Collaboration with Metro Council Key to Legislative Agenda Achievements
NASHVILLE, TN — Mayor John Cooper applauds the Metro Council for collaborating to deliver significant progress over the past four years, including passing five significant pieces of legislation in their final meeting of the term.
“Together we have accomplished many historic things, clearly leaving this city better than we found it, the goal of all mayors and Councils,” said Mayor Cooper. “It has been four years of both crisis and great achievement. We can all be proud of what we have accomplished together to improve the quality of life for residents in Nashville.”
Mayor Cooper has had unparalleled success in getting his legislative agenda approved by the Council.
In his address to the Council during its final meeting Tuesday, Cooper acknowledged the remarkable achievements and successes that his administration and Council have had working together to deliver results for Nashvillians, including fixing the City’s finances, and transformative investments in public education, public safety, affordable housing, addressing homelessness, and transportation.
The five notable pieces of Mayor Cooper’s legislation passed by the Council Tuesday night are:
- License Plate Readers: Resolution RS2023-2342 –This resolution allows for the full implementation of License Plate Readers, which are an important crime-fighting tool used by the Metro Police, after completing a successful six-month pilot period.
- Housing Catalyst Fund: Resolution RS2023-2369 – A resolution approving a $19,500,000 grant agreement to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee for the purpose of creating the Housing Catalyst Fund using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
- Entertainment Vehicles: Ordinance BL2023-1869 – This ordinance limits the number of entertainment vehicles that can operate downtown, allowing the Metro Transportation & Licensing Commission to determine the number that best serves “public necessity and convenience.”
- Traffic Bill of Rights: Ordinance BL2023-2010 – This ordinance requires traffic impact studies which precede significant property developments to assess the impact of developments on surrounding traffic to now include more expansive multimodal transportation analysis. These new studies will consider several additional factors, including parking supply, proximity to transit, population density, traffic congestion, and multimodal infrastructure. Most importantly, it adds performance bond requirements so that a development’s conditional improvements actually materialize.
- Downtown Noise: Ordinance BL2023-113 – This ordinance requires speakers and amplifiers located within 10 feet of a door, window or other opening to be oriented inward to spare the streets and sidewalks from excessive noise as a safety precaution. The ordinance was prompted when police officers working lower Broadway could not hear their own dispatches over the volume of music.
Other accomplishments during Mayor Cooper’s administration with Metro Council include:
- Improving Nashville’s finances since 2019 when the Tennessee State Comptroller’s Office sent a letter threatening to take over the city’s budget, citing insufficient reserves. Today, the city has a fund balance policy, two months of reserves and the highest bond rating in its 60-year history.
- Establishing an Office of Performance Management to track over 200 metrics that measure service levels, operating performance, and cost monitoring & management.
- Capital spending to enhance public school facilities topped $500 million, helping alleviate over-crowded classrooms and upgrading aging buildings. Four new schools were funded during Cooper’s administration, including just-opened Goodlettsville Elementary School and James Lawson High School – the first new high school built in Nashville in 15 years.
- Funding an unprecedented 46 percent increase in per-student funding for Metro Nashville Public Schools. Every MNPS student now has a laptop with internet access, and teachers now have paid family leave for the first time ever. MNPS also has the highest paid teachers in the State of Tennessee, and the district has $293.5 million in new recurring funding.
- Supporting affordable housing by tripling Nashville’s investment in the Barnes Fund; introducing a $50 million plan to house the homeless; creating a dedicated Division of Housing, creating a Catalyst Fund for preserving affordable housing, and establishing a mixed-income PILOT program to incentivize affordable housing developments in the private sector. Nashville is adding 5,000 affordable housing units to its pipeline this fiscal year.
- Swearing in 474 new police officers and increasing police pay by 34 percent. Nashville also implemented the use of police body cameras and License Plate Readers and innovated with the Partners In Care and REACH programs to de-escalate crises and help residents struggling with mental health issues.
- Developing the East Bank including Oracle’s campus which will bring 8,500 jobs and add $175 million in public infrastructure – including a new pedestrian bridge connecting East Nashville to Germantown. The Tennessee Titans will construct a new stadium funded by the team, state, and tourism industry. The East Bank will include affordable housing, bikeways, greenways, a new 15-acre park, and a North-South multimodal boulevard with Nashville’s first Bus Rapid Transit with dedicated lanes.
- Partnering with TVA and NES to develop a 200-megawatt utility-scale solar energy facility; adding rooftop solar to Metro-owned buildings; and converting every streetlight to energy efficient LED lighting.
- Restoring Nashville’s urban tree canopy with millions of dollars in recurring annual dedicated funding. Institutionalizing Metro’s commitment to addressing climate change by committing to an 80% emissions reduction plan and developing a climate action plan.
- Creating the Nashville Department of Transportation, launching Nashville’s first Traffic Management Center, increasing MTA/WeGo funding by 54%, and funding 100 neighborhood traffic calming projects.
