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Thank you.

- A new push for consolidated local government, tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Reginald Milton, from the Shelby County Commission.

Reginald, thanks for being here.

- It's a pleasure.

- Chase Carlyle from the Memphis City Council, thanks for being here.

- Thank you it's good to be back.

- Along with Bill Dries with The Daily Memphian.

So, you all are both at the front and center on an effort to bring up consolidated government.

Let's do kind of briefly what, consolidation is one of those things when you say it in Memphis, and Bill can do the history here in a minute about various consolidation efforts, which schools, government, so on and so forth.

When you say consolidation, I think it's one of those things people immediately, "know", what it means, right?

They have a lot of preconceived notions about this is, what this is, and isn't.

So, let's walk through and I'll start with you Reginald.

- Okay.

- What does this involve, and what does it not involve?

- Well, first of all, what it involves is the effort of us trying to do something.

The reality is, is that this city, this area, we're stuck in the mud, and we need to do something.

And I think that's what drew me to this from the very beginning.

And, I believe that the effort of trying to bring some people together who can look at this, just look at it, I think is a positive direction that we need to go in because I am not going to take anything off the table right now for us to try to move forward.

- Councilman?

- Yeah.

Reg said it, Reg said it very well.

I think you, you, you sound [inaudible] one is right and one is a little wrong.

In the sense that there's a lot of preconceived notions about what consolidation means or a merger and, and, and that's, and that's right.

I think knowledge is, is the hard part.

There are very few things under our state laws that we can do as, as a government structure, or, or things to accelerate growth, or look at ways and opportunities to improve our community through the structure.

And, our state law allows the largest principal city, which is Memphis, it's two-thirds, roughly two-thirds of our county, to merge with the county government.

And so, it's not a surrender, it's a merger.

It stays under home rule because the county is under home rule, the city of Memphis is under home rule.

And so, we have an opportunity to explore ways in which that merger could benefit, not only Memphis and the county, but the region together.

- Some quick questions, then will go to Bill.

Does it involve combining the school systems?

- No, it does not.

- Does it mean more taxes or, or different tax structure?

- It does mean a different tax structure.

There are potentially up to three taxing districts under a consolidated or merged government, an Urban Services District to General Services District, things like, Regional Transportation Authority could be a thing for MATA as we look at affordable transportation.

What I will say though, that's important about the taxing structure is nobody wants anybody else's problems.

The debt that is with Memphis homeowners stays with the household, that's state law.

The debt that is with the county and even the proportionate share of the city households of the county side, of their tax paying side, stays with them.

- Does this involve combining with Germantown, with Bartlett, with Collierville, with the suburban, with the suburban government?

- No, no.

And, and a simple answer to the tax issue is we don't know.

The reality is, we assume it's going to be small, lower.

Logically it should be, but the reality, until we get that team together and look at it, there's going to be some questions.

- The last one, one mayor, not two, - One mayor.

- one council commission, not a City Council, and a County Commission?

- Correct.

- Combined.

- Okay, let me go to Bill.

- All right, the City Council has meeting on September 7th, I believe.

- Yes, tuesday.

- Tuesday.

Will there, will you have a resolution on the agenda to form a charter commission?

- There will be a resolution on the committee agenda to discuss forming a charter commission.

- Okay, and commissioner, I believe you have said that you're going to wait to see where this goes with the city before you introduce it on the county side?

- It's the only logical way of doing it.

We'll wait to the city has made their move and then we will follow behind.

- All right.

What have you heard from your fellow commissioners and does what you've heard add up to seven votes at this point?

- Well, let me say that, Yeah, it's still a little early on this.

We have been talking with people.

Most of the individuals I've met with the consensus is that they just want to know more.

A lot of people, they know what consolidation is.

Like you said, we hear about it, but the truth is a lot of the data is not actually understood.

I think one elected official is saying that, well, you know, why do we have to give up our charter?

And, obviously we're not gonna give up our charter.

So, there's a lot of misinformation out there as well.

So, this is going to be education.

And, I think once we move past that, I believe a lot of the fears are going to go away.

- All right, Councilman, same question to you.

Do you hear seven votes, not necessarily for consolidation, but for forming a charter commission?

