Tag: Lee Harris

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A Second Juvenile Court Judge?

D.A. candidate Steve Mulroy, Judge Tarik Sugarmon, and County Mayor Lee Harris at a press conference. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Should there be more than one Juvenile Court judge in Shelby County?

It’s a question that first came up in the wake of the 2006 county election when a newly installed Democratic contingent on the County Commission proposed the establishment of a second judge and voted to create one. 

After a drawn-out legal process that effort was disallowed, it’s now baaack! Maybe. It comes via the suggestion of Tarik Sugarmon, a candidate for what is still a solitary position of Juvenile Court Judge.

That original  move to double the number of judges was stoutly resisted by the Republican minority on the Commission and, most importantly, by Juvenile Court Judge Curtis Person, a former state Senator and longtime Court referee who was himself fresh from an election victory in 2006. Person sued to block it.

The issue was argued over back and forth, subjected to a court stay and a lifting of the stay by a Shelby County Chancellor, until, finally,  a state Court of Appeals decision in 2007 ruled invalid the Tennessee statute empowering such an action on separation-of-powers grounds. The state Supreme Court declined to review the matter back then.

What may revive it was a statement made at a press conference on Friday by Sugarmon, one of the two candidates for Juvenile Court Judge (the other being incumbent Judge Dan Michael). The point of the press conference at a park adjoining Cummings Elementary School, was for County Mayor Lee Harris and Democratic D.A. candidate Steve Mulroy to endorse Sugarmon’s candidacy.

Once that was duly done, a brief Q-and-A session with reporters ensued, at which Mulroy was reminded of the second judge issue, which took place when he was a member of the Commission and a leading proponent. 

Mulroy said on Friday  said he still liked the idea. “I’ve thought for a long time that the current system we have where there’s one person that is sort of in charge of this whole fiefdom and appoints all these judicial commissioners, is probably not the best model. It’s not even the most common model around the country. Multiple judges and juvenile courts are really the norm. And we’re the exception.”

But the courts had ruled against it, Mulroy conceded, and “that is currently the law.”

But is it? Sugarmon didn’t think so. “If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “according to the Charter now, and the court records, one of them [a Juvenile Court judge] can be appointed by the County Commission. So I think that could be permission for upgrading the office. No one in the original ruling of the Court said they had to go back to the state legislature. So hopefully, with the legislative way, that can occur because we do need more judges on the Court.”

“So you support the proposal?” Sugarmon was asked.

“Certainly,” he said.

“That’s news. Welcome news,” a surprised Mulroy said.

Note that Sugarmon cited the Shelby County charter, not the state law invalidated in 2007 by the state Court of Appeals.

And consider the possibility that a newly empaneled County Commission might act on what Sugarmon says is by the authority of the Charter and vote again for a second Juvenile Court judge. If Sugarmon, now on record as advocating a second judge, were to be elected, he would obviously decline to claim a legal standing to oppose such an action, unlike  Person in 2007.

There could be more legal bridges to cross, of course.

As of this writing, Judge Michael has not expressed an opinion on the value of a second Juvenile Court Judge.

In endorsing Sugarmon, currently a city judge, for election as Juvenile Court Judge, Mulroy had recounted his own concerns about alleged outmoded procedures in the D.A.’s office and said, among other things, “We need a new approach. We need change. And real change is only going to happen if we have change at the top. Now, the situation I described accurately describes my race for District Attorney. But it also accurately describes the situation at Juvenile Court, which is why I am very pleased to be here today to say that I am endorsing Tarik Sugarmon for Juvenile Court Judge. That is one reason why I’m doing it.”

In his turn, Mayor Harris commented on an incident at nearby Cummings Elementary in which a child was discovered to have brought a gun to school. “Behind us, of course, you see Cummings Elementary School, the site of such tragedy. But that doesn’t mean that this is a site … where we’re gonna throw away our kids. We know that no matter what happens in the lives of young people in Memphis and Shelby County, they all have potential, and we all have to remind them that their future is bright and there is opportunity ahead of them. So I’m pleased to support Judge Sugarmon, because he’s the right kind of candidate for this moment.”

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DeAndre Brown Appointed Director of Office of Reentry

DeAndre Brown (Credit: Shelby County Office of Reentry)

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris announced today that DeAndre Brown has been promoted to permanent executive director of the Shelby County Office of Reentry. Brown has served as interim executive director since August of 2021. Brown and his wife, Vinessa Brown, founded Lifeline to Success, a nonprofit organization for ex-offenders, after his own incarceration and reentry.

