• It’s interesting to me that two high-profile local incidences of violence happen to be in court at the same time this week: trials for those accused of killing homeless woman Tara Cole and beloved dog Gizmo. Both cases have provoked strong outrage locally and nationally, and I’m pleased to see that justice is being served.
• These trials, along with other local reports of juvenile violence, are a good reminder to all of us that life is a fleeting and fragile possession of ours. We all need to live our lives with more compassion and kindness toward our fellow men and women (and toward all of nature).
• Speaking of nature, local filmmaker Jeff Barrie will host the national premiere for his documentary Kilowatt Ours at the Belcourt Theatre on Thursday night at 6 p.m. The film reveals how electricity is produced and how renewable energy sources can solve our energy challenges and improve our lives. It also features practical solutions for anyone looking to conserve energy at home.
• I agree with William Williams that the Nashville streets in Nashville’s urban core are sorely in need of sidewalks and other improvements. After an emphasis by Mayor Purcell to do just that was reduced from $20 million to $5 million per year in the Metro budget, how can we pay for what Williams describes as requiring “a minimum of 50 years and a dollar figure that would spur Bill Gates to take note”?
• I also think Williams is right that the “Buddy Killen Circle” signs need to go. They add clutter, and they’ve been tacked on to a project that was completed years ago. I’d prefer to find another way to honor Buddy.

• To Jim Balsillie: Thanks, but no thanks (not that you asked me). I don’t believe your sudden faith in Nashville as a hockey market, and I still think you’ll look for the first opportunity you can to shift the Preds to Ontario.
• How much is Balsillie offering (while not offering during an exclusive negotiating period, of course) for the team now? If it’s close to the David Freeman group’s offer of $193 million, that frees up more than $40 million of Balsillie’s original offer to pay the way out of town in the future. That’s all or at least a large chunk of the $25 to $75 million Balsillie is promising as an exit fee paid to the city for the Preds’ departure.
• Is this offer remotely serious, or is Balsillie reappearing at the perfect time to add pressure to the “still-making progress” negotiations between the city and the Freeman Group? This is sheer speculation, but would Balsillie’s leverage to keep the Preds in town give him a leg up with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for an expansion franchise down the road?
• What does Bo Roberts, fresh from the Howard Gentry and Dean campaign camps, know that the rest of us don’t? I respect Bo, but I am seriously questioning why he has aligned with an offer and a potential owner that are at the least very suspicious.

• The Scene’s Bruce Barry makes a sound argument that statistics and data alone do not make the case for efforts to keep the Preds in town. I am in favor or amending the lease to secure the team’s future in Nashville because there are intangible benefits to having–and keeping–a major-league professional franchise.
• I agree with Metro Council Emily Evans that the decision to use public resources to lure–and retain–sports franchises has already been made (in the mid-1990s). I respect and understand the objections of those who oppose subsidizing franchises under any circumstances, but I believe Nashville answered that question long ago. We’re not at a point, in my opinion, where abandoning that choice makes sense.
• Same sex adoption opponents: Would you really rather have Rob Briley care for your children than Keith Durbin?
• You are now free to not wait in line as long: Southwest is modifying its open-seating policy. This looks like a good idea and a nice balance between open and assigned seating. No more standing in line because one person with an “A” boarding pass starts the queue 90 minutes before departure. Ding.

• Are the Preds a better team without Paul Kariya on their roster? I think they’ll post fewer points during the regular season, but they may be a tougher test in the playoffs with their current lineup. Yes, I think they’ll make the playoffs.
• How much “progress” can you make without getting a deal done? Mayor Karl Dean and the prospective Preds ownership group are still negotiating. This is beginning to seem like getting a penalty when the football is spotted half-a-foot from the goal line. Wait, wrong sport …
• Speaking of progress, I hope this minority hiring initiative makes it from blueprint to contract someday, unlike prior efforts.
• I like the new Chamber of Commerce logo. The old one never really excited me.
• The Cahal shooting is horrible. My thoughts go out to the victim’s family. This tragedy is an exclamation point on the sentence the mayoral race started about needing to reduce juvenile crime.
• Looking beyond the Harry Potter influences, this student grouping at Harding Academy makes a lot of sense to me. All of our kids could use more mentoring and guidance to become leaders and responsible citizens.

