June 21, 2005

Metro Council Meeting

At tonight's Metro Council meeting, the Mayor's budget proposal was on public hearing and second reading.

During the public hearing, many people spoke in favor of and against the proposal (over the course of a couple of hours). After the public hearing, the Mayor's budget passed its second reading with a 24-1 vote (14 abstentions).

As I mentioned this past weekend, there will be several budget alternatives coming up later this week (which I provided details of one in that Nashville Files exclusive). From the early vote counts, it looks like we may get stuck with a 35-40 cent property tax increase. Due to contractual obligations and mis-management of the Metro government over the past few years, we won't be able to go much lower. However, I will provide final details of those budget proposals later this week.

Finally, here are several pictures from tonight's meeting. Several more pictures can be seen here.

Inside the Council chamber...

Beforehand, a large group of protestors gathered in favor of higher taxes. This group was organized mainly by the Tennessee chapter of the Healthcare and Public Worker's Union (SEIU)...

Lots of sights...and sounds...

However, I'll have to agree with this sign...

The teachers and kids should have been protesting this guy...

Yes...there were several people with Tennessee Tax Revolt there as well...

And here's Ben Cunningham being intereviewed by the always elegant LJ Moody of News 2...

Comments:

Please Note! Failure to abide by the following may result in your comments being edited or deleted: Remain on topic. Foul language and/or personal attacks are not permitted. Excessive links (more than three per thread) must be approved first. If you do include a link in your comment, make sure it is a short link (go to tinyurl.com if it is too long). Try to keep comments to 125 words or less. Thank you.

"...mis-management of the Metro government over the past few years..."

Could you be specific? Examples? A charge like that without supporting evidence seems reckless.

Posted by: Skeptical at June 22, 2005 07:51 AM

Skeptical: Please read the previous post from this weekend entitled "Metro Budget Proposals"

Thank you.

Posted by: B at June 22, 2005 08:20 AM

I'm sorry I didn't catch the name of the African-American gentleman in the very nice suit who spoke in favor of the mayor's budget last night and sat almost directly behind the speakers for the remainder of the public hearing. He had the bearing and manner of someone who's a key player on the Nashville scene, and I feel like I should have recognized him. I did, however, catch his reaction to almost every speaker who opposed tax increases.

I'm not sure what he found so amusing about the citizens and taxpayers who weren't convinced by the parade of special interest groups who spoke first. Call me humorless, but I failed to see the hilarity in a former Public Works employee cataloguing examples of waste and redundancy in that department. Perhaps I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I just didn't get the joke when Ben Cunningham, Jon Crisp, or any of the other people who spoke in opposition to the mayor's budget were asking the Council to consider those who pay as well as those who receive.

I'm sorry I wasn't in on the joke because it must have been a doozy: He kept whispering to the special interest representatives around him and cracking them up, too.

On the other hand, if it's so screamingly funny when citizens tell the Council they'd rather spend their money on their own kids than on subsidizing drumming rituals for someone else's kids or on new uniforms so the people on the other end of the 911 call can feel good about themselves (For those who weren't there or watching, I'm not making this stuff up), I'm not so sure I want to be in on the joke. I found the giggles and guffaws at citizens expressing doubts about the need to cough up more of their own money to be most revealing: To many of those sucking at the public teat, the taxpayers are apparently a punch line.

Posted by: CBW at June 22, 2005 09:53 AM