Meet Freddie O'Connell, 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: Freddie O’Connell
• Which office are you seeking? Mayor
• Age: 46
• What neighborhood/part of the county do you live in? Salemtown
• Education: Bachelor of Arts, Music/Bachelor of Science, Computer Science from Brown University
• Job history: In addition to my work as a Metro Councilmember and for a variety of community organizations and nonprofits, I have over 25 years’ experience in the private sector, primarily in information technology. I’ve fulfilled a wide range of roles to serve our clients’ needs and have used those same skills to help produce better health, educational, and system outcomes.
• Family: Freddie is the proud son of Beatrice, a retired school teacher, and Tim, a federal civil servant and part-time songwriter. He and Whitney, a Meharry-educated neurologist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, are raising their two young daughters, Halley, age 12, and Violet, age 5, who attend MNPS schools.

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

Twelve questions for the candidates

Why are you running for this office?

I’m running for mayor because it’s time to reimagine a Nashville for Nashvillians. For too long, Nashville has prioritized tourism at the expense of residents. I believe it’s time to turn our eyes from shiny objects and toys for tourists and towards issues that impact our daily lives—sidewalks in more neighborhoods, streets that don’t flood when it rains, trash picked up on time. I love that people think Nashville is a great place to visit, but my focus is working on making sure it’s a great place to live. Nashville is not land to be bought or sold, or a business focused on profit—it’s a home. In contrast to other candidates who offer more of the same, I have my priorities straight and will put residents and local businesses first when I’m mayor. And I have deep experience with our local government, so I can start this important work on day one.

I’m running because, more and more, I’m hearing from Nashvillians that are considering moving away, because they don’t feel like a priority here. They don’t see Nashville’s shared progressive values in our leadership. They don’t feel like they can be themselves, safely. Their neighborhoods have become too expensive to live in, and their commutes have gotten too long. There are a lot of reasons folks are considering leaving—but I’m running because I want all of you to stay. Let’s fight for the home that we deserve and build a city that works for all of us.

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

Serving on the Metro Council since 2015, I have a deep understanding of how Metro works — and doesn’t work — for Davidson County residents. Governing is a daily puzzle of listening to concerns, coordinating solutions to those issues, and identifying both the cause of these problems and how to prevent them from happening again. I have dealt with events that will forever change our city — like floods, tornadoes, even the downtown bombing — but I’ve also dealt with the day-to-day issues that make life more difficult, like getting streetlights back on and potholes filled.

In addition to my experience as an elected leader, I am a former neighborhood leader having served as a member of the North Nashville Leadership Council and Nashville Neighborhood Alliance, two different stints as president of Salemtown Neighbors, a member of the board of Metro’s transit authority (now known as WeGo), graduating from MyCity Academy and Leadership Nashville, and serving on numerous other committees including Metro Water’s Citizen Advisory Committee and the 37208 Special Committee, helped me to serve my district in a way that has earned me the title of Best Current Metro Council Member six years in a row. I have more Metro experience and more neighborhood experience than any other candidate, and a track record of getting things done—and that’s what residents deserve: someone who can make a difference on day one.

On the other hand, I’m also just a regular Nashvillian. Whitney and I have two young children in Metro Schools, and we know the impact great teachers can have. We use our local library branches and parks. We’ve worn out the axles on our red Radio Flyer wagon while walking around our neighborhood on the sidewalks more neighborhoods deserve. We’re regulars at the Nashville Farmers’ Market. And I bought our house by saving a lot of money by being car-free for a few years, which is an opportunity I want more people to have.

Our shared progressive values have been pushed to the forefront of our mind as those we love in the LGBT+, Jewish, African American, New American communities, and now our children have been targeted with hate or violence.

I’ve been a small business owner and now work with many of them as a Council member.

I have firsthand knowledge of the issues that we all face, and I have the institutional knowledge to fix them.

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

As mayor, I would put people first. I boil down my priorities down to trash, transit, and trust.

1. Trash is a basic city service that Metro offers most residents, and it’s my shorthand way to describe a back-to-basics approach I would implement as mayor. We have to get back to prioritizing fundamental government work, like getting trash and recycling picked up on time, filling potholes, and addressing backlogged sidewalk and drainage issues if we want to bring our quality of life back to where it should be.
2. We also have to build a transportation network that works for everyone, whether you drive, bike, walk, or take public transit. We can immediately get to work on low-hanging fruit like community transit centers, crosstown transfers, and better coordinating construction-cased closures. We’re the last top 25 American city without a meaningful transit system, and it’s time to change that.
3. Finally, we must have a mayor and a government that residents can trust to solve both basic issues and big picture problems. From ensuring that our city has stellar customer service and is delivering both responsiveness and results, to a focus on infrastructure rather than deals that prioritize the needs of people not from around here, it’s critical that residents feel seen and prioritized by Metro. I want to build a government that works so effectively that you don’t need to think about it, but one that you know will act if you ever have an issue. And I’ll continue to be incredibly transparent in communicating with the public and will listen to residents about their concerns no matter their ZIP code.

