Convention Center Debacle

Nashville, Tennessee has invited fiscal disaster upon her property owners by approving plans for a six hundred million dollar convention center, supposed to be financed through revenue from tourists. Without burdening the reader with the low ball aspect of the projected cost of the convention center and the inevitable add-ons that will include a hotel and without having to harp on or even mention the obvious potential for graft, bribery, kickbacks, and outright theft in such a massive project, a local news story last night showed what a cash catastrophe the city of Nashville is already in, even before ground is broken on the convention project. The Public Works Department of Metro Nashville government has already exhausted its $140,000 budget for the demolition of private property that has become abandoned, is in such disrepair that the property has become a public nuisance, perhaps an attractive nuisance and danger to children, or even a crack house. The city must have a fantastic (in the sense that it is a fantasy that hospitality taxes will fully cover the costs) convention center constructed, yet lacks the funds to knock down eyesores? City leadership is self-serving and irresponsible, answering only to the vested interest elite and large number of public sector workers who know all growth of government only feathers their own nests- the rest of the public be damned. We can not fund a pittance for quality of life issues in neighborhoods, but we can have a glorious monument to slow convention business in the midst of the nation's recession (if not depression).