What happened at the 9/17 Council meeting and video.

This meeting is an hour long. It begins with a couple recognitions, one for the Principal of McGavock High School

The two current council members who are on the city's audit committee, Jacobia Dowell and Steve Glover are approved for reappointment by acclamation.

Resolutions: All resolutions except 845 and 846 are on the consent agenda and none are pulled. 845 and 846 are the bills granting an incentive to UBS of up to $2.5 million and a good deal on parking spaces in the public square parking garage. See 23:00 in the video for the discussion. When individuals or companies or institutions accept government money it usually comes with strings attached. While legal requirement are not put in place to dictate who the company may hire or where those they hire must live, there is discussion of those issues both in committee and on the council floor. Resolution 845 is put to a machine vote at the request of Josh Stites. It passes with only Stites and Tenpenny voting in opposition. 846 passes on voice vote.

All bills on First Reading pass and none are pulled from the agenda.

Bills on Second reading:  There are a couple deferrals and everything else passes.

• BL2013-526 and Bill NO. BL2013-527 which establishes a Metro  Injury-on-duty clinic and approves an entity to operate it are deferred a meeting. 
• Bill 543 would allow business  sponsorship within Metro Parks is explained by the sponsor and passes. It my view this is a good bill. An example of how it could save the city money is that an entity could put their logo on doggie poo bags and save the city up to $30,000. The bill's sponsor is Charlie Tygard. There is a failed attempt to defer the bill by Councilman Bo Mitchell. The discussion starts at 40:20.

Bills on Third Reading: All bills on Third reading, including  Bill 516 which is a code text change to allow the city to impose a "specific plan"over  a large area, pass without discussion.

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Dean bribes 'Nashville' to keep filming in Nashville. Council will rubber stamp it.

The show Nashville has agreed to keep filming in Nashville after the State gave a grant of $12.5 million as an "incentive" to the producers.  The State's "investment" was contingent upon the city of Nashville kicking in a half million. The Mayor agreed. The Council has not appropriated the money nor has the Council passed a memorializing resolution promising they would be willing to do so. This will be the very first time the city has spent money to entice a company to film a TV program or movie in Nashville. The Mayor can confidently pledge the money because he can take our rubber-stamp Council for granted. They always do what the Mayor wants. It will probably be approved without a dissenting vote.

I am not sure where the money will come from.  It is not in the budget which just passed.  I do not think this is something that can be spend out of the 4% Fund. I am not adamantly opposed to it if we have the money. Nashville reportedly generates $40 million in local spending, not to mention that it is a weekly hour-long commercial for our city. 'Nashville' will probably help fill the new convention center and boost tourism. I think I could be persuaded to support it. I am disappointed, however, that the Mayor can make such a commitment without consulting the Council. To read more about this, see the article in the Tennessee Watchdog which reported this.

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Budget & Finance Committee Meeting of July 1, 2013

Discussion and explanatiion of bills generally takes place in committee. The most important of the Council committees is Budget and Finance.

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