Nashville Mayor John Cooper this week released the names of five finalists for the city’s next police chief.
This, according to a press release that members of Cooper’s staff published on the Metro Government’s website.
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Activists are claiming that tire tracks across Nashville’s newest “Black Lives Matter” mural are signs of intentional vandalism. One set of tires left burnout marks across the bottom half of the letters.
According to reports, the organizers for painting the mural have reached out to Mayor John Cooper about the incident. The mayor’s office hasn’t issued any statements on the matter. None of the activists reported going to the police.
The dispute concerning the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act will go to trial October 26 through October 28, per the orders of Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle.
This, according to Nashville attorney Jim Roberts. As reported, Roberts is fighting the Davidson County Election Commission to get the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act referendum on the December 5 ballot. He said Commission members are playing unfair games with him and the public.
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Mayor John Cooper issued a press release Tuesday announcing the launch of a new “Hospitality Committee” to ensure business compliance with COVID-19 health orders.
Members of the committee cover major areas of Nashville’s tourism industry, including hotels, bars, restaurants, entertainment, and attractions.
A Monday rally that called upon voters to recall Nashville Mayor John Cooper attracted people who previously had little or no interest in politics but now want to force Cooper from office.
Nashville resident Larryon Minks, who works as a barback at a downtown bar, was among them.
Organizers held the rally in front of the Metro Courthouse.
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Citizens opposing Mayor John Cooper’s property tax hike and war against bars and restaurants filed a petition to recall him and seven Metro Council members Monday.
Restore Nashville and Re-open Nashville, were among the groups that held the “Recall Mayor Cooper Petition Kickoff Rally” Monday at Public Square Nashville.
Stop Mayor Cooper was another group on Facebook organizing the rally.
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Despite dramatic threats to cut essential city services if a referendum to repeal Nashville’s 34 percent property tax increase prevails, necessary budget cuts likely will not be made as Mayor John Cooper has laid out.
Cooper has called the referendum a “poison pill” and said repealing the city’s property tax hike would be a “self-inflicted crisis” that would “gut essential city services.” Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Adrienne Battle has said potential cuts could “render the school district unrecognizable.”
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The Nashville Metro Council on Tuesday gave Mayor John Cooper the authority to deputize certain city workers to issue citations against bars and restaurants that violate his coronavirus restrictions, The Tennessean reported.
Metro Health Department employees are overworked in trying to combat businesses, the newspaper said. Only workers who already have citation powers will be authorized to serve as restaurant police, according to the bill that passed on third reading. The mayor must still given written permission to workers to use this new power.
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Organizers have scheduled a rally against Nashville Mayor John Cooper between 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, at Nashville’s Public Square, located at 1 Public Square.
This, according to a Facebook group called “Stop Mayor Cooper.”
The event, the Facebook group said, will include music and art, a food truck, and opportunities for people to sign a petition against Cooper.
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Informants reportedly helped Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s restaurant police cite two downtown bars over the weekend.
WSMV reported that a task force cited Dogwood and Rebar, both on Division Street, on Saturday for having too many patrons, including on the patio. The task force had members from Metro Public Health Department, the Metro Nashville Police Department and the Metro Beer Board. The task force checked on Dogwood again on Sunday.
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A group with a new website asks Davidson County voters to recall Nashville Mayor John Cooper, and the group also wants volunteers to step forward to help.
Members of this group, Nashville Citizens for Fair & Transparent Government, said on the website RestoreNashville.org, that they advised Cooper “to cut below costs before taxing Nashville citizens, and he did not.”
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Nashville on Thursday moved to Phase Three of its plan to recover from COVID-19, but Metro officials still impose tight restrictions upon businesses, even without the scientific data to justify those rules.
As reported Thursday, Dennis Ferrier of the Nashville-based FOX 17 News connected only 146 of the county’s 25,000-plus coronavirus cases even as they continue to face crippling limitations.
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The Davidson County Election Commission has recruited a legal team to sue the citizens’ group Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee (AFP-TN) for its December ballot tax cut petition.
Former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Bill Koch will serve as lead council, and Junaid Odubeko the co-council.
Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles said Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Nashville Mayor John Cooper can heal an economy wounded after COVID-19, and Ogles said now is the time to do so.
