Mayor Freddie O’Connell on Leading In Nashville
Mayor Freddie O’Connell shares how his vision for a connected, livable Nashville is shaping the city’s future through innovation, collaboration, and community-driven leadership.
About Mayor Freddie O’Connell
Freddie O’Connell, a born-and-raised Nashvillian, was elected Mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County in 2023 after nearly a decade representing District 19 on Metro Council. Before entering public office, O’Connell built a career in software development and architecture, working with start-ups and founding his own company—experience that informs his data-driven, systems-oriented approach to city leadership.
A graduate of Brown University and a lifelong advocate for public transit, O’Connell spent 12 years navigating Nashville without a car before buying a biodiesel El Camino off eBay. His personal story—rooted in curiosity, civic engagement, and local pride—reflects a commitment to sustainable growth and equitable access for all Nashvillians.
About Nashville’s Vision
Under Mayor O’Connell’s leadership, Nashville is reimagining how a modern city moves, grows, and lives. His administration has advanced two cornerstone initiatives—Choose How You Move, a long-term transit and infrastructure plan, and the Unified Housing Strategy (UHS), the city’s first comprehensive roadmap for addressing housing affordability.
The Choose How You Move plan, funded through a voter-approved sales tax measure, invests in 86 miles of new sidewalks, upgraded traffic signals, 12 new transit centers, and safer corridors across the city. It reflects O’Connell’s belief that mobility is opportunity and that Nashville’s future depends on reliable, sustainable transportation.
The Unified Housing Strategy complements that vision, coordinating city departments, developers, and community organizations to expand affordable housing, protect existing neighborhoods, and create more pathways to homeownership. With a goal of adding 20,000 affordable homes over the next decade, the plan positions Nashville as a model for collaborative urban planning.
Through these initiatives and a governance style grounded in transparency, technology, and trust, Mayor O’Connell is working to ensure that Nashville’s growth is intentional, inclusive, and built for the people who call it home.
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Spencer:. Mayor Freddie O'Connell, Mayor for Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, welcome to Signature Required.
Mayor O’Connell: Glad to be with you all.
Spencer: It's a real privilege to have you on the show. Admittedly, you and I politically are gonna be on kind of wildly different ends of the spectrum, but personally, you and I have so much in common. Um, born and raised here in [00:01:00] Nashville, both of us. Uh, we went to the same high school, uh, just a couple years apart.
Spencer: Um, I married my college sweetheart. Your partner, Whitney Boone. Mm-hmm. Uh, you've got two kids together. Um, we're both super nerds. Uh, and I mean that in the best way that I, I can, uh, to, uh, to relay and break that news. That's not news to you, is it? You know, I mean, I, I guess not. Well, I think, uh, that comes along with a lot of responsibility, in your shoes, because, you, you've brought a lot of deep thought, to.
Spencer: your vision for Nashville.
Spencer: What is your vision for Nashville?
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah, I think what we have talked about and what I sort of, um, you know, the, the overall approach I took to the conversation we, we had with the city and it's a interesting time 'cause we sit here, in the space of celebrating two years in office. And so it's actually a really wonderful time to kind of reflect on it all.
Mayor O’Connell: But as we were having that [00:02:00] initial conversation with the city a couple years ago, uh, before the election. I had been talking with some friends and they had been, um, you know, there, there was a lot of discussion among people, frequently younger than myself that, uh, people were thinking about leaving. And I started thinking a lot about, well, what is it that brought people here in the first place?
Mayor O’Connell: And what are the challenges that are, uh, keeping people from being able to imagine themselves staying here? And so we invested a lot in that. And so I think to me. What brought me back to Nashville was starting to see a lot of, uh, things that turned out to have been consequences of public leadership, uh, and smart civic decisions that made Nashville a great place to live.
Mayor O’Connell: And so a high quality of life. And again, by the time I got back here, a relatively low cost of living. And so I. I thought about that of just the simple, simple principles of quality of life and cost of living as [00:03:00] focusing on those, giving people more opportunity to stay. And so that's really the, the overall vision of the city.
Mayor O’Connell: And you dig into it in terms of where that means our policy priorities are, we had lagged behind so many other cities that, like Nashville had seen quick growth and we knew we needed some combined investments in transit and infrastructure. Knew we had been losing ground on housing affordability. So we've had to put a lot of emphasis on how public policy and partnerships with the private sector, uh, help us tackle housing affordability.
Mayor O’Connell: And so I think take all that and put it on a, a bedrock foundation of, uh, school service and safety. And that's, we wanna deliver on those fundamentals. Hmm.
Spencer: Carli and I have traveled all across the state of Tennessee doing this podcast, and one of the themes that we hear across the state is a lot of hunger for growth, particularly when you go outside of the metropolitan areas.
