Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Metro Nashville Council’s passage of a “toothless” resolution opposing The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project amounts to retaliatory behavior typically expressed by a “moody teenager.”
The Metro Council voted 20-15 Tuesday night to approve a resolution formally opposing the Music City Loop, an underground transit project being developed by Elon Musk’s Boring Company connecting downtown Nashville to Nashville International Airport.
The resolution, RS2025-1712, was sponsored by Council Member at-large Delishia Porterfield and others. While the measure does not carry binding legal authority, it calls for additional public briefings, the release of environmental and safety studies, and contingency-planning disclosures.
At the time the resolution passed the council on Tuesday, the privately-funded Music City Loop had already begun early construction activity downtown. Despite the resolution’s passage, the measure does not halt construction or revoke any permits. The project continues to move forward under existing state and federal authorizations.
Appearing on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pappert criticized the council’s passage of the resolution, calling the measure symbolic and politically motivated.
“This is a genuinely toothless resolution from the Metro Nashville Council,” Pappert said.
Pappert said the dispute centers on the council’s frustration over its lack of direct involvement in early project discussions.
“Essentially what the resolution says is that the Music City Loop, The Boring Company, Elon Musk Company completing this project — they didn’t contact the Metro Nashville Council,” Pappert explained.
“They said that they were gonna hold a meeting and that they were gonna have a PowerPoint presentation where they were going to inform the council of the specifics of this plan. They were eventually granted this meeting, but apparently the council just was not happy with what they had to say because the resolution moved forward,” he added.
Pappert further emphasized the company ultimately provided the requested briefing to the council.
“They did end up having the meeting with the Boring Company that they wanted, and then the resolution has still been put forward,” he said. “I think this was inevitable.”
Pappert suggested the underlying tension is political, pointing to cooperation between state officials and the project developers.
“I think these Democrats had their nose out of joint because the Republicans at the state level did a very good thing for their city and they were powerless to stop it,” Pappert said.
He added that internal political dynamics may also be at play.
“I think the Metro Nashville Council is just rebelling against the mayor, rebelling against the governor. It’s a moody teenager right now,” he explained.
Pappert argued that the project’s progress demonstrates the advantage of securing state and federal approvals before engaging with local opposition.
“They have all of the state approvals they need, they have all the federal approvals they need. They’re spending all of the money out of pocket, and they’re working right now,” he said.
He contended that had the company been required to win majority approval from the 40-member council, the outcome may have been different.
“If the Boring Company had to interface with Metro Nashville, if they had to go to the mayor’s office and they had to go to the Metro Council and win over a critical majority of these 40 insane people, 37 insane people, I don’t think you would have a Music City Loop,” Pappert said. “That would be where the story ended.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Metro council cannot take up the NRS problem, but they have time to vote against something that THEY have nothing to do with? Maybe that is the problem, THEY do not have anything to do with it.