NASHVILLE - A bill in the Tennessee General Assembly that some Hamilton County commissioners hoped would put them in charge of their pay got shelved Tuesday as Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, delivered a public scolding of commissioners for what he called their secretive ways in asking for the measure.
But Commission Chairman Chester Bankston was having none of it, saying Gardenhire "did not tell the truth" about the situation.
The flare-up came after Gardenhire appeared in the Senate State and Local Government Committee and told colleagues he was sending the bill to the general subcommittee, saying he hopes never to see it again.
"We received some letters by some of the elected officials in Hamilton County, which were written in secret, behind closed doors, asking us to do this," Gardenhire told the Senate panel. "I've asked for a [legal] opinion on that. I didn't want to be nor did anyone else in the delegation [want to] be complacent in accepting such a letter."
The senator said "the reason for this [bill] was they wanted to decouple their salaries from the county mayor so they could ultimately increase their own salaries."
Gardenhire noted one of his fellow lawmakers from Hamilton County had said after commissioners did hold a public vote on the issue in December that "if you want to drink the poison, we'll mix it."
But Gardenhire said the county's legislative delegation has now "decided it's probably best to the public interest to keep it like it is.
"And if they want to vote themselves a raise or ask us to change the law, they need to do it out in the open and in a public meeting and discuss it and not bring it to us in private," Gardenhire added. "So with that, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to send this bill to general sub[committee] and hope never to see it again."
In this 2014 file photo, Hamilton County Commissioners Randy Fairbanks, right, and Sabrena Turner-Smedley talk during a Hamilton County Commission Meeting at the Hamilton County Courthouse in Chattanooga, Tenn.The Times Free Press reported last year commissioners supported decoupling their pay increases from the mayor's and initially pushed the issue privately with lawmakers.
That came after proponents placed a letter of support in a commission back room for members to sign with no discussion in public. The first letter supporting the bill had eight of the nine commissioners' signatures.
Commissioners said the change would promote transparency. Had lawmakers passed the bill, six of the nine commissioners - a two-thirds majority - would have had to vote for it publicly before it applied to the county. And they would have had to vote for any pay raises.
But the measure melted down in a House panel last year when other lawmakers from outside the county balked for a variety of reasons, including a contention it would automatically grant county commissioners a major pay hike. Commissioners then sent a similar letter, again left in a commission backroom, with the majority asking for the authority over pay.
Gardenhire has questioned whether commissioners signing a letter asking for legislation and not discussing it publicly violates the state's Open Meetings Act (Sunshine law), which requires public business be done in public.
In December, commissioners came back again with a public vote, asking lawmakers to repeal the section of state law tying their pay increases to those given to the county mayor.
"We voted on that in public," Bankston said Tuesday. "Every time something has gone to the Legislature since I've been there, regardless of who the chairman is, the letter was laying in the mailroom for anybody to sign who wanted to sign it. Nobody had a clue that there was anything wrong with doing it that way."
Bankston cited as an example a bill asking lawmakers to include Hamilton County in a whiskey-manufacturing statute. He noted he hadn't signed that.
"It was never voted on in public," he said of the request.
Asked what the problem was, Bankston said Gardenhire has "a commissioner named Joe Graham lying to him. Everybody was taking it the wrong way. We were wanting to separate our pay to keep us getting a raise every time the county did. Not to give us a raise. That's ridiculous. It's not the reason we did it."
"I want to have a talk with Sen. Gardenhire, because his remarks are untrue," Bankston said. "And if he's going to make remarks about us, I'd like it to be the truth."
He said he previously told a reporter that Graham "is lying."
"He's been mad ever since I became chairman," Bankston said Tuesday of Graham. "He even tried to get votes to remove me afterwards because I took him off some committees he wanted on. But he didn't support me as chairman and everyone knows how that works. He's just been mad ever since."
Graham on Tuesday evening called it "sad that Chester called me a liar. But the fact of the matter is there is no lie to it." He said Gardenhire didn't like the process and neither did he.
He also said he isn't angry with Bankston.
"I'm not mad at him. He did do that [remove Graham from several committees]. I'm glad he admitted it."
Graham said, "You got to think about the bus factor," noting that if a bus struck and killed Mayor Jim Coppinger, the commission chairman would take over until a new mayor was appointed.
"I'm not saying Chester's not mayor material," Graham said. "But I don't see it."
In other Senate State and Local Government Committee action on Tuesday, Gardenhire saw colleagues torpedo a bill that would have allowed local governments to stop providing public notices in newspapers about government business and instead rely solely on their websites.
The bill died when it failed to get a motion to move it.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com, 615-255-0550 or follow via Twitter @AndySher1.