Wednesday, June 6, 2012
40 Jealous Whores Colored T-Shirts? Standing-Room Only? It's a Metro Council Public Hearing!
Posted by Steven Hale on Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 11:54 AM
At the CP, Garrison has thankfully condensed the three-hour hearing (during which, we're quite confident, speakers followed the request to avoid redundancy). A sampling, after the jump:
On Tuesday, Nashvillians took the floor for more than three hours, with both sides of the tax hike debate sharing an amount of equal time.“This is an important step in the budget, that we hear directly from the taxpayers, and that they voice their opinions.” Metro Councilman Jason Holleman said afterwards, still undecided on how he’ll ultimately vote.
Ashley Croft, a Metro teacher for four years, said she works a part-time retail job to make extra income, making the case for lifting Metro’s starting teacher salary to $40,000, a key part of Dean’s case for a tax increase. Dean wants to raise teacher salaries to compete with peer cities for instructors.
“Each summer around this time, I start looking at job listings in other parts of the city or other parts of the country, knowing that I simply need more to support myself,” Croft said.
But James Keeton of Cane Ridge said, “It would be foolish to continue to spend more in the face of the realities of this downturn,” adding that it is “easy to reach into someone else’s pocket for a request. Government does that quite well.
“Many say that not voting for the mayor’s budget would be a step back,” he said. “Stepping back’s not always a bad thing.”
After hearing from the people, the council passed the mayor's budget on second reading, a procedural move allowing the proposal to move on to committee. Later this month, the council will vote for the the third and final time on the budget — which, of course, includes the property tax increase.
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