Salas reappointed to Human Relations post in 22-13 vote
By Elwin Green
Diversity Institute Fellow
07.23.04
After weeks of controversy, Metro Council reappointed Maria Salas to the Human Relations Commission Tuesday night in a 22-13 vote, with five abstentions.
The vote followed a weeks-long attempt by a Councilman Michael Kerstetter to keep Salas from remaining on the commission. Kerstetter accused Salas of being rude and disrespectful but failed to garner the necessary support to bar her reappointment.
The Salas vote was one of the early items on a council agenda that included 39 resolutions and 52 bills.
Two resolutions generated considerable discussion. One involved a partial privatization of Metro Nashville General Hospital's information technologies and telecommunications department. Another would have established a new fee schedule for developers' contributions to a fund that pays for planting trees in the city.
The hospital resolution called for the approval of a contract under which eight information technology employees would work for the McKesson Corp. The arrangement would save the city $5 million to $6 million over a five-year period, Metro officials said.
After learning that McKesson is not a local company, Councilman Ludye N. Wallace questioned the bid process that granted the contract to McKesson, which has offices in Georgia and is headquartered in San Francisco.
Councilwoman Carolyn Baldwin Tucker expressed concern that "monopoly privatization" might force the city to renew with McKesson at the end of the contract's term.
Councilman Edward Whitmore said the council had not had sufficient time to consider the resolution and moved to defer it for two meetings. The motion passed unanimously.
A resolution "approving the tree bank fee schedule promulgated by the Urban Forester" also generated lengthy discussion.
The resolution would require developers whose projects do not include trees to pay for the planting of trees elsewhere. The resolution was deferred until the next meeting by unanimous vote.
The agenda for Tuesday's meeting included seven bills on first reading, 17 on second reading and 28 on third reading. A bill can be adopted as law upon any reading but cannot be deferred beyond a third reading.
Last night, all of the bills on first reading were passed under an umbrella motion.
A bill on second reading, which would have required designation of an area of Elmington Park as a "dog-friendly zone," was deferred indefinitely. Wallace explained that the deferral would allow the measure to be incorporated with other "dog bills" into a single piece of legislation.