- (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.

- The Shelby County Commission on schools, criminal justice, and much more tonight on Behind the Headlines.

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

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by three members of the Shelby County Commission.

First up is Brandon Morrison, commissioner for District 4, and covering east Memphis and Germantown.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

- David Bradford has been here before.

He is a commissioner for District 2, covering Collierville, Eads, parts of Germantown, and some other areas, thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

- And Amber Mills is commissioner for District 1, covering Arlington, Millington, parts of Shelby County, maybe some other areas, but that got the gist of it.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

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

We joke before the show, we're gonna start with schools, of course, and what's going on with the schools.

We're recording this Thursday morning.

Things could happen by the time this airs on Friday, but I don't think there's any scheduled meetings.

And I should also note that you all are Republicans, representing more of the east parts of Memphis, and we've had folks, Democrats on from other parts of the county.

We will in the future.

We have Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris next week, so we'll cover this from all the angles, but these were the folks that we were able to get here this week.

I'll start, maybe I'll start with you, David.

With this fight between the school board and Marie Feagins, you all passed a non-binding resolution expressing no confidence, offering a kind of governance plan between the board and superintendent.

What do you want to see happen in this really heated, really incredibly important feud between the superintendent and the school board?

- I'm hoping that everybody can come back to the table.

A lot of what I've seen, and even in the meeting from Tuesday night, it sounds like we're at very far ends of the table, and that I'm really concerned that we can't get back to a place where everyone can discuss what's really important, and that's the education for the kids.

I feel like lines have already been drawn in the sand, and people aren't willing to move on those items, which is very concerning for me.

- And is, well, I'll go to you, Brandon, same thing.

I think you voted for this resolution as well.

Your take on what you want to see happen in this fight?

- We were just discussing before this that Monday's meeting was my favorite meeting we've ever had.

It was heartening to see the community come and support our superintendent, and when we say, no confidence in the school board, it's not every single member of the school board.

It's the way they've behaved as a whole, and I truly have no confidence right now in that body.

- Is that, conversely, a vote of confidence, as it were, in the superintendent?

- It is for me.

My experience with her since the minute she got here is that she's been very responsive.

She's not perfect, but she's done a great job, and I think being the head of any school is one of the hardest jobs, but to be head of all these schools, answering to the parents, to the administrators, to the accreditation groups is a tall, tall order, and she's a strong leader, and I'm squarely in her court.

- And Commissioner Mills, I mean, again, why did you vote for this?

What do you wanna see happen next?

- Well, the reason the resolution originated was because there was no recall process for the enraged parents over what was happening at the school board.

So what I would like to see is the point was to get these five school board members to pump their brakes a little and discuss this before literally giving the superintendent less time on the job than you actually spent looking for her.

So large changes are needed in our school system.

Everybody knows that, everybody's been saying that, and we were starting to see a few changes that everybody had been screaming about for years and years.

So that's when we got all our hope up, and we feel like we've had the rug pulled out from under us.

- And those changes were, briefly?

- That the school system was top-heavy, maybe cutting some of those jobs that weren't really directly affecting the classroom.

- And so, is all that saying, hey, I think the superintendent's doing a really good job?

Or is it saying, I just wanna give her more time?

- Well, both, actually.

What I'm seeing so far is great, but give her more time to see if it's all really great or whatever, but there's not been enough time to really know, but so far, it looks good.

- Before I go to Bill, same question I didn't ask you.

Is your vote an enthusiastic, or an incomplete vote in favor of what the superintendent has done?

Or you characterize it, your vote.

- I guess mine is a little bit more kind of in the middle.

I don't like where we are.

I wish that more work had been done between the school board and the superintendent to come to some kind of agreement and some kind of path forward.

We are getting a lot of emails from the public, from the parents, about their support for the superintendent.

I have not heard directly, but I also understand that there's some principals that are not exactly happy with the superintendent.

And so to me, you know, whenever there's an issue, you hear a lot from one side and a lot from the other, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

And so I'm trying to find where that middle is right now, but from what I'm seeing from the school board, they don't wanna come back to the table and discuss, and that's why I voted non, you know, I don't have support of them right now.

Let's get to the table and discuss.

- Okay, Bill?

- We should point out that this proposal was made by Commissioner Mills, that you drafted this.

