NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Nashville Mayor John Cooper is assembling a team to help reduce and prevent violence.
Eleven Nashvillians were chosen to join the new Community Safety Partnership Advisory Board. The group consists of experts in areas ranging from Metro Council to medicine.
The board will provide funding recommendations for more than $1.5 million in grants, which Cooper allocated in March to bolster neighborhood groups working to prevent and reduce violence in Nashville.
Ron Johnson, who was recently named Nashville's first community safety coordinator, will work with the board. Johnson will lead the mayor's community safety efforts as he collaborates with neighborhood groups and Metro Nashville Police. Johnson says this is a dream job for him and a new way to help. He wants people to know he’s committed to making every community a safer place.
Learn more about Johnson: As the first Nashville Community Safety Coordinator, Ron Johnson wants to hear from you
The Community Safety Partnership Advisory Board is made up of seven men and four women from different backgrounds, who all want to see Music City flourish and become a safer city:
- Katina Beard - CEO of Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center, chair of the Mayor's Behavior Health and Wellness Advisory Council
- Christiane Buggs - Manager of literacy partnerships for United Way of Greater Nashville, chair of Metro Nashville Public School Board of Education
- Sheila Calloway - Judge of Juvenile Court of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County
- Jennifer Gamble - Chair of Metro Council Public Safety Committee, founder and CEO of Nelson PR & Communications
- Dwayne Greene - Deputy chief of Metro Nashville Police Community Services bureau
- Nawzad Hawrami - Vice president and founding board member of Salahadeen Center, public safety chair of the mayor's New American Advisory Council
- Christopher Jackson - Senior pastor of Pleasant Green Baptist Church, president of Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship
- Alex Jahangir - Chair o Metro Nashville Public Health Board, executive medical director at Vanderbilt Center for Trauma, Burn and Emergency Surgery, director of Vanderbilt Department of Orthopedic Surgery, professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Andrés Martínez - Chair of Metro Community Oversight Board, policy and communications director at Conexión Américas
- Tom Turner - President and CEO of Nashville Downtown Partnership
