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Behind the Headlines
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Thank you.
- Budget season,
removal of the Forrest
remains, and much more
tonight on
Behind the Headlines.
[intense orchestral music]
- I'm Eric Barnes
with The Daily Memphian.
And thanks for joining us.
I'm joined this week by a
roundtable of journalists
starting with Toby Sells, news
editor from the Memphis Flyer.
Toby, thanks for being here.
- Thanks for having me Eric.
- Omer Yusuf is a reporter
with The Daily Memphian.
Omer, thanks for being here.
- Thanks for having me, Eric.
- And Bill Dries
is also a reporter
with The Daily Memphian.
We'll talk through
you mentioned a number
of things at the top.
The removal of the Nathan
Bedford Forrest remains,
the budget
and maybe an update
on the bridge.
Omer has been doing a
bunch of interesting work
on redevelopments and
Frayser, the pipeline.
There's a lot of
things going on.
Let's start Bill though,
with probably, I guess
I don't know if it's
the newsiest thing
but the budgets we
over the last couple
of weeks have had the
City Council budget chair
on we've talked to what the
the county folks
about the budget.
It is a strange year and a
surprising year in my many years
in Memphis where tax rates
potentially are going down
and potentially going
down substantially.
There's also a lot of confusion
about where the federal
money that is flowing
through to the city and county.
Exactly what can and
can't be done with that.
I don't think anybody's
complaining about it
but the rules are
still not clear.
Maybe we start with what
you want with the county?
Which we'll be voting on Monday.
It, it looks like.
- Yeah. It looks like the county
is going to be the first to
close the budget season.
Although I think things
are changing as we speak.
This has gone
from probably a more
stable situation when
the budget hearings
began to a lot
of changes toward
the end here for it.
And as you mentioned, a lot
of the uncertainty deals
with some new
guidance that the city
and the county got on how to
use the federal ARPA funds,
American Rescue Plan
Act funds that are,
in the case of Shelby County,
that's $180 million from
the federal government,
and the case of the city,
it's $160 million from
the federal government.
And each of those governments
have now received their
their first of two
payments of that.
But the guidance
changed on May 10th
and it has basically
punched a $23 million hole
in the city's budget,
the county, not so much
but there probably
won't be the final word
on how to use the money and
what revenues you can make up
and how the
calculations are done
until mid-July in Washington.
- And we're looking
at tax rate proposals,
given that it's a
reappraisal year
and you know, the the
the tax rate can't move
to create a windfall
the City Council or
the County Commission
they can vote to increase
taxes, but as it is right now
it looks like the city
tax rate will drop
from 3.19 to 2.71.
County will drop from
4.05 to 3.45, give or take.
- That is, those
are the tax rates
that produce the same amount
of revenue for city
and county government
respectively taking
into account the 2021
reappraisal of property.
Neither County Mayor Lee Harris
nor City Mayor Jim Strickland
have proposed a tax increase.
However, there are
some discussions
on the county and
city side about
about possibly a tax hike,
which we which can be done
but it has to be proposed
and voted on separately
once the tax rate is reset.
At this point, it doesn't appear
that raising taxes beyond
that re-certified amount
has the seven votes
necessary to pass
on either the city
or the county side
but there has been some
discussion about that.
And the discussion
has centered on
in the case of the
county raising the taxes
but keeping it below the $4
mark and on the city side
it's about keeping
it below the $3 mark.
- It is interesting.
I'll go to you Toby.
But one thing, I, two
municipalities are looking
at raising taxes,
Bartlett and Collierville.
Bartlett is looking
at a 15 cent increase
after the reappraisal adjustment
Bartlett 24 cent increase
which is totally counter to
how it was, maybe I'm old
but you know, 10, 15, 20
years ago when the,
the municipalities
kept their taxes very
low and very stable.
And the city and county seem
to constantly be raising them.
We'll have the mayors
of Collierville
and Bartlett on in two weeks
to talk about their budgets
school systems and
all that stuff.
But Toby, what did
you want to add?
