Twenty-one candidates qualified to run for at-large seats on the Metro Council.
The campaign for at-large is unique. Because the top five vote-getters win, candidates typically remain positive, and surprising candidates can sneak into the winners’ circle.
Early voting for Metro Council and mayoral elections starts July 14, with Election Day following Aug. 3. A runoff, if needed, would come in September.
Our latest Q&A with an at-large candidate features Jonathan Williamson, a first-time candidate and business systems analyst who has held leadership positions with community groups including the local NAACP chapter.
Previously, we spoke with candidates Burkley Allen, Russ Pulley, Quin Evans Segall, Marcia Masulla, Jeff Syracuse, Zulfat Suara and Delishia Porterfield. This interview has been edited for length.
You said you don't think Heidi Campbell is for the people. Who in the mayor's race is?
Currently I'm trying to scan the landscape like everybody else. I have good relationships with quite a few of them. Jeff Yarbro, Freddie O'Connell, Vivian Wilhoite. Top three, definitely. I'm pulling for them three.
What about them is good?
Specifically with Jeff, he's worked with the state and done so much great work. He's worked with our nonprofits and community-based organizations. Freddie, on the other hand, has worked in the council. Mr. Policy. He probably memorized the charter by now. Vivian, as property assessor you know the tax code, you know the levy. Same type of policy that Freddie comes with, and knowledge of the terrain and people. She's very personable. They're great people, and I've seen what they've done for Nashville. I wish we had three mayors.
You've said in one of your questionnaires that you think a property tax rate increase will be necessary in the next four years. They were able to pass a budget without an increase Tuesday night. Why do you think it will be necessary?
Mainly because of all the spending we've done. Usually when you buy a new TV, you need a new remote, you need a new Bluetooth speaker, you need a new couch. You gamble a little bit, you get some return. Usually, people pull their hand out and say, "I'm going home when I'm up." I'm not sure Nashville's going to do that anytime soon. How much? We're going to see. The state just lowered some funding for property tax freezes for seniors, but if you're not one of our golden members of society, our stuff is going up. My trash is going up. I know my property is going up. It's just a matter of time at this point. We're going to have to make a lot of tough decisions. I don't see a fix where it's going to level out. The Federal Reserve didn't do the rate increase last week or the week before. That's great. But we've got to be naive to think there's not going to be one or two more by the end of 2023. It's definitely coming. I like to tell people the truth. I strongly believe things are going to go up so it's best to be on top of it. We have to buckle down and I would suggest we do it now.
How should Metro replace the community oversight board in the wake of state legislation gutting it?
The talks I've been having, they want to shrink it down to seven. Leadership in the police department were saying maybe a four-three split, where three or four can be from the community and then maybe three or four picked by, say, the Fraternal Order of Police. Experts, not just police officers. I think they want to change the title to "service oversight committee" or something of that nature. They're doing a rebrand. That's kind of OK that they think they're going to pull in professionals instead of officers. They'll have to be vetted. I hope we're going to put together a vetting process where we understand who these three or four people are on both sides. I see that as what they're trying to do. It's going to take some negotiation. It's going to take some checks and balances. Once they gutted the subpoena power, what are you doing, writing notes home? It doesn't do much. It's going to take a lot of collaboration. I believe the FOP and MNPD understand that it's vital, and this is their way of trying to come to a middle ground. If that's what we're going to do, we need at least a 20-page document of rules, a constitution of what this new COB-plus is supposed to look like.
You've criticized the Titans stadium deal. How could it have been better?
From what I saw, we could have gotten some Botox. We could have gotten some Botox for this current stadium and tightened up, if you will. Instead, we went and got the full BBL. I don't think that was necessary. The numbers show about $700, $750, $800 million to do a good facelift. Some repairs. Hold the place together. Instead we went the $2.2 billion route. Things I would have liked to have seen? Make the parking lots bigger. Do some outside structures that go above ground. How about we deal with our dessert here, the full East Bank. Let's make that equitable with different spaces for nonprofits and businesses, not just Jamba Juice and Starbucks and Lululemon. I would love to see some of that money that went into the stadium given to the actual area. I want it all over the county, but if we had to put that somewhere else, I would have just went with the facelift. Let's clean up the Cumberland. ... Or, to schools. We could have done better if we didn't spend a whole billion or so. It could have been spread around: schools, infrastructure in and around the East Bank and that same infrastructure around North Nashville.
