Mayor's aide chided for helping English Only opposition

Eric Crafton, whose grasp of reason was tenuous at best, is starting to slip badly into irrationality. He claims that anyone who takes a leave-of-absence should be fired. Hmm, I guess that medical, family, & parental leaves would all result in firing. “Hey, if you take three months to take care of your baby, then you show that you should be fired!”Why does Bellevue keep electing this moron?

No it's costing us $300k becasue of Crafton. Now the idiot wants to fire an employee because he disagrees with him. How dare anyone have a different opinion.....

MJB...there you go again. You irrationaly attack Crafton on EVERY message board EVERY time. Get a life...you're getting boring with your lack of intellectual honesty. Please don't waste anymore of our time with your Crafton hate speech. You are cluttering up the thread.

P2We agree on most issues related to Nashville but I will have to take issue with you on this matter. I am still somewhat on the fence regarding supporting this referendum (leaning pro) but I will say the more I read of Eric Crafton being demonized by the press, the Dean administration and opinion comments the more it pushes me to vote 'yes' in the special election.To lay the 300K at the feet of Eric Crafton is disingenuous at best. As you know he originally had it on the ballot during the general election and the additional cost would have been nil. It was a ruling by the election commission (under pressure from Dean) that led to the special election. IMO the opponents of the proposal have done themselves a disservice. As a city Nashville was overwhelmingly carried by Obama and would provide a sympathetic ear to their cause. Now in a special election you are much more likely to have participation by an electorate comprised of single issue voters and that always favors the more motivated, in this case the English first voter.Like you I have travelled extensively and while the tourist areas often do speak English and the native tongue their civic entities as a rule, do not. It seems to me that if a country is generous enough to either open their front door for immigrants (or at least not slam the doors shut) there needs to be willingness on the part of the immigrant to learn our language and assimilate into our culture. Is there another way to encourage this behavior without the passage of this referendum? Not sure, but all the arguments against seem to depend on character assassination of those in favor instead of addressing this question. IMO unless the opponents offer up another viable alternative to achieve this assimilation goal (which I hope we all share) the measure will pass.

Does the CP endorse Crafton and his costly election? It certainly seems that way.

Hester will not be doing his publicly financed (taxes) job for 2 months. Who will be doing his job? Will someone else have to cram his duties into their time? Or will some jobs not get done because someone has to cover for Hester? Any way you look at this, his absence is going to negatively impact the coverage of duties in the Mayor's office at a time when many, many folks would love to be employed. This is clearly a job that SHOULD be eliminated in any budgetary review.No MJB - parental, maternity family leaves, etc. are mandated and protected by law. Personal privilege to take a 2 month vacation , especially during this time of economic hardship is a slap iin the face of Davidson taxpapers, of which I am one.

It really shouldn't/dosn't matter what side of the issue you are on . What should be makeing you mad is that enough signatures were collected to put in on the ballot and Dean said **** you.

Boy, Dean sure does have a potty mouth.

