Nashville Council Recap: Members Vote To Take More Control Over Metro Government

Tony GonzalezWPLN News (File)

Nashville’s Metro Council may have added numerous rookie members in the fall, but they’re starting to flex some muscle. 

The council passed three measures Tuesday to exert more control over Metro:

• The council will now require the water department to submit annual reports (BL2019-46). Members were irked to learn that Metro Water’s financial difficulties had been kept quiet by a prior mayoral administration.
• Several agencies will also need to move faster to create each year’s response plan for cold weather emergencies (BL2019-74). That follows a scramble to decide on a shelter location this year. 
• And members have instructed the mayor to be more specific when drafting the annual Capital Spending Plan, so that funds cannot be as easily shifted from one construction project to another (BL2019-77). 

Earlier this month, the council also put in place a rule so that members would be entitled to receive more of the state’s communications about the budget (BL2019-43).

That effort piggybacks on a change two years ago that empowered the Metro Council to clearly rank the priority of various projects.