Spencer: There's hunger for economic [00:04:00] growth, there's hunger for opportunity. Mm-hmm. And in Nashville. I sense that the story is a little more blended in that if you talk to some, they're like, Hey, Nashville's full. Yeah. And if anybody was in the gridlock at the Nashville Airport a couple weeks ago, they would be saying that maybe at the top of their lungs.
Spencer: So how, from your perspective do you think about growth? Are you interested in more? Do you wanna pause? Like where's your head space for that?
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah, I think on net, um, growth is good for a city and I would so much rather, especially as mayor, be grappling with the challenges of growth rather than the challenges of decline.
Mayor O’Connell: I think that's, you know, I think, uh, one of my predecessors, mayor Carl Dean, put it best in saying the best compliment anyone can ever choose to pay a city is to choose to live there. And so if you have a great city. More people paying you that compliment means, you know, the, the challenge of finding room [00:05:00] for more neighbors.
Mayor O’Connell: And I think, um, that may be one of Nashville's greatest challenges. And so we grew pretty quickly through a period of instability in local government, right? I mean, in the past decade, uh, we wound up having something fairly unprecedented, which is five mayors in 10 years, three mayors in three years, uh, which is a very unusual scenario.
Mayor O’Connell: And it happened at a time of, uh, incredibly rapid growth. And I think what it meant was. As a local government from a public policy standpoint, from a governance standpoint, from a kind of interacting with that growth standpoint, we, we kind of stepped back from it and stopped interacting with our growth.
Mayor O’Connell: And I think if we think about it from that standpoint of not managing our growth, but interacting successfully with our growth, it means those things like. Transit and infrastructure start to offer relief. It means that you have to be intentional about, uh, housing affordability, if you're gonna find room for those new neighbors who are paying you that compliment of choosing to live in your city.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, and we [00:06:00] know we have great strong kind of both brands and identities of Music City Athens, of the South America's healthcare capital. Um, these are all great things and I think they continue to attract people both to the city and the region. But yeah, I mean, I think from my standpoint, I. I want it to be the case that, uh, growth is perceived by people as something that helps contribute to us being vibrant and dynamic and full of opportunity and not this sort of nuisance.
Mayor O’Connell: And it just means that you only see the, the maybe disruptive or, um, less positive characteristics of growth.
Carli: I have to think. 'cause part of what we do on this podcast too is help people understand what it is like to be a local elected official. Because there are so many sitcoms and so many movies that like to make an archetype.
Carli: There are so many. You know, pop culture references to mayors. Right. And so you have a background in tech and you've been a business guy, architecture, you've served in different [00:07:00] capacities in the public sphere. How has that transition to being the guy, the mayor been for you and your family?
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah, I think it's really good.
Mayor O’Connell: Um, that. Nashville. I mean, a few things that we have as advantages that may not actually be typical in other places. I mean, one, we're a consolidated city county. It means that Davidson County is Nashville. I grew up thinking that was normal and when I later discovered mm-hmm. That other places had county government, so I was like, what is that?
Mayor O’Connell: Because we just didn't have that growing up here. Um, two is our local government is nonpartisan, and I think for me, having served on the Metro Council for eight years. That's actually a great way at the most local level to continue conversations, to build coalitions that may not be about scoring points for one or the other political party, uh, but really focusing on solving problems and, and that kind of thing.
Mayor O’Connell: So it means we have a great, um, you know. Combined outlook for all of our 526 square miles. It means we [00:08:00] tend to be collaborative rather than, um, you know, ideological and our outlook to local problem solving and, and kind of partnerships. Um, and so. You know, I, I think also our, the fact that our metro council, while unusually large at 40 members, uh, it also means that almost nobody who's participating at a local level winds up being a career politician.
Mayor O’Connell: Almost everybody on the Metro Council, uh, is working full-time in some capacity and, and frequently in a, a variety of different professions. So for me. Coming in from the background of software and technology in particular, having both worked at startups, um, and publicly traded companies, uh, it was really good to have that perspective of knowing great founders, working with great managers, having a lot of mentorship, uh, and then understanding the importance of the private sector economy from both a, a leadership and a management standpoint before stepping into this as my full-time day [00:09:00] job.
Mayor O’Connell: I think also though having done public policy work, public service, not just on the council for eight years, but serving on a public board and commission for seven years before that, there were a lot of times where it felt like there was a tension between, you know, the things I was doing in professional life and then personal civic life, uh, and family life.
Mayor O’Connell: And now it's actually. I kind of within even a hundred days of taking office, it's nice to not feel like you're an army of one. Hmm. But rather that this has been an opportunity to build and work with almost every day a great team and know that our team sits at the heart of government where. Most of our major departments also then have, uh, really talented leaders, um, working with their own great teams.