There was also a second part to this that did not pass, and that was what was amended as a 30-day moratorium on the funding that you all approved not too long ago for the new Frayser High School.

So that part didn't pass, and you felt like that was really kind of the teeth in this, right?

- Just, again, to get the school board members to pause, 'cause that that meeting that happened so fast, and those five school board members were just on a whim, it felt like, [fingers snapping] just surprise everyone, and get rid of the superintendent.

The vote of no confidence, that's not binding in any way.

It does not stop the school board members from serving, so the funding would've been the teeth, I called it, just to wake 'em up and get their attention.

Like, what you're doing is affecting more than your little bubble on the school board between you and the superintendent, but the funding was the last little bit.

It would not have halted the whole construction process or anything.

It was that last $34 million that was approved in our previous meeting.

- Right, right.

Commissioner Morrison, where were you on the funding moratorium?

- I supported the funding moratorium.

I think it would be a shame, you know, and if the school board is not gonna let their leader lead, and I think good governance of a school would let a good leader lead.

Dorsey Hopson faced the same.

History has shown we've had this problem for a long time.

Dorsey Hopson, I thought was a good leader, and the school board didn't let him lead.

I think, when I met with him, he expressed frustration.

And then when you had Joris Ray, who I thought was an incompetent leader, they were slow to pull him back.

So I think it's important to let a strong leader lead and give them a chance.

She's been here less than a year, and so I did support the moratorium, because I don't think it's good to throw good money after bad if they're not gonna... A fresh, new building is only as good as the program it has.

- And Commissioner Bradford, you recused yourself on the funding moratorium, because your firm is doing some work?

- Yes, yes, so my day job, I do work for a general contractor in construction, so I certainly understand the construction spend.

From any project, when you delay funding at any level, there is a concern for the project to go over budget, depends on where they are on bids on the project and that kind of stuff to be able to release the subs.

And we all know when something has to rebid, price rarely comes down.

So I did see that concern of it, but I certainly also saw, you know, we need to do something to make sure the school board is listening to us, and so I thought that the proposal, the resolution was in the right direction, and that we need to wake these folks up and let them know that we're not just gonna sit here and let them do whatever they want to do.

We're the ones that control the budget for the schools, and we will hold if we need to.

- Okay, several of your Democratic colleagues, not all of the Democrats, but several of them said that the no-confidence resolution could trigger a state takeover of the school system, because Speaker Sexton was in the city last week, and talked about that option, what he called a nuclear option.

Is that a risk?

- I don't know if you would call it a risk.

- Is it a desired?

- I don't know that it's a desire.

I think our desire is to have a better school system than we have now, and if you heard our meeting, if you heard the people who are just at their wits end, you heard Democrats and people who hate the state, hate Republicans, they're like, "I don't care anymore.

We want our children educated."

I mean, once our school system is fixed, it's gonna take care or start to address a lot of the problems that your different government entities address.

We're trying to address crime, well, educate your children and get 'em ready for adulthood, and that'll help that, and the workforce development, it's a buzzword everybody uses.

It's needed, better educate the children, and you get a better workforce.

So if our school system is better set up for success, and if that means the state coming in to, I mean, we just gotta rattle the cage right now, because what has been hasn't been working for us, but I don't know what it looks like, the state coming in.

I don't know what that means.

- And I might add, I think that was a little bit more of a scare tactic, because if you look two years ago, we had a no-confidence vote on our wonderful clerk.

[guests chuckling] And how many times have we tried to get her out of office?

The state has tried to get her - We wanted to have her here, too.

- Out of office, yes.

- I think we're up to three times now, and she's still, so I'm not too concerned about the state coming in and taking over.

I think that process is gonna be a lot longer than maybe anybody expects, and I'm not sure that it's gonna have much success.

- Is part of the, oh, I'm sorry, go, respond to that.

- Yeah.

- All right, I was just gonna add, you know, I think the school board members, like all politicians, need to remember that they're public servants, and I think some of this was about personal agendas, potentially, and that's the problem.

And as Amber said, focusing on the service of educating our students, that should be the goal, and that's why we have the no-confidence vote.

That's not their focus, in my view.

- We've said, as Bill pointed out, or one of you pointed out, it's a non-binding resolution, as is the proposed governance plan, and the body did not vote to hold up funding on the school, but what is it, some 4 or or $500 million at least that goes from the County Commission to the school system?

