2.5 Million Reasons

First off, Happy Labor Day, Nolies!  I hope it was a good one, with some time off work,  quality family time, and maybe a beer or three.  We had a fun little weekend.  We took the whole family to Franklin for back-to-school shoe shopping, took a road trip downtown for dinner, and capped off the weekend by traveling to Brentwood to visit Crockett Park on this perfect, sunny September day.

It was our first time at Crockett and holy smokes, were we impressed.  Brentwood is on top of their park game, I tell ya.  Ball fields as far as the eye can see, tennis courts, frisbee golf, an indoor arena, an outdoor amphitheater, miles of walking trails, a dope children’s playground that’s completely shaded, and bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms.  For real, I parked specifically next to the bathroom.  You know, just in case.  Come to find out, there’s bathrooms all over.  And they’re unlocked.  Take note, Nolensville, there’s a reason why the bush next to the playground at Nolensville Park isn’t thriving.

End of blog.

Lol.

The reason we started off talking about Crockett Park is because as nice and fun as our trip this afternoon was, every step we took and every new part of the park we explored came with the realization that we weren’t in Nolensville.  That kinda sucks.  Nolensville is a family oriented town, or so we’re told every time a new concept comes in front of the board.  We’re told that Nolensville is a town for families with small children.  Then why the hell do all those families go to neighboring cities in order to have a nice day out? How in the hell do we build a multi million dollar Town Hall that serves to inflate the egos of the people that think they’re important rather than putting in a park that would serve the majority of the residents? How is it that our Town Hall is the nicest looking building in town, while story time at our library takes place in a tiny little room that is packed like sardines?  How is it that the guys that hold the purse get a fancy building, but the young families driving their kids to school have to navigate an intersection that’s beyond dangerous?

Must be because we’re broke.

Lol.

Wrong.  We as a town have $22 Million in the bank.  Unless you enjoy reading financial statements or read The Insider regularly, you probably wouldn’t think we have that much, especially when the mayor says things like “We just can’t afford it” when it comes to increasing the funding for the fire department. Did you know that in the last fiscal year, which just ended in June, we as a town brought in $2.5 Million more than we spent? That’s even after spending $2.3 Million on Sunset.  Did you know we have a fund, called the Adequate Facilities Fund, that is intended to pay for things like parks or libraries?  Did you know that our Adequate Facilities Fund has $6.4 Million in it?

So what’s the point – are you proposing we spend our surplus? Short answer: yes.  Long answer: Not all of it, and not all at once.  There’s taxes and fees coming in every day.  As of right now, all it does is go into our bank account.  There’s not even talks of how we might maybe spend it one day.  Instead, how about we run like a growing town and talk about accommodating all this growth.  Let’s run a cause and effect exercise.  Sure, it would cost money to buy some land to put a park on.  But by building a park, we would automatically increase everyone’s home values and we would also increase the value of the parcels surrounding the new park.  Developers would flock the area, build a ton of new homes, new people would move in, new services would open up to serve those new people, and now we are collecting extra impact fees, property tax, and sales tax.  We have to stop being scared to spend money and look at spending our money as an investment.  You know what’s not an investment?  Buying a Nolensville frontage parcel and putting a multi million dollar town hall on it, which doesn’t generate any revenue.  My running joke is that if I ever became mayor, the first thing I would do would be to sell Town Hall and have meetings in the Pizza Hut again.  Why would you spend millions of dollars on something that will never generate any income?  Not only is that bad business, it’s idiotic politics.

But Insider, can we just focus on one issue at a time?  You’re talking about funding the fire department and dangerous intersections, why do you have to add parks to the list?  Good question, awesome readers.  Despite what you might think, I do extend the benefit of the doubt to BOMA.  I believe they can walk and chew gum at the same time.  We are a town of 11,000 people in the richest county in the state.  If you can’t build a park while constructing a street, then we are in a lot more trouble than I even realized.  Our mayor boasts his 42 years of experience in planning.  I’m sure he can figure out a way to manage more than one project at a time.

Let’s go back to that $2.5M that we netted last fiscal year.  I believe that’s a big problem for a few reasons.  1, we’re charging taxes that we’re not spending, meaning we are overcharging.  2, I wholeheartedly believe most of the town residents don’t realize that we are making money like a well oiled business.  There is a very simple way to not only hold the town accountable for every dollar but also educate the town about every dollar: having a budget presentation in every BOMA meeting.  The NPD, fire department, public works, trees and trails, and every other department gets the floor at each BOMA meeting.  If we are willing to give the floor to every department in town, why is the finance department not discussed?  That’s how I imagine every successful business does their board meetings.  The budget is the first thing that should matter, because it is the driving factor behind most decisions.  Why are we only talking about it a few times a year when it’s time to vote on a new one? I, for one, have a ton of questions.  I would like my answers on the record.

Now, for something that I don’t normally do,  I will present you with arguments against my opinions and give you my two cents now instead of waiting for you to try to “devour” me on Facebook.

1. We already have a park: Ha! I have three kids.  I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 15 minutes there because they get bored.  There is one small jungle gym in the middle of fields with a locked bathroom.  But hey, at least my kid learned how to pee outside.
2. We needed a Town Hall: We also need a ladder truck.  Invalid argument.
3. We can’t sell Town Hall, where would the Police Department go? First off, I did say “running joke”.  But, our Police Department is growing along with our population.   Eventually they’re going to need more space.  So, we will have to build a new police department.  Sell Town Hall, and build a nice big Police Department / Fire Hall complex somewhere off of Haley where the land is cheaper.
4. The library is funded by the county: Are you telling me that if we gave the county some money for a library, they would tell us to go home, Nolo, you drunk?
5. Isn’t a surplus a good thing?: Hell yeah it is!  Beats the alternative.  But running a massive surplus while having even more massive shortcomings is not only poor management, it’s a horrible disservice to the residents.
6. Why can’t you be more patient? : Not my nature. We have the money now, but waiting is costly.
7. But Brentwood got a bunch of land donated to them by the residents: that speaks more to Nolensville’s management than Brentwood’s resources.   There’s no way I would donate my real estate to a town that can’t even fix an intersection.

Writing this blog, I started to think about my money.  I’m always looking for deals.  I hate to overspend.  My #1 goal is to get the maximum return on every dollar that comes into my possession.  I value my money, but I try to never place too great of a value on it that I’m frozen with fear of spending.  Then I started to think about how I spend my money.  The one thing missing from our Crockett story is that afterwards, we went out to ice cream, in Brentwood, because it was on the way.  It was easy, and it was right there.  Actually, I do not spend money in Nolensville, at least not a whole lot of it.  Up until recently, I didn’t even realize it.  We do our shopping in Davidson County, we do our entertainment in Franklin, Guys Nights end up in Cool Springs where the beer ordinance doesn’t exist, and we usually dine at home because taking 3 kids out is a lot of work.  I don’t think I spend more than $50 a week in Nolensville.  I would love to spend all my money here.  The problem is that there’s nothing here for us and our 3 kids to do.  If we’re going to pack the minivan full of kids to go to Brentwood, we’re taking the path of least resistance and eating ice cream in Brentwood.

Spending money isn’t wasteful when you look at the money spent as an investment. When Nolensville invests in itself, so will we.

 

-The Insider