Friends, This week the eyes of the nation turned to the massive reduction of federal parkland in Utah -- and we in Nashville sighed at the strange irony of it all. Here, we elected a "progressive" mayor, but still - we're facing the EXACT same issue - the giveaway of valuable parkland for economic gain by our blonde-haired leaders. The December 2017 Issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine minces no words on the topic: https://landscapearchitecturemagazine.org/2017/12/08/not-gone-yet/ Locally, the cover story of the Nashville Scene brings a moment of levity to this otherwise completely strange situation in naming T-Bone Burnett the #2 winner of the Annual Boner Awards. Shortly after he made this ridiculous speech to council referenced below, the "trust fund trio" partnership for Cloud Hill (formed of a son-of-the-Belle-Meade-Centennial-Club Bert $$Matthews, NYC-Hedge-Fund-Financier-Tom Middleton, and Moved-Here-in-2014-to-Collect-$57MM-in-TN-Tax-$-T-Bone-So-Why-Not-Fleece-Us-Again?) hired not one, not two, but THREE PR firms!!! From the Scene: T Bone(r), Where Art Thou? In August, as a part of the pitch to let his group develop part of Fort Negley Park into an arty neighborhood, music impresario T Bone Burnett gave an impassioned but strange speech to the city council. Somehow, by Burnett’s logic, the people opposed to developing the land where black people might be buried are in the same league as the violent white nationalists who turned up in Charlottesville, Va., this year. Said Burnett: “Those who started this lie, who do not seek to unite us but rather seek to divide us — even in the face of the racial tension that has risen in our country as we saw two days ago in Charlottesville, Va. — those people should be ashamed of themselves.” Could there be anything more boneheaded than equating people who are passionately concerned about preserving Nashville’s black history with the Nazis who want the country to be whites-only? ..... As we say here, "Bless His Heart" (and the whole shenanigan-laden-PR-staff-bubble-surrounding-the-mayor's strange position on this topic)... Please share this petition on social media. Suggest that your civic or church group invite a member of Friends of Ft. Negley to speak on this issue. We need you - share this story at every holiday party, at every open house, as you volunteer, as you go about your day. Please. As long as we keep signing up more people, we'll be sure that Ft. Negley, and its history, is Not Gone. Yet. Thankful for you, Alice Ganier Rolli District 17, Nashville