The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • A11

THE TENNESSEAN FROM PAGE ONE SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 11A SOME REDEVELOPMENT POSSIBILITIES Four developers submitted proposals in 2008 for reinventing the Tennessee State Fairgrounds property south of downtown Nashville. Mayor Karl Dean said the city still could look at other ideas. Oath Keepers dispute racist tag Wedgewood Partners: A mixed-use development with office, retail and residential Tennessee Motor Sports Conservancy: A motor sports and entertainment development that could include racing, a baseball stadium, a water park, a hotel, an amphitheater, an RV resort, pavilions and an entertainment district. Team 821: A "media village" that could include a filmTV production studio, film school, and arts and entertainment venue. There could be public open space in a campus setting, with some office space and retail.

Southern Land A mixed-use town center, with housing for sale and rent, along with retail space and offices. Developers said green space, community gathering places, schools and libraries also could be included. tors, like Fox News' Glenn Beck. They are religious leaders, like "Bible Answer Man" Hank Hanegraaff who told radio listeners last month that "socialism and fascism" were "slipping quietly through the back door." And they are everyday people like Rand Cardwell. Cardwell says his opposition is rooted in American values the same ones Obama acknowledged in his recent speech to Congress, when he noted "our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government." But as Cardwell watched federal power grow first under President George W.

Bush that healthy skepticism has led him to conclude that now is the time to sound an alarm. And that is why he found himself standing before hundreds at a July 4 Tea Party in Asheville, N.C., two hours away from here, reading out Oath Keepers' "Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey." Although Cardwell welcomes all concerned citizens to his meetings, the Oath Keepers' main message targets military and public safety personnel, active and inactive. It reminds them they swore allegiance to the Constitution, not to politicians or bureaucrats. As such, they have the right to refuse orders they deem unlawful. Cardwell barked them out at the Tea Party: They will not obey orders to disarm Americans or confiscate property, including food.

They will not help the government blockade American cities or confine Americans to concentration camps. Nor will they assist foreign troops brought onto U.S. soil to "maintain control." Cardwell doesn't think the country is in immediate danger of having Obama-imposed concentration camps. But he is haunted by a lesson he has drawn from history: Bad things happen when government grows. "You might be going out on a limb saying, 'This is what's happening in the United he said recently.

"But let's go back to the German concentration camps, and the people who were saying, 'If we would have done something from the beginning, so many millions of lives would have been OATH FROM PAGE 1A with Kraft Foods, had heard that the U.S. armed forces were training with foreign troops to respond to domestic emergencies. "I feel threatened by it," he said. A woman who gave her name, and then retracted it, harbored doubts about the president's citizenship. "All right," Cardwell said, in a low, firm voice.

"Let's kick this thing off." The first order of business was a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which called the Oath Keepers which claims more than 1,000 members nationwide a "particularly worrisome example" of a "virulently anti-government 'Patriot' movement" that has been reinvigorated, in part, by the fact the president is black. The center documented angry videos that had been posted on the Oath Keepers' Web site; in one of them, a man called President Barack Obama an "enemy of the state." Cardwell betrayed only a hint of the exasperation this line of criticism stirs in him. Nothing, he said, could be further from the truth. He served side by side in the Corps with blacks. One of his best friends is black.

"Our goal," he said, "is to support and defend the Constitution, and that's where it begins and ends at. We're not a hate group. We're not a racist group. We're not calling for armed revolt against the government." A right to refuse orders The group, founded this year by Stewart Rhodes, a Yale-educated lawyer and former staffer of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, calls itself nonpartisan and features on its Web site a 1776 quote from George Washington warning of an incipient moment that would determine whether Americans will be "Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed." "Such a time," the site says, "is near at hand again." A vociferous group of Americans is warning that the country is not just headed in the wrong direction but going over a cliff.

These people are mainstream media commenta Samaria Fuller, 3, hugs her new bear that was just won for her on the midway at the Tennessee State Fair. Nashville officials say they don't want to invest in a new fairgrounds, george walker iv the tennessean Nashvillians say they'll miss fair bara DuVatl, Nashville natives who were at the fair Thursday afternoon, fondly recalled getting a day off from school more than 50 years ago to attend the fair. "I'd hate to see them do away with it," said Ehrhart, 67. "It's just a tradition to fair would have broken every record for attendance and revenues if rain hadn't overtaken the past few days. Management responded to the weather Wednesday by moving most activities indoors and lowering ticket prices through Friday.

Attendance was up 34 percent from 2008 on Sept. 11, the first day of the event, and the crowd included many more families than in previous years, Dozier said. "We know this: The people of Nashville will come back to the fair when we have a good product," he said. "We've proven that. People who wrote off the Tennessee State Fair need to come back and see something totally different." Weaver said Dozier's team has put on "the best fair I think we've had in anybody's memory." While the annual 10-day fair gets most of the attention, the fairgrounds also has more exhibit space than any other place in Nashville except Gaylord Opryland Resort Convention Center.