That would be $427 million.

- $427 million.

- It'll be voted on later this year.

I mean, that's the real leverage you all have, but that's a bit of a nuclear option, it would seem, as well.

- Well, really, all we can do is vote their budget up or down.

We don't have line item veto.

That could be the way the state steps in to give us more say over their budget instead of just voting it up or down.

- The state which is in session right now?

- Right, but we have a maintenance of effort, so it's gotta be a certain number, so really, right now, we can just vote it up or down.

- What else?

We'll move on to some other issues, but just final thoughts on this?

I mean, obviously, your constituents are coming, they're emailing you, they're coming to your meetings.

You all are the big funder, passthrough funder.

I don't know how you wanna characterize that, but Commissioner Mills could do a better job than I am.

[Amber chuckling] What can you do?

- I'm just hoping we bring everybody back to the table and start talking again, and start putting education as the focus of all this.

I hope we get that back out in front of everybody so we understand what's going on.

- Commissioner Morrison- - Can I just add, you know, the governor's gonna have a special session.

This is one place that the three of us may disagree about the education voucher program.

- Yeah.

- And I think I'm the only commissioner in support of that, but I see that as a way to give parents choice and options, and bring competition into education, and so I'm supportive of that.

That's a way forward.

- Yeah, Commissioner Mills?

- I just hope these school board members just pump their brakes, and just voice of reason come through in the end.

- Let me follow up where I was gonna go.

That was on my notes to talk about the voucher proposal.

The governor's pushing really hard this special session.

Where do you stand on the voucher proposal?

And does the situation at the school board change your opinion, if you were opposed?

Are you starting to kind of warm to that idea?

- Well, I am for school choice.

When it comes to the voucher, I'm still jaded from the first time they tried to push it through, and they were exempting counties to flip votes.

That kind of concerned me.

A lot of my constituents do not support it, so I'm for school choice, and I'm still on the fence about the whole voucher program.

- Yeah, and you're, again, covering Arlington, Millington, parts of Shelby County.

- Yeah.

- I think all the suburban school districts have come out not in favor of these voucher programs.

That includes the school districts in your area.

- Exactly right, the Collierville schools and I have spoken, and right now, I'm not in favor of the voucher program, and so I look forward to seeing what this special session's gonna turn up.

- Bill?

- Before we leave this, I wanna see if any of you have had communication with school board members since the vote on Monday?

- I have not.

I've spoken to former school board members, but not current school board members.

- I have, and I've reached out to some and not gotten a return call, too, so.

- I have not.

- Okay.

- Let's move on to one of the big, obviously, topics of conversation in Memphis right now, and really, nationally, has been criminal justice, public safety.

You know, the numbers came out at year end for Memphis and Shelby County.

Numbers are relatively close to one another, for the whole, and for the city.

Homicides down 25%, guns stolen from cars down 25%, car thefts down almost 40%, car break-ins down 20%.

Not as good in numbers in terms of aggravated assaults and some other categories, but in general, violent crime coming down.

This is the thing we've talked about so much over the last few years, coming off the big spike in crime and COVID, and all of this, that the criminal justice system is not really, it is definitely, I sometimes call it an archipelago.

There's the judges, there's the sheriffs, there's the police department, there's the DA's Office, the judges, the state laws, a certain amount of local.

Where do you all fall?

You're sitting right next to me.

I mean, as a county commissioner, what do you prioritize that you can get done as a county commissioner in terms of public safety?

- In terms of public safety?

Well, we are the purse strings.

Funding the sheriff is what I would list as priority number one in that area, because we do control the purse strings.

We do have where the mayor has the... Oh, I forget what it's called, where he holds the funding to hire employees?

- Yeah, they know.

- Okay.

- That's fine, yeah.

- So not to do that, and just to where they're not rearresting the same people over and over and over.

Better that- - The salary restriction.

- Thank you.

- That thought.

- Salary restriction.

- Yeah, there we go.

This is 15 years of me - Yes.

- Relying on Bill to fill these gaps.

You're learning quickly.

- And I just went blank on it.

Yeah, right now, the sheriff has a $44 million salary restriction, so just not do that off the bat - Yeah.

- Same thing to you, Commissioner Bradford.