Simply put, Ogles said Middle Tennessee is Tennessee’s economic engine and what happens there reverberates throughout the rest of the state. He also said it’s time for the state to go back to what life was like February, before COVID-19 impacted the United States. Ogles also said it’s safe to do so.
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A Nashville sportswriter this week posted documents on his website that he said proves Metro Nashville Health officials were ready last month to have fans at Nissan Stadium at the start of the season. But Mayor John Cooper said no, according to those records. Paul Kuharsky, who has covered the NFL for more than 20 years, this week on his website posted emails that Metro Nashville officials sent to one another. Kuharsky said he obtained these emails from the group Nashville for a Rational COVID Policy. Officials with that organization did not return The Tennessee Star’s request for comment Friday. Tennessee Titans spokeswoman Kate Guerra said Sunday she had no information about the matter and suggested we contact the mayor’s office. No one in either the mayor’s office or the Metro Health Department returned our request for comment. Kuharsky did not return our request for comment Sunday. In his story, Kuharsky quoted a July 30 email from Metro Health Department Director Michael Caldwell to Cooper’s Chief of Staff Bill Phillips and Metro coronavirus Task Force Chair Alex Jahangir. Jahangir said in the e-mail exchange that they had discussed a proposal that was “consistent, if not more restrictive, than most…
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A Nashville attorney who represents Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk owner Steve Smith said Mayor John Cooper misstated facts when he said White House officials influenced him to close bars on lower Broadway to contain COVID-19.
That attorney, Kirk Clements, said so to The Tennessee Star and in a document he said he’s already disseminated to the public.
“He [Cooper] claims the White House told him to shut down bars, but they [members of the White House] didn’t make that phone call to the cities until July 22. Cooper shut the bars on July 2,” Clements told us.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper is feuding in court with Nashville’s bar and restaurant owners on Lower Broadway.
And for that reason, Cooper wouldn’t hesitate to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a means to incapacitate those businesses.
This, according to an attorney who represents, among others, Nashville businessman Steve Smith, who owns Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk and Steakhouse.
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The Nashville Election Commission voted three to two on Friday to neither approve nor reject the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act, but instead passed the matter on to a chancery court to guide them on how to proceed. In contrast, “the commission unanimously approved a charter amendment by [Metro Council Member At-Large Bob] Mendes, approved by Metro Council, to go on the ballot if a special election is held. The amendment, if approved by voters, would effectively override the petition initiative and reinforce the city’s existing provisions in the charter,” The Tennessean reported. As The Tennessee Star reported last month, the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act referendum, if approved, would roll back Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s 34 to 37 percent tax increase. Cooper imposed the tax increase to make up for lost revenue after he shut businesses down during the COVID-19 outbreak. The referendum would also limit property tax rate increases to 2 percent every year, unless voters specifically approved it. Cooper, as reported, opposes the referendum and wants voters to reject it. Had commissioners approved the referendum as submitted then voters would have decided during a Saturday, December 5 referendum. But on Friday, as attorney Jim Roberts predicted last week, commissioners moved…
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper said Thursday that he and members of his administration have shown total transparency providing information to the public about COVID-19.
Cooper said this at a press conference Thursday.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper and his senior advisor allegedly misled the public and never intended to reveal the actual number of confirmed COVID-19 cases that Davidson County officials traced back to bars on Nashville’s lower Broadway.
As reported, Cooper ordered those bars and restaurants closed after he said they posed a health threat because of allegedly too many COVID-19 cases.
But Cooper and his senior advisor, Ben Eagles, closed those establishments because the two men allegedly had a vendetta against Steve Smith. Smith owns Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk and Steakhouse.
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Metro Nashville Health Department officials, whose COVID-19 policies have robbed people of their livelihoods, admitted Wednesday to incorrectly documenting the number of people in the city’s construction industry who contracted the virus.
And the discrepancy in the numbers wasn’t a small mistake either.
