@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.
On Tuesday, the Metro Council elected a former Scene staffer to a key Metro board seat, a traffic-calming bill died, and mayoral candidate Freddie O’Connell sparred with the administration over parking privatization.
Was I hallucinating, or was there a bug-eyed dinosaur in my (unofficially) assigned seat? This was no fever dream. This was Rescue Rex. I had been displaced by a dinosaur with a missing tooth.
Out With the Old
On Tuesday night, the council held an election to fill a single vacancy on the Health and Educational Facilities Board. The HEFB is an obscure board that has something to do with bonds. I’ll leave that reporting up to the real journalists. My interest is, as ever, in the drama of it all.
Before the vote, the Rules Committee interviewed the five candidates, each nominated by a different councilmember. CM Russ Pulley — a former FBI agent who serves as an SEC referee on the weekends and a true friend to institutions of power — nominated HEFB Chair Stephen Meyer for reelection. CM Dave Rosenberg — a staunch advocate of public schools who proudly displays a “NO VOUCHERS” sign on his desk — nominated Matt Pulle, a former Scene staffer who currently works as a lawyer and moonlights as a marathoner.
Rosenberg and CM At-Large Bob Mendes have been critical of the way the HEFB operates. They’ve slowly worked to remake the board, vacancy by vacancy. And Tuesday night was the pièce de résistance, as Pulle unseated Meyer in a UT-Bama-level upset.
Only one question remains: Which Scene staffer will be the next to clinch a key Metro board seat? My money’s on Eli Motycka, for the Wastewater Hearing Authority.
Calming the Chaos
Nashville’s traffic-calming program, historically underfunded and poorly managed, has been kind of a mess since it started. But recent process improvements and more funding from the Metro Council have made the program incredibly popular.
Because it receives more requests than it would ever be able to fund, the Nashville Department of Transportation uses a prioritization formula to select projects, scoring neighborhoods on items like safety and speeding. This has caused some council districts to go years without seeing a single traffic-calming application approved.
CM Rosenberg, who represents a heavily suburban district in Bellevue, recently introduced a bill to codify the traffic-calming program and remedy the traffic-calming drought in his and other districts. Key to his bill was a provision that, as amended, would require NDOT to select at least one traffic-calming project in each district every three years. On Tuesday night, CM Kyonztè Toombs, who represents dense, urban neighborhoods in North Nashville, introduced her own amendment to remove this provision from the bill, citing a need to focus on equity and target the resources where they’re most needed.
Rosenberg unsuccessfully attempted to defeat her amendment through a tabling motion. So rather than be the sponsor of a bill that wouldn’t further his aims, he simply withdrew it. CM Zach Young, who had earlier spoken in favor of CM Toombs’ amendment, had some choice words for Rosenberg — delivered off mic but audible from the gallery. He plans to reintroduce the bill himself.
Performance Art
On Tuesday night, the council approved on second reading a bill that would set aside the payments made in lieu of property taxes by the Convention Center Authority to fund affordable housing initiatives, like the city’s Barnes Housing Trust Fund. And we’re not talking chump change, here. The payment amounted to $14.3 million for this fiscal year alone. The sponsors of the legislation see it as a way to dedicate some funding to affordable housing outside of the annual operating budget process. But CM Mendes — who’s got a bullshit detector with a hair trigger — isn’t convinced. In a committee meeting Monday night, Mendes called the bill “an act of performance art by the administration” that doesn’t truly dedicate funding on an ongoing basis.
And on a bill to partially privatize our parking meters, CM and mayoral candidate O’Connell engaged in his own performance opposite Mike Jameson, the mayor’s liaison to the council. Jameson once spent an entire afternoon reading O’Connell’s tweets in search of ammunition in a previous dispute, which is factually hilarious but also maybe a red flag?
On Tuesday, Jameson was quick to counter O’Connell’s accusations of mayoral flip-flopping on the issue of parking privatization by constantly repeating that O’Connell sponsored the bill that made this possible. CM Tanaka Vercher — who, in her final year of Council, is really settling into that second-semester senior lifestyle — couldn’t contain her laughter at the sheer pettiness of the exchange. The bill passed, with O’Connell and five others voting against it. Point: Jameson.
As some of you know, I have been going through some shit lately. I want to thank you all for your kindness and for sticking with me. I couldn’t be more excited to be back in my pew.