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

People across the county are concerned that our cost of living is going up and our quality of life is going down. They’re frustrated that they can’t get a pothole filled but many of our leaders want to use the taxes we pay to build a multibillion-dollar stadium. They’re fearful that their identities will be criminalized, and their families will not be safe because of the state’s efforts to change how we live our lives. They’re stuck in low-wage jobs because they can’t commute to better ones, or they can’t find the childcare they need to do so. They’re considering leaving because they can’t afford housing, and Metro’s efforts to help have been low on the list of priorities compared to making deals with opportunists.

Nashville needs a mayor who has their priorities straight, and voters are concerned that more of the same is on the ballot. Voters want someone who will prioritize Nashvillians' needs now, not continue to put tourism and development at the forefront of Metro’s work—and budget.

The thing is, if you take away Broadway, the music scene, and our sports teams, you should still be left with a great place to live — and that’s what will make people love to live here again. I’m the candidate committed to putting Nashvillians first — in every budget, in every department, in every policy. I will make sure your government is working for you.

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

I think anyone who truly loves Nashville has also been let down by it, especially in recent years. I also strongly believe that together, we can change course.

Nashvillians have seen what happens when governments shift focus from our urgent needs, and it’s not pretty. If you sum up the city-level issues, like roadside litter or street light maintenance, infrastructure in need of attention, commute times growing, and affordability disappearing, I can see why folks may say things are going the wrong way. It’s even more concerning to see that those who put our city on this track, who are running to give us more of the same, are building powerful coalitions against the change we really need.

On a larger level, 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 city – our home – like it’s a hotel room they can trash. And with the state offering a less-than-warm welcome 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 where the residents know this and feel it.

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

The Mayor and Metro Council — myself included — have faced challenges like no other during the past four years. None of us came into office prepared for a pandemic, nor its impact on our health and economy. Still, for the most part we worked hard to ensure that we were both proactive on the issues that matter to our district, and responsive to those who needed help. For me, that also meant stepping in when Metro was failing our residents—like when I had to rent a truck to pick up recycling in the community because the city stopped providing that service.

Sometimes, I’ve stood up to the mayor’s office. When we knew we could make immediate progress on transit before a big referendum, I raised my hand and said we should do the work right in front of us first. When the mayor proposed a private parking deck at the zoo along one of the most dangerous corridors in the city, I fought again and said we needed to prioritize safety. I won that fight.

As a Council Member, I’ve used the office to make important progress on the issues of poverty, affordable housing, protecting women’s access to healthcare, and our changing climate in the last four years. With the support of my colleagues, I was able to shepherd a number of critically needed efforts, including creating a dedicated Office of Homeless Services and a suite of Green New Deal bills. Those were big steps in the right direction, and I’m proud of the progress this Council has made.

Now, we are facing an existential threat from the General Assembly and a vote on a billion-dollar stadium proposal (which passed after the survey was filled out), and while our terms are almost over, our work most certainly isn’t. With the clouds of chaos around us, we can’t be sure what the future holds, but I believe that it is our actions now that residents will remember the most looking back on this Council.

That said, I came into my second term four years ago prepared to say no to the status quo. Our city needed a change of direction, and it became clear early on that the Mayor’s Office would not be delivering fully on that promise.

It has become clear to me that some problems can only be meaningfully addressed by the Office of the Mayor, including ensuring the success of the day-to-day services residents need, acting meaningfully on transit expansion, and bringing affordable housing projects to the forefront of our efforts. That is why I announced my candidacy earlier than most, when we expected the mayor to seek re-election. Other candidates who’ve announced more recently were a little too comfortable with more of the same, in my view.

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?

I agree that this is a top concern. We need to be protecting our neighborhoods’ history and their affordability, not letting them be sold off to the highest bidder—whether a builder or a bachelorette renting for the night. I’m the only candidate with clear plans to address this issue beginning on day one.

Frankly, some other candidates have pursued a strategy of growth without guardrails that exacerbated issues of affordability, where I have fought it at every turn. I was a co-sponsor of the “Do Better” bill that added accountability to our incentive model, and supported the overhaul of tax increment financing to make sure it’s a tool that’s used in a way that isn’t just a fast track to market-rate development.

I am committing to providing the Barnes Housing Trust Fund—one of our most important and effective tools at creating new affordable housing options — $30 million dedicated annually to this effort during my term as mayor. I will also create a dedicated Office of Housing, which will work to acquire grants and federal funds and serve as a coordinator between Metro departments in addition to a focus on housing units. I’ve worked on projects in recent years that faced preventable delays due to things in Metro’s control — like water line connections—and this new office would work to create project pathways with clear timelines that reduce red tape. We should also help nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and developers looking to make a difference in this space navigate the complexities of developing property and accessing assistance. My Office of Housing would also engage other Metro departments and be a part of our long-term plan because housing affordability is interconnected with every other issue we face, from transportation to flooding.

Unfortunately, the state prohibits other tried-and-true methods of ensuring affordability, like ensuring that affordable housing is added to new developments. We have to continue to pursue innovative solutions, like one such program that I’ve been proud to support, which allows residents to pay an affordable rent while the city pays the remainder of the market price. We need to ensure there is both knowledge about the program and support in applying for and implementing it to increase participation.

