Metro Nashville officials on Wednesday still refused to cite which portion of the Tennessee Code permits them to move the prospective election date for voters to say yes or no to the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act.
They had ample opportunity to respond to The Tennessee Star’s requests for comment Wednesday.
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The Davidson County Election Commission has not yet specified the section of the Tennessee Code Annotated (the most recent compilation of all of the current statutes of the state) by which it has the authority to change the “conditional date” of the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act election referendum from December 5–the date specified for the election in the petition signed by 27,000 residents of Davidson County, verified by the commission, and certified by the Metro Clerk’s Office–to December 15. The Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act referendum, if approved, would roll back Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s 34 to 37 percent tax increase. At the September 25 meeting at which the commission voted to seek a declaratory judgment from the Davidson County Chancery Court that the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act was not legally sufficient and unconstitutional, chose not to set a referendum election date of December 5, 2020, as is their ministerial duty under both Tennessee law, the Metro Charter, and Tennessee Supreme Court precedent, but instead chose to set a “conditional” election date of December 15, 2020, Davidson County Election Commission Chairman Emily Reynolds made reference to an earlier comment by Davidson County Election Administrator Jeff Roberts as to the date…
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed listeners to call in and weigh in on whether or not Mayor Cooper should be recalled or not.
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Black Lives Matter organizers plan to paint a street mural in Nashville on Saturday.
Muralist Thaxton Waters II and other artists plan to paint the mural along Woodland Avenue, the same day as the Women’s March in Nashville, Fox 17 News reported. Organizers say they soon will announce events for that day, and they expect over 10,000 to attend.
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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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The 2004 Tennessee Supreme Court decision in City of Memphis v. Shelby County Election Commission that found the “Commission exceeded its authority by refusing to place Referendum Ordinance No. 5072 on the November 2, 2004, ballot based upon the State Election Coordinator’s opinion that the Ordinance is unconstitutional,” may blow a major hole in Metro Nashville Legal Director Bob Cooper’s argument made to to the Davidson County Election Commission at its September 25 meeting that “the commission’s role here is not purely ministerial,” and that a 2004 Tennessee Supreme Court decision “said that the commission can consider the form of a referendum petition and suggested that it could review the petition’s facial or procedural legality.”
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Metro Council Member-At-Large Steve Glover to the studio to discuss the now unpopular Nashville Mayor John Cooper.
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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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Dennis Ferrier of Fox News 17 continues his reporting on Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s overreach in closing restaurants and bars, which account for only a fraction of coronavirus cases even as that industry continues to suffer.
Ferrier has been digging into the story for some time to gain the actual number of cases.
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Nashville Metro Council Member Bob Mendes tweeted during Tuesday night’s presidential debate that U.S. President Donald Trump is “a racist m***** f*****.”
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I’m not sure how Reyna Roberts showed up on my Instagram feed. It was probably because Mickey Guyton reviewed a clip of her singing a cover of Carrie Underwood’s “Drinking Alone, Together.” After I picked my jaw off the ground, I immediately put Roberts on my radar because I knew her career was getting ready to take off.
Roberts was born prematurely in 1997 to U.S. military parents in Anchorage, Alaska. She was told that she could have cognitive, physical, visual, and vocal developmental delays. Because of the bleak prognosis, her family kept music as a main influence to help her improve and become successful.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Nashville-based attorney Kirk Clements who is handling the lawsuit against Mayor Cooper to highlight the details of the case formed by Lower Broadway restaurant and bar owners.
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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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One of my favorite songs in 2018 was “Big Sky” by the Wild Feathers that I first heard on Sirius XM The Highway. This wide-open, simplistic song was an unforgettable anthem that made you want to embrace being alive.
After hearing that song, I didn’t hear from the band again until it came up in my newsfeed that it was releasing a new record called Mediocre Rarities. I knew then I wanted to find out more about the band.
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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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Of the 2,619 cases accounted for on a list of 49 COVID-19 hotspots in Davidson County connected with 10 or more cases of COVID-19, 114 – or 4% – were tied to the six bars on the list.
The list of 49 case clusters in Nashville was released by Metro Public Health officials.
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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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As The Tennessee Star reported on Monday, Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced at a July 2 press conference he was turning the city back to Phase Two from Phase Three, shutting all bars down for 14 days, temporarily shutting down all entertainment and event venues, and reducing restaurant capacity from to 75 percent to 50 percent due to “record numbers” of COVID-19 cases traceable back to bars and restaurants.
Mayor Cooper did not provide any specific details to substantiate his assertion of “record numbers.”
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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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Here are Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s exact words, delivered at his July 2, 2020 press conference, beginning at 3:01 mark in the video of that press conference.
It’s worth noting the Nashville rate of confirmed cases did decline while bars and restaurants operated at 50 percent capacity in May. The Metro Parks facilities opened in phase three will remain open including dog parks, skate parks, basketball courts, and playgrounds. And recreational leagues and pools will still be permitted as outbreaks have not been traced back to these venues or activities.
Now, of course, we urge you to practice safe social distancing around swimming pools this weekend. Additionally, all bars in Davidson County known as limited-service restaurants that derive the majority of their revenue from alcohol sales will close for a minimum of 14 days beginning tomorrow which is equal to one incubation cycle of the coronavirus.
