Month: September 2018

Butch Spyridon, the CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp makes a great deal of money in annual salary every year, even more so than his counterparts in other large cities. As Tennessee Watchdog reported, Spyridon has used taxpayer-funded resources — even money meant for the 2010 flood relief — to assist the Convention and Visitors Corp and his career. In the past five years, Spyridon got his salary doubled to $792,000, the Tennessean reported. He now makes more than what his peers in Orlando, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New Orleans make, according to the paper. “Spyridon’s pay exceeds that of CEOs with larger budgets and in cities with higher costs of living, including those in San Francisco and Los Angeles,” the paper reported. “Among his perks are paid memberships to social and health clubs.” Former Nashville Metro Council member Emily Evans told the paper Spyridon makes more than the police chief, fire chief and the head of the public health department. The paper credited Spyridon with recruiting the Titans to Tennessee and, among other things, spearheading the city’s Fourth of July celebrations. “The Music City Center and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. are funded largely by hotel room taxes.…

Over a decade ago the regional sewer system for Thompson’s Station began leaking, indicating major problems with the system that had shifted most of the community from septic tanks and which helped fuel the residential and commercial development that has produced dramatic growth in the past decade. Despite dire warnings regarding a potential disaster if the two cells that compose the Town’s Regional Wastewater Facility failed, including huge costs, devastating impact on property values, and the likelihood that millions of gallons of untreated sewer water could pour into the groundwater and into the water supply of the community and surrounding areas, the Town has not been successful in resolving the issue. Limitations on the current wastewater system, and approvals for development in Thompson’s Station, have already produced at least one lawsuit. If a moratorium on development becomes necessary because sewer system fails, then residential developments already authorized for sewer taps may also initiate litigation. The Thompson’s Station regional wastewater system uses a drip irrigation for sewage treatment, in which the waste is filtered, cleaned and dripped into the soil. This process requires a much larger area than traditional wastewater treatment plants. Each of the two Thompson’s Station cells hold large…