Mayor O’Connell: And so, uh, the way the organization of metro government works, it's, it almost feels like, uh, that dynamic of a startup in the mayor's office that then has this more [00:10:00] institutional, larger workforce of 10,000 people. So I think coming to it, not just. With some familiarity with Metro, I think it's really, really hard to parachute in to never having had any depth of experience with government, per se, and do that.
Mayor O’Connell: And so I think having some depth of experience with Metro, but also an extended period, 25 year career. The private sector was a really good balance to start doing this work.
Carli: I've literally never heard an elected official say, when I came on full-time, my life was more seamless. So that's an interesting distinction.
Carli: Well, it's like
Mayor O’Connell: having had two full-time jobs Yeah. For almost eight years. And that's, and then balancing that with family life, um, it's a lot. And so it actually wound up, I think, giving me. More focus, more flexibility, um, to really, you know, hone in on things that were priorities of mine in this role.
Spencer: Mayor, I have to imagine in the spot of substantial [00:11:00] leadership that you hold now, there's this. Tension between trying to represent so many different competing interests that, uh, Carli and I are constituents. You have so many different people that are your constituents. So first off, how do you wrestle with that?
Spencer: The reality that no matter what decision you make, like even down to filling a pothole, someone's unhappy.
Mayor O’Connell: And so how do you, most people are pretty happy about filling the pothole. Yeah. I say that it's just not their pothole. It should have been sooner. It should have been different. Like, oh, right. And those are all the minutiae of it.
Mayor O’Connell: And I think that's, that's a big part of it. And I've, I recognized a couple things a long time ago that I think also helped prepare me for. Um, this moment and taking on this role in a larger sense, right, the geography of Nashville being expansive, 700,000 plus people living together in one city. Um, it is a big task to represent everybody effectively.
Mayor O’Connell: Knowing that, [00:12:00] I think the way our discourse has changed from, you know, maybe everybody used to read the local daily Paper as a way to get news and watch local TV to now. Any given person in the city may have a hundred different sources of information, including podcasts like this. Yeah. Um, and so to, to sort through all that and to kind of sift through what might be true or might be real, I think one of the advantages of local government is trust actually remains higher than almost anywhere else because as I travel the county, which I try to be very intentional about doing, um.
Mayor O’Connell: People can see what I'm doing. Why I'm doing it is a little easier to explain when they see it. And so when we go cut the ribbon on a new school, or we've implemented a series of changes like crosswalk improvements and to show up on site in a neighborhood, talk to neighbors, um, being able to demonstrate that day-to-day work of what the metro government is trying to do is a really important factor in that overall leadership.
Mayor O’Connell: [00:13:00] Now. I mean, yeah, it's absolutely the case that we confront disagreement and, and so the two lessons for me coming into it were that all of this in a public service representative way is that. Tension and balance between listening and leading. And I do have to hear the concerns of the city. And then sometimes we reflect those out and say, look, we've heard the need.
Mayor O’Connell: And that's why a, you know, last November's referendum for instance, on transit was a really a. Clarifying focal moment for the city. Hundreds of thousands of people came out and agreed that this is a step we should take to improve frankly, our platform for future growth. To take a little bit of the edge off, to add some affordability, uh, in a lot of scenarios to improve access, to reduce congestion.
Mayor O’Connell: Lot of wins in there, build more sidewalks, modernize some things including our traffic grid. Uh, so that mattered. The other part of it is. Um, the, you know, the idea that every decision is a [00:14:00] disagreement. Yeah. And so you want as much consensus as you can get around most tables, but you walk away from it knowing that somebody is gonna go out of their unhappy.
Mayor O’Connell: And I, for me, what I found over the past decade is that. I try to be very, um, clear and consistent in explaining at least the why of what we're doing. Something. So if you walk away disagreeing, um, at least it's not gonna be because there was a mystery or that I wish I understood why we were doing that.
Mayor O’Connell: At least we're gonna try to give you a basis for how we made the decision.
Spencer: Hmm. Maybe the last question in the political space before we talk about you personally is, I have to imagine being in Tennessee is also unique for, uh, democrats, for people on the left, you're in a state that is overwhelmingly Republican as a whole, but you're in a pocket of.
Spencer: blue in Nashville. [00:15:00] And I wonder what that's, that's like, because I, I think all of us have had situations where we find ourselves and we look around and we'd be like, Hmm, this is, you know, I feel outta place, a little bit in this moment. And I have to imagine that there's some of that inside, for you.
Spencer: So what is that, that like having, A pocket in Nashville. And why do you think that is? I mean, that may be as much of a political science question as anything, but, uh, what, what, what's your reaction to that dynamic here in Tennessee? Because I think it would be different if, if you were in some other states where the contrast isn't quite so sharp.
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah. I think maybe the most interesting part about that is not just. Growing up here as a Nashvillian, but my mom being from Dixon, right? Yeah. And so, uh, her parents getting there, you know, in the forties, I think, and you know, so her and her sister growing up in Dixon, me having known some of their friends, right?
