- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Part two of our interview with the new Memphis Mayor Paul Young, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

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

Thanks for joining us.

We do have Paul Young, the new Memphis Mayor on the show again this week.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

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

If you missed the show last week, we focused on public safety issues, criminal justice issues for 26 minutes.

If you missed that, you can go to wkno.org or you can search for it on YouTube, go to Daily Memphian.

You can also get the audio wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll talk tonight with the Mayor about other issues.

We're not skipping over public safety issues.

And I should also note that we recorded it right after last week's.

So a week has passed so if there are issues that happen in this week and in a Mayor's life, that can be true.

We're not skipping over it.

There's a timing issue here.

But again, thanks for doing this two-part interview.

Seven weeks in, beyond the focus on crime.

Just let me let you speak for a minute.

Your priorities have been what?

- Oh, certainly crime has been the biggest thing.

But really working to pull the team together, getting the right people on the bus.

Also working to enhance our focus on cleaning up our community.

I really feel like the aesthetics of our community can use a boost.

We've been working hard to build relationships both locally and nationally, and so we've been having a lot of discussions with some of the national leaders across the country in different spaces.

And we wanna make sure that we are changing the energy of Memphis.

Right now it feels like the spirit of Memphis has been down.

And so a lot of what we're gonna be trying to do through this administration, while we address our real problems, we also want to get a morale boost.

- Let me bring in Bill.

- You're also putting together your first budget, which is not to be underestimated in terms of the complexity of it.

This is across all of the divisions of city government.

And this is a new administration so there are obviously gonna be, in any transition like this, there are gonna be some shifts in priorities.

Where are you at in the budget process?

- We're still relatively early in the budget process.

Over the next month, things will get more firmed up.

We have negotiations with all of the unions this year, and so know there'll be a lot of discussions around those areas.

Certainly we have our priorities.

We wanna make some deep investments in youth.

We wanna invest in remediating blight as well as public safety, our parks and community centers.

And so we know there's gonna be a lot of pressure.

We have a great City Council and I know they'll have things that they wanna see done, so we'll be having discussions with them around what their priorities are.

And it'll be an interesting budget season, but I feel good.

We certainly have more need than resources as always, and so we'll make some tough decisions, but we wanna do it as collaboratively as possible.

- And there are some things that are also kind of, it's a kind of a poor choice of words, but it's what it is.

There are some things that are on autopilot.

There are multi-year commitments that the city has that you continue with right off the bat, right?

- Yeah, I'm sure there are some projects and initiatives and things that have been going on that we want to continue.

We also want to think about where there are opportunities for us to do more.

We have things like our housing trust fund, where I think in the last year, they put a good amount of resources in there.

And so we want to continue to make sure that we have resources there so we can be creative around how we help alleviate some of the pressure that folks are feeling around the needs around housing.

We wanna figure out how we can do more to continue to pave as many roads as possible.

It's one of the things that I get, when I'm out and about, it's one of the things I hear about most frequently, are potholes and the way people experience our community.

We have solid waste and how we want to ensure that we are doing as good of a job as possible, making sure we're picking up trash in a timely manner.

And addressing things that are outside on the curb, outside the cart.

Those are all things that we're working hard to get better at.

- Just on being Mayor, you spend a long time campaigning for this job, once you get the job, is it different than what you expected, in terms of the daily interactions with people?

- Not really, not really, I think because I come from bureaucracy and I've worked in government for a very long time.

It feels very natural, honestly.

Certainly there's an added level of pressure being that every room that I go sit at the table, I'm the one that's expected to make the decision in many of those instances.

But it feels right.

It feels like I'm doing what I was looking to do and have an opportunity to lead in the city that I love.

- I would imagine you also get a really good and a really immediate sense of where the people of the city are because they don't flinch, they don't back off when it comes to talking about what they want to see.

- Oh yeah, most definitely.

I get a lot of advice solicited and unsolicited and people let you know how they feel.

And so when I talked about kind of the spirit and the energy of the city, that's why I know, it's because people tell me.

And what I do also know is that people are ready to have something to grasp onto that they're hopeful, that they're optimistic, that we're gonna be able to find our way outta this thing.

And I think that is the first step in turning a corner for our city.

- Do those kind of goals automatically translate to how much is it going to cost or are there goals that are not exclusively about, "How do we make room for that in the budget?"

- Yeah, I mean, many things, especially physical things that we wanna do, cleaning up our community, cutting more lots, picking up more trash.

A lot of those things actually cost.

But some of it is just strategy and how we talk about our city, what messages we put out, how do I speak about the city, what narrative do I put out to the community?

