Mayor Cooper has weathered Nashville’s storms well, and worked to ensure Nashvillians do the same

BY BILL FREEMAN

It’s hard to believe how quickly time flies. Just a few short years ago, with all of us believing our city was running smoothly, a new mayor was elected. Soon after celebrating his win, Mayor John Cooper was faced with just about every challenge imaginable. According to a December 2019 Forbes article written by Nashvillian Tim Pagliara, Mayor Cooper inherited a city that was nearly in receivership. “After the prior administration had awarded $167,000,000 in economic incentives,” Pagliara wrote, “the city could not balance the budget without selling assets like the Nashville Thermal Plant. Which, IMHO, is like selling your living room furniture to pay your electric bill. … State law mandates a balanced budget.”

When Cooper found himself in that position, he made the hard decision to announce a 34 percent increase in property taxes. While that decision was originally unpopular, a recent Tennessean column explains that Nashville still “has the lowest tax and fee burden per household of any of its peer cities, according to a 2020 Elliott Davis consulting firm financial analysis comparing Music City to Austin, Charlotte, Denver, Indianapolis, Jacksonville and Louisville.”

Then, Mayor Cooper was hit with repeated, difficult challenges. Tragedy struck our city in brutal back-to-back episodes. In March 2020, a deadly cluster of tornadoes swept through Middle Tennessee, leaving vast destruction and costing the lives of 25 people, including two here in Nashville. “It would go down as the longest tornado path for Middle Tennessee and second-longest by all accounts since the late 1800s,” reported Fox Weather. “In all, 25 people died in the twisters that night; hundreds more were injured. It’s the sixth-costliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history.” budget is stable with the mayor allotting federal, state and local funds to items such as to address homelessness and to create a new economic incubation and innovation partnership at Fisk University named for the late entrepreneur Darrell Freeman.” The mayor also addressed the recycling issues, announcing earlier this month that recycling services in Nashville’s urban services district are increasing from once to twice a month. The city has also hired its first night mayor “to streamline the relationship between nightlife industries, city services, and the desires of residents.”

Only two days after the tornadoes left massive devastation and grief in their paths, COVID-19 made its first appearance. Tennessee’s first reported case of the virus landed in Williamson County. We all know what happened from there. It swept through our nation and our city, taking lives and shutting everything down.

Then, Christmas Day 2020 saw the detonation of a bomb in an RV parked in downtown Nashville, which — though it thankfully took no lives aside from that of the bomber — impeded internet and phone service for many across the county. As Mayor Cooper surveyed the scene that morning, he said, “It’s so shocking that on Christmas morning, this time of greatest hope, you have a bombing.” In addition to tornado recovery efforts and the ongoing pandemic, the mayor now had potential infrastructure problems to face. Other challenges in his first term have included issues with trash and recycling, ongoing problems with traffic, and downtown Broadway being overrun with partiers, making safety an issue for many.

— and he is to be commended for them.

I also include the building of a new Tennessee Titans stadium as a win for Mayor Cooper. Though some have questioned the wisdom of this deal, as I noted back in July, “When Nashville agreed to build a stadium for the NFL franchise, we as much as agreed to maintain it. … [We agreed] that a first-class facility must be provided for the team. … To keep the current lease with the Titans, as taxpayers we would be paying tens of millions of dollars per year for stadium maintenance and improvements. … The primary funding source for the stadium will be the Titans and visitors to Nashville and the stadium campus.”

Mayor Cooper has gone through challenges and tragedies that most city or county administrators have never seen the likes of. How many, after all, have faced multiple tornadoes across 60 miles of their regional landscape, the local impact of a global pandemic and a downtown bomber in their first year, let alone first term? Mayor Cooper has weathered all the storms well while working to ensure that Nashvillians will always land on our feet. And from all

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