Talking Too Loud
Council member John Summer chastises his colleagues, but what about his own lapses?
by Matt Pulle
After Metro Council member John Summers called for a quorum count that effectively ended last Tuesday’s public hearing before the council, he remarked to the The Tennessean about his weary, fleet-footed colleagues who were responsible, by their absence, for the parliamentary debacle. But Summers himself is no paragon of legislative diligence. In fact, while Summers almost never leaves a meeting early, he is often late to many deliberations, including last week’s gathering that made the council an object of citywide ridicule.
“I came in late because my daughter had broken her arm the Sunday before, and when I was getting ready to leave to go to the council she wanted me to hold her,” Summers explains. “Am I someone who is always early to meetings? No. But given the nature of the job that I have, I have an awful lot of time commitments.”
Last fall, the West Nashville Metro Council member, who is a lobbyist at the state Capitol by day, drew criticism when it was reported that, during his first year as the council representative on the Metro Planning Commission, he missed six of 26 scheduled meetings.
Last Tuesday’s meeting extended well past midnight, generating more bad press for the city’s legislative body. Residents who had waited through the night to speak on contentious zoning matters were turned away. Twelve council members left the hearing early, causing the body to lose its quorum. Eight of those 12 are in their second and final term and don’t feel the pressure of an upcoming election, so they might just be going through the motions at this stage of their dying legislative careers.
In fact, several council members say that the body had lost its quorum long before the meeting was adjourned, which might mean that the council approved several bills illegally. The hits keep on coming.
“The word is 'embarrassed,’ ” says council member Phil Ponder, whose zoning bill was being debated when Summers made a motion to determine whether there was a quorum in the room. “I felt embarrassed for the council that night. I had six people there on my bill alone who had been there for six hours. They were furious, and I don’t blame them.”
Vice Mayor Howard Gentry, who hadn’t even served a full term on the council before replacing his predecessor Ronnie Steine, deserves some blame for last week’s fiasco. And to his credit, he has had no problem saying so. Many council members have muttered privately that the disbanded meeting wouldn’t have happened “under Ronnie,” who had served two terms in the council before he became vice mayor.
Most of all, Gentry should have the fundamental administrative instincts to recognize that as council members were hitting the exits, the body was in danger of losing its quorum. And like some of his predecessors did, Gentry also could have tried to curtail the number of memorializing resolutions that took place before the public hearing. Last week, before the council could attend to the public hearing portion of the meeting—when residents show up to debate consequential zoning changes—it spent more than an hour on 14 largely worthless memorializing resolutions.
At-large council member Carolyn Baldwin Tucker, who always seems to have a starring role in humiliating council dramas, sponsored a resolution “recognizing Mrs. Bess’ Third-Grade Class at Westmeade Elementary School.” Mrs. Bess’ students were on hand to accept their honor; it’s safe to say that they were the only members of the audience who have a savory view of their elected officials. In addition to Tucker’s frivolous legislation, it’s hard to understand why the council needed resolutions recognizing the Nashville Sports Council, the 50th anniversary of Vanderbilt radio station WRVU and something called “National Drinking Water Week.”
The public hearing portion of the meeting was unusually contentious as well. At-large council member David Briley says that at the beginning of the council term there was not as much council debate during the public hearing, which comes when bills are being considered on the second of three readings; the members pretty much let the people speak and, if necessary, tweaked the bills on third reading. Now the council debates vigorously on second reading, dragging out an already tedious portion of the agenda.
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