Will The Metro Council Ask Mayor Megan Barry To Resign?

NASHVILLE, TN -- A Metro Council resolution asking Mayor Megan Barry to resign in the wake of her affair admission was not filed before Tuesday's filing deadline.

WKRN reported that a resolution has been drafted urging the mayor to step down, but it was not filed in time to make the agenda for the council's next meeting. Theoretically, it could still be filed before the March 6 meeting, but the council would have to suspend the rules to take it up.

Since admitting to an affair with her former security chief Rob Forrest, the mayor has repeatedly insisted she is not resigning. She is under investigation by the TBI, a special Metro Council board and the ethics committee.

One councilmember wants to give the ethics a wider investigatory ambit.

Councilman Steve Glover filed a bill for consideration March 6 which would expand the ethics board's power to include not just violations of the established ethics code, but also an executive order signed by Barry herself in February 2016. That executive order explicitly does not apply to elected officials. Prior to becoming mayor, Barry was an ethics compliance professional.

"If the ethics committee finds a violation under the ethics code and now expanding it to the executive order," Glover told Fox 17. "Now it can send those finding to the attorney general or the district attorney. Now it gives them a broader base to recommend charges."

The law firm hired by the ethics board to assist with the investigation recommended the board drop some of the complaints, in particular a complaint that she violated the executive order.

Meanwhile, Councilman Jim Shulman wonders if Barry's increased use of her security team, led by Forrest, violated a Metro Nashville Police Department policy, which says that the mayor should be accompanied on "official government outings and trips," though records show Forrest accompanied Barry to yoga classes, Nashville Predators games and Bonnaroo.

"Official government outings -- is there a definition for that? What exactly is that?" Shulman asked, according to NewsChannel 5.

There are also questions about approval for Forrest's travel. In October 2016, approval and payment for his travel was re-routed to the mayor's office, a change from a long-standing policy that gave final approval to the chief of police; however, forms for Forrest's travel still showed that MNPD Chief Steve Anderson approved the trips even though he never saw the forms. The mayor's office blamed this on a "system flaw" and "coincidental computer glitch."

Photo via Office of the Mayor