- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland tonight on Behind the Headlines.

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

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thanks for having me.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

This is the first of two episodes we're gonna do with Jim Strickland.

He's gonna sit here for a full hour.

We'll have the first part today, focus more on issues at hand, even though the mayor's termed down and we'll hand the reins to Paul Young on January 1st.

There's a lot going on that we'll talk to him about, and then the next show will be more about a look back at his eight years as mayor, maybe even some of his time as City Council.

It's not a hard and fast rule though, but thank you for sitting and doing this.

We really appreciate it.

- It's always fun.

- Right now, I mean, I guess, what do you wanna get done between now and January 1st?

'Cause there's a lot on the agenda.

There's the arena deal.

There's, MLGW has a whole lot going on.

There's a big broadband deal you've put forward, and, of course, sadly and frustratingly, there is crime.

What with this next six, seven weeks, are you gonna do?

- Yes to all that.

A couple years ago, our senior leadership team, we had a kind of a retreat, and Governor Haslam, former Governor Haslam spoke to us virtually, and he said something that really resonates with all of us still.

"You are mayor until you're not mayor."

So, we've dedicated ourselves to go strong through December 31st.

The broadband deal, we'd like to get that approved on third reading and initiated so that the company can start breaking ground in January, February.

I'm still optimistic that we can get something worked out on the arenas and the stadiums issue.

That hopefully will happen.

And then you mentioned crime, we are actively recruiting and trying to retain police officers.

We got good news, or some data, yesterday showing that, this year, we're retaining officers at a much higher clip than even last year.

So that's good news.

We're about to graduate a class, that will get us to about close to 2,000 officers, and then the next class, like, starts in January or February, and the goal is to get 100 recruits into that class, which would be a big class.

So, we are working hard on all those issues.

- All those issues we'll dig into.

Why don't we stick with crime right now, because it is just so on people's mind, and, obviously, it's been very much on your mind.

When you look right now, the parts of the criminal justice and public safety system that you as mayor and the city controls, which is not everything, right, and we've talked about that a lot.

We've had a lot of the other parts and pieces and leaders of the various parts of the criminal justice system.

What right now is working and working well?

- On the law enforcement side?

I think our police officers are doing a great job.

They're still short hundreds of officers, but considering the manpower, they do incredible work every single day, and I don't think we show our thanks enough.

So they're doing a great job.

Obviously, I've been frustrated with the court system.

The system as a whole is broken.

Our state and federal laws have allowed the proliferation of guns everywhere in our community, and then they inadequately punish the wrongful use of those guns, so it's like the worst case.

They allow guns all over the place but then don't punish the wrongful use of the guns, and that state and federal laws and the system itself is broken, and there need to be consequences.

And, I've used this quote before.

A federal prosecutor who was prosecuting one of the January 6th rioters and was arguing for a stiff sentence, and this is what she said.

"Wanted a long sentence so it could act", quote, "act as a deterrent to others seeking "to impose their political views by force.

"We need to be sure that the consequences "are abundantly clear to anyone who might be unhappy with the 2024 or other elections."

And then an analyst on CNN said, "Those sentences will have a chilling effect on these groups and make it more difficult for them to recruit."

That's a clear, concise message.

Don't do what happened on January 6th, and there will be real consequences.

I ask you rhetorically.

Is that the message coming from our judicial system in Memphis?

The answer is no.

- Let me bring Bill in.

- So, following the quote, and, obviously, when you talk about it in our judicial system, you're talking about a different context.

No one thinks, I believe, that the crime we're seeing is part of a political movement.

But, do you think there's some level of organization that needs to be spoken to with a change in judicial philosophy?

- Absolutely, and the message needs to be clear.

If you shoot a gun at another human being, you will serve a lot of time in jail, prison.

You will serve a lot of time.

That's not happening now.

The system is baked so if person A shoots person B and person B does not die, that's probably an aggravated assault.

It needs to be attempted first-degree murder, or second-degree murder.

It's incredible that that's an aggravated assault where you intentionally shoot at somebody, or shoot at a house.

So that's challenge number one.

Challenge number two is, because it's an aggravated assault, you can get judicial diversion or probation, and in 2022, 25% of those assaults got probation or diversion, including people, a guy who shot at his roommate, shot his roommate in the stomach, somebody who stabbed a coworker.

They got diversion, no prison time, and then another 35% or so got three years or less.

So, over half the people who committed a violent assault with a gun on other people got three years or less in prison.

If you shoot at somebody, you oughta serve 8, 9, 10 years.

Now, if they die, it should be more, but the system itself is broken because it accepts violent crime.

We have zero tolerance for violent crime at City Hall.

The court system has tolerance.

- But in the case of what you're charged with, if you shoot at someone but don't hit them, that's a state law.

