Municipal council celebrates employee’s 50th anniversary

The Metro Council followed up its unusually quick Aug. 20 meeting with another relatively quick meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting began with a celebration of Roseanne Hayes-Shacklett for her 50th anniversary at Metro. According to city records, she is only one of two Metro employees to reach that milestone. Hayes-Shacklett began her Metro career in 1974 at Metro Water and is now the Metro Council’s chief of staff. As one lobbyist joked, she knows all the stories, but she won’t tell them to you. The reading of the resolution in her honor was greeted by a chant of “Rosie” from council members.

The meeting was the first for a group of new commission chairs, after Vice Mayor Angie Henderson appointed several new commission leaders to mark the end of the commission’s first year in office.

Second in command

Metro Councilmember Zulfat Suara is completing her one-year term as the council’s president pro tempore, a sort of replacement for the vice mayor. Councilmembers Russ Bradford and Sandra Sepulveda have filed to succeed Suara, and the council will vote on a new pro tem at its next meeting.

Rule change

In response to white supremacists who wanted to speak at a Metro Council meeting earlier this summer, Suara pushed for a rule change that would require speakers during the public comment portion of council meetings to be Davidson County residents.

On Tuesday, she advocated for a different version of the proposal, which limits public comment to Tennessee residents, with a long and flexible list of documents that can prove residency. Suara said the change would give regional residents who work in Nashville the right to speak, while also loosening restrictions to ensure that undocumented immigrants and homeless residents could still address the council.

Some council members questioned whether it was necessary to change the policy based on a single event. Council staff also noted that the rule would require more work and training for employees.

The rule change does not apply to legislation-specific public hearings. The amendment passed by voice vote, with the rule taking effect next month.

Hate groups

Normally, Metro Council legislation that requires three votes passes on the first reading without discussion (as happened with four bills introduced to combat racist acts in the city). That is not the case for a bill designed to prohibit “unlawful association with criminal hate groups and paramilitary gangs.” Councilman Jeff Eslick asked that the legislation be fully considered on the first reading, arguing that the “pretty broad definition” of hate groups is problematic. Councilman Jeff Preptit, the lead sponsor, was successful in introducing a replacement version of the bill that would apply part of it to all Metro employees, rather than just police officers. The bill passed on a voice vote and will go to committee on the second reading.

Preptit said the goal of the legislation is to ensure that everyone in Nashville “has confidence in our city and in our institutions that are tasked with keeping them safe.”

Military training

The council considered an agreement with the U.S. Army to allow special forces stationed at Fort Campbell to hold a training session at the city’s closed nursing home in Bordeaux in October, including permission for helicopter landings, flash grenades, paintballs and door and window breaching. Councilwoman Joy Kimbrough successfully pushed to delay consideration of the agreement until the first meeting in October so she could discuss it at an upcoming Bordeaux-area community meeting.

“I want my community to know about this and hear about it,” Kimbrough said.

Councilman John Rutherford, a veteran, opposed the delay, saying military training in Nashville is “not unusual.”

The rest

An effort to overhaul the Metro Arts Commission’s composition and mission remains in dispute, as the second reading (of three) was postponed by sponsor Delishia Porterfield. She and Councilwoman Joy Styles disagree over whether a Metro councilwoman should be included as a voting member of the arts commission.
Councilmember Erin Evans’ bill would give the Metro Board of Ethical Conduct more options, including a written warning, when an elected official is found to have violated the city’s ethics rules, which were adopted on third and final reading as part of the consent agenda. The legislation followed a board meeting earlier this year when the body determined that Styles had failed to file financial disclosures, even though none of the available penalties were appropriate.