Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Finance Committee convened on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, at 1:00 PM in the Council Chamber, City Hall. Chair Will Lahnen presided over a meeting that included a quarterly single source procurement report, several consent and discussion items, and a debate on issuing a subpoena to outgoing JTA CEO Nat Ford. The meeting adjourned at 2:08 PM.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Tuesday, October 20th meeting of the finance committee. We'll go ahead and start off with introductions starting with Ms. Norris. Brittany Norris, Fourth Administration. Colleen Hamsey, Council Research. Mary Stepopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Heather Reber, Council Auditor's Office. Philip Peterson, Council Auditor. Good morning, Roy Diamond, District 13, the beaches. Good afternoon, Chris Miller at large group five. Will Lane District 3. White Gay District 2. Randy White, District 12. Good afternoon, Michael. Boylan, District 6. Good afternoon. Nick Holland at large, group three. All right. Welcome everybody. So the flow of the meeting today will take up public comment first. We then have uh I don't see him here yet. I believe Mr. Freeman will be down here for our quarterly single source presentation. Uh, we're then going to go through the agenda as is. It is not a uh too long of an agenda. I know there's some uh first responder bills on here, but we'll go to them uh pretty quick as soon as we start. And then you may notice on page 18 there's an additional finance committee discussion item, and that's a discussion on the issuance of a subpoena for NAT Ford for testimony at a special meeting of the finance committee on October 23rd, 2026, which is this Friday. We will take up that discussion and any action on that item at the end of this meeting. So, with that, do we have any public comment? All right, we have one, Carnell Oliver. You have two minutes once you get to the podium. Uh, yeah, I want to speak to the bill involving that four. Um, the argument for me is very simple. There are laws on the books, and there's a level of accountability that is associated with it. Dealing with the 81 section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 for the number of employees that were laid off. You don't even know which one of them how are heritage black Americans. Now I've explained that number of times. I received a response from public records for for JTA about that, and they're going to be responding to me by their time frame. But the thing about it is is that a lot of you white folks, you already knew what was going on at JTA. Because I blew the whistle before many times by COVID 19 fund, even on you in y'all jurisdiction of the city council. Many of y'all are now trying to cover your own butts for the damage that was already made. As much as you want to get in front of this camera and you want to act like you're innocent, you're really not. You hear everything, but the only thing that you're doing right now, you're putting on the show. Yes, Nat Ford gonna be down here, but who who's really go who really should take responsibility? You should be taking responsibility specifically every last one of y'all in these seats because you never really took your job seriously.