Tag Archives: Rod Williams

Heal Yourself on a Tennessee Trail

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cummins_fallsby Rod Williams

Kathleen Williams is Founder and Executive Director of the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation. TPGF has been responsible for saving numerous waterfalls, beautiful vistas, and critical habitats and helping place thousands of acres of land in conservation easements. I reported on the dedication of Cummins Falls in this blog in May of 2012.  Cummins Falls has got to be one of the most beautiful spots on earth. When I die, I think that is where I would like my ashes to be scattered.

Virgin Falls

Since saving Cummins Falls, TPGF was instrumental in saving Virgin Falls, a water fall that falls out on one cave and into another. It is unique in that it has no upstream or downstream. Many people thought this fall was already protected but it was not. The State had a long-term lease on the property that was set to expire. The falls could have been lost to public use, it not for the work of TPGF.  I have never visited the falls myself but look forward to doing so.

Tennessee conservatives who love nature should get behind the work of TPGF. TPGF is privately funded and has no condemnation authority, or coercive authority of any kind, yet has saved many of Tennessee’s natural treasures. Kathleen Williams is my sister and I am extremely proud of the work she is doing. Continue reading →

Why I Will No Longer Call Myself a Member of the Tea Party

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by Rod Williams

tea_partyRecently the Gallup poll reported that support for the tea party was down from 32% in November 2010 to 22% today.  Quite frankly I am not surprised and expect further decline unless the tea party can become less dogmatic and extreme.

When the tea party first came on the scene, I was all on board. I opposed Obamacare and run away deficits and wanted Republicans to stand strong, vigorously oppose Obamacare and not raise taxes. I felt I was part of a movement. I saw the tea party as a movement of newly energized people who for too long had been silent. On April 15th, 2009 I attended a tea party event and wrote enthusiastically about the experience. I was exited when Tea Party Express rolled into town and reported on it.

From the very first however, I was put off by some of the fringe that I saw attaching itself to the movement. At an early tea party event on Memorial Plaza (also called Legislative Plaza), either the event referenced above or another early event, there was a John  Birch Society booth. I was surprised. I thought the JBS had disappeared long ago. I had not heard anything from them in years. Continue reading →

Who’s Afraid of Smart Growth? Nashville Needs to Grow Smart.

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nashville1

Nashville from the Shelby Street pedestrian bridge.

Nashville has scored high on lots of lists in recent years. Nashville scores high as a great place to live, a great place to work,  a great place to eat, a city of the arts, and a place to visit. I love this city and would not want to live anywhere else and I love to see it get the recognition I think it deserves.

Recently, Nashville scored dismally low in a ranking of cities with few problems associated with urban sprawl. In Smart Growth for America’s  ranking of cities, out of 221 cities ranked, Nashville ranked 217.  In this ranking, “Nashville” is the the Nashville-Davidson/Murfreesboro/Franklin, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Those MSAs ranking worse than Nashville are Prescott, AZ, Clarksville, TN-KY, Atlanta/Sandy Springs/Marietta, GA, and Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton, NC.

Other Tennessee cities, except Clarksville at 219, did better than Nashville, but none ranked high. Memphis TN-MS-AK ranked 196, Knoxville ranked 199, Chattanooga TN-GA ranked 207, and Kingsport/Bristol TN/Bristol VA ranked 212.

Following the release of the report, The Tennessean editorialized Time for Nashville to grow smart. I agree.

What is meant by “smart growth”?  Smart Growth America defines it like this: Continue reading →

Nashville Housing Market 13th Most Stable of 50 Metro Areas

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by Rod Williams

Freddie Mac, the giant quasi government agency that provides mortgage capital to lenders, today released its inaugural Freddie Mac Multi-Indicator Market Index. MiMi is a new tool that monitors and measures the stability of the nation’s housing market, as well as the housing markets of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the top 50 metro markets. MiMi assesses where each market is relative to its own long-term stable range by looking at home purchase applications, payment-to-income ratios (changes in home purchasing power based on house prices, mortgage rates and household income), proportion of on-time mortgage payments in each market, and the local employment picture.