- It was just
interesting this year
that there was kind of a
new voice in budget season.
I've covered a lot of budgets
over the years, but this year
the Moral Budget
Coalition I wrote about
and I know Bill wrote about it.
It's this group of groups,
including MICA out there
Memphis Tenant's Unit,
Stand for Children Tennessee
and a lot of others out
there, BLDG Memphis.
And they wanted to have the city
and the county to
keep the tax rate
as it is right now, which
would create, as they said
it would create
$40 million in the city
and then $100 million
for the county.
And they wanted this money
invested in the community
which is uh, you know,
what you will remember
from the Black Lives
Matter of, of last summer
you know, when, when activists
would say "defund the police"
they didn't mean we
don't like the police.
They said, you know,
let's, you know
reduce the money that we spend
on police and, and put it
into the community and this,
and, and what they want for
you know, affordable
housing services
for the homeless, mental
health education, a raft
of these things that this
group is pushing for.
So at this stage, in, in
the, in the budget game
it doesn't seem likely that
they would go back to the
you know, to the tax
rate that we have right now.
But it's an interesting
new voice that
that arose during budget season.
Like I said, I've covered a
lot of these, not as closely
in years past, but it's
interesting to see kind
of a new voice
wanting to have a seat
at the table during
budget talks.
- Yeah, we had Cordell
Oren from Stand for Children
and Deveney Perry
from BLDG Memphis
on last week to talk
about them, their advocacy
for keeping the tax rate
the same as it is now
and seeing a pretty significant
windfall in taxes, windfall
or tax increase.
However you want to look at
it and do those investments.
Omer, you want to weigh in
on any parts of this and,
and where things stand.
- Well, I cover Bartlett,
so I can give some insight
on the tax rate
discussion on over there.
So, the 24 cent tax hike
is for 3 reasons.
One, they want to maintain
the city's service levels.
Another is they're proposing
4% increase for employees
and they also have to
pay some debt service.
So they kind of think that
they're at this point now, where
if they don't do it now, they're
gonna have to do it later
and the cost may be much bigger.
So that's kind of why alderman,
Mayor McDonald are kind of
discussing this right now.
And there is a final
vote scheduled
for June 8th of next week.
So we'll see how that goes.
- Right.
Bill, anything else on budget
or we'll shift gears.
Where, where do we go next?
- The City Council will try
to close out its budget season
at their June 15th meeting.
They were originally going
to have that vote scheduled
for, for this week, this
fiscal year for city and county
and all six of the suburban
governments starts on July 1st.
There are usually some line
items that are moved around
within the budget,
by the process,
by the County Commission
and the City Council.
And this year is certainly
no exception to that.
- Bill, over on the
City Council side.
You know, when I used to cover
this stuff, gavel to gavel
this was a really
tense, contentious time
of the year right here at
the end of budget season.
I remember the council
meetings going to, you know
midnight, one in the morning,
are they still like that
did they, are they
still like that anymore?
- So far not.
Fingers crossed,
you know, on that,
but the County
Commission did have about
a seven-hour discussion on
this, on this yesterday.
You know, some of that is
that the Council has just
started meeting in person again.
So, so there's that
kind of factor into it.
Overall, the discussions
have been pretty amiable.
No one's gotten really
frustrated by it on
on either side, city or county
but these are, even under
the best circumstances,
budget season is a
complex undertaking.
How much is one cent
on the tax rate worth?
Even on the county side,
they were not allowed to go
to three digits on the tax rate.
In other words, they wanted
to do explore a basic tax rate
of $3.45.
Three point four five one
as the tax rate.
Well, the state said
you can't do that.
You have to round
down in this case
because it's 1/100th or
something like that of a penny.
Yeah.
- As a last question, you,
Omer, has it been contentious
in Bartlett or
is it, as the board
and the mayor, have they
all been pretty, you know
aligned in terms of that, the
direction of the conversation?
- Well, on the
first two readings
it's been 6-0 both times
on both the tax
rate and the budget.
