- (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 City Councilman and candidate for mayor Frank Colvett tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, thanks for joining us.

We are joined tonight by Memphis City Councilman and candidate for mayor Frank Colvett.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- Absolutely, along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

Before we get to questions with Frank, I'll say that we've invited all the leading candidates, or we are in the process of inviting, I should say, all the leading candidates for one-on-one interviews on Behind the Headlines.

so far, JW Gibson, Karen Camper and Michelle McKissick have confirmed.

We're also reaching out to Floyd Bonner, Willie Herenton, Van Turner, and Paul Young.

Those are also the people who will be invited to a debate that we're doing in August on WKNO with the Daily Memphian, with all the candidates who want to appear.

More information and a specific date on that coming soon.

Also, those are the same candidates that we had, The Daily Memphian hosted a forum back a month, six weeks ago that's available on the Daily Memphian site.

You can go to YouTube and search for Daily Memphian.

Focused just on crime, we had Frank and four other of the candidates on.

To the question of what is a leading candidate?

The criteria we've looked at is the limited polling that's been available, as well as financial viability, the fundraising, not just the dollar amount, but the number of people.

And also previous election success.

So those are the criteria.

More to come.

And last thing, I'll also note that the election is really just right around the corner, although election day is October 5, early voting begins September 15th.

Okay, so Frank, thank you very much for being here.

You've been on City Council for seven years.

We'll talk about your successes.

We'll talk about some things you've pushed, we'll talk about your platform for mayor.

But when you look back at those seven years and you're termed out, what are things you look at and you say I wish I could have done that differently.

I could have done that better.

- I think in terms of development, I think we've done really well with development, but I think we can do even better in Memphis.

We see a lot of projects come forward, and a lot of fellow Council members call me the negotiator because I like to work with the development, but also the neighbors to come together with a good project.

And I only really learned how to do that in the second term.

So I think going forward, what we need to do is accelerate the opportunities for development, accelerate the ideas that you don't just have to develop the Poplar Corridor, that you can use Memphis 3.0, that there's so many great areas in Memphis that we can build buildings and create jobs that people don't have to drive or take public transportation, they can walk to.

So I think we can do better there.

But the second thing, and this is my other chairmanship, on housing and community development, we have not taken advantage, as I have learned in the last year, we have not taken advantage of all the opportunities, I think, that through fed and state funding to create what I call generational wealth, home ownership in Memphis, Tennessee.

We only built like 40 single family detached homes last year for lower income.

We can do better than that.

We have to do better than that.

You create generational wealth, you'll create community, community pride, and you will create homeowners that have an asset that can pass down to their families or sell it at the appropriate time to get more property.

- One more question, and then we'll get Bill in here.

Over your seven years has been the same seven-year period that Mayor Strickland has been in, also term limited out.

When you look at your role on the Council, when you've worked with the mayor, what have you learned about, and this is partly a reflection on you as the City Councilman looking at Jim Strickland's tenure.

What have you learned that you would want to do similarly and do differently than Jim Strickland?

- I think the opportunity that we've set in place on the development side and on the home ownership side needs to be accelerated.

Where the mayor, in the interest of full disclosure, Jim and I are good friends.

But where we disagree on, I think, is the direction of our police department.

I've said it before that I think we need a new police chief.

I think we need one that specializes in community policing.

But as I've also stated before, we need to pay our police what they're worth.

And by that I simply mean it's kind of like basketball.

You pay your number one draft picks what number one draft picks are worth, not fourth round draft pick money.

So I think that going forward, we need a new police chief, but I think we could also do really well with a police force that is compensated appropriately.

- Let me bring in Bill.

- And the Council has wrestled with that because what happens is pay raises have been proposed for police and fire, noting their status and the need to build the complement, particularly of the police department, to 2,300 police officers.

We're now at just under 2,000, maybe over 2,000.

- 1,952.

- 1,952, there we are.

How do you then deal with other city employees who go, well, wait a minute, we're vital to the city in a different way.

Where is our pay raise?

- With inflation, obviously, the cost of milk and bread has gone up, and I get that.

But the way I look at it primarily is Memphians now are pumping gas with their head on a swivel.

Memphians now will not grow to the grocery store after dark.

We must address the crime issue first and foremost, or there won't be a Memphis that we know, that we've known in the past, left for anyone to serve.

So as what I would say to all our employees is bear with us.

And also, as I've learned in my years of being a private small business owner, look, I'm the kind of mayor that when I win this thing, I'm looking for everybody's resume.

I'm looking to hire the best and the brightest, and I'm looking to retain the best and the brightest.

And I will pay what they are worth.

But priority one needs to stay priority one, Bill.

And that is we need to make our streets safe.

- Let's talk about housing.

The city has an affordable housing trust fund under Mayor Strickland's leadership.

