BY JONATHAN
DAVID FARLEY
I looked for her as soon as I arrived at Gary’s party. People sat beneath the big yellow tent by the water, laughing as they ate chicken and chess pie.
Then I spotted her, a beautiful woman in the middle of her life, with shoulder-length blonde hair. Renee and I hugged like old friends, and talked about how we—how all of us—had beaten Dominion. You see, this was the River Road Gang.
The River Road Gang and the group they formed, ZAPP (Zoning against Power Plants), have taken a lot of flak lately. “Cheatham County missed a great economic opportunity,” their critics say. In reality, what Cheatham County missed was a bullet.
Firstly, Dominion would have been an economic bane to the county. When they promised to pay a mere $1 million to Cheatham in lieu of taxes, did they think our name was “Cheat ’Em”?
Effectively, because of their great tax break, Dominion would have been leeching $3 million each year from the county. In other words, while your property taxes go up virtually every year, a company that makes $250 million annually gets money back! This is corporate welfare!
Secondly, $1 million doesn’t go that far. Our county “representatives” promised the money simultaneously to our school teachers, to our emergency medical personnel, to our dog catchers, to our fire department, to our senior citizens’ home….
Split so many ways, there wouldn’t even have been enough money left over for our county officials to give themselves a raise!
Besides, you can’t build a big plant without expanding the roads. Who’d be paying for this? And what about thirty years from now, when the power plant would be nothing but a concrete-and-steel carcass on the landscape?
Would $1 million be enough to clean up the mess? Sounds like our county commissioners were using the kind of fuzzy math the federal government is so famous for.
Thirdly, arrogant Dominion employees failed to answer our questions about water, air, and noise pollution. Doug, a middle-aged man who suffers from a lung ailment I can’t pronounce, moved here in March.
One week later, when news about Dominion surfaced, his doctor said that Doug would have to sell his house or write a will.
Fourthly, the Dominion issue is moot: Governor Sundquist no longer gives commercial power companies building permits. The fight against Dominion here in Cheatham County is probably what got his attention.
Bringing in a private power company would have been the first step towards California-style deregulation, says David, a leader of ZAPP. “When I flip on my light switch,” he says, “I know the lights are going to come on. The people in California don’t.”
Thanks to ZAPP, Tennessee won’t fall victim to the energy price increases that have ravaged California.
Sure, Cheatham County needs money. But the bottom line is not always the bottom line.
When I visited Brenda on Justice Road, I was in awe. The woods and fields seemed to stretch on forever. I bet I could see twenty miles.
When I look out of my window in Nashville, I can see about twenty feet. What Cheatham County has - forests and fresh air, water and quiet - is worth far more than a measly million. And it’s worth fighting for.
Instead of castigating ZAPP, we should be thanking them.
They’ve pointed out where the county wastes money (through corporate welfare), and where it can save. They looked a multi-million dollar monster in the eye and said, “Go home, Dominion; we don’t need your power. We the people have all the power we need.”
ZAPP will be running candidates for political office in 2002. And their candidates will have a special appetite, I am sure, for citrus fruit.

(Jonathan David Farley is a mathematics professor at Vanderbilt University and a Green Party candidate for Congress. He can be reached at www.GreenTN.org.)