If there is this
common understanding
that something does
have to be done now.
So if there is going
to be any pushback
that June 8th meeting ahead
of the July 1 deadline
will be the most likely
time you'd see anything.
But the early
indications seemed to be
that this will pass
either by 6-0 or 5-1 vote.
- Let me move on to the, the
the remains of Nathan
Bedford Forrest, obviously
what some years ago now the
statue itself was removed
from Health Sciences Park,
but the pedestal
and then the remains underneath
that had to still have been
in limbo for quite
a few years now.
The process of removing those
remains started this week.
Bill, you were there,
it was a strange process.
It was a very ugly scene.
We have some video that
we'll show in a bit here.
Tell us what you saw
and we'll talk about it.
And we'll take a look
at that video in a bit.
- Well, I made two trips
to Health Sciences
Park that day.
The first was when we heard that
that the parts of the
pedestal were being dismantled
and there was a
crane in the park.
So I went over and
talked to Van Turner,
who's the head of
Memphis Green Space,
the private nonprofit
that owns the park
and had the equestrian
monument removed, as well
as Lee Miller of Sons
of Confederate Veterans,
who was overseeing the
removal of the statue
and the disinterment
of the remains of Nathan
Bedford Forrest, and his wife
all of this to be moved
to a new Confederate park
in Columbia, Tennessee.
And at that point, it was
pretty much how do you do this?
What do you know?
Why are there bricks at
the center of the pedestal?
Because, you know,
no ones, there are no
there are no drawings or
or plans for how the
grave site was erected.
And the monument was erected
more than 100 years ago.
So it was that kind of an angle.
Then pictures started popping up
on social media of
some Confederate flags
and the chain link fence
that is around the monument.
So I went back over,
Commissioner Tammy Sawyer,
Shelby County
Commissioner Tammy Sawyer
who led the Take 'Em
Down 901 movement
which along with the city's
moves in court were,
were the two factors that
surrounded the removal of
of the monument.
And there was a really tense
and ugly confrontation
and threats made towards Sawyer
by one of the workers who
who was there working
on the, on the monument.
So Patrick Lantrip, our
photographer shot some video
of kind of the height
of the confrontation.
[man singing]
- He's going to stand behind
me and sing Dixie Land.
And I just told y'all that
my ancestors picked cotton.
I'm not making this up.
I have slave records, my
ancestors picked cotton.
While his ancestors beat
and raped my ancestors.
[man singing Dixie's Land]
♪ Away in Dixie Land
I'll take my stand ♪
- But guess what?
Dixie is dead, and it was
killed by the descendants
of black people.
The descendants of black people.
Van Turner and Tammy
Sawyer and others,
we took your hero down.
- It is ugly and, and
really not good to watch.
Toby your your
thoughts on it.
You watched it when
it was first posted.
We've seen it again now.
- And read Bill's story.
And it's unbelievable that
somebody at a public site
like that can so publicly
attack a public official
like that, you know,
to be so emboldened.
I think that really
shows how emboldened
these people still are.
You know, we think that
that maybe they have kind
of gone back into
wherever they were
before the election and
all that, but, you know
the Southern Poverty
Law Center just came
out with a report
that Memphis is home
to more hate groups in any
city in Tennessee, you know
and two of those are
white nationalists,
one is Neo-Confederate, and
these people are still embolden
to go out and to say things
like that with a bank of
television cameras going
I think it shows how
emboldened they are.
I think it also shows just
how not desperate we are
but how ready we are to have
this monument completely gone
that, that we would
subject ourselves
to this over and over and
over again, to get this gone
into and to kind of turn
the page on this chapter.
And I hope that I'm just
really glad that it's happening
and hopefully it'll be over
soon and we won't have to deal
with ugly situations like we
had in the park the other day.
- Omer, your thoughts,
your thoughts
on where the park
goes from here?
- Well, um
So, Juneteenth, which
is coming up in a couple
of weeks, Lisa Franklin
and Van Turner
with Memphis Green Space
announced several weeks ago
that the annual Juneteenth
celebration will take place
at Health Sciences Park.
