- (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.

- A look at the new Memphis City Council tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

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

I am joined tonight by two newly elected members of the Memphis City Council.

Jerri Green is the lawyer policy advisor to Lee Harris at the county, and her District 2 covers parts of East Memphis, Cordova and reaches over to Hickory, parts of Hickory Hill.

Pearl Walker, an activist and business leader, and many things, hard to describe quickly, but covers District 3, which includes Whitehaven, all the way out to parts of Hickory Hill.

So thank you both for being here again, but first time as City Council people.

- Thank you.

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

And I'll note that Janika White, another newly elected member of City Council, couldn't be here, was sick at the last minute, and we'll try to get her on in a future episode.

Let's start with, you know, the conversation of the day is certainly public safety, criminal justice, crime, however you wanna frame it.

And Mayor Young, newly elected as well, has talked about quote, "Bringing down the chaos".

First though, and we've done a lotta shows on crime and public safety lately, and there are differing opinions of whether it is chaos or whether it is, the crime rate is rising or falling.

There are people, and we've done many shows that you can get at WKNO.org, or on YouTube, or on The Daily Memphian, with various people with various perspectives on this, and we'll continue to do it.

But I'll start with you, Pearl.

Would you characterize public safety crime as chaos, as a huge problem, as an overblown problem?

How would you frame it?

- Well, I think that chaos is appropriate, but I would lean more toward just things being out of hand as a result of a lot of things, and this is where we are now.

We need to be boots on the ground, and deal with our crime in a way where our public safety initiative is comprehensive as well as aggressive.

I support Mayor Young, as well as Chief Davis, when they say they wanna take a holistic approach to solving this problem.

I think that that is what is needed.

- And that holistic approach includes more police, it includes interventions, it includes?

The City Council doesn't set sentences, and doesn't really have any say over the judges and bail and so on.

But is it tougher approaches to a tougher on crime philosophy as well as interventions and working with people before they become criminal?

Or what, like what's that holistic approach mean?

- Holistic means comprehensive.

Being tough on criminals, we want to let them know that this, these acts of violence, the craziness with the crime, excuse me, the craziness with the vehicles, and blocking streets, and the donuts, all of that is unacceptable.

And we want to have swift and just prosecution of these individuals.

But simultaneously, if you have an individual who's been arrested 45 times in 12 months, we need to take a deep dive and look at these repeat offenders and see how we can plug that artery and stop that.

And so, yes, wraparound services, and other things that would apply to addressing the offenders from a whole-life approach.

We're not saying that we wanna be soft on crime and let people go, but we have to understand that if we don't look at it from a holistic approach, then we're saying that this behavior is normal, and it's not normal.

- Same question to you, how do you define the crime problem?

What do you hear from constituents and so on?

- So, I spent a lot of time knocking doors, probably knocked over 1,000 myself, and my team probably knocked about 15,000 between our general election and runoff.

And crime was the number one issue.

People don't feel safe, they don't feel safe going out at night, going to gas stations, driving on the highway.

There's so many issues and the numbers do reflect it, we had a record year for homicides.

And I agree with Councilwoman Walker, we do have to look at this holistically.

In my day job, I have done things like the Work to Break the Cycle Program to get people jobs immediately after their release, because the number one way to stop recidivism is a job, and a job immediately, not five or seven years after they get out of prison.

We know that they are most vulnerable to go back to jail, and most likely to be motivated not to right when they get out.

So we need to start working with people then when they served their time.

I've also worked on things like the Free Gunlock by Mail Program, and that has seen a 13% reduction in guns stolen out of cars in the year that we've given out 2000 gun locks by mail.

That is directly linked to our violent crime.

Chief Davis has told us that 40% of our violent crime can be traced back to a gun stolen out of a car.

So we've gotta do some prevention work, we've gotta do some intervention work, and we've gotta do some work on reentry.

All of it's got to work together.

- Bill Dries.

- Do you think we have the plan at hand, or is there more work to be done on what the approach is, and what what works, and what doesn't work?

- I have not seen a comprehensive plan as of yet.

I am excited to see that Mayor Young is looking at other cities.

I know when we were working through our confirmation process with Chief Davis, I looked around the country, and every major city in our country saw a reduction in crime last year.

Some of them record levels, double-digit levels.

The only other place that didn't was DC, and Memphis was worse than DC.

So there are plenty of other plans out there that are working, they're similar size cities, cities with similar demographics, even cities that have permit-less carry.

They're doing things, and we need to be looking at what's working in other places, because what we're doing here has not been working.

- So what I'm looking forward to is the dashboard that addresses the recidivism rates so you can see the repeat offenders.

And I think that's gonna help us lower this arrest rate, I mean address the arrest rate.

