If you live in Metro Nashville, please go vote on the two amendments to your charter. I don’t live there any more, so I’m not casting a vote, but you should.

Personally, I’d rather you vote no, if for no other reason than I think all of us should be hospitable to strangers who come visit our fair city. Tourism, and the attitude of hospitality toward strangers, makes a big impact on the local economy.

Once, on a vacation trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, my wife and I had a layover in San Juan. Despite having two degrees, and being a smarty-pants in general, I felt like the ignorant country bumpkin because I could no longer speak anything other than my native tongue. (At one point in my life, I could also speak Spanish and French. I lost both through lack of use) Fortunately, the locals there didn’t feel like passing a Spanish-only law.

This special election vote is a huge expense that local sales and property tax payers are having to cover with no real effect to come of it either way.

Federal law requires some services to be provided in alternate languages if necessary, like for health and safety reasons – and those are logical. If you were in a foreign country and needed medical or police help, being able to effectively tell the doctor what’s wrong or the cop what happened would be essential for you and it’s the same thing here.

Except in situations like that, nobody expects local gove3rnment workers to speak anything other than English. They never have and they never will. Immigrants and illegals know that speaking English is necessary here. It doesn’t matter if they’re from Cambodia or Thailand or Somalia or Mexico.