@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.
In the first meeting of its new term, the Metro Council fumbled its way through a light agenda, and the first-term members demonstrated a penchant for asking questions.
It should’ve been an easy meeting.
As the first of the term, the agenda was heavy on routine resolutions and light on controversy. New Vice Mayor Angie Henderson had prepared herself and her colleagues for this. In her defense, she couldn’t have seen the ghost queue coming.
The Newbies Have Questions
Can we take a minute to talk about Councilmember Jeff Preptit? I don’t know how the hell Preptit — a young civil rights attorney — got elected in the district that brought us retired former FBI agent Russ Pulley.
Preptit was the youngest person in his council race, a progressive Black candidate running to represent a district that’s 87 percent white. He smoked the competition, winning 57 percent of the vote in a high-turnout three-way race and beating the next-highest finisher by nearly 900 votes.
In his debut performance on the Public Health & Safety Committee, Preptit put on a master class. He recited statistics regarding racial disparities in out-of-school suspension rates; asked pointed questions about pretextual traffic stops; and generally acted like a damn civil rights attorney. Keep your eye on this one, folks. He’s going places.
Joining CM Preptit on the Wave Makers Caucus is fellow newbie CM Joy Smith Kimbrough. After listening to Cop Caucus Chair CM Bob Nash mansplain traffic stop procedures, Kimbrough had a question for him: “Are you a former police officer?” Her response when he confirmed that, yes, in fact, he is a former cop and proud of it: “That’s what I figured.”
I think it’s safe to assume Kimbrough and Nash won’t be on each other’s Christmas card lists this year.
Nash, who’s likely grown used to seeing requests for police funding and grant applications sail through the council unquestioned, became agitated as the night wore on. “I am not sure what questions we continue to have about every grant that seems to come up in the police department tonight.”
Meet the new Metro Council, Nash — not quite the same as the old Metro Council!
The Ghost in the Machine
It was not the smoothest of meetings. Vice Mayor Henderson struggled to find her footing under the harsh fluorescent lighting. She was plagued by technical issues, a common experience for her predecessor Jim Shulman, who struggled to find his footing for about five years on the dais.
Facing difficulty with her machine and under pressure from CMs who felt overlooked, Henderson regressed to the analog version of requesting to speak, otherwise known as raising your hand. That led to concerns about her peripheral vision; one CM asked Henderson to choose a second, or even third, set of eyes to help her.
Enter CM At-Large Delishia Porterfield, who solved a mystery that may be responsible for an entire term of technical difficulties. As Porterfield explained it, if you don’t press the buttons in a certain sequence and solve the Riddle of the Sphinx or whatever, “It will put you in an ambiguous queue that the vice mayor cannot see ... so, we don’t know where that goes.”
Apparently, Shulman couldn’t see those requests either. Who knows how far back that ghost queue goes! Is there a little army of ghost IT workers who spend all day clearing out each ghost request? What happens if they don’t meet their numbers for the month? Are they paid a living wage?
The newbies and I have questions.
At the next meeting on Oct. 17, the council will hold elections for several commission appointments and leadership positions. The ghost queue may or may not be cleared by then.
