Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Metro Nashville’s City Council Member-at-Large Steve Glover to the newsmakers line.
During the third hour, Glover reflected on Mayor Cooper’s dishonest pledge to be fiscally conservative if elected and his 180 degree turn. Later on in the segment, Leahy suggested that Glover create a committee confirmation requirement that would make sworn statements mandatory.
Leahy: We are joined now by our special guest and our very good friend Metro Council Member-at-large Steve Glover. Steve, Mayor Cooper when he was before when he was campaigning he said he would be open to everybody and wanted to hear all sorts of ideas when last we talked he wasn’t really open to your ideas. Has he changed in the past several months?
Glover: This question will take about four seconds. No.
Leahy: Yeah. What happened to the guy?
Glover: You’ll have to ask him. I’m still the same person. You’ll have to ask him. You know he sure is, I almost said a bad word. I’m sorry. He sure as heck enjoyed getting our vote in order to get elected. Obviously, we got scammed. And so here we are. The sad part is he really could care less what most anybody has to say quite frankly. So I don’t feel personally discriminated against.
He’s been that way with a lot of folks. It’s unfortunate because I think he’s made some very poor decisions. And I’ll tell him to his face if I ever get that opportunity again that he’s made some very poor decisions. I think what he’s done to our downtown business community is unforgivable. There are still thousands of people who are financially hurting in our city that should not be. When you look at our revenue, here’s the other thing that really irritates me to no end. We had options on this capital spending plan. We could have looked back, and we could have paid maybe 50 percent…(Line disconnects)
Leahy: I’ll just continue on that. We’ll get Steve right back here.
Cunningham: And it’s amazing mayor Cooper actively probably more than any other mayoral candidate that I could remember, actively courted conservative voters.
Leahy: I will listen to you. (Chuckles)
Cunningham: He said I’m a new kind of Democrat. I think that was his appeal. And on the council, he had been and had moments of fiscal sanity.
Leahy: Well he’s a commercial developer. He knows money.
Cunningham: Yes and investment guy. He clearly knows money.
Leahy: He doesn’t care and he doesn’t want to hear from anybody.
Cunnigham: COVID came along and he turned into a dictator.
Leahy: Actually the actual description is a tinpot dictator. (Laughter) We’ve invited them on the show. I don’t know why he isn’t showing up at all to talk about it. I suppose if I call somebody a tinpot dictator, and promise to be polite they might not want to come on the program.
Cunningham: Well, if he’s that thin-skinned, it’s problem. He did court conservative voters. He said I’ll be your fiscal conservative.
Leahy: He’s not at all.
Cunnigham: He absolutely blew it completely.
Leahy: Steve you’re back and we were just singing the praises of our favorite tin-pot dictator Mayor John Cooper.
Cunningham: Steve, is it fair to say that he actively courted conservatives probably more than any other mayoral candidate in quite a while?
Glover: It’s beyond fair. We did a bench together and there were a lot of things that we did. I really thought that we had a good opportunity to work together up until you know all of this began in March. And then when he threw the, and I’ll just call it the bombshell, the 32 percent property tax increase when he did that things started going south.
I never want to speak on behalf of someone else but I’ll say this to you. He felt like it’s his responsibility to worry about everything and I said, what do you think I’d do? I’m elected by the entire city just like you are. And let me just say this Ben. And anybody that doesn’t believe this then they need to go look at the numbers. Had he not had the moderate conservative vote out there, remember I got roughly 38 percent of the vote, roughly 38 percent of the vote in the same election, and he got elected and he beat Briley by what 39, 40 points?
Leahy: All your people voted for him it looks like.
Glover: That’s what I’m saying. And at the end of the day for him to turn his nose on us and literally just walk away from us is unforgivable. It will never happen again I’ll tell you that. If he’s going to run again I will work diligently to make sure that we don’t vote for him because we have to have someone. While we may not be in a majority, we certainly have a strong enough voice that we can have a say in the city and we must demand that we have a say in the city.
