How do you plan to effectively address and improve the aging infrastructure in Davidson County?
Nashville’s infrastructure is not keeping up with the pace of growth, and the next Mayor must make this a day-to-day priority, as well as an investment priority in each budget. I would organize the Mayor’s office to include a top leader – likely a second Deputy Mayor – whose portfolio would largely focus on the critical infrastructure, development, and housing needs of the city. As a city, we cannot change our infrastructure strategy each time we elect a new mayor. Thus, the Mayor must forge a strategy and build durable stakeholder and public support for a policy and investment approach that will extend beyond any four-year Council or term. For example, we should see stable, prioritized investments in our Capital Improvements Budget, as well as a coherent and aggressive approach to seeking infrastructure investments from both the federal and state governments. Accordingly, our infrastructure strategy must necessarily include extensive relationship mending and partnership building with state government. State roadways and bridges are without question essential to our city’s infrastructure. The mere step of repairing potholes will require significant negotiation and likely legislation. The Transportation Modernization Act is designed with Nashville in mind, and the Mayor must work with the state and regional leaders to ensure the legislation and the private-public partnerships it authorizes work to the long term advantage of Nashville and its residents. Over time, it is critical that both the State and the City be pursuing an aligned investment strategy and ensuring Metro has appropriate policy levers to drive infrastructure modernization and improvement. Finally, it is essential Metro obtain dedicated funding supporting multimodal transportation.
Would you commit to supporting a dedicated funding referendum during your first term as Mayor of Metro Nashville-Davidson County?
Dedicated funding is essential to meeting Nashville’s long term infrastructure needs, and I would begin work on the first day in office toward a dedicated funding referendum in the first term.
Before pulling the trigger on a referendum, however, I will ensure we have built a durable coalition that is bigger than any individual Mayor and focused on a longer term strategy that extends beyond my tenure. We will also need an extensive public education and engagement effort measured in years rather than months. We cannot afford to have another failure that results in kicking the can down the road another decade.
In light of the current housing and infrastructure challenges, what sustainable strategies will you implement to ensure the long-term affordability of Nashville as a place to live, work, and Thrive?
Finding a home you can afford in a safe neighborhood you love near schools you trust shouldn’t feel like winning the lottery. But that’s increasingly the reality for too many in Nashville. The essential challenge here is housing. We do not have adequate housing to meet demand at a number of different income points. Whether a young person looking to rent, a new family looking for a starter home, a retiree looking to downsize, or really almost anyone, you are facing upward pressure on housing. We do not want to follow the lead of cities like San Francisco that took too long to start addressing affordability. Nor do we want to follow the lead of cities like Houston that have seen sprawling growth that undermines sustainability and quality of life. First, we need to ensure that we are updating our zoning, as well as cleaning up and speeding up the permitting and inspecting processes to ensure the private sector is fully engaged in solving this problem.
Second, Metro must more effectively leverage public property and its scarce dollars in support of a housing strategy for the city. Third, both through Metro and public-private partnerships, we should double down on efforts to improve financial literacy, savings incentives, and other efforts to help our residents move into and stay in homes. Finally, I believe we will need to engage in downpayment assistance efforts for the teachers, police officers, and firefighters who make the city work. Right now, our housing challenges make it harder for our city to address education, public safety, homelessness, economic development, and virtually every other challenge we face as a city. The next Mayor must get housing right.
How do you propose to effectively reverse the rising juvenile crime trend in Davidson County?
If Nashville gets everything else right but fails to keep people safe, the city’s future will be at Risk. While juvenile crime rates fell from 2013 to 2021, we have seen increases in our more recent data that should trigger significant concern and attention. In part, we must always be vigilant against violence in our community and invest in evidence-supported policing and
non-policing, place-based solutions that we know will work to reduce violence. More particularly for juvenile offenders, it is exceedingly rare that a juvenile offender’s first red flag in the system is a violent offense. We must be dogged in ensuring that our city’s interventions are coming earlier and being delivered more effectively. I have long worked with Juvenile Court Judge Calloway to craft policies that give the juvenile court both more tools to work effectively with children who first appear as victims of abuse or neglect or in our foster care system, as well as with juvenile status offenders. We should build upon and improve those efforts. Ultimately, this is a challenge that requires mayoral leadership, because we must ensure alignment and coordination of efforts between Juvenile Court, MNPD, MNPS, the state’s Department of Children Services, the Mental Health Co-op, and the numerous non-profit partners engaged in this effort. We must double down on the investments that work to ensure we have a long term decline in juvenile crime.
