Memphis Meetings

Roll Call

At a glance

budget

10 min

Paul Young

8 min

budget proposal

6 min

Indivisible Memphis

4 min

Reginald Boyce

4 min

Riverside Baptist Church

4 min

Annotated

5 of 22 sections

Annotated Sections

Transcript text is available per section when expanded.

1. 10:04

   Speakers: Reginald Boyce

   The meeting opens with a prayer from Reverend Dr. Reginald Boyce of Riverside Baptist Church. The prayer from Reginald Boyce concludes. Then the Pledge of Allegiance happens. Then roll call.

   Show transcript (15 turns)

   Reginald Boyce

   We will be led in prayer by Reverend Dr. Reginald Boyce, pastor of Riverside Baptist Church. Every head bowed and every eye closed. And if you're kind enough, can you hold the hand of the person next to you? Gracious and sovereign God, we come before you today with gratitude for the city of Memphis. We thank you for her history, her culture, its resilience, and the people. Thank you for every neighborhood and every family, every worker, every dreamer and every leader who calls this city home. Today, as this budget is presented, we pause to recognize that this is more than numbers. This is about people, about opportunity, and about the future we're shaping together today. God, we ask for your wisdom over our mayor Paul Young, over this city council, over every chief, every director, every public servant, every officer, every person serving on Memphis Fire, and every leader entrusted with the responsibility to guide this city forward. Today God, we ask for clarity in complex decisions, courage when the weight is heavy, and compassion that keeps people at the center of every choice. Lord, we anchor ourselves in your word just as the prophet Jeremiah declared to seek the welfare of the city to pray for it because as the city prospers, so does or so do its people. So today, we pray for the welfare of Memphis. We pray for its peace, for its prosperity, and for unity. Lord, let this budget reflect shared prosperity, not just growth, but growth that touches every zip code. Let it reflect social justice that is active, not passive. Let

   Reginald Boyce

   it open doors for the justice impact that strengthen pathways for opportunity youth and build systems that honor dignity and equity for all. Bless every department, every initiative and every effort represented here. Strengthen collaboration among leaders. Remove division and replace it with alignment, purpose, and a shared commitment to the greater good. And God, we pray for every person who calls Memphis home. Cover them, keep them, provide for them. Let this be a city where people don't just live, but thrive. We declare today that Memphis is rising. Not in words, but in action, not just in plans, but in progress. Not just in promise, but in people. And we are rising because of your resurrection power. And we clear, we declare that today in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

   —

   Amen. Please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance.

   —

   I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May be seated.

   —

   Thank you, Reverend Dr. Boyce, for that beautiful prayer. Thank you so much.

   —

   Madame controller, will you please call item number one? Oh, call the robe first, please. Thank you. Please call the role.

   —

   Thank you. Council member Canali,

   —

   Carlile,

   —

   present. Cooper Sutton Easter Thomas

   —

   Ford Green

   —

   Logan

   —

   present

   —

   Smiley Spinosa

   —

   Walker

   —

   Warren

   • reginald-boyce
   • riverside-baptist-church
   • budget

   Member	Presence
   Chase Carlisle	present
   Michalyn Easter-Thomas	present
   Jerri Green	present
   Rhonda Logan	present
   Philip Spinosa	present
   Pearl Eva Walker	present
   Dr. Jeff Warren	present
   Janika White	present
   Jana Swearengen Washington	present

2. 14:06

   Speakers: Jana Swearengen Washington, Paul Young

   The Chairwoman opens the meeting and explains contact cards. Item number one is the mayor's fiscal year 2027 proposed budget.

   Show transcript (8 turns)

   —

   White

   —

   Chairwoman Swearington Washington

   —

   present

   —

   Madam Chair you have a quorum

   Jana Swearengen Washington

   thank you welcome to the April 21st 2026 special called meeting of the Memphis City Council. Meetings of the council shall be conducted in an orderly manner to ensure the public has the full opportunity to be heard and the deliberate process of the council is retained at all times. Our council staff member has meeting agendas available upfront. Mr. Clay, please raise your hand. as well as comment request cards for members of the public wishing to be heard on this specific item. All those wishing to speak on an item must turn in their comment card to staff before that item is called. If you are not here to speak on a specific item, you can note your request to give comment at the end of the meeting. As chair, I will only recognize citizens that properly registered to speak by submitting a completed comment request card to council staff. Madame controller, if you will please call item number one.

