@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 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.
Partway through Tuesday night’s Metro Council meeting, Councilmember At-Large Zulfat Suara held court in the mezzanine.
Surrounded by a group of about 20 residents, Suara — the council’s first Muslim member — explained her reasons for withdrawing a resolution calling for an end to the violence between Israel and Palestine. The crowd nodded along as Suara detailed the reasons for the resolution’s dispassionate and measured language, which fell short of what protesters had been calling for: an unequivocal and unqualified condemnation of Israel.
On the council floor, Suara expressed disappointment over the treatment of co-sponsor Jacob Kupin, a Jewish councilmember who has tried for months to bridge the divide between communities fractured by grief.
“What originally looked to be a promising picture toward progress turned into a mirror that showed the extent of our division,” Suara lamented. “We just want peace ... for the sake of our people.”
For his part, Kupin hopes that withdrawing the resolution will allow space for reflection and renewed purpose. “We both saw the hurt of our communities,” Kupin says. “Both of our hearts are in a place of unity.”
Kupin says he and Suara will continue to “figure out how we do the work of bringing our communities together and healing these wounds.” In the future, that might produce a resolution that focuses more on local impact than foreign policy. In the meantime, Kupin remains optimistic about the ability of two deeply divided communities to find common ground.
ISO Pennies Under Couch Cushions
Every year, the council wrestles with a critical question: Will this be the year we finally decide to make substantial changes to the budget?
Psych! They literally never do that.
If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s the council deciding to hew closely to the mayor’s proposed budget, making minor changes around the edges rather than engaging in a wholesale review of whether the budget actually reflects our city’s priorities.
Councilmembers get behind bigger cost-of-living increases after a broad appeal from Metro employees
On Tuesday, the council approved Councilmember At-Large Delishia Porterfield’s substitute budget. The substitute improved on the mayor’s investment in Metro employees — upping the cost-of-living adjustment for all Metro and MNPS employees from 3.5 percent to 4 percent — and provided funding for additional staff and programming in some departments.
While councilmembers had expressed a willingness to dip into departments’ budgets to fund the council’s priorities, Porterfield opted to redirect administrative funds to cover the cost.
The finance department made clear at the Budget and Finance Committee meeting, however, that those funds are viable only for this fiscal year; they’ll need to be replenished in the next budget. If in future years the council wants to maintain the additional staffing and programs they’re funding through Porterfield’s substitute, they’ll need to find the money elsewhere.
If there’s a second thing you can count on, it’s unabashed leftist Councilmember Ginny Welsch trying to redirect funds from the Metro Nashville Police Department. She tried again Tuesday night, with a series of amendments that would have cut between $690,000 and $14 million from MNPD’s budget.
If there’s a third thing you can count on, it’s that Welsch’s attempts to redirect police funding will fail.
Even Welsch’s most modest proposal was viewed as placing an undue hardship on the MNPD, because — as with all departments in the upcoming budget year — Mayor Freddie O’Connell has asked them to identify 1.4 percent in “targeted savings” to ensure the budget stays balanced. There’s no direction on how departments should find those savings, but the excess funds would usually be generated by leaving unfilled positions unfilled.
All told, the council’s changes to the mayor’s proposal accounted for less than 0.5 percent of the total budget amount.
Porterfield’s colleagues showered her with praise Tuesday night. The mayor even made a surprise visit to the council floor to congratulate her. And to be sure, real people will feel real benefits from Porterfield’s budget changes.
I just hope I’ll see the day when the council goes from nibbling around the edges to taking a big ol’ bite of the multibillion-dollar apple.
I Have Confidence in Confidence Alone
After a testy exchange with finance director Kevin Crumbo earlier this month, Councilmember Joy Styles filed a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in Crumbo and legal director Wally Dietz.
In her latest recap, @startleseasily reports on a tense back-and-forth between the Metro Council and finance director Kevin Crumbo
Citing concerns with the directors’ handling of the situation at Metro Arts and disappointment with Dietz’s decision not to sue the state over legislation dismantling the Community Oversight Board, Styles’ resolution looked to send a message to the guy in charge: Get your house in order.
