Good morning, Nashville. Last night, the Metro Council approved funding for upwards of $600 million in construction projects all around the city. Within the next few years, we’re looking at a shiny new “adventure play park” (we can’t wait to see what that is) on the riverfront, a connector road between north Nashville and West End, some more classrooms so our schools can ditch the trailers, a crime lab for the Metro PD, a new library branch in Goodlettsville, and some fixing-up of our storm water system. And that’s just the beginning.

• Healthy kids. With school being out for the summer, Metro Action Commission is trying to make sure low-income kids still get a good meal during the day by preparing and delivering 6,000 healthy lunches a day. In Metro schools, 73% of the kids qualify for the free and reduced lunch program for low-income families.
• Happy things. Speaking of schools, congrats to Hume-Fogg and Martin Luther King Jr. magnet high schools who were the only two schools in the state to make Newsweek’s list of the top 100 schools in the country. Now, if only we could just get the rest of Metro to catch up.
• Bits & pieces. Someone in Rutherford County has been circulating a bunch of fake money … A group of students and adults have come together to save Perry County, whose unemployment rate hit 26% a few months ago … News Channel 5 checks back in with Murfreesboro residents to see how they’re recovering … If you want a good laugh, check out the CMA Fan Fair from back in 1979 … Manchester, we wish you luck.

A year ago on Nashvillest: We realized we were definitely not to blame in the Saga of the Killer Tomatoes, learned from Craigslist that we should probably be more careful choosing our friends, met a pretty cool old cowboy in downtown Nashville, and then Opryland almost blew up.

Photo by Kittywinks Peeks.