According to a press release from Harris’ office, Brown has expanded programming focused on the mental health of returning citizens since joining the Office of Reentry, including hosting a job fair and block party that drew hundreds. Brown has also extended the FOCUSED program to include inmates with the Division of Corrections. FOCUSED combines job training with other assistance such as family reconnection, financial literacy, and voting rights restoration. In addition, Brown has also established in-prison training programs for janitorial work and the care of natural African American hair.

“DeAndre Brown has shown that he is devoted to helping the formerly incarcerated turn their lives around,” said Harris. “We had hoped his experience and connections to the community would help to grow the reentry programming, and, we were right.”

“I still don’t believe this is happening,” said Brown. “I am actually living the dream. I promise the citizens of Shelby County to use everything in me to make sure the men and women in this program have an opportunity to be successful when they return from prison.”

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Politics Politics Feature

The Race for County Mayor is On!

Harris stumping for candidate Memula (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The announcement Monday by Memphis City Councilman Worth Morgan of his candidacy for Shelby County Mayor resolves what had been enormous speculation about Morgan’s long-rumored intentions. But it does more than that: Its effect becomes the beginning of the 2022 election season in Shelby County.

One of the first consequences of Morgan’s announcement is to wet-blanket or even extinguish the previously indicated aspirations of such other potential Republican candidates as County Commissioner Mark Billingsley and City Council Chairman Frank Colvett Jr.

Morgan’s command of big-donor money was amply demonstrated in his council races of 2015 and 2019, and his announcement will accelerate the process of nailing it down again on his behalf.

Pressures regarding 2020 have been raised among Democrats also. The imperative has been sped up for incumbent County Mayor Lee Harris to clarify his intentions regarding a re-election race.

Rumors have abounded over the past several months — that he would cast caution to the winds and declare for the 9th District congressional seat now occupied by Steve Cohen, that he would seek the governorship, that he would ratchet up existing lobbying efforts for a federal judgeship, that he would be open to a job with the Biden administration, and that he would seek the soon-to-be-vacated presidency of the University of Memphis.

All of these possibilities, at one point or another, have had a logic to them; all had obvious pitfalls as well. Consider the university rumor: Harris, for years, was a law professor at the university, he is now serving as a high-level administrator, he has a background suitable for representing a diverse and upwardly mobile university population, and a U of M presidency could serve very well as a launching pad for higher political office.

The hitch to that logic is that Harris has squared off against the university on a number of public issues — notably on the matter of funding the school’s natatorium, when he was eyeball-to-eyeball with current President David Rudd over the university’s foot-dragging on allowing its workers a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

The university reportedly wants a quick resolution of its search for a successor to Rudd, who leaves next May, but how would its trustees regard the previous acrimony?

An examination of Harris’ options leads back to what most others consider his most feasible course: running for re-election as county mayor. Rank-and-file Democrats see the mayor as being an odds-on favorite against Morgan or any other Republican; they see Harris as an ideal head for the party ticket. His services as a supporting presence are sought by other candidates, as in his co-hosting last weekend of a fundraiser for judicial candidate Sanjeev Memula.

It comes down to if Harris wants another dose of the mayorship; the job is more demanding than most outsiders imagine, and more riven with political pressure-points. His chances of winning again next year are ranked as very good, more so than those of Ken Moody, the aide to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland who has announced a provisional candidacy.

If Harris does not seek re-election, key Democrats may seek to prevail on County Commissioner Van Turner, who has expressed interest in becoming Memphis mayor in 2023, to alter course and run in Harris’ stead.

In that event Turner would have a hard time refusing.

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News News Blog

Mayor Harris Goes Hard on Local Tax Breaks

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. (Courtesy Shelby County Government).

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris took aim at city and county tax breaks last week and pulled no punches, calling components of it “made up” and “laughable.”

Harris spoke candidly about the issue during a panel convened last week by The Beacon Center, a Nashville-based free-market think tank. The panel included Mark Cunningham, the center’s vice president of strategy and communications, and was moderated by Otis Sanford, Memphis journalism professor, columnist, and television commentator.