- I hear a lot of interest in exploring things that can make it better.

I've had the opportunity as, as you may have heard or seen through my comments to really dig in and study this issue.

It's complex, there's a lot of data, there's, there's task reports there, state statute, there's RAND studies, there's all sorts of information.

What I heard from my colleagues on our last meeting was we have a, you have Chase, we respect you, and we understand that you spend a lot of time on this, and we just want to take time to start to absorb this, let the public absorb it for consumption, and understand what the pros and cons are.

And, I'm happy to walk down that road and give them the time to catch up to where I am.

- Is it possible that a charter commission could be formed appointed by each of the mayors, and then, that charter commission comes back with a report and says, "we don't think there should be consolidation of city and county government, but we think that these things should change and keep that structure."

Are, are, are they, are they bound to propose consolidation?

- By State statute, they are bound to research and explore and write a constitution and turn it over, no less than 80 days, and no more than a 100 days from the next county wide election.

- And do understand, though that, they still have to come back to the City Council County Commission to allow us to throw in a last few words before it's finished, they could, they give us a draft.

So, there will be a moment for us to include some points that we have as well.

So, that, that still allows an opportunity.

- But, it goes on the ballot when they, when they.. complete - Right - their, their work and it doesn't need, council or?

- A council or commission.

Yes.

- Exactly.

- Okay, it goes directly to the election committee.. - We have 80 to a 100 on the ballot, right?

- All right.

- Let me stay with you Bill and, and do a bit of a history here.

I mean the most recent, really big consolidation issue that came up was the school consolidation, back around the time we started the show.

So, some 10 years ago, when the Memphis City Council gave up, excuse me, Memphis City Schools.

Yeah, I know don't, don't, don't quote me on it.

Memphis City Schools gave up it's charter was absorbed into Shelby County Schools, which then ran just the suburban school districts.

It was a big, I mean, we did approximately 1,000 shows on a school consolidation and then deconsolidation.

The state got involved and we ended up with Shelby County Schools, essentially being the old Memphis City Schools footprint, essentially, and we ended up with independent suburban school districts.

Besides that one, which I did an okay job describing, there have been other consolidation efforts.

Why don't you walk us through some of those?

- Well, the, the, the last consolidation charter that was proposed and went to the voters in a dual referendum, which is a part of state law, a referendum in the city of Memphis, and a referendum outside the city of Memphis, was in 2010, and it, it was defeated.

2010 is also at the end of that year, was when the Memphis City School Board voted to surrender its charter and started the whole school consolidation process.

The charter commission formed 10 years ago.

Eleven years ago, excuse me, in 2010, decided pretty early on that they were not going to touch school consolidation, that they were just going to leave it out of whatever charter that, that they drafted, and, and they did.

Memphis was a very busy place in terms of change in, in 2010 around that time.

So, the school consolidation really unfolded separately from the Memphis City government and Shelby County government consolidation.

- That, that vote, that was 10 years ago, [Clears throat] excuse me, 11 years ago now.

The, in the city of Memphis, it was, it barely passed, in the outside city of Memphis, it went down 3 to 1 or something, something like that.

What has changed that makes you think particularly outside the city of Memphis, that you can get over 50% and people to vote for?

- Sure, so one Bill touched on, I want to make sure, because this is out in the, out in the misinformation.

- Yeah.

- The Memphis City Board of Education, surrendered its charter.

And then, later took it, I think, maybe to a vote after the fact.

There is not going to be a legislative move for the city to surrender its charter.

A constitution is going to be put out there and asking people to merge their governmental systems.

So, no one is surrendering anything.

In the last 10 years, and, and, and as Bill was saying while the school systems, and I think even in the constitution, it says they won't, shall not consolidate.. a lot of the fear out in the, in the county suburbs, was that there was going to be a consolidation of the school system.

A lot of the, the, the air campaign and a lot of the, the, whisper campaign was that, the school system was a major factor.

When you look at Louisville, Jacksonville, a lot of the successful mergers over the last 50, 60 years, they come on the ballot.

There's usually one or two major sticking points, there's a failed vote, that, those sticking points are worked out, and then, it comes back 10 to 12 years, and some with success.

