Meet Alice Rolli, candidate for Nashville mayor

Editor's note: The Tennessean Editorial Board invited candidates for the 2023 Metro Nashville-Davidson County municipal elections to fill out our questionnaire. They include biographical information and answers to 12 questions on variety of topics from key policy issues to their recommendation for visitors on what to see or do in the city.

Election Guide:Learn about candidates running in Sept. 14 Nashville mayoral runoff election

Key dates:

• July 5: Voter registration deadline
• July 14-29: Early voting
• July 27: Deadline to request absentee ballot
• Aug. 3: Election
• Sept. 14: Runoff election

Biographical Information

• Name: Alice Rolli
• Which office are you seeking? Mayor
• Age: 44
• What neighborhood/part of the county do you live in? Edgehil
• Education: Hume Fogg High School, Stanford University; BA, International Relations; University of Virginia - Darden School, Masters of Business Administration (MBA)
• Job history: Alice’s career spans business, education, state, and federal government service. Her executive experience includes leading companies through periods of rapid growth. She is proud of her work helping Music Row dynamo QuaverEd triple in size. As an owner-manager of Worldstrides, the country’s largest student travel organization, she led expansion efforts to more than 50 countries. In government, she has served at both state and federal levels, notably as assistant commissioner of strategy for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development under Governor Bill Haslam. At the federal level she served as special assistant and later campaign manager for U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, the now-retired chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the only person popularly elected both governor and U.S. senator for Tennessee. Early in her career at the height of a teacher shortage, Alice answered the call to serve and taught high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District through the LA District Intern Program.

• Family: Alice has been married for 17 years to combat veteran and West Point graduate, Michael Rolli. The couple have two school aged sons. A mixed-faith family, Alice worships at the Cathedral of the Incarnation. A native of Nashville, Alice’s family has a long history in civic life within the Nashville community. Her great-grandfather, Albert F. Ganier helped save Radnor Lake from being sold to develop 300 houses and for his efforts the highest point in the park is named for him. In 1982 her mother, Patricia Kryder, was the first law partner at a major firm in Tennessee - Waller law. Alice draws strength from their legacies in her service to the community.

Learn about Alice Rolli's opponent: Meet Freddie O'Connell

Twelve questions for the candidates

Why are you running for this office?

Alice Rolli is a Nashville native, mother, business leader and former Tennessee State Economic Development official for Gov. Bill Haslam. She is running to serve as the Metro Nashville-Davidson County Government’s 10th Mayor to usher in a new era of regional cooperation to address our challenges of growth. She is focused on improving accountability of city government to achieve results that all first graders can read and supporting our public safety to fill the 200+ vacancies in our MNPD and reduce crime. She has pledged to not raise taxes on Nashville residents and to get our fiscal house in order.

What makes you qualified to hold this office and better qualified than your opponents?

Alice’s experience at the federal and state levels, specifically as assistant commissioner of strategy in the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development under Governor Bill Haslam, combined with her private-sector experience leading companies through rapid periods of growth and expansion and her neighborhood activism in one of Nashville’s most diverse neighborhoods, Edgehill, make her uniquely qualified to lead the city at this juncture. There is no other candidate in the race with her breadth of experience and relationships at the local, state, and federal levels to deliver the needed results - and reset in approach - for Nashvillians. If we continue to elect the same group that has gotten us where we are over the past 20 years, we should continue to expect the same results; unacceptable rates of literacy, higher taxes, higher crime and more debt in Davidson County than the entire state of Tennessee.

Hear more Tennessee Voices:Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns.

If you are elected, what are your top 2 to 3 priorities for your first term in office?

1. All first graders reading.
2. Improve public safety and reduce crime through improving recruitment and retention of officers and resetting from a criminal justice system to a victims justice system.
3. Get the city’s fiscal house in order and to not raise taxes on residents.
4. Build a more cooperative relationship with the state in order to improve quality of life by tackling regional issues such as transit, support for homelessness, and crime - issues that don’t stop at the county line - but through solving regionally will benefit Nashville residents.