   Jana Swearengen Washington

   Thank you, Madam Chair. Item number one is presentation of the mayor's fiscal year 2027 proposed budget.

   Jana Swearengen Washington

   Thank you, mayor. We are in your hands.

   Paul Young

   All right. Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you, city council, for uh having me here today. This is obviously a big deal for all of us. This is our third budget together. Um and I feel like this is a strong budget that you all will appreciate and so this budget was really built with a clear focus of delivering for the people of our city. And uh I look forward to getting into it with you. We're going to do this in a presentation style. Um, and so we'll get the screen ready momentarily. And there you go. Uh, so I'm going to go on to the to the next slide. Um, and so as I

   • budget
   • proposed-budget
   • paul-young

3. 16:06

   Speakers: Paul Young

   Paul Young goes over his fiscal year 2027 proposed budget.

   Show transcript (10 turns)

   Paul Young

   mentioned, this is a budget that did not happen overnight. We thought very strategically over it. And so this slide really outlines the timeline of how we got here. We started in January uh, with a budget kickoff. U, we went through the next few months identifying what the gaps were. Uh we worked to identify where the cost pressures were going to be. Uh we wanted to identify what solutions we could find to address those cost pressures. We worked with every single division uh to get to where we are today. This was not a paper exercise. We challenged all of the numbers in every division to make sure that when we brought this budget to you, it was something that we could stand behind. Uh go to the next slide. And um I want to also note that we didn't just use assumptions when we came into this. We built it based on hard decisions. Our team worked with the University of Memphis to uh do revenue estimates because we wanted an independent voice on how we're going to determine what the revenues will look like moving forward. Uh we wanted to reset it so that it could reflect some of the true costs that we're seeing. We knew that we had some unavoidable increases, things like pension costs, health care costs, uh compensation costs. Uh we wanted to make sure that we were able to absorb those things. We evaluated more than $150 million worth of pressures and reduction opportunities. Uh we reviewed about $ 38.2 million worth of division requests. So when we went to the divisions, we asked them what things they needed or wanted to do to advance in their area. There were about $38 million worth of requests. And of course, not everything that was submitted could be funded. So we made significant tradeoffs as we went through the process. Uh but that is how we delivered a fully vetted FY27 budget. Uh so some of the priorities uh are priorities that have carried us through uh this administration. We have a focus

   Paul Young

   on developing thriving neighborhoods and obviously that's rooted in addressing public safety and removing blight. Uh we have a focus on building up housing in the core of our city. We have an emphasis on developing our workforce in our young people. And then we have an emphasis on ensuring that we use culture as an economic driver because we believe that's an area where we have an competitive advantage. Um, and so before I go into the depths of FY27, I just want to do a really quick recap of some of the things that we've achieved in FY 26. Um, so just looking at uh some of the things that we've done around uh blight and restoring some of the pride in our neighborhood by removing trash. Over 600 tons of uh debris has been collected. 86,000 bags of trash, 25,000 tires collected. Our teams have been out there doing the hard work um on violence prevention. As you know, with our joint office in place, we have been working to invest in nonprofits that are doing the intervention and prevention work to address public safety in tandem uh with the work that is happening with our law enforcement partners. Uh we have been doing work to assist the community. So about 1,700 expungements have taken place. 326 driver's license reinstatements. And all of that equates to about 106,000 economic impact of having uh those individuals being able to go about their daily lives getting to and from work. So this is assisting the community. Uh our teams have been serving with excellence. We've had about 350,000 uh emergency calls. Uh and one of the things that we're really proud of is that we have a 95% uh of those 95% of those calls were answered within 20 seconds. And so our communications professors professionals through fire and police are doing amazing work to make sure that they are

   Paul Young

   supporting this community in their times of need. Um on our young people, this past summer, we had about 1,800 young people that had jobs as a result of the employee program. about 800 young people have uh afterchool programming through the MAP program and 493 students are participating in the boss program. If you recall, this is the program where uh we relieve some of the GPA requirements so that individuals that may not have the grades but still need the opportunity are able to participate. So, this is something that we're really proud of. And then with our parks programming, over 348,000 individuals have participated, whether it's through our community centers, our park programming. Uh the program called Play Your Park on Fridays throughout the summer where we have individuals that are uh out supporting our young people with different games and opportunities in our parks. We have seen a significant amount of people participating in these programs and this is something that we're also proud of. Uh on the housing front, in this past year, we've had 800 units delivered uh on the housing front. And this is something, as you all know, we've talked about our 10,000 housing unit goal. These 800 units are moving us towards that mark. Um and then when it comes to all of the work that we've been doing, it's all contributed to where we see ourselves when it comes to crime reduction. uh this this slide and I think this is an important slide for you all to see. Uh this shows over the past 25 years where we've been when it comes to crime and as you can see the high water marks are 2006 and 2023 the year before we started our term. Uh and as you can see 2023 was one of the highest years but as you can see following that uh our teams have been putting in the work and we've seen a 40% uh reduction in crime. When we came in, we set a goal of reducing crime 10% year-over-year for four years. We've