Mayor O’Connell: Because they, my mom and her sister are both still here, [00:16:00] right? My mom's in Nashville. My aunt has a farm out in Fairview. And so we get out there, um, and. I've traveled, not just the mid-state, but the entire state for most of my entire life, right? I mean, I've been out to Memphis multiple times, Chattanooga, Knoxville, the Tri-Cities, lots of areas within Middle Tennessee.
Mayor O’Connell: Um, and so having traveled the state for my entire life, it's, it was not unlike thinking about, uh, the process of running for mayor. Knowing that I had set foot in almost every corner of the county was really good because it means there's a deeper understanding there. What you're talking about in terms of political science though, may be something more about political attention span because, you know, by the time I got back here after college, um, governor Phil Bredesen made history as recently as 2006 for being the first democratic governor, first governor in the state to win all 95 counties in Tennessee in his reelection.
Mayor O’Connell: That had never happened before.
Spencer: Yeah.
Mayor O’Connell: Just a few years later, 2010, by [00:17:00] the end of his term, a stable, durable, democratic majority in both houses of the general assembly, gave way to a narrow Republican majority, and just a few years after that it was a what has become a durable, stable Republican. Super majority.
Mayor O’Connell: All of that happened. In less than 20 years. Yeah. I mean that is the more extraordinary part, I think, than Nashville suddenly being a blue dot and a sea of red. It's that entire time we've all been Tennesseans and it's just, it is interesting maybe to see urban and rural perspective shift more so than it is to kind of interpret this as Nashville is suddenly, somehow strikingly blue and Tennessee is somehow suddenly strikingly red.
Carli: I wonder, is it tricky though, when you are working with state government, when you're working up at Capitol Hill and so many of those people, whether you see them as adversaries or not, they would love to call you an adversary sometimes. Is that a tricky thing or do you [00:18:00] just try to walk through with education?
Carli: It sounds like you love to educate people in rhetoric and trying to make sure that everyone understands both point of view or it has to be tricky sometimes.
Mayor O’Connell: It is tricky sometimes, but mostly it's tricky. I think. Um, what I found is that person by person, whether you're in the executive branch or the legislative branch, and the same thing is true locally in our Metro council.
Mayor O’Connell: Um, you find people that are there who enjoy the practice of politics and that means they wake up every day excited to go dunk on somebody on social media. Um, and then you find other people who really are there to. Who enjoy civics, who want the city, want the state as a whole to succeed. They want to do the work.
Mayor O’Connell: They might, you know, have a core set of beliefs, but it doesn't mean that they engage with somebody who doesn't share their beliefs as the enemy. And I think that that's the tricky part is that not everybody [00:19:00] is in, you know, in one of those camps exclusively. Right. I encounter people every day who want to do the work of.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, governing and. Anytime you walk into a room with somebody like that, you can sit down at the table and get something done. Um, I think too, it's, it's just such an unusual dynamic that seems to be more recent and the way political conversations play out, but I just, you know, I, I got asked one time a few months ago about how I approach some of these difficult.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, you know, what might superficially appear like tensions, especially with local and state tension. And I just have never found that walking into a room trying to make new enemies is a really good approach for anything. And so, you know, I just, I don't approach any conversation that way.
Carli: I have a running list of t-shirts I wanna make Fred Freddie O'Connell, mayor O'Connell T-shirts.
Carli: One is every decision is a disagreement. Two, are you [00:20:00] playing politics or civics? And three, I don't walk into rooms trying to make enemies. Those are the three that I'm making a t-shirt out of our first segment of this podcast today. I,
Mayor O’Connell: I just, as long as we get a cut. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.
Carli: What's it been like transitioning to such a public life?
Carli: You know, you, you have that structure. It's maybe a little bit different than some of your constituents. You have two daughters, right?
Mayor O’Connell: Yep. Yep.
Carli: I mean, that's tricky in and of itself. I would imagine people say all kinds of things about their dad, and they have this dynamic. What has that been like for your family walking into all of this?
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I, I feel like for the girls, one, we've very intentionally tried to keep it. As normal as possible. I mean, I wake up every day and I'm on breakfast and lunch duty, right? Like I make them breakfast, I pack their lunches. Uh, and that's part of our morning routine. What's your go-to
Spencer: breakfast?
Spencer: Yeah, I was gonna say,
Mayor O’Connell: well, it's not my breakfast, it's what we give them the choice. Right now our older daughter likes either banana muffins or banana [00:21:00] bread, whatever. We can kind of. You know, fine. That's the freshest that week. And um, our, our younger daughter, I don't know if it was because of a series of books we were reading, but she really started enjoying buttered Toast a few years ago.
