He ain't such a bad guy...

I don't think I have hidden my love of Nashville. The city of my birth has continued to grow and change and expand and improve. This week I have seen two prime examples of this...

This morning my bus was late by a couple of minutes and as I was hoofing it past TPAC who steps off the Hillsboro Rd bus and says "Good morning." but His Honor, Mayor Karl Dean. How often to residents of a city the size of Nashville run into the mayor getting of the city bus, let alone on day that is predicting 60% thunderstorms? Mayor Dean is making some bold strides in the city and, of course, catching slack for it. Any mayor who rides the bus on a day like today can't be all bad.

The other example is the awarding of the Charlie Robinson Award to Donna Nicely (opens .pdf), Director of Nashville Public Library.

The Charlie Robinson Award honors a public library director who, over a period of seven years, has been a risk taker, an innovator and/or a change agent in a public library. The recipient should have been active in national and other professional associations and be known for developing and implementing programs which are responsive to the need of community residents.

Proving that Nashville has the most creative library director in the world and anybody who has seen the programing and classes and catalog of the library knows this.

Congratulations to me and all Nashvillians for being members of an incredible community.