Sharing again this piece I wrote about Nashville getting the 'best bang for our billion bucks' re: new Titans stadium. In it, CMs (present /former), economists, policy directors, lobbyists, and organizers share their thoughts on how we can generate ROI. https://t.co/hS2Cq0MnO6

Construction is underway at Fort Negley as part of a long-awaited master plan honoring the enslaved and free Black laborers who built the Civil War landmark.

👍🥰

Put another way: “Nashville mayor appoints a former Nashville mayor to oversee the commission evaluating failures of NES, whose board is appointed by Nashville mayors and is chaired by the wife of a different former Nashville mayor.”

Funniest thing to happen in a while. The real estate arm of Freeman Webb Publishing, the parent company of @NashvillePost and @NashvilleScene, is leasing office space to ICE.

Keel & @Tennessean use former Mayor Karl Dean’s “it’s all connected” quote to frame an *entire argument* about state leaders waiting until it was safe to blame NES. Kinda ironic as the piece doesn’t note: Dean’s wife chairs NES 🪑 & Nashville leaders were slow to blame NES too!

In summation, Metro has four points of leverage over NES and the EPB: 1) Board appointments 2) Bond issuance 3) Intergovernmental contracts 4) Meaningless non-binding resolutions. NES has been adrift for decades, but don't fall for the narrative that Metro has no control.

So when this risk report was reviewed in Nov: -Key storm risks were documented -The responsible executive had already left -NES seemingly had no clear transition plan Then a major storm hit! It feels like a miss here with balancing leadership continuity & risk planning. (6/6)

Buttttttt…. In the Oct 22, 2025 board packet, NES wrote: “Jack Baxter will retire Nov. 1. His position is vacant.” Management said it was “analyzing operational needs” and “assessing scalability.” No successor. No timeline. (5/6)

For many of these major reliability risks, the report listed the same “Responsible VP”: Jack Baxter. He oversaw vegetation, outage systems, substations, and power operations. Some important storm-response infrastructure! (4/6)

The report highlighted vulnerabilities that commonly drive major storm outages: -Vegetation & line clearance -Distribution maintenance -Outage management systems -Grid monitoring & substations These are standard failure points utilities monitor so no shocker. (3/6)

On 11/20, NES’s Audit & Ethics Committee reviewed its Enterprise Risk Management report. Prepared by Internal Audit w/ outside consultants, it used workshops w/ CEO/VPs to score risks by likelihood, impact, and mgmt strength. It’s kinda a “what could go wrong” report. (2/6)

Yesterday, I read through NES’s 2025 board and committee records. A detail stands out: When NES reviewed its biggest operational risks, the executive listed as responsible for many of them had already retired 👻 And no replacement was in place. Here’s that report.👇 (1/6)

Under Nashville’s Mayor O’Connell, a pattern is emerging after his second failed winter storm response: ❄️ Jan 2024: “Extraordinary,” later called “once every 25 years” in State of Metro nearly five months after(!) ❄️ 2026: “Once in a generation” Different storms. Same framing!

https://t.co/cut56tVL4z

Now @NESpower is hiding data from the public so people can't see what's going on with their outage. Crazy.

Ever watch Wheel of Fortune when the answer is so obvious you yell at contestants on TV as they keep guessing impractical/nonsensical letters? That feels like Nashville w/ the ~250k residents (yesterday, Day 5+) who have no power while NES, Freddie & most local media guess “Z”

I actually forgot an important detail which is our mayor was doing a zippered attire double down

I like throwing ideas out there but this falls apart from a logistics/economic standpoint by Step 2 This also assumes the problem w/ CFB is it ends too late & bowls don’t matter* (FWIW the simplest solve then is to shrink the playoff) *these are pretend & not the real issues..

We don’t talk enough about how blessed we are that nobody is talking about Colorado football anymore.

https://t.co/0skY2t1BeT