A lot has changed in Memphis, the structure of the Shelby County Commission has changed, People's exposure to Memphis, we have the FedExForum, we have the Levitt Shell, Overton, you've got a new generation of voters, you have people that have moved out to the county.

So, I think a lot of evolution has occurred in the municipalities, but I'll, I'll tell you what's most changed for me, and, and this is really what Reg was saying when we, Commissioner Milton, I apologize, - It's all right.

Well, when we opened, which is, we have to look at options to do something.

So, here, here are the quick stats that I'll give you on why we need to explore this and what has changed.

From 2010 to 2020, Shelby County lost 2000 residents, Davidson county gained 89,000 residents, Memphis proper lost 13,000 residents, Nashville proper gain 74,000 residents, Memphis Metro +31,000, Nashville +343,000.

From 2000 to 2020 Shelby County +31,000, Davidson +164,000, Memphis lost 60,000 residents over 20 years, Nashville gain 144,000, last one, Memphis Metro over 20 years only gained 135,000 people, and Nashville gained 1.185 million people.

- And, and people often use, you know, Nashville has consolidated government, Memphis doesn't.

What, what, why?

I mean why do you.. - People talk about bold leadership.

- Well, but, but, but, let me, let me push back on that.

Everybody wants bold leadership.

- Right.

- What do you want that bold leadership to do?

Why would consolidated government change these demographic, and, and is that the reason?

I don't, I mean I think some people think that is the reason that Nashville's run.

Other people say there's all kinds of other factors that have caused that growth.

- I mean, there, there are other factors.

There's never one thing, no one wins an election by one thing they've done.

It's, no one loses election, they call it death by a thousand cuts.

Right?

You can't have bold leadership when you have two head football coaches, two bodies, even when we have functional consolidation, like EDGE, the mayors still both have the ability to veto it.

- Right.

- So, how are you gonna move forward like that?

- Fair enough.

Let me bring in commission.

What's.

What are you in your, in your mind what has changed in the last 10, 11 years that you think that there will be more interest in the possibility that this could pass, especially outside the city limit?

- I'm not worried about, I'm not going to sit here and talk about what has..

I'm going to tell you what hasn't changed, our situation.

We're still stuck.

We're not moving forward.

And, I think the reality of many people in the city, county is that we, we have a problem and I represent some of the poorest communities in Tennessee, South Memphis, Orange Mound.

I see poverty every day.

I see despair.

I know what it looks like, I know it feels like, even know what it smells like.

And I think that for too long, we sit around and accept where we are.

We've got to change that.

- How.. Before I go to Bill.. Again, take..

I don't, I don't know that I've had, ever had anybody at the table that didn't, wouldn't disagree, who would disagree, excuse me, with what you just described.

How would consolidated government translate into solving those problems?

- The reality is, look, if you believe consolidated government is going to cure cancer, it's not.

And, I don't think it is.

- Fair enough.

- And, and the reality is, is that we are, and I, I, I, I'm an analogy person is that, you know, someone's got to get out of the car.

Someone's going to have to get behind the car and push us out of the mud.

We have..

If you have a better idea?

If you have a better plan?

I'm open to it.

The reality is, is that we are not moving.

And in, in just the act of us working on this, I think sends out a message that Memphis and Shelby County is in for play.

We want to see something happen.

- All right, Bill.

- What would law enforcement look like?

Crimes, crimes are a huge issue, I suppose it's always been an issue, but what do you think law enforcement looks like in a consolidated city and county?

- Well, I mean, that is one of the objectives of putting together this charter commission, is to look at that and to ask that question, what will it look like?

If I have that answer already, that means I know what this is going to be, and you should be suspect by that.

- Okay.

Councilman?

- Same thing, I want to step back to, to just piggyback off of what Reg was talking about poverty, and talking about, you know, this, this idea that this isn't a magic wand, that I'm a City Council member, and he's a County Commissioner, and this is a tool that, that as a government official, we can do.

I'm not a shareholder an institutional shareholder of FedEx.

