Nathan Moore, an English Only opponent and a “keen conservative legal mind”, digs up some pertinent info from Green Bay, Wisconsin, one of the bigger cities to have passed an English Only ordinance.

Councilman Eric Crafton, the English Only referendum sponsor, attempts to back out of a scheduled debate obligation because “If Karl Dean doesn’t have enough time to come,” he said. “I don’t see why I should.”

Sean Braisted, English Only opponent, calls Crafton on some of his New York Times-worthy anecdotal evidence (and makes an appropriate analogy).

Lady with a car, who is either for Crafton’s referendum or just really loves signage, almost runs over FOL* and Loews Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel Managing Director Tom Negri, while stealing an “Against/Against” lawn sign.

A day like this makes it even more apparent that the clearer heads in this English Only battle are those who are against the referendum.

*Friend of Liberadio(!)

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (along with Executive Order 13166) determines that any local government department receiving federal funds must provide its services in multiple languages, because the law says we cannot disciminate against individuals based on national origin.

Here is the useage breakdown of Metro’s interpretation services (these numbers were provided to me by the mayor’s office)

Health 41.71%
Police / Sheriff 33.13%
Juvenile / Courts 7.95%
Metro Water 6.62%
General Hospital/Bordeaux 9.43%
Nashville Career Advis. 0.71%

All of the above departments receive Title VI funds. The total is 99.55%. It appears I was more than generous with my previous estimate of 97%. This means that the passage of English Only could only affect 0.045% of the money spent, which means that Metro would save $495 per year. Or, we could just give back $250 million in federal funds each year.

The election is going to cost somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000 to conduct. This means it will take somwhere between 606 years and 1010 years to realize the nominal savings on this election.

Ah, I love the smell of number crunching in the morning.