In the last fundraising quarter, Dozier raised $102,734, bringing his campaign total to $319,300 thus far. Dozier also report that he presently has $228,000 in cash on hand.

Other mayoral candidates that will be filing by the end of the month are At-large Councilman David Briley, former Congressman Bob Clement, former Metro Law Director Karl Dean, businessman Kenneth Eaton, Vice Mayor Howard Gentry, and community activist Dave Pelton.

That's a significant war chest for a campaign with a full roster of candidates. I am very curious to see how Bob Clement (whom some see as the early frontrunner) and Howard Gentry (whom some are concerned will struggle to raise enough money to remain competitive) report. They are required to do so by January 31. I'm especially curious to see how the two progressive candidates, David Briley and Karl Dean, stack up compared to each other and to the rest of the field.

As stated in the SPNA By-Laws, SPNA does not endorse any political candidates. Candidates are welcome to request time to speak at membership meetings, as Dean and David Briley have recently done.

• Create a Mayor’s Office of Sustainability to coordinate public-private environmental cooperation, to study methods of lowering carbon emissions in Nashville, to create an environmental standards report, to “address environmental racism and injustice” and to develop environmental education programs for school children;

• Establish “green building standards” for public and private construction, requiring new Metro construction to meet environmental standards and incentivizing private developers so they would build environmentally-friendly projects “through density bonuses, through fast-track approval of green projects in our community – we can do that and save the taxpayers money,” Briley said;

• Dedicate one cent from the existing property tax levy for Metro to buy private open space.

• Expand curbside recycling throughout the entire county — from the Urban Services District into the General Services District — on a voluntary, subscription basis;

• Encourage the use of “hybrid, low-emission, and alternative fuel vehicles” by creating “a Metro fleet of hybrid vehicles” and encouraging public use of green vehicles through incentives such as cheaper and priority parking; Briley would lobby the Tennessee General Assembly so that it would let such vehicle owners use HOV lanes;

• Have Metro plant trees or other greenery in the city’s rights-of-way and public property — such as in medians and intersection islands — and have Metro plant at least 1,000 trees annually;

• Establish a target for Davidson County to reduce emissions levels 10 percent below 2000 levels by 2014.
Very good beginning, Mr. Briley! So I got on the stick and mailed a fairly lengthy and detailed list of questions to the other candidates. Karl Dean's campaign and Bob Clement's campaign both responded, but Howard Gentry and Buck Dozier have ignored me, so far. I'm not surprised to be ignored by Mr. Dozier, who after all is the godfather of those obnoxious new animated billboards we are now plagued with, but I'm a little disappointed not to have heard from Howard Gentry. The Clement campaign requested my question list and promised a reply, but hasn't actually done so yet. Karl Dean had this to say to me on the subject of creating a sustainable Nashville:

“I am dedicated to making Nashville an even more environmentally-friendly city. One of the biggest contributors to global warming is vehicle emissions, especially those produced in the inner city by diesel vehicles. Metro government can make an impact by using alternative fuels like biodiesel in mass transit buses, garbage collection trucks, and school buses. It can be used without engine modifications in any diesel vehicle including cars, buses, trucks, and off-road equipment. I would pursue the use of federal and state grants to pay for infrastructure changes for refueling stations and encourage Metro School and MTA to do the same.

“Increased use of mass transit will also greatly cut greenhouse gases. Nashville should begin to plan now for its future use of mass transit. But before additional transit options are funded, we need to make the most efficient use of what we already have. Mass transit will only work if we have enough flexible routes. We need to study the current routing plans, get customer feedback and look to other cities that have successful plans.

“Education programs aimed at better public awareness of the causes and solutions for green house gases can make a major impact.  The public is open to hear about this issue and seems eager to be a part of the solution. We need to lead this wave and make the most of it.

“Lowering electricity usage is important for reducing overall greenhouse gases. Again, public awareness goes a long way. Grants, incentives, recognition programs, getting schools involved with the education and publicity, are all inexpensive ways to “get started.” Partnering with NES, Nashville Gas, the Home Builders Association, and engineering and the architectural associations for outreach programs is the best way to get some expertise and free assistance for the city.

