Q&A: Will Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell run for governor? Plus more issues

Editor’s note: The Tennessean editors named Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell as 2024 Person of the Year.

Below find excerpts from the Dec. 4 interview on a variety of different topics. They are edited for length and clarity. The six topics below, in order, are:

• Impact of the 2024 presidential election

• Public safety and FUSUS video surveillance contract failure

• 2025 property reappraisal and its impact on the property tax rate

• Nashville professional sports teams in a slump, but future opportunities may be in reach

• Services for the unhoused population in Nashville

• O’Connell’s view on his future political aspirations

Impact of the 2024 presidential election results on Nashville residents

Issue: Nashville is a blue city that voted overwhelmingly for Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris while the vast majority of red state Tennessee voters picked Republican President-elect Donald Trump.

The Tennessean: We saw an interesting result on Nov. 5. We saw transit pass, but we also saw the state overwhelmingly go for Donald Trump. There is the question of people feeling safe and welcome in Tennessee because of laws related to reproductive rights, related to trans rights. We are recording this today (Dec. 4) when the oral arguments have just been heard at the Supreme Court in U.S. vs. Skrmetti (on gender affirming care for minors). Could you talk a little bit about that please?

O’Connell: I think this is also related to trust and I think the idea of safety has had a lot of pressure put on it in the wake of the election because I think in two different directions on this topic. I think about public safety from the standpoint of crime and safety and wanting to make sure that we have all of the right tools there, including what our Metro Nashville Police Department and law enforcement are working on the criminal legal side.

O’Connell: And then also community-based safety approaches like the Office of Youth Safety that we have initiated in partnership with chair of budget and financial, (At-Large Council Member) Delishia Porterfield, and a coalition of community members. And then ongoing work around violence interruption, group violence intervention and programs that kind of fall under that bigger banner of community safety.

O’Connell: But then I also think about those topics of personal safety for folks in our community where we’ve seen any way of not only rhetoric, but also policy targeting them, folks in our immigrant community, folks in that healthcare access community and specifically people seeking safe access to abortions and related healthcare and sometimes it is very, very hard coming back to trust to reconcile those two dimensions when trust we may otherwise feel at a local level is capsized by a lack of trust at higher jurisdictions.

Public safety and Metro Council rejecting video surveillance contract

Issue: Public safety was a big issue during the 2023 mayoral campaign and while statistics showed a drop in violent crimes, people’s perception of their own safety was more negative. While a new Nashville Police + Public Safety Alliance emerged and MNPD signed a memorandum of understanding with the Community Review Board, the Metro Council on Dec. 3. failed by one vote to pass a contract between MNPD and the law enforcement video surveillance company Axon FUSUS.

The Tennessean: In your press release, you related your disappointment with the Council. What happens now and how do you bridge those gaps?O’Connell: I think we’re still exploring that. You know, I had a long conversation with Jacky Gomez, who is our director of New and Indigenous Americans programs and she has operated both MyCity Academy and our New Americans Advisory Council all year. And she gives full expression to those two worlds that seem to be in a little bit of collision, which is the segment of the immigrant community here in Nashville that is very deeply concerned about crime and safety.

Letters: Nashville council’s rejection of police surveillance contract disappointing

O’Connell: And then the segment that I also think is very successfully represented by TIRCC, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, that is very, very concerned about changes in federal (immigration) policy. That may mean we are dealing at a local level with the impacts of policies like a mass deportation program, which still seems to be getting quite a bit of discussion at the federal level. They are right now very hard to reconcile. And we’re working internally, we’re talking to Metro council members, we continue to talk to community groups.

O’Connell: I’ve had years of conversations and successful collaboration with TIRCC and so we, we want to get this right for the entire city. And so that’s to me the fundamental challenge: How do you offer both of those things at the same time −the true sense of public safety for all Nashvillians, but then also that sense of personal safety at the individual level for all Nashvillians?

Preparing for 2025 property reappraisal and its impact on property taxes

The Tennessean: There’s the potential for a shortfall in the state budget and then you have a property reassessment next year (2025) in Nashville, which has the fears always every four years of a property tax rate increase or decrease. What is your sense of how the city should move forward with this?

O’Connell: I would hope that we’re actually in a sense, not of fear, but rather of expectation, which has been the norm across Metro’s multi-decade history − that property tax rate increases track the cost of government and they happen in line with an appraisal cycle.

O’Connell: We expect after COVID that, and being in contact with the state Comptroller’s office, that it would be reasonable for a city that has had so much growth over the past several years to look at an appraisal cycle that maybe more regular than every four years to capture property tax and property value alignment in a way that produces fewer spikes and fewer shocks to the overall landscape in terms of both per kind of home and residential property, but also commercial property and thinking about individual homeowners and small businesses, but also larger multifamily and larger businesses.

O’Connell: So we’re looking at all of that, but I will say if we take into account cost of living for Metro employees, if we take into account the cost of infrastructure and the overall process of growth and how we pay for it and still working to live within our means, even just a continuity budget on the programs that have been underway. And we saw it very specifically and intentionally not to be on an off-cycle property tax adjustment scenario for fiscal year 2025.

O’Connell: I do think it’s important to get back on track, consider how we pay for our growth and recalibrate our expectations as a city after a few years of Metro volatility. That we are a city that exists in a state that is 50th per capita in terms of cost burden, that has an overall very low property tax rate, that goes through an equalization process, that is in conjunction with our appraisal process, and that we have to make sure that we pay for basic city services.

