Terry Vo is a first-term council member who has already left an impression through strong leadership. Vo, whose parents immigrated from Vietnam, is a founding member of the inaugural Metro Council Immigrant Caucus, which she also chairs and shares membership with other Zulfat Suara, Jeff Preptit and Sandra Sepulveda.
“We want to identify and promote issues of concern to immigrants in Nashville, Davidson County,” Vo said. “We want to promote diversity and inclusiveness in governmental decision-making processes. We want to nurture leadership development within and among groups that reflect the changing demographics of Tennessee. And we want to serve as a resource for the dissemination of information, and reports that relate to and/or impact immigrant communities.”
As a member of the 2024 class of the Next Gen Global Leaders Network of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, Vo’s leadership is also recognized at the international level.
How would you describe District 17 and its constituents?
I describe District 17 as a microcosm of the entire county. We are really lucky. District 17 is dynamic. There is a lot going on here. We have a university, we have public housing, we have a stadium, we have growth but not everywhere, and we have music venues and hospitality. My constituents’ median age is 30; and 62.8 percent of the population is white, 47.7 percent are black, 4 percent are Asian, nearly 5 percent are Hispanic/Latino, and then about 4 percent are two or more races. I feel honored to represent District 17.
What are your top goals for your first term in Metro Council?
I would really love to make significant progress on a grocery store or access to healthier food options for the area of my district that is a Food Apartheid. It’s really important to me to use this term because it’s not a food desert. Deserts are natural, and what we are facing is not. There is nothing natural about large, low-income areas not having access to affordable, healthy food options. This was a result of systematic and racist policies. So, my top goal is to bring a grocery here. But if I can’t do that in four years, then I would like to make significant progress toward it.
Two, I want to increase green space for my constituents in District 17, I’m going to fight for that.
Three, I really would like to have affordable housing and housing for all types of community members.
And I want to focus on cleaning the district. Clean-ups are really important initiatives. Cleaning streets is something everyone can participate in. It brings people together because you usually pick up litter with other people. My hope is to build connection amongst neighbors, and I really want to increase civic engagement. That’s really important to me because I want people to feel connected to their local government.
Last month the Metro Council approved the Master Developer Agreement between Metro government and The Fallon Company to develop 30 acres on the East Bank. You serve on the Metro Council’s Ad Hoc East Bank Committee. What is your feedback on the progress of the East Bank development?
The reason it was unanimously approved through Council was because of the proactive work and positive partnership between the Mayor’s Office and Metro Council. The Mayor’s Office didn’t have to share all those details. But by doing so, it [ensured] the Ad Hoc Committee members had a voice. We could share it with our constituents and the county at large, and we could talk about it and people could watch. I think being proactive is always better than being reactive. And I think we prioritized things that the community said they wanted like affordable housing, [access to] health care, and complete streets. Those are all included in the plan and are not an afterthought.
I’m really proud that we are prioritizing this project for every Nashvillian, not just certain groups. The goal was for anyone to have access to go to the East Bank. Of course, people living there need to be a priority, and we need to ensure that if we have child care, it is accessible to them. Otherwise, we’re failing them.
I think the process was really important. Meeting with Fallon, having conversations, being really open, for me that was really important. I think we should keep our priorities strong and tight and keep inching forward on those priorities and not forget what’s most important in any development.
Are there any opportunities you would like to see Metro pursue when it comes to housing and inclusive development?
In terms of housing, I would love for Metro to think outside the box. You know, do something we have never done and be willing to look to other local governments that have a similar problem that are addressing the housing crisis and see how successful they’ve been. For example, in Montgomery County in Maryland, it’s a suburb right outside of DC. They have more than a million residents and they decided to address their housing shortage by building social housing. They worked together with private developers, but it’s still owned by the county, which I think is important. They built a great mixed-income place that’s publicly owned. I love [this example] because they built new 268-unit apartments, and they’re 97-percent leased today. That to me is incredible. There is a need for it. And they have great amenities, too. I think we have to break our image of what we think public housing is and that everyone deserves a great place to live. And that we can be supporting that.
We often think about state preemption but on our own land, we get to make the decisions. And I think that’s a really great opportunity to actually solve some big problems that maybe we can’t in other ways. So, I’m hoping that we can [explore] what we have and use the land that we have. And build partnerships so that we can increase the offering and address the crisis in a way that clearly the private sector will not.
I think we have an opportunity, too, with inclusive development. How do we really build up BIPOC developers and give them opportunities? I really hope that we can be a leader in this space.
What are your thoughts about the Mayor’s proposed Transit referendum?
We really need to support his plan. I think it’s a good foundation for what we need to address, so that hopefully, in the next phase we can do more. To be one of four cities in the nation that doesn’t have dedicated transit funding, tells you [we are behind]. We need a strong foundation, and we need our community members to get … to their home safely. I used to live in Brisbane, Australia. I didn’t need a car [to get to my university]. It was a five-minute ferry ride. I hope we can continue to push and be creative and find solutions for us and address them as quickly as possible. I would love for a 15-year plan to be completed in 10 years.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
I really want people to know that being a Councilmember is a full-time job with poverty pay. Many councilmembers work multiple jobs to be able to survive in this city. The current makeup of our Council is 30 to 72 [years of age], but we don’t have anyone in our 20s. I want to encourage young people to say that their place is not only to [go to] the ballot to vote but also to be on the ballot. Only two people on our Council, out of the 40, are renters. Yet over half of our population here in the county are renters. We need to understand why that is, what the issues are, and have better engagement.
We have issues and we have things that are going on, and we need the people who are living it to have a voice and more of it. I encourage other people to see themselves in these decision-making roles and that being an elected official is possible, and you don’t need to wait until you’re 40 or 50, you can do it today.