Those are things that are strategic because all of those things influence the way people perceive our city.

And so we're working hard to ensure that we have a strong communications team and messaging around how we're going to turn the corner as a city.

- One challenge, one opportunity, however you wanna frame it, that embodies a lot, if not everything you've just talked about is the financing deal for FedExForum.

And I won't, I will screw up the details, but the deal with state money and local money was settled for, what I still call the Liberty Bowl, sorry, for the University of Memphis.

But there is a gap, a funding gap between what the city has so far proposed and what the Grizzlies ownership wants.

Grizzlies ownership maintain or operates the building, both the Grizzlies games, but it is the operator for Tigers games and for concerts and so on.

And they have talked, I mean, the gap is one question's gonna be the gap.

What is the gap in funding, how do you get there?

But what's also interesting is more and more clear one number that's been thrown around is $500 million.

And I was sitting in the Forum at a basketball game with a friend who said, how are they gonna spend $500 million in here?

I mean, those are gonna be really, really fancy bathrooms.

The reality is they want to clean up, they want downtown cleaned up.

That's a part of their proposal, right?

Beale Street and that the whole environment becomes better, which gets back to many of the things you're talking about.

So what's the gap?

How do you fund it?

I mean, certainly I think when you were on the show, after you won, before you took office, whenever you said you wanted to keep the Grizzlies here for another 15, 20 years, which is what this deal would do, what's the state of the deal and how do you get it done?

- Well, first let me say we've been working really closely with the city county and the Grizzlies having constant communication.

Just met with them yesterday talking about it.

I don't want to give a specific number, but I will say that we are within striking distance and we are working very, very hard to close the gap.

And I'm hopeful that over the next couple of weeks we'll be able to do that through some of the sources that we're looking to try to pull it together.

In terms of what it will get us, it will get us a renovated arena.

Many of the things that are being invested in are things that you can't see, different systems and things like that, so it doesn't look like you're spending money on it, but it changes the way the whole facility feels.

And in terms of the redevelopment around the arena, I do think it's really important.

It's the heartbeat of our downtown and we wanna make sure that as we make an investment, as the team makes an investment, looks to do that, should they agree, that we're also thinking about the area around it.

And a strong Beale Street has to be at the core of that.

- It is one of those things too though, and I'm sure people let you know that, well, why are we spending money on a pro basketball team when we have all these other problems?

And again, for those who came in late, we talked about public safety and crime issues with Paul Young last week for the full show.

So we're not skipping over that stuff, but people see it as how could that possibly be the priority?

I'm not a Grizzlies, or they say, I'm not a Grizzlies fan, full disclosure, I am, and these are misguided priorities.

How do you address the people who say that?

- Yeah, and I hear it often, but what I try to remind people is that it's a bigger picture.

We are a major city.

We're the 28th largest city in the country.

We are in a national competition for jobs, for talent.

And when you think about what talent is looking for, when these companies wanna recruit to their community, what talent is thinking is, am I gonna have a good time in this city?

What are the amenities?

Am I going to be able to go to a professional sports game?

And in many instances, when you don't have any professional sports teams, you are not considered one of the elite cities.

And so having their presence helps us, and we wanna make sure that we maintain that.

So it's not just about the basketball, it's about our economy.

- Let's say with downtown and some of the things about blight and cleanup, you were head of downtown Memphis Commission, DMC, for four years, five years?

- Three.

- Three, okay.

Three.

What can you do now as Mayor that you couldn't do as head of DMC and what will you do?

- Yeah, well, DMC is funded by a central business improvement district tax, which generates about four and a half, five million dollars a year.

It's not a very, very large budget when you think about what needs to be done, particularly around infrastructure in downtown.

The sidewalks, some of the things that need to happen in the streets.

And those are things where the city can be great partners to DMC.

And that's what I plan to do.

And not just for downtown, but for many of our neighborhoods.

And understanding that downtown is the heartbeat of our city, the heartbeat not just of Memphis, but the whole region.

As our downtown goes, the whole Mid-South region goes.

And so we wanna make sure that it's strong.

- Is that include things, I mean like streets, which are a mess downtown.

I mean in many cases, is that sidewalks, is that the underground pipes, water, all that?

When you say infrastructure, what do you mean?

- Yeah, I mean that's what I'm talking about.

I mean obviously there's a mix of private and public responsibility for many of those arenas, but my sole purpose in saying it is that the DMC can't do it alone and needs the city as a partner to get those things done.

- One more from me, I'll go back to Bill, the Sheraton Hotel, which is a convention center hotel next to the convention center is for sale.

I mean certainly the convention center people, the business community have said for years we not only need that hotel, we need another, if not another convention center hotel to get bigger conventions into the redeveloped convention center.