The conversation followed an online viewing of a documentary called “Corporate Welfare: Where’s the Outrage?” (below). The film features The $9.5 million tax break given by Memphis and Shelby County in 2015 to lure Swedish retailer Ikea to Germantown Parkway. (The company returned some of the money in 2019 after failing to meet job numbers set out in the original agreement.)

Harris has been publicly against tax breaks for some time and said (as he did again last week) that investing in infrastructure like schools, roads, and law enforcement would do more to lure companies to Shelby County.

Here are some of Harris’ hardest-hitting quotes from Thursday’s discussion:

• “I am generally against tax breaks for corporations. One of the main reasons is because it sets up government to pick winners and losers, to decide which companies should get a government subsidy and which companies should not.”

It sets up government to pick winners and losers.

“Those kinds of things should be determined by the market, by what consumers demand, and by entrepreneurship, and what kinds of companies are good at their craft, not by government.

“This idea that government somehow steers a company one way or another doesn’t sound believable to me.”

On the prestige of having an Ikea and the competitive pressure to woo the company here:

• “This stuff is just made up from the start of it to the end of it.”

This stuff is just made up from the start of it to the end of it.

“A few weeks after [Ikea] got the millions in tax breaks from Memphis and Shelby County, they announced that we’re going to also open something in Nashville and they continue to open stores all across the country.

“It’s just made up stuff. It’s a made-up theory about how the economy works. It’s a made-up theory about ‘if we do this, they’ll go somewhere.’

“Businesses want to achieve profitability. That is what drives their decision-making. Government’s getting in the middle of it actually hurts and hinders all of us. It doesn’t help them to make their businesses better. It hurts us all.”

• “That’s what I’d say about the repetitional effects: They just weren’t there. [Ikea was] announcing these openings all over the place. So, those things are just made up to get the tax breaks and they tell you what’s really happening.”

On why politicians support tax breaks:

• “I think it’s just the idea among politicians is still — that for the last 50 years or more — jobs has been such a high-polling issue. So, if you want to attach yourself to that high-polling issue, this is one way to attach yourself to it.”

You just got to understand that the businesses create jobs, not government elected officials.

“But … if you go back to the fundamentals of the economy, government officials don’t create jobs except jobs in government, right? You just got to understand that the businesses create jobs, not government elected officials. That just doesn’t really happen. They come, but it doesn’t really work that way.”

On why tax breaks continue:

• “The system [for tax breaks] already exists. The consultants are already out there.

“[Consultants] produce the reports, which are generally not worth a lot. They come with these packages to say, ‘Hey, we can get you a little extra.’

“So, from the business perspective, they start to feel like suckers. If they say, ‘No, no, no, I’m all about the free markets.’ They’re almost boxed into saying, ‘Okay, you’ve got a package of incentives and subsidies that you can bring from a municipality or from a state. I’ll take it.’”

So, from the business perspective, they start to feel like suckers.

“So, the businesses are boxed in, too, even if they agree that it would be better to not have this practice at all.”

Sanford: What if Memphis and Shelby County decided to get out to the tax break game? Wouldn’t that depress the economy here?

• “I don’t think it has an effect on these kinds of decisions. Governments are in charge of some things. They’re in charge of infrastructure in schools, and crime, a lot of quality-of-life-kinds of issues.

“At the margins, executives are making decisions based on those issues. Can I recruit other executives [to the city]? Is it a place families want to live?

“So, if we shifted from economic incentives to quality of life [improvements], we all know, or we all should know, that we would get a lot more benefit. If you have high-quality schools, and low crime, and great roads, and bicycle lanes, we all know that that’s a thriving community and that’ll be very appealing.”

Tax cuts for all:

• “There are alternatives; just give everybody a tax cut, right? Everyone agrees that any level of tax cut across the board, is going to stimulate the economy. There may be some disagreement about how much a tax cut stimulates the economy, but every tax cut helps the economy.”

• “If you do shift away from this winners-and-losers mode into a general tax cut mode, then you can stimulate a whole bunch of additional economic activity.”

We don’t even know how much money we’re giving away, right?

“First, you’ve got to quantify where the incentives are, which no one does a good job at, right? We don’t even know how much money we’re giving away, right?

“But if you were to quantify it and know what you were giving away and then shift as much as possible to just the general-tax-cut mode, then you can create a whole lot of additional economic activity, the same way that some of these other things like infrastructure, schools, law enforcement, and crime reduction create.”

On companies living up to their promises and clawback protections if they don’t:

• “They definitely don’t [have to live up to promises].”

