Ready to be Nashville mayor? Freddie O'Connell says he is after council terms

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — After serving for years in Metro Council, Freddie O'Connell is looking to provide to the city in a different capacity as Nashville's next mayor.

O'Connell — a native Nashvillian — joined Metro Council in 2015. He cares about the city's service response to residents, neighborhoods, transportation and housing.

NewsChannel 5 sent every person running for mayor a questionnaire with the same questions. We have not edited these answers from the candidates, meaning these responses are straight from them.

Nashville’s violent crime rate outpaces the national average as well as that of similar-sized cities. As Mayor, how would you work with MNPD to ensure Nashvillians can feel safe in our city?

Our police made Nashville proud with their response to the Covenant School shooting, and they deserve our support — particularly when it comes to competitive compensation. But even one of the police commanders I work with regularly has identified the correlation between poverty and crime. The safest cities are the ones with the most hope, the best schools, and the most economic opportunity.

We need to create a public safety plan that doesn’t make us choose between safety and justice — one that brings together the community, law enforcement, and others to build a roadmap to making Nashville as safe as it possibly can be, including engaging other departments so that our police can focus on crime, not on noise complaints, party buses, and parking violations. It also means ensuring mental health crises are treated as such by expanding funding for the REACH program which pairs paramedics with mental health professionals. We can expand the community safety partnership funding model, make The Village a permanent part of a support for vulnerable communities, and begin to implement group violence intervention.

We’ve seen multiple neighborhoods grapple with the proliferation of homeless encampments that pose threats to public safety and sanitation. How would you balance compassionate treatment of the unhoused with the desire of citizens to live in clean, safe neighborhoods?

I’m the most experienced candidate in this area, having served on the Homelessness Planning Council, chaired the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Oversight Committee, worked on the Metro Homeless Impact Division’s three-year strategic community plan, and created Metro’s new standalone Office of Homelessness Services with the support of my colleagues on the Metro Council. We’ve had significant discord even within Metro about solutions to this issue, but Mayor Cooper has initiated significant investment in mitigating homelessness for the first time ever, and now we’re on a path towards a long-term solution through the creation of a new standalone department — but only if this remains a priority when our next mayor takes office.

I worry about the safety of all of our residents, including the unhoused. We have to have options – and the reality is that shelters aren’t always an option for folks with mental illnesses, disabilities, or those uncomfortable in faith-based spaces. Some of our neighbors might never be able to produce enough income to attain market-rate housing, and some have disabilities or mental health conditions that mean they will always need services unavailable in traditional housing scenarios.

We’ve begun investments in permanent supportive housing — which combines housing with services for those Nashvillians at greatest risk of chronic homelessness — and we’ve seen that the Barnes Housing Trust Fund can create housing options for people in the most difficult of circumstances. We’ll continue to follow successful models for what works in other cities to accelerate our housing options and service delivery.

Metro Nashville government has been involved in a series of spats with the Republican-controlled state legislature that could have far-reaching effects on how the city functions. How will you work with the state legislature and preserve the will of Metro Nashville’s voters?

Cities like ours are economic engines of the state. It is our people — and our policies — that have brought in the money that these state legislators use to improve their far-away counties and to fund state-based programs. I will revisit the relationship between Metro Nashville and the state government, but it needs to come from a place where Nashville understands our value, knows our points of leverage, and asserts our power.

I have been able to be deeply effective in local government while knowing that the state might create obstacles and constraints, and I think that’s the experience we need a mayor to have. I also think that there is a fundamental difference between the public policy perspective that I offer, and the performative politics of others. We need a mayor who is willing to put in the work on projects that matter, outside of the spotlight of the press and social media, and build real offline relationships with the governor, leadership, and committee chairs.

As a former board member of Cumberland Region Tomorrow, I also expect to reinvest in regional relationships with city and county mayors, as well as other big city mayors. And I will work with organizations like We Decide Tennessee to help our county delegation to the General Assembly and state legislators know that Nashville doesn’t stand alone.

For the first time ever in Vanderbilt’s annual poll, a majority of Nashvillians said our city is moving in the wrong direction. How do you think we can get Nashville on the right track?

