Friday, January 2, 2009

Just Say No

Early Voting begins today for the two proposed Metro Charter amendments that will either be ratified or rejected on Jan. 22.

The English-Only measure is bad. It's grounded in narrow-mindedness, it's unnecessary, it will be costly to taxpayers (it already is if you consider spending six figures for a special election) and it will be a business and tourism "black eye" for Nashville. The good folks at Nashville for All of Us have the facts here.

The second amendment is bad too. We don't need to make the charter easier to change. Metro's founding fathers wisely understood that we shouldn't alter the document that forms the backbone of our local government every time a special interest group has a burr in its saddle, and we don't need to pave the way for costly special elections every year on whatever topic 1 percent of Davidson County voters think we need to address.

We've got a 40-person Metro Council to represent us already. People concerned about a particular issue can lobby their council members or run for office. Otherwise, how about spending public money on more important priorities? Our government's budget is too tight to be wasting tax dollars on symbolic statements and capricious reactionary whims like English-Only.

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