But that's one of Chief Davis's ideas as far as addressing crime is concerned.

And the dashboard will be up real soon.

Also, the crime lab.

We need to have a crime lab here locally.

There was one here, and the building is just sitting there.

It's owned by the state, they need to let us have it.

I'm saying they need to let us have it, or sell it to us.

But we need a crime lab here locally, it doesn't make sense for our officers to have to drive to Jackson, Tennessee to run fingerprints and things like that.

- As you both know, Chief Davis is on an interim basis.

The mayor has indicated that maybe tentatively in six months he might come back to the Council to make that permanent, it depends on how things go.

And there's still a budget season that's ahead for the Council, as well as the mayor.

Where are each of you on that, now that it's been settled for now that she's going to be in interim director?

- What I've said over and over again, is I hope she's wildly successful and proves my No vote to be ignorant.

'Cause if she does, then that means that Memphis has been successful, that crime is going down, and that our communities are healing.

I'm waiting to see the numbers.

Right now we're on pace to still have a record number of homicides this year, and that's with a week when the whole city was frozen and we weren't going outside.

So it is concerning to me, as somebody who's had gun violence impact their life, that we are continuing to see the gun violence in our community, that we're continuing to see record rates of cars being stolen and broken into.

Because if you're willing to take my car, you're willing to take my life.

And I want to see us do something to make a real change, I just haven't seen it yet.

- So Chief Davis did receive a Yes vote from me, and I want to see her be fully successful.

Over the next six months I'm looking forward to what she will continue to roll out as part of her public safety initiative.

And also I think that seeing how we are under a DOJ investigation, I would like for things to just stay put for right now, and we still move forward with a positive and effective public safety initiative.

- It seems as if the next shoe to drop here so-to-speak, will be the appointment of a public safety director by the mayor.

And that's a new position, we should tell people, that that does not exist currently within city government.

And he's described that as being the person who comes in and focuses on a daily basis, 24/7, on all of the aspects of public safety, not just the ranks of the police department.

What do you think that position can do with the police director?

- I think that it could help support Chief Davis's and the mayor's overall public safety initiative.

I think that it could fill in some gaps, and have a person who could really be connected to the community in ways that Chief Davis does not have time or the ability to do.

Also, I would like for that person to have all aspects of tackling public safety in their purview.

You all know I come from an environmental background, and the data shows that the cleaner neighborhoods are the safer neighborhoods, as well as the healthier neighborhoods.

And so we need to get a hand, I don't wanna get ahead of you all with your questions, but we need to get a handle on the blight, and the litter, and the illegal dumping as well.

- That was down on my list, so you're good, [everyone laughing] it's no problem.

No, but I mean, in all seriousness, it is that, it is that, it is a great point and a great question.

- Jerri, your point, what are you looking for the public safety director's position to do?

- To actually do work.

[people laughing] I think that I don't want another position that is a name and a title that does not make an impact and a difference in our community.

And so I am looking for somebody who can work across organizations, work with the city and county government, and the state government.

I'm hoping they can work with everyone from mental health counselors to the police.

I want to see someone who is actually in the community and doing the work.

And so we'll wait to see who is named and appointed, and then we'll wait to see what kinda job they do.

- And you bring up the state in this, and the legislature is in session, the legislature has myriad proposals on crime in particular.

Do you think that the current state of those proposals and Republicans and Democrats have been making those proposals, as you hear about them, does that help or hinder, the decisions that you want to see made on crime?

- We need to be able, and when I say we as a Council, as well as Mayor Young, we need to be able to do our jobs.

And a lot of this legislation is inhibiting what we can do, what we are able to do on the local level.

And so that's something that needs to be taken into consideration and-- - For example, not to interrupt, but I'm interrupting, examples of those that where you feel like this, the Council could be, the city could be inhibited?

- So, thank you.

So one example is CLERB.

And the Council dealt with, they wanted to implement some things with CLERB, giving them-- - Citizens Review Board-- - Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board.

And so giving them more autonomy, giving them more teeth, so-to-speak, to move forward with what they do as it relates to law enforcement.

And the state passing something that lessens the strength of that.

And so we do things here, and then the state passes things to weaken it or nullify it, and we just can't make progress doing government, doing business like that.

- I mean I think we've seen it for many many years now.

Many of the harmful effects that I believe we're seeing, particularly around gun violence, stem from some of the, what I consider, extreme laws in our legislature.

They're not what a majority of Memphian's or Tennesseans want.

For example, permit-less carry, or guns being able to be in cars, both of those things have been incredibly detrimental to our crime rate here.

And they stem directly from a governor who signs these laws in a Beretta factory.

