"It's Not Fair...."

My opinion on the last BOMA meeting

For those of you that are new to this, I’m going to offer a quick recap. In 2017-2018, The Parks came up for a rezone and annexation. The people fought it, but alas, because they were outside of city limits, they lost. That really started the spiral. In 2021, Jackson Farms, now Moss Farms, came to the board and it was the first time I got involved. I walked the streets, met my neighbors, and held a community meeting. We didn’t win Calista Road, but we did win the board of mayor and aldermen starting in 2022.

In that community meeting, I met many people, Sam Matthews. who would become alderman of Ward 1 in 2022. He was willing to fight with us over the development in the area and was fiscally conservative. As things have progressed, if I had voted for him, I would have buyer’s remorse. Let me remind all of you, I can’t actually vote for any of these people. I live .1 miles outside of city limits. I just get to look at the mess and hope for the best.

The last city meeting was contentious if you knew what was going on behind the scenes. There are many roads in the city that have to be repaved. There are many road projects that needed to be started. If you have followed me for any length of time, you will know that the city approved a property tax increase for 6 road projects that need to be completed. Those are as follows:

For the record, Alderman Sam Matthews voted no on the tax increase to fund these projects. These six projects are set to be completed in the next three years. Matthews voted NO to fund them, but voted yes when they came up in purchasing. However, he did send a letter to his constituents, regarding roads, before the May BOMA meeting. Here is that letter.

Let’s move on to the meeting last week given we now know what exactly was going on. First Alderman Matthews had the city attorney read the sunshine laws regarding public officials discussing votes behind closed doors. It seems that without Facebook, Mr. Matthews might not understand how much is actually discussed in the open. Here are just a few of the latest you can find on HIP White House. If you do a search, you will find where Mayor Corbitt, Alderman Spicer, Wall, or Sisk has answered a question or commented on a particular issue. In my opinion, this is what transparency looks like. While social media can be the devil, in this day and age, as a politician, you need to participate in some of it. I guess if you don’t see the conversations taking place in front of God and everyone, it feels like it’s been done in back room deals.

I cannot speak to what goes on in the mind of Mr. Matthews, but I can guess that he thinks his fellow board members have nothing better to do than meet in the dead of night and discuss city business, ie how to screw over Ward 1. Maybe, just maybe, he should try some social media. I have lived in White House for 16 years and have never before seen so much transparency on social media. Like it or not, social media is where most of us get our news. I have seen all three aldermen and the mayor address issues on HIP White House. I’ve seen them explain and defend votes and actions. I’ve seen them disagree with one another, and come to each other’s aid when one of them is being attacked. Is that breaking a sunshine law? Nope. It’s out in the open. They aren’t discussing votes, they are discussing issues. They live here. They work here. Their kids are here or just graduated from here.

The meeting started there and went on to the paving issue that Matthews brought up in his letter. “It’s not fair,” actually came out of his mouth during the meeting. I’m not surprised at all after reading his letter.

The budget presented prioritized Pleasant Grove Road with $450,000 allocated, while $600,000 was proposed from the State Street Aid Fund for other resurfacing, no list of street names attached. After the meeting settled, Ward 1 was left with approximately $450,000 of the $1,050,000 total paving allocation, hardly a fair distribution when you consider that Ward 2 has received over $1,000,000 in road resurfacing funds in the past two fiscal years. Ward 2 also benefited from a $434,000 road project in 2023 to provide access to Heritage High School from Pinson Lane. Ward 3 and 4 roads, being on the Sumner County side of the City, have been taken care of better courtesy of the previous administration.

Notice in the quote from his letter, again he’s talking about fairness. How exactly does he think the city should work? Should each ward take 25% of the taxes for their own projects? That might not work out so well for Ward 3 given most of the industry and commercial properties are in Wards 1 & 2. Although I guess he is leaving out the fact that his ward, Ward 1, has benefited from the pump sitting in the Calista pond for months now at $6100/month. Where is Ward 4’s pump? Shouldn’t it be “fair?” The city is ordering its own pump, discussed at BOMA just last week. Is that “fair?” There is a new lift station going in on Wilkinson just down from Mr. Matthew’s home. Is that “fair?”

I guess we are in the Hunger Games now. It is Ward 1 vs Ward 2. Except we aren’t. The kids in Ward 1 go to school in Ward 2. The road between Pinson and the high school was a great addition and badly needed. Many people that drive from Ward 1 to the high school benefited from this road, not just Ward 2. Guess what, people that live in Ward 1 drive Pleasant Grove every day to get to the high school. Some might just drive over there for events, but their kids ride the bus and that bus drives on Pleasant Grove Road. The Alderman of Ward 1 would think about those things if he had children in the school, or nieces, or grandchildren, or even just some thought about anything outside his Ward 1 bubble, but alas, he does not. I live just outside of Ward 1, but if we are going to pit one ward against another, I’m with Ward 2. I know a few of those rednecks that live on Union and Bill Moss. I’m with them. Then again, maybe I’ll stick with Ward 1, there are some serious badasses that live in Indian Ridge

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Now, he has the audacity to come back and ask for money for Wilkinson Road, the road he just so happens to live on. In the budget study session, it was decided that Pleasant Grove would be repaved given it’s actually worse than Wilkinson, and The Parks is in phase 5, meaning there are less than 100 homes left to be built. The subdivisions on Calista just started. In the meeting on Thursday, Matthews stated that there are only 100 or so homes left on Calista. No sir, there are over 700 homes left. There are 10 framed in Moss Farms (Jackson Farms) and roughly 10 in Calista Farms.

It’s apparently okay to vote against funding capital road projects and still benefit from the tax increase to complete the projects. You then get to say you were against tax increases and still be part of the board that fixed the roads. Then you come back to the board and ask for money to be moved from another fund to fix YOUR road. This reeks of Sabi Kumar. (search for him in my other Substack articles)

At the end of the day, this is about “fairness” right? Is this kindergarten? My children say things like that. You’re right, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have 1169 homes being built down the hill from me and I had no say in the matter. It’s not fair that our city has 5000 units that were approved between 2017-2022 and only about 40-45% are built. Guess what? Life isn’t fair. Now you are big mad that you have to wait, because you think it isn’t fair that Pleasant Grove is getting done first.

Paving will be completed. Pleasant Grove will get done after the stop light. The side roads on Wilkinson will get done either this summer or next spring. Wilkinson will get done, it’s just the next fiscal year. Maybe the alderman could ask the people on Calista if they would rather give up their pump and let their properties flood so he could get his road repaved. After all, wouldn’t that be “fair.”

Once again, for the haters in the back, this is my OPINION. I do not have inside information to the workings of Mr. Matthew’s brain or his intentions. I can only voice my opinions based on what I have observed. And if you really want to go for a wild ride, hang on for a week or so. I have put in a records request.