At their Tuesday, March 1 meeting, Metro Nashville Council unanimously passed a late-filed resolution in support of the people of Ukraine.
Originally sponsored by councilmembers Kathleen Murphy, Tonya Hancock, John Rutherford, Ginny Welsch, and Courtney Johnston, the late-filed resolution is a “resolution recognizing the Metropolitan Council’s support of the people of Ukraine.” Every councilmember present was added as a prime sponsor of the resolution.
Read the full story
Metro Nashville Council Member Bob Mendes condemned a recently-deceased local faith and community leader in front of his widow and community supporters during the last council meeting. That leader, Louie Johnston Jr., had a resolution drafted in his honor, which the city council deferred indefinitely earlier this month.
Multiple individuals attempted to speak about Johnston – but only one non-council member was able to do so. Mendes cut off the lineup of community members waiting to speak. Mendes asserted that Johnston’s Christian commitment to proclaiming God as the one true God, along with Johnston’s criticisms of the Muslim religion, were the reasons why Johnston shouldn’t be honored.
Read the full story
Metro Nashville’s Community Oversight Board (COB) members aren’t vetted prior to appointment – officials say they’re taken at their word. However, the shakiness of this method was exposed/ proved unreliable after The Tennessee Star discovered that recently-resigned member Ovid Timothy Hughes isn’t a registered voter, as he’d claimed and as was required of him by law. Hughes is a convicted felon, tried and charged in 2008 for mail fraud. He racked up over $78,000 of fraudulent charges against a previous employer using stolen credit card and account information.
Nashville Vice Mayor Jim Shulman spoke with The Star about this revelation. He assured us that they would be taking extra steps in the future to verify all COB applicants’ voting eligibility.
Read the full story
NASHVILLE, Tennessee – A group of business owners, employees and musicians gathered Tuesday outside Metro Nashville City Hall to protest Mayor John Cooper’s ongoing safer-at-home order.
Read the full story
Former Metro Nashville mayoral candidate Dr. Carol W. Swain is calling on her supporters to turn out to the polls once again — to support at-large Metro Council candidate Steve Glover. Early voting runs to September 6. Election Day is September 12. In an email newsletter to her supporters, Swain says that Glover is the “only experienced conservative running for a seat on city council” and that he needs votes — and she asks people to vote for only one at-large candidate to give Glover his best chance. Swain also asks her supporters to vote for District 26 council candidate Courtney Johnston, who is engaged in a run-off against Jeremy Elrod. Current Metro Council district member and at-large candidate Steve Glover has been a critic of incumbent Mayor David Briley, including lately, the mayor’s budget, The Tennessee Star reported. Glover believes that the budget submitted by Mayor David Briley and recently passed by the Metro Council violates state law and Metro rules requiring a balanced budget. Glover asked State Senator Farrell Haile (R-Gallatin) to request an opinion from Tennessee State Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery concerning the legality of that budget. During her concession speech in the Aug. 2…
Read the full story
Outspoken Metro Nashville Councilman Steve Glover of District 12, no friend of Mayor David Briley, will run for an at-large seat on the council, NewsChannel 5 said. He made the announcement at the firefighter’s union hall Monday, NewsChannel 5 said. Glover’s council webpage says he lives in Hermitage and is agent/owner of Glover Benefit Group and president of The Retirement Solution Show Inc. Glover told The Tennessee Star last September that Briley threatens many of his colleagues on the Metro Nashville Council. The Briley administration tells council members that he will not support projects in their districts unless they support him, Glover said. Glover has spoken out against Briley, including the way he planned for the Major League Soccer stadium. “They should never be threatened by anyone in the executive branch because they were elected to represent their constituents,” he said. Glover, a Republican, said he would not run for mayor because too many Nashville voters are Democrats. Last month, Glover asked for an audit of the city’s personnel practices, the WSMV News4 I-team said. The station determined that the list of candidates who were qualified for Nashville’s fire chief was abruptly thrown out five days before the new chief, William…
Read the full story
MURFREESBORO and NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Governor-Elect Bill Lee joined middle Tennessee grassroots conservatives, his base, at Christmas celebrations of groups with their hubs in Murfreesboro and Nashville. The two groups called “Sentinels,” originally organized around the Heritage Action for America (HAFA) model of activism. Personal relationships with federal legislators are leveraged with tools like calls to Congress, Twitter and letters to the editor, using data and solutions from Heritage Foundation, so that Sentinels can hold their representatives accountable. “Action” being an integral part of the groups’ very existence, Sentinel activities extend deeper into state and local arenas as well. With 2018 being an election year, for one, and a number of other issues arising, it was a particularly busy year for Sentinels. While the Murfreesboro and Nashville Sentinel groups are separate, they are not so much distinct as there is a fair amount of overlap, and the Nashville group could be considered a more recent extension of the more established and longstanding Murfreesboro group. As independent thinkers and activists, it was not a group decision to endorse a particular candidate for governor in the August 2018 Republican primary. Without any obvious exceptions, however, Sentinels were behind Bill Lee and demonstrated…
Read the full story
Asked for his reaction to the latest call for Mayor Barry’s resignation coming from her former staunch allies at The Tennessean, Metro Councilman Steve Glover told The Tennessee Star: Given the revelations over the past several days, I feel its safe to say that this has become the opinion of nearly every person in Nashville. Putting the welfare of the city above yourself should always be top of mind for anyone elected to serve. Day by day the Mayor’s version of her two year illicit relationship with her bodyguard, which she said during her public admission, did not violate any laws or policies, is unraveling. Judson Phillips, writing in a Tennessee Star commentary on February 1, the day after Mayor Barry admitted to the affair with Sgt. Forrest, was one of the first to call for Barry’s resignation. Another call to resign from long-time pastor and community activist Enoch Fuzz, followed one week later along with a similar message from The Tennessean’s Clarksville-based liberal columnist and opinion writer Saritha Prabhu. Retired Vanderbilt Law Professor Carol Swain nailed the Mayor as “damaged goods” and said “she needs to go” and repeated that message at the “Resign Now! Megan Barry” rally. Despite the nude photos, apparent misstatements by the…
Read the full story
District 12 Metro Councilman Steve Glover plans to introduce legislation next week so that ethics guidelines like those written in Mayor Barry’s Executive Order 005, apply to elected officials: Given this new revelation, I will be introducing legislation next week to make sure that the rules and ethics will apply to elected officials and that we do not get a separate set of standards. Glover’s proposed legislation is in response to the review by former Metro lawyers Saul Solomon, Kevin C. Klein and Allison Bussell whose firm Klein Bussell was retained by the Metro Legal Department to evaluate an ethics complaint filed against the Mayor one week after she admitted to her extramarital affair. Klein Bussell’s review of the ethics complaint concluded in part, that the Metro Board of Ethical Conduct, “lacks jurisdiction to examine alleged violations of Metropolitan Government executive orders.” The Star asked Councilman Glover what purpose is served by Executive Order 005 if no one can be held accountable to its contents; his response was prompt and candid: In light of what has been revealed by this independent legal finding, it saddens me even greater than in days past. If Mayor Barry’s Executive Order has no reach, then it’s…
Read the full story