Mayor O’Connell: So that's still a staple. Oh,
Carli: mercy Watson. Yes.
Mayor O’Connell: So, you know, mercy Watson,
Carli: that pig loved him, some buttered toast. Yes. So we
Mayor O’Connell: read Mercy Watson at a young age and she is enjoyed buttered toast now for a couple years. So it
Carli: always hits. You know,
Mayor O’Connell: it hits, I mean, it's, it's a perfectly good breakfast, especially with some fresh fruit alongside it.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, but yeah, mercy Watson probably put buttered toast higher on the list than some other things. Um, but same thing as that. We try, I mean, for 14 years now I've tried for both girls to be home and available for bedtime stories and as often as I can dinner. I mean, I think. When they saw, particularly our older daughter, kind of became aware of what the Metro Council process was, especially in, you know, meetings that might run a little longer.
Mayor O’Connell: I mean, they got to know early on I was [00:22:00] still, I feel like maybe when the city was in a period of a little more, um, you know, standard operating procedure, ordinary business could. Still get home even on council meeting nights fairly early. But as I got through it and we went through things like the pandemic and, you know, 2020 being this year of Rolling crisis, there were a lot of times when I was, they, they would know that I was at meetings fairly late.
Mayor O’Connell: Um, and so I have to be very conscious of the things that I'm missing. But I also very much have tried to structure my life so that. For their big moments, I'm always there. So for performances, whether it's school or whatever, for athletic competitions, I almost always am able to clear my calendar to be there for the most meaningful moments to them and to me.
Carli: Yeah, I think that's super relatable. I think anytime you're a working parent, there is this rub of being present for your kids, but it's also a conversation. We've had a lot of. I [00:23:00] want them to know that mom and dad are striving to make where they live better.
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah.
Carli: Right. And sometimes that comes with sacrifice.
Carli: Nothing worth having is ever had easy. And so it's this push and pull of being present and them knowing they are the number one priority while still understanding that there are. Bigger powers at play that you have to serve to be part of a community. Um, and that's hard.
Mayor O’Connell: Right? And they see mom being a doctor.
Mayor O’Connell: Mm-hmm. They know she's also very busy. Right. And that her life and the way that the clinic functions being on call on a regular basis, that. Um, that also is a, a tough balancing act. And so I think in some ways it's maybe healthy for them to see that it's not just me that's, you know, putting some pressure on the, the things you're talking about, the, the aspirations, right?
Mayor O’Connell: The being able to take advantage of Nashville's opportunity, uh, which I think we've both done in our respective careers. And [00:24:00] obviously I've had a more recent career shift, but I think that. They see that and it's interesting the lessons they draw from it because I think it, um, you know, I think more recently there's been a shift in kind of how, not just kind of the process of hateful discourse, but what seems to be maybe an uptick in political violence is perceived by a teenager whose dad is in the spotlight a little bit.
Mayor O’Connell: Um, and then similarly. What it means to work hard and what that, you know, what that produces in terms of income and opportunities. 'cause they know we both, we're really good. Students had like, created opportunities for ourselves in both education and for, uh, you know, trying to set up our lives to be able to provide for them.
Mayor O’Connell: But we have that conversation very intentionally too that, um, you know, it, there are, there are a lot of conversations about sort of. Just overall work ethic and our [00:25:00] expectations, which isn't about good grades so much as it is effort. Making sure you understand the material, the things that really matter, but also not to take any of this for granted,
Spencer: Mayor, I wanna bring us to a couple current events in Nashville, from a policy perspective and also just get whatever insights you have to share on. I wanna talk a little bit of the Boring company and I want to talk a little bit of Nissan Stadium. so let's start with the boring company. I don't even know how to lead this question in correctly because there's a lot to, examine here.
Spencer: and I resisted making a really bad pun. Uh, there. I just wanna let you know you should Good for you. Be appreciative for that. Yeah, I'm, I'm deeply appreciative. Yeah. Okay. so why don't, for those that have no idea what this is, that aren't listening from Nashville or Tennessee, which is a lot. what is the Boring company?
Spencer: What has been some of the, the story and your outlook towards, this initiative?
Mayor O’Connell: Sure, and to be clear, I, I'm not [00:26:00] gonna even try to speak as a representative of the company, but more from a, what I know standpoint as a, as a civic leader, you know, the Boring Company is one of Elon Musk's portfolio of companies that,
Mayor O’Connell: You know, tries to dig tunnels in markets as a part of a transportation offering that, as best I can tell, tends to also roll through with, Teslas and a ride sharing model. And, and anybody who's tracked Tesla knows that they're working on not just electric vehicles, which was kind of their origin story, but.