I can't dictate that FedEx bring more jobs here, but what I can do is react to the feedback that we're getting from the business community and not just in Memphis, but through the Greater Memphis Chamber, through Ted Townsend, through these relocation and headquarter firms that are giving us the feedback telling us that our structure and the way that we operate creates turbulence and uncertainty in the marketplace, and that hurts us in the grading.

So, when we talk about things like PILOTs or tools in the toolbox, looking at a metropolitan government is one of the tools that's at our disposal.

And so, we owe it to the citizens and our constituents to at least explore that option.

- The, the Council and the County Commission, each of your bodies are getting ready to move into the redistricting process.

In your case, on the Council side, Councilman, one of your colleagues, Martavius Jones has said that in this process, he intends to propose two things.

He intends to propose a conversion of the City Council that would eliminate the super district seats and go with 13 single member districts, like the County Commission has, and he also intends to talk, at least talk about partisan primaries for city elections.

Those are also two pretty dramatic changes just for city government.

Are, are we in a season here of competing ideas?

Competing big ideas like that, and like consolidation?

- Well, I, I've read the articles and, and, and I'm not sure what Councilman Jones intends to do fully.

I do love that someone at the end of their term, as a super district representative, it's not like I don't like super districts, but, but sure.

What I will say is, is that's the whole idea is we have all these ideas out there about the structure of government.

Let's form a charter commission and let them have those discussions, bring in experts, do the research, and put forward a document that people can, can, can vote on.

And here's to your point out of that charter commission, even if it were to fail, maybe we're going to learn something that we can implement in our current structure that is to the benefit of the people.

- Commissioner.. the redistricting process.. What does the, what does the commission do if we're going to do this charter commission, do you guys just leave the lines where, where they are?

Because, there's also some lag time between if there's a charter commission, and what they draft, and when the voters vote on it, and then there's an effective date.

- Come on, Bill.

When has a politician not done something, when they have a chance to do it?

[Both giggled] Sure, We're going to work on that.

And, if the Metro government become a reality, come what may.

- But, right now we have a responsibility to address this now.

And that's what we're going to do.

- Well said.

- With consolidation, we talked about some of this, but just again, we're talking about a lot and it's a very complicated process.

And again, as you're talking about what, what really is on the table here is creating a charter commission to explore all these things, right?

- Yeah.

- You all, you all are not, don't have in your, your, your hand note book there.

What you're trying to get passed, it's more of the creation of this process.

But, from your points of view, I mean, the, right now, and I'm going to do this in very simplistic terms and you all can correct me.

I mean, if you think of the suburban areas, Germantown, Collierville, Millington, and so on, they get, they're, they're independent.

They get a certain amount of funding and a certain amount of services from the county.

The big part of that funding is, is I would say school funding that passes through, but there are other services.

Is the idea that the consolidated government would then have this, I guess, would be the Memphis consolidated government would have that relationship with, say Millington, would have that..?

I mean, that, that relationship with those suburban cities doesn't necessarily change.

- Yeah, that's exactly right.

When we talk about a metropolitan form of government, we're already talking, we're really talking about, again, merging Memphis with the Shelby County government.

So, their relationship with the Shelby County government already provides them that relationship with Memphis.

When you look at the current structure of the, of the Shelby County Commission, eight members and really nine, if you include Commissioner Billingsley's district, represent the city of Memphis.

And so, you know, there is an opportunity there to look at a structure that is mutually beneficial to both the county and the city.

- You're the county commissioner, but would, I've heard some people raise concerns that a consolidate government would give less representation to the suburbs, once that body were combined.

- Yeah.

And, black people will lose power, white people will lose power, everybody's going to lose power.

This will happen that..

The bottom line is that, I've come across three groups of people.

And one, is that who immediately turned against us, is that you have some politicians who are afraid that they're going to lose their phony baloney positions.

You have people who are happy being the big fish in a small pond.

And you have people who say, I don't care what happens to Memphis.

Or you have people in Memphis who said, I don't care what happens to municipalities.

I don't listen to any of these people, because they never build anything.

The reality is, is that we have a challenge here.

We have an opportunity to create something that may move us forward, will it?

I'm not married to Metro government.

I'm not married to any of this, but I am divorced from apathy, and from people who are naysayers.

- Bill.

