Bill, I spoke with AFP's Annie Patnaude, and she said they were told their permit was denied because they failed to state on the permit request that they were launching a balloon. Launching a hot air balloon is only permitted when you file for a permit to do so. You cannot file a permit to hold an event and then just launch a hot air balloon.

Interesting - especially as I have heard from a different source inside the Parks Department that the permit was for launching a balloon but was revoked for a different technicality.

Suffice it to say the stories don't square and it looks from here like the Parks Dept. is trying to get its story straight.

Well, my source is the Americans For Prosperity event organizer Annie Patnaude. She's the one who filed the permit, and she told me the permit was denied because they forgot to specifically request to launch the balloon. I'm not sure who your "source" is, but why not ask Annie for a copy of her original permit?

We would have let them use our yard! Although we do have a fews trees that might have gotten in the way. :/

I'm curious....why did they want to do a launch in Tennessee when they don't even have a "chapter" here? :(

The AFP story explicitly says the AFP told the Parks Dept about the balloon launch when requesting the permit. It would be nice to get a copy of the permit request, and the permit itself, from the AFP and Parks so we can see exactly what went on here.

I emailed Roy Wilson asking about this story and got a very prompt, very informative response. Mr Wilson wrote that the permit was for a tethered balloon, not a free balloon launch. That should show up fairly clearly on the permit paperwork.

To keep the history together - I mentioned this in the newer thread but forgot about this one. I have a copy of the application, and they explicitly stated that it they would provide rides in a tethered hot air balloon. As Bill points out above, a hot air balloon *launch* requires park board approval. Mr. Wilson is able to personally approve the tethered balloon, which he did. When he found out that they had applied for the tethered balloon but instead planned to launch (in other words, they lied), he revoked the permit. This was appropriate.

I agree with AFP's message, so it pains me to see them being dishonest. But I've seen the application and the press release, and they lied on the application. Putting "tethered" on the application wasn't a simple "oversight" or "technicality", they lied and got caught.

Here's the exact wording from their application:

"The event will be a small gathering of citizens and families in the Nashville area educating taxpayers on current bills being debated in Congress in regards to energy and spending. The event is being promoted by word of mouth. We will offer tethered hot air balloon rides, weather permitting, by the U.S. Hot Air Balloon Team. The event is free and open to the public and food will be distributed to attendees. There will be no entertainment. Our staff will set up prior to the event on the day of the event and clean up after the event is over to dispose of any trash or left over food."

Their exact words: "tethered hot air balloon rides". Not to put to fine a point on it, but "tethered balloon rides" and "launch and fly its 6 story tall hot air balloon over Al Gore's Belle Meade Mansion on Friday, June 20th from Nashville's Warner Park" are two very different events. The second quote is from their press release.

I'm sure with this new information Bill will update his posts to reflect that AFP was, in fact, at fault. I'll email him the application so he can also see it.