Politics

Candidates Agree: Traffic is Bad And Scooters Aren’t Helping

THE TENNESSEE TRIBUNE — The race for Mayor is on and four candidates faced off against each other Wednesday morning to talk about sidewalks, bikeways, and traffic. The event at the Watson Grove Missionary Baptist Church was sponsored by Walk Bike Nashville and the forum was moderated by WPLN’s Tony Gonzales.

Published

7 years ago

May 25, 2019

Peter White

By Peter White

The race for Mayor is on and four candidates faced off against each other Wednesday morning to talk about sidewalks, bikeways, and traffic. The event at the Watson Grove Missionary Baptist Church was sponsored by Walk Bike Nashville and the forum was moderated by WPLN’s Tony Gonzales.

Mayor David Briley, State Representative John Ray Clemmons, At Large Councilman John Cooper, and Republican Carol Swain pretty much agreed that sidewalks are good, bikeways are not being used much, traffic is bad, and scooters are becoming a deadly menace.

While the candidates agreed that people just don’t feel safe walking or biking around the city, they had different ideas when it comes to reducing traffic congestion and a better overall transportation system.

John Ray Clemmons said the city should make developers pay more for the traffic disruptions they cause. He also said increased traffic is a regional problem and it requires collaboration between local and state officials to address the issue.

Carol Swain criticized her opponents for being career politicians who cater to downtown interests. “It’s unacceptable where there’s some neighborhoods that get sidewalks and other neighborhoods are totally neglected,” she said.

Mayor Briley said transportation requires long term investment. “When we built out the suburbs in the fifties and sixties and seventies, it was designed around the use of the car and so we didn’t require developers to put in sidewalks. That’s just the fact of the matter,” Briley said. He said the City Council recently passed a law requiring developers to build sidewalks in new subdivisions and Metro will invest $30 million next year to build sidewalks in the neighborhoods.

“Thirty million sounds like a lot of money but it’s not enough. At this rate it will take 23 years to add 71 miles of sidewalks and fix the current system,” said Clemmons. “At this rate my children, who are in elementary school now, will be in their 30s before we build a proper network of sidewalks in the city,” he said.

“So we’re seventy years behind,” said At-Large Councilman John Cooper. He faulted Metro for contracting out sidewalk construction. He said it wastes time and money. “We’re never going to stop building sidewalks and yet the way we handle it is by subcontracting it out. So much of what we do by eliminating competency of government actually ends up with having a very high linear cost and the time delays are much greater than any other city we have any data on,” Cooper said. Swain agreed. She said Public Works should build sidewalks out in the neighborhoods where they are most needed.

Swain does not support a dedicated transportation fund within the Metro budget. Mayor Briley said the city is working on a number of transportation issues already. He mentioned bus service, the Dickerson Road expansion, bike routes connecting East Nashville with downtown, and downtown with the airport. “We don’t need to wait. We can do it within our existing infrastructure,” Briley said.

All of the candidates felt the Mayor’s office should develop and promote a transportation plan and coordinate things like sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, greenways, and parks to make Nashville a safer and healthier place to live. All the candidates agreed scooters need to be regulated more than they are now.

“Our streets need to be where people want to spend time. That’s going to be the key to a great city,” said Cooper. But he said 4,000 scooters demonstrate how fundamentally unsafe the right of way in the streets has become. He suggested mandatory helmets and an after dark ban on scooters for safety sake.

Cooper singled out land use and the key role it plays in walking, bicycling, and traffic safety in a fast-growing city. “We do zoning before infrastructure and it’s not really creating the greatest possible city. We have a treasure map of zoning. We look at a site as landlords and improvements for the general public as incentives have not been linked to the kinds of policy goals we want,” Cooper said.

The election for Nashville’s next Mayor, Vice-Mayor, and members of the City Council is August 1.

This article originally appeared in The Tennessee Tribune.

Peter White

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Four Candidates, Including Incumbent Barbara Lee, Qualify for Oakland Mayor’s Race

POST NEWS GROUP — Four candidates, including incumbent Mayor Barbara Lee, filed their papers to run for office by last Friday’s deadline, and the City Clerk issued a list this week of those who are qualified to run.