Is there enough money in that to help affordable housing projects pencil out, so to speak?

- One thing, the answer is it's never enough, okay, on housing.

And the reason I say that is I'm not interested, Section 8 vouchers are only for good for rentals, not for buying a house.

And that's reason for this grant program that we've set up.

One, I don't think that we have gone after all the fed and state money that we can possibly get to accelerate this even farther.

Two, I don't think we've gone after enough fed and state money for the building and development side of it.

So where I'm going with that is is that it's never enough.

And if we are truly going to change the arc of Memphis, it is that kind of generational wealth that we can create through home ownership that I think changes Memphis in the long, long term.

- And to your point, and to your earlier point, you're talking about single family homes.

Much of the effort in affordable housing has been some subdivisions, but it's also been apartments.

You would change that?

- I would change that in this regard.

Over 60% of Memphians rent.

Okay, that is a phenomenally dangerously high level.

That also means that those who rent don't necessarily, 'cause we've all had apartments before, and we treat it a certain way, but we treat our homes totally different.

Okay, so where I'm pushing on this is the Section 8 and the vouchers, look, there are folks that need to rent.

Their credit scores are where they are.

But I think that there are plenty of hand raisers out there, as I call it, that want to get into the process, want to own that home, that condo, that duplex, that triplex, that creates, again, the generational wealth and the community pride.

I think personally, I think the system is, I won't say rigged, but I don't like the current system.

It forces people to rent, it encourages them to rent.

And when you rent, you get nothing when you leave.

You own a house, in 10 years, you can more than likely sell it for more than you paid for it, more than what you have in it.

So I want to see the entire system rethought.

- How do you scale that kind of affordable housing?

Because as things stand now, you can do a house, you can do a subdivision, but when it gets beyond that, then there starts to be resistance from the folks that we've talked to here around this same table who are trying to make these projects work.

- That's where I think my experience in the development, through my contracting company, and my experience with developers comes hand in hand.

And I don't think, I will be the first mayor that is extraordinarily pro-development, almost from a genetic standpoint of my growing up and my career.

So when you turn around and want to make the numbers work, what I would envision is a housing director under the mayor, under my administration, whose sole purpose is to get the hand from a hand raised into a home, streamline the system.

But equally important, I don't think that we've taken advantage of these federal and state programs with our grant writing to truly go after it.

Now, Director Cash is a good friend of mine.

But I want it accelerated.

- Who is the current head of Housing and Community Development.

- Yes, sir.

And we have too much opportunity, Bill.

We have too many people renting, that I think when we offer the opportunity to raise your hand and move forward, and we are not taking advantage of enough programs and moving this thing forward.

Again, this is not a we're doing this tomorrow.

We're starting it day one.

But this is the sort of kind of long term that will outlast all of us and change Memphis.

- Let's stay with the development of a different kind, economic development.

The city and county, but focus on the city obviously, has used PILOT and other sorts of tax, PILOT incentives and other sorts of tax incentives, excuse me, to generate all kinds of apartment projects, downtown redevelopment, redevelopment in other parts of the city, bringing in businesses.

You talked about being the most pro-development.

Does that extend to economic development?

Or would you change at all the use of PILOTs, TIFs and any of these incentives?

- The governor of the great state of Mississippi comes to Memphis to recruit businesses to Mississippi.

Okay, we have an incredible asset in our 300-plus square miles.

But we only have so many options and opportunities to incentivize businesses to work here, because businesses will relocate to Memphis if we're safe.

We're a safe city, if we're a clean city.

But they have to answer to their stockholders.

So they have to show that it is economically the best option to come to Memphis, Tennessee.

So my economic development plan would, again, accelerate all of that.

My objective is that when someone raises their hand to come to Memphis, right now, from application to turning dirt takes 12 months.

To just get through the government process.

Okay, I want to cut that to six months.

If you have an idea and you want to build a business in Memphis, Tennessee, then my objective is to get you through engineering, get you through division of planning and zoning, and to get you through the government process so that you could turn dirt and get your project built in immediate, if not record time, especially compared to our neighboring peer cities.

- Staying with some of these tax incentives.

I mean, right now we could name projects that have gotten incentives through the various entities.

We could name the alphabet soup of entities that do this.

And those projects have not broken ground.

They sit there, the properties are vacant.

They've been vacant for in some cases over a decade, in certain ones downtown, that get PILOTs, then they get the PILOTs extended, or they get other incentives extended.

How would you tackle that challenge of vacant buildings that have incentives on them, but that are in limbo?

- We're going to go find someone who will develop them.

Simple as that.

Look, guys-- - Are you opposed to then extending, I mean the constant extension or the repeat extension?

- It would always depend, Eric, on the specific application, the specific property.

But you know, there are, there are developers right now sitting on properties near major, major developments.

