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HomePoliticsCity Council Regular Session Report - January 6th, 2012

City Council Regular Session Report – January 6th, 2012

City of ClarksvilleClarksville, TN – The hour is late and tonight’s council meeting went past 10:00pm. I’ll pass on the major highlights of tonight’s meeting.

Resolution 29 – Changing the current charter to fix the committee issue of having people who do business with the city being on city committees.

The mayor had this pushed back to the last item on the council agenda in case the effort to pass the mayor’s version of the revised city charter failed. As I had mentioned before to readers, I am not in favor of changing a charter that is decades out of date when we were working on a new version.

As this was a charter change, it needed 2/3s (9-yes votes) of the full council to approve it to go before the state for review. The resolution failed to garner the 2/3s vote.  The vote was 7-yes & 6 no. I voted no.  There will be no submission to the state.

Resolution 33

Submission of the Mayor’s version of the revised charter to the state

You have seen my previous comments and concerns on the mayor’s version.  When this came up, I made a motion to postpone action for 60-days and asked that the items the charter revision committee had proposed be brought before the council and public for review, debate and vote.  I stated several of the issues I presented to readers as rationale.

Also, City Judge Charles Smith contacted me and other council members today with concerns of language related to the city judge position and operation. While the revision committee had not changed anything in this area, Judge Smith had some concerns he would like to address and thought there would be time for him to bring those to the council during the public review. He was caught off-guard that no time had been allowed for review of the mayor’s version other than the council.

My efforts to postpone and address the left out issues/recommendations for full council and public review failed in a 5-yes & 7-no vote. Of course I voted yes.

There was much debate on the mayor’s charter and some talking and passions got a bit sporty between council members themselves and between council members and the mayor. After all the debate, the resolution failed to garner the 2/3s (9-yes votes) needed to send it to the state for review. The vote was 8-yes & 5-no. I voted no. The mayor’s revised charter will not be submitted to the state for review.

Those were the two big items on tonight agenda. I’ll write wrap up on a couple of other items we voted on later.

One last note. Thank you to all the folks that contacted me with support on the charter issues for all these months. I did not receive one contact that asked me to support anything less than the best updated and thorough product we could produce to operate our city.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

Bill Summers
Bill Summershttp://www.cityofclarksville.com/
Bill Summers is the City Councilman for Ward 10 in Clarksville, TN. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the City of Clarksville or Clarksville Online.
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