“I am also a huge supporter of our Greenways and our Park System. I’ve sat on the Greenways for Nashville Board. And I am committed to the implementation of the entire 10-year masterplan for Parks and Greenways.

All the best,

Karl Dean”

I appreciate Mr. Dean's views, but I would have to give David Briley points for being “fustest with the mostest,” as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, whose statue adorns the southern approach to our city, used to say. I would also give David Briley lifestyle points for having spent time teaching in Ecuador and getting to know the third world first hand, and a different kind of lifestyle points for using Jack Johnson's “Let it Be Sung” as the song on his Myspace site. Dean's Myspace site is run by his 19-year old son. He doesn't feature any music.

On a perhaps more important note, dealing with crime in Nashville, Dean proposes to “Create a Plain-Clothes Neighborhood Intervention Unit. Citizens are on their best behavior when they know they are being watched. The Neighborhood Intervention Unit will reinstate the use of plain-clothes officers in unmarked police cars for daily patrol.”

This caused me to wonder if surveillance cameras would be the next step, and left me feeling slightly creepy.

Briley, on the other hand, notes that “10,000 young adults ages 16 to 24 in Nashville are responsible for 80 percent of our crimes, and that taking measures now to reach out to struggling students may help change this.” This seems like a much less scattershot approach to me, and one that I would feel more comfortable supporting—plus which, it would probably be cheaper than hiring plainclothes cops. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and all that.

So, at this point in the marathon, David Briley is far and away the “greenest” candidate running, with Karl Dean a healthy second, Bob Clement saying he's gonna get with the program, and no word from Howard Gentry or Buck Dozier. Stay tuned.

music: Greg Brown, “One Big Town”

Dean strikes me as a cross between Bill Purcell and Phil Bredesen. As he noted during lunch, Nashville has been blessed to have 16 years of great mayoral leadership under those two leaders, so that's definitely a compliment. (Since they have reportedly struggled to get along at times in the past, I'm not sure how they'd feel about this comparison, but it rang true for me today.)

Dean sounds a little like Purcell when he talks: He has a lot to say, and he did ramble at times. He carefully and thoughtfully weighed his responses to many questions. There is a deliberateness about Dean that reminds me of Purcell. I left with the impression that Dean would not take any issue affecting the city lightly or make any decision without considering its consequences. That's good leadership.

He reminds me of Bredesen because he comes across as intelligent and highly practical. Sure, he mentioned similar lofty ambitions for his leadership vision the way most other candidates do, but I got a strong sense that Dean would focus most on what he could help the city get done. Discussing his experience as Metro law director and as public defender, he couched himself as a problem solver who seeks to get to the heart of an issue and figure out what to do about it. This approach appears to fit with his emphasis on his experience in the executive (as in to execute, to get things done, to do) branch of government as opposed to the legislative area. Dean was sure to point out that three of his opponents, David Briley, Howard Gentry and Buck Dozier, are current council members and that Bob Clement is known best for his time as a congressman.

Describing Dean in this way, I realize that I'd still like to see and learn more about Dean's own voice and personality. Compared with the other major candidates, he entered the race fairly late (in December) and is arguably a lesser known, though respected, community leader. Until recently, Dean has been fairly quiet on the campaign, apparently focusing (quite successfully) on catching up on fundraising since he announced his candidacy later than everyone else.

It's still awfully early in this race, so there's plenty of time remaining for Dean to raise his public profile, but I generally like what I have seen so far and what I heard today. He is an electable candidate in this race, but in my opinion so are three of the other four candidates. (I'm hoping personally that Clement is not, but that's up for the voters to decide, not just me.)

I'll share more about today's discussion and issues that were raised over the next few days. Stay tuned.

While some US cities like Raleigh are already planning steps to cut back on energy wastes by converting to more efficient lighting systems, it looks like the entire continent of Australia could be following suit. Claiming to be the "world's first" national government to phase out incandescent light bulbs in favor of the more "fuel-efficient, compact fluorescent bulb," environment minister Malcolm Turnbull is hoping to "cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by four million metric tonnes a year by 2015." Citing the "climate changes" the world is facing as a "global challenge," Turnbell also urged other nations to follow suit in making a difference, but didn't exactly open up his personal wallet to stock our households with those uber-pricey bulbs. Interestingly, some environmentalists feel that the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions come from government and business-related activities, which should presumably take priority over swapping out a country's light bulbs.

