Freddie O’Connell is From Nashville
and For Nashville.

Freddie is a tireless advocate for the city he loves and the only truly progressive candidate running for mayor. He has served on the Metro Council since 2015, and has delivered for his constituents and the city as a whole. Residents from across the county voted him the Best Current Metro Council Member six times in a row.

As a Council Member, Freddie has dealt with events that will forever change our city, like floods and tornadoes, even the downtown bombing. But he’s also taken on the issues that make our day-to-day lives more difficult, like personally picking up recycling when the city couldn’t deliver that basic service to residents in his district.

When you’re working to make a difference in the community you care about, no job is too small. And when you’re doing work that matters, there is no problem too big to tackle. Freddie has stepped in time and time again when the government lets us down on issues big and small. Nashville needs a Mayor it can trust - someone that will stand up for the soul of Nashville.

Freddie’s vast experience and service to the community has given him unparalleled understanding of Nashville’s challenges and he has consistently pushed for solutions to issues we face in our daily lives. He has the right balance of passion for Nashville, detailed knowledge about how the city works (and doesn’t work), and the drive to lead Nashville to be a city we’re proud to call home.

The proud son of Beatie, a retired MNPS and MBA school teacher, and Tim, a federal civil servant and part-time songwriter, Freddie attended Eakin Elementary, Montgomery Bell Academy, and earned degrees in Music and Computer Science from Brown University.

Since 2007, Freddie and his family have lived in the Salemtown neighborhood. He and Whitney, a physician educated at Meharry Medical College and now an attending child neurologist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, have two young daughters, Halley, age 12, and Violet, age 5, who attend Metro Nashville Public Schools. The family shares their home with their adopted chorkie Cocoa Bean, age 3.

Freddie O’Connell has done so much for our city.

Imagine what he can do as Mayor.

Freddie has served as a member of the Charter Revision Committee, the Planning, Zoning, and Historical Committee, Public Works Committee (Chair), and the Traffic, Parking and Transportation Committee (Chair). He has also served as a member on various special committees that serve Nashville residents including the Nashville Downtown Partnership Board of Directors (Ex Officio), the Central Business Improvement District Board of Directors (Ex Officio), the Gulch Business Improvement District Board of Directors (Ex Officio), the District Energy System Advisory Board, and the South Central Neighborhood Development Corporation Board of Directors.

Freddie is a member of Nashville’s software and start-up industry, most recently as Integration Architect for HealthStream. He’s been a small business owner and a neighborhood leader. He’s served on several non-profit, civic, and committee boards including as Board Chair of Nashville MTA (now WeGo Public Transit), as Board President of Walk/Bike Nashville, the Board of Belcourt Theatre, and the Board of Cumberland Region Tomorrow. As a member of the Citizen Advisory Committee for Metro Water Services, he helped to fulfill a consent decree from the EPA intended to help clean up the Cumberland River.

Freddie served for many years as President of the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association, where he helped establish important partnerships with the Metro Action Commission, Nashville Rescue Mission’s women’s campus, Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary (since merged with Jones Paideia), and MDHA’s Cheatham Place. They also secured historic status for the Fehr School building and completed a neighborhood conservation overlay district around Nashville’s largest remaining turn-of-the-century workforce housing. As a member of the North Nashville Leadership Council, he advocated for the Sulphur Dell location for the new Sounds Ballpark.

I will be supporting Freddie for Mayor. It's time for change. We need more money going into our neighborhoods and better transportation infrastructure where people can safely get around the city without cars. We can't afford to take another step back."

- Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda