David Fox is the mayoral campaign’s contrarian. He says he’s “suspicious of the giddiness” he senses from Nashville’s civic leaders. In his view, no one seems overly concerned that the city’s economic boom could be short lived.
Growing up in the Fox household, it wasn’t “dream big” or “reach for the stars.” Instead, he got a different kind of clichéd advice.
“There’s no such thing as a free breakfast. In the end, it costs you,” says Gil Fox, the candidate’s 94-year-old uncle.
David Fox first moved to Nashville as a pre-schooler to live with his aunt and uncle after his mother died suddenly. The Fox family’s practicality showed up in the family business. They owned a chain of discount stores that was ultimately bought by Walmart.
But David Fox and his brother chose another path to prosperity — the stock market. Pretty early on as a trader, Fox got burned. It was the crash of October, 1987. Stocks plunged more than they did on Black Tuesday of 1929.
“The meager savings I had by my mid-20s pretty much disappeared in a few hours,” Fox says.
Now 54, Fox recalls talking to his dad, who lived through the Depression Era. He had a mantra: “Baby, it’s not what you make. It’s what you save.”
Following the crash, Fox says his dad told him the early loss could be the best thing that could happen since he didn’t have much to lose yet.
“And he was right. I’ve been a lot more conservative in every regard, especially what I do with my capital.”
Fox’s claim of conservatism would seem at odds with his line of work for the last decade or so. He’s been in business with his brother’s hedge fund company, Titan Advisers, in an industry notorious for high risk, high return investments. Fox says they tended to play it safe, looking for more steady returns.
As mayor, Fox says he wouldn’t swing for the fences with the city’s finances either.
“While I think Nashville will always be progressing upward, sometimes it will be accompanied by some downswings.”
Fox doesn’t see some kind of economic collapse on the horizon. But he predicts the boom will cool off. And residents will still have bills to pay for the slate of construction projects wrapping up now.
Pressed on this point, Fox refuses to second guess Mayor Karl Dean’s $600 million convention center, a new minor league ballpark or riverfront concert venue. And there’s another $520 million of projects on Dean’s wish list this year. Fox says only that the pace won’t continue if he’s mayor.
“It’s the rate of growth of debt that I’ve been really focused on. I don’t want anybody to think that the way we prosper as a city is we just keep on borrowing more and more municipal debt. That’s not necessary to do.”
Fox feels like a focus on fundamentals is in order — think sewers and sidewalks. They can still be rather expensive, but Fox sees them as a safer investment. All of his ideas for mayor are colored by his penchant for pessimism and another of his family’s one-liners: “Trees don’t grow to the sky.”
It’s not a slogan that will get much applause. But Fox says it’s a hard truth the next mayor needs to believe.
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