Published

2 days ago

August 15, 2026

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View of downtown Oakland, California and City Hall. iStock photo.

By Post Staff

The four mayoral candidates who will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot are:

Brenda Grisham. A business owner in East Oakland and public safety advocate, Grisham led the successful recall campaign against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. As part of her platform, she pledges to work with local, state, and federal partners to secure stricter gun control measures and investments in community violence intervention programs.

Barbara Lee. A former congressional representative and state Assembly member, Lee was elected by voters in a special election last year for a two-year term. Now running for a four-year term, she points out that her administration achieved major successes in addressing some of the city’s major challenges, including balancing the city budget, dramatically reducing crime, and making significant inroads into homelessness and illegal dumping.

Mindy Pechenuk. An educator and activist, Pechenuk is a registered Republican and supporter of Lyndon LaRouche, who has been described by observers as a conspiracy theorist and cult leader. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor in last year’s special election and for the at-large council seat in 2024. She seeks to end Oakland’s police commission and MACRO and invest in more police while launching a new local war on drugs.

Julius Robinson. While little information is available so far about Robinson, he was quoted in a KTVU story about Thao’s recall, stating that people in Oakland want to come together as a community but lack infrastructure and leadership.

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Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026

Published

3 days ago

August 15, 2026

Oakland Post

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Commentary

COMMENTARY: Why Local School Tax Measure G1 Will Not Be on the November Ballot

POST NEWS GROUP — Measure G1 is the local tax measure that supports middle school teacher retention and the expansion of arts, music, and world language programs at both OUSD middle schools and charter middle schools. The current measure expires in 2029.

Published

3 days ago

August 15, 2026

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By Jennifer Brouhard, Oakland School Board President

There has been considerable speculation recently about why Measure G1 will not appear on the November ballot and what that means for the Oakland Unified School District’s current budget.

I want to provide some clarity about what happened and, importantly, what did not happen.

Measure G1 is the local tax measure that supports middle school teacher retention and the expansion of arts, music, and world language programs at both OUSD middle schools and charter middle schools. The current measure expires in 2029.

Because these funds are important to our schools and to the continuity of these programs, the district initially intended to place a renewal initiative on the November ballot to provide greater early certainty about funding beyond the expiration of the current measure.

As part of that process, the Board scheduled a special meeting for the required public hearing on the ballot initiative. There has been some suggestion that this meeting was noticed only one day in advance. That is not accurate.

Public hearings of this nature are subject to specific notice requirements, and the meeting must be noticed at least two weeks before the hearing. In practice, the notice may appear even earlier depending on publication schedules. The notice for the Measure G1 public hearing was published in the Tribune on 7/24/2026 and 7/31/2026.

So, why wasn’t the Measure G1 paperwork ultimately filed?

After the Board approved placing the measure on the ballot, the next step required the Alameda County Superintendent of Schools to sign the necessary paperwork before it could be submitted to the Oakland City Clerk.

During that process, Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro raised concerns about potential litigation stemming from another court case unrelated to OUSD and about whether proceeding with the measure could expose the district or County to legal challenges. Superintendent Castro’s action is unprecedented and concerning.

It is important to distinguish between the Board’s decision to pursue Measure G1 and the subsequent procedural and legal issues that arose. The Board did approve moving forward with the measure. The measure did not fail because the Board chose not to support it, nor was the public hearing improperly noticed.

The decision not to proceed with the November ballot was made in light of the County’s concerns about potential litigation and the County’s required approval process.

We also need to be clear about what this does, and does not, mean for OUSD’s current budget. The existing Measure G1 funds remain available through the expiration of the current measure in 2029. The immediate issue is the longer-term continuity of funding beyond that date, not the elimination of these resources from the current year’s budget.

Our responsibility as a Board is to protect the educational programs and services our students depend on while ensuring that our decisions comply with the law and protect the district from unnecessary legal and financial risk.

We will continue working to understand the County’s concerns, explore our options, and advocate for the resources our students deserve. Our middle school students, teachers, and school communities deserve stability, and continued investment in arts, music, world languages, and teacher retention—and that work remains a priority for Oakland Unified.

Jennifer Brouhard is a retired OUSD educator and is the current OUSD School Board President representing District 2.