(C) Tennessee Lookout
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Will Nashville's mayor bridge rift between city and state leaders? – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['Sam Stockard', 'More From Author', '- October']
Date: 2023-10-05
With Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s first term in its embryonic stage, Tennessee leaders are playing nice amid a cold war between the state and its burgeoning capital city.
How O’Connell responds could set the tone for his four-year term replacing Mayor John Cooper. But the former Metro Council member said Tuesday he believes his administration is “off to a strong start,” holding talks with leaders of both houses of the Legislature and meeting with Transportation Commissioner Butch Eley and the Federal Rail Administration.
“That was a great example of local, state and federal cooperation,” O’Connell said.
An outspoken critic of the $2.1 billion Titans stadium project, which was backed by key Republican officials, O’Connell is a progressive in a blue county sitting smack dab in the middle of one of the nation’s reddest states. A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide election here since Phil Bredesen in 2006, and Republicans control the Legislature with supermajorities, eight of nine congressional seats and both U.S. Senate seats.
The former Metro Nashville Council member also takes the helm in the midst of three lawsuits against the state over laws passed this year to cut the council to 20 members and give the state control over Metro’s airport authority. Oral arguments are to be made Friday in the airport authority case. In September, Nashville won its suit against a law requiring voting changes at its fairgrounds speedway.
O’Connell, who reportedly calmed the nerves of Lower Broadway business owners and gained their support in the waning days of the recent mayoral election, is known for his support of stronger neighborhoods and alternative transportation modes.
But he’ll have to make inroads with state leaders such as Gov. Bill Lee, Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally after the Legislature passed and the governor signed a spate of bills targeting Metro Nashville. Those moves came following a Metro Nashville Council vote against supporting a plan to bring the Republican National Convention to Nashville in 2024 and after the state broke up the city’s only congressional district.
O’Connell also will be at the helm during construction of the Titans stadium even though he voted against it as a Metro Council member. Republican leaders in the state supported borrowing $500 million for the project, a position that puts them in opposite camps.
“From a regional perspective, there is likely a lot of alignment around economic development and infrastructure cooperation,” O’Connell said.
He is set to start work on East Bank projects to prepare for a massive Oracle project started by his predecessor.
“While there may be some issues where our ideas differ, I’m starting with the intent to communicate regularly, so we are transparent about our priorities. From there, we can look for those opportunities to collaborate,” O’Connell said.
Lee told reporters recently he communicated with O’Connell on election night, spoke to him again the following week and is scheduling a meeting.
“We live in a remarkable state, and Nashville’s a remarkable city,” Lee said. “I look forward to working with the new mayor.”
Sexton said he spoke to O’Connell, as well, and plans to “build a relationship.” He points toward the state’s dealings with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland as an example of how well Tennessee leaders can work with big-city Democrats.
The Crossville Republican acknowledges he and O’Connell won’t agree on every topic and in some cases they’ll need to avoid making disagreements personal and just “move on.”
“It’s about having a relationship, building a relationship with him, because having a Nashville and a Memphis that are both performing well, which we haven’t had both in the same stratosphere as far as economic activity, would put our state in a whole new GDP (gross domestic product) and economic outlook,” Sexton said.
McNally might have the brightest outlook for thawing the relationship, saying, “I have spoken with Mayor O’Connell since his election and am optimistic there is now an opportunity for a reset in the relationship between the state and Metro. I am looking forward to meeting with him in the near future to talk more in-depth about Nashville’s role in our state’s future growth and prosperity.”
Despite those pronouncements, smoothing things out between Metro and the state government won’t be easy
Even before the council’s vote against the RNC, Metro Nashville sued the state and Gov. Lee over passage of the education savings act, which provides vouchers for low-income children in Metro Nashville and Shelby County school districts to use for enrollment in private schools. The program is now also available Hamilton County as of this year.
I think that Freddie is going to keep being Freddie … or Mayor O’Connell. I think it would be prudent for him to work to develop those relationships, but I think that you also have to fight back when there’s overreach and something inappropriate is happening. – Metro Nashville Council member Delishia Porterfield
A Davidson County chancellor and the Tennessee Court of Appeals initially found the program unconstitutional, but the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state after finding the Metro Nashville school district was a separate entity from Metro Nashville and couldn’t sue, even though it claimed the program would cost Metro tens of millions of dollars.
The Legislature further enraged Davidson County residents by splitting them into three congressional districts, which limited the Nashville vote and allowed rural and suburban areas to elect Republican Andy Ogles in the newly-drawn 5th Congressional District.
Things really deteriorated during the 2023 legislative session after the council refused to go after the RNC, leading to three lawsuits.
O’Connell didn’t exactly offer an olive branch, either, at his swearing-in ceremony where he said, “We will need you as Nashvillians to be Tennesseans, too, as we clamor for gun safety, adequate school funding, access to accurate history, and other things the state is making every effort to control. Our biggest challenge is to make it possible for as many of us to stay as possibly can, in a city that’s growing more expensive and a state that’s growing more hostile to different views and identities.”
O’Connell’s statement referenced the Legislature’s efforts to hamper the LGBTQ community, GOP lawmakers’ refusal to restrict military-style weapons in the aftermath of the Covenant School mass shooting, the ongoing effort to put more money into Metro Nashville Public Schools and opposition to the Legislature’s efforts to keep civil rights-related viewpoints, especially related to race, from being taught in public schools.
New at-large Metro Councilwoman Delishia Porterfield said it’s important to recognize that Metro Nashville and O’Connell shouldn’t be expected to apologize.
“The state has consistently assaulted Nashville,” Porterfield said, and she considers it an unfair proposition to ask how Nashville will improve the relationship as opposed to how the state is going to “fairly” handle its duties and responsibilities without discriminating against “certain parts of the states.”
As for O’Connell, she said people who know him understand he builds “deep and genuine relationships” and can work across the aisle “in a way that doesn’t sell his soul.”
“I think that Freddie is going to keep being Freddie … or Mayor O’Connell,” Porterfield said. “I think it would be prudent for him to work to develop those relationships, but I think that you also have to fight back when there’s overreach and something inappropriate is happening.”
When the Legislature takes action detrimental to Nashville, though, Porterfield said, “we need to hold the line and look at every legal action possible to hold the state accountable.”
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