Leahy: Steve, we broke a story on Friday and I’d like to get your reaction to it. This community oversight board, which is turning out to be a real travesty passed by the voters 58 percent in 2018, and they have 11 members and an executive director Jill Fitcheard who is their executive director. The 11 members, all seem pretty lefty to me and pretty anti-police. one of them a fellow by the name of Ovid Timothy Hughes who last week resigned suddenly.
And people wonder why Why did he resign suddenly? Our own Corinne Murdock has written several stories about and it turns out Ovid Timothy Hughes appears to be a convicted felon. Convicted in 2008 of mail fraud by the U.S. attorney’s office here. He served apparently a year plus a day in prison. Never revealed that. He was nominated for this by the NAACP of Tennessee.
Apparently the Tennessee state law you have to be a registered voter in that jurisdiction to serve on a community oversight board. He was asked at a committee meeting by David Rosenberg, are you a registered voter? He said yes. Well, we asked the Secretary of State here in Tennessee, and turns out he was removed from the voter rolls in 2008 because of his felony conviction. My question to you is what kind of vetting process is the community oversight board doing?
Glover: Well, apparently none. It’s not something that I supported. And I’ve told the community that I don’t support it because there’s already enough oversight for our police. What’s sad is supposedly these folks aren’t vetted. I feel doubtful that I voted for him in order for him to be on it because normally I will vote for the Moderate and that middle-of-the-road voice.
And that never happens, not this group we’ve got because they don’t want to actually have a fair and balanced version of what’s going on in the city. What I would say is that we probably need to get our act together better which goes without saying. We just need to do our job better and we need to make sure before we put somebody on a commission or a board that in fact they are registered etc.
Leahy: I’ll make a suggestion for consideration. For any nominee who is presenting himself as a candidate for the community oversight board if the city council would require that they make a sworn statement in writing and be sworn in before they testify in their interview before the rules confirmation committee chaired by Dave Rosenberg by the way.
That they make a sworn statement as to whether or not they are registered voters or not. Ovid Timothy Hughes on February fourth, 2020 went before that committee and was asked by Dave Rosenberg, are you a registered voter and said yes. That appears to be an obvious lie. but apparently not subject to perjury charges because he was not sworn in before that committee hearing was heard. What’s your thought on making it a requirement to serve on the board and that submit a sworn statement about your qualifications and you are sworn in before you testify before the rules confirmation committee as to your qualifications.
Glover: I think given the gravity of that particular commissioner board or whatever you want to call it I think that’s an absolute wonderful idea. I’ll have to check it because I’m not an attorney. I’m certainly not a constitutional attorney and I will need to check on that. But that’s a pretty easy ask right there. I’ll go to work on it. Let me see.
Leahy: Well thank you for considering it. I appreciate it. Can I tell you what my prediction is? My prediction is the mayor will not pay any attention to it and that Dave Rosenberg who chairs this committee will not pay any attention to it either. But I’d be delighted to have you come back and tell me otherwise.
Glover: I’m not certain if he’s still the chair of that. I don’t remember who all the chairs are for every committee. They change every year. The bottom line is that I want to get into the police issue on this.
Leahy: Let’s do that in our next segment. We got about three minutes here. Ben has a question for you. Then we’ll come back after the break.
Glover: Okay.
Cunningham: Well, well this may not be enough time for this. Steve, there are so many folks out there that are mad as hell and they want to do something. Well, we’ve only got a minute. What do you say to people who want to run for the council or school board or these local offices? What are they do because so many people are they just need that first step. They just need somebody who’s been there to give them a little bit of direction. And I just wanted you to address that because I get messages every day from people who want to do this. But their threshold of action has to be lowered enough to for them to take action.
Leahy: When we come back with Steve Glover, Metro Council Member-At-Large will talk about the police issues here in Metro Nashville. And then also what should people do who want to run for office.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