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When Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced at a July 2 press conference that he was shutting down all bars in the city for at least 14 days, temporarily shutting down entertainment and event venues, and reducing restaurant capacities from 75 percent to 50 percent, he made no mention of an internal email sent within the Metro Davidson County Health Department just two days earlier on June 30 that stated there had been only 19 cases of COVID-19 traced to bars in the city, just three cases traced to restaurants, but 1,159 cases traced to long term care facilities and health care facilities, and a whopping 1,251 traced to the construction industry since March. The Tennessee Star has obtained copies of that and several other emails exchanged between the Metro Health Department and Mayor Cooper’s office in June and July. The email dated June 30, 2020 sent from Leslie Waller in the Metro Health Department at 2:31 pm to Benjamin Eagles in Mayor Cooper’s office contained this message from Waller with the accompanying COVID-19 tracing data: Late Tuesday night, Fox 17 reported this update to its story that aired earlier in the evening, an interview of Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) about…
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One barbecue restaurant says Nashville Mayor John Cooper does not have a leg to stand on when it comes to his cover-up of low COVID-19 case numbers in bars and restaurants and his 34-37 percent tax increase.
Carey Bringle of Peg Leg Porker, located in the Gulch, posted on Facebook Saturday that he would not retract a public letter to Nashvillians he had written which referenced a story by Dennis Ferrier. Peg Leg Porker’s Facebook page, with both letters, is here.
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When Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced at a July 2 press conference that he was shutting down all the city’s bars for 14 days, reducing restaurant capacity from 75 percent to 50 percent, and temporarily closing event venues and entertainment venues, all due to “record” cases of COVID-19 traceable to restaurants and bars, he apparently knew that his own Metro Health Department said less than two dozen cases of COVID-19 could be traced to those establishments. But he failed to disclose that the “record” of bar and restaurant traceable cases to which he referred to was about one tenth of one percent of Davidson County’s 20,000 cases of COVID-19.
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2020 has been one hell of a year for Nashville. It started with a tornado, then the coronavirus, then mayor John Cooper and his insane lock down of the city, the 34% tax hike he and the metro council rammed through, and now he is single handedly trying to destroy the downtown Nashville tourist economy.
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Members of the Metro Nashville Election Commission met privately Friday, and at least one of the five commission members refused to say what they discussed, even though it was government business.
Nashville attorney Jim Roberts told The Tennessee Star Saturday that he suspects commission members met to discuss ways to undermine the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act. As reported last month, this referendum, if approved, would roll back Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s 34-37 percent tax increase. The referendum would also limit property tax rate increases to 2 percent every year without voters approving it. Voters are scheduled to decide during a December 5 referendum.
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In an interview with The Star Tribune, Governor Tim Walz set the first standards for possibly lifting Minnesota’s emergency executive orders. His statement didn’t promise total relinquishment of his executive powers.
According to Walz, under 20 percent community spread and 4 percent test positivity rate would give Minnesota “a really good chance of doing most things.” The governor balked when questioned whether some of the restrictions were too harsh. Walz stated that his state has endured COVID-19 better than many states.
The president of a Nashville-based center-right think tank said members of the Nashville Metro Council refuse to make the kinds of sacrifices that they ask their own constituents to make.
Beacon Center President Justin Owen said as much in a column on the organization’s website.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper and members of his administration weren’t straightforward enough with their COVID-19 data and, in effect, hurt local businesses and justified fears that government officials would abuse their power during this long emergency.
This, according to Beacon Center of Tennessee spokesman Mark Cunningham. Cunningham responded to a FOX 17 of Nashville report that suggested Cooper and his staff members kept secret the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases coming out of the bars and restaurants in the city’s lower Broadway area.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper warned this week that the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act, if enacted, will disable the city, but the group that fought for it said Cooper’s time and energies are best spent helping taxpayers.
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act would roll back Cooper’s 34-37 percent tax increase and limit property tax rate increases to 2 percent every year without voters approving it.
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Only 112 of Nashville’s 27,009 cases of COVID-19 can be linked through contact tracing to the city’s bars, according to data from the Metro Public Health Department, with 109 of the 112 cases linked to bars downtown.
Despite bars accounting for less than half of one percent of the city’s COVID-19 cases, bars have faced some of the most stringent restrictions under public health orders since pandemic-related shutdowns began in March.
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Nashville city employees might soon have the authority to give citations during public health emergencies.
Metro Nashville At-Large Council member Steve Glover told The Tennessee Star Wednesday that it’s “the stupidest idea I have ever seen in my life.”
