NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A Special Metro Council Meeting has been called to order for Wednesday.
This meeting is for Metro Council members to talk about any resolutions and amendments to the new state which cuts the council's size.
"The first amendment is for 15 district/5 at large, there's one for 16 districts/4 at large, there's one for 20 districts/0 at large and then there's one that asks the planning department to provide us multiple different maps," said District 26 Council Member, Courtney Johnston.
Her proposal - which is the subject of the special meeting - directs the Metropolitan Planning Department to prepare a Council redistricting plan in order to comply with the new state law.
The city has already filed a lawsuit, but in the meantime, the council still has to figure out what to do because the law requires redistricting within 30 days of it being filed. Council is already almost down half of that.
The last time there was redistricting it took about 5 months, so there are a lot of concerns.
Councilmembers do not want to open the city up to lawsuits for violating the law.
"Whether we agree with what's going on or not, we're still obligated to follow state law and to do what's right in order to comply with this law," said Johnston.
However, they also are concerned about the number of minority representation dropping, and projections from the planning department confirm that that will be the case.
"You know Nashville is roughly 26 or so percent African American and we've got 25 percent representation on the council, African American council members," said District 2 Council Member, Kyonzté Toombs. "So I would like to see that continue."
Toombs said she's in no rush to make a decision during Wednesday night's special meeting. Instead, she wants to ask the city's planning department to draw up different redistricting configurations before voting on a specific redistricting plan.
"And the point of that is to give council members different options to consider so that if we get to a point where we need to make a decision then we'll have the most information to make an informed decision," said Toombs.
Wednesday's meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. and Council's Planning and Zoning Committee have been asked to make recommendations for any resolutions ahead of the meeting.
If Council passes a resolution for the Planning Commission to take action more Special Meetings are expected to follow.