The Our Team campaign to keep the Predators in Nashville hosted a well-attended business breakfast today intended to sell tickets to support the team. Several speakers addressed a packed room at the Adventure Science Center:

• Prospective team owner David Freeman (above left), still adjusting to being in the spotlight, said his approach will continue to be “Please and thank you” when it comes to the business community. Freeman said that the city’s business community “doesn’t owe [the Predators] anything” and that he expects to “earn [its] support.”
• First Lady Andrea Conte (above right) said that she first purchased tickets in 1998 as a civic duty because her husband, then-mayor Phil Bredesen, played a major role in bringing the team to town. Within a few games, she was hooked and has been an avid supporter since.
• Conte told the audience that “we have a lot at stake here” in keeping the Preds in town and that she believes that “once a city loses a team, it starts sliding backwards.”
• Conte currently owns four season tickets and purchased additional seats this year, which she donated to University School of Nashville. (Her son Ben is an alumnus.) She considers the tickets a “valuable asset” that the students can determine how to use for the best benefit of the school and the team.
• Mayor Karl Dean attended the breakfast and spoke with several attendees before leaving for another appointment. First Tennessee’s Mike Edwards, who emceed the event for Our Team Nashville, said during his remarks that Dean jumped in immediately as mayor regarding the lease negotiations with the prospective ownership group and that Dean “understands the value” the Preds bring to the city.
• 104.5 The Zone’s George Plaster, who joked that most of the audience had never seen him in a tie until today (and that the tie was due to be returned by 9 a.m.), said that Nashville is the “best, most underrated city in the country.” Quoting Conte, he agreed that the community “doesn’t need to let this thing slide.”
• Plaster reported that the Preds have now topped the 9,300 mark for season tickets, more than 600 above the total at the end of last season with many renewals and new purchases still a possibility.
• Regarding the Our Team campaign goal of having 10,000 season tickets by opening night on Oct. 4, Plaster said, “I won’t kid you. We need your help.”
• Our Team captain Ron Samuels explained that the Preds have created more than $396 million in on-site revenue during their history and more than $125 million in off-site revenue. “This is significant revenue for our city,” he said.
• Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce Chairman Ralph Schultz said “We need the Preds” and “The Preds are an important part of Nashville’s future.”

Schultz told the group that more than 250 businesses have stepped up to purchase season tickets and provide other support since the Our Team campaign launched this summer. Several business leaders purchased tickets this morning, and many more signed pledge cards to do so in the near future.

I’m of two minds about reviving the Tennessee Tower as a nighttime billboard of sorts for downtown visitors:

• I have fond memories of making my way downtown growing up and seeing the tower’s illuminated messages. The messages were generally civic-minded and encouraged positive action and goodwill in the community. The use of the tower as a billboard added a certain charm to downtown, too.
• I am more aware today of the need to conserve energy than I was when the tower last regularly displayed nighttime messages. As a teenager, I embraced the notion that we all need to live responsibly by taking care of the environment, but as an adult today, I have a better practical understanding (I hope) of how we as a society can do that.

I would like to see the state consider alternatives for using the Tennessee Tower as a message board that use less energy than in the past. Would it work, for example, to reverse the effect so that only the windows that form the letters of a message were illuminated while the rest of the tower remains dark? What about using the tower as a message board in the daytime instead by using blinds with bright colors to form the letters? I hope there is a way to balance the desires for restoring a beloved tradition with conserving our limited resources. [Image: The Tennessean]

WRVR-FM The River’s Woody and Jim weren’t impressed by Saturday night’s mayoral debate. Bob Clement, whom the duo referred to as “Mr. Phony,” fared especially poorly in a brief discussion this morning. After airing an audio clip where Clement drew from familiar talking points about not caring where good ideas originate and his intention to focus on implementing such ideas, one of the DJs observed, “If you’re running for office, aren’t you supposed to be the one with the good ideas?”

Clement’s sound byte aired between a man-on-the-street clip discussing the freshly cancelled Anchorwoman TV show, one in which the speaker observed that the show’s star might be showing too much “cleavlage,” and audio footage of a recent beauty pageant contestant explaining that 20 percent of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a map because they don’t have enough access to maps. Ouch.

This endorsement is certainly good news for Karl Dean, but how much will it help?

Twenty-seven African-American ministers endorsed Karl Dean for mayor of Nashville at an event today. The preachers put their support behind Dean, a former Metro law director and Davidson County public defender, during a reception at Harper’s restaurant on Jefferson Street. State Sen. Thelma Harper, whose husband runs the restaurant, also attended the event, as did retired Tennessee Supreme Court Justice A.A. Birch Jr., who recently made a TV ad endorsing Dean.

What percentage of African-American voters will turn out now that Howard Gentry is not on the ballot? Will it decrease, as some expect, or will these voters return to the polls to make informed choices in the runoff? Among a population where churches matter as community organizations even more than they do among society at large, how much of an impact will this support for Dean make?

As Sean and others have observed, as many as 100 local African-American ministers had previously endorsed Gentry. Do the other ministers plan to make endorsements, or did they decline to endorse Dean? Twenty-seven is a significant number, but I’m still wondering exactly how significant.

I don’t blame anyone who’s bought a lottery ticket recently for being upset about the glitch that kept many participants from winning. When you think about it, though, is that really all that different from usual? Regular lottery customer Robert Johnson was referring to the recent error, but he could just as easily have been describing lotteries in general:

“That’s a whole lot of money. A lot of people lost a lot of money.”

