Nashville Mayor Megan Barry has increased the size of the Mayor’s Office staff from 22 in August 2015, the month before she was elected and sworn in to office, to 36 in February 2018.
The Tennessee Star asked Sean Braisted, director of communications for the Mayor’s Office, to explain why Mayor Barry increased the size of her office staff by more than 60 percent during her two and a half years in office, but received no response.
News of this massive increase in her personal entourage comes on the heels of revelations of her increased use of security personnel in contrast to her predecessors and the burgeoning scandal over her extramarital affair with Sgt. Rob Forrest, the former Metro Nashville Police Dept officer who headed her security detail until Jan. 31.
It also highlights a growing concern about a lack of checks and balances and the failure to apply standard internal controls to financial and personnel operations within Metro Nashville Davidson County Government during Barry’s tenure.
At least five other examples of these failures have come light in the month since Mayor Barry admitted to an extramarital affair with her former bodyguard.
- The so-called “computer glitch” in which for more than a year and a half Metro Nashville Davidson County Government’s information system failed to properly identify the first-line approver of Forrest’s travel requests as the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Debbie Mason, and instead falsely identified that first-line approver as Police Chief Steve Anderson.
- The failure of Metro Nashville Police Department’s internal approval process–going through Captain Mike Anderson of the Special Investigations Division–to identify irregularities in the overtime requests submitted by Barry’s lover, Sgt. Rob Forrest.
- The unusual manner in which Sgt. Forrest’s daughter, Macy Amos, obtained a job in Metro Legal created specifically for her in which no other candidate was interviewed.
- The apparent gift of travel in September 2017 to Athens, Greece provided to Mayor Barry by the Rockefeller Foundation-funded 100 Resilient Cities initiative, (a trip on which she was accompanied only by her lover, Sgt. Forrest), which took place shortly after Barry used city funds to establish a new Chief Resilience Officer, Erik Cole, a key policy objective of the 100 Resilient Cities initiative.
- Unusual patterns of promotions in other parts of Metro Nashville Davidson County Government that sources tell The Star have not yet been reported, but are nonetheless worthy of investigation.
The disturbing pattern of facts presented by Mayor Barry’s extramarital affair and the long litany of actions lacking appropriate checks and balances on her power undertaken during her tenure suggest that the Metro Nashville Davidson County Government has become a vehicle designed to advance the mayor’s personal ambitions and national political agenda rather than a servant of the residents of Davidson County.
The madam Mayor of Nashville
From the land of fruits and nuts she came Megan Barry is her name,
To Nashville on the Cumberland she ran for mayor and she won,
All her San Fran insanity she brought with her to Tennessee
She soon had a moniker to go with her name, Mayor Moonbeam we call her cause we think she’s insane
Her transit plan and big spending ways were the big story until recent days
But now there’s a story I’m sure you’ve heard not even her husband can trust her word
Despite her past ethical stances she’s been sharing more than glances
with her bodyguard who so it seems found his way into her dreams
He kept her safe he kept her close and performed duties more intimate than most
And though he was on the clock it’s apparent now she’s seen much more than just his Glock
Across the country and across the sea he got overtime for adulterous protective custody
And it’s hard to believe and just a little scary but it seems they like to start their mornings in the cemetery
Scary still are reports there’s pictures of Megan with no shorts
The Mayor in black passed out on her back with various parts exposed
The people are ready to be rid of her and bring this all to a close!
She doesn’t have a commissar of propaganda ….yet.
Hawk: Its almost like Bruce Barry isn’t an ethics professor. Screw ethics, here’s a slanted poll for my wife.
Which is a different poll than she’s used to getting elsewhere.
Failure as an example of an ethics teacher, failure as a father, failure as a husband. Hat trick. But a perfect Leftist toolbag.
Watch and see if he didn’t know all along.
Nashville just had to elect a woman mayor. The first and what a disaster it has been. Increased taxes, government spending, adultery, scandals, radical Islamic ties. The women of Nashville should be outraged.
Got to love the names of these people filling the offices. Couldn’t hire an American to do the job. Given her radical Islamic ties, it’s a wonder they are not all named Muhammed.
Hilariously Bruce Barry retweets from Meg’s office today after slanted Vanderbilt approval poll published. Remember, Vandy employs Bruce Barry, likely benefiting with back door, MNPD assisted studies on unsuspecting Nashvillians …(there’s an inside investigation op for eager super sleuth reporters)…Megan Barry-
“Thank you to the people of Nashville for standing with me. We’ve come a long way, but still have a lot of work to do. I’ll keep fighting my heart out for you everyday. Let’s keep Nashville moving forward.” Here we have sociopathic, narcissistic birds of a feather. Her actions underscore her hypocrisy with her background focus on ethics. Bruce is turning the other cheek to her brazen inability to be honest and trustworthy, and here is his Vandy bio: “Social issues in management, including ethics, public policy, and workplace rights. And the psychology of interpersonal and group behavior in organizations, including power, influence, negotiation, conflict and justice.” Aren’t they having fun pointing at a pig and calling it a peacock, relishing in their op to maintain a power position on the backs of constituents’ stupidity? Both can add to their resumes: abuse of taxpayers and taxpayer dollars, cronyism, specializing in wool sunglasses for liberal elitists and fun with employer subsidized extra marital affairs with subordinates. Oh, Professor! Expert manipulators.
The Metro bureaucracy grew under a socialist lefty petty criminal and now we have a Chief Resilience Officer.
I feel so much better now steering my car around the potholes that are growing larger each day all over this Resilient city.
The pirate ship SS Barry is about quantity not quality. Her inexperienced deck hands are in fear of having to find a real job as she continues to take on water and list more with each passing hour. It’s only a matter of time until she goes down.
Isn’t this a microcosm of how the progressives take over? They increase the number of people feeding on the government teat. These people, who work less for more, are then beholden, and reelect their benefactor.
Why do you think Barry wants government run mass transit? Well, other than she’s attracted to men in uniform, she wants to grow her voter base! The same is true about the Education system. Why do you think that there are SO many Administrators, Assistant Administrators and Deputy Administrators? Yes, our elections are rigged, not by Russians, but by Bureaucrats!
What can you say? Moonbeam told Nashville of her intentions before being elected and was still voted in.
Nick Beres reported on a poll that Barry has a 61% approval rating but there was no breakdown of who was polled. That’s 7 points higher than the 54% of the votes she received in 2015. I moved from Nashville in 2000 because I didn’t like the direction it was going. I go to Hermitage, Rivergate and the VA. Other than that I have no reason to be in Nashville.
The poll with 61% approval was completed before much of the more damning information was known. However, I am afraid that the liberals who have now overrun the once great city of Nashville rally don’t care about an official’s morals as long as their big government agenda is pushed.
This is a quite reasonable increase in staff size. It takes 60% more to support the mayor’s gigantic ego. She just needs to resign. I am confident Vanderbilt University would love to hire her as a professor.
Braisted has his head so far up Barry’s anus that he can see what she eats.
Sean Braindead?