   Paul Young

   achieved that goal and that would equate to a 40% reduction. We've achieved that goal in two years, but that's because of all of the work that we have done together. And then we'll look at it here. It just drills it down even more. This is uh serious crime month by month. The red line is 2023. Those are the number of serious crimes per month, January, February, March, and so on. And if you look at the red line, that was 2023. The blue line is 2024. The white line is 2025. And then the yellow line at the bottom is where we are today. And if you look along those lines, you'll see where we started various initiatives like the 38 $39 million grant uh that came in as soon as we started our work uh with this administration. Code zero, camera tech, all of the initiatives are there, but as you can see, the work that we've done has contributed to a much lower crime rate. Now, nobody's doing victory laps. We know we have a lot more work to do, but this does give us a clear picture of where we have been and where we are as we stand today. All right. So, I want to get into uh the budget and this budget represents months of scrutiny, a lot of tough choices and dedication to get here. But uh let's go right in. I want to start by saying with our operating budget that this is a peopledriven budget. Our total budget is about $897 million that we are proposing. $652 million of that is personnel. That's 72% of the budget. 72% of the budget is invested in the people who are delivering the services each and every day. Um I want to first say we are proud of our negotiation efforts this year. Um we have a 2% increase across the board that we are proposing in this budget for all city of Memphis employees. uh we have reached agreement with all but I think one of the um the unions and so

   Paul Young

   there will be more dialogue about that but we do have an agreement with the rest of the unions on this 2% and the 2% applies not only to the unions but also to all of the employees of the city of Memphis. Um and most of our total investment on this slide is in personnel. I want to reiterate that again. We have about 88% of our budget is going to personnel in public safety, anti-bllight, and infrastructure teams. That's fire, police, community enhancement, public works, and engineering. And we can go to the next slide. All right. So, this is where we start to get into some of the meat of it. Um, yes, there were increases that were driven by pensions and salary growth, but we also cut some of the non-essential spending and made room for some strategic investments. Um, and so I'll start at the top. Uh, what you see there is a 2% increase. That's really due to some of the salaries, healthc care, and the salary increases over this year. Uh, we see a reduction on materials and supplies of about 5% that represents cuts to non-essential spending. uh we have a higher investment in community beautifification, workforce training and mATA that represents the 7% in the general and sorry in the grants and subsidies. Uh we have uh restored the management fees as you may recall last year we cut some of those. We restored them in this budget uh because we know that those um agencies that are managing city facilities are also dealing with a lot of the cost pressures that we are. Um the housing trust fund. Um we last year we funded I think 2.65 million. This year we're funding it at three million. Uh library services there were some increases in retirement. And then our portion that we paid towards uh the Grizzly shortfall annually is also included in here. Next I'll talk about some of the revenue. Um, one of the positive things is that the second XAI

   Paul Young

   facility came online which resulted in an additional $15 million in our budget uh for a total amount of roughly $26 million that is uh coming from that facility. Uh we did reset our auto registration fees to align with the actual collection levels. uh we have been watching that line and I think we had overestimated in previous years and so we want to rightsize that and then we also on the federal grant size this is just the removal of non-recurring revenue sources all right on this slide this is where we looking at it from a divisional perspective and I like I said earlier every team uh has been a part of these discussions and they've been some painful discussions if we've gone through and trying to identify where we can make the necessary reductions to make this budget work. They work to identify savings reducing their costs and it really was a citywide effort. Uh you'll see at the top in executive some of the increases you see there is expanding some of the youth services programming and we also added the comprehensive planning office which was previously in finance. So when you see that reduction in finance, it's just a move of people from one service center to another that's causing some of that. Uh we also removed unfunded VA we unfunded some of the vacancies. So let me speak on that just for a minute. The positions still exist and if we need to fund those positions, we can come back to you and get the funding to do it. But in order to balance the budget, one of the things that we did in many of the vision pretty much across the board was remove funding from vacancies because we know that those don't touch warm bodies and we want to make sure that we kept the warm bodies that are currently working with the city able to keep doing that work. Uh and we still maintained enough vacancies to ensure that we're still able to execute on the services uh that we need.

