Odessa Kelly | Opinion

Proposed Metro Council ordinance would make incentives packages more transparent.

Odessa Kelly is the co-chair of Stand Up Nashville.

Almost two years ago, I met with a parent of two of the kids who attend the after school program at Napier Community Center.

She wanted permission for her children to stay later because she had just started a job at the Music City Center and her schedule wasn't flexible at the time.

They were paying her a little over $10 an hour and giving her more than 30 hours a week.

Fast forward to this past summer, when this same parent had to take a second job at Amazon’s warehouse in Lebanon because her employment at MCC put her into the income range that cut off her benefits and raised her public housing rent.

► Read More:Affordable housing in Nashville: Not now, not never

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics to understand that the “it city” boom hasn’t created opportunities for all Nashvillians. Just ride through J.C. Napier Homes. You’ll see that in spite of unprecedented growth, working-class communities of color have yet to prosper from it.

Data from the most recent Community Needs Evaluation drives the point home. In 2015, per capita income was $37,706 for Davidson County’s white population, $19,920 for the African American population, and $13,274 for the Hispanic or Latino population.

If we want to make Nashville a place where everyone has full opportunity, then we must ask, who are we really developing for?

City officials and boosters have relied on incentive packages such as cash grants and property tax breaks, known as payments in lieu of taxes or PILOTs, to entice big corporations to relocate or expand operations here.

Up to now, these efforts have not changed the reality for tens of thousands of hard-working Nashvillians and their families who can’t make ends meet.

There’s little accountability regarding the number and quality of jobs that these incentives actually create.

For example, earlier this year Ryman Hospitality was awarded incentives with an estimated total value of $15 million to build a luxury water park at the Gaylord Opryland Resort that County residents can’t even access unless they stay at the hotel.

► Read More:Metro Council passes $14M incentive package for Opryland water park

This deal and even bigger incentive packages for the likes of Bridgestone and HCA Parrallon & SCRI have many people wondering what exactly the community is getting in return. The answer is that we don’t know.

With the introduction of Ordinance BL2017-983, Council Members Anthony Davis, Fabian Bedne, and Erica Gilmore give Metro Council the chance to make economic development in Nashville and Davidson County more equitable, inclusive, and transparent.

Aptly called the “Do Better” bill, the proposal takes practical steps toward transforming our city into a place for all of us to fully participate in and contribute to Nashville’s economic development and prosperity.

The bill simply calls for more transparency in the approval process of cash grants and PILOTs through the Industrial Development Board. Currently, these incentives, which need approval by both Metro Council and the IDB, get fast-tracked with inadequate information and scrutiny regarding their costs and benefits.

The “Do Better” Bill gives Metro Council an effective tool to determine whether the common good is served by the incentive under consideration, as well as a way to suspend or end an incentive agreement if the company fails to hold up its side of the bargain. In other words, it would help Metro Council make better business decisions on behalf of all of its constituents, not just big corporations.

The “Do Better” Bill rests on three core values: open and transparent governance that allows for public debate on critical economic decisions, prioritizing equitable and inclusive economic development for public investment, and creating opportunities for every Davidson County resident to provide for their own basic needs and those of their family.

The current incentive model isn’t fair and doesn’t benefit the whole community. It’s time for our policy to reflect that we’re all in this together. We must do better. This bill is our chance to do exactly that.

Odessa Kelly is the co-chair of Stand Up Nashville, a coalition of community-based organizations and labor unions. She can be reached at odessakelly@gmail.com.