Mayor O’Connell: A lot of automation, a lot of robotics, a lot of AI capabilities. And so today their, um, most successful venture is in Las Vegas as a part of a convention center, uh, effort in Las Vegas. and they did successfully dig tunnels that, uh, are, you know, operating with a Tesla driven ride share. Um, and so it's an interesting model because it is.
Mayor O’Connell: [00:27:00] Proprietary. it is, you know, operated as a business venture and they, I think, produce revenue primarily through that rideshare model. And so they proposed to bring something, similar here to Nashville with an initial proposal to connect the airport to a site or sites in downtown. And so, you know, we were kind of introduced to this conversation by the state of Tennessee, the governor's office, and tdot, you know.
Mayor O’Connell: A year ago, they kind of came in and said, Hey, we're interested in Nashville. And you know, our office was invited to a meeting to discuss it and, Walked out and didn't hear anything for a year, and then suddenly it's like, we're coming and we're coming for real, and like we're pulling out all the stops and suddenly there's an announcement at the airport and so forth.
Mayor O’Connell: Um, and it does seem to be a very strongly supported initiative by the state. I do think, you know, again, you look at political discourse right now and rewind five years, and I think a venture by. Elon [00:28:00] Musk business innovator is a very different conversation than this arriving in the immediate aftermath of the implementation of Doge and the Trump administration.
Mayor O’Connell: And so there is a lot of politics to the consideration of this as a business venture, but I think from our standpoint as a city, the most responsible thing we can do, is look at it as a. You know, development proposal that's in the pre-application process. And at every moment there's a permitting scenario or, you know, interaction with, something in government.
Mayor O’Connell: We're gonna do the appropriate operational and life safety reviews. And so we assign someone in our office who's our director of performance management to work with our, director in chief of Fire and Office of Emergency Management, to kind of jointly lead, solicitation of questions from within Metro.
Mayor O’Connell: That's. Fairly similar to what we have done on things like the East Bank or major, planning initiatives and that kind of thing. So that's kind of where we are right now. We've submitted a round of [00:29:00] questions, we've gotten a first round of answers. We've had, uh, conversations with the state, and I imagine that process will be iterative as this, as they continue to evaluate feasibility on it.
Mayor O’Connell: Hmm.
Spencer: Mayor, do you give any weight to conspiracy theories that Elon Musk may have, uh, intentionally caused the six hour gridlock delay at the airport, uh, in an effort to provide support for the boring project? Or do you dismiss that?
Mayor O’Connell: It's not entirely clear to me how he could have done that. Uh, I mean, there seemed to be a variety of factors I've looked.
Mayor O’Connell: Death, the airport's preliminary review. My understanding is, uh, the ride sharing companies that exist today, um, are coming in to participate in some more of that review. Um, you know, I will say it this way, both in regard to the boring proposal itself and that. We've known for a long time that airport access is an increasing concern.
Mayor O’Connell: In fact, it recently came up completely independently of this before the boring proposal was [00:30:00] serious at a greater Nashville Regional Council meeting as a regional issue. We have certainly taken into account with our Choose How you Move, uh, program proposal, which is now, you know, funded and in implementation.
Mayor O’Connell: And so it's funny to have all of this happening while we have been trying to make that initiative successful because. Airport access is very much on our minds. And so we've got, uh, uh, things in play right now that we think will improve access to the airport for transit users. Hmm.
Spencer: And let's spend a minute on Nissan Stadium.
Spencer: Um, those that are just listening, uh, we're not in our normal podcast studio. And if you're, uh, able to rotate your head, you and I can at least see, uh, the stadium. We're just across the
Mayor O’Connell: river.
Spencer: Yeah, that's right. So, as I understand it, and you can correct me if, if I'm wrong on this, you've been a little more skeptical of the investment in stadium construction, uh, and, and that [00:31:00] world.
Spencer: I won't put any more label on it. I'll, I'll let you do that. Um, but I've spent more time in the camp. Believing that the presence of the titans has been of incredible economic benefit Yeah. Uh, for the city. And so can you just help me understand your perspective of Nissan Stadium and what role the taxpayer does or does not have in that?
Spencer: And just your perspective. 'cause it is a big project.
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah. I would say my outlook on this is. As we reflect on the conversation about growth that's been playing out here, if I think about where we are in a resident led, you know, scenario, we're trying to offer as much public benefit as we can for every public dollar we collect as a local government and as a state government.
Mayor O’Connell: You know, this conversation was not ever me saying the titans, uh, aren't the right value proposition for the city, or, um, [00:32:00] we shouldn't have, you know, stadiums or the idea of public land infrastructure or other considerations there. But it seemed to me that the time we were having that conversation. The concerns that I was hearing across the entire county, being principally cost of living concerns, that that might not be the best time to literally set a record for the amount of public financing going into a football stadium.