   Paul Young

   All right. CIP spending. Uh we have a roughly $16 million uh capital spend. When it comes to CIP, uh we kind of organize them in different buckets here. Critical neighborhood infrastructure about $ 36 million, 34%. Uh creating community spaces about 14% of the budget. That's $15 million. You can see the rest. I won't just read all the numbers to you, but as you can see, it's a pretty balanced uh CIP budget. And just drilling in a little more on some of those in the housing division. Uh you all had an opportunity this morning. I know some of you most of you were there uh when we visited Southwest Twin. Uh that is probably one of the larger areas in housing and community development, but there's also some infrastructure tied into there. Uh under parks, there are some community center upgrades. uh the Belleview Tennis Center um and other parks facilities are included in that line. And then under public works, paving roads and road work. If you all are like me, which I know you are, you hear often about the work that we need to do to ensure that we're getting our roads where they need to be. Uh we're putting a significant amount of those dollars into paving. All right. I wanted to show this slide because this is an important thing that we've talked about every budget season and I want to remind everyone where we have been. Um, and so if you look at FY22, that's where we had a $10 million contribution, but I want you to look above that and I want you to remember that we had ARPA at that time. Um, and ARPA kind of artificially inflated where our numbers were. Uh we had spent 43 million in in ARPA money which allowed us to have a $10 million surplus. In FY23 we spent 47 million in ARPA which allowed us to have a 5.9. In FY24 even

   Paul Young

   with the 65 million we still were uh 11 million under. And so where we are now is uh where we are now is FY25. We had $1.9 million that we were under. So, we were getting things organized where it needed to be. FY26, we're expected to have a $2 million surplus. And then in this year, in this budget, we balance the budget with a zero contribution. Now, I will say there are some things happening on the revenue side that I think could contribute to there being a higher amount. Um there's some questions at the state level as to whether they're going to maintain a bill where they're going to provide dollars to the city based on the population annual estimates. Uh there's a bill up there to pause that and I think that it may get traction and that would allow us to be able to have a contribution if that does move forward. All right. So, now let's talk about what are we going to actually deliver? Uh, many of you have heard 3,000 summer jobs this year for young people. Um, and so we are expecting that to happen. Um, and this budget delivers that. It continues the R3 program. It also puts $1.5 million into our opportunity youth workforce training program. So, this is training young people for the jobs of the future. And it also allows us to contribute to our urban fellows program which is our summer internship program where we have college students from out the re from throughout the region really across the country that come here uh to work in jobs right here at the city of Memphis. Uh on the housing side, I mentioned the $3 million to the housing trust fund. We have $1 million going to what we're calling the middle income housing infrastructure uh program. And so this is a program where developers will be able to access dollars to do

   Paul Young

   public infrastructure which would allow for the creation of development in the core. One of the things you'll often hear are the the costs of some of the infrastructure related to that housing oftent times prevents them from getting projects done. This allows us to have some resources to support that. And then there's $10 million uh in federal funds that comes through the division of housing and community development to support housing and community efforts. On the culture, remember I said at the beginning culture as an economic driver, we have an increase of roughly $825,000 that we want to provide to the office of creative and cultural economy. Um we also launched the initiative Memphis Music Live 365. Those dollars are intended to support the whole culture ecosystem. Obviously, there's a lot more money necessary, but we want to begin putting the dollars in that allow us to have the impact that we want to have in this space. And then on this one, I just wanted to just have a quick list as I get ready to close on what are some of the things that are going to be delivered. This is a mix of things from the operating NCIP budget, but I'm just going to read them out really quickly because I know there's a lot of words, but the police station at Southwest Twin is funded in this BA budget. The design for the pool at Glen View that we've talked about is in this budget. Uh improvements for the North Frasier Community Center. A new library, the design for the new library in Parkway Village, $20 million for paving and potholes, 3,000 jobs for the employee program. Upgrades at the tennis facility at Belleview, upgrades at the Overton Shell, free summer camp at 25 locations, upgrades to Guch Park in North Memphis, a south the South City Museum. This is going to allow for that uh in the former Porter Junior High School. Purchasing of 20 snowplow attachments. These are attachments that will go onto our uh dump trucks and other large vehicles to support uh when we need that support during those