The quickest way for Nashville to get back on the right track is for the mayor to invest in a Nashville for Nashvillians rather than continuing to invest in expensive toys for tourists. For instance, we are the last major American city that lacks a meaningful transit system, and people notice this. Too many of our neighborhoods lack sidewalks, and people notice this. I will be working to ensure that Metro is one of the top customer service organizations in the city.

Nashville used to feel like a small town where we knew our neighbors, said hello to strangers, and all lent a helping hand to whoever needed one. We loved our local businesses and farms instead of focusing on attracting major chains and developments. We celebrated — not criminalized — diversity. It is those qualities that made us a destination. That feeling of warmth and neighborliness has been degraded by visitors taking advantage of our southern hospitality, treating our home like it’s a hotel room they can trash.

With the state too often acting hostile to people and performers that we love, they have emboldened those with hate in their hearts to act in horrifying ways. I want to be a leader that loves this city to the point where the residents know this and feel it. They’ll trust their local government to take on the daily issues we face and improve the long-term trajectory of our town, and we’ll all remember why we love Nashville.

As Nashville has grown, so has the cost of living. What strategies would you employ to make our city affordable for working families?

I had to walk away from a professional opportunity because we didn’t know the secret handshake to get into the aftercare program at our daughter’s public elementary school. So we fought to get a second aftercare program set up. Which was great. Until the program also had a waitlist. It’s imperative that working families be able to choose our public schools in order to keep their household costs down.

Transit is affordable housing. More families deserve the option that our family had to reduce the number of cars we owned, fueled, maintained, and ensured as a pathway to homeownership.

I’ll move the housing division in our Planning department to the status of a full Office of Housing, giving a department head of one of our city’s most urgent need better ability to coordinate across departments. And we’ll follow the recommendations of our Affordable Housing Task Force report.

We’ll also increase awareness of important programs like the Financial Empowerment Center, which just celebrated 10 years and offers free financial counseling, which has helped Nashvillians eliminate millions of dollars of debt and increase savings by the millions.

A Nashville mayor hasn’t discussed rapid-area transit in earnest since Mayor Barry’s plan was rejected by voters. What are your thoughts on what the city needs for public transit?

There is no other candidate in the race as committed to or capable of building the transit system Nashville urgently needs. As a former chair of our transit board and regular rider, I know how important transit is for cost of living and quality of life. We don’t have to wait; we just have to put into action the 3-year WeGo Public Transit work plan already written, which can be done without raising taxes.

That plan will create crosstown connectivity and bring traffic out of the downtown core to help everyone get where they need to go faster, and it will bring transit closer to communities, extend hours and frequencies, and introduce more technology.

We will also intentionally work on increasing participation in the WeGo Ride program, an employer-sponsored commuter program, especially among businesses receiving incentives. Work I led on Council means that our historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) will be able to participate like their peers to allow faculty, staff, and students to ride without fares.

And 5 years after the failure of a transit referendum, we’ll resume the effort to secure dedicated funding, joining the ranks of every other major American city. Right now, the airport and convention center are literally waiting on the city to create the single light rail line that makes the most sense—the one linking the airport to the heart of the city.

Transit is the biggest missing ingredient to Nashville’s long-term success, and I’m ready on day one to fix that.

Just under 30 percent of Nashville’s third graders are reading at grade level. Nashville has trailed significantly in education gains compared to other Middle Tennessee counties. What can a mayor do for education?

I think high-quality schools are an investment in our future, and the Mayor’s biggest influence on education is funding it. We can look at that investment as a three-legged stool, where we focus on balancing investment in places, people, and programs.

Ensuring every student has access to a high-quality place to learn begins with what I like to call the “pothole” approach. Rather than paving every road in the county north to south, we send our crews to the areas that need our attention most, and we need to do the same with our public schools. For a long time, investment in education was purposefully unequal.

Then, cities started investing more equally and strategically. Now, we have to invest in equity and make sure that we are bringing those areas that are exhibiting disparities in resources and success-rate. As mayor, my capital budget will reflect that priority, whether a community needs attention because the redline is still visible, or because overdevelopment has changed the basic structure and quality of the neighborhood. Investment in neighborhoods that surround the schools is also vital (sidewalks, with bus stops and safe crosswalks, and neighborhoods that educators can afford to live in). A comprehensive citywide transit plan is key to both meaningful options for families and the extracurricular activities as well as before- and after-school programs students need to thrive.

