Update: What's on the Council Agenda for 11/20/2012

I know the Council just met just last Tuesday but they meet again this Tuesday. These meetings are so close together because the meeting on 11/13/2012 would normally have been 11/6/2012, but because Tuesday the sixth was election day, that meeting was differed until November 13th.

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.

There are no bills on public hearing.

There are fifteen 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 voice vote of the Council rather than being considered individually. If one is present and does not asked to be recorded voting "no" then they are assumed to have voted "aye." However, any member of the body may have a bill pulled off of the consent agenda.

There are two resolution on the consent agenda, that I don't know if they are good bills or not, but they deserve some hard scrutiny. I hope they gets a long and hard look in committee. They are RESOLUTION NO. RS2012-488 and RESOLUTION NO. RS2012-489. They are, in essence, a $65.9 million gift to HCA to incentivize the construction of two office buildings for the corporate relocation of several HCA affiliates. They provide property tax abatement for up to 20 years, a $1 million one-time payment to cover relocation costs, and an annual payment of $500 per employee. In addition to the Metro incentives, the state will be providing an incentive grant of $2.1 million.

Are we giving away the store? This is a complex deal. While we do not want to lose HCA to some competitor city, is this deal in the city's best interest? I really don't know. If I didn't know, and I was on the Council, I would ask for a deferral and wait to be convinced. For more information, go to this link and scroll to the bottom of the analysis. 

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. This bill would have passed first reading on November 13th, but Council member Sandra Moore invoked "rule 8" and the bill had to be deferred one meeting. Rule 8 of the council says that if a bill only affects one council district and the district council member is not a sponsor of the bill, then if the district council member objects to the consideration of the bill on first reading the bill must be deferred one meeting. Since the fairgrounds is an issue that has county wide implication, I do not think rule 8 should have applied but the council staff ruled that rule 8 did apply. This is an issue that everyone who wants to keep the fairgrounds should watch carefully. The deck is being stacked to destroy the fairgrounds. For more on this bill follow this link. 

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. •

BILL NO. BL2012-241 by Councilman Dominy would require the annual contract for services between Metro and the Chamber of Commerce for the Partnership 2020 economic development program be approved by resolution of the council. This bill was previously deferred two meetings and rereferred to the Budget and Finance Committee. I don't know how the B&F committee voted. One can be sure that the financial and business elites will oppose this bill. I think it deserves to pass.

Partnership 2020 is a public-private partnership developed by the chamber whose purpose is to recruit new businesses to the Nashville area. Metro’s appropriation for this program in recent years has been $300,000 a year. While the program serves a ten county area, Metro funds a greater share of the program than the other nine counties combined. Many feel that Metro funds the program, yet the bulk of new relocations to the Nashville area go to surrounding counties. 

BILL NO. BL2012-294 by CM Dominy would require all sole source contracts for the purchase of goods or services in excess of $250,000 to be approved by resolution of the council receiving at least 21 affirmative votes. There are only a couple such "sole source contracts" one being the city's contract with the Chamber for Partnership 2020. This is a good bill that needs to pass. 

ORDINANCE NO. BL2012-297 by CM MATTHEWS & LANGSTER is part of the sweetheart deal with HCA. See the above resolutions and look at the analysis if you wish to know more. If the above resolutions pass, then this might as well pass; if they are deferred, this bill should also be deferred. 

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

 BILL NO. BL2012-281 is the bill that would put the Transportation Licensing Commission under the administration of the Public Works Department. This passed second reading without controversy, so it should pass third with no difficulty. It is a good move, and hopefully will end the TLC's bullying and illegal activity of harassment and impersonation of police officers but it does nothing to address the real problem, which is that Metro engages in supply and price control of private sector transportation providers. I continue to be disappointing that even our conservative members of the Council do nothing to correct this injustice and anti-free market practice.

Memorializing Resolutions:  

Caution! Caution! Councilman Standley is proposing two memorializing resolutions urging the school system and the MTA to make "a top priority program the replacement of the entire fleet of public buses powered by diesel combustion engines with hybrid-electric buses."

Wait a minute. That is pretty ambitions and pretty strongly worded. In my view, no bus should be replaced until it has outlived its useful life. If however we were under a court order to clean up our air or we would have to halt construction, then that may be a reason for such a move, but as far as I know that is not the case.

If this does not make economic sense we shouldn't do it. I hope these resolutions get serious discussion in committee. While a memorialize resolution simply expresses the will of the council and does not carry the force of law, I do not think the council should go on record with such a resolution. There are a lot of public needs. Is replacing serviceable buses with hybrid buses more important than other needs?

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 very seriously. They should not be dismissed as merely memorializing and routinely passed. If memorializing Resolution pass committee unanimously then they are incorporated into the "consent agenda."

Last week our most conservative members of the council voted for memorializing resolutions endorsing the EPA's regulation of green house gases. That resolution said the following:

• “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 392 ppm to at most 350 ppm” • ... climate change is already responsible every year for some 300,000 deaths, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses worldwide of $125 billion;

• the Clean Air Act has produced economic benefits valued at $2 trillion or 30 times the cost of regulation

• We, the Metropolitan County Council, on behalf of the residents of Nashville, do hereby urge the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson, and President Barack Obama to move swiftly to fully employ and enforce the Clean Air Act to do our part to reduce carbon in our atmosphere to no more than 350 parts per million.

Several of the councilmen later said that resolution did not represented their views. Please, Council members if this resolution does not represent your views, please have yourself recorded voting "no".

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