In the ranking just issued today, Nashville is shown doing well; not great, but better than many. Nashville is ranked 13th out of 50 Metro areas. Memphis, the only other Tennessee metro area in the top 50 areas is ranked at 45th. The top three slots are all in Texas: San Antonio, Houston and Austin. At number 4 is New Orleans. My daughter lives in New Orleans now and I had an occasion to visit for a month last fall. While there are still areas not recovered from Katrina, New Orleans has attracted lots of newcomers and  there is a lot of rebuilding and gentrification going on. Still, I am surprised to see it rank so high.

Detroit which, as we know, has large sections of the city that have been abandoned or burned by arsonists and looks like something out a science fiction movie about life after the apocalypse, ranks at 36. I expected it to be at the bottom. Las Vegas comes in at number 50. All 50 metro areas and all states are shown to be improving. Continue reading →

Promoting the AMP by Digging up Dirt

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Rick Williams

by Rod Williams

It seems The Tennessean is trying to promote the AMP by digging up dirt on Rick Williams, one of the leaders of the anti-AMP movement. I like Rick Williams. (No, we are not cousins.) I liked Rick when he was a Democrat and was pleased when he left the dark side and became a Republican. I appreciate his leadership in the effort to save the fairgrounds, oppose Metro’s livery price-fixing, and his effort to stop the AMP.

I don’t know the facts behind the dispute involving an unpaid  bill from a  painter for a paint job on his parents house. I know lots of people have conflicts over construction projects. Last year I had a roof put on my house by an out-of-state, door-to-door, storm-chaser roofer who tried to up the contract price by $,6000, claiming almost all my decking was discovered to be bad and they had had to replace it. I refused to pay and finally the scam artist dropped the additional charges. Had he not dropped the charges, we would have gone to court. Continue reading →

New improved anti-AMP bill passes Senate and House Transportation Committees

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by Rod Williams

A bill which would kill the AMP has passed the transportation committees of both chambers of the state legislature. If the bill wins final approval, AMP will be dead. Previously the bill would have required the AMP’s design to get specific approval from the General Assembly. This was a criticism of the bill that Mayor Dean made in his email blast urging people to lobby against the bill.

“This legislation is an overreach of state authority that could set a dangerous new precedent that would prevent Nashville and other growing communities in Tennessee from making local decisions on how to best meet important infrastructure needs,” wrote Dean.

While I emailed legislators asking them to support the bill, I did have reservations about it.  I think the city of Nashville should be allowed to develop a mass transit system with dedicated lanes without requiring specific state legislative design approval. However, my desire to see the AMP derailed overrode that concern about the bill.

Well, the bill has been amended to remove the provision requiring specific approval from the state legislature of any proposed dedicated lanes use for mass transit, but the bill still accomplishes the objective of killing the AMP. The bill was amended to prohibit loading and unloading passengers in the center lane of any state highway.

State Senator Jim Tracy was the sponsor of the amendment that improved the bill.

(Cross posted from A Disgruntled Republican in Nashville.)

Uber Unwelcome

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An Uber car at your service.

An Uber car at your service.

by Rod Williams

If you were to ask a conservative on the street what his most fundamental belief is, he would likely say limited government. If you asked him about his second most fundamental belief, it would likely be free enterprise. Given these values, it should come as a surprise to conservatives that five Republican State House members, in addition to one Democratic member, have introduced a bill that will expand government regulation and throttle free enterprise in an entire service industry. H.B. 907, otherwise known as the “Uber Bill”, will heavily regulate the new ride sharing and ride referral industry which has boomed in cities across the country.

If you haven’t heard of them yet, Uber and Lyft are services which provide on-demand car rides ordered via smartphone apps. These startups take advantage of the mobile technology that 55 percent of all Americans now carry, and this is starting to hit traditional cab services where it hurts. (link)

The above is from Georgia, not Tennessee thankfully, but we need to be vigilant. Probably, not on the state level so much, but certainly on the Metro Council level. The overwhelming majority of our Council are Democrats and as such, commitment to limited government and free enterprise is not part of their philosophy, and while we have several Republicans on the Metro Council, they don’t vote like Republicans. The commitment to limited government and free enterprise of the Republicans on the Council is not assured. Continue reading →