Reply to P2Two things to consider. First no matter what spin you put on this, the law is the law. Proponents will always argue that Metro could have overlooked it and allowd the referendum on the Nov. Ballot but let's look at from another perspective. There are many who oppose this and should they be angry if in fact the ruling were reversed and it was allowd to go on the ballot even though it did not fall into the correct time frame to do so? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------No, I am not stating that they should have allowed it, though I think it highly probable that if it was a referendum that Dean favored the Legal opinion would have been different. What is disingenuous is blaming councilman Crafton for the legal ruling. He and those that signed the petition (I did not) followed the same rules that you are advocating. Did they not have a civic right to do so? I am sure you believe they did have such a right and I hope you believe that following the rules and regulations is not wrong. Yet when you proclaim…“No it's costing us $300k becasue of Crafton. Now the idiot wants to fire an employee because he disagrees with him. How dare anyone have a different opinion....”The reader is led to believe that you equate participating lawfully in the civil realm to be a waste of money. That puzzles me. And while you have every right to call Councilman Crafton an ‘idiot’ as a Metro taxpayer I also question the importance, hell the relevance of a government paid position that will remain unfilled while the employee takes an extended leave of absence to take a public advocacy position. If this gentleman feels so moved by the subject matter then by all means follow your heart but why wait for the ‘money to line-up, and why have a safe job waiting for you? Will this gentleman continue to receive government health insurance, and retirement benefits? There are clearly unanswered questions in this wink and nod arraignment.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Second, how does doing away with SOME Metro services that provide for interpretors solve the bigger issue of illegal immigration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------I have never stated, and I do not believe that this referendum will solve, or even impact illegal immigration any more than I think it will impact the dire issues of teen pregnancy or smoking deaths. What it will do is communicate the terms under which the city of Nashville will conduct business. Hell take any money saved and put on more English language classes.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Are you aware that over 95% of ALL classes offering English for those who fall into this catagory are full. How would you expect many to pay for these since none I know of are free. What does this say about us as a country when we make the statment that we are welcoming these people on the front end, but we are unwilling to allow them to assimilate into the fabric of our country.---------------------------------------------------------------------“Unwilling to allow them to assimilate” come on I actually spit up a little when I read that statement. This referendum encourages them to learn English and thus helps with assimilation. Listen I travel to LA frequently and have relatives in Santa Clarita and Santa Barbara, CA and there is zero assimilation in Southern California. There are the anglos and there are the latinos and in very few forums do they mix. Increasingly there are demonstrations advocating Aztlan sovereignty and not that of the US. I did not believe it until I saw it myself. No my friend it is not America keeping the immigrants from assimilating it is an unwillingness by man immigrants to change their ways, culture, habits, language…what have you to get acclimated to their new home country. Why should they change? They more than likely move into a homogeneous enclave in a city, speak their native tongue at work, church and home. They listen to the radio and watch TV in their name language. Unless they are required to speak English to participate in the civic realm why would they assimilate?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Do we know for a fact that NONE of these folks are trying to get into an English class? Just give me one single reason that this bill as offered does anything positive for this community.------------------------------------------------------------------Uh no, I have no clue if any or all tried to get into an English class. I do know that there are plenty of English classes out there at little or no cost given by every Catholic Church and many nonprofit organizations. This is simply a red herring. In my opinion efforts must be made to encourage, via the carrot and/or the stick, assimilation to encourage the traditional ‘melting pot’. Whie you are at it tell me good comes from allowing 4 or 5 thousand folks to put yearly ammendments out there that make it increasinly difficult for our elected officals ( elected by a much larger % than would be required for these ammendments)to do their jobs.-------------------------------------------------------------------------P2 if you dislike the rules than work to change or modify them do not castigate those that abide by and use them for their own purpose. Also I am inclined to remind you that 12,500 signatures is slightly above your calculation. I think it is criminal for a city employee to pontificate and not perform his duty and refuse to certify lawfully submitted election signatures. I believe in referendum democracy. Too often our elected officials have their own agendas and not those of the people. And then you have this gem of a civic employee that should have been fired for dereliction of duty.----“Commission chairman Eddie Bryan abstained from certifying the signatures, citing the cost and saying the sponsoring English First group has ties to hate groups. Most of the group's funding came from Pro English, a national group whose founder has connections to groups the Southern Poverty Law Center has named hate organizations."I want no part of it," Bryan said.----“Quite frankly knowing you as I do I am surprised you are for this bill, having said that I do realize that prople have the right to vote any way they wish. My problem is not one person has ever been able to say what good this would do and how it would do anything more than maybe force some immigrants to move to surrounding counties where the laws would be different.-----------------------------------------------------------------------In my opinion it is a privilege to live in this country. And like I tell my two boys, privileges must be earned. I am not saying I have the answers but something must be done. I see no harm in allowing the democratic process to play out. If the policy does not work, or worse does harm, it can always be retracted via a referendum. Agree or not this give all of us in Nashville a chance to let our voices be heard.with respect

My solution is this...IF the English-Only referendum passes, two things will happen.The city will get sued and be tied up in court for years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.Local businesses will suffer as investors decide Nashville isn't such a friendly place for all of its possible customers.So here's what we do.All monies that the city loses in legal fees and lost business should be paid by Eric Crafton and the 15,000 petition signers... PERSONALLY.Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for a legislator's ego trip and a bunch of racists who can't get any Republicans elected and have to settle for this. Come on, Nashville conservatives... stand behind your values and put your money where your mouths are... pony up!

So Morpheus120...will you be as quick to blame those that will sue Metro over the passage of this bill for their cost to the taxpayers as you are to blame Crafton? I think not. Why don't you guys back off...let this pass, and then see how it goes? If it is a dismal failure, get your own petition drive going. This is a less confrontational approach that I believe holds no interest to a liberal because this bill really intrudes into the liberal agenda...which is to pander to illegals until they can deliver amnesty and reap these newly admitted "citizens" as liberal voters. What say you?