The guy in charge didn’t take kindly to the message. O’Connell weighed in Tuesday afternoon in an email. “I am disappointed to see a member of Metro Council call for a no-confidence vote in two valued Metro leaders,” O’Connell wrote, “and urge members to swiftly and definitively defeat it.”
Appearing before the Rules Committee Tuesday, Dietz took a measured, respectful tone as he defended his department’s actions regarding Metro Arts. He described his conflict with Styles as a “disagreement of opinion” and thanked her for her involvement in what he called an “emotional,” “high-intensity” situation.
Crumbo did not attend the committee meeting.
The Rules Committee voted to indefinitely defer the resolution over Styles’ objection, triggering a seldom-invoked council rule to put the legislation on ice. The resolution should’ve been indefinitely deferred by rule on the council floor, and that would have been the end of it for now.
Styles chose to create a little chaos, though, quietly leaving the meeting before her resolution was set to be considered. This led to a procedural quagmire: Legislation can’t be heard unless a sponsor is present. Styles was the only sponsor of the no-confidence resolution, so her early departure should have meant the resolution would be rolled to the next council meeting.
Councilmember John Rutherford had other ideas. Rutherford — a fellow Southeast Nashville councilmember who’s made no secret of his dislike for Styles — requested to sign on as a sponsor to the legislation, a serious departure from normal procedure.
After some hesitation, Vice Mayor Angie Henderson allowed it. Rutherford qualified his decision to sign on by saying he was doing it “for the purpose of moving an indefinite deferral,” but the record won’t reflect that. Instead, Styles and Rutherford now appear as co-sponsors of the no-confidence resolution.
They Done Done It Again
A lobbyist for Axon, the company that produces TASERs, sat at the end of a pew full of residents condemning the council over its support of a resolution to allow the MNPD to buy new TASERs.
Yes, you read that right: We’re talking about TASERs again.
Technically, the resolution approves an amendment to the MNPD’s current contract with Axon. The amendment increases the amount the police could spend on TASERs from $6.5 million to $15.8 million, and it adds TASER 10s to the list of approved products for purchase.
The resolution does not hand the police a check for $9.3 million. They’ll have to use their annual TASER budget — yes, they have an annual TASER budget — to transition from their current TASER 7s to the latest and greatest TASER 10s.
The council approved the contract amendment on a vote of 29-9-1 after Porterfield’s attempts to defer the legislation failed.
Look, I’m not thrilled they passed the legislation. But what really infuriated me were the councilmembers’ justifications for voting “yes.” They described TASERs as “deescalation tools” — they’re not; they’re weapons — and explained that the TASER 10 is actually safer for everyone involved than the TASER 7. Part of that added “safety” is that the TASER 10 has an extended range; it can hit its target from farther away. It’s also “safer” because it’s not a gun.
In a speech that probably sounded better in her head, Councilmember At-Large Olivia Hill urged her colleagues to think of family members who may have “gotten into the waywards of life,” abusing drugs or alcohol. “Any time that we get an officer the opportunity to have the time to reach to his left side ... to save someone else’s life when they’ve got into a bad way, I think, is a good thing.”
Well, sure, if we’re assuming there’s literally no other option for police than to fire a TASER or a gun on a person struggling with substance abuse, I guess you could say the TASER gives you a higher likelihood of survival. But if we are justifying purchasing weapons — weapons designed to incapacitate, to injure, to maim people we view as a threat — as a way to keep our citizenry safe, I think we’ve lost the plot.
Councilmember Sheri Weiner took the cake, though. Obliquely referencing calls from residents to stop the police from killing people, Weiner said, “I believe it’s time to fill a clearly stated need, a clearly stated request by our constituents.”
It’s as close as I’ve gotten to staging a coup from the gallery.
The nerve to stand there and tell the residents of Nashville that we asked for this — that we wanted this? The absolute gall to twist pleas for an end to police violence into pleas for new weapons for the police.
It was astonishing. And I hope I never have to experience it again.
But hey, most progressive council ever, right?
