Nashville's former mayors' advice for Freddie O'Connell: 'Understand what real people are looking for'
Former Metro Council member Freddie O'Connell claimed Nashville's top job in a landslide mayoral race victory Thursday.
O'Connell will be Metro's tenth mayor, and the fourth mayor in a row to fill the seat after serving on the Metro Council.
The Tennessean gathered advice and reflections from five of O'Connell's mayoral predecessors. Here's what they said.
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Phil Bredesen (1991-1999)
"One of the real advantages of a job like mayor ... it's just a lot closer to people than sitting in the Congress in Washington (D.C.) or something a million miles away from any real people," Bredesen said. "You're doing things that affect people day to day: which schools they send their kids to, whether their garbage was picked up and what the streets are like, do the police and fire (department) come when they're called.
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"Really set aside the kind of surface aspects of the political world and just try to understand what real people are looking for, and I think they'll find that to be much more useful to the city and also perfectly successful politically."
Bill Purcell (1999-2007)
"The most important thing going forward always was and always will be education," Purcell said. "A close second in priorities always was and always will be public safety for the whole city. The third key and essential area of focus for the mayor always was and always will be quality of life."
Purcell said "quality of life" is "a very personal thing" that can involve housing, employment, parks, culture, sports and more — "all of the things that make the city special for the people who live there."
The first order of business, he said, is "to restore the relationship with the state," because "we absolutely need each other. There is no other alternative."
Karl Dean (2007-2015)
Dean, harkening back to his own campaign's platform, said there are "three pitches you have to hit every day": public education, economic opportunity development and public safety.
"People want to live in Nashville, people want to move to Nashville. That's all good," Dean said. "Clearly we have our work cut out for us in terms of improving our schools, and this issue of public safety is always present ... it's something you can't take your eyes off of."
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He's not underestimating the work ahead, he added. The biggest challenge? Making sure Nashville has a school system "that when people are deciding where they're going to live or whether they're going to stay in Nashville, that public education is a plus."
Megan Barry (2015-2018)
"There are going to be so many things about this job that you didn't anticipate or didn't know," Barry said. "What you really, really, really need is the best, amazing team around you. Don't fall into the trap that you think you know how to do it all, because you're so much better off if you bring the people who do know how to do it to the table and then give them all of the tools they need to do a great job."
Barry, who endorsed O'Connell in the runoff election, said his campaign ran on "hope for the future and possibilities."
Barry said O'Connell will have to rely on his team to help juggle multiple priorities at once.
"Governing from fear is never going to set a city on the right path," she said. "Being forward-looking, hopeful and energetic is the way you make a city great."
David Briley (2018-2019)
"You can't work on everything at once," Briley said. "You need to pick three or four things that you're completely focused on, and until you complete one of those tasks, don't add any new tasks to the list."
Briley said his number one goal would be addressing equity in Nashville.
To Nashville residents, Briley offered the following message: "The growth and prosperity that we're seeing both presents opportunities and challenges, and we shouldn't focus too much on either one. We should try to make the most of the opportunities."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's former mayors offer advice for city's next four years