The state legislature, the same Tennessee legislature that allowed open carry of guns that you've talked about, why won't they change the law, do you think?

- Well, we've worked hard at trying to strengthen that law, because I agree with you.

My first statement was the state law and federal law allow the proliferation but don't adequately punish for the wrongful use.

We've been pushing for that for eight years.

Now, we got success two years ago in truth in sentencing, which, if you're sentenced now to that three years, you have to serve three years.

Before, you only served 30% of the time.

So that was a huge plus, but we need more.

The challenge in Nashville, politically, is that, particularly rural legislators, they're not having this challenge, but we're asking them to spend more money for a judicial system that doesn't necessarily benefit their area.

That's the political challenge.

They will agree with me on the need to strengthen the sentences, but it's putting that money in.

But we need to keep pounding Nashville to try to get those laws changed.

- So, do you think that those same legislators would be open?

As you well know, on the ballot next year, one of several ballot questions is going to be about limiting assault rifles, limiting guns within the city, and there's a big legal question about whether that actually means anything, whether that's even enforceable.

But, do you detect in the legislature any desire to carve out open carry and restrict open carry within the state's major cities, including Memphis?

- I wish the answer was yes, but it's no.

I've talked to 'em.

I've talked to the governor directly about this issue, carving Memphis out, letting us make our own choice.

There are too many guns out there, and as they've liberalized the restrictions on guns, shootings have increased.

Guns have increased, and shootings have increased, and injuries have increased.

2014, they allowed guns in cars.

You referred to that earlier.

So, at that time, about 400 guns a year were stolen from cars.

Now we're routinely over 2,000 guns stolen a year, and shootings have increased.

Deaths have increased.

There's too many guns.

If you ask a police officer, they'll say 30 years ago, it was unusual to arrest somebody with a gun.

Now it's unusual not to, even 13- and 14-year olds.

The world has completely changed, and I don't think the public understands it, how much it's changed, even the last 10 years, the proliferation of guns.

- Let me ask you about another goal of yours, and your administration has put a proposal before the Council to increase the solid waste fee, which has been its own separate dilemma and bucket during your tenure there.

And some Council members did their first formal listen to this as a group.

You heard a lot of questions about, "Why not leave this for the next administration?"

Why propose the solid waste fee hike now?

- Well, I think they misremember.

This was discussed at budget last spring.

You were there.

You heard it.

And the Council specifically asked, "Come back in the fall."

We came back in early fall.

They said, "Come back in November."

So, we're just following their instructions.

If they wanna kick the can to next administration, you know, God bless 'em.

- I wanna circle back to one thing you said about crime, which was the break-ins.

And I think, I mean, obviously, statement of the obvious that the violent crime, certainly, that is the saddest, most angering, most frustrating, most impactful thing.

So with that said, the thing that seems to me, anecdotally, to impact a broader number of people is the broken windows, literally, and there's a whole police philosophy, and you and I have talked about before of broken windows, that was if you don't take care of broken windows, and at the time, it was the former police commissioner of Boston and then New York, he was more talking about building and houses, and if you don't address blight and broken windows, it's a downward spiral.

In Memphis, there is an epidemic of car break-ins, driven, people say, very much by people looking for cars.

And so-- - Guns.

- Guns, excuse me, thank you.

Guns.

And a lot of it done, it seems, by young people.

What in the world can the city, let's just focus on the city, can the Memphis Police Department do?

I mean, there was one in Crosstown where I happen to live.

They had footage later.

They broke into something like 20 to 30 cars in a matter of a couple minutes, and there's security everywhere at Crosstown.

But they knew, go in quick, break all these windows, and get out before anyone could get there.

- Arrest, arrest and arrest, and that's what Memphis police are doing, but you're right.

That's the crime that we're all, at most, one degree of separation from.

My daughter's car was broken into.

My son's was a few years ago.

Everyone either has had that problem or knows somebody.

In the last about 18-month period, Memphis Police have arrested almost 2,400 people for car break-in and car thefts.

First of all, that's a huge number.

2,400 is a very large number.

Think about it.

The women's soccer team played a NCAA match last week.

I was there.

They were celebrating 'cause they had about that many people at the game.

That's a large number.

It's large, and it continues to happen because none of 'em are facing any consequences.

Low bonds, then, at the end of the case, it's dismissed or they're given probation or diversion, and the tragic situation that happened several weeks ago, the owner of a restaurant on Elvis Presley Boulevard, people were breaking in cars in his parking lot.

He went out there.

The criminals shot and killed him, and one of their stray bullets hit a bystander, and he died, and we know they have guns.

The Huey's out east, when the off-duty police officer went out there, if you go out there, they're gonna shoot at you.

There need to be consequences to these actions, and there's not, and the kids know it.

