NASHVILLE, Tennessee — A Monday rally that called upon voters to recall Nashville Mayor John Cooper attracted people who previously had little or no interest in politics but now want to force Cooper from office.
Nashville resident Larryon Minks, who works as a barback at a downtown bar, was among them.
Organizers held the rally in front of the Metro Courthouse.
As The Tennessee Star reported, some Davidson County voters are furious that Cooper imposed COVID-19 mandates that they said crippled their businesses. And they said Cooper’s intent to raise property taxes more than 30 percent to make up for lost revenue will make matters worse.
Minks said he had never before voted. But Minks said Cooper’s actions this year motivated him to register. He came to Monday’s rally and proudly showed off his new voter registration card.
“After almost 10 years of work I thought that half of us were going to die. We don’t close for anything. Not Thanksgiving. Not Christmas. Not Jesus. Not the Easter Bunny. We are open every day,” Minks said.
“Suddenly in March they called us all in and announced we’re shutting down. So I took it serious. I spent four months thinking half of us were going to die and spent the past three months mad because half of us didn’t.”
COVID-19, Minks said, is the same as the flu. He ridiculed Cooper’s mask mandate.
Minks said he’s currently three months behind on all of his bills, and he also said Cooper’s property tax increase will burden him extra. He said he doesn’t understand why Cooper won’t tighten up the city’s own finances and cut city spending.
Randall Moore, another Nashville resident, said he rents an apartment and fears Cooper’s property tax increase will prompt his landlord to raise his rent an additional 40 percent.
Rally spokeswoman Kimberly Edwards, who also lives in Davidson County, called the movement to oust Cooper “a bipartisan movement.”
“Before it was the people only upset about the tax [who got involved], and that was more of a conservative-driven thing. Now you have people upset about the disparity that is happening with schools being closed. We know wealthy people can ride that storm. They can put their kids in private schools. They can afford to homeschool, but our Metro kids cannot do that,” Edwards told The Star.
“These parents are not able to work. They are stuck at home with their own kids in this despair, and this creates a much bigger disparity. That is something that the left does care about a lot. We are seeing a lot of people who lean left who work downtown who are musicians who are all on board with us.”
Edwards said anyone who wants more information or who is interested in helping should visit RestoreNashville.org
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
I wish them luck! People like the ones named above who have never Voted are THE PROBLEM. They are the ones who have contributed to liberal progressive Dems to take over this City and ruin it!
Hopefully this is an awakening but with the ultral Lib students at Vandy/Belmont/TSU/Fisk, etc who are extremely mobilized and cancel out a real Resident’s Vote it seems hopeless at this point.
Until there is a way to prevent these temporary students from Voting on Local Issues, Nashville is doomed to lib Admins over and over. That happened in Atlanta and look at it now-exhorbidant City Taxes (we know, we moved from there),Property Taxes sky high,unresponsive local Govt until it’s time to Vote, etc.
It got so bad that several parts (Neighborhoods) petitioned the State to be allowed to hold Referendums and cecede from Fulton County. They did and have formed 2 or 3 small Cities. Those are doing very well. The same thing could happen here-new Cities of Donelson/Bellvue, etc who dont pay City taxes.
The nerve of this guy!
It is hard for Cooper to gage how bad the sentiment is because the local left leaning media carries his water for him. Wonder if he will tick off the faithful by going after Sean Feucht for the protest downtown on Sunday with all of this going on. The suspense will be killing me.