To whom it may concern:
 
 I would like to propose a set of alternatives to the May Town Center
proposal currently being proferred by the May Family and their
spokesmodel Tony Giarratana as an ideal future for the Bells Bend
area.  Consider, if you will, how Nashville would evolve if we
instead:
 
 - Adopt a bill or resolution akin to that of Sen. Douglas Henry,
which would freeze development in the Bell's Bend area that would
increase density, increase traffic, or alter the natural setting we
have been so fortunate as to preserve.
 
    *** Cities with preserved green belts (think Ann Arbor, Boulder,
Austin, Portland) experience increased urban core density, increased
property values, actually do attract corporate headquarters on *more
healthy terms*, and evolve into green-friendly cities with walkable
neighborhoods and downtowns. ***
 
 - Require developers of significant projects, such as the "West End
Summit" -- now an ironically enfenced gaping maw on West End Avenue
which will never become a high-rise, and is now a burden to the
taxpayer -- to post a significant fraction of the project costs as a
bond to the City.  When the developer fails and bankrupts everyone
within reach, the City claims the bond and un-screws the property.
Cities such as Boston, who have been burned far too often by
risk-taking developers, are considering similar proposals.
 
     *** No matter what, if this project moves forward you WILL SEE
strong pressure for a developer's bond to protect the city from the
damage the Mays are about to inflict on Nashville with their "good
intentions". ***
 
 
 - Rather than accelerating highway projects and shouldering
downstream infrastructure costs in the May Town penumbra to cow-tow to
the promises of lying developers, we apply monies back to our school
system (which numerous corporate heads are on record as stating as a
primary reason they do not relocate headquarters to Davidson County).
Additionally, we focus stimulus on our core downtown, the riverfront,
the gateway to East Nashville.  We pursue urban gardening zoning,
local food initiatives, green roofs, walkable zones and improved mass
transit to make a Nashville that Nashvillians will love and that will
draw vibrant relocations from elsewhere.  Cool Springs and Reston will
never offer all that downtown Nashville could in a
dense-but-green-and-walkable future.
 
 - We promote low-risk but ambitious development in EXISTING urban
spaces, such as the downtown Fairgrounds / noise-nuisance autodrome,
the parking lot once fancifully slated for "the 4th largest building
in the country", or the dangerous eyesore of the West End Summit,
a.k.a. Lake Palmer.
 
 
 
Obviously, I have concerns about the alternative.  My concerns with
the May Town development are of three kinds:
 
 
 1. A rejection of the purported benefits as both unobtainable by May
Town and even undesirable:
 
 - We are in a world where we start with unstable economics, then
move into a world where energy -- especially for transportation --
appears to be headed for increasing costs year after year.  The game
of competing for corporate headquarters is a game where corporations
pit cities against one another to extract the maximum concessions (tax
cuts, tax breaks, tax *holidays*, legal concessions, environmental
concessions, labor law concessions, etc.), place a headquarters, wait
for concessions to run out, then pick up to go elsewhere.  There is no
foreseeable time when MTC becomes a corporate tax boon.  To be
competitive for corporate relocations, MTC will end up *COSTING*
taxpayers money.  Further, spreading out the urban core increases
transportation costs to workers and residents in a world where costs
are not going down.
 
 - The presence of a "second downtown" dilutes its own effectiveness
as well as the effectiveness of the REAL downtown we already have.
Satellite cities have never been a boon (Atlanta, Houston, anyone?),
rather, a curse.  Stopping sprawl by protecting green space and
forcing development into the urban core has worked in a number of
cities widely admired for their quality of life.
 
 - We bet everything on a slick promise by Tony G. that "if we build
it, they will come".  This doesn't work in city planning.  Go read
some Jane Jacobs.  Read some Christopher Alexander.  Go compare
Reston, which existed for decades on major interstates between major
destinations, with Bells Bend, which has been quiet *forever*, on no
roadways on the way to nowhere.  If you build it, they will in fact
not come.
 
 - Besides, anyone who truly believes the Reston Town Center, where I
have had the misfortune of finding myself on multiple occasions, is a
desirable model for a city center is so aesthetically challenged as to
be a danger to society.  Antiseptic, corporate, ghost-town-after-5pm,
artificial, lifeless, here-we-put-a-park-in
what-do-you-mean-you'd-shoot-yourself-if-you-had-to-live-here?,
bottomless pit of Nike-Coca-Cola-loglow madness.  That's exactly what
I don't want in my back yard.
 
 - Again, numerous corporate officers are on record as citing poor
schools as a prime reason why Davidson County did not win their
relocation.  Also mentioned is underfunded infrastructure and poor
transit systems.  Tapping the water fund to pay for a stadium is not
the signal to send to corporate leaders looking for a forward-looking
headquarters.  Investing further in an unworkable spoke-and-wheel
bus-only (realistically) transit system is another refusal to answer
the cluephone -- not what a corporate relocation officer loves to see.
 Not what your citizens love to see -- 2 hour bus rides to get
groceries are not a "service" to the people of Nashville.
 