Let me say one more thing and I'll be quiet.

I know that the kids know it because we all know it, but our violence interrupters and Youth Villages violence interrupters who are working with gangs and young people on the streets every day, they have told me that some of the kids they can't even talk to, 'cause they're like, "Don't even talk to me about going straight, you know, getting on the right path," 'cause there's no consequence to what's happening.

- One of the last times we had you on, the last time you were talking about a youth curfew as we were going into the summer, I think you've been on since then, but there is a youth curfew on the books, on the city law.

There was a lot of sort of, "How do we implement this?

"How do we enforce it?

If we're picking kids up, where are we gonna put 'em?"

There was some controversies around, wait, how do you identify a kid who's just hanging out and one who is causing trouble?

How did all that play out?

- I haven't gotten a report, but if I haven't heard a problem, then I'm sure it worked out.

I mean, I know they were enforcing it as needed, and they were taking the kids to a police precinct and then calling their parents.

I will tell you one example.

They picked up one youth and took him to the police precinct, and the mother showed up and got mad at the police for interrupting her evening, even though it was her child who's breaking curfew, and that brings up a huge point.

Parents need to be held accountable.

- Go back to Bill here.

We may move on from crime if Bill wants.

- Yeah, one more on crime then, at least.

[laughs] - It's the topic of the day.

- It's a big topic.

Do you think the bail reform system that is in place now works or does not work?

Because some of the numbers show that, in the period before this, before bail reform began, which I believe was this past February, that you had a certain number of people who were released and then were back in for other crimes.

The numbers for the first quarter, I believe, of this show that there's actually been a drop in recidivism among those who have been released or held, depending on the decision under the new bail reform system.

- Well, I'm not an expert on bail, but I think a three-month period is not an adequate amount of time to really judge the effectiveness of something, and my challenge with the judicial system is it as a whole, that the bail, the sentences, all this put together does not match the tenor of this prosecutor for the January 6th.

I want the court system to say, "We're going to punish these people, "so there are consequences, "and it has a chilling effect on these groups and it makes it more difficult for them to recruit."

We want it hard for gangs to recruit young people because there's consequences, and they're put in jail.

It's a totality of the situation, the laws and how the courts are operating.

- Do you think that young people in particular who are committing crimes of various levels of seriousness, do you think that they think, "Oh, if I get caught, they'll keep me in prison, or I'll get a stiff sentence for this"?

- They're not thinking that at all because it's not happening.

Well, I know that because that's what the gangs and members are telling the interveners.

- We can talk about crime.

We've talked about crime a lot and, as I think I said, for those joining late, Jim Strickland's sitting for two episodes.

Next week, we'll look back and talk about crime maybe in a historic context over the last eight years.

But for now, we mentioned the arenas and stadium deal, which is a live issue, which is the funding for Liberty Bowl or Simmons Bank Liberty Bowl, big renovations there to help U of M, among other things, potentially get into a bigger conference, a whole lot of money that could go to FedExForum in part to improve and update the forum and the surrounding area, and as part of a long-term extension of a lease of the Grizzlies and keeping 'em in town.

Do you think you'll get that done before you leave office in January?

- I'm optimistic, but I'm not positive.

- There's a lot of state money.

There's a lot of money in the bucket.

Was there just not enough in the end?

- Yeah, [laughs] there's not enough.

I mean, when you add up the cash plus all the funding mechanisms, you know, that's the obvious.

It's not enough.

I'm not exaggerating, we're working every single day with the Grizzlies and the University of Memphis to make both parties happy.

I mean, we have to be 100% committed to keeping the Grizzlies for a whole 'nother generation, and we really wanna help the university get into a better conference.

- To the people who say, and you only have six weeks where people will frame this question in the way, and I've done it to you and you get it all the time, to the people who say, "Why would we be spending money on sports stadiums "when we have this crime problem?

"Why aren't we just spending the money to deal with the crime problem?"

Again, six weeks left.

What's your answer?

[Jim laughs] But you know what I mean, and they'll say that about roads.

They'll say that about parks.

They'll say that about all kinds of things that aren't, "Hey, here is," you would, I think, agree, "the single most pressing problem for the city."

- Oh, absolutely, and that's why we've given police officers a 30% pay raise and $15,000 signing bonus.

First of all, on the city side, money is not the challenge in hiring police officers.

We could hire 200, 300 today.

It's just our overtime budget would shrink.

We're spending over $30 million a year on overtime.

We could use that to hire.

So, money is not our challenge here.

Secondly, this is one-time money that was given for sports, and it follows last year when Nashville got the Titans.

You have to spend money on major league sports if you want them in your city.

Now we could say, "No, we don't want the Grizzlies.

We won't invest anything."

I think most Memphians want the Grizzlies here.

