What's on the Council agenda for 10/17/2017? Approving the sale of $225 million in bond sales to fund a soccer stadium at the fairgrounds.

The most important item on the agenda is a resolution to the authorize issuance of $225 million in bond sales to build a soccer stratum on the site of the fairgrounds. 

The Metro Council will meet Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 6:30 PM in the Council chamber at the Metro Courthouse. If you are going to watch the Council meeting, you need a copy of the Council agenda and the Council staff analysis or you really will not know what is going on. You can get the agenda and analysis at the highlighted links.

There are two mayoral appointees to Boards and Commission on the agenda for confirmation and as always they will be affirmed.  There are no bills or resolutions on Public hearing.

There are 29 resolutions all of which are on the consent agenda. A resolution stays on the consent agenda if it passes  unanimously the committees to which it was assigned. Since the committees have not met yet, some resolutions which are listed as on the consent agenda may not be on the consent agenda when the council meets. Resolutions on the consent agenda are usually not controversial and tend to be routine matters, such as accepting grants from the Federal or State Government, entering into inter agency agreements over mundane things, appropriating money from the 4% fund, settling lawsuits, or approving signs overhanging the sidewalk. Resolutions on the consent agenda are lumped together and passed by a single vote of the Council rather than being considered individually. Any member of the body may have a resolution pulled off of the consent agenda or have their "no" vote or abstention recorded. Unlike a bill which requires three votes of the Council to pass, a resolution only requires one vote of the Council. Below are the resolutions of interest.

RESOLUTION RS2017-910 would approve the issuance of $225 million in revenue bonds and general obligation bonds by the Sports Authority all for the purposes of financing a Major League Soccer stadium proposed for the Nashville Fairgrounds. Not part of the resolution, the stadium developers have pledged another $25 million. Before the bonds could be issued the team must be awarded a major league soccer franchise and some other conditions must be met. For a deeper understanding of the issue, you may want to read the bill and the staff analysis. There are several more provisions in the bill.  I expect this will be deferred do to the complexity and controversial nature of this issue.

RESOLUTION RS2017-911 provides $1 million in funding to favored non-profits.  Twenty-seven non-profits get funding including  $25,700 to Southern Word to teach skills in spoken word poetry to prevent violence. For a full list of agencies getting funding see the staff analysis.

Bills on First reading: There are 8 bills on first reading. First reading is a formality that gets bills on the agenda and they are not considered by committee until after they pass first reading. I do not read them until they get to second reading. Bills on First Reading are all lumped together and pass by a single vote.

Bills on Second Reading. There are 8 bills on Second Reading. None are very important and likely to generate controversy.BILL BL2017-802  is a bill concerning right of way closures and work performed in the right of way. There have been several bills on the topic of right of ways in recent months.  This would impose increased penalties for closing a right of way without a permit and provide an easier means for the public to report right of way problems and do some other minor things.

Bills on Third Reading. There are 25 bills on third reading. Most of them are zoning bills that have been approved by the Planning Commission. None of them are very interesting.

To watch the Council meeting, you can go to the courthouse and watch the meeting in person, or you can watch the broadcast live at Metro Nashville Network's Government TV on Nashville's Comcast Channel 3 and AT&T's U-verse 99 and it is streamed live at the Metro Nashville Network's livestream site and you can watch it live on Roku. You can catch the meeting the next day (or the day after the next) on the Metro YouTube channel. If can stand the suspense and just wait, I will post the video on this blog the day after or the day after that and provide commentary.

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