The next leg is to invest in our teachers and school staff. These folks are the ones — even more than any elected leader — who are designing the future of our city. We need to ensure that we are building a local pipeline for these jobs, offering a livable wage on day one, and continuing to invest in educators through both training and retention programs. And again, we also need to make sure that these folks can afford to live in the communities that they serve, including having opportunities to earn off-hours and in the summer through other programs, like afterschool care.

We have to invest in programs, both in school and out of school, that prepare young people for their future. That starts with early childhood education which gives our youngest Nashvillians a strong foundation of learning through programs like Head Start and high-quality pre-K. We also need to ensure that parents have the resources they need to support students, and that’s everything from childcare to afterschool programs to libraries that help youth learn year-round. But it’s also ensuring that parents, too, have the transportation infrastructure they need to access better jobs and education, and to be home with their children when the shift ends. Supporting both parents and youth emotionally is also important, through investment in mental health and reducing and addressing adverse childhood experiences. And, we need to help young people access economic opportunities outside of school through paid, meaningful jobs and internships.

Every mayor’s education efforts are shared with the caveat that duly-elected officials on the School Board can enact different policies and spend budgeted funds according to their priorities. I’d like to invite the School Board to my office on day one as mayor in order to begin the most collaborative relationship that a Mayor can have with partners in the public school space.

There is a perception that downtown is more of a priority because of the revenue it generates. What policies do you propose that will serve all neighborhoods?

I’m extremely proud that my stewardship of District 19 has enabled downtown to produce fully 12% of the property tax revenues in the entire city. A few square miles in the heart of the city is producing hundreds of millions of dollars that any future mayor can and should use to provide services and infrastructure in the other 500 square miles.

We were told a thriving downtown would raise all ships and pay for the things we need. Instead, the money it has brought in, plus more of our money as taxpayers, has continued to be focused on downtown and tourism. This is part of why I voted against the stadium deal.

It's time we put our money where our people are: in our neighborhoods. As mayor, I expect to strengthen the Office of Neighborhoods so we’re bringing the community into the mayor’s office regularly. My years of experience as a neighborhood leader showed me how important it is for people to have regular access to Metro leadership and for the mayor’s office to lean into solving complicated problems that require coordination across multiple departments.

We’ll also revisit NashvilleNext at the decade mark to make sure our general plan is serving all communities equally well and apply lessons learned where it isn’t.

Nashville has faced the following in the last three years: the pandemic, a tornado, a bombing, and a mass shooting. What makes you qualified to handle these levels of crises?

In 2020, the part of the city I represent endured the tornado, straight-line winds that followed it later in the year, city hall getting set on fire during civil unrest, and the bombing. In all of these cases, I rushed to support displaced residents, get power restored in the most vulnerable parts of my community, deliver food and blankets, ensure that trash and debris were safely removed, and generally work hard to support my community, all against the backdrop of the pandemic, during which my work led to the creation of Council’s COVID-19 committee.

Our team was among the first in the city to know about the Covenant School shooting because our communication director Alex Apple’s mother has been on staff there for decades. We’re lucky both that she’s alive and that Alex’s courage and compassion guided our entire team through the process of public leadership in the aftermath of the shooting. The experience taught me a lot about the incredible importance of a strong network of second responders.

I was on the Nashville MTA board of directors during the 2010 flood and was involved in the process of evacuating as much of our fleet of buses as possible from our flooded headquarters in the Driftwood district and then involved in the effort to acquire land for a new headquarters and maintenance center.

I feel uniquely tested and uniquely qualified and have developed an unexpected portfolio of crisis management skills over the past several years.

Come July 1, Nashville’s Community Oversight Board, as we know it, will cease operating. How will you ensure that Nashville gets the same level of community oversight that voters overwhelmingly approved?

Though state law has preempted the existing community oversight board, it also provides a pathway to reconstitute it partially. The mayor’s office, Metro Legal, and Metro Council are actively exploring the best legal options available to us under state law.

The good news is that the state can’t prevent the mayor from ensuring civilian oversight in some form. The better news is that Chief Drake has been a willing participant in the process of appropriate accountability for the department.

Ultimately, an accountable police department yields better confidence and support for the people we charge with keeping us safe, which often does mean being the first to respond to dangerous scenarios.