I think they add to the quality of life.

We have to have art museums and playhouses and botanical gardens and tennis facilities and things that add to the quality of life, and I think the Grizzlies do that and in a big way.

And I also think it helps young people become engaged in something that they love, and if you have nothing for them to do, I think that's worse long term for crime.

- Six minutes left.

Go back to Bill.

- Is there a possibility that there is another pot of, I'll put it crudely, another pot of money or revenue that the state has that you're interested in seeing if you can tap on this?

- Well, I mean, I think they are running surpluses.

I do not think that they would give more money to stadiums in Memphis.

- Okay, when you outlined this, there were four parts to this plan.

One included some improvements to AutoZone Park, the home of the Memphis Redbirds, also the home of 901 FC but possibly not for long, because the fourth part of this was a soccer stadium of some kind where the Coliseum stands now.

Are those two still on the table?

- Well, I guess they're on the table, but they're not gonna move anywhere.

I think there's not enough money.

So, right now, there's not enough money for football and basketball, and there's certainly not.

I mean, I wish there were, and that was the original plan, but I don't see that happening in the short term.

- We mentioned at the top the broadband, and you've described it to a lot of people.

It's at once a very simple plan, which is to give high-speed fiber broadband access to everyone and every business and in every home and residence in Memphis, but it's also incredibly complicated.

It's also incredibly expensive.

So, walk people through, and I should say we have folks who are directly involved in that coming up after Thanksgiving to talk to do a whole show on it, and Bill and others have been writing about it at Daily Memphian, but your take on why this is a priority right now.

- Okay, I think it's as important, this fiber connection is as important today to our quality of life and economic development as was putting electricity in every home and every business 100 years ago.

It is that important, because that's the speed of business today.

That is the speed of academics today.

We learned in the pandemic that too many of our young people did not have adequate connectivity.

Fiber is a better product than any other kind.

You know, you and I, three of us remember dial up, and that was slow.

- It was awesome.

[Jim laughs] Come on.

- It was awesome at the time.

- AOL.

- It was like a form of meditation.

- Yeah, we got the AOL CD.

- Think about your day, and you get online.

- And then, you know, DSL came in and then cable, and then just fiber's the next generation, and it moves so much faster and allows so many more uses.

And FedEx came, representative from FedEx came to Council a couple weeks ago and said, "That's the way we operate all our businesses and all our locations," and the same thing, you know, south Memphis and north Memphis deserve the same thing.

Right now, only about 27% of Memphians have fiber, and it's basically the rich areas.

Everyone deserves it.

If we wanna develop, if we want Memphis 3.0 and Accelerate Memphis, which is putting more resources into the inner city, areas that have been ignored, we also need infrastructure, and infrastructure nowadays is fiber.

- So, you have incentives in this for providers to do this, and you have some pretty strict standards, census tracks that are below the median income, a 60% figure for whatever a carrier's plan is for that particular one.

What have you heard from the folks who are gonna supply that?

Are they responding to those incentives and waiving the permit fees that the city has on this?

- Well, we know for sure Meridian Blue Suede will definitely do it, and they're gonna do 85% of the city, and they're gonna take advantage of those incentives.

We're hoping others do.

We want competition.

We want all the other providers to also, we want individuals to be able to choose.

You know, "I don't want company A, I want company B."

We want them competing for the business.

- With just about a minute left here, MLGW very much in the news.

Doug McGowen, your former COO now, what, ten months into his new job as head of MLGW, has put a rate increase forward, another one.

There've been a series of 'em over time.

He's made the case for those investments.

Do you support that rate increase?

- Absolutely, and one thing I try to tell people is give Doug three, four, five years, and you're gonna see a marked improvement in operation of MLGW.

- The building downtown, does that make sense for them to move out, not just of the building, but to move out of downtown?

Maybe there's a better use for that building, but to have 500 people leave downtown at a time when people are trying to invest in downtown.

- Yeah, first of all, I do think it's a good idea for them to move from that location.

I think there is a much higher use for that, plus that building is so old, it would take so much to get it up to speed.

Moving outta downtown, I'm fine with that.

I've worked downtown since 1987, and, you know, I see the AutoZoners with their shirts on, and they're spending money.

I've not seen a huge presence of MLGW employees having a big impact on downtown.

So, I support Doug's move.

- All right, again, thank you, Jim Strickland, for being here.

Thank you, Bill.

Jim Strickland is hanging around.

He's gonna do another half an hour segment, which will air next week.

That'll be focused more on sort of the past, some current issues as well.

But please do join us next week or go to wkno.org to see that episode once it airs, or to see any of this episode that you missed.

We have Doug McGowen coming up soon as well.

I should've mentioned that.

Thanks very much.

We'll see you next week.

[acoustic guitar chords]