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

State lawmakers are acting with impunity and singling out the state’s economic center to exert their personal agendas. The state will continue to encroach on our rights and attack our shared progressive values, but our city needs a strong mayor willing to stand up for its residents, and I plan to.

Our city — and cities like ours — is the economic engine of the state. Our people — and our policies — have brought in the money that these state legislators use to improve their far-away counties and to fund state-based programs. We have fought back against hate successfully in the past, like when we defeated a requirement to only issue government and school communications in English. We have options to fight back now, too, and we should start by reopening negotiations around the shiny objects they want to build in Nashville, like an incredibly expensive stadium for tourists paid for using Nashvillians’ money.

The state legislature’s action is not just irritating in the short-term. Hateful legislation has caused residents to consider moving out of Nashville and out of Tennessee. The state breaks our affordable housing tools as quickly as we develop them. They act directly against the voters’ will and cause chaos in the months before our elections. And their efforts to seize control of our Metro Sports Authority and Metro Nashville Airport Authority, bond-issuing entities, could impact the financing of every major city project right as our bond ratings have just improved.

There are some candidates who have more experience working with the state than with Metro, and some of them are telling voters they can fix this problem. But there is no magic spell to be cast; if there were, why is the city-state relationship worse than ever?

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.

Were 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.

The stadium deal is a bad deal for Nashvillians. This proposal is the largest public subsidy for a stadium in NFL history, and our residents shouldn’t be forced to pay out billions of dollars for a facility hosting 10 home games per year; meanwhile our roads flood and potholes go unfilled.

I’m not against upgrading the stadium, or even building a new one – but we have to do it right, and we do know how.

In fact, we’ve done it recently. As a Council member, I took part in the MLS stadium project and supported the idea of a Community Benefits Agreement. Metro Council partnered with Mayor Barry to strengthen taxpayer and worker protections. Meanwhile, our community ensured the MLS deal required building family-sized affordable and workforce housing, a living wage for stadium workers, and a hiring preference for minority contractors, locals, and those who face employment barriers. The team also supports Metro Schools and other youth soccer programs through coaching clinics and equipment, and 8,000 square feet of space is dedicated to childcare and local small businesses. Compare that to the NFL Stadium “platform,” which spends $3 billion on just a stadium, and I think you start to see that those dollars aren’t going very far at all.

Our Nashville Predators have also shown that Nashvillians can enjoy pro sports without emptying their pockets – the team ceased their annual subsidies from the city in 2019 while still providing a long-term commitment to stay. There’s no “campus” or infrastructure commitment from Metro.

Finally, Metro Council Members, me included, are increasingly concerned about the proposal due to the state legislature’s attempts to garner control of the city-run Metro Sports Authority,  as this could have long-term financial impacts on the project.

I do love some of the commitments to affordable housing and design in the East Bank Vision Plan, but the stadium deal actually makes some of these elements—like a safe, accessible boulevard and affordable housing—less likely because of the sales tax and traffic demands that have had the mayor characterizing the spine road as effectively a third lane of I-24. No neighborhood wants that.

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

Nashvillians should know that I am the candidate most experienced in successfully navigating the many complexities of Metro Government and the leader who will tackle the priorities of actual Nashvillians starting on day one. I have a track record of accomplishments and familiarity with the issues that have been on the back burner for too long, like our infrastructure, and I share your progressive values, like inclusivity. I’ve served on the board of our transportation authority and, as its chair, and headed up the Traffic, Parking, and Transportation Committee in the Metro Council. There is no candidate as committed to transit as I am.

I want voters to know that I show up. Whether it’s the work or the fight or responding to crisis, I show up.

I want voters to know that when you’re passing a law or enacting a policy, no one works alone. Being mayor isn’t about photo ops or being on the news; it’s about making a city run well. Make an informed decision by asking for receipts. You’ll see me demonstrate how I’m good at governing—and governing is hard. From daily constituent services to a diverse array of departments to managing a significant workforce to creating a budget that reflects Nashvillians needs and priorities—this job isn’t easy. Voters need to know that I have the experience to get to work on day one.

In light of everything Nashville is facing, I also want voters to remember that governing at the state level is hard too. We’re lucky to have experienced legislators representing Davidson County at the state capitol, and we need them to stay there and fight for us now more than ever—not start from scratch at city hall.

And, of course, you can learn more about our campaign at ReadyForFreddie.com.

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?

It’s a challenge to pick just a few places that Nashvillians and visitors alike should visit! Of course, the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) is a must-see! I describe it as a constant reminder of resilience. The exhibits show us that music has long had the ability to transform trying moments for the Black community and for the nation as a whole. For off-Broadway entertainment, I love to recommend Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge for live music, and the Belcourt for movies and films. The Lane Motor Museum and Jefferson Street Sound Museum are off-the-beaten path experiences. For a great meal or souvenirs, I recommend heading over to The Café at Thistle Farms where your visit makes a big impact.

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.