Two-term at-large Metro Council member Megan Barry is facing former hedge fund advisor David Fox in the Sept. 10 runoff for Nashville’s mayoral seat. Early voting is underway and ends Sept. 5.

Barry sat down with The Ledger for an interview recently.

Q: Traffic is obviously an issue. David Fox says he is focused on Nashville not becoming the next Atlanta. How do you deal with that issue if you’re elected?

A: “I think when we were sitting at the governor’s roundtable (Aug. 13) that the conversation was a regional conversation. There are challenges not just with getting people around Davidson County but also in getting people around our entire region.

“More than 50 percent of the people who work in Davidson County don’t live here. So our challenge for local metro governments is to engage with the mayors and county and city commissioners in these other counties. …

“(MTA) just started this initiative called Moving Forward, and they are out in the community engaging the community about what people want to see. I was just at this event where they have a bus that they take around to get community feedback, and I asked what are the things that you’re hearing, and the things that the community’s talking about [and it’s] a lot more frequency of routes and more hours of routes.

“So I’m a working person who needs to get transportation after 11 o’clock at night, I’ve got the ability to get home or to get to my second job.’’

Q: What do you think about multi-billion dollar projects for light rail?

A: “I think the governor kind of summed it up when he said it’s harder when you’re trying to think about eight to 12 years in the future. But the reality is we have to start building that infrastructure now so that in eight to 12 years we’re not further behind.

“And so as a mayor, you have to make sure you’re bringing the community along, that they are excited about this and then also making sure you’re finding a way to do it in a responsible way.’’

Q: You supported the measure requiring a certain percentage of workers for local construction projects. Why did you back that?

A: “I backed that because I think at the end of the day, what we hear a lot are that people in Davidson County want jobs, especially when we’re using tax dollars to pay for those jobs.

“Those folks live and pay taxes in Davidson County and the opportunity for this, and it passed overwhelmingly. What people really want is training. They want the ability to participate in those jobs. So I see the mayor’s role as being able to work with the business community and also with the labor community to say how do we address and solve the problem. The problem is making sure we have the people we need trained to do the jobs.’’

Q: David Fox has been critical of you for backing convention center financing and long-term tax breaks for projects like Bridgestone. Are you concerned that continued borrowing for projects such as this could come back to haunt Nashville?

A: “I think that when I stood with Gov. (Phil) Bredesen (for his endorsement) the other day, who is often seen as one of the most fiscally responsible mayors that Nashville’s ever had, that we together stood there and talked about the fact that if you look at the investment we’ve made in Nashville it’s really helped us grow our very vibrant economy.

“You will not see me wanting to put the brakes on growing our economy. I think that would be the wrong way to go and that’s not my vision for Nashville.’’

Q: What about upgrading water and sewer lines? What kind of priority will you put on that?

“I think when you look at our infrastructure, we do need to focus on making sure that with that growth, comes the sustainability to support it.

“If I’m fortunate to sit in that mayor’s seat, the one thing I do bring is eight years of experience on the Metro Council. We’ve already been working on these issues. This isn’t a day one for me. This is a continuation in continuity of what we’ve already achieved.’’

Q: You’ve been critical of David, saying he wants to turn every school into a charter school. What makes you say that? Can you back that up?

“I think that David can speak to that for himself. He’s got his own record he can address. But when I think about where Nashville needs to go and what we have to do, parents need different options. I would love for us to get away from charter schools vs. the traditional public schools.

“The reality is they’re all public schools, but at the end of the day traditional public schools educate the majority of our children, and what I want to see is that conversation shift to how do we educate and graduate our children so that they can go on to go to college or have a postsecondary experience so that they’ll be successful.’’

Q: Fox has been critical of you in the past week saying you’ve come up with quite of few ideas about how to use schools for community involvement and so forth. But you didn’t do anything in that regard for the last eight years. How do you explain that?

A: “As a member of the Metro Council, I have had the good fortune to serve on the budget committee. I’ve also been the chair of the budget committee, and I’ve also been chair of the education committee. And we have actively worked to fund our education for our children over those last eight years.

“We have made sure that as much as we could put into those dollars that we could get the most return for our kids as we’ve done. So my priorities have been clear the entire time and they haven’t changed.’’

Q: Affordable housing has already become an issue, and is going to become a bigger issue over the next four years. But how do you balance affordable housing with the efforts that have gone on in East Nashville, for example, to build up the property values there?

A: “I think when you look at how Nashville is growing and changing, for me this is about making sure neighborhoods have a seat at the table. I want neighborhoods to have the vision they want to grow and to be vibrant.

“So for me, it means making sure that the Office of Neighborhoods is revitalized. That will be very important in my administration. It also means making sure that there are neighborhood voices on the planning commission.’’

Q: What if some of those neighborhoods don’t want affordable housing?

A: “Well, I think affordability is a spectrum. When you think about what does affordable mean, it can mean low-income housing. But it also means that you’ve got housing for firefighters and police officers and teachers and musicians. I think it’s about having those different types of housing.

“And I see that vision as putting that kind of affordability along our pikes and corridors. We drive a lot of that density because people are coming. So we put that along our corridors, and that means our neighborhoods can be stepped back. And that’s what a lot of the Nashville Next plan plans for, by saying exactly that.’’

Q: I understand you officiated the first gay marriage in Nashville after the Supreme Court ruling. Are you concerned you might alienate some of the more conservative voters because that seems to be one of the things that you’re standing for?

A: “The wonderful thing you get to do as a Metro Council member is you get to marry people. So when I came into office in 2007, I’ve been marrying people for eight years. I also got to marry the first couple that day, but it’s a continuation … it’s such a joyful occasion I’m always honored to be included in somebody’s big day.

Q: This has kind of turned into a situation of Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal-type thing. Are you concerned that you may be labeled as too liberal?

A: “I think that when I look at where Nashville is growing and developing and going I don’t think of Nashville as a partisan place. My vision for Nashville is not partisan, and one of the wonderful things in the last eight years is I’ve been able to bring all people together to solve our really complex problems.

“If you’re sitting in traffic, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you want that problem solved.’’