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Members of Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee this week said they were disappointed that Mayor John Cooper referred to the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act as a “poison pill.”
AFP members said this in a press release.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper on Thursday disparaged a referendum to roll back the city’s property taxes and called it “a poison pill” that would stagnate the city and threaten future progress.
Cooper said this at a press conference.
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Members of the Metro Nashville Public Health Department (MPHD) this week issued new recommendations to restrict interscholastic sporting events in Davidson County.
This, according to a press release that members of the department emailed this week.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced the city will have a Policing Policy Commission (PCC) to review use-of-force policies within the Metro Nashville Police Department.
This, according to a press release that Cooper’s staff published on the city’s website.
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Metro Nashville officials have released their preliminary Metro Nashville Transportation plan, and it proposes, among other things, upgrading the city’s bus system and creating a Nashville Department of Transportation.
The plan that Metro officials sent to The Tennessee Star Monday did not specify total expenses, but The Tennessean assesses it will cost more than $1.5 billion.
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FOX Nation host Tomi Lahren tore apart Nashville Mayor John Cooper late last week during her Final Thoughts segment and called him “a little tyrant” for how he has managed the city during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Lahren, who recently moved to Nashville, compared the city to her former home of Los Angeles.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper this week announced Order 10 from the Metro Public Health Department pertaining to alcohol.
Cooper’s order took effect Saturday.
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Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson has vacated his position much sooner than he previously stated he would — without explaining.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper in a press release this week announced Anderson’s departure.
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Nashville Metro At-Large Council Member Steve Glover wondered this week if certain residents of Davidson County who lean right politically will have a say selecting a new police chief to replace the retiring Steve Anderson.
This, as Mayor John Cooper on Tuesday announced what he called a roadmap to finding a new chief. According to a press release, Cooper will rely on Metro Human Resources and a candidate review committee to narrow that person down.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper joined hundreds of other U.S. mayors late last week, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and urged Congress to fight climate change and uphold the Paris Climate Agreement.
This, according to a press release that Metro Nashville officials published on the city’s website.
“As mayor, I see first-hand the urgent issues facing our communities today: the ever-present threat of climate change, the challenges to public health and prosperity caused by COVID-19, and racial and economic disparities,” Cooper said.
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Because of COVID-19, Nashville business owners will likely have their worst year ever, but Mayor John Cooper said at Thursday’s press conference that they and others in the city must still pay dramatically higher property taxes.
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, Nashville Metro Council members voted to impose a 34 percent property tax hike upon city residents.
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There’s no way to know for certain if people in Nashville who caught COVID-19 are telling the truth when they said they didn’t march in any recent political rallies honoring George Floyd or Black Lives Matter.
A spokesman for the Nashville Metro Health Department said as much this week.
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While many people sit out July 4 due to Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s COVID-19 restrictions, social justice organizers are planning yet another rally in the city Saturday.
Teens For Equality will meet at Nashville’s Bicentennial Capitol Mall Park Saturday at 4 p.m. Central, members of the group said on their Twitter page.
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Trans women of color and formerly incarcerated individuals in Nashville, among other groups, must help city officials monitor members of the Metro Nashville Police Department, said members of the city’s Community Oversight Board.
COB members said this in a letter they sent to Mayor John Cooper this week. Cooper invited members of the COB to serve on a Use of Force Committee. COB members accepted.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper shows double standards and enforces bad COVID-19 policies upon the city, staff at the Beacon Center of Tennessee said Thursday.
Beacon is a right-of-center think tank. Staff criticized Cooper in an emailed press release.
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U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi criticized Nashville Mayor John Cooper Thursday after the mayor announced the city would revert to Phase Two of its planned reopening after COVID-19.
“This is lunacy,” Sethi said in an emailed press release.
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Citing an increase in COVID-19 cases, Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced Thursday that the city will go back to the second of its four-phased rollout to reopen the city.
Nashville will formally go from Phase Three back to Phase Two on Friday. The city will remain in Phase Two for the next several weeks, Cooper said at a press conference Thursday.
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If and when Metro Nashville Police officers see people in public not wearing a face covering or a mask they will react and approach them.
But they will only hand those people a printed advisory explaining the Metro Public Health Department’s new order fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
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