Toby Sells
JIM STRICKLAND
Jim Strickland, a Memphis City Council member and a 2015 Memphis mayoral candidate, says Memphis Mayor A C Wharton is “likable” and “friendly” but he hasn’t delivered on many promises in his term as mayor.
Strickland served up his criticism of the mayor in a rebuttal to Wharton’s State of the City address Thursday.
Wharton’s address was delivered inside Hatiloo Theater. Strickland chose to deliver his rebuttal on the nearby Overton Square courtyard. For television reasons, the rebuttal was moved to the sidewalk adjacent to the Overton Square parking garage. Either way, the setting was intentional on Strickland’s part.
Below is a transcript of Strickland’s formal remarks:
I find it odd and I’m amazed the mayor staged the State of the City address here in Overton Square because he actually opposed the city’s involvement in the redevelopment here, the parking garage and the underground retention area. I am saying he opposed it.
Councilman Shea Flinn and I proposed this garage because it doubled as a water retention (facility) for Lick Creek, which has devastated Midtown through its flooding over the years.
Mayor Wharton told us he supported us. But behind the scenes he and his staff were asking other city council members to vote against it. We found that out the day of the vote. Fortunately, the Overton Square redevelopment supporters and we won that vote down at city council.
I know that Mayor Wharton is a very likable and friendly man and his promises and his proposals make you feel good and you want to believe him. But when you’re running the day to day efforts at city hall, results have to matter. And, frankly, the results for the last three years have been very disappointing out of city hall.
Violent crime is up. Blight and litter are very common in many neighborhoods throughout the city and potholes are everywhere. Most of our citizens feel the city is heading in the wrong direction.
For example, we found out this week that an honor student in Westwood feels that she, to walk to school safely, she has to carry a box cutter. The Hispanic community this week has been pleading for more police protection in their neighborhoods. And a man in Frayser has repeatedly told me that he wishes the mayor would enforce the curfew law because he and his neighbors don’t feel safe when they’re walking around the neighborhood.
That is the state of the city that many of our residents are living through.
The mayor made many promises today but we’ve heard them before. In the State of the City address in 2012, the mayor promised a thorough review of the Memphis Police Department. And I quote: “This review will guarantee the police department is operating at peak performance.”
What happened to that review? What happened to that guarantee? Nothing. No action.
The police department is not operating at peak performance. Their budget may be up but the number of police officers is down over a three year period of time. And I remind you again – violent crime has increased.
I believe in Memphis. I believe we can clean this city up and reduce crime. I believe we can increase our population and increase the number of jobs we have here in Memphis.
But we have to have action and not just words. We have to focus on the basics of city government services.
We can do that by, once again, making our police department important and vital to the health of the city and making sure their number one priority is reducing violent crime.
I know the city has the resources and the ability to clean up the blight through our neighborhoods, pick up litter on our streets, and pave our roads. But what we don’t have is leadership in this administration.
We need a leader who will not only tell us what he’s going to do, but actually do it. Leadership is not making promises that make you feel good. Leadership is results. Thank you.