Franklin Ethics Commission dismisses complaints against Hanson, fellow aldermen

The City of Franklin’s Ethics Commission voted unanimously to dismiss all of the ethics complaints filed against four members of the Franklin Board of Mayor and Aldermen: Aldermen Gabrielle Hanson, Beverly Burger, and Matt Brown and Mayor Ken Moore during their May 17 meeting. 

The four-person Ethics Commission is made up of retired Williamson County Circuit Judge Jim Martin, who serves as Chairman, and Commissoners Juanita Patton, Jerry Sharber and Vona Wilson.

Hanson was facing 64 complaints stemming from comments that she made on a podcast and radio show where she claimed to have had a premonition about the March 27 Covenant School shooting. Hanson also made additional false comments about the motive of the shooting, comments which were disputed by the Metro Nashville Police Department.

Some of the complaints also cited other comments made by Hanson regarding the Franklin Pride Festival, as well as comments about some of her fellow aldermen and comments about the Franklin-based Church of the City, among others.

Many of the complaints have called for Hanson's resignation or removal from BOMA.

The Ethics Commission cited Hanson’s First Amendment right to free speech and discussed whether she was speaking as a BOMA member or as a private citizen when she appeared on both the podcast, where she made her initial comments, and the radio show, where she defended those comments.

“We cannot usurp someone’s right to speak whether we like what they say or not,” Sharber said. “Those who find it offensive have responded with their complaints.

“When it gets down to looking at the city ordinances, I don’t see anything in there that is prohibiting an Alderman to say how they feel about the Covenant incident on March 27,” Sharber said. “Whichever way they feel about it.”

“We have to rely strictly on the allegations contained in the complaint,” Martin said, calling Hanson's first amendment right “critically important," and the Commission agreeing that "none of the complaints allege a colorable claim of a violation of the city's municipal code."

The Ethics Commission also discussed and dismissed one ethics complaint against Burger regarding her comments about Hanson’s comments on the Covenant shooting, with Martin saying, “It doesn’t fall with the four corners of any provision of our code.”

Complaints against Moore and Brown alleged that the two BOMA members “may have used their positions to directly aid” the 2022 campaign of Tennessee District 61 House of Representatives candidate Bob Ravener. Ravener lost that election to Brentwood lawyer Gino Bulso.

The complaints cited Franklin’s Municipal Ordinances 807 and 808, use of municipal time/facilities and use of position or authority, but the Ethics Commission disagreed.

“There’s no support for the proposition that it resulted in private gain or advantage to Mayor Moore or Mr. Brown or Mr. Ravener,” Martin said.

The News reached out to all of the BOMA members who were facing complaints, but only Moore returned a request for comment at the time of publication.

“Our Ethics Commission met today and considered the ethics complaints in a professional manner and applied our ordinances to the complaints and found no violations,” Moore said in an email.

The Ethics Commission will meet again on June 15, a date that was initially set to be a public hearing on the now dismissed complaints, where the commission will vote to approve the minutes of Wednesday’s meeting.