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Mayor Purcell's State of Metro Address
It remains the greatest honor and privilege and pleasure to serve as your Mayor. During the last year our nation and our city have been severely tested in old ways and new ways. We were challenged economically in ways we understood, while our national security was challenged in ways we have yet to fully comprehend. But, our city of Nashville has stood strong and tall through each and every test and today is stronger as a result. No group understands my role as chief executive officer better than you. Our Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce is a critical partner for me and for your members. We weathered the national and international economic storms because of the strength, diversity and ingenuity of our business community. Nashville is the health care capital of the world; a world center for higher education and research; the global beginning and center for corrections companies; the geographic center of one the world's most vibrant and modern automotive manufacturing regions; a global center of secular and religious publishing, administration, distribution and marketing; not just a place of warm hospitality, but a hospitality capital with 32,000 hotel/motel rooms and one of the largest hotels in the world; and one of only four world capitals for music publishing and production. And headquarters
of Caterpillar Financial. As the first mayor to serve as co-chair of Partnership 2010, together with Beth Mooney, I am committed to recruiting new business and encouraging our own local entrepreneurs. What they will find is a city taking care of business-its own first and foremost, which is, after all, my job. My program of performance and financial audits has identified savings of $80.8 million dollars. Actual real dollar savings to date are $17.4 million. The largest savings has been our recent settlement with a major financial company which returned $10 million to our pension fund and paid all of our costs-another $300,000. Today we will release our most recent audit of state sales taxes which will capture for Nashville $2.4 million for this year's operating budget and $1.5 million every year hereafter. The budget which I will file with the Metro Council will reflect the careful attention we have paid to management of our business and careful stewardship of your money as I promised. Because of our conservative estimates, our total revenue collections for Fiscal Year 2002 are on target. Because of good stewardship of those collections, we will be able to meet the needs of Nashville going forward without a tax increase, which means that in the FY 2002-2003 we will remain the lowest tax major city in Tennessee. Good management also requires good investment decisions. In the business that I manage, education is the most important product. Last year we completed an historic performance audit and began a five year investment program in operating and capital needs. We asked the school system to implement the audit findings and they have. We asked the school system to hire a new CEO who could manage our education system, implement necessary change, and improve results, and they hired Dr. Pedro Garcia who is just such a leader. And the school board and Dr. Garcia have promised improved performance this year and every year to come. Having completed 250 school visits I can personally report change and improvement is apparent in every school in this city. Therefore I will today ask the Council to fund a $30 million increase in operating funds for our schools. Just eight months ago the events of September 11th touched everyone in this nation, all at the same time. We shared sorrow as perhaps never before, and were educated as never before about the service and sacrifice of the men and women who provide our public safety. In Nashville we mourned with our neighbors, then moved quickly to take stock of our own security. What we found was reassuring. After two years of unprecedented investment in personnel, equipment, and technology, our police and fire departments are better prepared than ever before. The dividends are clear: lower response times generally and the lowest homicide rate in a generation. If there were any questions regarding our preparedness, competence or bravery they were answered last night when shortly after nine o'clock our fire department responded to a three alarm fire not three blocks from here. Ultimately 100 firefighters, 20 fire engines, five fire ladder trucks, two rescue trucks, 10 chief officers all responded. They spent the evening fighting, beating down, ultimately controlling a fire on the edge of our downtown, giving us the assurance not only that our city was safe, but just two short blocks away, were also safe, thousands and thousands of people who, throughout those events, continued to celebrate life in this city. Our fire department, with our police department, who spent that evening there for us, who are there today, continuing to stand vigil to protect, and serve, and save; finished that evening without any injury to anyone among themselves or the people of the city of Nashville. I am so proud of our fire department and our police department. Chief Halford, Chief Turner, members of the fire and police departments, please stand up and be recognized. While we are as prepared for disaster as any city can be, we must be committed to constant and continuing improvements in individual public safety. For that reason I commissioned the first performance audit of our police department, which will be released next Friday. While I am pleased that our homicide rates are decreased, I will not be satisfied until all of our crime rates are decreasing. The audit will call for reorganization and change in the department, which Chief Turner and I will work on, together. It will be among the most important things we will do this year and should improve the quality of life in every neighborhood, by increasing personal safety. Our budget will fund the audit recommendations, and other needs of the department. This summer we will break ground for the new North Nashville police precinct. In this budget, for the first time, we will also provide the funds to assure that every high school and every middle school will have a police officer assigned throughout the school year. These officers play a critical role in protecting our schools, deterring gangs, and supporting our children. Our commitment and investment in affordable housing must and does continue. On Wednesday of this week, I met in Washington, D.C. with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez who affirmed our national commitment to home ownership, and agreed to work with the nation's mayors to increase awareness and support for our work in this area. June is National Home Ownership Month and we will report at that time on our progress in assuring safe, decent and affordable housing for all Nashvillians. Every neighborhood is touched by the work we are doing. Household recycling began this week with 1000 homes added every day. Sidewalk improvements are visible everywhere and will ramp up massively this year after the sidewalk plan is completed and the Public Works Department reformed. Also, this summer, the first Parks Master Plan will be released which should begin a major effort to improve, expand and invest in our park and greenway system, comprehensively for the first time since our system began a century ago. Our downtown neighborhood is at the beginning of major change as well. As of now more than $250 million in investment is programmed and available for the central city. The Gateway Bridge we contracted for last year is well along, as is the Shelby Street Walking Bridge. They will lead past the new District Energy System now under contract for construction, to the site of the new Music Hall-an extraordinary private contribution to Nashville to be built on public space upon approval by the Council, about which I am very hopeful. New housing is for sale in the Railroad Gulch, and at the Farmer's Market, and in Germantown, and is now under private development in our historic Stahlman Building. The development of downtown Nashville is proceeding in a careful and balanced way to provide everything necessary for a vibrant city. Now I would like us to think about restoring something that has been missing for many years. The Courthouse which we will soon restore is now surrounded by asphalt and surface parking. I propose that we move that parking underground and replace it with a Public Square that is once again a place for us to gather, relax and rejoice that we live and work in Nashville, or for any other reason we may choose to celebrate. Our Planning Department, Civic Design Center, and MDHA are working hard on the array of projects we have assigned them. But I would today ask that they place this Public Square at the front of their work and begin the effort which should result in more protected downtown parking and a new sense of civic place in the center of our city. Just one more thing-but the most important: our children. Everything I have talked about today impacts our future and the longer futures our children possess. Good schools in every neighborhood for every child are an essential requirement, but they are not sufficient. General Colin Powell, our Secretary of State, has called on every community to deliver on America's Promise, the promise of birth and life in America. To make Nashville a city of promise I will today ask the Council for funding to create our first Office of Children and Youth, with the charge to help lead a community-wide effort to allow all of our children to develop their fullest individual potential. This will not be a government program or service. It will be both a leadership and a supporting role to mobilize greater community outreach, involvement and coordination, and ultimately, greater accountability for us all. Nearly 2000
years ago, Paul wrote to the Galatians: We will continue to sow, to invest in our city, and in the seasons ahead we will reap-and so will our children.
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