January 18, 2010
Notice of Special Meeting for January 15, 2010:
Pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 6-20-208, City Manager Randy Robertson hereby gives written notice that a Special Meeting of the Mt. Juliet Board of Commissioners will be held on January 15, 2010, at 5:30 PM at City Hall. The business to be discussed at this meeting is as follows:
a) Approval of proposed resolution of pending litigation; and
b) Discussion of road projects; and
c) Update on the City of Mt. Juliet Park system.
Here’s the relevant section of State Law:
Tennessee Code Annotated 6-20-208. Special meetings. —
Whenever, in the opinion of the mayor, city manager or any two (2) commissioners the welfare of the city demands it, the mayor or the recorder shall call special meetings of the board of commissioners upon at least twelve (12) hours written notice to each commissioner, the city manager, recorder, and city attorney, served personally or left at such person’s usual place of residence. Each call for a special meeting shall set forth the character of the business to be discussed at such meeting and no other business shall be considered at such meeting.
Class exercise: What should the response of the other city commissioners and the city attorney be if the Mayor wants to suspend the rules at a special meeting and discuss or consider business not included in the call for the special meeting?
class? class? anyone? Bueller?
December 28, 2009
from a news story at the Mt. Juliet News web site:
“The developer who has a contract on the former Mt. Juliet Elementary School site will meet with top level city leaders Monday to propose his building a City Hall and Civics Center there and then leasing them to the city.”
The MJ News website requires registration, but it’s free. But the site does not work reliably with Firefox. Use Internet Explorer or Chrome.
December 17, 2009
story on the Mt. Juliet News website:
Dec. 16, 2009 – Though one commissioner said he was “intrigued” with the idea and called for discussion, Mt. Juliet City Commissions turned down a church’s offer of $2 million to purchase Mundy Park in a 4-1 vote Monday night.
On Dec. 7, Hermitage Hills Baptist Church sent commissioners a non-binding letter of intent to purchase Mundy Park off Belinda Parkway for $2 million with “intentions to include structures, fixtures or other permanent installations.”
On Dec. 8, Mt. Juliet Mayor Linda Elam sent a letter to HHBC trustee Donald Kohanski stating while “we appreciate the interest … the commission … respectfully declined the offer.”
Something in the dates is not quite right. The MJ News article says the Mayor received the letter on December 7th and sent a reply on the 8th, declining the offer in the name of the City Commission. But the Commission didn’t have it on their agenda until the 14th.
Anybody know if the Commission actually discussed it at their meeting on the 7th? Or was the Mayor freelancing (again)? Or did they (say it ain’t so) violate the open meetings law by discussing this outside of a meeting?
September 25, 2009
The City Manager and the Police Chief continue to beat the drum for hiring more police officers. In a story in the Tennessean’s Wilson A.M. section on 9/23/2009 they tried their best to build support for increasing the Mt. Juliet Police Department.
“We are the smallest state per capita police department,” Robertson said. “We don’t have enough police officers.” “A city the size of Mt. Juliet should ahve 70-75 officers,” Robertson said.
Those statements are laughable and only make sense if you believe that the crime rate in Mt. Juliet is the same as inner city Nashville, the Lebanon public housing projects, or Detroit. (You can review comparative crime stats and analysis here).
The truth is, of course, that it’s not. In fact, the same Wilson AM story reported that crime in Mt. Juliet is down by 12 percent from the previous year. If Mt. Juliet’s crime rate is decreasing, how can it be true at the same time that the Police Department is too small?
Robertson and Chief Garrett point to an increase of 67% in “calls for service,” but even this, by itself doesn’t prove the need for more officers. If an eight hour shift of officers handled 10 calls a shift last year, and now they’re handling 16 calls a shift, then calls for service are up 67%. But that doesn’t mean you have to hire new officers. They still might not be at capacity.
If Mt. Juliet did have 70-75 officers (that would be about 67% more than the 43 they have now) they might write a lot more tickets for city court, but there’s very little prospect that the 32 new officers would make much difference in the already low crime rate in Mt. Juliet, which, despite the population growth and the opening of new retail centers, has been going down.
First rule of sociology: Every organization or department wants to grow. And police officers (like firemen or building inspectors) always want you to hire more police officers. Ocassionally they’re right. But they can hardly be expected to be objective about it.
September 24, 2009
The laughably neutered Mt. Juliet City Ethics Ordinance, passed in September, 2007, contains this language:
13-1-108. Use of position or authority
An official or employee may not use his position to secure any
privilege or exemption for himself or others that is not
authorized by the charter, general law, or ordinance or
policy of the municipality.
