Last Night at the Metro Council

Last night’s meeting was uncharacteristically effortless; the council breezed through the agenda, and managed to pass some key bills along the way. "We're under 100 items this meeting,” shared an elated Vice Mayor Henderson from the podium. 

Over the years, the council’s employed various tactics to decrease run-time, with varied results. While they have yet to cut back on bloviation, under Henderson’s leadership, the current council has effectively consolidated agenda items while maintaining a good-faith level of transparency. 

Summaries of legislation are now displayed on-screen before the body unanimously passes the consent agenda. While one part of me misses the way former Vice Mayor Shulman would jokingly say “Let me tell you a little story,” before reading every single synopsis aloud, the part of me that values a good night’s sleep appreciates that his yawn-inducing rundowns are a thing of the past.

While going about their business, rather than inciting a firestorm over sordid affairs, one of Erin Evans’ potentially contentious bills made it through second reading with a minimum of fuss. The bill, drawn up on July 30th, would add more ways for the Board of Ethical Conduct to address complaints. Currently, if a Metro official or member of a board or commission violates an ethical rule, the BEC can either recommend to censure or fire the offender, or refer the matter to the DA or Metro Legal. If Evans’ change passes on final reading, the Board will have an additional option to issue a written warning. 

The legislation originated shortly after discrepancies were found in a financial disclosure submitted by Councilmember Joy Styles. After reviewing a complaint that was filed in May, the board struggled with the options available to them while attempting to address Styles’ offense. In a show of diplomacy, the backstory that led to Evans’ bill was carefully avoided during last night’s floor discussion.

Likewise, two of the night’s most impactful bills were passed on third reading without much fanfare. The council unanimously decided to both establish the East Bank Development Authority, and accept zoning changes expanding the Downtown Code to the 30-acre area surrounding the new stadium.

You’ll recall that the East Bank Development Authority bill was first passed by the state and requires the board to include the speakers of the Senate and the House, or their designees, as ex officio voting members. “This was a big lift to get a private act through the state and then through the council,” said bill sponsor Jacob Kupin. “And I appreciate all the effort and energy and foresight to make sure that this is a project that has consistency and support for a long period of time as we develop the East Bank.” Now that the council has accepted the establishment of the Authority, another bill will be brought forward to establish the Authority’s staff and payroll, not to mention how much power they’ll wield

As for the bill to drag Downtown’s zoning code across the river, The Fallon Company will now be able to navigate the new land use requirements for the stadium subdistrict, which will include the development of at least five buildings and 1,550 residential units—695 of which will be set aside as affordable housing. During Monday’s Planning and Zoning committee meeting, sponsor Jacob Kupin explained a few additions to the bill’s final language. “This substitute just has a couple of tweaks to it,” he told his colleagues. “Adding a recycling collection center, adding a DTC East use area to the zoning table, and then modifying just a couple of setbacks in spacing and things like that.” You can read more about the zoning changes on the East Bank here. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

❌ Don’t Go Outside Davidson County Footman Phil's latest finds him hounding a 20-year-old soldier stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The article, headlined ‘A white supremacist warned me to comply with his demands or else. Now, he's in federal custody,’ tells the story of Kai Liam Nix, who was carted off to prison on unrelated firearms trafficking charges and has been booted from the service for affiliating with Patriot Front, a group the SPLC claims is “dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the USG.”

The federal charges brought against Nix were no doubt motivated by his political orientation considering Jeff Tischauser, a senior researcher with the SPLC, dug them up in the course of the identity of the man behind the Appalachian Archives. The Telegram channel, later rebranded to American Archives, had circulated information about local officials in Williamson County—including journalists like Williams—who opposed mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson.

Now, Hanson was an awful candidate, don’t get me wrong. But Williams' employ of a heavily biased non-governmental organization in cahoots with federal law enforcement begets questions about the intent of his reporting. Over the past year or so, Williams has been intent on portraying the hinterlands surrounding Nashville as crawling with rabid white supremacists. This report ties in nicely with his odd, incessant focus on a Millersville police officer he’s dubbed the “conspiracy cop.”

Speaking of out-of-whack priorities, MNPD announced yesterday to much applause that they'd found the man responsible for dumping black paint on the rainbow crosswalk in East Nashville. The attention paid to the arrest rings hollow against the surfeit of unsolved murders that sit on the chief’s desk at MNPD, and yet, councilmembers and civic leaders alike heaped praise on the capture of the man who tried to darken the rainbow.

Whatever the case, the justice celebrated publicly and in the media is increasingly of the political variety. It all reminds me of Aldous Huxley’s quote on such matters: “The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” DAVIS HUNT

🔋 E is for Efficiency “Council members have an immense amount of information to manage,” said Vice Mayor Angie Henderson during last night’s Metro Council meeting. “Including hundreds of emails a week.” She went on to inform her colleagues about a few new management tools available to them through Metro Information Technology Services. 

“When we meet again in September, we will have some new committee leadership and some returning leadership,” she reminded the body. “Every chair has kindly drafted a transition memo to ensure continuity for any leadership change, and every committee now has a SharePoint drive for committee associated documents. So we hope both of these will help us build and retain institutional memory for the three years of policy and oversight work ahead.”

The Vice Mayor isn’t the only one tightening the reins on Metro’s efficiency: O'Connell's Director of Legislative Affairs Dave Rosenberg has also been working on an initiative aimed at improving the operations of the city's boards and commissions. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

DEVELOPMENT

• Vanderbilt Plans $520 Million Campus Amid Palm Beach’s Elite (Bloomberg)
• Arnold's Country Kitchen family to open Arnold's Southern Kitchen in North Nashville (Tennessean)
• Walmart submits plan to build new Lebanon supercenter (Tennessean)
• Amazon reloads its housing fund. Developers can apply now. (NBJ)
• Nashville restaurateur brings all-day cafe, upscale dive bar to Midtown (NBJ)
• Dueling piano bar set for Second Avenue (Post)

✹ AN AGRICULTURAL RENAISSANCE IN WEST TENNESSEE?

The World Wildlife Fund sees farms in the mid-Mississippi delta as ripe with opportunity to become a new mecca for commercial-scale American produce. California currently grows nearly three-quarters of the nation’s fruits and nuts and more than a third of its vegetables.

But as climate change compounds the threats of water scarcity, extreme weather and wildfires on California’s resources, WWF’s Markets Institute is exploring what it would take for farmers in West Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas to embrace — and equitably profit from — specialty crop production like strawberries, lettuce or walnuts.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🪕 Crandall Creek @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info

🎸 The Concert: A Tribute To ABBA @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7p, Info

🎸 Robert Earl Keen @ Riverside Revival, 7p, $20 Info

🪕 Bluegrass Night @ The American Legion Post 82, 7p, Free, Info

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.