And the reason that
they're moving it
from Robert R. Church Park
to Health Sciences Park
is part of that symbolization
that this is our space now.
That we're going to
start this next chapter.
And that won't be a place
where specifically black
Memphians don't have to worry
about the fear, any more that
they can be welcomed here,
that they can have joy here,
that they can celebrate here.
And I think that'll be a
really important moment
in obviously the past few years.
And then it's all building
up to this and hopefully
that first step in really
making that next chapter start.
- And, and just
some logistics Bill
it's going to take
them a couple of weeks,
is that right, to
disassemble and so on?
- Right.
It's going to take a couple
of weeks, the, the panels
on the side of the pedestal
were removed for restoration
and some repair work
as a part of this.
The remains of
Forrest and his wife,
as we said, are about 10 feet
below everything.
So this is going to take some
time to work out logistically.
There is actually an
archeologist that is working
with the group on this
during the removal.
So on the one hand, you
have a story that really remains
about the divisions in
our, in our society and
and the resistance to, to change
and the whole fake history
of the Confederacy that
began after the Civil War and
and that some people
want to preserve to this
to this very day.
And then you have the story
about, well, how do you go
about something like this, no
matter who the individual is.
- And, and again,
I think you alluded
to this and it was in your story
but this was being
paid for by, whom?
- The Sons of
Confederate Veterans
and the Forrest family.
There's no public funding
that is involved in this.
And that's easy to forget
because this was once a
city park up until 2017.
It is now land that is
owned for public use
by Memphis Green Space as
is the other park where
there was a statue
of Jefferson Davis
which is now Fourth
Bluff or Memphis Park.
- Yeah.
Let's switch to
Frayser.
And some of the stories you've
been doing up there, Omer,
it's another part of your beat.
And there's some big
investments that have happened.
I mean, hundreds of millions
of dollars in investments.
If you go back
to Nike expanding
its distribution center, Amazon.
Talk about a bit about
what you've been
writing about up there.
- So you've kind of
got these three buckets
I'll start off
with the big ones.
When we, of course you
had Nike a few years ago.
Now Amazon has invested
more than $200 million
in both a fulfillment center
and a delivery station.
You had Ampro recently
add another $30 million
into its Frayser business
which is a hair
manufacturer company.
And it's a really important
step in creating hundreds
and hundreds of more jobs
for people in Frayser.
And they're actively
trying to recruit people
in Frayser to go work there.
And on the other hand
you also have the City
of Memphis investing
in a new Ed Rice
Community Center
and Frayser Library
and then renovating
Rodney Baber Park.
And those are really crucial
because those are
things that people
in the community really value
and that value them
for a really long time.
But they're also spaces
that have been there,
because they've been there
for a really long time,
they're due for an upgrade.
And they're also quite
excited about that.
And then you have this final
part, which is the investment
coming more or less
from the outside.
You have early it's that
it's investing 12 million
$12 million in a new early
childhood education facility.
And then you have Renaissance
at Steele Apartment complex
which is a
$17 million renovation.
So they talk about employment.
And you're talking about
business expansion and talking
about housing and education,
all these things in that
in a neighborhood that
had gone through years
of disinvestment
and it's really creating
some optimism in Frayser now.
- One interesting thing
I thought about it was,
you know, we've debated on
had people on the show,
debating low wage jobs.
Obviously the Flyer has
written about, Daily Memphian,
others, you know, that, that we
Martavius Jones is a big
advocate of City Councilman
that we, you need to be not
pursuing these lower wage jobs.
The Amazon jobs are
start at $15 an hour.
I can't remember what
the Ampro ones are
but you did speak to a
community leader up in, in
in Frayser who said,
this is fantastic.
These are jobs.
This is, these are people here
in Frayser who can be employed.
And this is, I think he said
our prayers have been answered.
- Yes. I spoke to
Pursuit of God Church
Pastor Ricky Floyd.
