in a number of ways. There’s a calendar page that reveals day after day and week after week with “no events scheduled.” When you click on the blog link, you find he has not written anything yet, which is probably a good thing, considering some of the garbled syntax on the rest of the site. “Due to his parent’s commitment to ministry at The Temple Church, and greater involvement in the community. (period)The family relocated just off Clarksville Highway from south Nashville.” is the worst example, but Dubya has proved that facility with the English language is not a bar to elective office in this country so I suppose I shouldn’t get too critical. He does call for quality, affordable daycare and 24 hour childcare, and he does point out that “a dollar should pass through our community seven times before it leaves,” so I will give him points for those suggestions. He also proposed a citizen advisory council that would meet with him quarterly for feedback, which is a good idea. Open community meetings would be even better.

But his statement, “Communities thrive when there is a presence of quality businesses within. It provides jobs to the residents in our district, while bringing valuable access and convenience to our community” is another bit of embarrassingly Bushworthy phrasing. I appreciate his call for more sidewalks, but I just have a hard time getting behind a guy who wants to widen the narrow road that’s a bar to further development in this area. I like my peace and quiet, thank you.

 

Next up on our list of options is Lonnell Matthews, who at 27 is the youngest candidate running. He’s also the most internet-savvy of the pack. His website is freer of grammatical errors than Mr. Mason’s, although his campaign calendar hasn’t been updated since March, (Or is it just that it’s a low-key campaign?) and he is the only District 1 candidate with a Myspace page, although I find his choice of music (Hail to the Chief) a bit pretentious. At least it doesn’t play automatically when you load the page! He has also collected a raft of endorsements, from both the Tennessee Business Council and the Tennessee Labor Council, as well as the Nashville Tennessean. He is the only candidate who has been endorsed by anybody.

He, like Mr. Mason, has a distinctly pro-development cast to his campaign pitch. “This area will be developed because of its close proximity to downtown, but it should be developed so it won’t deface the community,” he said in the Tennessean, as if there is a way to develop without defacing the natural world, without increasing traffic and pollution and noise.

One of his concerns is “The lack of housing developments that attract young professionals and their families.” He himself is just such a young professional, albeit without the family, but I wonder if he is aware of not just how rare he is but why? Is he aware of what links his other concerns—gangs, illegal handguns and dangerous drugs, single-parent households, lack of access to parks, lack of access to preventive or other health care, and lack of business diversity? This is all about the marginalizing of the lower middle class in America, and it is part of an overall strategy that is being implemented fairly anonymously and implacably by the ruling elite. I have been emailing back and forth with him on the development question, and here’s what he said:

“I think that you may have some misunderstanding about my point of view about development.  To me development does not just refer to buildings made of beams and bricks.  The word ‘development’, to me, is just as diverse as District 1.  In Scottsboro and Joelton, development means bringing enhancements to the community that will promote the rural character of those neighborhoods.  I want to build a nature center, that will promote outdoors & environmental activities, in Bells Bend Park.  Development could also be agricultural, as you have stated, and some should be.  Development can also mean converting the former Morny School to the new Joelton Community Center or other improvements to infrastructure such as:-more sidewalks in our neighborhoods-another fire hall & more EMS vehicles-better sewage systems-better mass transit.”

He was an honor student, and he seems to have some vision and some ability to listen.  He oughta be able to figure it out.

The last candidate I’ll mention is Andre Southall, a barbershop owner and former Metro Parks employee, who is offering to serve with a focus on education and increased involvement with youth. I don’t see many “Southall” signs in people’s yards, so I’m not sure how seriously to take his candidacy. He seems to be a public-spirited citizen who wants to help out, and if he’s got an extensive network of friends in this district, he may have a chance at the seat.

So, those are the choices. When I look at what they’re saying, I see them pretty much focused on the idea that the current paradigm is going to continue for the indefinite future. None of these guys are proposing serious alternatives, though I’m sure that several of them have the capacity to deal with the coming emergency as it develops. Maybe next time I’ll see if I can come up with someone who wants to run as an anti-development candidate. These elections are officially non-partisan, so we can’t just say “Green Party.” Me? I am not interested in running for public office. I’m just too private of a person.

I do want to learn how to help other people get elected, so I will be attending the Green Party’s Southeastern Regional Candidates’ School at the Ecovillage in Summertown, Tennessee on August 24-26. You can find out more about this and download a registration form by going to the website of the Tennessee Green Party, tn.greens.org, and clicking on the appropriate link.

music: Kate Wolf, “We’ve Only Got These Times We’re Livin’ In“