Mayor O’Connell: Like that's a, a. A league record that Nashville set, and it seemed to be not only ill timed from a priority standpoint, but among records we could be setting, I'm not sure that's ever one that I would want to be known for in terms of how we approach public investment, right from from my outlook. The Titans obviously are part of Nashville being an incredible sports ecosystem.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, and the success of the NFL draft, the NHL All-Star game. If you look at the other things we've done since that [00:33:00] original stadium got built in the late nineties and and approved by Nashvillians, um. Where we've gotten to with Bridgestone and the Preds with, um, Nashville, SC and Geodis Park, these are more sophisticated deals where we've intentionally sought to de-risk taxpayers and in fact put less metro cash at, at, on the table in the outset.
Mayor O’Connell: And then over the years to make sure, uh, the backing actually takes, uh, a lot of the risk to taxpayers off and makes the public investment. Overall considerably smaller. And if we looked at the entire landscape of stadiums and multiple leagues from MLB at NFL to NBA across the country, you're tending to see a trend where the private investment dramatically outweighs the level of public investment.
Mayor O’Connell: And I think that was something we didn't seriously entertain in that conversation. It's not to say that, uh, the stadium shouldn't have been built or even that metro shouldn't have [00:34:00] participated, but rather, um. If we look at the landscape, I feel like maybe we participated an imbalance in the conversation.
Mayor O’Connell: In the meantime, what I said to, you know, Burke Nihill, uh, in the process of concluding that citywide conversation in our citywide election was, you know, we're not gonna re-litigate anything. We're gonna work with you all as partners, and we have, and right now, today, you can see the stadium fully under construction.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, we've had a good two year process of interacting with them, not just on the stadium and that process, but surrounding infrastructure, uh, the overall East Bank development process. Uh, and you know, I don't, I don't think they would be surprised to hear me say, I think, uh, what happens inside the stadium is also gonna matter for time.
Mayor O’Connell: And so, uh, it's a, it's a tough start to the season for the Titans this year.
Spencer: Yeah, that's, that's true. I've, uh. Been a lifelong Titans fan, uh, there from the very first game. And I tell you, I carry those [00:35:00] scars, um, on my back. I, one way that, uh, we like to try to get in most of our podcast is a little bit of a rapid fire question section of just things that it's not professional to ask of our guests, but we ask them anyway.
Spencer: Great. And so we kind of have you trapped in the chair. And it's gonna be awkward if you leave at this point. And so
Carli: Carli and I, that's why he has the security detail. Yeah, that's exactly
Spencer: right. Oh, sorry. I've got another appointment from across town. Yeah. So Carli and I each have kind of a fun question.
Spencer: So Carli, why don't you take the first one? I'll do the second and then we'll bring it home.
Carli: You know, I'm a transplant, so spend, you guys are these national unicorns, right? But I came from Detroit.
Mayor O’Connell: Oh, wow. Yeah. And
Carli: so the first time I got my learner's permit, the first time I got in our Yukon to drive, I Hydroplaned.
Carli: On ice. Oh gosh. It's just how you grow up in the mitten, as we call it. So when two inches of snow means that mad children are home for an entire week and I can't buy bread. It is hard for [00:36:00] this transplanted Yankee to have any understanding. So my guess is after hearing your heart today, you know, if it was just a matter of putting an extra snow plow on the road, you would've done it a long time ago.
Carli: And so would your predecessors, can you give me like. A little bit of a bird's eye view about why this issue is complicated for our city.
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah, sure. We're a southern city and I mean, we grew up and you may get one snowfall a year, whereas having gone to school in Providence, I mean, they get. Feet of snow every year, just like most any northern state.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, and so Michigan being the same way, uh, I mean the farther north you get, the more snow is on the ground and by extension, the more I think you put into weather related resources. I'd say the good news is on a year over year basis, I knew the year we took office, um, that we had a tough moment. And it was tough for two reasons.
Mayor O’Connell: One. Um, lot of upfront snowfall [00:37:00] followed by incredibly low temperatures. That meant that surface ice happened, and then freezing rain happened on top of it. So it wasn't just snow. It was stuff that is very, very difficult to plow. But that notwithstanding, we had. Started to make as a city investments in snowplows this past January.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, it was funny because we were so effective. We updated the routes. Uh, we had snowplows going into neighborhoods and on streets that had not seen a snowplow in decades. and I had, I. Including my own kids, multiple people saying, couldn't you have done a slightly worse job so that we could have another snow day?
Mayor O’Connell: And so we've made systematic improvements, not just in the equipment we have, but in the route planning, and the scheduling and all of that. And so we've had our Nashville Department of Transportation really working on it. So there's now state-of-the-art snowplows. We're trying to be able to offer, you know, real time updates on where they are so people can have some sense of where they are.
Mayor O’Connell: Updated and improved and expanded the snow [00:38:00] routes. and so hopefully year over year you're seeing improvements.