We were told for years, “we’ve got these clawbacks” and “there are these clawbacks coming.” I mean, it’s laughable.

“We were told for years, ‘We’ve got these clawbacks’ and ‘There are these clawbacks coming.’ I mean, it’s laughable.

“I’m not trying to belittle anybody. But it’s just the truth of the matter. We don’t have clawbacks. We didn’t get anything back. It doesn’t happen.

“I’m not trying to belittle anyone because I understand the need to talk about jobs and it’s a really, really high-priority issue, but I’m just saying when these deals are done and put together with the customer, they just don’t happen the way they are advertised to happen.”

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News News Blog

Harris Welcomes Afghan Refugees in Letter to Biden

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. (Courtesy Shelby County Government).

The county is ready to welcome Afghan refugees, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said in a letter to President Joe Biden. 

Harris sent a letter to Biden Thursday affirming the county’s position to resettle those fleeing Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover last month, saying that he hopes the offer will be a lifeline for those who assisted U.S. troops. 

“As our country welcomes refugees from Afghanistan, I am writing to let you know the government of Shelby County, Tennessee, stands ready to provide support and stability to those fleeing violence and oppression,” Lee said. “I believe we have a moral duty to help those in dire circumstances who supported our troops.” 

Harris added that the county will welcome those who are likely to face discrimination and harassment in Afghanistan — women and girls seeking to further their education and LGBTQ+ individuals. 

“We know resettlement is often a last resort for those who cannot return home,” Lee wrote. “As they travel across the oceans and start to rebuild their lives, we offer our goodwill and support. In our community, we take pride in having grit.

“These refugees have proven to have that same spirit. We would be honored to have them join our community. For these reasons and more, Shelby County proudly stands with your administration in offering a beacon of hope to the Afghan refugees.”

Read the full letter below. 

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News Blog News Feature

Taylor Tapped to Lead Health Department

Credit: Shelby County government

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris nominated Dr. Michelle Taylor to be the next director of the Shelby County Health Department.

The nomination comes after the March resignation of former director Alisa Haushalter amid a state investigation of wasted COVID-19 doses and untidy vaccine record-keeping. Dr. LaSonya Hall has been serving as interim director.

Taylor is a graduate of White Station High School. She has a B.S. from Howard University, an M.D. from East Tennessee State University, and an M.S. the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She also earned a Doctor of Public Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University.

“I believe Dr. Taylor is the right person to lead our health department and pull us all toward shared responsibility,” Harris said in a statement. “She will bring to the job a wealth of knowledge and, as important, compassion and commitment to community.”

Taylor said she was a “military brat” and “Memphis was the only place I lived for more than three years.” 

“God didn’t bring me here with all of this expertise not to give back to the community that has nurtured me and helped me to grow up in so many different ways,” she said. 

Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner said “Taylor is exactly what Shelby County needs.”

“She has the academic credentials, professional skills, and knowledge to lead our health department well into the future,” Turner said. “The fact that she is from right here in Shelby County is an added benefit, but even if she weren’t from here, she’d still be an excellent candidate for this job.”

Taylor has served with the department for several years. She also worked as the associate medical director and deputy administrator for the Maternal and Child Health Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program. Most recently, Taylor worked as an aerospace medicine division chief in the Office of the Air National Guard Surgeon General in the Air National Guard Readiness Center. 

Taylor will be presented to the Shelby County Board of Commissioners’ General Government Committee on Wednesday, July 21st. The full commission will vote on her appointment on Monday, July 26th. If approved, she will begin work on August 2nd.

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Politics Politics Feature

Beyond the Party Line

Servers at Saturday’s “Elephants in the Park” homeless feed. (Naser Fazlullah front and center, with shades on) (Photo: Kristina Garner)

Political parties, as is surely no secret, are constantly looking for converts, and, to that end, normally have what is designated as an “outreach” officer or branch.

The Shelby County Republican Party, which in recent years has lost a shade of its former demographic edge, has one of the best and most effective outreach officials in Naser Fazlullah, a native of Bangladesh and a small business owner who, in the 20 years or so of his American experience, has employed his natural enthusiasm and work ethic to forge ties and friendships across all sorts of boundaries, political and otherwise.

