Mayor stretching dollars and Purcell-era status quo on parks

Mayor Karl Dean has an attention grabbing set of new public parks initiatives. Matthew Williams/The City Paper

You’re the new guy replacing a popular mayor in a time of a historically bad economy. Right away, the biggest issues you have to tackle — the sagging school system, a fresh Sommet Center lease for the new Nashville Predators owners, and a proposed $600-plus million convention center development — were already coming down the pike before you ever got elected.

Despite having much of his first 15 months in City Hall dominated by predetermined battles that had to be fought, Mayor Karl Dean insists he is not trying to put his “imprint” on anything with the latest hot-button Metro issue — an attention grabbing set of new public parks initiatives from his office.

First came an initiative to use private-public partnerships to bring more community pocket parks to Nashville’s neighborhoods. Then came another initiative aimed at conserving, revitalizing and planning the long-term future of the city’s marquee public space, Centennial Park.

“I’m not at a point where I can talk about my imprint for parks,” Dean said. “But I really value the idea where it’s important to preserve green space. It’s something I have to go about working on all the time.

“[Former Mayor] Bill Purcell did a fantastic job with greenways. He’s very supportive of parks and he did a fantastic job with greenways… and increasing the size of our green space. There’s a history of this.”

It is Purcell’s legacy on parks that in some respects is guiding Dean’s efforts. It is also a long-term park plan adopted during the Purcell years that may eventually go under the knife in Dean’s first term.

Public-private parks

Dean’s desire to bring more pocket parks to Nashville’s neighborhood will be launched out of his Green Ribbon Committee, which was formed earlier this year to advise him on environmental initiatives. Dean tasked the committee to come up with ways to bring more pocket parks — which could be a few lots turned into open space, a community garden or a small playground — to Davidson County.

The impetus was to allow communities to take ownership of a discarded space and also share upkeep responsibilities. In a second consecutive tight budget year, Dean said the idea would allow Nashville to add open spaces.

“We want to encourage neighborhoods to be involved in planning and maintenance,” Dean said. “There’s not a lot of resources to expand in terms of creating more small parks. We would hopefully capitalize on the idea of the public-private partnerships in the neighborhoods.”

Although details remain hazy, there is already a pilot project Dean’s office points to as an example in the Edgehill neighborhood off Grande Avenue. Last year a road project sectioned off a portion of open space, which will soon be turned into a local pocket park.

The idea has the support of the parks department administration, which said the Edgehill community would have say-so over what the new pocket park becomes.

“I think it’s an initiative, and a good initiative, that takes park planning to another level,” Metro Parks Assistant Director Curt Garrigan said. “My understanding is there might be the opportunity for community-maintained spaces that would not necessarily place a burden on Metro, but would provide additional parks, green space, open space and also encourage the communities in a way that we haven’t necessarily engaged them before.”

‘No Comment’

Yet, the idea rankled some in Metro Council and on the parks board, who believed there was already a process in place to create park space in Davidson County via the board and the park master plan created under Purcell’s administration. Privately, Council members pointed out the parks department’s master plan has had $120 million invested into maintenance and park creation since 2002 when it was commissioned by Purcell.

The plan involves input from community meetings, and works with the board to update the master plan so a new project can be added to the priority list. Although a handful of Metro officials expressed concern about Dean stepping over the master plan process, none would speak on the record for this story.

“I don’t view it as bypassing anybody,” Dean said. “The community parks thing is I’ve got an environmental group studying green space. It’s a natural thing for them to look at it. The parks board will clearly have a role in this.”

It bears mentioning that Dean’s new parks initiatives come on the heels of a budget process where the mayor’s staff was openly annoyed by the parks department’s proposed budget cuts. Dean asked every department to propose 5- 10- and 15-percent cuts, but parks made some proposed cuts to revenue-generating services. Metro Finance Director Richard Riebeling went back-and-forth with the department on its proposed cuts.

The other initiative Dean introduced was revitalizing Centennial Park and developing a new master plan for the park’s future. Dean appointed a new board, including members of the park’s private conservancy group, to develop the master plan. City Paper Publisher Albie Del Favero sits on the conservancy board but was not among the members appointed to the new Centennial Park committee.

Dean said revitalizing the park was an idea that came from the conservancy group.

“I was an easy sell on that,” Dean said. “It’s right in the middle of the city, it’s a critical part of our history and it should be one of the major assets we have to maintain and a historical attraction.

“They said, ‘Let’s work together in a private-public partnership, we’d like to work on a long-term plan to improve the park, we will help raise the dollars.’ So I think that’s the type of initiative I’m interested in working on.”