Dozier said he would propose this fall that the fair board change the name of the site to "The Nashville Exposition Center, home of the Tennessee State Fair." Dozier called the fair's future "the million- dollar question." "If it's not coming back here, where, and how long will it take to do that?" he said. No plans for grounds Weaver said the fairgrounds is simply too small for the fair. The fair board decided last fall to hold one more fair and one more season at the racetrack on site, then turn the issue over to Dean. "We've been playing a football game on a basketball court," Weaver said. Dean said there are no specific plans yet for redeveloping the fairgrounds.

The mayor said the flea market and Christmas Village will stay "as long as we're working through what will happen next." Audrey Moss of Tulsa, who puts on the "Tropical Illusions" traveling magic show, said she hopes the fair will continue somewhere. It's smaller than similar events in some other places but has just as much to offer, said Moss, whose mother grew up in Gallatin. "They need to keep a fairgrounds going," she said Thursday. "Because you lose a lot of history when you get rid of things like this." Contact Michael Cass at 615-259-8838 or mcassiatennessean.com. FAIR FROM PAGE 1A City officials said it doesn't make sense to keep subsidizing a failing enterprise until the reserves, now at about $1.3 million, are gone.

The city also is looking at the future of the fairgrounds, which critics consider too small and hilly for the fair. A consultant said last fall that Metro would have to relocate the fair to make it a truly viable statewide event. But the city doesn't plan to spend the $30 million or more it would cost to acquire about 100 acres and develop a new fair site. "That's not something I'm interested in pursuing," Dean said. News of the move upset longtime fairgoers like Andy Haley, a concert roadie who lives near the fairgrounds.

"As a citizen of that area, it's really disappointing to hear that they would move it," Haley said. "It seems like something to be really proud of. It really saddens me to think that they want to put shopping and con-dos there." Haley said he wouldn't hold his breath waiting for the fair to re-emerge in another form. "I don't trust that anybody's going to step up and start a new one," he said. Annie Ehrhart and Bar First-day attendance up The fair is a self-sustaining unit of Metro government, meaning it must make its revenues match its expenses or else cover the difference from reserves.

That arrangement has put a strain on the fair in recent years, when the event's reputation for being unsafe and unclean hurt attendance and revenues. Even in 2008, when attendance increased 9 percent under new management, revenues declined as $4-a-gatlon gas prices cut into spending on rides, officials said. The fair lost about $200,000 last year. But Buck Dozier, the fairgrounds' executive director for the past 18 months, said his staffs moves to "reinvent" the fair cleaner, greener, safer and more family-friendly have been working. Dozier said this year's Fed policy wouldn't set salary caps for banks The Thomasville Fall Savings Spree No Sales Tax Event LEIIS to approval by the Fed's Board of Governors, could be adopted by year's end.

Some details of the Fed plan were reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal. The proposal would cover all of the nearly 6,000 banks regulated by the Fed. It wouldn't cover savings and loans or other institutions overseen by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or other regulators. The biggest banks about 25 of them would develop their own plans to make sure compensation doesn't spur undue risk-taking.

If the Fed approves, the plan would be adopted and bank supervisors would monitor compliance. At smaller banks, where compensation is typically less, the Fed would provide guidance about what steps it thinks could rein in excessive risk-taking. The Fed's proposal is running on a track separate from the Obama administration's efforts to curb executive pay. The administration's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, has been consulting with seven companies that received "exceptional" assistance from the taxpayer-funded $700 billion bailout pot. Those companies American International Group Bank of America Citigroup General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial last month had to propose compensation packages for their highest-paid employees.

BANKS FROM 1A plan. The Fed would not actually set compensation, however, they said. The proposal is far reaching. The Fed would review salaries, bonuses and other compensation for CEOs and other senior management, the people with knowledge of the proposal said. It also would cover certain employees, such as traders, who can take big risks on behalf of a firm, they said.

And it would cover some workers whose compensation could affect their risk taking, such as loan officers making mortgages, they added. Policy would control risk The Fed could examine not only the compensation level but also how it's structured, such as when it is awarded, the sources said. The goal is to make sure banks' pay policies don't encourage top managers or other employees to take gambles that could endanger a company, the broader financial system or the economy. The failure of many banks to closely monitor risk and limit compensation that might encourage too much risk contributed to the financial crisis. The proposal, in the works since early this year, could be unveiled within weeks.

The public, the industry and others would be able to comment on the proposal, which could be revised. A final plan, subject Leather Panel Bed Queen Sale $1119 King Sale $1359 Also available without leather panel. NO SALES TAX! 3-Piece Sectional (As Shown) Sale $4229 NO SALES TAX! Ask about our in-home design services..