I think they're just sitting on there to where then they can sell it and make money and not having done anything.

Again, being, having my background in small business in development side, I can tell you that this mayor wants development.

And if you're just buying property just to sit on it and say, okay, we've got all this and I'm gonna sit on it for a few years, and then when the property's worth more, I'm going to sell it without developing it.

Not gonna happen.

We must have that development.

And, look guys, we talk about the Poplar Corridor all the time.

Okay, we talk about downtown, look, let's go back to the most important part.

There were over 20 cars broken into downtown last weekend alone, okay.

You have got to get the crime under control.

It won't matter what incentives because they're going to see our crime numbers and not want to develop in Memphis, Tennessee.

You must go after the crime question first.

- 12 minutes left, go to Bill.

- But how do you force someone who is a speculator who has bought a property for that specific purpose, to turn it, to flip it, how can the city force them to do something other than that, to build on their land?

- I think you incentivize them to the best of your ability.

And I think that there are reasonable time limits, and reasonable extensions because, you know, getting financing two years ago versus one year ago versus now are three radically different proposals, as we saw with the 1 Beale development.

We want you to succeed.

But at the end of the day, there is a time limit on all of it, and there's a time limit on our patience.

Okay, we've got too many good things and too many good properties here that I can't have you tying us up.

But I also, let's point this out on Memphis 3.0, you don't have to just think about Poplar and East Memphis.

There are all kinds of areas that you can develop that the city will incentivize.

- Your colleague, the Council chairman Martavius Jones, has come up with a proposal that he's floated several times.

And that is, if you get a PILOT, a payment in lieu of taxes, from Edge, from CCRFC, Central City Revenue Finance Core, wherever you get it from, the city should require that the entities receiving those incentives must pay a living wage to workers, otherwise, there is no incentive, or there is some kind of sliding scale where the higher that wage is, the more the incentive is, the lower it is, the lower the incentive.

What do you think about that?

- Well, you always have to look at each proposal on a case by case basis.

No two developments are ever the same.

So you always look at it on a case by case basis.

Martavius wants to conveniently forget that, look, there are certain jobs that do not pay living wages, but they will employ 1,000 people.

And in a perfect world, I want every job coming to Memphis, Tennessee to pay $25 an hour.

In a perfect world, I only want every job within walking distance of their entire labor force.

But the reality is, is that you're going to get a mixed bag, for lack of better words, in certain areas of town because of their approximate location to rail, air, or water, and they pay a certain wage.

Ed, you know, until we get our education under control, which is not in the City of Memphis' purview, until we get a better educational system and a better school system, for lack of better words, we've got to work the entire gambit.

So I think you look at it on a case by case basis, I think that timeframes and reasonable delays are potentially acceptable, depending, and as far as I'm concerned, you know, look, if you're coming in paying 50 bucks an hour, I will roll out the red carpet for you.

I'll do everything we can to get you to Memphis, Tennessee.

- Since you brought up education, should the city return to funding Memphis Shelby County Schools on an ongoing basis that would trigger the state requirement to keep that funding at that level, also referred to as maintenance of effort.

- I would look at it where, I helped and was proud to champion the K-3 reading initiative.

And obviously we need to expand that even further.

I look at it as throwing money at a problem, Bill, is not the solution, all right.

One thing I learned in business, and one thing I've learned on Council, creating government to create more government is never a solution.

Throwing money at a problem is never a solution.

If you have measurables and you can show me specifically how this will improve our kids' education, I'm more than happy to listen.

But if they just want to basically do a tax grab and just throw more money at it and hope for the best, you had a Council, a school board member resign just the other day, and that sort of kind of dysfunction, I hit the pause button until you can show me something I can measure and something that I can get comfortable that the taxpayer's money is just not being thrown away.

- I'm gonna come back around to crime.

And there's a thematic similarity to what you just described with the school system in the sense that the Memphis mayor controls the police department, very obviously, a very important part of the crime fighting, and funds and works with other sort of community organizations that try to deal with crime.

But so much of what the criminal justice system is totally separate from the mayor, you know, the Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, who will be on the show next week.

You've got the US Attorney's Office, you've got the court systems, you've got the state legislature and the laws that they pass.

You've got the county, you've got the sheriff, you can go on and on.

What can you do as mayor to influence those disparate and really completely independent parts of the whole system?

- All right, first things first.

I call it walking and chewing gum, okay.

First things first is we're going to get the number of police officers that we need for community policing.

We're gonna pay 'em what they're worth.

The second thing that I think is equally important are groups like the Boys and Girls Clubs and youth villages.

We are, our goal must always be for those kids to either hopefully get with them, providing positive role models before they make a knuckleheaded decision.

But as in the case of Youth Villages, if they do make a knuckleheaded decision, we have something other than just a jail cell.