In addition to meeting the budget requests of Metro Nashville Public Schools, what measures can you take as mayor to enhance the success and achievement of K-12 Students?
While the superintendent and board are essential to MNPS success, the city is in need of mayoral leadership on education. The Mayor must lead an effort that includes MNPS, our postsecondary partners, non-profits, foundations, and the business community to ensure we have an aligned strategy focused on each student in Nashville reaching their full potential. We need to have a serious conversation about accountability, because too often various stakeholders use different measures and draw divergent lessons from the data. That must change. There should not be a blank check for MNPS, but we also have a moral obligation to ensure that our students are not penalized by insufficient resources. Amid a teacher shortage, the Mayor should be a full partner in the recruitment and retention of educators. For instance, we pay teachers more than other counties, but many first year teachers still can’t afford to live here. Similarly, especially in communities with concentrated poverty, the Mayor should coordinate the support services needed so that our teachers can focus on teaching. I believe real progress also demands an overhauled approach to early childhood education. Where 80% of brain development occurs in the first three years of life, insufficient child care and pre-K options results in fewer students starting kindergarten ready to learn. Our 3rd grade reading data would be far less surprising to most if they paid greater attention to kindergarten readiness. Finally, we must do a better job of transitioning our graduates into the post-secondary college and technical programs, as well as ensuring retention, completion, and successful entry into the workforce. Being a real education mayor requires a pre-natal to post-secondary strategy – not just one for K-12.
In your vision for Nashville’s future, what specific investments and initiatives do you believe are necessary to empower residents with the skills, resources, and equitable opportunities needed for significant upward economic mobility?
We need to make sure Nashville is a place where all of our citizens and future residents can thrive and succeed. Obviously, this begins with our early childhood and K-12 education efforts. The next critical step where mayoral leadership is essential is ensuring our students make the transition from high school to post-secondary and career opportunities. That requires expanding and building our partnerships between our K-12 schools, TCAT, Nashville State, and all of our area colleges – as well as an expanded infrastructure supporting apprenticeships. But in an ever-changing, global economy, the city needs a broader vision. First, we must ensure that our city supports pathways for adults to develop new skills and experiences essential to success in key sectors. Second, we must identify and address those obstacles that pull individuals from the workforce and undermine their ability to reach their full economic potential – the shortage of accessible affordable child care is a prime example. Third, we need an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Where those without capital have access to revolving loan funds or micro loans, cities see increased small business starts. Where cities ensure ready access to mentorship, workforce development assistance, and low regulatory, tax, and administrative burdens, new businesses are better positioned to thrive.
How will you strategically support the growth, development, and sustainability of small, medium, and large businesses?
The next Mayor must reset the relationship between the City and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as ensure far greater communication and collaboration across the board. One of the most powerful tools at the Mayor’s disposal is the power to convene – to bring
interested parties from across the city together to chart a path forward. And the next mayor must bring the business community more effectively to the table to do just that. Structurally, Nashville should also explore changing the way we address economic and community development. Most mayors have had one or two individuals charged with these efforts, which necessarily leads to an outsized focus on the more significant and more urgent deals. Cities that have created a stand-alone economic development corporation – like Columbus or on a larger scale New York City – foster a broader outlook that is more supportive of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as economic sectors that are important to success in the next 40 years rather than the next 4 quarters.
From your perspective, do you believe that the continued growth in Davidson County is ultimately beneficial? If so, how do you plan to manage and maximize its positive impacts?
Those who would slam on the brakes are wrong. Leadership is not about stopping the future – it’s about shaping it. While the problems of growth are far superior to the problems of decline and decay, they are still real problems that demand a response by the next Mayor. We must be more intentional about how we are growing and instill greater confidence that growth and development will not come through sacrifices to residents’ quality of life. Without strategic choices and active management, residents will increasingly feel that growth is happening to them rather than for them. It’s getting harder and more expensive to live in Nashville, and the City must get ahead on those challenges by focusing on safe, affordable, livable neighborhoods. If we don’t focus on quality of life and the schools, sidewalks, greenways, parks, and everyday infrastructure where people live their lives, we will not be able to continue sustainably growing over the longer term. As a city, we have to recommit to ensuring that we grow in a way that’s smart, sustainable, and equitable – and insist upon development that enhances rather than detracts from our quality of life.
