To the editor:
As a friend and supporter of the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department I would like to thank all the town’s people who took their time to participate in the last two town council meetings to support the NMPD. Without that support this letter would be a total waste of time and it may be anyway.
Almost anyone who reads about or watches the news on TV should be familiar with a group of congresspersons, I think that’s what they want to be called, named “The Squad.” They are basically a far left leaning group that wants, in my opinion, to push our country into a socialistic state with cradle to grave “freebees.” They always say it won’t cost us anything, but it always does. This group does support the defund the police movement as well. Does that sound familiar?
Unfortunately, it appears that we have a “mini” version of the Squad setting on our very own town council. In the last two years they’ve done nothing but try to eliminate our police department with veil threats of job security and even questioning the integrity of the chief and his officers. This effort by the Squad has forced the loss of good personnel just because they needed a different way to shut the department down instead of eliminating the department through budget cuts, which are not transparent.
I’ve been attending the monthly council meetings for more than six years and have never seen so much negative and, sometimes childlike, discourse. The Squad even tried to fire the council attorney during a recent meeting. There is one positive that has come from this “defund the police” movement: It has brought a significant number of the citizens of this town together to support the NMPD. The Squad’s leader may tell you there was never a defund the police movement by them, but all you would need to do is check the minutes of the September 2020 to see what was said.
I’ve had two of the Squad members tell me that the NMPD budget takes up too much of the town’s dollars. They weren’t worried about the value of the NMPD just the cost. That’s ignorance. With the figures I was able to obtain the cost of each incident or call for the NMPD ranged from $90 to $110 per call. The county’s police department cost per call was close to the same. The Squad believes by cutting the NMPD from the town’s budget they could pay the county police to cover the town’s shortfall. The NMPD had over 6000 calls for service in 2020. I’m fairly certain the sheriff won’t just give his department’s time away to pacify the Squad. The council feels the cost of the NMPD is too high to protect the shops and 11 or 1200 people of Nashville. The Squad better be thinking about the liability of protecting over a million tourist each year.
There are other reasons for the citizens of Nashville to attend the monthly council meetings. In the very near future the council, but really the Squad, will be directing, or at the very least deciding, on how to pay for two extremely large water projects. The first in last week’s paper is a $6 million wastewater project that will cover many issues that have been needed for some time. The Town gets a grant for $2 million but the town has to come up with the remaining $3.9 million. The article states the Town’s share will be paid with a 0 percent interest loan. We still have to repay the $3.9 million. The article also states the utility will likely have their rates increased. We’ve heard that before with our cost effective sewer system. The second very large project the council is looking into is a $14 million storm water system. I’m not saying that either of these are not warranted, but we need to be concerned how we will pay for them becau$12 to $16 million is a lot of money for 1200 people to repay.
Finally, I encourage every citizen of Nashville to attend three meetings in October. The first meeting is Oct. 14 at 6:30 p.m. This meeting is part of the budget process, the town needs to attend. The regular monthly council meeting will be Oct. 21, but it hasn’t been posted as of this writing. Lastly, Oct. 28 at 6:30 p.m. will be the final budget hearing. Please attend every meeting you can. We just can’t let the extremist of this council get out of control.
Jim Hays, Nashville
