Author: Clint Confehr

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — Transit forums are everywhere now with a similar message; vote on May 1. Wednesday, March 14, another “Hot Topics” forum on transit is to be presented by the League of Women Voters. A forum tonight in Lee Chapel emphasizes that NOAH, Nashville Organized for Action and Hope, “is not taking a position on transit,” Affordable Housing Task Force Chair Paulette Coleman says. “It’s to raise the issue, and so affordable housing doesn’t get short shrift.” Two forums last week included a League program in the Goodwill Lifsey Building where the speakers were Rev. Jeff…

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — Community advocates are reporting many voter registrations and applications for expungement of criminal records because of their events at the Limelight Events Center. “The vast majority of those who apply are approved,” Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry said while volunteers from his office reviewed expungement applicants’ records during an event held by Justice For All. Expungement includes: a court finding that someone convicted of a crime has paid their debt to society; and an order for erasure of their record with restoration of citizen rights such as voting. With a secure internet connection, Gentry’s…

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — The Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership president was missing from printed programs at opening ceremonies by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency for its apartment building at 10th & Jefferson. Asked about that, JUMP President Sharon Hurt, an at-large member of Nashville’s City Council, acknowledged the omission after extensive remarks saying that what amounts to rent-controlled, government-owned housing will have residents who can support nearby businesses. “I was disappointed that I was not recognized as a significant part of the grand opening as a council member at-large,” Hurt said. District Councilman Freddie O’Connell spoke…

By Clint Confehr EAST NASHVILLE, TN — People who are formerly incarcerated might get their court records erased Saturday at the Justice For All program in the Limelight Events Center on Woodland Avenue. “We got all kind of folks together for this; community activists, lawyers, political folk. And the criminal court clerk’s office has agreed to come out,” says community activist Marilyn Brown of Haynes Estates. “They’re bringing printers and they’ll be able to expunge on the spot.” They’ve done it before, but it’s important to preregister by calling Brown at (615) 364-0258, or emailing to justicenow09@gmail.com. “We successfully expunged…

By Clint Confehr Civil rights activists continue their response to issues arising from the white lives matter demonstration in Shelbyville and white supremacists’ abandoned protest in Murfreesboro last year. “Now Murfreesboro Loves, Murfreesboro JUMPers and Shelbyville Loves are having another rally in Shelbyville, the town that faced down a white supremacist rally on Oct. 28,” Shelbyville Loves spokesman David Clark says. “This rally will be on the sidewalk in front of Walmart,” 1880 N. Main St., Shelbyville, Saturday, Feb 17 at 10:30 a.m., Clark says. “Threats from the Trump Administration and his agenda in Congress are direct threats to half ……

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — Retired Metro Schools teacher Jimmie Hill thanks “God, Metro General and the ambulance crew,” and she wants everybody to know it. “They brought the sunshine back in,” says Hill, 72, of North Nashville, who was rushed to the closest hospital which she alternately calls “Meharry General,” an apt title given current controversy. Still somewhat “short of breath” Feb. 3, Hill spoke 22 minutes on the phone about her pneumonia, flu and what happened Jan. 24-31, stopping to praise saviors on earth and in heaven since her fall at home on Hummingbird Drive. The maladies…

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — An upcoming celebration of abolitionist clergyman Absalom Jones at Christ Church Cathedral will be followed by a reception including a picture of the court trial from Columbia’s 1946 race riot. The 6 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 11, worship service across Broadway from the Kefauver Federal Building is set by the Beloved Community of Tennessee’s Episcopal Diocese as commissioned by its bishop, the Right Rev. John C. Bauerschmidt, to advance racial reconciliation. “We do not live in a post-racial society,” said Cumberland University Adjunct Professor Bill Gittens, cochair of the commission. “Part of our work on…

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — From Columbia to Clarksville and across America, celebrations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday include marches remembering the Civil Rights leader’s insistence on peaceful demonstrations of conscience. A celebration at Nashville’s NAACP office, 1308 Jefferson St., starts at 7 a.m. Jan. 15 with refreshments, a program — Dwight Lewis is speaking this year — and a march to Tennessee State University at about 9 a.m. for a program in the Gentry Center. For those who can not get outside for a march, Columbia’s post march program is to be streamed live on…

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — Economic integration is one of the things Metro wants to do by rebuilding a public housing community. “Mixed income” are the words Metropolitan Development and Housing Administration uses as it’s changing the face of public housing here. “It will be a mixed income community,” says Mona Hodge, project manager with Smith Gee Studio, the Nashville architectural firm that designed Envision Cayce and its 94 townhouse apartments at Kirkpatrick Park. It’s to be MDHA’s first mixed-income development. When finished, there’ll be more Kirkpatrick Park apartments than there are public housing units in the same area.…

By Clint Confehr NASHVILLE, TN — Community and businesses leaders advocate an on-line voter registration campaign launched recently by two elected officials looking to reverse two trends; declining voter registration and lower voting rates. The time and place to launch Project Register are remarkable. U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper and Tennessee Sen. Steve Dickerson announced the campaign on Alabama’s election day when, in a surge of minority voting, Doug Jones was elected to the U.S. Senate instead of Roy Moore. Meanwhile, in this 14-county Metropolitan Statistical Area, “roughly 70 people were added to the Nashville MSA’s population each day through net…