What role will the city have, if any, with the Sheraton facility?

- Well, we're highly interested in making sure we have a strong owner in that space.

We just invested $200 million in our convention center and it's beautiful and it's amazing and we need a great hotel to go along with it.

And so the property will likely need some form of incentives.

There have already been two incentives that have been approved by Downtown Memphis Commission over the past year or so, a five percent surcharge as well as a PILOT that's contingent upon them building additional hotel rooms.

So I believe that's the starting point with regards to the conversation around additional incentives.

- And another convention center hotel, is that a priority for you?

- We would love to see it, obviously this one is pressing because it's right now and a sale and a transaction is getting ready to take place.

But we're certainly gonna be exploring how we can get more.

- Apologies Bill, and is that the kind of thing where I mean, you as Mayor will have to be directly involved, let's say for a second convention center hotel that Loews was a big one that was talked about.

I mean, that could take up a ton of your time.

These kind of entities want to hear from the Mayor, right?

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely and that's the Mayor's job.

and I will make time to do it because strengthening our economy has to be at the core of what we get done over the next four years.

- All right, 10 more minutes.

- We have a new school superintendent, Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

We should point out that the city of Memphis does not control the school system and the school board on the other hand, does not have taxing authority, but all of their local recurring funding comes from Shelby County government, plans to talk with the new superintendent?

- Absolutely, I've already sent her a text and telling her congratulations and look forward to meeting her.

And I plan to build a strong relationship with the school system, had great working relationship with the interim superintendent, Tony Williams, and she was amazing and had a lot of incredible ideas on how we can partner from a city perspective with the school district.

And I expect to do the same with the new superintendent.

- And we talked on last week's show about some intervention strategies.

What do you think the city could do in terms of funding for the school system and should any city participation like that, that might be in your budget proposal, should it be on a recurring basis that would trigger the state requirement for maintenance of effort?

- Yeah, well, what I would say on the campaign trail, and I still believe is that 60% of the factors that drive educational outcomes take place outside of the classroom.

And I believe that the city should work in tandem with the school district on investing in those things that the school board can't.

And so I want to see us as a city make more investments in our community centers, our parks, and in programs that will provide afterschool programming and engage our young people for longer periods.

So while the school system has our young people from seven to three, having us as a city engage our young people from three to seven.

And so we'll be exploring opportunities like that in partnership with the school district.

- On the other hand, the city school system, the Memphis-Shelby County School system, sorry, going back there a little bit, but the school system's budget is larger than the city's operating budget.

It is larger than the county's consolidated budget, and that's something that has happened over the last few years.

Do you think that has changed the relationship between the school system and local governments when it comes to the funding balance?

- Well, I mean, even though their dollars have grown, I'm sure they still need more.

So I don't know how it's changed, but at the end of the day, we want to get the most resources for our kids as possible.

These young people are Memphis kids and we wanna make sure that we are taking care of 'em every step of the way.

- I want to circle back to some of the things you talked about with blight and the look and feel of the city and the infrastructure and so on.

One thing about paving that's always been a quandary is the state roads.

I mean, people lose track that Poplar, parts of the Parkways, other city, what we think of as roads within the city are actually state highways or state roads and it is technically their responsibility to pave them.

The Strickland administration, your predecessor really fought the city, fought the state on that, kind of said we're not gonna pave 'em unless you agree to pay up front.

What is your take on some of those roads?

It sounds wonky, but like you said, and as your predecessor said, it's amazing how many people ask the Mayor about roads and potholes.

- Yeah, it is, well, I mean, my goal is to figure out how we get better results.

I was in Nashville a couple of days ago and had a conversation with the TDOT commissioner, great discussion with him and his team.

And we agreed to have further discussion around how we can do better on just that front, not just the paving side, but also the maintenance side and the grass on the interstates, and we wanna make sure that our city is attractive visually.

And so we're gonna be talking to them about what kind of partnerships we can have, whether we have to supplement and whether they can supplement.

We're gonna talk through what approaches we can bring to the table to get better results.

- Talk about MLGW, which is under the city, owned by the city.

We had Doug McGowen the president on, I think a month ago now, something, we went through a big storm in January with far fewer outages in terms of power, far fewer water problems than a year earlier.

Doug McGowen talked about when he was on the show that some, I believe 70,000 street lights have been upgraded to the LED lights.

They've got some thousands left.

There are of course the blinking ones that are, and I'm sure people call, text, stop you in the street to say a streetlight is blinking in front of their home or business.

But with assuming, and Doug McGowen talked seriously about their plan to get to those and get those all fixed.

