Alice Rolli and Freddie O’Connell shared the Schermerhorn stage Thursday morning, a week after both advanced to the runoff in the city’s race for mayor. After referring to the event as a debate in his welcome speech, Nashville Symphony president and CEO Alan Valentine quickly clarified that it was a forum, setting the tone for a civil 45 minutes in which both candidates shared business experience, flexed policy knowledge and took subtle swipes at each other during their respective remarks and a brief Q&A.
The discussion was hosted by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and moderated by Lee Blank, Middle Tennessee market executive for Regions Bank and chair of Partnership 2030, the chamber’s long-term regional public-private strategic plan for economic growth. Conversation drifted from education (both support it) and workforce readiness (both agree it’s important) to quality of life, public-private cooperation and Nashville’s relationship with the state (both vow to improve it). Differences between Rolli and O’Connell emerged most clearly during conversations about taxes and city finances.
Rolli and O’Connell separated themselves from a crowded field of hopefuls in last week’s citywide elections. O’Connell, a district councilmember who’s represented downtown for eight years, led the pack with 27 percent of the vote. Rolli ran up margins outside the 440 loop, specifically in Bellevue and Belle Meade. Both head to a Sept. 14 runoff, with early voting Aug. 25 through Sept. 9. Since the vote last week, former mayoral candidates Jeff Yarbro and Heidi Campbell — both Democratic members of the state Senate representing Nashville — have endorsed O’Connell, while former candidate Fran Bush has endorsed Alice Rolli.
“It feels like just yesterday I was here with Alan Valentine celebrating 75 years of the Nashville Symphony with Beethoven’s Ninth,” began O’Connell. The strategic reflection was a reminder to the audience that O’Connell seems to have been everywhere, knows everyone and has blazed a breezy trail of fond memories in his four decades in Nashville.
O’Connell stressed his local bona fides, which include being a parent and student at the desirable public school Eakin Elementary and attending Montgomery Bell Academy, the tony boys’ prep school where his mom taught French.
“I will be a mayor who has skin fully in the game,” he told the room. “The success of our daughters is dependent on the success of our public school system.”
O’Connell briefly gestured to his career as a small business owner and tech entrepreneur before hammering his campaign’s strength — 15 years navigating city government, first on the transit board and then as a member of the Metro Council. His campaign leans heavily on the importance of improving transit options in the region and in the city’s urban core, a point he emphasized several times on Thursday morning. Echoing chamber language of public-private collaboration, he pitched the role of mayor as “partner-in-chief.”
O’Connell and Rolli head to a runoff, and voters remake the Metro Council
Rolli shared her own government résumé, briefly running through her time as an aide to Republicans Lamar Alexander in the U.S. Senate and Gov. Bill Haslam. She touched on private-sector experience running a travel company and with QuaverEd, a local music education company. A fellow alum of Nashville public schools, Rolli spoke about the importance of all types of education, explaining that her two kids are in private religious schools. Rolli matched O’Connell’s Metrospeak with her own capacious knowledge of the state government, referencing Tennessee Promise and TANF-funded workforce development opportunities in conversations about regional workforce readiness.
When it comes to Nashville, Rolli’s campaign pledges for city safety and fiscal austerity echo decades of conservative messaging. She’s blended elements of David Fox’s unsuccessful 2015 mayoral campaign (Fox is her treasurer) with John Cooper’s successful 2019 run, playing back Cooper favorites like protecting Fort Negley and righting the city’s fiscal ship. Directed interventions by Cooper, like a property tax hike in 2020 and an increase in the city’s reserve fund, have significantly improved the city’s financial position since Nashville’s fated visit from state comptroller Justin Wilson in 2019. A better relationship with the state comes from transcending today’s political tribalism, says Rolli, the foundation of city-state hostility with blame on both sides.
“I think that we can choose to be a city that welcomes visitors and new neighbors, but insists at every turn that our lives are safe, our city’s finances are strong and that our kids can get an excellent education,” said Rolli, summarizing campaign messaging.
In the morning’s most pointed exchange, Rolli defended her decision to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, the brainchild of Reagan-era anti-tax activist Grover Norquist that binds politicians to oppose any and all new taxes or tax increases. While increased reserves have improved the city’s footing, Rolli cast city debt as evidence of irresponsible spending.
“For about 16 years we’ve consistently spent more than we’ve brought in,” Rolli told the chamber.
Raising the property tax rate every few years has been an economic reality for Nashville mayors. Sales taxes and ballooning property values have allowed the city to spend more while maintaining a remarkably low effective property tax rate. Inflation, higher interest rates and increasing debt service, combined with revenue-neutral tax law, almost guarantee a property tax increase from Metro in the next two or three years, barring substantial cuts to city services.
“We have heard declarations of no new taxes," said O'Connell. "Unfortunately, that came with a lot of other volatility and disruption within Metro. We started digging a hole where we had to pay for government with asset sales. Property tax efficiencies we’ve built over the past several years should give the mayor an incredible platform to make key investments. I don’t think it’s responsible to make pledges on debt or revenue.”
Rolli and O’Connell will meet again on Monday for a forum hosted by Fox 17. The two issued a joint press release after Thursday's forum that publicizes an Opportunity Nashville forum on Aug. 17, a WKRN forum on Aug. 22, a WTVF/Tennessean forum on Aug. 24 and a 92Q forum on Aug. 28. Early voting starts Aug. 25.