And if you talk to a lot
of the community leaders
in Frayser
they're just excited
to have jobs that,
start at $15 an hour.
Are they the ideal jobs
that'll transform Frayser
right away, not necessarily.
But it's a step in
the right direction.
And if you talk to them,
that's how they view this.
They don't view this as an
overnight transformation
but they do these first steps
as crucial to getting this
neighborhood back on its feet
that's got an
estimated population
of about 50,000 people.
So we're talking about one
of Memphis' largest
black neighborhoods,
and it's important that
it gets back on its feet.
- I think this was simultaneous
with, I'm gonna put you
on the spot Bill.
We have Accelerate
Memphis, which is
this $200 million kind of,
it's a debt restructuring plan
with the city that they can
take $200 million and put it
towards capital improvement
projects across the city.
I think Frayser, there are
areas all across the city
very much follows the Memphis
3.0 map and the strategic plan
that which includes Frayser.
And then also this week,
the Office of Planning
and Development, I believe
it was, started talking
about this three to five-year
plan to expand broadband
to underserved areas, which
includes Frayser in terms
of its access to broadband.
So thoughts on that and you're,
you're from Frayser, right?
Didn't you, you went
to school in Frayser?
- I went to school.
Alumni of Westside High School.
Lived there.
Grew up there.
Yeah, the broadband plan
is actually the Division
of Planning and
Development, as well
as Housing and Community
Development for the city.
And it's based in part
on the Memphis 3.0 plan
and specifically the,
the centers or,
or the "anchors" as they're
called in the plan,
that are in areas where
there is low access to
to broadband and
digital access there.
And that's where this
is going to start.
There's a, there's a PILOT
in Soulsville as well.
And they're going to proceed
with some funding here
to map out likely spots for
the spread of that access.
And of course we've seen
how important that is
during the pandemic that
we've just been through.
- I'm going to skip over one
of the biggest stories going
on right now is the bridge
and the repairs to the bridge.
And we've, 'cause we've
got Pete Buttigieg,
The Department of
Transportation Secretary
is in town as we're taping this,
may have some
announcements today.
So if we talk too much about
it, it could be off-track.
But one, I mean, there
are a couple of big questions
I guess I'll do a couple
of minutes on this Bill.
What do we expect
from Pete Buttigieg?
And again, I'm putting you
in this bad place
where we're taping
before he speaks
and what comes next with
the bridge, real briefly.
- Well, what comes next
is how long is this going
to take to get the bridge
reopened to traffic?
But beyond that, there are
some larger discussions.
This has revived discussion
of the possibility of a third
vehicular traffic bridge
across the Mississippi
River at Memphis
which the last
serious discussion
of this was about 20 years ago
that shows you what kind of
the timeframe is for that.
What we're expecting out
of Secretary Buttigieg's
visit to Memphis is
probably a lively discussion
at the forum at FedEx
which will feature
Republican U.S. Senator
Marsha Blackburn
among the people involved
in that discussion.
And she's been highly critical
of the administration's
infrastructure plan
as not being about roads
and bridges enough.
And of course, the secretary
will be here flying the banner
of the Biden administration
and promoting that still
forming infrastructure plan.
- I still think also
now when I move to Toby
for some other
things, but that one
of the big unanswered
questions, I know the inspector
from Arkansas who had inspected
the bridge and missed this
that from, it looks like
potentially a couple
of years was fired,
but what happens next
with bridge inspections?
How did the whole,
maybe it was
that person's fault, but
that person had bosses and
and a whole structure that
allowed a, not a crack
but a massive fissure to
go unnoticed for so long
that those are
the next questions
that need to be answered.
But, but Toby, I wanted to
switch to you if we could.
'Cause you've got a big
story coming up in The Flyer
about the legislative session
and some of the workings there.
- That's right.
And as I was watching
the session, this year,
I started to kind
of notice a theme in a lot
of the GOP actions up there.
Not all bills necessarily
but that were
happening separately.
But then when you take
them together, you kind
of see this theme emerge,
that they were really aimed
at poor people,
at low-income people.
