Update: What's on the Nov. 13 Metro Council Agenda? The EPA, Health Insurance for former Council Members and more.

You can get your own copy of the Metro council meeting agenda at this link:Metro Council Agenda. From the agenda you can link to the analysis. Council meetings can be really, really boring if you don't know what the Council is voting on. With an agenda and analysis, they are just really boring. Boring it may be, but there is some really serious stuff on this agenda.

Ten bills are on public hearing, all of which are zoning changes or adding historic overlays except for one which would expand who could be a member of the Historic Zoning Commission. I do not anticipate that the bill expanding membership on the HZC would prove controversial and the others should interest no one but neighbors of the proposed rezonings.

There are thirteen resolutions all of which are on the consent agenda. A resolution is on the consent agenda if it passed the committees to which it was assigned unanimously. Bills on the consent agenda are usually not controversial and tend to be routine matters, such as accepting grants from the Federal or State Government or authorizing the Department of Law to settle claims against the city or appropriating money from the 4% fund. Resolutions on the consent agenda are passed by a single vote of the Council rather than being considered individually. However, any member of the body may have a bill pulled off of the consent agenda. None of the resolutions on the consent agenda are controversial or very interesting and I expect none to be pulled.

Bills on First reading almost always pass. They are considered as a group and are seldom discussed. First reading is a formality that allows the bill to be considered. Bills are not assigned to committee or analyzed by council staff until after they have passed first reading. Here are bills of interests on first reading.

• Bill BL2012-293 by Councilman Duane Dominy would require the city to consider Request for Proposals from private developers to operate the fairgrounds. For more on this bill follow this link.
  
  
• Bill BL2012-294 also by Dominy would require sole source contracts over $250,000 to be approved by a resolution adopted by the Metropolitan Council. I don't know what precipitated this, but it certainly seems like a good idea. This is a bill we need to watch. 

Bills on Second Reading. It is on Second reading, after bills have been to committee, that discussion usually takes place. Below are bills of interest on second reading.

• Ordinance BL2012-281 would transfer the administrative support for the renegade and dysfunctional Transportation Licensing Commission to the public works department. This bill needs to pass. Unfortunately, this bill would not end the ability of this agency to fix prices and control the supply of transportation services and other command and control anti-free market practices but would hopefully reign in some of the abuses of power exhibited by this agency such as imitating police officers and harassment of limo and taxi drivers. To read how this agency has abused its power and how the council has authorized transportation price fixing and curtailment of a free market in transportation follow this link.   

Bills on Third Reading: Third Reading is the final reading. If a bill passes third reading it becoms law unless it is vetoed by the Mayor, which has only rarely happened. Below are the bills of interest on third reading.

• Ordinace BL2012-266 by Council members Claiborne, Todd and Duvall amends the Metro code to eliminate the subsidized health insurance benefits for future members of council after they leave office. Currently the subsidized health insurance for former members of council costs Metro approximately $300,000 per year. With term limits and a younger council body, this subsidy would cost much more in the future if not eliminated. This bill deserves to pass. The bill was approved by the Budget and Finance and Personnel-Public Information-Human Resources-Housing-Committees. However it only barely passed. Here is how members of the council voted on second reading:      

“Ayes” : Barry, Steine, Garrett, Tygard, Matthews, Harrison, Hunt, Banks, Jernigan, Stites, Claiborne, Allen, Weiner, McGuire, Harmon, Blalock, Dowell, Todd, Mitchell (19) 

“Noes” : Maynard, Scott Davis, Westerholm, Anthony Davis, Bennett, Pridemore, Stanley, Tenpenny, Moore, Gilmore, Baker, Evans, Holleman, Dominy, Johnson, Potts, Bedne (17)

 “Abstaining”: Langster

This bill deserves to pass. Unfortunately, the media has not given this issue much coverage recently and unless some of the "noes" are lobbied to change their vote and some of the "ayes" are not lobbied to maintain their position, this bill will probably fail.  However, Pardue, and Duvall were absent on second reading. I don't know how Pardue will vote but Duvall will be an "Aye" vote. Langster will probably be a "no" vote. 

Dominy, Bennett, Tenpenny, and Evans are good council members. They were "noes" that should be "Ayes." If they are your councilman, please call them and try to reason with them. Persuade them to vote "aye" on third reading. I will report how members voted. This could be very close.

Memorializing Resolutions 
There are eleven Memorializing resolutions on the agenda. Memorializing resolutions do not have the force of law and are often not taken very seriously and often they do nothing but congratulate a sports team for a victory or a person for being honored or congratulate a person on their retirement. The Council staff does not even analyze them. However, they do represent the will of the Council and when they advocate a policy position they should be taken seriously. They should not be dismissed as merely memorializing and routinely passed.

The following memorializing resolution should be defeated. 

RESOLUTION NO. RS2012-478 

A resolution supporting the reducing of greenhouse gas pollution under the Environmental Protection Agency Clean Air Act. .... (link) 

First of all let me say that I, unlike many conservatives, accept the majority scientific opinion that global warming is a reality and that human activity is a contributing factor. I find the view that Al Gore cooked up global warming and that there is a grand worldwide conspiracy in the scientific community to perpetuate a scam quite preposterous. (To view my numerous post on the topic of GW follow this link.)  However, this resolution is a case of local government weighing in on an issue that the US Congress should be debating. If the council wants to take a position on this issue then we should also take positions on Agenda 21, the Benghazi policy failure and cover up, the decision of the Federal Reserve to inflate the money supply $40 billion dollars a month, immigration policy, the Supreme Courts Citizen United case, the looming fiscal Cliff, the issue of healthcare exchanges and any other number of federal and state issue.

With China building a coal-fired energy facility a month, I doubt that a minor curtailment of CO2 in the Nashville region will make any significant dent in the problem.

Also, when Congress passed the Clean Air act, they never intended to declare the stuff we exhale as a pollutant. The Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant and the EPA has the right to regulate. This is a complicated issue. Metro Government should not weigh in on it.  Stick to local issues. I know we are locally effected by global warming, but we are also effected by issues of war and peace, a $16 trillion dollar debt and socialization of healthcare. If council members want to weigh in on those issues, run for Congress or blog.

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