@startleseasily is a fervent observer of the Metro government's comings and goings. In this column, "On First Reading," she'll recap the bimonthly Metro Council meetings and provide her opinions and analysis. You can find her in the pew in the corner by the mic, ready to give public comment on whichever items stir her passions. Follow her on Twitter here.
Every so often, the Metro Council is blessed with a barn burner of a public comment.
On Tuesday, that came from Trina Hewell, a woman from East Nashville. “Have you seen what a tractor trailer can do to some guardrails?” Hewell asked, speaking against the so-called “Fusus guardrails” bill. In this instance, the state and federal governments are the tractor trailers, and they theoretically don’t give a shit about any pesky municipal guardrails the council may enact.
City lawyers weighing constitutional challenge against sanctuary city penalties
President Donald Trump is literally breaking federal law left and right in his quest to dismantle our constitutional order. The Tennessee state legislature routinely passes bills they know to be unconstitutional in an attempt to challenge current legal precedent. Undocumented immigrants are being detained and deported without any semblance of due process.
Nobody cares what Nashville’s local legislative body has to say about how and when the Metro Nashville Police Department can tap into a network of private surveillance cameras.
“The president said this week, ‘He who saves his country cannot break the law,’ and Democrats ... somehow still support Fusus,” said Hewell, “cheerleading the tractor trailer that will inevitably plow through these guardrails.”
The Rule of Lawlessness
We have a lawyer problem on the council. By my count, seven of the 40 members of the Metro Council are lawyers.
In my experience, most lawyers want to believe that the law means something. It would probably be pretty hard to practice law otherwise. The lawyers who serve on our council seem to, for the most part, fit this general mold. They have lofty ideals about The Rule of Law. They believe The Law will save us. They do not seem to be grounded in The Reality of Our Current Circumstances.
Split Metro Council rejects video integration technology by one vote despite plea from mayor
Whatever we may have thought the rule of law was, it’s clear that we’re under the thumb of federal and state governments that see the law as more of a suggestion than a mandate. Like, if you feel like following the law, knock yourself out. If not, that’s cool too. The Supreme Court will probably see it your way, as long as you’re using your lawlessness for conservative ends.
Most of the lawyers on the council are operating in a manner that I find completely divorced from the context in which we live. The exercise of establishing a system of “guardrails” for Fusus and similar surveillance tools is quite obviously futile, in light of [waves hands] everything.
These dear, sweet, well-meaning lawyers think they just fell out of a coconut tree, and it shows.
A Historic Relocation
This council has gotten into a nasty habit of debating bills before they even make it to committee. On Tuesday, Councilmember Brenda Gadd attempted to kill on first reading a bill that would move Metro’s Historical Commission and Historic Zoning Commission under the purview of the Planning Department. The ensuing pointless debate lasted 45 minutes. In the end, only four councilmembers voted against advancing the bill to its second of three readings, but there sure was a whole lot of squawking.
Following an audit, new legislation from Councilmember Benedict aims to move MHZC into the Planning Department
Councilmember Emily Benedict, the bill’s prime sponsor, asked her colleagues to let the process play out. She expressed willingness to consider potential amendments, and she vowed to get a thread started on the council’s online forum to allow for more discussion. She’s already made good on that promise.
Councilmember Tonya Hancock expressed a kind of conspiratorial shock and horror that the bill already had so many co-sponsors. “I first heard about this with a text message from a lobbyist,” said Hancock. I guess that was supposed to be a mic-drop moment, but no one seemed aghast. Last I checked, lobbyists are hired ... to lobby.
Gadd asked for a “commitment ... that we take the time to really hear from neighbors ... to reassure folks that we’re not just going to speed and rush things.” I see no reason this needed to be said on the floor of the council, other than to virtue signal to the wealthy white historic homeowners in her district that she will stand in the breach to protect their property values.
Let’s think about this for a second though. Gadd asked for a commitment that we take the time to hear from residents about a plan to reorganize a couple of departments. This is not earth-shattering or unprecedented. When the council created Metro’s Office of Homelessness, which moved that function out from under Metro Social Services and into its own stand-alone department, there were no public hearings.
Gadd didn’t ask anyone to pull the Fusus “guardrails” bill off of first reading. She didn’t make a show of requesting the same commitment to community input, even as it was considered on second reading Tuesday night. And that bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Rollin Horton, wrote it without consulting any of the affected groups. By his own admission, he only spoke to the mayor’s office, MNPD and the Community Review Board’s research staff while preparing the bill.
I’m just asking for a little internal consistency. If we’re going to seek out community input on bureaucratic reform, we should do the same when we’re giving the police more tools to surveil us.
Premature Adjournment
Vice Mayor Angie Henderson started the meeting off with a reminder to stay off the roads late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Councilmember Tasha Ellis heeded Henderson’s warning when she, out of the blue, moved to adjourn the meeting mid-debate on the Fusus bill, “given the current weather conditions.”
Henderson, who meticulously prepares for each meeting, did not see this coming. Flummoxed, she stumbled through recognizing several councilmembers with questions about what this would mean for the agenda. She even lost her trusty No. 2 pencil in the confusion.
The council voted 24-13 to adjourn, seemingly to the dismay of Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s right-hand man Dave Rosenberg, who said the Fusus bill was “urgent.” His claims were rejected outright by the council. They just wanted to get home, y’all. It was cold outside!
The council will start the next meeting by finishing up their debate on second reading of the Fusus bill.
What a finish. 10/10. No notes.