We want to be able to, for example, have gun buyback programs, but right now, if we do a gun buyback program, we have to sell the guns back into commerce, that is required by state law.

So we can't even ask for people to turn in their guns to get guns off the street, because of state law.

There are a myriad of ways that they are hindering our progress, and whether intentional or not.

But I know that it does create a good narrative for a Democratic city to continue to be crime ridden.

And you know, often they get to Nashville and they think they know what's best, but I believe we know what's best here for Memphis.

- I'll note to everyone, last week we had Senator Brent Taylor, Republican State Senator, and Senator London Lamar, Democratic State Senator, talking a lot more about these proposals and that are going on.

You can get that at KNO.org.

I'll stay with the state for a second, that a lot of those proposals, and again we've talked a lot about them, but they are proposals that the City Council and the city administration really doesn't have any control over.

That's the judges, that's the judicial commissioners, that's bail setting.

Does that, I mean, do you just sorta watch that from afar since you don't, the City Council, the mayor has nothing to do with setting bail in this city, nothing to do with the judicial commissioners, nothing to do with the judges.

Do you sit and watch, and is that frustrating?

- Well, I'll say that, and I'm sure you're the same, when you go out to the community and they have questions about this.

So we have to have opinions and thoughts and interact with our constituents about it.

I'm a former public defender, you know, I was at 201 for many, many years.

So I have very concrete thoughts and opinions about our system, how it works, and how it doesn't work.

And I know that we are trying to make things better for our community, whether it is the DA's, the judges, the City Council, we are all working to make Memphis better and safer, I believe that in my heart.

And so when we get outside actors outside of Memphis trying to figure out what's best for us, it never seems to work out.

- So two weeks ago, DA Mulroy, he had a town hall meeting in Whitehaven, and I was there, and that was, a few of the questions dealt with this particular concern surrounding the judges, and the sentencing, and things like that.

And we have to get, one way to look at it, is getting the community more active.

If they can reach out to the state, if they can communicate with their state legislators, and let them know how they feel about this, reach out to the judges, and the people who are the decision makers surrounding this.

Yes, we don't have any control over this, but the people, they need to let their voices be heard.

- Alright, 10 minutes left to go back to Bill.

- Alright, so you've been through, I'm trying to count up here, I believe five Council meetings so far.

Was it what you thought it would be?

[Bill laughs] - For the most part it was what I thought it would be, because I was a regular attendee at the Council meetings, although that's not on the inside.

But from my relationship to current and previous Council members, I do believe I had somewhat of an insight as to what the work was like behind the scenes in dealing with the agendas, and the processes, and the timelines and things like that.

But one thing I didn't know, was how amazing the research, our research analysts are.

The support staff is amazing.

I know that Council members used to have to share, I think it was three Council members to one person, and now we have our own, which helps us to be more timely, and effective in our goals and initiatives as we serve on the Council.

- Well let me start by saying I love this job so much, [Bill chuckles] and so I might be biased, but I agree kind of like Pearl, but from a different perspective, because of my day job with Mayor Harris.

You know, I go in front of Commission a lot, and so it's from a different point of view, but it is a similar process.

So I was aware of, you know, some of the push and the pulls, and you know, the lobbying, and trying to prioritize what you want to see happen, and how you have to be out there in the community and interacting with your constituents.

So, so far so good.

[Jerri laughs] - So budget season is coming up.

What are your priorities?

What are the things that you wanna see accomplished in this first budget?

- Well, I hope that it's that the mayor, Mayor Young, presents us with a budget that we are able to support, but that's not likely.

So hopefully it won't be a whole lot of haggling.

But the areas that I am concerned with are public safety, cleaner neighborhoods, things dealing with the communications and IT department.

I'm going to have a newsletter coming out, a considerable portion of my district is Hispanic, so my newsletter CIG, C-I-G, that's Closing the Information Gap, and that will be in English and Spanish, my town halls will be in English and Spanish.

And so I want whatever we can do, communications, that's not exciting, and people don't talk about that a lot, but it's very important in terms of helping and supporting our citizens.

So that's public safety communications.

And I wanna be able to support black businesses from the standpoint that we can close this wealth gap.

A lot of our businesses, black-owned and minority- owned businesses, are not able to get through the budget, be a part of the budget.

And I wanna help more of those businesses be included in the budget, and that will help close this wealth gap as well as address the poverty.

- Well I would like to echo all of that.

I sign on to Pearl's budget, that sounds great.

[Jerri laughs] There are a couple of things that in addition to those issues that I would like to see addressed, of course investing in our youth.

I tell people all the time, I do have special interests, they're my three children.

[Jerri chuckles] And I want to see the children in Memphis thrive, 'cause that means the future of Memphis thrives.