   Paul Young

   weather instances. $7 million for early childhood education, upgrades to our asphalt plant, which will allow us to be able to produce our own asphalt so that we can do more roads, new golf clubhouse at Ottoman uh golf course, upgraded trails and greenways at Wolf River, Chelsea Green Line, and the Overton Park, and Raleigh Community Center design and renovation. And so these just outline some of the things that are included in this budget that I think we should all be proud of because we are working to deliver for the people of our community. And I will just close with saying uh this is a budget where we work to hold the line on spending. Uh it's a balanced budget. It does not propose a tax increase at a time when we know that the costs are really high to uh everyone in our community. Uh and it also offers a 2% increase for our employees so that they can uh sustain their lives and address some of those rising costs that they're experiencing just like everybody else. And so uh I look forward to this budget season. I know there will be robust conversation and dialogue. Uh but this is the budget that we are presenting to you. I think uh in momentarily our team will be delivering the budget books to your offices upstairs. Um and unless you have questions for me, that will conclude my presentation. Thank you, Mayor Young. Thank you so much for your presentation. At this time, we will now open the floor for public comments. Madam Controller, if you'll please put the times. Leona Benia, if you'll please come down. And after that, Miss Amber Sherman.

   • paul-young
   • budget
   • budget-proposal

4. 36:26

   Speakers: Lyanna Vanetsia, Amber Sherman

   Public comments on the budget proposal.

   Show transcript (4 turns)

   Lyanna Vanetsia

   Uh good afternoon. My name is Lyanna Vanetsia. Uh I am a health educator with the Step Ahead Foundation. Uh I am curious about the condition or I should say the state of the Memphis Ambassador program uh which is a longunning program aimed at uh providing opportunities and education for youth. Uh I know that the budget is uh has been modified to include more opportunities. It sounds like more employment opportunities for youth. Uh but I'm curious to know uh whether uh the MAP program is still funded uh or whether it is being replaced uh or what other uh modifications are being made to uh the city plan for youth engagement.

   —

   Thank you,

   Amber Sherman

   Miss Amber Sherman. My name is Amber Sherman. I think that was a okay budget presentation. I would have really loved to see more information about funding youth mental health. I think the budget presentation showed that the mayor has listened to a lot of our concerns around opportunity youth, specifically around snowplow attachments, um, and also fixing roads. But youth mental health is one of the biggest issues we have in the city. And a part of the crime going down includes providing services to youth for mental health services. And so from the opportunity youth budget that I wrote, there was an option for $2 million for youth mental health. And I would ask for this city council to make sure that there's an amendment made to fund youth mental health at $2 million.

   —

   Thank you, Miss Sherman. Sandra Barrett

   • memphis-ambassador-program
   • budget-proposal
   • public-comment
   • step-ahead-foundation
   • lyanna-vanetsia
   • youth-mental-health
   • paul-young

5. 38:31

   Speakers: Barrett Josan Matoya, Jason Mononttoya

   Show transcript (7 turns)

   —

   and after Miss Barrett Josan Matoya, please forgive me for if I mispronounced your name. She not here. Okay. U Jan Matoya, are you Miss Barrett?

   —

   Yes, I am.

   Barrett Josan Matoya

   Okay. Today, as I speak out, I'm very aware of the possibility of retaliation against me and against the actions that I organize. Please just She stayed her name. We just do name.

   Barrett Josan Matoya

   This morning after I watched a video of some of my comrades getting arrested as they peacefully took a stand against fascism. I knew I had to speak out today because that is exactly what we were standing against at No Kings 3. There are hundreds of thousands of US military veterans in this country who served and took a stand against fascism, who took a stand against who took a stand to protect the Constitution, who took a stand to protect our First Amendment rights. A lot of those veterans were at No Kings 3. Some of those veterans are here today and very proudly I am one of them. At the end of No Kings, your police officers displayed the very characteristics that we have served against and were

   Barrett Josan Matoya

   standing against that day. If you don't know the definition of fascism, look it up. educate yourself. Let me say that again. Your police officers acted in a fascist manner as we once again were standing to protect our country against those very things. You now have the responsibility of holding your police officers accountable. So far as I currently understand it, the only thing you've done is given them a paid vacation. Shame on you for not taking a stand as so many of us have. Shame on those police officers for their cowardice actions. Shame on Chief Davis for many reasons. Remember Tyrie Nichols? And shame on Mayor Young. your dishonor.

