I know Nashville's had a rough month or two lately.
The late January snowstorm, with its over half-inch-thick layer of ice, laid a hurt on the area, knocking out power for many for almost two weeks during the deep freeze accompanying the precipitation.
...As freezing rain coated Nashville with around 0.4 inches of ice on Jan. 25, it destroyed thousands of trees, downed power lines and triggered widespread power outages. At the peak, a record-breaking 230,000 customers of Nashville Electric Service were without power.
...NWS Nashville began to warn of the risk of freezing rain and ice on Jan. 21. The next day, it said Nashville could see anywhere from a half to three-quarters of an inch of ice and crippling impacts to roads, trees and power lines. Ice ultimately began accumulating on Jan. 25.
Hurley said plummeting temperatures triggered a "flash freeze" starting the night of Jan. 25. After that, prolonged bitter cold complicated recovery efforts as ice, snow and sleet lingered on roads, trees and power lines.
"Unfortunately, this worst-case scenario is exactly what played out," Hurley said.
In the immediate Nashville area, thirteen days after the storm blew through, there were still people without power in sub-freezing temperatures as line crews worked around the clock to repair snapped poles and downed lines.
...The utility said that power has been restored to 99.9% of customers. As of 6 p.m., the power restoration map shows that just under 300 customers remain without electricity.
“Outages in the historic ice storm peaked at 230,000 and were scattered across 294 square miles of NES service territory,” they said.
...A total of 787 poles were broken across the service area, and as of the NES announcement just before 5:30 p.m., 748 of those poles were fixed. More than 1,900 lineworkers have been working to restore power across Nashville, including crews from a dozen other states.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell, who took office in 2023, is setting up a disaster relief fund for those adversely affected by the storm, and trying to help mitigate the cost of recovery with measures such as credit to water bills for burst pipes with leak adjustments, and suspending permit fees for rebuilding.
So far, the mayor's getting pretty good marks for handling the historic event, and he'd best hope the warm glow holds for a while, as he's going to need them
Considering what's happening with property taxes in his city, the haze of 'well done' may not linger.
There's been an ongoing debate for years now about how the older buildings and venues that made Nashville what it is have all faded away, either torn down or repurposed and refaced. And that the heart of what used to be the city's musical center and heritage had given way to cookie-cutter neon Disney or Vegas faux honky tonks, all competing for the same tourist dollars.
Nashville is also a tax-hungry city, as most are, and in the spring of 2025, it did a city-wide reappraisal of the properties within the city limits. That report was released in April of last year and had home and business owners very concerned when they saw the new value figures the city was quoting for their properties.
At that time, the tax rates had yet to be determined, but what they saw in the reappraisals was heart attack fuel enough.
Nashville property values soar, homeowners concerned about property taxes
Jeff Castleberry has lived in his house in Hillwood for 32 years. Over the last three decades, he’s seen the area change and grow, just like many others in Nashville.
The 2025 reappraisal found that the median property had a historic increase in value of 45%, with some areas being higher than others.
“This is a 50s-style ranch. My next-door neighbor has what I refer to in this neighborhood now as a hotel,” Castleberry said.
His neighborhood, District 23, has seen one of the highest increases, at an average of 52%. He’s concerned that it’ll translate to higher property taxes.
“We’re retired. We’ve been able to live here because we live carefully. We don’t waste money. But there comes a point in time when careful won’t cover it because of the very thing that may be happening with this next appraisal,” Castleberry said.
Those tax bills are now arriving in the mail, and one owner of a historic downtown building, who saved and renovated the long vacant structure in its original form into a restaurant and amateur music venue, is crying murder most foul over the increase in his property tax.
Paying what the city is demanding will mean the murder of his business in one fell swoop.
Historic Nashville landmark warns it will close without property tax relief
The shockwaves from historic property tax hikes in Nashville are no longer abstract. They are now threatening to erase some of the city’s most beloved and authentic landmarks.
One of the men most responsible for preserving Nashville’s past says he may be forced to walk away from it — unless City Hall intervenes.
...Morales helped preserve the Loveless Cafe, the historic Woolworth building and the iconic Acme Feed and Seed on Lower Broadway. Now, he says Acme — one of the last true anchors of old Nashville — is on the brink of closing because of a staggering property tax increase.
The original Acme Feed and Seed operated downtown for 56 years before closing in 1999. When Morales saw the building sitting vacant for more than a decade, he decided to bring it back — not as a theme park version of Nashville, but as the real thing.
...“It’s our property tax,” Morales said. “It went from $129,000 a year to $600,000 a year. That’s more than our rent and net profit combined.”
A nearly half-million-dollar increase in a single year.
“We can’t pay it,” Morales said. “It’s punitive.”
Mayor O'Connell's response was very telling and progressive.
SO WHAT
...“It’s not up to me whether he keeps that business open,” Mayor O’Connell said. “The market evolves. New businesses start even as beloved old businesses close.”
Now, back in May, I did a VIP post on the mayor. He'd run afoul of Tom Homan and the Department of Homeland Security for releasing the names of DHS and ICE agents who were working in Davidson County at the time on the serious transnational gang problem that 'sanctuary city' Nashville has on its hands.
💥 BOMBSHELL:
— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) May 28, 2025
Thanks to the work of @KarenAFox17, my office has uncovered evidence that Mayor Freddie O’Connell publicly leaked the names of DHS and HSI officials working with Davidson County on immigration enforcement.
The information is posted on an official Nashville… pic.twitter.com/GwVLiEyW3B
...The information is posted on an official Nashville government website — fully accessible to the public.
MS-13 and other transnational gangs could easily use this as intel for their operations.
It also includes details on how local officers are coordinating with federal agents, putting agents in serious danger and exposing local law enforcement to unnecessary scrutiny and targeting.
Tell me how this isn’t a Democrat official deliberately trying to undermine President Trump’s efforts to save America.
Not a soul should be surprised that a miserable little chunk of wokester excrement who literally ran for office as the 'immigrants' choice' for Nashville would be so quick to throw the people paying for Nashville under the wheels of his electric bus.
Republican lawmakers in the state capital are fixin' to rain on the progressive money grab, however, after no doubt some of them received their own hefty property tax bills this past month.
Tennessee lawmakers are considering legislation that would cap how much cities and counties can raise property taxes each year.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jason Zachary of Knoxville (HB 1873) and Sen. Bo Watson (SB 2064), would limit local governments to property tax increases of no more than 2% annually or 6% over three years.
Any local government wanting to exceed those limits would have to put the tax increase to a popular vote in the next statewide election.
The legislation comes after property taxes reportedly spiked more than 60% in Nashville and over 100% in Mount Juliet in recent years.
There are punitive progressive wealth taxes of different stripes, from AOC's hand in your bank account to O'Connell's stealing chunks of your dream kitchen or bricks from your business.
They all do one thing well and for sure, and that's drive the people away who made the place livable to begin with.
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