The other thing that I'm really interested in is making sure that on the other end of the age spectrum, our retirees are taken care of.

And many of them have not seen an increase in their cost of living adjustment in about 12 years.

And we know everything's more expensive, eggs, gas, whatever, you name it.

And so I would like to see us start taking care of our pensioners and their families, in a way that is thoughtful, so that they can plan for the rest of their lives.

- Let me just interrupt one second.

- Sure.

- With youth, City Council doesn't fund the school system.

And with, so where would those opportunities, you know, specifically come about?

And same with senior citizens where, I mean, most senior citizens, maybe it's federally supported, you know, affordable housing, social security, Medicare, those sorts of things.

Where does the city have the dollars to impact those both groups?

- So on the youth side, we have lots of programming for youth, especially in our parks, in our community centers.

Those are, I want our community centers to be places where people get to go, not have to go.

So I'd like to see more investment there.

And on the senior side, they also visit our community centers, but they do take part in a lot of our housing and utility assistance, and other kinds of assistance programs.

But the pensioners specifically are former city employees.

- Fair enough, I didn't track that.

- Yeah, so they, we should be adjusting their cost of living expenses.

- I interrupted you.

- So yeah, to her point about the mature population, I am the liaison to the Aging Commission.

And actually currently Memphis has the third hungriest senior population in the country.

And so we just have a lot of needs, and we wanna be intentional, and try to be mindful with respect to all of the needs as we go into budget season.

And with respect to the youth programming, back to my point about communications, we're gonna do better.

Brian Harris, the new Director of Youth Services has rolled out a great plan that's gonna be more comprehensive.

But we also have programs going on already that people don't know about.

So back to closing the information gap.

- Bill.

- Back to the legislature for a second.

John Gillespie, State House member in the Shelby County delegation, has a proposal that would allow to raise the cap on the sales tax.

And if local governments went along with this, it would help to finance a new jail here, building a new 201 Poplar, so-to-speak.

If it passes the legislature, there are a lot of hurdles, but if it passes the legislature, it would be up to the Council to say, "Okay, we want to put a ballot question on there, "conceivably as early as this August," that would say the sales tax is gonna go up by maybe half a cent and the money's gonna go for a new jail.

It's very early in the process, as I outlined, but where are each of you on that prospect?

- So at this particular point, I can't say that I'm on board with that.

I would have to be able to see what other options there are in terms of funding a new jail.

- I think we desperately need a new jail.

I think the conditions there are currently inhumane, and we have got to start addressing it, and we've got to start having those conversations, so I'm glad the ball is rolling.

But a sales tax is the most aggressive tax, and we'd be taxing the people that would probably end up at 201 Poplar.

And so I don't see that as a good solution.

I think we need to look at other solutions to get that funding.

- We should also point out that this is an option, that if it, again, if it passes the legislature, the Shelby County Commission could also take a similar action and put a ballot question to voters countywide.

- With just a couple minutes left, we could talk all for 26 minutes about these questions I'm about to ask you, but just real briefly.

The salaries at MLGW, specifically Ursula Madden, it's been her appointment as head of communications over there has been held up.

Do you all want more oversight in general of MLGW?

Is this just sort of the canary in the coal mine of wanting more control of what's going on?

- Well, oversight and accountability are important.

I am co-chair of the MLGW committee.

Councilwoman Green is the liaison.

And yes, we want more oversight, more accountability.

And the way that certain things are put inside of the consent agenda that should be outside of the consent agenda.

So we have to be mindful of things like that.

- I think that transparency is super important for public trust in local government.

We're dealing with a public utility that has a monopoly, and while they do have a board that looks at these things, that board's not accountable to voters like we are.

So giving us more oversight is important.

And as I said in committee, the average per capita income is $31,000 in Memphis.

We're asking for three times that for us to be able to look at it, that's it.

- And should the board be expanded, the MLGW board be expanded to include representation from the suburbs, which have no representation now, but are, you know, make up I think a third of the revenue of the customer base for MLGW?

- Well, yesterday, I believe it was commissioner person on the board, mentioned something about putting on a referendum in November about expanding their board to two other members.

- And you support that referendum?

- I need to see.

- Okay.

- I need some more data.

- Okay.

- I have some questions.

- I'm sorry to cut you off real quick here.

- I do, I do support that.

I think people should have a voice if they're gonna be taxed.

- Alright, well thank you both for being here.

We are out of time.

We'll get you back and talk about other issues.

Thank you, Bill.

If you missed any of the show today, you can get the full episode online at WKNO.org as well as past episodes on these subjects and more.

But that is all the time we have.

So join us again next week.

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