- So, eleven years ago, there, there were some ideas that came out of this.

I believe that group called for a 25 member body.

They called for the Sheriff to be the keeper of the jails and of the corrections division, and not be involved in law enforcement with the Metro police department.

Are any of those ideas useful?

Are, are any of those ideas..

I mean, they really didn't go very far in terms of changes after the charter was turned down.

- No, not in that case, But I, I, I still think that good things can come from these ideas.

And I agree, I represent 80,000 people, South Memphis, Orange Mound, Cooper Young, Overton Square, Central Garden, Chickasaw Garden and Midtown, come on.

We should, I would look at something smaller.

I think it would give better representation to the public.

So, I'll throw my 2 cents in when the charter commission is informed.

- Yeah, I think, I think Commissioner Milton's right.

I mean, look, the charter commission, statutorily has to, has to start with blank slate, but there's no reason why they couldn't pull things that they find common sense into that document.

But, but, you know, we want to, I would, I would hope that they would begin tabula rasa and that they would go and start, and create, with experts, and.. And, and community input.

I think one of the important things that I've said publicly, and I'll just reiterate here is that by statute, by the state law, is that the legislative intent of the charter commission is to be diverse and representative of both the principal city and the county from people from economically, politically and socially diverse backgrounds.

In an effort you asked about, three to one last time.

This has to be an all hands on deck.

What do you really want to see out of your government structure that you think could be a benefit to your community?

And I'll say this over and over again, compromise here, guys, it's a good thing.

We want people to come to the table with good faith, to work on a way in which they really think their local government can benefit their community.

And I think that, that's possible.

- Do you foresee any legal challenge of the dual referendum requirement?

- I personally don't have any interest in challenging that, it goes, it goes back to, this is personal, it goes and speaks back to this, shouldn't be a Memphis crammed down, or a Poplar corridor crammed down.

This should be wanting people to come together.

When you look at the TACIR study that was published in 2,000-- - TACIR?

- Oh man, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.

- Okay.

- That's one of those fun governmental acronyms.

And, they study all sorts of things for the Tennessee state legislature.

Five reasons you should consider consolidation, you know, number one economic development, number five harmony, harmony.

A councilmember talked about, I think in an article for The Daily Memphian about how the city and the county don't get along, we don't play nice together.

This is an opportunity for us to come together and figure out ways in which we, we could play nice together.

We are one economy.

I had a councilwoman that talk about, well, what does Germantown's economy do that Memphis's doesn't?

We're one economy.

We're one economic region of which Memphis is the driving force behind that.

If you've got industry out in Collierville or Bartlett, you're using Memphis International Airport and our infrastructure to transport.

Memphis treats your sewage, Memphis provides electricity, and so we have to come together in ways in which are beneficial to all.

- And let me talk real, real quick, you may have heard about this pandemic we had.

[laughs] - You know, Yeah, it's, you know I think, I think it still is going on some don't believe that, but yeah, I do believe it's still going on.

We had an issue trying to figure out, we have two good mayors, but there was confusion on how this was going to work and who was responsible for what?

And, and that is an example.

We can't afford for major disasters, major issues to appear, and there'd be question of who or what is in control.

- It, it would, just a minute left here, and obviously, we'll likely be doing other shows on this as we go forward.

But do you, I mean, I've mentioned the school consolidation, deconsolidation.

What a big part of what happened there is that the state legislature came in and to some people saved the day, or to others, changed the rules completely, and stacked it for the suburban.

We can relitigate that, but it's, what's done is done.

Do you foresee changes in state law that could change or hamper this process?

- I don't have a crystal ball, but I'll tell you and I've been very consistent about this, despite public comment.

I am not a fan of local intervention or a state intervention in local politics.

- Yeah - Same, have you heard any noise from state legislators, other issues?

- As of yet?

No.

- Okay.

- This is all moving, I think, I, maybe we said this?

This is all again, September 7th, the City Council brings up as a resolution on the agenda, all of it, if it moves forward, moves towards a November 22 referendum.

More to come.

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Councilman.

And thank you for joining us.

If you missed any of today's episode, you can get past episodes or this full episode at WKNO.org.

Thanks.

And we'll see you next week.

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