John Cooper celebrates his big win, but the challenges of governing now loom for Nashville’s next mayor – The Tennessean
John Cooper celebrates his big win, but the challenges of governing now loom for Nashville’s next mayor The Tennessean
John Cooper was elected the ninth mayor of Nashville’s metropolitan government on Thursday in a historic election.
The morning after his overwhelming victory in unseating Mayor David Briley, Nashville Mayor-elect John Cooper touted his successful campaign and the message that resonated in all corners of the county.
Cooper, who campaigned on a platform of getting the city’s fiscal house in order, was elected the ninth mayor of Nashville’s metropolitan government on Thursday in a historic election that signaled the strong desire among voters for a new direction for Music City.
The former at-large Metro Council member convincingly defeated Briley 69% to 30%, drawing support from a broad cross-section of voters. Among his first actions as the mayor-elect, he met with the city’s leading Democratic council member and Republican Gov. Bill Lee.
“We did politics the right way,” Cooper said in an interview with The Tennessean on Friday morning. “To have this big of a win … I think people both responded to the message and the messenger.”
Cooper crusaded on a platform that the city’s unprecedented growth has left behind residents and Nashville needs to reset its priorities. It was successful, he said, largely because his team ran a positive campaign that treated “voters as partners.”
“It’s a model that American politics should look like,” Cooper said, saying his favorability ratings are “gigantic.”
In recent years, the city has used one-time money to help balance its budget, and this year, city officials debated whether to raise property taxes to better fund education — both issues that took center stage during the mayoral campaign.
Cooper said there are no questions that voters want him to put the city’s finances back on track.
“I think everybody understands that it’ll be hard, sure,” Cooper said, sitting in the corner of Three Brothers Coffee on West End Avenue. “But this is what we want to get done and to get on doing it.”
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Meeting with all 40 council members
Cooper started Friday checking in on his three sons — he’s taking one of them to visit colleges on Sunday — before getting down to business as mayor-elect.
First up, Cooper had a meeting for coffee with Bob Mendes, the only incumbent at-large council member to avoid a runoff election this year. It is the first, Cooper said, of the many conversations he intends to have with every council member.
“I want to spend the next days listening really carefully,” he said of his transition entering the city’s highest office. “There is a lot to get done.”
Cooper now faces the task of governing and inherits myriad challenges as the leader of the state’s capital, including building consensus in an often disagreeable council, addressing rising housing costs and determining how to provide a much-needed financial boost to the city’s public school system.
Residents also voted in one of the city’s most progressive Metro Councils, with the incoming 40-person legislative body made up of more immigrant, women and LGBTQ members than ever before.
As the top vote-getter once himself in an at-large council race, Cooper said it was “the right thing to do” to have his first meeting as mayor-elect with Mendes.
“He’s a man of excellent judgement,” he said. “We have worked together on many issues over the years trying to, you know, bring Nashville back into balance and have the government be reflective of all the people.”
Mendes told The Tennessean he appreciates Cooper wanting to meet with council members to show how he’ll lead the city.
“The reality is that our Metro Charter is a very strong mayor form of government,” Mendes said. “There’s built-in avenues for a mayor to try to steamroll the council. To have a different relationship, one that’s work with each other rather than working around the council, that’s a matter of how badly the mayor wants to do it.”
“(Cooper) and his team are the dog that caught the bus,” Mendes said. “Now they need to figure out what to do with it.”
Navigating tough issues ahead
Cooper will have to navigate working with the new council on balancing a budget that relies on $30 million from a private parking deal. Cooper has said he would not pursue the deal and instead find money to fill the budget hole with with internal savings and revenue and tourism dollars rerouted to the city.
Another sure hurdle will be convincing the council next year to adopt a new budget that does not rely on a property tax rate increase — a proposal Mendes led two years in a row and that fell short by just one vote this summer.
The Metro Council reconvenes on Oct. 1 but it has not yet been determined when Cooper will be sworn in as mayor. Benjamin Eagles, Cooper’s campaign manager, began initial conversations with the Briley administration Friday to negotiate the transition.
The Metro Charter does not specify when a new mayor takes office.
Briley said in his concession speech Thursday he is committed to helping the city move forward.
“I will do everything I can to help Councilman Cooper as he becomes mayor, as a new council of 40 people focus on what’s important to our city,” Briley said.
Cooper, who provided limited insight into who will make up his administration, said he will strive to put in place a diverse team that reflects the county and the message that “we are a Nashville for everyone.”
“I’m really going to try to talk to former mayors to study best practices,” he said.
Building a relationship with the state
As part of his schedule on day one as mayor-elect, Cooper had lunch with Lee.
Republicans hold a supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly and the GOP has often been critical of more progressive policy stances in the state’s cities — especially Nashville — and have taken steps to block local officials.
This past year alone has been contentious with state lawmakers passing an “anti-sanctuary cities” law, Lee’s controversial education savings account legislation that only applies to Nashville and Shelby County, and the attempt to limit community police oversight boards in the state.
“The mayor needs to be good at that relationship to get as much more for Nashville as we can,” said Cooper, a lifelong Democrat.
“Gov. Lee extends his congratulations to Mayor-elect Cooper and looks forward to working with him to keep Nashville’s momentum going,” said Laine Arnold, a spokesperson for Lee.
She declined to comment on the lunch, citing it as a private meeting.
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Cooper has made a lot of promises on the campaign trail, many of which bank on successfully rerouting tourism dollars to cover city costs. That’s a solution that could potentially require new state legislation and one he hopes to draw on to better fund education, employee pay, affordable housing and neighborhoods.
As mayor, he’ll have to balance a relationship with the state to get more dollars for the city, while also making clear his views on Nashville’s community oversight board, Briley’s final executive order calling for state lawmakers to repeal the “anti-sanctuary cities” law, and on the state of the city’s finances.
The state comptroller has raised concerns with the city about debt and how the city will balance its budget if the private parking deal and the sale of a downtown energy system don’t go through.
The Briley administration said it will respond to the comptroller by Sept. 20 but Cooper said Friday that as mayor, he will have to respond himself as well.
“The whole financial stewardship issue with the comptroller letter is probably going to be job one going forward,” Cooper said.
“We won’t always agree, but the state is an important path for our city getting more money. We could use more money, we could use more help from the state,” Cooper said, adding the focus will be in making the state a “better partner.”
“It’s not that they’ve been a bad partner (but) it’s how to make the state a better partner and getting Nashville where it needs to be.”
Cooper said he will announce his first initiative next week on how he will work to restore trust in Metro government. For now, he says, he’s celebrating his win.
Yihyun Jeong covers politics in Nashville for USA TODAY NETWORK – TENNESSEE. Reach her at yjeong@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @yihyun_jeong.
Published 4:34 PM EDT Sep 13, 2019