There is a plausible case to be made that in attempting to secure a health insurance privilege benefit for herself, the Mayor violated the city’s ethics ordinance.
It might have been ethical to propose a health insurance benefit for a future commission, but it was certainly un-ethical for an elected official to sponsor, advocate, and vote for an ordinance that would have extended that benefit to herself.
And it may have violated the city’s ethics ordinance. Rounding up witnesses with first-hand knowledge of the facts shouldn’t be a problem. You can always show them the video recording of the meeting. Are there any Mt. Juliet citizens who care enough about responsible government to file a complaint?
It was a further breach of ethics for the mayor to have snuck this on to the agenda on first reading by suspending the rules and getting it passed without any prior notice to the public. Thankfully, the rest of the commission came to its senses and voted this un-ethical proposal down 1 – 4.
The public would be well-advised to pay close attention at the next city commission meeting to how the minutes report the debate on this proposal. The Mayor has a documented history of intervening in the writing of the minutes to alter them and make sure they rewrite history they way she wants it to be remembered.
September 17, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009.
Mayor Elam attempted to pass a new benefits package for the Mayor and City Commissioners. It was defeated.
Mayor Elam proposed converting the 60-acre York Road property (home of the police department’s firing range) to a “passive park.” It was defeated.
A study committee had unanimously recommended the repeal of the restrictive “town center overlay” zoning from the center of Mt. Juliet. Mayor Elam has previously pointed proudly to this as “her baby.” It was repealed, with even Mayor Elam voting to repudiate it.
The Mayor had sharp words for the other commissioners.
The Mayor had sharp words for the city attorney.
The Mayor had sharp words for the city manager.
The Mayor had sharp words for the acting parks director.
And the Mayor went 0-for-three.
When the City Attorney opined that adding full health insurance benefits for the Mayor and Commissioners might be considered salary or compensation, and could be challenged unless it applied only to commissioners elected in the future, the Mayor blew up.
“I want to see that! They’ve acknowledged there are no Tennessee cases on any of this and they are looking at other states and that’s not binding!”
“We can do as we choose. . .”
Got that citizens of Mt. Juliet?
According to Mayor Elam, she and the other commissioners “can do as we choose. . .”
(the headline comes from the Mt. Juliet News story. We’d link to it, but they’re website seems to have the hiccups. Click through if you want to try on your own.)
August 19, 2009
so runs the headline in today’s Mt. Juliet News (not up on their web site, but we’ll link to it, once it is).
Interestingly, Elam says that if she runs, “it would be as a Republican, an acknowledged party alliance she would have preferred kept under wraps a bit longer.”
[heh]
The jokes just write themselves. . .
July 29, 2009
Story from the WKRN (Channel 2) web site:
MT. JULIET, Tenn. – The city of Mt. Juliet will allow handgun carry permit holders to carry their weapons into city parks when a new law goes into effect in September.
City commissioners Monday night voted 3-2 against a measure to opt out of the new law.
Read the rest of the story. You can watch the Channel 2 video here:
Here’s the video from Channel 5.
There’s also coverage in The Chronicle:
Mt. Juliet Mayor Linda Elam, the “pistol-packing mama,” said she had originally wanted to separate the various areas covered in the new law, but that wasn’t possible to do with the way it is written. She said for her it was “a pretty easy decision,” and she thinks guns should have been allowed in state parks for a long time.
Commissioners voted 3 – 2 for Mt. Juliet to not opt out of the new law, with Floyd, Hagerty and Elam voting against the ordinance and Bradshaw and Sellers voting in favor of the ordinance to opt out.
Read the rest of the story.
July 15, 2009
She’s not happy that the other four Commisssioners called a special meeting of the City Commission on Monday, July 6th and met without her. At that meeting they voted unanimously to name Andy Wright as the new city judge.
The Mayor blasted the other Commissioners AND City Manager Randy Robertson a the regular meeting on Monday July 13th. Acording to stories in The Chronicle and The Mt. Juliet News, she charged that the Commission AND the City Manager had been “meddling” with the City Court and stated that she was “offended as a lawyer.”
City Manager Robertson shot back at the Mayor, “Some of the things you said are wrong.”
Later, he charged that Mayor Elam had “thrown down the gauntlet.”
Since the Mayor’s vote for or against Andy Wright as the new City Judge would not have made a difference, why was she so incensed?
Anyone have any ideas?
