NOAH Questions and Answers

Metro Council District 7 candidate Stephen Clements

Question 1: Tell us about yourself
Hi, Im Stephen Clements, and I thank you for inviting me here tonight. I grew up in Paris
and then Memphis, TN, where I graduated from the University of Memphis with a Masters in
Political Science. As I was finishing up at school, I asked my lodge brothers for advice on what
to do next: the older guys were almost all WW2 veterans and were glad to have served their
country, and the middle-aged men who no longer had the conditioning for it and families to take
care of told me that was their one regret, not having served in our countrys military.
I decided that was one regret I didnt have to have, so SSG Kedrick McDonald signed me
up for a 3 and a half year ride! I served the Army as an engineer officer, spent 15 months in
Baghdad, and when I got out, I met this beautiful and mean woman who lived in south Madison.
I moved here to be with her, and 5 years later, she still likes me. I have three corgis, two cats, and
make my own wine.

Question 2: NOAH advocates for public funding for creating new affordable housing and
mixed-income housing developments. What would you do to address the rising housing
prices and protect lower-income residents from losing their homes?
I am not for we the citizens footing the bill so private corporations can make money off us.
If the new stadium was such a good idea, why didnt the team pay for it themselves? I also think
MDHA should get out of the business of subsidizing developments for the rich, and get back to
why it was created in the first place, to help with low income and affordable housing.
I spent this past Saturday doing carpentry work to help a nice, older lady with disabilities
stay in her home, and I thank Rebuilding Together Nashville for that opportunity to serve her.
The home she lives in was unsafe and falling apart, but a swarm of volunteers fixed that place up,
just for the joy of knowing they helped a neighbor.
This upcoming Sunday, in conjunction with Madison NOW! and my home church, I will
be helping to bring more volunteers and resources together to help feed the homeless, the hungry,
and those whose check runs out before the month does.
We do not have to wait on somebody else to help each other out today!

Question 2: NOAH seeks to eliminate racial disparities in arrest and incarceration. NOAH
also seeks to cut out prison population in half, using creative alternatives to incarceration.
What would you do to address this?
The major criminal justice problem we have is based on race: the Prohibition against
marijuana was initially sold as a way to go after blacks, who were the targets of scaremongering
among those who wanted to keep them down after they had been freed from slavery.
This Prohibition against a plant less harmful than legal products keeps tax dollars going to solve
problems we invented, feeding money into violent drug cartels, and creating a steady stream of
inmates to fill our prisons.
In 2013, there were 79 marijuana-related arrest every hour in the US. How many otherwise
innocent lives were ruined forever for something that was legal longer than it has been illegal?!
With my pro-legalization friends at TN NORML and Tennesseans United, I will be glad to help
you do something about that, right here, right now, by letting you sign the petition I have to
effectively ban arrests made for simple possession of marijuana in Davidson County.

Question 3: NOAH objects to major corporations receiving big-dollar pay-outs from the
city, while the poverty rate of our residents continue to rise. NOAH wants publicly-funded
projects to give priority to local workers before bringing in outside laborers, so that our tax
dollars stay in our community. What would you do to address this issue?
As a proud member of labor union AFGE Local 2470, I know the value of high quality
training, the excellence skilled labor can bring, the justice and merit of good employment
practices, and the quality of work both the employer and customer receives from my brothers and
sisters in labor. If our tax dollars are getting spent on a project, I absolutely want local workers
to get the first crack at those jobs.
I also want to use my vote on the Council to make sure we can honor the raises and solid
pension plans we promised to our city workers and retirees. I think it unconscionable that two
people up here voted themselves $5,000 pay raises when the police chief stated he cannot give
the raises promised to officers in their contracts and our retiree obligations are basically insolvent.
The Metro Council needs to keep its promises, not line its own pockets at our expense.

Question 4: Concluding remarks and thoughts about working with NOAH

I want to congratulate NOAH, both for the excellent events you have hosted and for the
goals youve set for yourself, and most importantly for having an organization effective enough
to take your concerns and to get everyone talking about them. The headlines are dominated by
what the mayoral candidates think about the issues you advocate, and that is a testament to your
effectiveness. I will be glad to help in any way I can in making Davidson County and District 7
a better place, and our visions for what that looks like are incredibly similar.
What I caution my fellow candidates and the different organizations here against is
something I saw at the home rebuilding day, when almost every mayor candidate came by that
nice ladys house to use her need and our charitable work as a photo op. They didnt do anything,
they didnt help, and to them, looking important trumped doing something important.
I do not ask for your vote to get myself a fancy title, tax-payer funded healthcare for the
rest of my life, to vote myself a pay raise for the honor of representing my neighbors, or anything
like that: I am here to fix the problems my neighbors and I face. I want to make Metro deliver on
the promises it made to our communities and our city workers. Never lose sight of the fact that
we will be remembered by what we did, not by how important we thought we were.