Editorial
Metro Council members and others with marginal political influence are rallying behind beleaguered deputy Metro Codes director Sonny West, whose unilateral defiance of his department’s procedures helped lead to the pile of debris that until recently was the historic Evergreen Place, believed to be the oldest historic structure in Davidson County. Readers will recall that West allowed demolition of the 1790s structure despite objections from the Metro Historical Commission (MHC) and without respect to the well-established procedures of his department (“Not So Evergreen,” Oct. 6). From his vacation, mind you, he then directed his staff not to tell the MHC about the demolition until the permit was already issued.
West’s defenders—among them at-large Metro Council member Adam Dread and attorney Tom White, who sought the demolition on behalf of his client—are pointing to his half-century of service to Metro Government. Fine. He’s had a job for a long time. But that’s not the issue. At issue, in the words of his boss Terry Cobb, who wrote a several-page-long rebuke to West last week, is his “insolence,” “insubordination,” “deficient performance of duty,” “recklessness” and “breach of trust,” among other choice characterizations.
In addition to having made colossally bad decisions that point to ill motivation and malfeasance, “I consider your failure to communicate with me to be disrespectful and insubordinate,” Cobb wrote last week, in the letter notifying West of a departmental hearing Thursday and possible disciplinary action, whose possibilities include suspension, demotion or dismissal. “The direct result of your actions has been a public relations fiasco for the Codes Department and the Metropolitan Government. Your actions have undermined the public trust. Your actions have undermined the trust of the Metro Council in the Codes Department. Your actions have undermined the trust of other Metro departments and agencies, including the MHC. Your actions have undermined the trust of this administration. Your actions have undermined my trust…. Your job description provides that you will keep me informed of matters of ‘special concern.’ Certainly the controversial demolition of the oldest historic structure in the county is a matter of ‘special concern.’ Again, you failed to communicate with me, an issue we have discussed on previous occasions.”
Not to put too fine a point on it.
If West didn’t get the point by then, Cobb had more to say: “Your actions were deliberate. Your actions show disrespect for the Historical Commission, disrespect for historic structures, disrespect for the mayor, disrespect for the citizens of Davidson County and disrespect for me. Your actions represent a betrayal of trust and deficient performance of your duties.”
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That’s really the point. Everybody makes mistakes, and the honest ones are easy to forgive. People assume things they shouldn’t, forget to dot an I or cross a T, they file things in the wrong place or fail to write something down. But this whole situation points to something altogether different—malevolence at its worst. Some Metro Council members—the ones who aren’t partial to West and his actions—are supporting an investigation into what happened with Evergreen. We don’t object to that, although the facts have pretty well been laid bare by the Scene and other news outlets in town. And the verdict is this: Sonny West is a rogue Metro employee who tried to get away with something, knowing he was violating the mandate of his job and knowing what the consequences would be.
For that he should be gone. Everybody needs to repot themselves every 50 years or so anyway..