Metro voters ratify Charter amendments, easily elect Wynn for clerk

Apparently, Davidson County voters care a lot about whether or not the Metro Public Works director has an engineering degree.

Voters passed four of the five proposed amendments to the Metro Charter on Tuesday’s ballots with wide margins, which itself seems a little odd when it comes to Charter amendments. 

As it turned out, however, the second proposed Charter amendment on the ballot drew a close final vote, passing with 103,297 votes for to 102,793 votes against removing the requirement that the public works director be a licensed engineer.

Before Tuesday, the amendment that appeared would be the most scrutinized was one proposed by the Metro Department of Law meant to specify the duties and obligations of the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office. The amendment (third on the ballot) allows the Metro Council, upon recommendations from the sheriff and the police chief, to authorize the sheriff’s office to conduct certain tasks not specifically assigned by the original Metro Charter.

That amendment, however, passed easily with 157,142 votes for and 49,648 votes against, according to results posted Tuesday night on the Davidson County Election Commission website [1].

The Metro Council voted in September to add the five Metro Charter amendments [2] to Tuesday’s ballot with each collecting the required 27 council votes to do so. And they received little discussion from them on.

The other three amendments also passed with little resistance.

Amendment number one on the ballot — that would add an exception to the Metro employee requirement that they hold only one position with Metro to allow them to work as part-time poll workers — easily passed.

The fourth amendment listed on Tuesday’s ballot passed 186,183 to 23,798 votes, renaming the “school mothers’ patrol division” of the Metro Nashville Police Department to the “school crossing guard division.”

And finally, Davidson County voters chose to ratify an amendment adding certain stormwater management tasks to Metro Water Services with a final vote of 165,370 to 39,431.

In the only other major Metro race, interim Davidson County Clerk Brenda Wynn, a former aide for U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, easily won election to the clerk's office with 144,454 over Jeff Crum (33,642) and Kenneth Eaton (18,313). The Metro Council appointed Wynn interim clerk in August [3] to replace the embattled John Arriola.