The Metro Council has a busier than usual agenda on August 2. Here are the things I’m watching.

RNC coming to town?

There are three pieces of legislation related to attempts to bring the RNC’s national political convention to Nashville in August 2024. I am going to list the three in the order they appear on the Council agenda.

CM Robert Swope filed a resolution that appears to suggest a negotiation is going on to allow the RNC convention to come to Nashville in exchange for the state allowing development impact fees in Nashville. Since news of this resolution broke last week, it’s become clear that there’s no negotiation going on. The state hasn’t offered anything. The Mayor’s office has asked for anything. Nobody can find anyone who is engaged in the supposed negotiation suggested in the resolution. I expect the resolution to fail.

CM Sharon Hurt has a resolution opposing the idea of holding the RNC convention in Nashville. Because her resolution will come up before the Swope ordinance I discuss next, I assume that CM Hurt will push for a vote. I expect multiple Council members to abstain on the theory that, while they won’t vote to bring a convention here, there’s little to be gained by affirmatively slamming the Republican party in a non-binding resolution. But that’s a guess. I think the resolution will pass with multiple people abstaining.

CM Swope also has re-filed the exact same ordinance that he withdrew at the Council’s July 5 meeting. He withdrew it last time because he knew the Council was going to defeat it on first reading. For our August 2 meeting, all indications are that he intends on letting a vote happen. Here’s my July 14 blog post about this effort. I expect the Council will vote defeat the refiled ordinance on August 2.

LPRs for immigration enforcement

I have an ordinance on second reading that would prohibit the use of license plate readers (LPRs) for enforcing federal immigration laws.

Some have claimed that this ordinance constitutes an unlawful “sanctuary policy” under state law. That’s not correct. State law (and federal law for that matter) prohibits local laws that interfere with reporting or verifying someone’s immigration status. My proposed ordinance doesn’t do that. Instead, the ordinance would prevent Metro LPRs from finding a vehicle to enforce federal immigration laws. In almost all instances, Homeland Security would already know the immigration status of the person they are looking for. And since state law focuses on reporting or verifying the unknown immigration status of a person, it doesn’t apply to looking for a particular vehicle.

In order to clarify this distinction, I plan to offer an amendment. In anticipation of that, the Council Analysis says adding the amendment will mitigate the risk of it being interpreted as a sanctuary policy under state law:

An amendment providing that cooperating with federal officials to use the LPR system or information to verify or report the immigration status of a person would likely mitigate the potential for the State to determine that the Metropolitan Government has adopted a sanctuary policy.

I’m hopeful that we pass this ordinance, as amended, on second reading on August 2.

Reproductive rights

As you know, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the State of Tennessee has outlawed abortion. That puts the city of Nashville in a position of having to do its best to insure reproduction health freedom, including access to abortion, for people here. At the Council’s last meeting, we passed a resolution asking the Employee Benefit Board to investigate expanding employee benefits to include out-of-state travel for an abortion. At our August 2 meeting, we have an ordinance on second reading that would require companies seeking certain economic development benefits from Nashville to disclose whether they provide their employees’ health benefits for out-of-state travel for abortion. And we have an ordinance on first reading that prohibits the use of license plate readers for enforcing abortion laws.

If you have additional ideas about how Nashville can protect reproductive health rights, please email the idea to me at bob.mendes@nashville.gov.

OMG — NEC vs NEIB

There’s an ongoing scrum going on involving several Council members about trying to help some or all aspects of Nashville’s entertainment industry.

CM Joy Styles has an ordinance on second reading to form a “Nashville Entertainment Council.”

CM Swope has an ordinance on first reading to form a “Nashville Entertainment Industry Board.”

I believe the Mayor’s Office and maybe the Vice Mayor have attempted to mediate this squabble. I understand those efforts are ongoing.

Zoning public hearings

CM Sean Parker has tweeted that he plans to defer the public hearing on the Riverchase apartments rezoning. That’s BL2022-1140.

CM Styles has BL2022-1271, which is attempting to change the required depth of attached garages. The last I heard, this bill was facing opposition, is disapproved by the Planning Commission, and has been previously deferred. I’m interested to see if there’s movement toward a compromise.

CL Russ Pulley has BL2022-1270, which is attempt to change the way setbacks work for new residential housing construction. The Council Analysis describes the bill this way:

The contextual street setback only applies along streets with an established development pattern and is determined by calculating the average street setback of the four nearest single-family or two-family houses on the same block face oriented to the same street and follow the established development pattern, with a maximum required street setback of three times the standard setback provided in Table 17.12.030.A. The ordinance under consideration removes the three times the standard setback maximum, requiring contextual street setbacks to be calculated based on the average street setback with no maximum limit.

I consider this the sort of wonky zoning issue that At-Large members of the Council don’t usually deal with. I’ll likely try to figure out whether a majority of District members are in support or not, and follow their lead.