A case in point was an event he conceived and brought to fruition on Saturday at Morris Park on the edge of Downtown. Called “Elephants in the Park,” it had cadres of the local Republican party working side by side with off-duty judges, members of law enforcement, and community activists like Stevie Moore, founder of Freedom From Unnecessary Negatives (FFUN), a renowned anti-violence group — all toiling at food tables handing out meal boxes (fish, spaghetti, fries, coleslaw) to a population of hungry Memphians recruited from three local homeless agencies, an estimated 300 people before the day was over. The food came from both Fazlullah’s own Whitehaven restaurant and from other donors.

Politics, as such, figured not at all. The idea was to make people-to-people connections, for the sake not merely of the beneficiaries but of the servers who worked for the day on their behalf — like John Niven, a veteran GOP activist who commented, “I’ve never done anything that made me feel as good as this did. The homeless basically don’t vote, and those who do probably vote Democratic, but so what?”

• The most common political name right now? That’s an easy one. It’s “Harris.” There’s Lee Harris (county mayor); Sheleah Harris (school board); Michael Harris (Shelby County Democratic Party’s chairman); and Linda Harris (candidate for district attorney general).

And, of course, there’s Kamala Harris (vice president of the United States).

The one who was on display Monday morning at The Hub in East Memphis (to a group of politically astute ladies calling themselves “Voices of Reason”) was Torrey Harris, first-term state representative for House District 90.

State Rep. Harris discussed with a rapt audience the ins and outs of how Democrats struggle to make their influence felt in the supermajority Republican legislature. His auditors were especially interested in — and aggrieved by — the majority’s passage in the last session of a bill outlawing the teaching in the state’s public schools of “critical race theory,” which, as Harris noted, is (a) not taught in the public schools, and (b) is the GOP’s catchphrase for attempts to deal honestly with the nation’s racial history.

Running as a Democrat last year, Harris had defeated former state Representative John DeBerry, whose long-term sympathy with Republican positions caused the denial of his right to run under the Democratic party label.

The defeated DeBerry, who ended up running as an independent, was rewarded by GOP Governor Bill Lee with a well-paid job as gubernatorial advisor, and one of the ex-Democrat’s main functions, Harris explained, is — wait for it — that of liaison with the House’s Democratic members.

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Politics Politics Feature

Turner’s Interest in ’23 Memphis Mayor’s Race Highlights Weekend Announcements

State Rep. London Lamar (right) chats with her mother (left), Mayor Jim Strickland, and state Sen. Sara Kyle (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Things are moving fast now. Though it is only midyear of 2021, a year ahead of time on the calendar, election 2022 is beginning to take form as candidates start to declare their availability and to shape their campaigns. In one notable case, in fact, that of Memphis mayor, which won’t be voted on until 2023, a major candidate has already made his intentions known.

That candidate would be Van Turner, a lawyer of consequence, a county commissioner and former Shelby County Commission chair, head of the NAACP, and president of Memphis Greenspace, the nonprofit, ad hoc organization that now administers several Downtown parks after coming into being to purge them of their Confederate identities and memorabilia.

Turner had been talked up as a possible future mayor of both Shelby County, which will cast a vote for mayor next year, and Memphis, which will do so a year later. At a well-attended fundraiser in his honor on Saturday at the Cordova home of activist Lexie Carter, Turner made his choice known.

He declared that he is forming an exploratory committee to run for mayor of Memphis in 2023, when current Mayor Jim Strickland is term-limited out. And he is likely to inherit a good deal of the Strickland support group, since the Memphis mayor has made no secret of his regard for Turner.

Turner’s declaration solves two problems. Simultaneously he puts other possible contenders for city mayor on notice that he will be in that race as a likely favorite in 2023, and he dissociates himself from the idea of running for Shelby County in 2022 under any imaginable circumstance. Turner had already made it clear he would not oppose the current county mayor, fellow Democrat Lee Harris, who has yet to make his own decisions about his political future.

Melvin Burgess speaks at fundraiser (Photo: Jackson Baker)

• Turner’s was not the only candidacy that got launched over the weekend. Two incumbents running for re-election in 2022 had their coming-out parties — state Representative London Lamar and Shelby County Assessor Melvin Burgess.

Lamar had her initial announcement for a re-election race in House District 91 on Friday at the Allworld Project Management building on B.B. King Street Downtown. She did so with introductory support remarks from both Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and respected activist and businessman Calvin Anderson.

Lamar spoke frankly about her evolution from freshman status into a role of responsibility and outreach in the delegation at large.