Nashville’s sports teams are in a slump, but other opportunities await

Issue: Nashville’s professional sports teams − the Tennessee Titans, the Nashville Predators and Nashville SC − have been performing poorly in 2024. One bright spot was the success of Vanderbilt University’s football team, which made national news by beating University of Alabama Roll Tide team on Oct. 5. Commodore fans carried the goal post to the Cumberland River. O’Connell famously posted this diss on X: “I’m hearing reports that the Cumberland River is experiencing low tide.”

The Tennessean: How, what’s keeping your spirits up in terms of the sports landscape?

O’Connell: It’s interesting because I have actually been personally very excited to see the level of interest in the possible emergence of Nashville as a women’s sports city. We have had a lot of conversations related to the interest of multiple different potential ownership groups around WNBA and NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) and as my younger daughter started playing basketball last year for the first time and, kind of seeing the WNBA splash into being after an exciting NCAA women’s season last year, it’s been great to see that level of interest.

O’Connell: And so even though I haven’t been able to go to those games in person in Nashville, it is exciting. Like our daughter has been able again to go to see the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team. I went with my dad last year to see both the Fisk men’s and women’s basketball team at their homecoming games and those kinds of things are very exciting to see that talent developing.

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O’Connell: And you know, I said in a recent interview on “This Is Nashville” that I think that it is frustrating to be a Titans fan right now, but I think there are glimpses of what that team may be able to accomplish in the future. And so every week I watch with interest to see if this is the week where we’re going to see (Titans Quarterback) Will Levis just confidently lead the team to victory. And you know, sometimes you see that only for a quarter or a half and then we’re hoping to get to the point where we see it for a series of multiple games in a row. (Editor’s Note: The interview occurred before the Titans benched Levis.

Serving the unhoused population of Nashville with dignity

Issue: Homelessness has been a rising issue in Nashville. In 2022, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill, which Gov. Bill Lee signed into law, which prohibited camping overnight on public property, intentionally target unhoused people who are sleeping on the streets. O’Connell talked about growing data collection and working with the Nashville Rescue Mission to improve services.

The Tennessean: How have this law and partnership impacted the unhoused community in Nashville and the kind of work that you’re having to do?

O’Connell: Fortunately, it’s been a fairly limited and low impact scenario. We did have a recent event where some overtime members of the Tennessee Highway Patrol were engaged in a few arrests that was a limited event. We connected with THP. It seems as though that will be a one-time event. It is not an initiative that is a priority for them, especially on Metro land. It is certainly not a priority for us in the Mayor’s office, our Metro Nashville Police Department or our Office of Homeless Services.

O’Connell: Flipping it around, one thing that’s been great is to now have, as we approach this winter season, Strobel House open as our first publicly supported permanent supportive housing facility in the city. And to your point, to have the Nashville Rescue Mission – after years of my working with them collaboratively as chair of our Homeless Management Information System Oversight Committee, having them participate in that system gives us as much coverage as we’ve ever had in terms of understanding who our unhoused neighbors are and what their housing opportunities are and what their service needs are.

O’Connell: And it’s letting us serve our homeless neighbors as effectively as we ever have. Meanwhile, this is also the first cold weather season where, we’re just passed the one-year mark that the Office of Homeless Services has actually led our emergency overflow shelter process. We’ve got a partnership with Hands On Nashville that’s been active in helping people navigate to the facility on Brick Church Pike that has been the home for that operation for the past couple years. It’s been great to see them collaborating within Metro, standing that up with their team and making that a success this year.

O’Connell: I think we’ve, we’ve been fairly effective in limiting harms, even in response to policy that isn’t local and then still taking very strong steps forward to serve that community more effectively.

O’Connell’s future political aspirations

Issue: Gov. Bill Lee comfortably won re-election to his final term in 2022. In 2024, Republicans held on to their supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly. The 2026 gubernatorial election is already attracting interest from candidates. O’Connell is one of the highest-profile Democrats in the state today.

The Tennessean: How, how do you see yourself playing a role either as a candidate or as a supporter or building up that base? Because at this moment it doesn’t seem like there’s any Democratic bench at this moment for the statewide office.

O’Connell: I can say definitively and conclusively that I will not be a candidate for office in 2026. The Tennessee Democratic Party will be selecting a new chair in a few weeks. I’ll be interested to see who emerges as the leader of the party at the state level there. The Democratic National Committee is going through a similar leadership process, and I’ll be interested to see who the national leader for the Democrats is as they become a minority party effectively in both chambers of Congress and the White House.

O’Connell: And here in Tennessee, unfortunately, we see super minority government in both chambers and the legislature still. I do think it is very important to be able to demonstrate effective trust-driven government. And really for me locally, that’s what I’m focused on. But I do think it is important to constantly have a robust contest of ideas. And I hope that Democrats field a good candidate in 2026 that can ensure that the values of all Tennesseans are taken into account in the contest of ideas.

O’Connell: Because I have said this a few times throughout the year, and it sometimes seems to be glossed over, but Nashvillians are Tennesseans too.

This editorial was written by Opinion and Engagement Director David Plazas, a member of The Tennessean Editorial Board. The selection of Tennessean of the Year was a collaboration between Gannett Vice President for Local and The Tennessean Executive Editor Michael A. Anastasi, The Tennessean News Director Ben Goad and Plazas. Send your letters in response of 250 words max to letters@tennessean.com and include your full name, city/town and ZIP code. Contact Plazas directly at dplazas@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Mayor O’Connell discusses transit, his future | Editorial