Mayor Megan Barry is sworn in Sept. 25, 2015
In the end, we had 893 days to judge Megan Barry's performance as mayor. And it's probably the end, and the beginning, for which she'll be remembered.
The beginning, of course, was Sept. 25, 2015, when she was sworn in and became the first woman to hold Nashville's highest elected office. That's no small thing. As young women and girls in Nashville watch a long list of men clamor for the job in August, they will know that something else is possible.
The end came yesterday, when Barry pleaded guilty to felony theft and resigned in disgrace after a scandal surrounding her affair with the former head of her security detail. She and her administration spent 34 days batting away stories about increased overtime expenses, potentially incriminating nude cellphone photos and questionable early-morning trips to the city cemetery, among other things. But eventually, facing the real threat of criminal charges, she made a deal and quit.
What to make of the time in between?
She brought progressive change in areas where it was easiest for her to do so. That's not to say it was inconsequential. She pulled together a diverse staff and appointed Metro's first female, and first African-American, finance director, as well as Nashville's first transgender city board member. She also ushered in a new paid family leave policy for Metro government employees.
But even if Barry's tenure was covered in a progressive gloss — and characterized by her charming personality and hip cultural tastes — it was pocked by disappointing moments that showed her to be more of the same. That is, a leader captured by the Chamber of Commerce and perhaps too blinded by concern for the growth of The Nashville Brand to see the people struggling beneath it.
Barry quite possibly talked about affordable housing more than her predecessor, Karl Dean. And in recent years, her administration committed to increased funding to the Barnes Housing Trust Fund. But they also enforced the eviction of homeless people living at a long-running camp near Fort Negley. That move looked even worse when the administration's vision for the area was revealed years later. The proposed, and since-abandoned, Cloud Hill development planned for the Greer Stadium site near Fort Negley was a sweet deal for well-connected developers, and it turned out the Barry administration had been discussing plans for it since she took office. It was reminiscent of more than one failed Dean project, apparently dreamed up with a select few insiders and then rolled out without much care for what the public would think of it.
The Barry administration also turned out to be just as fond of corporate incentives and tax breaks as the Dean administration, which wasn't surprising given the continued presence of aides like Rich Riebeling and Matt Wiltshire, who had negotiated such deals for Dean. Although she won't be in office to cut the ribbon, perhaps her biggest accomplishment was the courtship of Major League Soccer and the approval of a $275 million soccer stadium. That stadium deal was arguably better than the three that came before it, but the effort put into courting another pro sports franchise looked positively callous in light of what came next. The same week that the stadium plan was approved, Barry announced a plan to end inpatient care at Nashville General Hospital, the city's only safety-net hospital, which serves poor Nashvillians. It blew up in her face, and now the future of Nashville General is a problem for her successor(s) to solve.
Barry disappointed factions of her progressive base in other areas too. Activists, community groups and a few Metro Council members were upset when Barry didn't have their back on a proposal to restrict Metro's cooperation with federal immigration agencies. And with some exceptions, she proved to be more of an obstacle than a partner on the criminal justice and policing reform issues that supporters — particularly African-American supporters — hoped she would address. Despite regular controversy surrounding the Metro Nashville Police Department during her tenure, she largely deferred to the department and Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson. Together they thwarted efforts to bring civilian oversight to the department and declined to take up other reform efforts. Yesterday, as word came that Barry would be able to have her record expunged if she complied with the terms of her plea deal and probation, local civil rights attorney Daniel Horwitz noted her administration's opposition to his efforts to ease expungement requirements for tens of thousands of other defendants.
Mass transit could have been her signature achievement. But now, it's left to Mayor David Briley and other transit boosters to get the funding proposal for the massive light rail plan — which goes before the voters as a referendum on May 1 — over the line.
In many ways, Barry turned out to be like Karl Dean, but with a personality. For what they're worth, opinion polls showed her to be immensely popular even after she admitted to her affair and, really, that's no surprise. She was truly likable, and even while the scandal swirled around her, she could be disarming in person. In the time before she became mayor, her Belmont-area home was often a center of progressive social life. The Barry's hosted soirees where one could meet musicians, ACLU attorneys and LGBT activists. That reputation — and Barry's public support of causes like same-sex marriage — led some progressives to expect more than they were ever going to get.
