Several controversial votes made by Nashville's leaders are expected to draw lawsuits, costing taxpayers money.
The Metro City Council voted to clear the way for Google Fiber and affordable housing during Tuesday night's council meeting, but both may lead to court battles.
“Anytime lawyers say it's complicated, you should put an equal sign which equals expensive, said Councilman Bob Mendes.
Metro council voted to give fiber faster access to utility poles despite AT&T's objections. Mendes said the city's legal team expects to be sued just like the city of Louisville, KY if it passes the third reading.
“There will be a lawsuit,” Mendes said. “There one in Louisville is in U.S. District Court. We'll have one in U.S. District Court. Both will end up getting decided by the us court of appeals. It's a complete waste of energy for us to litigate the same lawsuit here that the city of Louisville is paying for already.”
“AT&T doesn't have to sue us,” Councilman Anthony Davis said. “We think this policy is the right thing to do move our infrastructure forward. Our citizens clearly want fiber. They want quick deployment of fiber."
In a statement, AT&T Tennessee State President Joelle Phillips said:
AT&T remains willing to identify and adopt policies that legally advance broadband deployment without harming Nashville’s workforce, and without creating safety risks or service interruptions. We are disappointed that Google was unwilling to discuss these proposed policies to bring the benefits of broadband to consumers. See attached letter we sent recently to Mayor Barry, which spells out in some detail proposals to speed deployment for Tennesseans. If the bills passes on the third reading we will evaluate our options at that time.
Google fiber was not the only vote that could lead to more legal fees.
The watch dog group, the Beacon Center of Tennessee warned city leaders it may sue over a proposed affordable housing law. The President and CEO said the ordinance would violate law if passed by the city.
“Ultimately, if you go and build an apartment complex now you have to set aside a certain percentage of those apartments for low income individuals,” Justin Owen President and CEO, Beacon Center of Tennessee said. That's going to have ramifications on everyone in our city.”
Yet, supporters of the ordinance said disagreed, saying it meets the letter of the law.
“When we don't have affordable housing that creates a burden people who are stuck in traffic now,” Councilman Fabian Bedne said. “We have a bunch of people driving that could just walk to work.”
The Beacon Center of Tennessee has already sued the city over its short term rental law. Owen said they could again on other amendments to the law depending how the council votes.
