A Few Questions With

A Few Questions with Councilmember Dave Rosenberg

BY JUDITH TACKETT

Dave Rosenberg is known as a Metro councilmember who will speak his mind passionately for what he believes in. He is concerned about homelessness and views everyone, regardless of housing status, who lives in District 35 as his constituents.

The Contributor talked with Rosenberg as part of a series called A Few Questions With where we interview councilmembers about their district’s most pressing issues.

How would you describe District 35 and your constituents?

District 35 is a sprawling district. It’s the second largest district geographically in Davidson County. It stretches from Ashland City to Fairview to Franklin. It is split in two ways; one is suburban neighborhoods with a couple of small commercial centers and then large rural areas. People in the district are overall fairly well off and very well educated. The district is split between Nashville natives, especially in the rural areas, and a lot of families from other areas, especially the mid-West.

What are the main issues you hear about from your constituents?

A lot of what I hear is about growing homelessness, of course. I also hear about citywide traffic issues and concerns about trying to preserve the character of various parts of the community, especially in the rural areas. Other than that, it’s not a very high-maintenance district.

You’re on the Rules, Confirmation, and Public Elections Committee. Metro has been focused on improving diversity and timeliness of appointments to Metro boards. What’s been done on that front, and how do you think boards can improve oversight of departments?

Councilmember [Sandra] Sepulveda introduced and we just passed legislation that gives the council more input on board appointments. Currently, the vast majority of board members are nominated by the mayor and then approved by the council, which gives the mayor an inordinate amount of control over agencies on the boards. When all the board appointments come from mayoral appointments, there is an inclination that a lot of board members have good relationships with the Mayor’s Office and are inclined to follow what they [the administration] want and also what the departments want. I think the council having a little more say over these appointments is going to help increase oversight.

I think a lot of the time, departments don’t know whether their communication is getting to residents and there are some issues [in the community] they may not be aware of that need to be handled. On the whole they are doing a good job, and all the directors are dealing with the problems in front of them as they come up. But anything that can enhance the services they offer can be a good thing and that includes [appointing] board members that understand the issues at play in the community.

Do you think this will also help improve the diversity on the boards?

Yes, absolutely. To the mayor’s credit, they’ve made a lot of headway on [more diversity on boards] over the last four years. The council with its appointments has been intentional about increasing diversity, and I think that’s going to continue. At some point, we will see the boards and commissions reflect the makeup of Nashville. We’re definitely heading in that direction.

You also serve on the Council’s Public Health and Safety Committee. With so many national headlines about mass shootings and police abuses, how can Metro continue to improve public safety in Nashville — both from the perspective of police brutality and in the face of all of the mass shootings happening?

We’re very limited when it comes to mass shootings. The state has basically eliminated all of our gun safety regulations in Tennessee and taken away the ability of local governments as to any regulations of their own. With that kind of extremism, we really have nothing we can do outside of ensuring adequate security in schools, which Metro Schools has been on top of, and looking out for each other as a community.

When it comes to policing, the next mayor is going to need to ensure that the police department is serving everybody and that the folks who have made the decision to go into policing have the opportunity to provide a service that is welcomed by all of the communities in Nashville.

There is so much talk about good apples and bad apples in police departments. I don’t really think that’s the case, I believe, MNPD is a good-apple-filled institution. The problem is with the way the institution is built to begin with. There are ways to ensure police have the opportunity to provide great public safety and at the same time to do it in a way that doesn’t put communities of color in danger and improves the relationship between MNPD and the communities.

The now infamous Brookmeade encampment was in your district. From your perspective, what went well and where are opportunities for Metro to improve as it schedules its next encampment closure in March?

Things went well with the private nonprofit providers that were providing services at Brookmeade and taking care of people and trying to ensure that they had what they needed as long as they needed to live in the encampment. And everything that Metro did went wrong. They prioritized the wrong things, and they went about it the wrong way. As a result they really didn’t accomplish anything except for a headline that they closed an encampment. In fact, that we handed over control of our homeless services to an out-of-state, well-paid consultant who just doesn’t have the relationships or history with the city is really unfortunate.