But let's be very clear, the 16 year old on their 11th carjacking conviction that has not spent one night in jail, okay, no, they're going to get some jail time and-- - How, but just to interrupt, the mayor doesn't control that.

- This is what I intend to do.

I intend to basically beef up our police force, and if our DA or our judges do not do their job, I want to work with them.

But if they're not going to charge or they're going to refuse to charge or they're going to drop the bail amounts, or they're not going to hold court and have their trials on time, I intend to call them out.

I intend to make it very, very public, I think all Memphians probably know who their mayor is.

And I think all Memphians have a real good idea who their police chief is.

But we had an election back in August and elected a whole bunch of judges that I doubt any Memphian could really pick in a lineup.

Memphians need to know exactly who these judges are.

They need to know exactly if they're holding trial, holding court, if they're seeing the cases.

Memphians deserve to know exactly who's setting these bail amounts.

Memphians need to know exactly who is refusing to charge criminal acts because that just doesn't fit their political philosophy.

Now again, Eric, I want to work with everybody.

That's my goal.

I will do my job.

The police will do their job.

But I intend to make it very, very clear to the public that if the other team members aren't doing their job, everybody's gonna know exactly who they are.

- Mayor Strickland has said this a number of times, that he believes the local criminal justice system is a revolving door.

Do you agree or disagree with him?

- I agree that it is a revolving door, but I think once we go public and once these websites go public on cases in the court system, I think all of a sudden we're going to start seeing that charges are dropped, charges are reduced, bail is dropped, bail is completely reduced.

You have a revolving door via the system.

I would be very willing to go to the legislature for truth in sentencing.

Look, we're not interested in ruining some kid's life, okay, for jaywalking, okay, a speeding ticket.

All right, a knuckleheaded teenager move.

But we are losing the optics war that kids are going on Instagram doing donuts and holding out their automatic rifles.

We are losing the optics war where a guy shot at a police officer at Huey's and then is on Instagram laughing walking out of court.

So I intend to begin the optics war that if you commit a crime, a serious crime, especially, we are coming after you.

And if people are not going to do their job in the judiciary or the legal system, I intend to make sure everybody knows that.

- So it's the power of the pulpit.

- Yes, sir.

Look, the mayor has a lot of sway, I think, and the ability to have Bill Dries come cover a press conference, okay.

We have got to send a very clear signal that we are not here to ruin your life, but don't break the law.

It's just that simple.

- To your point about the legislature, the relationship, I think everyone would agree it certainly has been better than it is currently.

How would you work with the legislature, especially on issues like open carry of guns.

Is that an ongoing discussion or is that a done deal, it's not gonna change.

- Y'all need to edit this out, I want to thank y'all.

These are awesome, tough questions.

This is good stuff.

Let's do this.

- We don't edit it out.

- Guys, I want to do this again.

Look, I'm a Republican, I'm a card-carrying NRA.

And what may work in 93 other counties I don't think works in Memphis and Shelby County.

I think you should have a permit and go through the classes if you are going to carry a pistol.

I also, and think of it from just an optic standpoint, okay.

We're in Huey's, and a bunch of kids come in with a bunch of hand cannons strapped to their sides.

People start to get very, very uncomfortable, even if they're just carrying it for their own protection.

So while I don't think the NRA is gonna be super happy with me, I think what works best in Memphis, Tennessee is permit to carry, that you went through the classes, that you understand the rules, the laws, and you understand the safety and the responsibility of if you choose to carry a handgun.

- And is that down to young people who are 18?

If they've gone through the class, the classes and the training, it's okay for them to be carrying a gun?

- Look, I'm old school, I think it ought to be 21.

I was 21 before I could purchase my first pistol, Ed.

One of the other things about this, my administration, I learned from the police that they don't even know how many illegal firearms committed crimes because people are not writing down their serial numbers and storing them in a safe place so that if the pistol is stolen, that they can report the serial numbers.

So going forward, I think it's something we have to work on, but in my opinion, I would prefer 21 and older.

- Okay.

Thank you for being here, Frank Colvett, Memphis City Councilman, candidate for mayor.

Again, if you missed the early part of the show, we have eight candidates that we'll be inviting to have on the show over the course of the summer leading up to early voting in September 15th.

JW Gibson, Karen Camper, Michelle McKissick, are all scheduled to come up in the next month or so.

And we'll also be reaching out to Floyd Bonner, Willie Herenton, Van Turner, and Paul Young.

As I mentioned earlier, next week we have Steve Mulroy, the Shelby County District Attorney, on the show.

And week after that we'll have mayor, Germantown mayor Mike Palazzolo, and State Senator Brent Taylor.

Thanks very much, if you missed any of the show today, you can get the full show online at wkno.org or as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks very much, we'll see you next week.

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