Nashville, Tennessee – November 9, 2020 – With the search for Metro Nashville’s new Economic Development Chief officially underway, Stand Up Nashville (SUN) is calling on Mayor John Cooper to only consider candidates that will center equity in their leadership and decision-making process.

“We commend Mayor Cooper’s recent statements prioritizing the local work force and small businesses,” said Odessa Kelly, executive director of SUN. “But we ask that the Mayor’s office also apply a racial and class lens to both the internal and external practices of the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Community Development (ECD) going forward, and set this standard now during the job search for the new department head, as opposed to after someone is hired.”

Kelly added that just as with the implementation of the historic Community Benefits Agreement, a deal which SUN helped broker, public input must be incorporated into the decision-making process.

SUN has its own specific queries for ECD candidates, and encourages the Mayor’s office to include these questions in the vetting process, as well as make those answers available to the public. These include:

• Will the new ECD chief make every effort to build pipelines into Black, Brown, immigrant and other communities that have been historically underserved and displaced in Nashville?
• Will the ECD prioritize the needs of the people over the needs of developers and large, outside corporations?
• How will the new ECD chief better position the Industrial Development Board (IDB) to create affordable workforce housing?

Kelly emphasized that the Do Better Law, passed in January 2018, will be in full effect, and the Metro Council will be able to assess whether the ECD under new leadership is appropriately prioritizing public interest.

“At the end of the day, we all want Nashville to succeed,” Kelly said. “I’m looking forward to working with Mayor Cooper to ensure that the new ECD Chief is the right person for the people of this city.”

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