Bredesen has other notable feathers in his two-term mayoral cap: spearheading downtown revitalization; bringing in pro football, hockey and women's basketball; and getting a new US$290 million stadium funded and built. Nashville's crime rate dropped during Bredesen's tenure, while school funding increased.

8,000-to-10,000 Long-Term Jobs?
Dell picked Nashville for "skilled work-force availability, proximity to a majority of our Americas customers and rapid distribution access," says Vice Chairman Kevin Rollins. "We were impressed by state and local leaders' cooperation and innovation to bring to life our first U.S. expansion outside central Texas."

In fact, Dell officials have reportedly discussed a plan to increase long-term employment to 8,000 to 10,000 at the huge Nashville complex, which will produce home and small business PCs, "one of Dell's fastest growing markets," Rollins says.

Bredesen calls the Dell jobs "the kind we need -- light manufacturing, pollution-free. Dell is a great company with a good reputation as a corporate citizen, and they're poised to become the world's largest PC company.

"In a real sense this is a boon for all of Middle Tennessee," Bredesen asserts. "People will come from all over the region, Dell suppliers will locate both in and out of Davidson County, and the entire region will benefit from new jobs and spending."

Dueling Analyses
But the state's largest newspaper, the Nashville-based Tennessean (www.tennessean.com), editorially bashed Bredesen as "the Big Spender" for Dell's $166 million in incentives. (For more, see the "Site Selection Insider's" August 1999 "Incentive Deal of the Month" at www.siteselection.com.)

A month before the final incentives vote, a Tennessean analysis pegged the Dell's "indirect costs" in city services at some $186 million, a figure four times higher than in Bredesen's analysis from Middle Tennessee State University's Business and Economic Research Center. With incentives, Dell's 40-year costs would outstrip new local tax revenue by roughly $74 million, the paper concluded.

Remarkably, Bredesen held his political ground despite the flak. The Davidson County Metro Council's late-July incentives signoff mirrored the same 27-11 margin evident from the outset of his efforts to land Dell.

New Mayor: Dell 'a Good Deal'
Earlier, area economic development officials had to restructure the incentives after Bredesen decided that letting Dell collect sales taxes would be illegal. And concerns over two bat species and a Peregrine falcon on the Dell site had to be assuaged only minutes before the incentives vote.

Says one long-time Nashville political observer (who pled for anonymity), "Phil Bredesen did a danged good job, understanding how the game's played and putting us on the site selection map. And, heck, by the paper's analysis, you'd think maybe the best way for Nashville to cut costs would be to stop bringing businesses in."