@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.
Pizza boxes filled a row of tables in the mezzanine of the historic Metro Courthouse, a gift from the mayor for attendees of the Metro Council’s annual public hearing on the proposed budget.
But Metro employees were looking for more than a quick bite to eat. Cassie Norton, a member of MNEA — the union that represents Metro’s teachers — captured the vibe: “We need money, not pizza parties from the mayor.”
Some members of the public were also unimpressed with the gesture.
Kelly Chieng, a frequent flyer in the council chambers, tells the Scene: “Pizza would have been a nice celebratory touch for a budget that pays Metro workers appropriately and funds out communities’ needs. Pizza from the mayor without a budget worth celebrating is just that: pizza.”
During the public hearing, Chieng all but called for Metro workers to strike. Donning a “Defund Metro Legal” pin, Chieng decried what she described as the city’s repeated failures to support its lowest-paid workers. “I’m not a Metro employee ... but if I were? Me and my friends? We’d be staying home. Because after one day, I think you all would find the money to pay us properly.”
One person who didn’t get to partake in the feast: Ms. Honey Hereth. A Metro Nashville Public Schools paraprofessional, Hereth was busy working her second job. Like too many Metro employees, Hereth’s wages from her Metro job aren’t enough to make ends meet.
Hereth says she is disappointed by Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s budget proposal, which promises a 3.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment. COLAs are intended to ensure that wages keep pace with inflation. But inflation is hovering around 4 percent, and members of SEIU Local 205 — which represents Metro and MNPS employees — asked for a 5 percent COLA at Tuesday’s meeting.
Metro frequently points to step increases and merit-based raises that most employees receive as proof that they’re doing enough to keep employees comfortable. Hereth sees things differently.
“They want to say that a step increase is a raise,” she tells the Scene. “No the hell it’s not! A step increase is because I give you my blood, sweat and tears. That’s nothing that they’re giving me. I earned that.”
Hereth has been through at least seven budget cycles during her tenure at MNPS in which she didn’t receive a COLA or step increase due to city budget woes. “Let me pick up the phone and tell NES, ‘I can’t pay my bill right now, catch me next year,’” she quips. “If it doesn’t work for them, why should it work for me?”
In addition to the perennial calls for higher wages for Metro employees, including one speaker who crafted her pleas into a poem, a few organized groups came to the hearing with their own funding demands.
Councilmembers submit requests to move money from reserve funds and law enforcement toward Metro Arts grants, employee raises
The Southern Movement Committee’s “Varsity Spending Plan” would funnel $10 million to increased community center programming, restorative justice work in schools and the creation of an Office of Youth Safety.
The Nashville People’s Budget Coalition presented a “Solidarity Budget” that would pair a divestment of up to $15 million from the Metro Nashville Police Department with greater investments in Metro employees, the arts, legal representation for people accused of felonies and more.
All eyes turn now to the council, which will consider a substitute budget and potential amendments at their next regularly scheduled meeting. If they don’t pass their own budget by the end of this month, O’Connell’s will automatically take effect.
“Kevin Crumbo Needs to Go”
On the four-year anniversary of a tirade that marked the start of then-Vice Mayor Jim Shulman’s eventual downfall, another guy lost his cool in the council chambers.
The council was considering a $200,000 settlement with former Metro Arts Director Daniel Singh. In exchange for the payment, Singh would agree to resign, drop any potential legal claims against the city, and never apply for another position at Metro. A clean break.
Councilwoman Joy Styles used this opportunity to criticize the administration’s handling of the ongoing issues at Metro Arts. She blamed finance director Kevin Crumbo and legal director Wally Dietz for what she called a “completely avoidable” settlement brought on by “personal issues and pet projects.”
Styles accused Crumbo of a conflict of interest by virtue of his previous service on the board of the Nashville Symphony, which has received more than $8 million from Metro Arts over the past 35 years.
Crumbo could’ve — and arguably should've — let this slide. But he did not.
“Setting aside the foolishness of Councilmember Styles,” Crumbo began, dismissing the councilmember with a flick of his hand.
Councilmembers interjected with audible outrage. Spectators in the gallery gasped. Administration officials’ faces betrayed them. They knew Crumbo had committed a cardinal sin: disrespecting a councilmember on the floor of the council.
Vice Mayor Angie Henderson intervened, encouraging Crumbo and the council to “take the temperature down.”
Styles was delighted. “I could not have asked for a better moment,” she tells the Scene. “I knew that hearing truth would be uncomfortable for him,” she says, adding that on Tuesday night her colleagues “got to see the person I’ve been talking about for the last eight months.”
“The entitlement required for you to stand before the council body and think that you’re above reproach and call a councilmember foolish is just gobsmacking,” Styles continues, “but it’s what I expected.”
Councilmember Russ Bradford was appalled. “I think it’s egregious,” he says. “The manner in which Kevin Crumbo behaved was beneath his position as a director of a Metro department.”
“I think there’s no way for him to continue in his role.”
I’ve spoken with several councilmembers in the hours since the meeting. They’ve all expressed the same sentiment: Crumbo owes Styles and the entire council an apology.
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Councilmember Joy Kimbrough says she approached Crumbo in the hallway as he was leaving the chamber. “I hurried and caught him as he was about to walk out the door,” she recalls. “I told him he came off unprofessional. I may have said 'petty.'”
Kimbrough says she felt compelled to support her colleague. “I repeatedly told him he needed to apologize, and he repeatedly told me he would not apologize.”
The dismay is palpable in Kimbrough’s voice. She says she was “shocked” by Crumbo’s behavior. “I look at him in an entirely different light now,” she says. “It really bothered me the way he spoke to her.”
Styles doesn’t expect an apology, nor does she seem interested in one. “I will not stop until we clean house,” she says.
Crumbo and the mayor’s office have not responded to requests for comment. As of press time, Crumbo has not apologized.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
This whole ordeal is eerily reminiscent of a previous councilmember-administration altercation during the 2021 budget season.
Then-Councilmember O’Connell had proposed an amendment to then-Mayor John Cooper’s proposed budget that would have redirected $1.1 million from the fledgling Nashville Department of Transportation to fund service improvements for WeGo.
In expressing the administration’s opposition to the amendment, Mike Jameson — Cooper’s director of legislative affairs — revealed that he had spent the entire afternoon reviewing O’Connell’s tweets. He proceeded to list all the ways that O’Connell’s previous tweets in support of a fully staffed department of transportation contradicted the proposed amendment, which would have cut the department’s positions by about half.
This is objectively unhinged behavior. It’s the type of thing you expect to see in a presidential debate — opponents digging up dirt to catch each other in lies — rather than in a routine budget discussion.
Jameson faced swift backlash from committee members offended by his choice to chastise a colleague.
By 9:30 the next morning, O’Connell and the rest of the council had an email from Jameson in their inboxes. “Freddie — I owe you, and the other members of the Council, a full-throated apology for my demeanor,” it read in part. “I was frustrated, but that doesn’t remotely excuse my behavior.”
Kevin Crumbo was the finance director at that time. He was literally in the room when Jameson attacked O’Connell. He witnessed the fallout.
Apparently, Crumbo didn’t learn from Jameson’s mistakes. In the words a gifted lyricist, “Is it too late now to say sorry?”
Only time will tell.