I’m not opposed to lotteries on ethical grounds, but I do think they contribute to reduced wealth for many low-income families and individuals. Each adult citizen has the right to determine how to use the money they earn, but a disproportionate number of people who are struggling to make ends meet spend significant percentages of their money on lotteries each month. In the long run, I believe this adds up to a lot of poorer non-winners and a tiny fraction of lucky ones. Isn’t that how a lottery is supposed to work?

I’m intrigued by the willingness of the potential Preds’ owners (David Freeman, Boots del Biaggio and others) to permanently commit to the city of Nashville. Yes, there is a catch, and plenty of fanfare has already been made about (legitimate) taxpayer concerns, but this still strikes me as a genuine and well-intentioned offer:

For those who believe Freeman is trying to spring some kind of last-minute, moneymaking scheme on the city, it’s worth noting that his group — and not the city — has insisted on including provisions in a new lease that would:

Forbid new ownership to raise ticket prices above the league average.
Require new ownership to maintain a team payroll at least $5 million above the league’s salary floor if paid attendance averages 16,000 per game.
Require new ownership to donate all excess positive cash flow up to its $3 million request back to organizations in the Middle Tennessee community.
Freeman has consistently said that he and the members of his group aren’t interested in turning a profit.

“We’ve all been very fortunate. We’ve all made our fortunes,” Freeman said. “If we want more, we’ll go earn it in the private sector. We have to ensure that we don’t lose money on the Predators, at least not more than our committed investment, but we don’t need to make money off the Predators.”

This is definitely an apples to oranges comparison, but this potential arrangement has some similarities to the NFL’s Green Bay Packers. That team is literally owned by the city:

Based on the original “Articles of Incorporation for the (then) Green Bay Football Corporation” put into place in 1923, if the Packers franchise was sold, after the payment of all expenses, any remaining monies would go to the Sullivan Post of the American Legion in order to build “a proper soldier’s memorial.” This stipulation was enacted to ensure the club remained in Green Bay and that there could never be any financial enhancement for the shareholders. At the November 1997 annual meeting, shareholders voted to change the beneficiary from the Sullivan-Wallen Post to the Green Bay Packers Foundation.

I sincerely believe that Freeman and Co. are not looking to milk the city as their own cash cow. This is the kind of offer that can allow Nashville to compete as a successful NHL city despite being a relatively small market. The “insurance” provisions being suggested by Freeman’s group are rare in professional sports, to say the least. There are hurdles to clear, no doubt, but this is a proposal I hope the city can embrace.

At least one former candidate in the Nashville mayor’s race is making an endorsement: Kenneth Eaton.

We Support Bob Clement As Our Next Mayor! Check Back soon for a full Site Update, as Well as a letter of Support from Mr. Eaton. Karl Dean Does not have the Experience to run this city. Karl Dean Is a Continuation of the Purcell Administration. Bob Clement Is the Change Nashville Needs!

Buck Dozier followed the odd tradition of politicians referring to themselves in the third person earlier this week, and Eaton has taken it one step further by opting for the second person “we.” Both Clement and Dean have understandably coveted endorsements that don’t appear to be coming from Dozier, David Briley, and Howard Gentry. Is this an endorsement that Clement wants, though?

I’ve read the phrase a “continuation of the Purcell administration” a few times lately in a negative light. Is following in Purcell’s footsteps a bad thing? Some Nashvillians, and they’re not all in Eaton’s camp, would say yes.

Why would any politician endorse an opponent in a runoff election? One of the questions on many area political watchers’ minds since Nashville’s mayoral election has been whether any of the also-rans will publicly lend their support to either of the “finalists.”

I’d definitely like to know whom each of the former candidates will vote for, but now that Buck Dozier is off the fence about staying on the fence, it isn’t likely to happen. I’m having a hard time coming up with reasons why a candidate should make an endorsement, but I can think of plenty why it’s not a good idea to pick a side once the battle lines have been redrawn:

• Making enemies: Picking one candidate over another might come back to haunt you, especially if you pick the losing candidate. Why would Briley, Dozier or Gentry want to gamble their influence in the next administration on the razor-thin margin of a few hundred votes?
• Alienating your base: How happy would most of Briley’s camp have been to see him endorse Bob Clement? How happy would most of Dozier’s voters have been to see him endorse Karl Dean?
• Swallowing a bitter pill: It’s a rough transition to go from trying to take votes away from an opponent to publicly asking voters to give him more.
• Impropriety: Everyone will wonder what it took, if anything, to”earn” an also-ran’s endorsement. It might be easier to revisit your own agenda down the line if you haven’t made it look like someone’s just returning a much-needed favor.

The reasons I see for making an endorsement, at least in this race, are three: One, you’re convinced one candidate is significantly worse than the other to the extent that it would hurt the city if that candidate won the runoff; two, you want a job in the next administration and don’t mind the potential backlash from such a political pick-and-roll; and three, you’re absolutely not running for anything again and don’t care what anyone else thinks about what you do. Endorsing one candidate over another in such a close race is risking something else: your own political future.