I also found it interesting that the article makes the point about governments needing to lower their greenhouse gas emissions because Briley, as Kleinheider pointed out yesterday, make the point that governments are often behind the private sector these days when it comes to environmentally friendly practices. (By the way, there are much cheaper options for green bulbs out there than the $65 LED versions Engagdet mentions above.)

My general impressions were that Briley is a well-spoken, open-minded person who would like to make Nashville a better place to live. I haven't made up my mind yet, but he appears to be someone I could vote for. At the very least, I don't think I would be upset to see him serve as mayor, and that's not insignificant with five months or so still remaining in the race. (In other words, that's a compliment with so much campaigning left to go.)

Thanks, Sean, for setting this up, and to everyone else for participating (Brittney Gilbert, Adam Kleinheider, Sarah Moore, Ned Williams and John of Salem's Lots). Here are some collected thoughts from today's discussion, which I found to be respectful and good-natured throughout despite a wide variety of thoughts and opinions on the issues:

Regarding fellow progressive mayoral candidate Karl Dean, Briley said, "Karl Dean is a friend of mine, and I have nothing negative to say about him." He did go on to say that he considers himself "better prepared after the past [nearly] eight years on the council" to serve as mayor, citing "broader experience" with budgeting, tax concerns, legislation, juvenile justice, crime and education compared to Dean's fairly targeted tenure as the city's director of law and as an adjunct professor of law at Vanderbilt.

When asked how to support Nashville's improving but still ailing public schools, Briley quoted Lamar Alexander's three keys to a successful school system: A good prinicipal, good teachers and good parents. He emphasized that involvement by parents is a major deficit right now and pledged to offer "unprecedented support" to encourage involvement by parents and by other role models. According to him, where our schools struggle most is in middle school. We do a decent job in elementary and high school, he argued, but not nearly as well for grades five through eight. Briley promised to get "every possible organization engaged in middle schools to get students through high schools in four years." He also noted that 10,000 young adults ages 16 to 24 in Nashville are responsible for 80 percent of our crimes, and that taking measures now to reach out to struggling students may help change this.

Briley acknowledged that reforming an organization large enough to serve 70,000 students will take some work. At the same time, he said that the school system "can't be one size fits all" and that it must be able to adapt to meet the needs of a diverse body of students. He emphasized the need for greater parental choice in the school system, stopping short of widespread adoption of charter schools but still acknowledging that parents are choosing now, for example, by moving to satellite counties when their children lose out in the lottery for magnet school slots.

Briley did say that he would like to see a "more objective" method for selecting charter schools and that the current system, where the school board has the primary say, is like "asking Wal-Mart to decide about putting a Target nearby." He would also like to provide more choice for parents within the public school system by allowing different categories of schools and granting parents the option to choose among them: He mentioned schools with uniforms, single-sex schools and Montessori schools as possible options.

When asked specifically about the fact that he did not vote in the final tally for the Metro Council's recent and controversial English-first bill, Briley explained that he voted against the bill on its second reading and had "nothing to gain by flip-flopping on the final vote." Even though he stepped out during debate for the legitimate reason of checking on his children by cell phone, he acknowledged that it was "a mistake on my part" and "I would have voted against it." He also claimed that he would have vetoed the bill, as did Mayor Purcell, if he had been mayor when it passed the council.

Explaining his stance on what he described as a merely "symbolic" bill," Briley noted that Nashville is "not a homogenous place" and that legal immigrants are "here to stay whether we like it or not." "We can't as a community act in a way that pushes everyone into a corner by label," he said. "We must empower immigrant communities to be a part of the culture." Briley also said that the bill "does zero legally" and went on to say that Nashville is "an inclusive city where everyone is expected to conduct themselves appropriately."