I mean, what do you do?

- So, I agree 100%, we gotta fund the sheriff, but the sheriff can only do so much, and so we obviously have recently seen that, I believe it's Judge Anderson, is stepping down, and we've had our clashes with him in the past.

So, you know, making sure that the bail bond system is set up in the right way, I think, is certainly important.

I've actually spoken to a few judges, and they're very frustrated with, you know, the way the clerks are working in their organization.

I've actually spoken to a couple of local groups that are volunteers, that just go there and sit, and listen to the cases being heard, and it is just scary of what stories they bring back of just the ineptitude of the judges, or how long these trials are taking, and that kind of stuff, and so we've gotta figure out also how to take care of that.

It's one thing that the sheriff gets funded, right, and we're arresting the right people, but the other side is we gotta make sure that, you know, these people are being brought to justice at the same time.

- Commissioner Morrison, but is it, I mean, I'm sure you get calls, and people see you in the grocery store and so on, and the pressure on crime.

You have authority, but it's also limited influence that you have.

- Correct, but you know, I think we all three try to be very responsive to the sheriff.

He had this issue with the jail doors, and we funded that, and we were as responsive as we can be to what he says, and then communicating with our state leaders, particularly Senator Brent Taylor and Representative Gillespie, I think, have done a great job of putting some pressure on the DA, and I think some of that's making a difference.

- Let me go to Bill.

- So speaking of Senator Taylor, [guests chuckling] he intends to go forward with a move to oust the District Attorney General Steve Mulroy.

Where do you stand?

Is that something that should happen, Commissioner Morrison?

- You know, I've had meetings with the DA, and unfortunately, he doesn't see some of the car theft and things that I believe are gateway to worse crimes as much of a problem as I do, and so I do support the Senator.

- Commissioner Bradford?

- I've had lots of friends that worked in the DA's Office that are no longer there for various reasons, which I think has informed me a lot about our current DA.

I will say that since Senator Taylor has started on this mission, I have seen the DA's Office turn around on a few items, and actually come around to, I think, you know, more common way of thinking about crime and that kind of thing.

So right now, I'm still a little bit on the fence, but I think Senator Taylor's mission here is certainly starting to improve things that we're seeing out of the DA's Office.

- Commissioner Mills?

- Well, I would agree with Commissioner Bradford.

What Senator Taylor has done has definitely changed, I think, DA Mulroy's, the way he's doing his job, but right now, I think Senator Taylor, I mean, he's laid out.

I don't think he's left a stone unturned in this, so I support Senator Taylor, 'cause his Memphis Matters campaign, and cleaning up crime and all, if this is a piece of that puzzle, I'm gonna support it.

- And friction is kind of an essential element, I think, of politics and the practice of it, but do any of you have concerns about overturning the results of an election in all of this?

For someone who's elected to an eight-year term as DA?

- I mean, we had Frederick Agee, a very republican, I think, Trump supporter, and he covers Fayette, Gibson, some of the neighboring counties.

He was on the show, wrote an op-ed for us.

He said, "Look, I mean, I don't agree "with Steve Mulroy on everything, "but this sets a precedent that we should not go down this road".

And other republicans in law enforcement, former DAs, and other parts of the county have really expressed concern about that.

Does that worry you?

- I guess it doesn't worry me, because I feel like I try and do a good job of listening to both sides and hearing all the constituents, so I don't feel like I would ever get to that point in my role.

It certainly can really, you know, put the pressure on folks to make sure they are listening, because I think a lot of times, a lot of our electeds get in their echo chambers, and then don't want to hear from the complete constituency.

And so, maybe this is an opportunity to really make the people pay attention.

- Other thoughts?

We have five minutes left here.

We'll move on to some other things unless- - I think that's a good question.

I do think it ought to be a last resort, and I think the voters need to feel the pressure to vote the right people in.

- We mentioned, about five minutes left here, and so we'll move through some things kind of quickly.

I think Commissioner Bradford mentioned, you know, the efforts with Wanda Halbert, and the frustrations around car tags, and it doesn't take, you know, driving in today, you see all these temporary car tags.

It's not just the clerk's fault, but are you all still getting calls from constituents?

And are you even further, [guests chuckling] yeah, there, you're all nodding.

- Yes.

- I had two yesterday.

- Two yesterday, about the car tags, specifically?

