You can get your own copy of the Metro
council meeting agenda at this link: Metro Council Agenda. You can find the analysis at
this link: Metro Council Agenda 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 boring.
Confirmation of Appointments
Two people are being considered for
appointment to the NES board. NES has been in the news in recent months for
massive fraud and mismanagement. Costa Jenkins, the executive director of NES
should, in my view, be in jail or at least fired. He continues in his position
and draws a larger salary than anyone else in Metro government. I would hope these two appointees
would be questions about the scandals involving NES, and if they are not
committed to prosecuting the guilty they should not be appointed. For more on the NES scandals, see here. This could be an occasion for a councilman
who believes in clean government to step forward and make a difference.
Five of the board members of the Human
Relations Commission are up for confirmation of their reappointment. The HRC is
a Metro agency with no function that needs to be done that could not be done by
some other agency. The whole purpose of
HRC seems to be to promote political correctness and liberal causes. One of the
things they do is sponsor a youth pavilion at the Nashville Gay Pride Festival,
which I think is inappropriate. I do not think Metro should be in the business
of normalizing and promoting a homosexual lifestyle among young people. I hope someone in the Council would question
the appointees about this and if the appointee supports continuing Metro's
support of this function, that the Councilman would vote against them. This is
an occasion where a conservative leader could step forward in the Council. None have so far. This is another
opportunity. For more on this, see this link.
There are five bills on public hearing, all
of them local rezoning bills which should interest no one except immediate
neighbors of the properties.
There are seventeen resolutions
all of which are on the consent agenda. A resolution is put on the consent agenda if it is likely to be
non-controversial and it stays on the consent agenda if it passes 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. Below are some bills I expect to
be pulled from the consent agenda.
- RESOLUTION NO. RS2013-670 which establishes the certified tax rate in
both the General Services District and the Urban Services District will likely
be deferred again to "track" the budget. After a general appraisal,
state law requires that the city must pass a new tax rate that brings in no
more revenue than the tax rate prior to the reappraisal. There is no reason,
this bill could not pass at this meeting. It does not need to wait for the
outcome of the budget.
- RESOLUTION NO. RS2013-700
approves the Metropolitan Animal Care and Control fee schedule. There has been some
controversy about this bill, but I have not bothered to get a clear
understanding what all of the controversy is about. If you want to know more, go to the
analysis and see this link.
- RESOLUTION
NO. RS2013-709 allows Metro to
issue bonds to finance projects in the capital improvement budget. RESOLUTION NOS.
RS2013-711 THROUGH RS2013-713 concern approval of various sections of the
Metro Pay Plan, the effect of which is a 1.5% across the board pay increase and
reinstatement of step increases. It will be deferred to track with the
budgets.
Bills on First readingalmost 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.
I have not carefully reviewed the bills on
first reading, but will before second reading. There are fourteen bills on
first reading.
Bills on Second Reading: It is on Second reading, after bills
have been to committee, that discussion usually takes place. There are fourteen bills on second reading. None
of them seem terribly important and most of them are for the purchasing of
easement. Below are bills of interest.
- BILL NO. BL2013-423 would
swap some Metro land for some State land. The land that the School for the Arts
sits on and the land that will be the site of the future STEM charter school
located on the old Tennessee Preparatory School site on Foster Ave, would be
swapped for the old Ben West Library site downtown at Eighth and Union Ave .
Metro now owns the library and the State owns the TPS site. Some council members are opposed to this deal, feeling that it is an uneven swap and Metro is getting the lesser bargain. There is also some opposition to tearing down the old
Ben West library because some preservationist consider the building
architecturally significant. The most
persuasive argument against the deal is that there is a deed restriction that
requires the site to be used as a library or revert to the heirs of those who
gave the land to Metro to be used as a library. I think deed restrictions
should be honored as a matter of principle but as a matter of practicality we
should not move forward with this deal until the title issues have been
resolved. It was deferred the last two meetings and I expect it to be deferred
again.
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. Most of them are
zoning bills and I don't expect any of them to generate controversy. Below are the bills of interest.
- Bill NO. BL2013-360 requires a compensation and benefits study
for the mayor, vice mayor, and members of council which would include an
examination of salaries and benefits. The study will also consider the long
term costs of providing health insurance benefits for future former council
members. Now, after serving two terms, former council members can get subsidized Metro
health insurance on the same terms as retired metro employee. When first enacted in 1990 this was not a
terribly expensive benefit. With such a large council however, and with term
limits there is a growing number of former council members. This study is to
take into account the effect of term limits on this benefit. Previously the
council had before it a bill to repeal this benefit and another time, it had
before it a bill to reduce it, both of which failed. This needs to pass.
- BILL NO. BL2013-420 creates a small business
economic development incentive grant program.
As you are probably aware, Metro Council has been picking winner and
looser by bribing big companies not to leave metro and "enticing" big
companies to expand or relocate to Davidson County. Some have argued that this
is wrong and the same enticements should be offered to small businesses. I do
see this policy as a problem. By paying companies to locate or not to leave we
create an incentive whereby a company would be foolish to move here unless they
get their pay-off and we have created an incentive for companies to threaten to
leave unless we pay them to stay.
Unfortunately, it is hard to stop playing this game since other cities
are also playing it. Cities have created
an environment to where they have to pay the incentive or another city that
does pay the incentive will get the big corporate headquarter relocations and
manufacturing plants.
I don't think the way to fix this problem is to expand it
to small businesses. This bill passed second reading by a voice vote which means since no one
asked to be recorded as voting "no," then it is assumed they voted for it. I
expect it to pass on third without discussion but I think it is a bad bill. Expanding
crony capitalism and the policy of picking winner and losers to small business
simply expands an already bad policy; it doesn't fix it.
- ORDINANCE
NO. BL2013-431 is the operating budget and ORDINANCE NO. BL2013-431 is the tax
levy. They will be deferred.
There are no memorilizng resolutions.
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