Nashville officially has a new mayor. Before a standing-room-only crowd of roughly 4,000 people, Megan Barry took the oath of office at the Music City Center Friday afternoon. She spent most of her time at the microphone asking for input rather than laying out her ideas.
“I want to hear from you,” was Barry’s mantra in the snappy eight-minute speech (
audio). She highlighted education, affordable housing, crime and gave particular emphasis to traffic.
“I want to hear from you, Nashville, on how we can improve our transit and our transportation system,” she said. “So you can get out of your car altogether if that’s what you want, or spend less time in your car if that’s what you want. And do more things that you love, like not sitting in traffic.”
Barry has said she will name a traffic czar.
Witnessing History
In becoming the seventh mayor of Metro Nashville, Barry also is the first woman to hold the office.
Many children came to see the historic occasion. Heather Lefkowitz is a Barry campaign volunteer. Her daughter, Charlotte, joined her.
“I took her out of school early,” Lefkowitz said. “We went to all the campaign events and election night because I wanted her to see. I thought it was very important for her to see a woman who is leading a major American city, and that gives me a lot of hope.”
Barry noted in her speech that the young people in the room probably won’t find her status as the first woman mayor all that noteworthy.
“For them, having a woman mayor isn’t going to be unusual,” she said. “In fact, it’s not going to matter at all. They’re going to get to focus on something completely different — on who I am and the legacy that I leave.”
Barry won by a wide margin in a runoff against David Fox in what ended up feeling like a partisan race. Fox did not attend the swearing in.
But
Howard Gentry,
Charles Robert Bone and Bill Freeman — who Barry beat in the general election — all made appearances. Barry noted from stage that both Gentry and Bone brought their daughters along.
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