Council committee deadlocks on military training agreements after Bordeaux residents press for notice

At a May meeting of the Government Operations & Regulations committee of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, members debated two intergovernmental license agreements that would allow limited military training on city-owned property at 1414 County Hospital Road and split on motions both to defer consideration and to approve the agreements.

The discussion centered on community notice after council members and residents said prior training had triggered calls to 911 and that neighborhood notices promised earlier had not been delivered. Council Member Kimbrough asked for a one-meeting deferral “so that I can speak with maybe planning and have somebody specific that's gonna take responsibility for sending out notices,” saying her “very elderly community” in Bordeaux needed clearer advance notice.

Council staff member Rosenberg told the committee that the latest agreements include contractual language assigning responsibility for neighborhood notification to the military units conducting training. “We require that the actual contracts put a specific party in charge of notifying the neighborhood adjacent to the property,” Rosenberg said, and that one agreement “lays out, providing notice more than 24 hours in advance” and specifies timing and language of the notice.

Committee members debated whether a deferral was needed given the timeline presented in submissions. Rosenberg read the proposed notification plan, which said notices would be distributed from May 15–18 to residences in the Bordeaux Hills/River Meadows neighborhood in conjunction with the Nashville Police Department; delivery methods listed included mailbox delivery, localized email and social media, and on-site engagement during pre-deployment site survey and exercise. The plan identified a public affairs contact for the unit carrying out the exercise.

The motion to defer consideration for one meeting resulted in a 4–4 tie and failed. A subsequent motion to approve the agreement likewise resulted in a 4–4 tie and did not pass. A similar resolution for a separate date on the same property was taken up later and also failed on a tie vote.

Speakers on both sides emphasized different priorities: supporters of immediate approval argued there was time to get notices out before the scheduled training dates and said deferral would be a poor signal to the military units; opponents said the committee should not approve agreements that rely on notifications that had not been reliably delivered in the past.

The committee did not approve the intergovernmental license agreements at this meeting; no formal direction to staff to take additional steps was recorded in the committee minutes during the discussion.