This afternoon's article from Natalie Allison and Duane Gang of the Tennessean says Gov. Lee and Republican elected representatives will propose use of state funds to pay for a national GOP Convention in Nashville after Mayor Cooper said the city has no money to host.
In 2018, Charlotte set up a fundraising apparatus specifically to raise $70 million to host the Convention. Presumably the cost for Nashville would be similar, only we'd have two months to generate the funding as opposed to two years. Hard questions need to be asked about what budget line items would be affected, since the state Legislature is already preparing $340 million in budget cuts. There's a very real chance we'd be cutting schools and social services, which have already been trimmed to the bone, to host the Trump Convention.
Proponents of the Convention are claiming, of course, the GOP Convention would be an economic boon for the city. But in 2012, Convention and Visitors Corporation CEO Butch Spyridon said this to the Nashville Business Journal: "The conventions are very expensive...They want the building free, the police free. They want everything free because of the entertainment and media windfall. They are not the attendance events they used to be. From a spending standpoint they are not quite as lucrative." The same article reads: "A 2008 College of Holy Cross study examining the economic impact of national conventions found they often don't live up to the hype....'While the conventional wisdom regarding national conventions is that they bring fame and fortune to host cities, our results suggest that any economic benefits are quite elusive.'"
Disturbingly, as part of the article, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally signaled a willingness to discount direction from Dr. Alex Jahangir of Metro Health and other city representatives in terms of whether a 25,000+ person convention (which would also draw hangers on and media from all over the world) would be safe in the time of COVID. North Carolina just ejected the Convention because Trump demands no masks or social distancing. It's hard to believe that McNally is so indifferent to the plight of our city's medical professionals and first responders, especially since Tennessee is currently one of only nine states with an ICU occupancy rate of over 70% due to COVID-19.
We learned yesterday that GOP is eyeing city-owned Music City Center and Bridgestone Arena as potential locations. As one might expect, fully staffing those two facilities is quite costly, and the city might have to go into overtime "hazard" pay to get people to work an event with unmasked, undistanced attendees.
Neither Gov. Bill Lee nor any of the Republican officials pushing this plan, none of whom live in Nashville, have denounced Trump's actions this week in tear gassing and unleashing what's essentially a privately-contracted army on peaceful protests protected under the 1st Amendment. Is Lee planning to approve Trump's threat to invoke the Insurrection Act to quiet protests? The potential specter of tanks rolling down Lower Broadway is quite real, as is significant disruption to businesses as well as public and private property damage, to say nothing of the threat to life and limb to city medical personnel, first responders and other employees and to our neighborhoods.
Nashville has various legal and statutory authority to manage our own affairs. However, as we've seen many times, Republicans in the state Legislature only believe in small government when it benefits their interests and will overrule Nashville without a second thought. We need to make sure our city representatives know we have their back if this turns into a protracted legal or political fight. CM Colby Sledge of District 17 has already announced a plan to introduce a resolution stopping the Convention from coming to Nashville. Let's try to get others on board.
One last thing - THANK YOU for reading this far and for your efforts to share the petition. When we looked just now it had almost 18,000 signatures. Nice work keeping the momentum going!
Contact information for electeds and decisionmakers:
Gov. Bill Lee: (615) 741-2001 or submit a comment at https://tn.gov/governor/contact-us.html.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally: (615) 741-6806 or email lt.gov.randy.mcnally@capitol.tn.gov
Mayor John Cooper: (615) 862-5000. Press 0, then ask to leave a message, but they'll probably tell you to email mayor@nashville.gov.
Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation: 1-800-657-6910 or nashcvc@visitmusiccity.com
Find your Nashville Metro Councilmember here: https://www.nashville.gov/Metro-Council/Contact-Council-Members.aspx