   —

   Thank you so much. Time is up. Thank you so much,

   Jason Mononttoya

   Justanna Matoya. And then Dennis Lynch. My name, excuse me, my name is Jason Mononttoya. I am on the steering committee of Indivisible Memphis and I also served as a safety marshal at No Kings 3. I just wanted to say that while I am pleased that the charges against those who were arrested that day have been dropped, that does not constitute a resolution to this incident and does not in and of itself bring justice to them or the community, nor does it repair the reputation of the Memphis Police Department, which was damaged by this incident. I demand from those who possess the authority to do so, the release of complete and unedited body camera footage to the public, from all officers involved, and further disciplinary measures must be taken and a meaningless suspension with pay, which

   • indivisible-memphis

6. 42:34

   Speakers: Jason Mononttoya, Dennis Lynch

   Show transcript (2 turns)

   Jason Mononttoya

   quite frankly is a slap in the face to the public. Thank you.

   Dennis Lynch

   Thank you, Mr. Dennis Lynch. And then Jessica Miller. Uh, greetings you all. I am Dennis Lynch with the Sierra Club and with Better Transit for Better Memphis. Thank you for this opportunity to make a few comments here on the mayor's budget proposal. Uh, one huge thing is well of course everyone knows the city needs better transit and we know that transit has been unfunded underfunded for the last six or eight years and it's falling behind uh the inflation rate. The increased funding for transit has not been there. It's been $30 million consistently and it's almost $15 million below uh the inflation what it should have been. Now, we need an increase to transit to improve people's ability to get to to work, to school, to to uh mental doctor's appointments, and also obviously the youth of our community can use transit to get around to to various activities and visit friends, etc., etc. Um, we look for uh expansion of the service uh $20 million to $30 million increase over and above the budget level that there's been in the past. And that would improve the downtown trolley, would increase the frequencies of buses on existing bus routes, uh would uh uh add to uh various bus routes that that have higher frequency. um would increase the the pay of uh bus operators and mechanics. All of these things are needed to improve and increase the service provided by the transit system.

   • sierra-club
   • better-transit-for-better-memphis

7. 44:34

   Speakers: Dennis Lynch, Jessica Miller

   Show transcript (3 turns)

   Dennis Lynch

   Memphis is way below all of its competitive cities, all of its core comparative cities, Nashville, Indianapolis, Birmingham, etc., etc. We're half of the budget that those cities have provided. We need an increased budget for transit in Memphis. Thank you very much.

   —

   Yes, sir. Thank you so much,

   Jessica Miller

   Jessica Miller. And then LJ Abraham. Thank y'all. My name is Jessica Miller. Budgets are moral documents. They tell us who you protect, who you invest in, and what you're willing to ignore. And this budget is very clear. Memphis is choosing to invest in control and legal defense instead of compliance, prevention, and accountability. You are increasing funding for the city attorney's office by 16%. At the same time, this city is under a federal consent decree, the Kendrick decree, because Memphis police have already been found to violate people's rights. So, the question becomes, why are we increasing funding for the lawyers who defend the city from misconduct instead of ensuring that misconduct doesn't happen in the first place? Because right now, it looks like the city is preparing to defend itself in court, not fix the problem. And this isn't happening in a vacuum. We are also seeing serious concerns in this community about how immigration enforcement is being handled. Concerns about transparency, about what policies are actually being followed, and about whether people feel safe interacting with local government at all. When people are afraid to report crime, to seek help, or to show up for basic services, that doesn't make us safer. It creates instability and deepens harm. So again, the question is about priorities. Why are we increasing funding for legal

8. 46:35

   Speakers: Jessica Miller, LJ Abraham, Luchi Chamblas

   Show transcript (4 turns)

   Jessica Miller

   defense while cutting housing, cutting fire services, and underinvesting in the systems that prevent harm in the first place? That is not a balanced budget. That the budget reflects a city that is willing to spend more defending harm than preventing it. If you're serious about safety, then fund compliance with the Kendrick decree. fund transparency, fund community trust, because right now this budget doesn't reflect accountability. It reflects anticipation of liability and the people of Memphis deserve better than that.