 
 2. A rejection of the trade-offs incurred by two decades of erecting
the May Town boondoggle in Bells Bend:
 
  - Despite limp protestations to the contrary by proponents, it
turns out that *TWO BRIDGES* will be needed to *COME CLOSE* to
providing ample traffic support for May Town during its construction.
SO FAR.  Relax with the news archive related to "Signature Tower" and
imagine if that $200M project got so out of control -- in a BOOMING
economy -- and is now completely dead, how the $4 BILLION MTC project
will look in 12 months, much less 15 years.  We will be looking at 4
bridges and at least 6 lanes of Old Hickory by then.  The area will be
destroyed from traffic impact alone.  Not to mention water issues,
light pollution, and the impact of noise upon the entire Bend and its
wildlife.
 
  - We have been building a downtown to be proud of.  Even the MTC
developer has been involved in building that downtown.  Turning our
backs on that lifeblood, diluting our efforts, and draining business
interests to a satellite downtown is folly.  If we focus on downtown
we can upgrade existing office space, if we do not, noone will stay in
existing office space if they can go to new space over the river.
Seanachie's for everyone.    Welcome to East Memphis, South Cleveland,
New Detroit.
 
  - I live in the Nations, in a relatively quiet residential area 1
block from 51st Avenue, 6 blocks from Centennial Boulevard.   Traffic
on Charlotte, White Bridge, Briley, I-40, Centennial, Cockrill Bend,
Robertson, Urbandale, and the numerous side streets and connectors
will be unmanageable.
 
  *** You will destroy the character of my neighborhood by putting in
a bridge to May Town.  Thanks. ***
 
  - Despite their Daddy Warbucks "we will pay for everything" front,
the May family are not rich enough to foot the entire bill for this
project themselves.  (For more on trust, see #3 below)  This means
that the capital markets, the taxpayers, and stock market investment
are going to take up the slack.  The Mays are almost certainly
interested in this development because their holdings have taken a
beating and they feel the need to cash in on this property.  The
capital markets are as tight as a drum, and, frankly, the stock
markets are not likely to rush back to the heady days of foolishness
just passed.  This means that taxpayers, who will be thoroughly tapped
by the City, the State, and the Feds in short order, will be footing
the bills incurred by upgraded infrastructure, additional bridges (see
above), additional school, fire, water, sewer, electrical, gas,
traffic upgrades, mass-transit upgrades (you did read the fine print
in the traffic studies, right?), etc., etc., etc.
 
  *** The promises of $4B success from a guy who can't manage to get
$200M to fly are ludicrous. ***
 
 
 
 3. (Third and foremost...) Complete and justified distrust of Jack
May, Tony Giarratana, and the coterie of lying harpies they have
assembled to commit malfeasances both public and on-the-sly:
 
  - They BRIBED Tennessee State University, a *STATE* University,
with land and money, contingent upon the May Town Center zoning being
approved.  When the public got wind of the details of the deal they
retroactively changed the deal to not be contingent on zoning.  This
should be the basis of a discussion of CRIMINAL CHARGES, not seen as a
"good will" donation conveniently timed.
 
  - Further, they supplied esteemed TSU professor Dr. David Padgett
with materials to conduct "research", which turned out to be
essentially a script for push-polling on the May Town Center.  Dr.
Padgett was wise enough to cease using the tainted May Town script
once it became clear what was afoot, but the intent of the MTC backers
is clear:  bribes for help in swaying public opinion.
 
  - Their initial traffic study was shown by the later independent
traffic study to be filled with not only errors, but only with errors
which which favor the May Town development going forward.  In science
we call this systemic bias.
 
    *** Systemic bias is a tell-tale sign of fabricated data, also
known as lying. ***
 
 
  - They were outnumbered and far outclassed by the Bells Bend
supporters at the last major Planning Commission hearing, at which the
MTC proponents made it clear that their concerns were lining their
pockets and steamrolling any opposition.  They lied about the facts at
hand, fabricated numbers, and contradicted the science and expert
opinions available to all present. They paid supporters to show at the
meeting, many of whom were willing to confirm payment or direction
from their employers.  They mis-represented their support and rewrote
the history of the meeting as an overwhelming show of support for
their cause.
 
   - Giarratana's record on the Signature Tower, another
over-ambitious boondoggle designed to convert city land to $jillions,
changed every 6 months, covering numerous designs, numerous price tags
($200M being the inital and smallest), and numerous schemes for
funding.  None of these plans, even the current least-ambitious plan,
have ever been viable.  That building will never be built.
 
   - They are now pushing viability of the traffic portion of the MTC
plan, based upon traffic projects "in the pipeline", and hence,
presumably, not of further cost to taxpayers.  Unfortunately, a number
of those projects are projected for 2025 and later, with funding
predicated upon 2005 projections of revenues.  It should be obvious
that reduced tax revenues make such projections suspect.  The Mays are
engaging in spin, at best.
 
   - They are fear mongers.  All our jobs will flee to adjacent
counties.  Nashville will become a smoldering husk.  It'll be 1988
downtown.  Bells Bend will become trailer parks and tract mansions.
If Tony Giarratana, in particular, believes that then he's been lying
to the City for a decade now, with every promise of improved downtown
living and a revitalized Nashville.
 
 
No, Nashville is not spiraling and May Town wouldn't be a remedy even
if it were.  Bells Bend has been preserved for this long.  If it were
not for wolves like Tony and Jack May, we wouldn't be afraid of the
howls in the night.  We can expend a fraction of the effort we've
expended so far by legislating protections for Bells Bend which will
help Nashville as a whole.
 
 
Sincerely,
Rick Bradley / 5001 Indiana Ave. / Nashville, TN