Philosophically speaking, I have the impression that Briley and I are in the same ballpark of many of the major issues. I did not have the impression during lunch that he ducked any questions, even tougher ones, but I will say that he has his talking points down pat. He did a good job of staying on his message without straying into territory that he didn't want to address, such as whether his tenure on the council would make him more or less effective as mayor. On that issue, he answered by saying, "It's up to the mayor to develop leadership in the council and to allow proactive, intelligent leaders [within the council] to raise issues ... Changing term limits alone won't solve the council's recent problems."

I'll close with what I thought was a genuine and respectable statement by Briley that I would say sums up my impressions following lunch: "I won't pretend to have all of the answers, but I will open up the doors for those who do." Thanks, David, for inviting a few of us in the blogosphere to sit down with you and for letting us fire away today.

Mayoral candidate Karl Dean, who served as director of the Metro Law Department until January 9, raised $156,450 for his campaign between his departure from the department and mid-January, his campaign said today.

As of mid-January, Dean had $151,448 still on hand. That hopefully means he spent $5,002 on developing a visually pleasing and informative Web site, which his campaign continues to lack at present. Dean's balance is within $80,000 or so of Buck Dozier, who has been raising funds since January 2006. While this may be apples-to-oranges considering that the election is much closer now than when Dozier entered the race, Dean raised more money this month than Dozier did in the last six months of 2006. At the very least, this leaves me curious to see where the other candidates, particularly David Briley, weigh in as the fundraising deadline (Jan. 31) nears.

I’m hoping Nashville Scene editor Liz Garrigan is right in the remarks she wrote for this week’s issue (not online yet). Attempting to forecast the upcoming mayoral race, Garrigan compares Bob Clement in 2007 to Dick Fulton in 1999. Fulton served as Nashville’s mayor from 1975 to 1987 and continues to be a respected figure in the community. Seeking to return to the office twelve years later, Fulton emerged as the frontrunner based on name recognition before placing a distant second to Bill Purcell on Election Day. As Garrigan notes, he humbly conceded the race even though he qualified for a runoff because Purcell was the clear, though not majority, choice of the electorate.

Clement, a career politician looking to make a comeback, may well be in Fulton’s shoes as the next election inches closer. I’ve made it clear in previous posts that I consider Clement – along with Buck Dozier and Howard Gentry – to be less-than-appealing options for the city’s next leader. Garrigan agrees:

Bob Clement is this year’s version of Dick Fulton – a man who has little vision for a city that has changed dramatically over the last decade or two, someone who’s already had a full political career (less distinguished than Fulton’s was, it would be fair to say) and the kind of not-so-fresh candidate we predict will hide behind meaningless press releases and innocuous appearances, instead handling questions in writing rather than handling tough questions live, the way he responded to inquiries from The Nashville Business Journal at the end of the year.

Garrigan is calling for Dozier to face David Briley or Karl Dean (who continues to decline to launch a Web site) in a runoff where “the voters couldn’t have a starker contrast in candidates.” I’m hoping she’s right, and I hope Briley or Dean emerge as Nashville’s next mayor. In the meantime, I hope the two of them will sit down for coffee and figure out which one of them has the better shot at winning and which one ought to run for vice-mayor instead. [Aside to both: I will likely vote for either of you compared to the field, so please stop dividing the progressive vote.]

According to many, Dean's base is young and/or wealthy progressives in West Nashville. I think Dean may be a very strong candidate for mayor, and I know that his base spends a lot of time on the Internet. Where are you, Karl?

I promise I'm not looking for podcasts and streaming video, just a basic Web site with background information, platform details and a photo or two. While we're on the subject, David Briley, who is likely Dean's biggest challenger for the progressive vote, has an innovative and attractive Web site. I won't vote for him merely because of a Web site, but at least I know where to find him when I need him. Here's where you can find the other candidates on the net:

• Bob Clement
• Buck Dozier
• Howard Gentry
• Dave Pelton
• Kenneth Eaton

Dave Pelton, who just announced his creative and engaging plans to run through 36 of Nashville's neighborhoods beginning tomorrow morning, isn't quite as creative and engaging on the Web. Dave, please give us some new content and post your news releases.

If I've missed anyone, including you, Karl, please let me know.