What more do you wanna see from MLGW?

How do you support them in the mission to upgrade all the infrastructure that they have?

- Well, I mean Doug and I have had some great conversations and we're working hard to implement some of the things around technology that we want to see because with the transition of the streetlights, they facilitate an opportunity for us to connect cameras and other things that will allow us to, not just address public safety, but also some quality of life issues.

And so we wanna start using those poles and those lights to get some cameras up there, potentially have some smart technology on the cameras that allow us to see different activities, see trash on the ground, see cars speeding, all the types of things that you can use those cameras for.

And I think having MLGW as a partner is gonna be significant on that.

- I think, I can't remember if it was on the show, but maybe we reported on it that Doug McGowan talked, those are built to, they're cell phone enabled.

You can put, it's not hard to put a, it's just a module that you buy and add on.

And so you talked about in the campaign.

- Yeah, so we're working towards that right now.

- Doug McGowen made a bit of noise when he talked about selling the MLGW headquarters and moving all the employees out of downtown.

He then said when he was on the show, look, I get it, I heard what people said, we want to keep the employees downtown, but we do need an upgraded kind of command center, a hardened facility with redundant power, redundant networking, so on for big storms and major outages.

Where are the conversations about MLGW moving or splitting its facility or whatever?

- Yeah, I mean I had the extent of my discussion has been just like you explained, they still have those needs.

They are committed to having employees in downtown, which is really my priority.

And we'll have more discussion around what they do for the command center in the coming weeks and months.

- Let me bring Bill back in.

- Alright, you've talked about going to Nashville on various city priorities.

There's also something else that happens in the lobbying effort and that is maybe supporting projects that aren't strictly on your plate.

And I'm thinking about the rebuild of Regional One Health.

Have you talked to state folks about that?

- Yeah, well, anytime I'm asked, I tell 'em that I support it because Regional One is so important to our city, meeting with Mayor Harris soon to have some discussion around it.

And I just wanna figure out what all I can do to support their efforts to bring that much needed facility to our community.

- Okay and we've had some discussion in our Sidebar podcast about the Memphis Medical District Initiative, which is part of the Downtown Memphis Commission District, correct?

- Well, they are two different entities, but the Medical District is a part of the boundaries of Downtown Memphis Commission.

- Right, so what are your thoughts on what needs to happen there and what kind of is underway now that that paves the way for bigger things there?

- I think in the Medical District you still have some swaths of land that are available for development or can be available for development.

And as we look at opportunities to grow, we need to be capitalizing on those.

I'm all about infielding for our city and taking some of our dormant spaces and activating them, whether it's residential or commercial uses, we need those activities and taxes in the core of our city.

And I think the Medical District has a lot of opportunity for that.

And obviously the major institutions within the Medical District have stepped up over the years and they've been a part of working with the Medical District Collaborative, which is the organization that is working on their behalf to enhance safety and enhance strength and partnership.

And I think they should continue that work because it's paid dividends for that area of the city.

- Go ahead.

- We're in another election year and you have the luxury this year of watching other people run for office.

[laughing] - Feels good.

- Do you think about making endorsements or is there a strategic value to making endorsements?

Or do we live in such polarized times that you just try to see who won and how you can work with them?

- I wanna see who wins and how I can work with 'em because at the end of the day, as city mayor, my goal is to work with whoever wins to bring home the most resources for Memphians.

And that's going to continue to be my cause.

- With just a minute left, you were at Housing Community Development for four or five years, you were at Downtown Memphis Commission for three years.

You had tools, you had incentives, you had some federal money, you had some state money, you had all these tools, but you didn't have the full tools.

Do you look now and say on these issues of blight and vacant lots and some of these wonky, but really important to people and how they live issues that you can now turn the dial without new money, without new, without any changes in state law that you can say, Hey, now I can get these things done and make these changes.

- I do think it is a unique advantage to have come from the background that I come from.

I don't think Memphis has had a Mayor that has the depth of experience in those spaces that I have.

And for me, I looked at becoming Mayor as being the pinnacle of what I call my life's purpose which is community development, rebuilding neighborhoods in the city.

I can't have a better job to do that.

And so I do look at this as an opportunity to take all that I've learned, all that I know, and try to have an impact on reversing the tide for many of our communities that have been disinvested for many years.

- Alright, we will leave it there, thank you again.

Thank you for doing two shows with us, thank you, Bill.

Again, we talked with the Mayor.

He sat for half an hour last week talking about public safety issue, crime issue, all that.

You can get that and then this show on wkno.org, search for it on YouTube, go to DailyMemphian.com or get the full podcast of the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next week.

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