Was it possible to spread that money around? Various pots of money were earmarked specifically for the stadium.
With a better council, yes. When our council is not giving financial disclosure statements with Titans checks, yes. When our council understands our city is in dire need. We just capped out one of the most spendingest four-year council in quite some time, and then we just threw a Titans stadium at the end. Current councilpeople, my opponents, are now doubling down, throwing out numbers, trying to finesse people. My opponents are back and forth on what this really is. To me, it's a bad deal. It could have been negotiated differently. If the state didn't want to put in, we could have told the Titans we were doing the facelift. As a city, we're not about to sit here and hand you this full BBL when there's more to this city. Better negotiations could have been had with better people on council.
You said, "the city has created a funnel of Black erasure and economic disenfranchisement’s for the working class people of Nashville." How do you stop that on council?
With me, it's building a coalition. I know we have the Black/minority caucus. It's just making that stronger. The caucus is usually inclusive with the council, which is great. We have to build that outside the council. We have to build connections, different liaisons, opening those doors of access. ... Creating that with the community and more than having 10 minority/BIPOC in the council. The city is bigger than these 40 people. For example, [Tuesday] night, the Morris Memorial Building. Metro could have bought that property [Tuesday] night. They said no because it's about $45, $48 million to redo it. But hey, we just spent $2.2 billion less than 90 days ago. That would have been a landmark. It currently is a historical African American building. There's not many places left that have such a rich history. That was a small erasure that now the next council will have to try to get. I don't know if it's too late. There goes another piece erased. I don't think it's intentional. The development has created a funnel where it's very easy for a lot of our pillars, staples of Blackness in the city to be pushed to the side. We can't necessarily gather funds individually to purchase some of these properties. I look for our city government to save some.
On your website you talk about wanting to “mandate new developments to incorporate equitable resources [for] renters across Davidson County.” How can you mandate that, with courts and the state pushing back?
It would have to be something in the fine print. If you're going to come in and develop, put up some sidewalks. Even if it's just that property. You can't build here unless you're building a sidewalk or some type of equitable give-back. If you're going to get it through Davidson County, we need to have something in there that gives back. I don't care if it's an organization. I don't care if it's the local school, the local park, sidewalks. Something that shows we're not just coming here to build a tall-and-skinny. You're giving back.
Are you talking about developments on private property or on city-owned land?
Both.
A federal court said the sidewalk plan was illegal and when we've tried to do inclusionary zoning for affordable housing, the state has preempted it. So how can you actually do that on private property?
That's why I listed about four different things. Sidewalks is one. We live in the South, and personally I know nobody's really walking that much. But I know the people are asking for sidewalks. Parks, schools, environmental, trash in the area. That's five different things. They can pick two, three others that they think will be a beneficial give-back, but something that's an equal exchange. You're getting this property for dirt-cheap and you're going to turn it into millions. You can at least give something to the local community. If it's illegal and the state wants to kick it out, I've already established we're going to have to sue the state as far as we can go. I'm not really for the "let's sit down, buddy buddy, and have coffee." At this point we're going to have to sue them on a lot of things. If they block us over sidewalks, we'll have to sue for that. But there are still four more things, and that's just off the top of my head, that these property developers can come together and do.
There was a debate recently about whether Metro should pay for gender-affirming care for city employees. Where do you stand on that?
This is something I told Planned Parenthood. They just announced and gave me the "thumbs up" but not a full endorsement, and I think this is why. Because I'm not sure. On their questionnaire, it asked yes, no or maybe. I put maybe. I want to see more information. I want to see more data on what's that number look like. How much more money is being allocated? I don't believe it's a large number, but I may be wrong. I really want to see where the numbers are on that. I don't want anyone to have a health emergency where they try to operate on themselves. Or they try to take things in their own hands, get drugs and chemicals and tools off the black market and then try to harm themselves or others. I don't want that to happen, but I also want to know how much it's going to cost. Public health policy is what I'm running on. Everything public health needs to be reevaluated in Nashville.
