Rich Riebeling and Emily Passini
After more than a decade at the center of Metro government — and many more years operating in and around state and local politics — Rich Riebeling is leaving the mayor's office.
Mayor David Briley announced this morning that Democratic strategist Emily Passini would be joining the office as chief of staff, and that Riebeling — who'd been serving as Metro's chief operating officer since 2015 — and current chief of staff Debby Dale Mason will be leaving "in the coming months." Passini joins the administration after working for Briley's mayoral campaign earlier this year.
Riebeling joined the mayor's office as finance director in 2007, appointed by then-Mayor Karl Dean. He took on a larger role as COO in Megan Barry's short-lived administration.
A press release announcing the reorganization puts a good spin on things, touting Riebeling's years of government service and work "to facilitate unprecedented economic opportunity, investment and development as Nashville has become one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities." But it comes as the decisions made by Riebeling and the mayors he has served under are receiving scrutiny. Despite its aforementioned status as "one of the nation's fastest-growing cities," Nashville found itself in a budget crisis earlier this year, struggling to fund any cost-of-living raises for public employees and failing to meet the full funding request from Metro Nashville Public Schools. Riebeling and Mason, of course, were also right in the middle of the scandal that forced Barry out of office earlier this year.
In the wake of all that, calls for Riebeling to move on were growing louder, and Briley had indicated he planned to make changes to his staff following his victory in May's mayoral election.
Passini will start her new gig on July 16.
