What's on the Council Agenda for Sept. 16th: Another $1 million for the Nashville soap opera.

Council meetings are less boring if you know what the Council is voting on. To get your own copy of the agenda and analysis follow the links.

There are four appointments to boards and commissions, but none are to the controversial and troubled commissions.

There are 14 resolutions on the agenda. At this time all, of them are on the consent agenda, which means if they pass the committee to which they are assigned unanimously and no one object they stay on consent and will all be taken together and passed by a single vote instead of being considered individually.

 Below are the ones of interest:

RESOLUTION NO. RS2014-1215 appropriates $2,573,300 to various departments and includes $1 million to fund an economic incentive grant for the TV show Nashville. Supplemental appropriations are not unusual. That is how equipment and repairs are paid for and how departments with cost overruns get more money. There is a system in place to justify the request to the Department of Finance before the request ever gets to Metro Council. This is where it is important to have good people on the Budget and Finance Committee who can question expenditures if something looks out of line or unusual.

The controversial part of this is the $1 million for Nashville. Nashville has been good advertising for Nashville, no doubt, but things like that are hard to measure.  Also, having the program filmed in Nashville has helped develop the film industry in this city.  However, I do not support another million to subsidize the program. Nashville has been renewed for a third season. If at this point they were to film the program elsewhere, the skylines and scene footage would still be Nashville and the title would still be Nashville. We would get the advertising benefit even it was filmed in Atlanta or Hollywood. The staff analysis says the filming of Nashville adds $40 million to the economy in spending on salaries, good, and services. In a way, this is not much different than when we pay a company to stay in Nashville or to locate in Nashville, but I don't much like that either. I think it is time to pull the plug.

RESOLUTION NO. RS2014-1216  appropriates $3,959,500.00 to various other departments. There is nothing unusual about this. I hope someone in B&F however takes a hard look at it.

RESOLUTION NO. RS2014-1217  authorizing the execution and delivery of an economic development incentive grant agreement between The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and Music City Productions, Inc. I assume this is the paperwork for the $1 appropriated in 1215 above.

RESOLUTION NO. RS2014-1221 appropriates $7000 to match $7000 in a State arts grant to fund 12 big band dances in Centennial Park. I use to attend these dances with my wife Louella before she became too ill and I enjoyed them a lot.  I wonder however, why should they be subsidized? Other music events are sponsored by advertisers or they charge admission. However, we subsidize golf and public art and other recreation and $7000 is not a lot of money. I would not vote against it but do wonder what is the logic in funding some music and not other. 

There are only two bills on First Reading.

There are eleven bills on Second Reading and 17 bills on Third Reading and none of them are of interest. Most of them are zoning bills or bills accepting easements or abandoning easements and they would interest no one but the property owners or nearby neighbors. 

There are two non-controversial memorializing resolutions.

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