Metro election season is heating up this week, with one of the first major mayoral forums taking place Tuesday night.
Following Mayor John Cooper’s decision not to run for a second term, the field quickly expanded. Ten candidates took the stage for WKRN’s mayoral forum: Heidi Campbell, Freddie O’Connell, Matt Wiltshire, Jeff Yarbro, Natisha Brooks, Jim Gingrich, Sharon Hurt, Vivian Wilhoite, Stephanie Johnson and Alice Rolli.
Over the past few weeks, both Gingrich and Wiltshire have aired TV ads, and yard signs have begun popping up throughout the city. With the May 18 qualifying deadline fast approaching, Tuesday night in some ways marked the beginning of a busy season.
An early poll from school choice group Tennesseans for Student Success had Campbell and Yarbro, both Democratic state senators, leading the race going into Tuesday night, with O’Connell, the District 19 Metro councilmember, close behind.
Over two hours, candidates spoke about transportation and infrastructure, housing, education, crime and inequality. With so many topics to discuss, two hours felt insufficient for 10 candidates to differentiate themselves from one another. Following each question, asked by various community leaders, candidates were given one minute to respond, and from the jump it was apparent that the future mayor would need to put in the work to stand out.
“As you can see, all of us on this platform have the same interests,” said Wilhoite. “We want affordable housing. We all want public safety, investment in what's happening in our city, but there's one thing that separates all of us. The will and drive to make things happen.”
Wilhoite, one of the more recent entrants in the race, said that her time as Davidson County property assessor shows she has that energy more so than the other nine candidates — a crop that includes state legislators, Metro councilmembers, business executives and activists.
The first question, asked by novelist and organizer Simone Boyd (who has also contributed to the Scene), triggered a discussion about the recently approved deal to help fund a new stadium on the East Bank. Most of the candidates avoided making substantive statements about the project, with only Gingrich, Hurt and O’Connell taking specific stands in the moment. While Hurt, a Metro councilmember who voted for the deal, spoke in support, Gingrich (who spoke against the deal during the Metro Council's public comment period) and O’Connell (who voted against the deal) both spoke in opposition.
Transportation and infrastructure was one of the main issues of the night. All candidates agreed that Nashville is in dire need of an overhaul, with many of them taking the step to say they would bring greater mass transit to the city during their term. Throughout the night, Wiltshire and Wilhoite referenced public-private partnerships as a tool to solve various problems the city faces, including transportation and housing.
The issue of the city's relationship with the state did not come up in questions, but candidates repeatedly referenced the tensions in their answers. While some, like Brooks, spoke about trying to work with the state and mend the relationship, O’Connell discussed the idea of finding ways to serve the people of Nashville despite the state's continued attacks on the city. Rolli, like Brooks a rare Republican in the race, blamed the city's debt for the tensions.
Another issue on the top of everyone's minds was the rapid development of Nashville, which has led to generally decreased affordability. All of the candidates acknowledged that investments needed to be made in affordable housing as well as in programming and infrastructure to support the city's various communities.
“With all the big developments that we've seen in our city, I still think most Nashvillians know that you're not really a big league city unless you're investing in the Little League fields and in people's neighborhoods,” said Yarbro.
With the limited time, it was difficult to parse through what the candidates’ actual policies would look like. Still, the forum served as an opportunity for the candidates to present their backgrounds and experience. While some of them already have some name recognition due to time in office and other public-facing roles, others, such as Gingrich, are not as familiar to the public.
“I'm not exactly like the other folks on this stage,” said Gingrich, a former executive at AllianceBernstein. “I've never worked in politics. I’ve never run for office.”
Election Day is Aug. 3, with early voting opening July 14. There are more than a dozen forums similar to Tuesday’s scheduled until then, including one Wednesday.Â
