Metro Council to announce today a special called meeting date and time

Mayor Pro Tem Mike Walker says a special called meeting of the Metro Council to resume Wednesday night’s abruptly ended meeting will be set sometime today, adding it’s likely it will be set for 5 p.m. Tuesday. “We will call it sometime today, and (council administrator) Brian Mayers will send out a release this afternoon with the date and time,” Walker says. “I’m shooting for 5 p.m. Tuesday, but I can’t say for sure that’s when it will be.” Councilman Joel Boé, meanwhile, says he’s sent out an email to his fellow council members this morning requesting the meeting resume Wednesday afternoon, when committee meetings are also scheduled. Boé says he was extremely frustrated by the abrupt ending of Wednesday’s meeting. “This is just one more situation that drives people away and promotes public distrust of government. We promote ourselves as the next great city, but you can’t tell from our dysfunctional politics,” Boé says. With two council members absent from Wednesday’s meeting and four temporarily out of the council chambers at one point, Walker declared the meeting over in the middle of a council discussion on whether or not to approve spending $900,000 on a stage canopy for Galvez Plaza downtown. A discussion on the controversial downtown library branch hadn’t yet occurred. With a quorum lost, Walker informed the standing-room-only crowd he was legally bound to end the meeting. —Steve Sanoski