Councilmember Jeff Preptit sits in Noshville Delicatessen, a Nashville staple situated in his council district. It’s one of his favorite restaurants in town. While he bemoans the 3 p.m. closing time, he raves about the weekend brunch options. “It’s a sleeper brunch spot,” he says.
A native of Bristol, Tenn., Preptit made his way to Nashville after law school to work in the public defender’s office. After three years there, he was hired as a staff lawyer for the ACLU.
He doesn’t look old enough to have a résumé.
Preptit is just 30 years old, one of the youngest members of the Metro Council. He won his seat in August, garnering 57 percent of the vote in a three-way race and avoiding a runoff. When asked to name the biggest standout among first-term councilmembers, nearly all second-termers identify Preptit without hesitation.
In a council filled with firsts, Preptit’s win is among the most notable. He’s the first Black person to represent District 25 in the Metro Council. He doesn’t shy away from his identity as a progressive lawmaker — a stark departure from Councilmember Russ Pulley, a fairly conservative former FBI agent who preceded Preptit as the district councilmember here.
District 25 encompasses much of Green Hills and Oak Hill. Only 4 percent of the residents are Black or African American, and the median household income is over $120,000 — nearly double the median income of Davidson County. The majority of residents in the district own their homes; Preptit is a renter.
“Conventional wisdom would say that someone of my pedigree couldn’t win in District 25,” Preptit says, “but I think what we’re seeing is a shift in what we want out of our city.” He’s keenly aware that he may be to the left of his district on some issues, particularly those involving law enforcement.
Instead of seeing those potential disagreements as contentious, he views them as opportunities to engage in a dialogue with his district. “I think that where there is that tension, where there is that conflict,” Preptit muses, “the most important thing is opening clear lines of communication.”
Preptit is among the most communicative councilmembers in and out of the council chambers. He has developed a reputation early on as a frequent questioner in committees.
“Luck favors the prepared,” Preptit says, grinning.
Quin Evans Segall
On the West Side, Councilmember At-Large Quin Evans Segall and District 20 Councilmember Rollin Horton intend to take on a massive project with long-ranging implications: reforming the zoning code.
Horton sees this effort as integral to lowering housing costs. “It’s gotten to the point where a lot of the people who live here couldn’t afford to buy a house today,” he says. “So it’s inaccessible, even to our own residents.” Reforming the “outdated” zoning code, Horton says, must be treated as “an emergency requiring urgent action.”
Where Preptit excels at oratory, Horton is more of a quiet technocrat. Evans Segall is similarly wonkish and equally eager to dig into the minutiae of the zoning code. All three are lawyers, part of a freshman class unusually saturated with legal expertise.
Evans Segall has been labeled by many observers as the heir apparent to former Councilmember At-Large Bob Mendes, who now serves as Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s chief development officer. She’s quick to note that “nobody can be Bob Mendes,” but says she assumes the comparisons stem from her background as an attorney who’s practiced transactional law.
While Horton and Evans Segall hope their first four years in office can lay the groundwork for transformational changes in the way Nashville grows, District 4 Councilmember Mike Cortese has a more intangible goal: building trust.
“I would hope somebody would look at my time on the council and say, ‘He really built up trust within the community,’” says Cortese. “I’m a big believer in the democratic system,” he adds, before heading off on a tangent about how the internal waterways and manufacturing capability of the United States make us uniquely positioned to bring back jobs from overseas, if we could just stop focusing on what divides us.
Like Preptit, Cortese is charismatic, exuberant and optimistic about the future of Nashville.
But while Preptit unabashedly identifies as a progressive, Cortese avoids being referred to as a Democrat. His district is among the more conservative in the county, breaking for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election and only slightly favoring Joe Biden in 2020. “I ran as an independent,” Cortese says, “and I plan on governing as an independent.”
Cortese views himself as a bridge builder, someone who can bring together residents with diverse viewpoints and encourage productive dialogue about moving the city forward.
Where his predecessor, outspoken conservative Robert Swope, worked against the 2018 transit referendum — even going so far as to propose his own plan — Pittsburgh native Cortese looks to work alongside O’Connell in his effort to reimagine the city’s transportation system. “Growing up in a city that had a really robust public transportation system and seeing how that helped residents and small businesses all over the county,” Cortese says, “I feel I can help relay that story and get people to understand the benefit of transit here.”
Rollin Horton
This Metro Council will face an immense amount of pressure over the next four years, as they manage the reverberations of the Titans stadium deal and development of the surrounding East Bank, navigate the process of holding a transit referendum, work to reform the zoning code, and grapple with decisions regarding policing and public safety.
While progressives may wield more power this term than in years past, they do not make up a majority of the body. Movement on countywide issues will still require working across ideological lines.
Councilmembers across the political spectrum agree that Nashville is at a crossroads. Residents are unhappy with the ever-increasing number of big-city problems they have to face. The next four years, under the leadership of this Metro Council, will be pivotal in determining whether the city can avoid crumbling under the weight of its own success.
Nicole Williams writes the Scene column “On First Reading,” an online recap of the Metro Council’s bimonthly meetings.