And in three big moves there
were cuts to the state
unemployment benefits
which will take it, you know
basically cut the time that
we have for those in half.
And that doesn't
start until 2023.
I'll talk about
that in a minute.
But the second thing was
Bill Lee's decision to
cut the federal
unemployment benefit
from September to July
and those are kind
of taken together.
But then the third
one was, you know
the failure once again
to expand Medicaid.
And I know we kind of
talked about this, you know
newspaper reporters have
talked about this all session
but when you bring them
together, you do kind
of see this theme of, of who
these bills are aimed at.
And so I asked some insiders
up there to see, you know,
is this, is this some kind
of concerted effort, right?
To prove some kind of
Republican economic theory about
you know, the work
ethic of people or not.
And that person
said it is not,
only because the Republican
Party at the State Capitol,
they're just not that organized.
A lot of them, the
insider told me,
that they see the job as
kind of a social hour.
They go along with
whatever the speaker says.
So as far as there
being some kind
of big organized movement
against, you know
low-income people, he said
that it just wasn't there
but a lot of the
rhetoric you see
around unemployment benefits
especially the state's
unemployment benefits
the rhetoric there, you
see one legislator called
these checks that unemployment
checks giveaway money.
Another one said that, you
know, we need to stop this money
so we can get people
out into the workplace,
the work marketplace out there.
So you see that time
and again, where these people
they blame the people that are
on unemployment.
And they think that they're
just kind of being lazy
and sitting around the house.
And as long as they're
getting these checks
they're not going out
and getting these jobs.
And for them,
that's kind of where,
where their real heart is.
I think they're
seeing these businesses
that can't find enough
workers right now.
And I don't think anybody
really has their finger
on why the shortage
is right now, not even
the Federal Reserve chairman
knows exactly what to, how to
how to put his finger on that.
But a lot of the Republicans
when they're talking about
this, they talk in anecdotes.
They say, well,
there's a restaurant
in my district that
can't find workers.
There's another guy
with a trucking company
that says I've got, you know
fifty trucks idled because
I can't find drivers
but they never
point to, you know
a study done by somebody that
says here's what's going on.
And here's what it is.
- Let me, I apologize.
'Cause we're going to run
out of time here Toby
but I think it is an
interesting debate.
I mean, if you go to the,
you know, what the,
the pages of the
Wall Street Journal
or if you turn on CNBC, that's
very much, and we've spoken
to people in Daily Memphian
who are unable to hire people
and blame the extended
unemployment benefits.
And we are in the middle of
a grand national experiment
that we'll probably see
six months, a year from now
what held things
back and what didn't.
I want to take one quick moment
as we wrap up to say, this
is thankfully, thankfully
the last show that we will
be doing from, by Zoom.
I am sick of looking at myself.
I'm sick of looking at the
background of my apartment.
I want to thank everybody
at KNO for making this work.
We did 50 or 60 shows by Zoom.
With case rates coming down
we'll be back in the studio
next week in person, and we
really look forward to that.
I want to thank Natalie
van Gundy, our producer,
and a huge shout-out to
Peter Richards, our director
who managed this situation
with a tremendous,
without annoyance and,
and pretty seamlessly.
We had very few problems.
And so a big thanks
to him and others.
A last note, as we leave my
apartment that this painting
over my right shoulder,
it's actually my, yeah
my right shoulder.
I recently wrote a column
about my mother
recently passing.
A lot of viewers and readers
were very kind to reach out.
And I don't
know, they call it
it spoke to them in some way.
And I really appreciate that.
I wrote about my
mother's paintings
and I wrote about two of
her paintings specifically.
And that one right
there is one of those.
So thank you.
I want to say to everyone
who did reach out,
y'all are very, very kind.
But that is all the
time we have this week.
You can, as of course, as
always get past episodes
of the show at wkno.org
or the full podcast
of the show on The
Daily Memphian site
or wherever you
get your podcasts.
And we will see you next week
from the studio.
[intense orchestral music]
[acoustic guitar chords]