Tag: Ben Cunningham

Mass Transit Opponents Draft Open Letter to Mayor Megan Barry Asking Her to Reconsider Plan

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  Tea Party activist Ben Cunningham is leading an effort to collect signatures for an open letter to Nashville Mayor Megan Barry asking her to reconsider a proposed $6 billion regional mass transit plan. The letter asks Barry to move the Nashville area “forward toward 21st century transit technologies and away from obsolete, extremely costly commuter railroads which will burden Nashville taxpayers for decades. Riders nationwide are abandoning these out-dated commuter railroads because so many new transit technologies offer so much more.” The tentative mass transit plan for Middle Tennessee, designed to be phased in over 25 years, calls for light rail along Gallatin Pike, Charlotte Pike, Murfreesboro Pike and Nolensville Pike, and for light rail connecting Nashville and Clarksville, as well as for rapid buses. Barry is committed to putting a referendum on the ballot next year to raise taxes for mass transit, and pro-transit groups are stepping up efforts to win over the public. However, Cunningham is advocating for a referendum that would limit Metro Nashville’s debt level, which could impede the mass transit project. The open letter to Barry says: Transit technology is undergoing an amazing revolution. Riders are demanding solutions that deliver more privacy, more safety, and more convenience.…

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Promoters of Mass Transit Step Up Efforts to Push Plan for Middle Tennessee

Wendy Wilson

  A new pro-transit coalition will launch a campaign this weekend to get people on board with a proposed mass transit plan for Middle Tennessee, reports Nashville Business Journal. Called Transit for Nashville, the coalition will go door to door in Germantown on Saturday to collect petition signatures. Leaders expected to appear at Saturday’s event include Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, Shelly Courington, advocacy director for AARP Tennessee; Clifton Harris, president and CEO of the Urban League of Middle Tennessee; and Ethan Link, program director for Southeast Laborers’ District Council. Barry, a progressive Democrat, is a big champion of the $6 billion regional transit plan and is committed to putting a referendum on the ballot next year to raise taxes for the project. The IMPROVE Act passed earlier this year by the state legislature allows local governments to raise taxes to fund mass transit. The tentative regional plan calls for light rail and rapid buses and would be phased in over 25 years. Mass transit critics say there are less costly and cumbersome ways to address traffic problems associated with growth. Tea Party activist Ben Cunningham is leading an effort to put a referendum on the ballot next year that would limit Metro Nashville’s debt…

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The Tennessee Star Tops 1 Million Website Visits in Less Than 4 Months

Admin
Tennessee Star

  FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE (Tuesday, May 23) — Today The Tennessee Star announced its online news site has had ONE MILLION visits since its launch February 6. “The Tennessee Star is the only consistently conservative media outlet in the state of Tennessee. This is a conservative state, and Tennesseans have wanted a fact-based news site with a conservative perspective for many years. That’s what we offer, and that’s why we’ve seen such tremendous traffic,” said Managing Editor Christina Botteri. “People are smart and they want to be informed and not preached at or dictated to, and I believe that is a big part of why we are growing at such a substantial rate – especially compared to other area news outlets,” she said. Judson Phillips, a long-time conservative activist and Tea Party Nation founder agreed. “I am not shocked at the excellent performance of The Tennessee Star.  While the Gannett-owned papers read like newsletters for the Tennessee Democrat Party, The Star goes after important stories that the liberal media will not touch,” Phillips said. While the raw viewership of The Tennessee Star is remarkable, media experts also recognize the impact and influence the upstart news outlet is already having at Legislative Plaza. “Attracting one…

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State Sen. Todd Gardenhire Pushes Unsuccessfully For Taxpayers To Be Compensated For Surplus Revenue

Wendy Wilson

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) on Wednesday made a pitch to compensate Tennessee taxpayers for surplus revenue. He was a lone voice, however, before the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee voted 10-1 for a bill that allows the money to be used for government spending. Gardenhire was the only one who voted against the proposed legislation. The bill authorizes state spending to exceed growth in revenues by $438 million, or 2.85 percent, for the current fiscal year. The bill is a way around the Copeland Cap, which says that spending should not exceed the growth of the state’s economy, measured by estimated growth in personal income in the state. Added to the state constitution in 1978, the budget restraint provision is named for former Republican State Rep. David Copeland. The General Assembly can disregard the cap with a simple majority vote, which has happened numerous times. During a discussion before Wednesday’s vote, Gardenhire exchanged tense words with Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), the bill sponsor in the Senate. Gardenhire said he didn’t want to see the Copeland Cap undermined. Norris snapped that lawmakers should stop collecting so much in taxes if they want to avoid this…

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Tea Party Activist Ben Cunningham Championing Charter Amendment to Limit Metro Nashville’s Debt

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  Tea Party activist Ben Cunningham is leading an effort for a 2018 referendum that would limit Metro Nashville’s debt level, setting up a possible clash with regional plans for a $6 billion transit project. His proposed amendment to the Metro Nashville charter, the Nashville Debt Limit Charter Amendment,  would also require Metro government to set aside money for the future payment of benefits for retired Metro employees. “The Metro Nashville Charter is the primary governing document for Metro Nashville Government. The charter may be amended by (1)the Metro Council voting to place a charter amendment on the ballot or (2) the citizens may propose an amendment by petition,” the site says. The petition itself, also found on the site, says “The undersigned residents and qualified voters of Davidson County, Tennessee, do hereby propose the following amendment to the Metropolitan Charter to be voted on by the people at the first appropriate county-wide election occurring after August 6, 2017 as selected by the Davidson County Election Commission.” “If we submit the petition after August 6, 2018, we will probably need 6,000 to 8,000 signatures to get the charter amendment on the November 2018 ballot,” Cunningham told The Tennessee Star. There’s already a…

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Grover Norquist’s Endorsement of Gov. Haslam Gas Tax Increase Backfires

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

Gas tax increase supporters initially believed they had scored a great political coup on Monday when Washington insider Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), declared his support for the amended version of Gov. Haslam’s IMPROVE Act that passed the Senate Transportation Committee last week. That amended version reduced the proposed gas tax increase from 7 cents per gallon to 6 cents per gallon. But the fierce backlash from conservative opponents of the gas tax increase in Tennessee to the last minute attempt by supporters of the governor’s plan to bolster its chances by calling in a “celebrity ” who has never lived in the state and knows little of the intricacies of the bill or the state’s budget, spells more, rather than less, political trouble ahead for the governor and his allies. “The recent amendments made by the Senate, and supported by Gov. Haslam, have improved the bill to the extent that the bill is now a net tax decrease, and thus not a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge…ATR scores the amended version of SB 1221 / HB 534 as a net tax cut and therefore Taxpayer Protection Pledge compliant,” Norquist wrote “in a memorandum to…

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