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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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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the cronyism that resides in Nashville.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss Mayor Cooper’s dishonest corruption of the people of Nashville.
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Governor Bill Lee responded in writing Thursday denying Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s request for an additional $82.6 million in coronavirus relief funding.
In addition to the letter, Lee addressed the issue during a press conference Thursday, saying “I have to believe the strategy that I’m investing in is one that is consistent and aligned with the state’s strategy and Nashville’s are not.”
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s Press Secretary Chris Song attacked the character of the reporter who broke the story about keeping information about COVID-19 cases secret during a press conference Thursday.
WZTV’s Fox 17 reporter Dennis Ferrier was the first to report on the “disturbing revelation” Wednesday based on emails he received from the Nashville mayor’s office.
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On the heels of the stunning revelations by Nashville journalist Dennis Ferrier that the Mayor John Cooper’s office suppressed the report of improving coronavirus case numbers, City Council Steve Glover appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight Thursday.
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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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The Daily Wire is moving to Nashville, with one of the founders citing lawlessness in Los Angeles as one reason.
The conservative media outlet is moving from Los Angeles, Deadline reported Tuesday.
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A part of former Nashville Metro Schools Director Shawn Joseph’s severance agreement is unconstitutional.
This, according to the Nashville-based FOX 17 News, which reported that a Davidson County Chancery Court made the finding. The station reported that Metro Nashville School Board members Amy Frogge, Jill Speering, and Fran Bush “found issue with the nondisparagement clause in Dr. Joseph’s severance agreement” that said board members could not “make any disparaging or defamatory comments regarding Dr. Joseph and his performance as Director of Schools.”
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I first saw Trannie Anderson at the Listening Room when I went to see Levi Hummon and his dad, Marcus Hummon. I immediately liked her that night. When I went to see the Song Suffragettes a few weeks later and she sang a song she had written with/for Gabby Barrett, I knew I wanted to learn more about her.
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Nashvillians now likely will have input on the city’s 34 to 37 percent property tax hike, a conservative activist said in reaction to the verification of a ballot initiative.
The Davidson County Election Commission on Monday verified the referendum effort for the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act, WSMV said. That could limit the property tax increase to 2 percent. The effort now goes to the Metro Clerk’s Office and potentially to the Dec. 5 ballot.
Tori Venable, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee (AFP-TN), lauded the initiative’s progress in a statement.
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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, Tennessee — Tennessee residents overseeing an effort to donate Aitken Bibles to the state’s elementary, middle, and high schools held their inaugural luncheon at a Nashville restaurant on Saturday.
American Bible Project founder Stephen Skelton said the date of the event, September 12, held significance.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Republican candidate for the Tennessee State House of Representatives 56th District, Diane Canada to the newsmakers line to discuss her campaign.
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The Highway Women is an all-female country blend (country, rock, pop) music band like no other bringing a musical movement to support other women in country music and beyond. They are comprised of singers Kristen Kae, Drew Haley, Bailey James, and Heather Harper.
The group started in 2016 and has had various members since then, but the current group has been together for about a year. They don’t have a lead singer as they try to equally share the singing responsibilities.
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Nashville physician Ming Wang is overseeing a new initiative to donate Aitken Bibles to the libraries and history departments of elementary, middle and high schools throughout Tennessee.
“We are not putting this Bible in schools as a piece of religious teaching,” Wang told The Tennessee Star Tuesday.
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Metro Nashville reportedly sent nearly 6,000 truancy letters to the parents of students doing virtual learning, and one school board member says that is wrong and the letters should be “thrown in the trash.”
School Board member Fran Bush made the comment to The Tennessee Star on Sunday.
MNPS sent the truancy letters because of poor student attendance in distance learning, NewsChannel 5 said. The letters threaten legal action against parents or guardians of students who have five or more unexcused absences.
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Robert Sherrill, a 37-year-old Madison resident, today is a successful businessman who works with at-risk children and runs a local company with nearly $1 million in revenue.
Sherrill has enough clout to have a face-to-face meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.
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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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Parents of students who attend Metro Nashville Public Schools are upset and said Metro Coronavirus Chair Alex Jahangir is not qualified to influence how and when their kids may attend school.
But Metro Health officials said parents have their facts wrong.
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Because of COVID-19, Metro Nashville Public School students have to stay home and attend virtual classrooms, but they are missing out on a wealth of opportunities that students in nearby school systems, without restrictions, already have.
This, according to a group of about 500 parents, students, and coaches who assembled outside in the rain Monday in front of the Metro Nashville Public School offices. They said they’re angry because children can neither attend school in person nor can they play sports.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Jim Roberts to weigh in on Mayor John Cooper’s comments about the Taxpayer Protection Act.
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Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee (AFP-TN) this week announced that members of the group and other concerned citizens would turn in roughly 20,000 signatures to the Metro Clerk’s office in support of the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act.
This, according to a press release that AFP-TN members published on their website. Members of the group helped gather the requisite number of signatures for the initiative for the December 5 ballot.
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