What are you hearing most from voters about what they want you to accomplish, if elected?

1. Do not raise taxes.
2. Support public safety to decrease call times or waiting times for Metro Nashville Police Department response.
3. Improve relationships with the state by getting to work on the deep structural issues facing Nashville which make it, according to Truth In Accounting, a Sinkhole City: ranked 68 out of 75 metros in the country for our city’s financial management. Acknowledge the fear driving the state’s concern that we as a city have made decisions leading us to today have more debt than the entire state of Tennessee.
4. Act with greater urgency to make sure all kids can read and that no one’s child is made to go to a failing school.
5. Recenter efforts of public safety on the rights of victims of crime.

Sign up for Latino Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling stories for and with the Latino community in Tennessee. 

A 2022 Vanderbilt poll showed that most Nashvillians do not agree with the direction of the city. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Yes.

Economically, we are the highest taxed residents in the state (a rate of tax, and what you are paying in dollars and as a percent of income, are not the same - when we look at the dollars paid by Davidson County residents we are the highest taxed residents in the state). This is driving long time businesses and residents to move to neighboring counties or to close altogether.

According to Truth in Accounting, we are among the worst fiscally managed cities in the country (68/75) and labeled a sinkhole city.

Our homicide rates for the last 3 years are over 100 per year, and according to FBI data, two-thirds of our crimes reported are never cleared - this emboldens criminals to commit crimes and makes victims of crime feel increasingly powerless.

The vast majority of our children cannot read on grade level and thousands of families are made to go to failing schools.

If we continue to elect the same people who follow and defend the same approach - we should not expect any correction to the direction of our city, or our current status as having more debt in Davidson County than the entire state of Tennessee - which is a catalyst for continued concern by the state of our ability to manage our city.

What is your assessment of the performance of the Mayor and Metro Council over the last four years?

I join with many in Nashville in praying for our leaders and for their families in the work of public service and sacrifice. This has been the administration of Job - the derecho, tornado, COVID, Christmas day bombings, and The Covenant school massacre.

Many of the structural issues inherited in 2019 by Mayor Cooper were the natural conclusion of 20 years of decisions, which today mean that we spend more than $400 million annually servicing our debt. Cooper has improved the city’s financial position, but it remains in bad shape - according to Truth in Accounting the city is ranked 68 out of 75 large cities for our financial management and is deemed a “Sinkhole” city.

Unfortunately, as is increasingly the case with cities, large aspects of our city government seem more worried about Instagram celebrity status and competing with other large cities on social and national political issues. This is not the role of the city government - our role is not to have a pro-life rally or pro-choice rally, it is to have a pro-taking-out-the-trash rally, pro-filling pot-holes rally, pro-first-graders- reading rally, pro-retaining-police-officers-rally.

When City Hall has confused its role and brought national politics to Nashville, Nashvillians have been hurt.

Sign up for Black Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling columns by Black writers from across Tennessee. 

Affordable/attainable housing has been named by citizens again and again (NashvilleNext, polling, etc.) as a top concern. What should the city do to address this crisis?

Yes. We need to look at both the private sector and any impediments to permitting (for example, legislation recently passed the General Assembly which should address our backlog of electrical permitting - we should get smart and focused on where we need to create capacity to address bottlenecks we are creating).

To spur on additional housing stock - to help increase supply - we need to review all of our tools (MDHA, Barnes, Catalyst Fund) but also figure out what is missing from our portfolio and bring it to the table. We need to reset our relationship with the Tennessee Housing Development Agency to ensure that state policies and programs are benefitting residents of Davidson County. We need to performance manage through to be sure every dollar is effectively used.

When we continue to raise taxes on our most affordable housing stock, we continue to pass higher costs onto renters - we have pledged to not raise taxes in order to reverse that trend.

