"My tourist attractions runneth over..."

A social development I’ve become fascinated with is the anti-tourism movement gestating in Europe. Over the weekend, coordinated protests hit tourist spots across cities like Barcelona and Venice, with protestors wielding signs, chanting slogans like “Tourists go home, refugees welcome,” and spraying visitors with water guns.

The protests reached such a pitch that the State Department issued a travel advisory for Americans venturing over to Europe. On the ground, there doesn’t seem to be any real concern from American tourists, though.

The Telegraph interviewed two lads from Florida who weren’t deterred by the fracas. “We’ll keep travelling around Spain, we’re going to Madrid in a few days and we’ll probably come back to Europe next year,” they told the English outlet.

The protestors make the case that “unregulated mass tourism” has destroyed their towns. They make the case that, for example, local economies can no longer support things like a local hardware store because they are unappealing to tourists.

A glut of short-term rentals has inflated the price of real estate. In Venice, for example, there are more tourist beds than there are residents. And overall, concerns abound about overcrowding, adding stress to aged infrastructure and public transit.

In Paris, the workers at the Louvre went on strike starting Monday to protest working conditions. Attracting nearly 30 thousand visitors a day, workers say that the building hasn’t been sufficiently modernized to deal with the constant onslaught of tourists and that employees are overworked.

Malcontent at the museum has been building for decades, but the strike comes just months after President Macron revealed an ambitious plan to rescue the Louvre.

Meanwhile, Barcelona, a city of 1.6 million people that sees 26 million visitors a year, instituted a forthcoming ban on short-term rentals and a “tourism-tax” in response to local concerns. By comparison, Nashville, a city of 700 thousand, sees 17 million visitors a year.

Tangentially, the Nashville CVC recently rolled out an ad campaign preaching “respect” to Nashville visitors, with banners throughout downtown saying, “Respect yourself, others, and our city!” 

This all seems relevant to NashVegas, where sentiment towards tourism influences local policy decisions. Mayor O’Connell’s campaign cleverly tapped into the anxiety that tourists were getting more attention than the locals and language around what kind of people we want in the city—in short, not tourists or Republicans—formed the bedrock of his appeal. DAVIS HUNT

🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.

🎓 Belmont Tragedy Stirs Questions Of Competency Mayor O’Connell’s prediction following the tragic death of Jillian Ludwig—a freshman Belmont student shot and killed in a park near campus in November 2023—may come true. A competency hearing is underway that will determine whether the suspect in the case, Shaquille Taylor, will stand trial.

Shortly after the incident, the mayor voiced his concerns when it was discovered that Taylor had been released from police custody after being deemed too incompetent to stand trial regarding an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge months before the Belmont shooting: 

I definitely think it is worth looking at the gap that exists between someone who is deemed incompetent to stand trial, and yet winds up in a place where they can be on the streets untreated and armed. And so we do seem to have a loophole there. Because my fear right now today is, even with a murder charge—and we don't know this in advance, but I have seen the statement from District Attorney General Glenn Funk's office about this—I suspect that if there were a murder charge for the same suspect it could be possible that that would be dismissed.

Yesterday, a judge heard testimony about Taylor’s history of mental evaluations. Today, his defense attorneys will present arguments to try and prove that Taylor cannot be tried for the shooting death of Ludwig due to his psychological state. Family and friends of Ludwig have rallied on her behalf, asking for Taylor to be held accountable for his actions.

💸 Alternative Budget Reduces Property Tax During tonight’s Metro Council meeting, members will deliberate over an additional alternative budget that includes less spending and lower property tax levies compared to Mayor O’Connell and Budget & Finance Chair Delishia Porterfield’s proposals.

Filed by Councilmembers Courtney Johnston, Tonya Hancock, and Thom Druffel, the substitute chips away at increased spending. Johnston also filed an ordinance that reduces the GSD levy from 2.782 to 2.617 and USD levy from .032 to .029. The change equates to “a reduction of 16.8 cents or nearly 28 percent reduction for the combined tax levy,” Johnston explained in a statement.

Johnston also clarified that the substitute reduces the mayor’s $500M in new spending, but does not cut department budgets or reduce services. The proposal also keeps Chair Porterfield’s wish list items intact, and increases Metro employee pay to 2.5 percent Across-the-Board (which is higher than both the mayor's and chair’s proposals). “They are our most important asset,” said Johnston.  

“The mayor and budget chair’s proposed tax increase is incredibly steep and too burdensome - especially for hardworking families, elderly residents and our small businesses,” said Johnston. “I’m told rents in Antioch will rise $400 per MONTH just to break even. I’m receiving calls that elderly residents will have to move from their homes of generations, small businesses that have been here for decades will have to move out of county. This is not acceptable and the astronomical increase in spending proposed is not necessary. I hope my colleagues will support.”

📡 Blackburn Making Moves Last week, Senator Marsha Blackburn introduced the Free Americans from Ideological Reporting (FAIR) Act to stop the flow of federal taxpayer dollars to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The legislation codifies an executive order signed by President Trump in May.

“For far too long, American taxpayers have been forced to foot the bill for NPR and PBS while they push left-wing propaganda,” said Blackburn in a press release. “The FAIR Act would cut off taxpayer funding to these partisan outlets, ensuring the American people aren’t forced to subsidize media that disparages conservatives and does the left’s bidding.”  

This morning, it was also announced that Blackburn is heading up an investigation into a doping scandal that occurred during the Tokyo Olympics. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has refused to investigate Chinese swimmers testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs before the 2020 Olympics. As the chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Technology, and Data Privacy, Blackburn will preside over today’s hearing on the matter.

DEVELOPMENT

• Downtown site eyed for three towers now for sale (Post)
• Cheekwood: No plans for Highway 100 property (Post)

✹ ILLEGAL OFFENDER ALL-STAR OF THE DAY

Luis Hernandez will likely be shipped back to his country of origin after more than a year of grand theft auto style legal hijinx, complete with missed court dates and the rest. He's currently being held on an ICE detainer. (More Info)

✹ THIS WEEK IN STREAMING (June 17th)

Presence (Hulu) Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven) kicked off a great year in film with January’s lean ghost story about a suburban family who can’t shake the feeling they are alone. Shot entirely from the spirit’s POV, it,  as we said last winter, “finds its real terror in the hollowness of the urbane secular upper-middle class ideal.”

NewsRadio (Pluto TV) Though it stood in the shadows of Frasier and Seinfeld, NBC’s smartest and most inventive 90s sitcom focuses on the staff of New York’s second most popular talk radio station. With an A-Game ensemble including Dave Foley, Joe Rogan, Maura Tierney, Stephen Root, and the late Phil Hartman, it’s still sharper than anything this side of Parks and Rec.

Rear Window (Netflix) We’ve been scouring Netflix like an invalid Jimmy Stewart looking for anything older than 1990 and finally hit pay dirt. Witness Hitchcock’s stone-cold American classic that features Stewart’s laid-up photographer (and his put-upon gal Grace Kelly) obsessing over whether or not he saw a murder as it was never meant to be seen.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 Josh Hedley Happy Hour @ Dee's Lounge, 3:30p, Free, Info

🪕 Dan Tyminski @ Ryman Auditorium, 7p, $76+, Info

🪕 45 RPM @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info

🎸 Honky Tonk Tuesday @ Eastside Bowl, 8p, $10, Info‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌
+ two-step lessons @ 7p, The Cowpokes @ 8p

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.

Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Camelia Brennan (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).