Mayor Starting New Group of Regional Execs

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean says he’s inviting the mayors of surrounding counties and cities to begin meeting monthly to address regional issues.

Starting next month, Dean wants to convene the group to talk about transportation and other topics.

“There are environmental issues, there are water issues, there are economic development issues, tourism issues—I mean almost everything we confront individually as mayors of our respective cities, we confront regionally.”

The state legislature recently approved the authority for Nashville to establish a dedicated funding source for regional transportation. Dean’s not sure yet what the stream will look like, but he says he needs buy-in from surrounding areas.

“You’re not going to get access to the federal dollars that were flowing pretty abundantly—fairly easily here for stimulus money in the future unless you have dedicated funding at the local level.”

Dean says that investment in transit systems like light rail will pay for itself in terms of attracting new residents and companies to the area.