Carli: So we don't have to have snow apocalypse is what we're saying. We're hoping we do not end up,
Mayor O’Connell: and again, we had a few pieces of luck with the weather, but even with, um, some real inches of snow on the ground.
Mayor O’Connell: Uh, the response we saw out on the streets was a big deal. And of course, we can award coordinate with tdot. They've got plows that operate statewide on the interstates and places like Riley Parkway. And so, um, that level of coordination is also very, very important.
Spencer: All right, mayor. So for mine, um, I happen to have it on good authority that during COVID you have a pretty strong passion for recycling, and that when things shut down, you became the recycling man for the neighborhood to make sure that it continued.
Spencer: Well, for me, I have this long held conspiracy that when you see the recycling hole and you see the trash hole, uh, when you're kind of walking down, uh, you know, an airport or [00:39:00] something, um, I tend to think that all the holes kind of combine together at the bottom. And I'm never really convinced that the recycling actually does make it to recycling, and they don't just all throw it away anyway.
Spencer: But I figure if there's a guy that knows. You know it. So have you seen it with your own eyeballs? Can you lay this conspiracy theory to rest for me?
Mayor O’Connell: I have. It's pretty amazing actually. You're, and I'm trying to think of why I was out there. It may have been. I think it might've even been before I got elected to metro ca.
Mayor O’Connell: Oh yeah. It was, it was, uh, part of my city academy. We went out to the recycling facility off of Omohundro and it's pretty impressive. They have mechanical sorters that, you know, kind of separate the plastic and any glass that might be in there from the paper and cardboard. And I mean, it all goes into sort of separate streams to be appropriately recycled now.
Mayor O’Connell: Obviously there's stuff that can't, and like if you just, you know, dump your entire, uh, you know, airport cheeseburger that you didn't like into the recycling with [00:40:00] all the other, you know, paper and whatever else, there are things that, uh, can contaminate it, but, uh, it's, it's pretty impressive to see it with your own eyes.
Mayor O’Connell: What happens there. And I can't remember too, I think we had a student maybe that. Kind of started with the bin and went all the way through to the, the point of the recycling facility and then kind of followed the trucks out with their different things. So, um, it's, it's a real thing where you're looking at expanding it.
Mayor O’Connell: and, and so much of it though, right now today, does depend on some level of individual responsibility. But we've also expanded that. And another thing that I've seen with my own eyes, which is we have a limited. pilot for food scraps, basically composting. That was oversubscribed on the day we started it, with 750 homes.
Mayor O’Connell: But it is amazing because that simple thing with 750 homes, a handful of schools has diverted literal tons of food waste away from landfills.
Carli: Mm-hmm. Peter bumped both of your conspiracy theories today.
Spencer: You [00:41:00] know, maybe a little plant tour would help put my skepticism at ease so we could make that possible.
Spencer: All right. Well, mayor, here's how we wrap every podcast. I've got, three short sentences with a fill in the blank at the end. Okay. so if you'll fill it in with the one word or a short phrase that you think completes the thought, Okay. Ready? I'm ready. Okay. I want Nashvillians to be able to say, my first term was the time when blank.
Mayor O’Connell: I want Nashvillians to believe that when we got to the end of my first term, we realized it got easier to stay.
Spencer: Hmm. Number two. One thing I wish more people understood about local government is
Mayor O’Connell: blank.
Mayor O’Connell: One thing I wish people understood about local government is that all of the small things add up to big changes over time. Hmm.
Spencer: And the last one, the biggest challenge Nashville faces on affordability right now is [00:42:00]
Mayor O’Connell: blank. The biggest challenge Nashville faces on affordability right now is housing. Hmm.
Spencer: Mayor O'Connell, it's been a real treat to have you here. as I started off our time together and as I finish it, having the ability to have discourse and understand, even those that have wildly different perspectives, is super important. I did speech and debate all throughout high school and college, and the mark of a good debater.
Spencer: Is that they should be able to argue either side of a position, yes or no. And you can't, for the life of you determine which one they actually believe. That's when you truly understand each side of an argument and are equipped to be able to move forward and change hearts and minds. and so I think from a leadership perspective.
Spencer: I see the intentionality that you have in trying to assess a city of [00:43:00] 700,000 people and as leaders, both Carli and I also can appreciate that, no matter what decision you make, there are gonna be people that passionately disagree. but what I can say for those that would ask me in the recap of this is that, uh, mayor O'Connell would invite, that disagreement, and would invite, uh, different perspective.
Spencer: because I do sense that even if the decision isn't changed, uh, you'll take it seriously. and, as. Two of your 700,000 constituents. we are appreciative for that and we're appreciative for your time here
Mayor O’Connell: today. Yeah. Well thanks for the opportunity to visit with you both. I hope this is not the last time we talked.
Mayor O’Connell: Yeah.