Also making an impact at a Sunday event at his home in the Evergreen district was Burgess, who proudly cited his honor as Tennessee Assessor of the Year and his success in persuading the Shelby County Commission to conduct property appraisals on an every-other-year basis.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Harris Proposes $1.4 Billion Budget Without Tax Hike

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. (Courtesy Shelby County Government).

One year after presenting a budget proposal that ended up being submitted to seemingly endless wrangling by the Shelby County Commission, County Mayor Lee Harris on Wednesday presented a budget proposal that almost certainly will be more gracefully received as the county’s legislative body prepares to begin its own deliberations.

Last year, facing a possible deficit, Harris proposed an increase in the county wheel tax that was not approved. His budget proposal for 2021-22, the third of his tenure, amounting to $1.4 billion in expenditures, contains no such proposed increase.

As Harris put it on Wednesday, April 21st, his proposal “contains no property tax increases, no cuts, gives a 1.5 percent pay raise to all our employees, and raises the minimum hourly wage for Shelby County government workers to $15.29 per hour.”

On Thursday, the Mayor’s office released a transcript that follows very closely the outlines of his remarks to the commission. It follows below. And, while his proposal seemed to be well received, the commission — both as individual members and as a body — will assuredly make an effort to put their own stamp on it before the beginning of the fiscal year in July. 

As Commissioner Reginald Milton said, serving notice, “This is more of a clarity issue. And I think that’s important we do this. The agenda item here says ‘Discussion of the 2022 budget presentation.’ That is incorrect. It is the 2022 proposed budget presentation. And as a legislative body it is important that we realize our role.  The mayor does not present a budget, he presents a  proposal, and we, as an elected body, will look it over and we will add and subtract from it as we see necessary as well. … We are part of this process. No budget is approved without this body’s inclusion. That’s why we were elected — to ensure that each of our districts are represented in the budget and their concerns are heard. With that said, Mr. Mayor, I am extremely impressed with what you said.”

The mayor promised the commissioners a printed copy of the budget before the commission’s next scheduled public meeting on May 5th, and, in response to their requests on Wednesday, he said he would also prepare an electronic version to be put online.

Meanwhile, here is how the mayor explained his budget proposal:

I’m pleased to say that the $1.4 billion proposed budget contains no property tax increases, no cuts, gives a 1.5 percent pay raise to all our employees and raises the minimum hourly wage for Shelby County Government workers to $15.29 per hour. 

Further, we have found a way to make strategic investments in education, public health, public safety and to make a substantial $19 million contribution to our rainy-day fund.

This budget follows a year like no other in our lifetimes.

We have all lived through one of the most difficult periods in Shelby County history. At the beginning of March 2020, there were virtually no confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the entire United States. Almost overnight, this infectious and deadly pathogen spread across the country and invaded our community.

This past year has brought pain to Shelby County. More than 92,000 residents contracted COVID-19. Our unemployment rate peaked at 14.8 percent in July 2020 before retreating to 6.8 percent as of February 2021. Thanks to federal CARES funding, and a lot of work, we are able to blunt some of the negative economic effects of the pandemic.

But, there is still pain throughout our community. Therefore, I don’t believe this is the time to raise taxes. Too many in our county are still on the road to recovery. What’s more, our property tax rate is already one of the highest in the state.

Even without a tax increase, we will invest in education.

The budget continues to build on the historic and unprecedented work we began when we came into office and devoted more than $8 million to early childhood education. This year, like last year, we have allotted $8.5 million to Pre-K and early Pre-K. Over the last three years of my time in office, we have allocated more than $25 million in new dollars to Pre-K education.

Because of that historic investment, every child, regardless of income, has access to Pre-K. This is important.

The academic research and education professionals tell us that a sound education in the earliest years of life is the foundation that each child needs to build a life of success. And if our children succeed, so will our community.

This budget includes the full $427 million for schools in addition to $30 million in school construction funding for this year.

When it comes to public health, this budget ensures that we can continue the COVID response throughout the rest of this year. Although some of the worst aspects of COVID may have receded, we expect we will have to continue the course for just a while longer.

We plan to continue to fund the COVID response unit until this virus is defeated. We will need to maintain the full complement of personnel and assets that form the backbone of the COVID response unit and this budget proposal does that.

