Councilman mentioned civil rights, WWII in discussing risks of convention center referendum
Metro Councilman Erik Cole said in a recent interview with WPLN (scroll to the bottom of the text at this link for audio) that a referendum on building a new, $585 million downtown convention center isn’t necessarily a good idea. He said the masses would have rejected some of the great actions of 20th-century history, like desegregation and American intervention in World War II, if they had been put on the ballot.
“If you were to look at civil rights and had taken general referendums in the ’60s in this city, we would not have had the kind of results we would want,” Cole said in the interview, which took place after the Dec. 15 council meeting. “If you took a referendum in the early ’40s about whether or not we should go into World War II, the result would probably have said, ‘Don’t go.’ ”
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I’m not as fired up as others. Yes, it’s an incredibly boneheaded thing for Councilman Cole to say, and it would go away faster if he actually apologized instead of “wishing he had kept his mouth shut.” But even more boneheaded is the fact that he is considering voting for this boondoggle based on emotional arguments. The Mayor and pro-MCC folks don’t have rational arguments in favor of MCC – e.g. we’re going to spend a billion dollars to increase the 11,000,000 visitors we already enjoy annually to 11,125,000 visitors? (Mayor’s numbers, not mine) Come on! Instead, the Mayor and his multitude of PR firms are relying on emotional pleas like “believe in Nashville”, and “courage to move Nashville forward”, and character assassinations. Cole can redeem himself in my eyes if he takes the time to listen to the naysayers and ask himself what we’re all so upset about, there’s no shortage of reasons.
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