The Tennessee General Assembly has proposed gutting Metro Nashville's governance model and finances. What is your position on this and how should the city address the relationship with lawmakers?

Nashville is a part of Tennessee - and it is possible to love Tennessee and to love Nashville. We cannot pretend away our role as a city in getting us to a place where we have more debt in Davidson County than the entire state of Tennessee. When Nashville residents and businesses get frustrated with inaction by our city government, they petition the state. Two cases in point; parents and kids witnessed every school system surrounding the city open in 2020-21 and it took a state law to force Metro Nashville Public Schools to fully reopen for learning. Business owners downtown, frustrated with crime, petitioned the General Assembly to allow for a special police force to operate - with its own arrest provisions and made up of officers from other parts of the state - to get downtown crime under control.

Everyone should watch Tennessee statesman and former State Comptroller Justin Wilson’s 2019 address to Metro council. There, it seemed, council members finally understood that the decisions they had made in the decades prior - put our city into a position of near takeover by the state. Watch the exchange with the city councilmembers - who seemed, to finally, realize that no matter how hard they wished away the financial reality created through decades of poor decisions, they were responsible for dealing with the reality of $19,800 in debt per resident - four times that of Memphis. It cannot be stated enough - Davidson County’s position of having more debt than the entire state of Tennessee should be a source of concern for both state and local leaders.

My approach will be to put the problems we are facing before political labels. To act with the humility that recognizes that while we are the capital city, we only have 10% of the votes in the legislature. If we have an issue we believe requires state action to solve, we have to work with our neighbors to come up with legislation that addresses the problem - and not the politics. I am committed to manage our city’s finances, crime, and schools so that we aren’t creating situations that require our residents to petition the state for intervention, or for the state to have no choice - when we have more debt than the entire state of Tennessee - to intervene.

Are you supportive of Mayor Cooper's plans to renovate the East Bank and/or the proposal to build a new stadium for the Titans? Elaborate on your position.

You can only have one mayor at a time. The deal was approved by a majority of council and I appreciate that Mayor Cooper reversed a decades-long practice of giving land away and that we have regained control of a massive parcel of land in the downtown core to benefit our residents. Further, I appreciate that it appears we will not be on the hook for cost overruns of the stadium - which was the case with the deal he first inherited with MLS and with the Sounds stadium.

A tremendous amount of work remains to realize the vision, and financing for, the East Bank. I will be prepared to receive the baton as passed in October - and look forward to the opportunity to serve my fellow citizens to realize a greater potential for the East Bank.

What else do you want voters to know about you that will help them make an informed decision on Election Day?

In 2017, I read an article in The Tennessean about the plan to put 27 buildings on Ft. Negley Park. That spurred me to create a petition - Citizens for the Future of Ft. Negley where we gained 5,000 signatures to show that the citizens of Nashville have a role in protecting what is special about our city. We brought together a diverse coalition - groups that regularly didn’t find themselves on the same side of other issues - but for whom taking back our city from corruption was so clear and compelling, we could work together. What happened to Ft. Negley is a cautionary tale of believing the downtown crowd - and what neglect by the city can become if we again elect the group that believes it is just fine to sell the city’s treasures out the back door to developers to keep the lights on.

A "fun" question: When visitors ask you, "What should I do in Nashville?" what are the top 2 or 3 things or places you recommend?

Delgado Guitars to ground yourself in the reality of what and who makes Music City, Ft. Negley Park to be reminded that this city has persevered through tougher battles, Ganier Ridge at Radnor Lake State Park - the highest point in the county and a view that reminds us that when we work together with the state we can secure generational investments that benefit Nashville residents.

Will you commit to being civil in how you present yourself and the way you interact with opponents and others? (Our definition of civility is being a good, active, honest and respectable citizen).

Yes

Call Opinion and Engagement Director David Plazas at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.