Also, in our ongoing commitment to public safety, our current plan invests $32 million over six years in the Shelby County Fire Department. The investment allows the department to hire 41 firefighters and purchase a variety of safety equipment and new technologies. This massive investment in public safety means that the fire department will be in a position to reduce the emergency response time for underserved areas in Shelby County.

There are two new fire stations planned, one is near South Cordova and another in Southeast Shelby County. The construction and equipment costs of $10 million are included in this budget proposal.

This week’s budget presentation only begins the process.

The budget will be reviewed by the County Commission. The other elected officials might request more funding. There could be additions or subtractions.

But for now, we are focused on a road to recovery. This proposed budget is Shelby County’s roadmap to take us into our 203rd year.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Tweet That Was …

Laurie Cardoza-Moore

This may seem unlikely to readers of this column who are still clinging to the golf slacks of the former president and write me uncharitable emails, but I actually do research these weekly missives. I copy links to relevant or interesting articles into a “column fodder” folder on my desktop; I save interesting emails; I even look up stuff.

I also reread my Twitter feed, which isn’t exactly research, but sometimes it can capture the zeitgeist of a particular week. To wit: Editor & Publisher posted a story last Thursday about how their publisher had pulled off a stunning deal to buy all 1,100 Gannett newspapers, including The Commercial Appeal. Whoa!

I read through the first couple graphs rapidly, slowing to reread only when I got to this part: “The new Operations Center is to be located about two miles northwest of Lebanon, Kansas, the geographic center of the contiguous United States. Newton will be recruiting retired NASCAR drivers to get the newspapers into each individual market within 72-hours of printing, which is, on average, two-days faster than currently being provided by most Gannett properties.”

Then I remembered the date: April 1st. Got me.

That same day, County Mayor Lee Harris issued a tweet urging all of us to get a COVID vaccine, citing the emergence of a highly contagious and deadlier Brazilian variant, which is definitely no joke. I’m a month post-vaccination and feeling somewhat bulletproof, though I still wear a mask in public. There’s no better feeling, right now. Seriously, if you’re sentient enough to be reading this and haven’t started the process of getting the vaccine, there’s really no excuse left, except “I’m an idiot.”

Later in the week, a Twitter debate broke out about which state had the absolute worst trifecta of governor and senators. Top contenders were Texas (Abbot, Cornyn, Cruz); Missouri (Parson, Hawley, Blunt); Florida (DeSantis, Scott, Rubio); Mississippi (Reeves, Hyde-Smith, Wicker); Alabama (Ivey, Shelby, Tuberville); and Tennessee (Lee, Blackburn, Hagerty). South Dakota (Noem, Thune, Rounds) also got some mention, to be fair, but the South truly owned this competition. So proud!

Speaking of pride, there were lots of tweets about the Tennessee legislature’s appointing Laurie Cardoza-Moore, an anti-Muslim, anti-BLM, 9/11 truther, vax-hoaxer, and all-around nutball to the state Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission, which, among other things, selects the textbooks used in Tennessee’s public schools.

Memphis Senator Raumesh Akbari interviewed the candidate on the Senate floor, picking apart her past lunacy and concluding, after questioning: “I cannot think of someone who is more uniquely unqualified to be in this position.” Senator Brian Kelsey, the ever-reliable GOP tool from Germantown, pooh-poohed the idea that Cardoza-Moore would be a problem, because, well, he’s Brian Kelsey.

Our legislators and governor also bum-rushed through an open-carry law that will allow any mouth-breathing crackpot to take a gun pretty much anywhere his tiny penis tells him to go. The law was opposed by all major law-enforcement organizations, attorneys general groups, and the vast majority of Tennessee voters. After the law’s passage, Governor Bill Lee made a quick call to the NRA to thank them for their support, making it pretty clear whose opinion matters to him. I really hope I live long enough to see these shameless GOP hacks get sent packing.

But it wasn’t all bad news. There were tweets about how the Memphis Fire Department, community advocate groups, and MATA set up a vaccination center for the area’s homeless, and inoculated dozens of folks who are living in the most vulnerable of circumstances. Good for them. And for us.

What else? I met a friend inside an actual restaurant for dinner for the first time in almost 13 months. We had steaks and split a bottle of Bordeaux and bitched and told the usual stories, and for a couple of hours, life seemed normal again — except for our longtime bartender saying we were starting to sound like the two old guys in the balcony in The Muppets.

Tough crowd. Tough year.