Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Metro Nashville’s City Council Member-at-Large Steve Glover to the studio.
During the third hour, Glover discussed his efforts to cut spending in the Metro budget and how another tax increase is on the horizon in about three years. He also weighed in on the Bob Mendes tweet and said that if it was him who had done that, he’d be fired immediately.
Leahy: We are in the studio with our very good friend Steve Glover Metro Council Member-At-Large. Steve, before we talk about Metro Council member Bob Mendes and his very very not nice shall we say tweet, I mean I could use different words, but we’ll get to that in a second. I do want to say something positive about something positive going on here. You know here we at The Tennessee Star Report we’ve got a little bit of a little foundation that does a Constitution be.
Glover: Oh good.
Leahy: And we do that this will be our fourth year.
Glover: Okay.
Leahy: We’re doing it on October 24 in Brentwood.
Glover: Okay,
Leahy: You know why we picked Brentwood? It’s because we have no ability to rely upon what the dictatorial tyrannical mayor of Nashville will do with venues.
Glover: Right
Leahy: This month. and so in Brentwood on October 24 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We have a constitution to be for any student in the United States 8th grade to 12th grade. We’ve got a book that you can get on the Guide of Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The winner of this Constitution Bee will get a $10,000 educational scholarship.
Glover: Wow.
Leahy: And so if you’re in the listening audience if you’re if you are 8th grade to 12th grade or your kids or your grandkids. You can go to guidetotheconstitution.org and you can sign up for the be have a chance to win $10,000 and it’s a fun day. So this is what I wanted to bring something positive Steve because there’s so much negative here in Nashville. And speaking of the negative.
Glover: So and here we go. And we’re off and we’re off.
Leahy: And we’re off. So your colleague on the council, Metro Council Member-At-Large, Bob Mendez a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. He’s a native Nashvillian on Tuesday night during the debate sent a tweet out and that’s our start lead story at The Tennessee Star.
“Trump is a racist m dot dot dot dot f dot dot dot.” We reach out to him and he confirmed that he did say that and he’s left it up there. What a disgrace this guy is. All of our commenters are saying the guy should resign. Are those standards of conduct for elected officials?
Glover: Well, I don’t know that there are not like that. I mean, you know, and don’t get me wrong Michael, I’m no little angel. But in public, you don’t say certain things like that. You know he is our president of our United States.
Leahy: Donald Trump is president.
Glover: And frankly let me just say this, you know, I know that’s who I’m going to vote for. I don’t make any bones about it. I did not vote for Obama. But let me tell you Obama was the President of the United States. You respect the office.
If you like the person fine and if you don’t like the person that’s your choice. But you know, the decorum in the entire country right now has left the building. I’ve had things happen to me on that floor that I’ve never seen before. I’ve been called on the floor called an old White guy.
Leahy: By your colleagues?
Glover: Yeah.
Leahy: Are they saying you’re bad because you’re an old White guy?
Glover: Because I’m a White guy. And apparently, you know, the knowledge I have. that’s one thing that drives me crazy about the younger generation. They don’t want to hear what we have to say. They don’t want to know what we’ve lived through, but I’m telling you
Leahy: They are very closed-minded.
Glover: I have been here for almost 20 years. I know a lot of things about history. I know a lot of things about the city. Am I the smartest apple in the barrel? No, but I’ve never claimed to be and so, you know, I try to do my homework I try to get ready. I try to know what I’m talking about before I talk about it and to have these kinds of things happening constantly and it seems to be okay from there.
Now if I did it, let me just start let’s flip it. if I had done that right there. Oh, the other side, they wouldn’t be asking for resignation and they’d begin demanding it and then protesting and doing whatever. So I think it’s sad.
Leahy: So Carol Swain who is usually here on Thursdays is traveling today and you’re gracious enough to sit in for Carol. Steve, I appreciate it. Here’s what she said about this tweet by Bob Mendes Metro council member at large who tweeted on Tuesday night and has kept it up and has confirmed to us at The Tennessee Star of that.
He did in fact tweet this he tweeted “Trump is a racist m dot dot dot f dot dot dot.” Carol Swain who by the way, I don’t know. She’s Black and she’s a conservative. She ran for mayor against John Cooper and I think many people now are regretting their votes for John Cooper.