   —

   Thank you, LJ Abraham. And then Leandre Key.

   LJ Abraham

   Hi, LJ Abraham. I just like to say fire CJ Davis and I'm going to yield my time to Luchi Chamblas.

   Luchi Chamblas

   My name is Luchi Chamblas and uh you guys probably remember me. I'm the one with the broken leg that these uh violent and v vicious guys in uniform behind me decided they needed to kick at the No King's uh uh protest. And I got a little bit kidnapped by them, too. I'm so nervous right now. And I have never been nervous addressing you guys, but I've I've seen my physical therapist and my surgeon since the last time I was here. And you may notice that I don't have crutches or my big boot today um because they authorized me to go anywhere without the boot unless I would be around Memphis police officers. Uh so standing in front of a large group of them, I don't feel very safe. And I think that that is uh the problem in Memphis. I feel safe everywhere I go. I've spent my first five years in Memphis living in Orange Mound. Didn't feel unsafe ever. I never feel unsafe in this city unless there's one of your unformed officers around because they're vicious. They're violent. They don't protect and serve. We know. I mean, we

9. 48:35

   Speakers: Luchi Chamblas, Leandre Ke

   Show transcript (3 turns)

   Luchi Chamblas

   had the federal judge that had to recuse himself from the sentencing in the Tyrie Nichols case said that MPD has been infiltrated all the way to the top with gangsters, drug dealers. We know there's a lot of murderers there. There were murderers on scene. In fact, one of the murderers was the one who initially started shoving me. Uh, I think it was Colonel Penny, Lieutenant Penny, one of them. Why do y'all keep giving them all of our money? We've got schools that are crumbling. We've got public housing that we desperately, desperately need. Our infrastructure is failing. And yet y'all want to keep giving our budget to these people who can't protect, don't want to serve, and have done nothing but murder, rape, literally rape, and pillillage this city. And y'all just increase their budget year after year. My friends here are going to ask you to think about the community, but I'm going to ask you to think about yourself. Is this really the legacy that you want? Do you want to tell your grandchildren that this is what you left them with? Thank you so much, Leandre Ke.

   —

   All right. Uh, good afternoon, y'all.

   Leandre Ke

   Good afternoon. My name is Leandre Keyi. My family moved to Memphis from Mount Bayou, Mississippi in the 70s. I was born and raised in 38106, more popularly known as South Memphis. I'm a '9s baby, a millennial as some call it, but Memphis is my home. It's the only one I've ever known. I'm here today to promote discussion and propose an actionable plan to revitalize our city's economy rapidly. The entire globe has undoubtedly been subjected recently to a severe economic downturn.

10. 50:37

    Speakers: Leandre Ke

    Show transcript (3 turns)

    Leandre Ke

    And the fact that Memphis had already been in a period of severe economic hardship prior to that has placed an even more profound burden on those of us who I consider to be collateral victims of the system. We lifelong Memphians are the ones who have have our fondest memories of what Memphis once was, but we are also the most hurt victims of what it currently is. Historically, Memphis was a gathering place where freed slaves congregated to build a true future for themselves. But over the generations, we suffered a betrayal as old as the transatlantic slave trade itself. Just as African elites once enriched themselves by capturing and selling their own people to foreign empires, our local leaders historically sold us out to mega corporations. They enriched their own political careers while packaging our people for profit. The FedEx World Plant, the FedEx World Hub is here. Nike, Amazon, and others followed. They flooded us with warehouses because they saw a massive population of cheap, uneducated back breakers that they could box into uneducated, unskilled labor. They gave us survival, but they stole our economy. We remember Liberty Land and the Midsouth Fair. We remember the homeowners on East Parkway charging $20 to park in their yards because our fairgrounds were so packed. We remember looking into the Memphis night sky and seeing those huge spotlights waving across the sky when the Midsouth Fair was in town. We remember our pyramid hosting major pay-per-view events like the Linux Lewis versus Mike Tyson and the WWF St. Valentine's Day Massacre and a multitude of other events that absolutely flooded our economy with tourism and funding that we needed to thrive.

    —

    Thank you so much.

    —

    We thank everyone for coming out and participating in our meeting today. That brings us to the end of our meeting agenda. I will entertain a motion to

11. 52:38

    Show transcript (3 turns)

    —

    adjourn this meeting.

    —

    Second.

    —

    It's been moved by Councilman Canali and second by Vice Chair Carile. Thank you so much.