Again, what can you do?

I'll go to Commissioner Mills.

- I mean, what else can we do?

I feel like Commissioner Wright kind of led the charge in bringing the resolution.

Well, you did, too, I mean, I don't know at this point, but to Commissioner Morrison's point, and to answer your question about how do you feel about a recall and all, if you look at turnout, it is minimal.

If we had, like, this stellar voter turnout, and this is what the people wanted, but reality is people don't bother to show up.

People don't do their homework when they go to the ballots.

They vote for who they know, whose mom and daddy they know.

I mean, it's not, is this person best capable to do this job?

So- - It is notable just on that point, I mean, the Shelby County School Board, most of those people won with very single thousands of votes, but again, back to to to the clerk, and the tags, and the two calls you got yesterday, what do you tell those constituents?

- I apologize.

I mean, there's nothing we can do.

And I will say maybe two or three years ago, if we had that issue, I could usually get my assistant in the commission office to reach out to the clerk's office, and they could help move things, but we don't even get that, you know, anymore.

We try, but it is tough.

- Bill?

- Budget season is coming up.

The County Commission always has what I would call an interesting time [guests laughing] at budget time.

What are you all anticipating this year?

- We had our first budget committee meeting yesterday.

- With the elected officials?

- With the elected officials.

The trustee and the assessor gave us some brief presentations.

It was good to hear.

There sounds like there is some additional funds coming in through xAI and some other means.

A lot of emphasis was put before us that we haven't had a tax increase in X number of years.

You can read that two ways, right?

That's great that we haven't, but at the same time, there may be folks that say, well, if we haven't, then we need to have one.

So I think some of our colleagues are gonna be pushing for a tax increase this season.

I think me and probably some of my colleagues here at the table would rather see the purse strings tightened before we start looking at doing additional taxes.

- Commissioner Morrison?

- I completely agree.

I think we have 13 and a half more million dollars coming, we were told, from xAI, which is exciting, but we absolutely don't need a tax increase right now.

We've seen some people leaving our community, and our tax base needs to continue to grow right now, and we need to hold.

We cannot afford a tax increase.

- Commissioner Mills?

- Same, I don't there should be a tax increase.

We are the highest taxed county in the state, and also, the fact the spending has yet, since we've been there, to be cut, cut, cut back to restrain.

So I'm a no on the tax increase, and we'll see how that goes.

- And speaking of budgets and spending, people have started talking about both a crime lab in Memphis, since the closest one is up in Jackson, I believe, and funding for a new jail, which could be a billion-dollar project.

Really briefly, where do you stand, I'll go to you two, first, the crime lab and the new jail?

- I support both.

I've been working with the sheriff to try to find funding for a jail, and hopefully that will happen.

- Yeah, Commissioner Morrison?

- Same.

I think that the jail needs to be a top priority to get it out of downtown.

- And is that, I mean, that's not gonna happen immediately, but just start funding studies and that kind of thing?

Is that would be the next step?

- I think that would be the next step, and figure out the funding source.

- And Commissioner Bradford?

- No, I agree.

All of the county's facilities, and even the school facilities are very old.

You know, usually, you're looking at maybe a 20-year replacement, and all of them are way beyond that.

So it goes beyond to me the jail and the crime lab.

It's also funding for new schools, it's Regional One.

We have a lot on our plate.

- All right.

We have many more things we could have talked to you about, but we are out of time.

I appreciate all three of you being here.

Thank you very much, thank you, Bill, and thank you for joining us.

As I said at the top of the show, we ended up with three Republicans on the show this week.

We've had Democrats on in the past, we will in the future from the County Commission, and Council, and so on, so just kind of how that works out.

To that end, we have Mayor Lee Harris coming on, County Mayor Lee Harris coming on next week.

He'll be with Juvenile Court Judge Sugarmon.

They'll be talking about all kinds of things, but obviously, public safety, things going on with juvenile crime, and so on.

We recently had the past and current City Council chairs on the show.

That was last week, and we also recently had Steve Mulroy on, talking about some of the issues here, as well as Brent Taylor and London Lamar.

You can get all those shows at wkno.org or on YouTube, or you can go to "The Daily Memphian" site.

You can also download all our shows as podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.

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

[intense orchestral music] [acoustic guitar chords]