But here’s what she said about this Bob Mendes tweet. “It is disgusting and disappointing when our elected officials resort to gutter language rather than rational discord, of course, to press disagreement. Bob Mendes has disrespected the office of the presidency and has shown the world his contempt for President Trump who as a man who has done more for Black Americans than any other president elected during my lifetime. Mendes has proven his unfitness for higher office by posting such a vulgar and vile tweet.”
Tennessee Republican Party Chairman, Scott Golden emailed The Tennessee Star on Wednesday and said he hoped that Mendes would quickly delete his post. Apparently, that’s not happening. Here’s the Golden quote. I want to get your reaction to the quote.
“One would think as national businesses are being closed workers being laid off sponsoring and passing a 34 percent property tax rates and the prospect of the city being over by the state for financial mismanagement that councilman Mendes would spend his evenings in a more productive way.” That was Scott Gould that was a very calm response to what was an inflammatory and factually incorrect assertion by Bob Mendes. What’s your reaction to all this?
Glover: Well, what else say is that Scott Golden, first of all, lets, you know, Scott Golden is solid rock for the Republican Party in the state of Tennessee. He’s always very logical about the way thinks and in the way he presents. And he’s thorough frankly. I think he’s very thorough in his analysis.
So, you know, I’m glad we’ve got Scott there. What do I say about this? I think it’s disgusting right now. We’ve got major problems in this city. And I hate to break the news to everybody but you might as well get ready for this one. We didn’t we cut any expenses?
Leahy: They raised them five percent. Cooper did.
Glover: We didn’t cut any expenses.
Leahy: This is during the complete economic collapse of coronavirus.
Glover: That’s right. So we didn’t cut anything. And then got a $121 million. I still don’t know exactly how it’s being spent etcetera. I know it comes through resolution council but blah blah blah. And then he had asked for what 83 million more and he got denied it. We haven’t learned any lessons. Here’s the bad news Nashville. A 34 to a 37 percent property tax increase and the government will come back and hit you again in three years because we didn’t curb one doggone thing.
Leahy: Spending has gone up.
Glover: A $100 million is going to go into reserve funds this year. It needs to be replenished. I agree. I don’t agree with the way we’re doing it. I don’t agree with it. But then what’s that other 100 million going to be used for next year in that budget? Oh, let me think about that one.
It’ll be utilized for more bonding capacity greater debt in order to take on more. More toys that we don’t need to be buying right now. We need to be taking care of our infrastructure. We need to be working on our roads. We need to get enough police officers. We need our fire department up to speed.
Our police officers up to speed but you know for 34 to 37 percent property tax increase would you get out of it Michael? Nothing. Nothing but a continued abuse of spending and taking advantage of the taxpayers in Nashville, Tennessee.
That’s what you got for 34 to 37 percent. Did you get an improvement in your roads? Did you get an improvement in your schools? Did you get anything? And the answer is no you didn’t. And by gosh, you know what you better enjoy it because we’re going to come back again and do the same thing to you.
That’s what they basically have said. They’ve been so arrogant on this tax increase. I tried to meet in the middle somewhere. Oh, no, there was no discussing that, and here’s the other fact that people need to understand. My first proposal came in at around 12 to 14 percent. I cut. Man, I cut the fire out of that thing. I was going to furlough the employees for a four-week period over a year.
Leahy: And none of them had been furloughed.
Glover: I mean if I had to hold the that would have saved us 40 million dollars by the way. I cut about a hundred some-odd million dollars on my first one. But here’s the problem. You can’t get it on the floor until the finance department signs off on it and says, yes, it’s financially sound.
Leahy: Who’s the chairman of that?
Glover: Well, there’s not a chairman of it. It’s the finance department for Metro. And so finally on my third or fourth revision is where we landed.
Leahy: By the way, we asked Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s office for comment on that on the utterly disgraceful comments of Bob Mendes. Apparently, they approve it because they haven’t called back and giving us any statement at all.
Glover: They were partners on the tax deal. I can’t imagine they’d say anything.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Background Photo “Nashville City Hall” by Nicolas Henderson. CC BY 2.0.