You mentioned public health. I saw some vaccine hesitancy on your social media. Was Metro right to help distribute the COVID vaccine to thousands of people?
Oh Nashville, I am one of the unvaccinated, my brother. I didn't make up in my mind to do it. The part I didn't like was when they were mandated. That made it a little weird for me. Should the city have done it? Yes. Nashville, we were a hot spot. I trusted that they were meant well, I just didn't feel they were for me. The problem I had was when they mandated it and certain people couldn't go to work. I wasn't mad at anybody. We've seen how our city navigates through it. I just may have not mandated it so much. Lockdown was necessary. Restrictions, distance were necessary. I applied for a job on Charlotte Avenue. I didn't get it. One thing in the interview was, "Oh, we're vaccinated here." I really wanted the job. Hopefully we won't have to deal with that again. Let's mandate property. Let's mandate some give-backs for parks and schools. But we mandated our health. I still didn't put that on Metro. That was the entire country and arguably the entire world. The dogma was getting pretty vicious. Metro and Nashville did a great job, because our numbers were super high, and then we got them steady. They put it together and it worked, thankfully.
I guess this goes back to Kanye and Kyrie Irving. You tweeted some things about Jewish people and banks and the media. I think there's some concern that these posts are antisemitic. Are people asking you about those posts?
Not really. A lot of people laughed all that stuff off. Mainly the media grabbed it and ran with it. No one has asked me that since. I don't even remember the tweet.
I've got a few of them pulled up. One says "Gews and banks. Smh. This is America." One has a picture of the New York Times leadership with the star of David superimposed with you saying "wake up." People in the Jewish community might have problems with you restating these conspiracy theories about Jewish people and their role in society.
I would love to sit down with them. I'm a Christian. I'm sure we all could sit down and discuss those things. The Jewish, Judaism, is different from the structure that a lot of people were upset with. The banks, for instance. The Federal Reserve. A lot of times, people get the two mixed up. They think it's something that's a dogma or something dark towards the people. Well, no. It's the institution. You don't leave a job because the company is bad. You leave because of management. The management of our bank systems and how that's waged inappropriately. It's a lot of systematic things that, unfortunately, they routed back during that time, the people blaming the Jews for. The Jews, that's not their claim nor their shame. The system is what's the problem. Not anything towards the people. Not anything towards a religion. It was just times when [Irving] got speared up over that documentary that was on Amazon, and people went crazy. I actually watched the documentary. It was a lot of back-and-forth over what's the problem and who caused it. 300, 500 years ago, people didn't cause that today. What's happening today is institutional suppression, institutional racism. It's not just a group of people.
They hit [Irving] after a game, asked him about a movie, he said he watched it. That was barely a sentence. When you actually talk to him, there's more to it. I really want to broaden those communications. Bridging the access and communication gap. When you can get clear understanding on things, we're not as separate.
There's one more I saw that I want to ask you about. You quote tweeted someone else who said what benefit do Black non-immigrants get from supporting immigrants. You said, "None. Zero." Do you still believe that? Do you think Black non-immigrants shouldn't support the immigrant community? Would you on council?
We have to support each other. One thing I've been seeing in the current race is we're all losing at this point. We have to unify. I mean every Nashvillian. This current council has not left any group of people a good stick. We have to work together. By building that communication, reaching out to other groups outside of our own echo chamber. My echo chamber is only Black. I can't do this with just me and my Black folks. It has to be a collaborative effort. All the groups, we went to a few for some forums, we're all saying the same thing. We're all asking for the same things. My street right now does not have a sidewalk. That's not on my participatory budget idea, it's not on my website. But I know what a majority of people in Nashville are hollering about is these sidewalks. That's collaboration. That's something I can come and represent in the next council. I have to hear that from everybody. Immigrant or not. I don't care where you come from. If you're in Nashville and you're not a millionaire, you're losing right now. It's not equitable for all of us. The collaboration has to happen. Right now, there's Sepulveda. Before then there was Bedne. Zulfat currently. That's it. The new council, I hope we get better than that. It's not just Black and white anymore. Not only was that statement wild and Twitter talk. That's absolutely a no. It has to be done. We have to work together. There's not enough room here to be divisive.
