- (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.

- New Shelby County Mayor Mickell Lowery, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

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

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Mickell Lowery, newly elected Shelby County mayor.

Thank you for being here.

Congratulations.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

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

Before we get started with Mickell Lowery, I'll just note that we are continuing to work through elections.

This is obviously a post-election interview, but we've got registration for early voting ends on October 5th.

We've got early voting beginning October 14th, and we've got election day on November 3rd.

Next week we have Justin Pearson, candidate for one of the U.S.

House districts.

We had his opponent, Brent Taylor on the show some weeks ago.

We also have Heidi Kuhn who's running against incumbent Republican David Kustoff.

We hope to get David Kustoff on.

We hope to get Marsha Blackburn on, and we hope to get Charlie Hatcher on some of the Republicans we haven't been able to have in key state and federal races.

We hold out hope that those three Republicans will return our phone calls, emails, texts, and other messages.

But for now, all those past interviews I mentioned, you can get Jerri Green, the Democrat for Governor, you can get those online at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian or YouTube.

But we are here and very pleased to have Mickell Lowery on the show.

I think one of the things heavy on county government over the last couple years has been the financial situation.

Your predecessor Lee Harris talked about it being more of a cash flow problem.

Some people sort of were concerned why is the county borrowing against future revenue?

Never seems like a great, you know, it doesn't feel good.

And the state comptroller obviously had some thoughts on that and wanted a little oversight on some borrowing and so on.

What steps are you taking to get the county financial situation in better shape?

- Sure, it's number one priority for us.

I've hired a new CFO.

I think they're on day two as of the taping of this show.

So I look forward to building those relationships.

I was in Nashville a week ago building that relationship with the comptroller, telling us how we want to get on the right footing.

So it is a cash flow issue.

It's not that we won't have the revenue, but we get our revenue from property taxes and they all come out at a certain time.

But again, this is not a precedent that we want to continue to see going forward.

There's a myriad of issues why we don't have some of the funding that we need.

I look forward to building those relationships as well when it comes to corrections and everything else.

But again, it's not something we want to see going forward.

So it's my job to get us on the right path.

- Some of those other revenue sources.

I mean, you mentioned corrections.

I mean, what are the other revenue sources for the county, key ones besides property taxes?

- Well, let's just talk about when it comes to our detainees and our inmates and what we're getting from the state from a standpoint, right?

We're not getting what I believe is our fair proportion as it relates to other counties.

So we're having conversations about that as well.

And if we just be able to close the delta on that, that will curtail some of the financial issues that we have.

So again, my job is to go build those relationships and talk about how we move forward and how we get the best for Shelby County.

- What about on the spending side?

What adjustments or radical changes do you plan to make on that side of things?

- Well, we got to look at our financial review that we're going to have.

I think that any new leader that comes into any situation needs to have a financial review of what we're spending and what we're spending it on.

And so again, when can we go as far as holding some expenditures.

When do we need to maybe prolong some of those things to make sure our cash flow is in the right instance.

So we'll take a look at that and see what those need to be when it comes to our large projects.

- One thing that I guess Lee Harris, your predecessor, red flagged or maybe we may have talked about it when you were on the show as a candidate is the grant process, you know, to nonprofits or outside organizations.

Lee Harris raised a lot of like, this has got to change.

We do too many grants, too many nonprofits and outside.

Is that something you're looking at?

And is that a big number in the grand scheme of things?

No one wants wasted money, be it a dollar or a million dollars, but are those grants and nonprofit and those relationships actually as big as Lee Harris made them out to be?

- Well, I'll say you're right.

One dollar mismanaged is too much.

So we want to make sure that we're all on the same page when it comes to that.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big number when you look at what the County Commission has prohibited or proportioned to fill out for grants.

So we want to make sure that those going to organizations that are actually doing the work.

Government doesn't solve all issues.

There are a lot of organizations that get support from county grants and everything else so they can be in our communities and doing the work to help us move our community forward.

So we want to make sure that those go into the right organizations and they're actually doing the work they say they're going to do.

- But it's not a huge number overall.

- It's not a huge number overall, but again, one dollar mismanaged is too much.

But in the overall scheme of things of a $1.7 billion budget, no it's not.

- Okay, we'll come back to other spending priorities.

So let me bring in Bill.

- Some of the finances are a question of timing because you get most of your property tax revenues near the end of the calendar year, but your fiscal year starts July 1st.

So normally, and before some of this came up, you were using what's called the fund balance, basically reserve funds that are there for that.

So is your priority to build that up, to use that less for other things?

- Yes, definitely a priority because we use, as you know, our fund balance goes to our bond ratings and everything else.

And we may see a little bit of change in that.

It's not the end of the world, but we're going to have generational projects that we got to move forward with.

And our fund balance allows us to go obviously and borrow to make those projects to fruition.

So we have to build up our fund balance.

We have to make sure that our bond ratings are as strong as possible so we can take that to the market and do what we need to do when it comes to 201, when it comes to Regional One Health, Juvenile Court and schools and everything else.

- Let's talk a little bit about Regional One Health.

There are some big dollar figures with that, even bigger dollar figures just to build the hospital, I think $900 million on that.

Is all of the money there?

Is all of it in place for this thing to just go ahead, or is this a work in progress?

- This is still a work in progress.

I don't think anyone thought that we had $900 million sitting anywhere to build anything.

We started initially, obviously for making sure there's some revenue there to make sure the project got started.

There's still some help that we're looking to get from other entities.

I'm not talking just from a state standpoint, federal dollars and everything else.

So that's our job now to kind of understand where this project is today, what can we afford.

We know it's extremely important the work that Regional One does on a daily basis when it comes to trauma and burn and everything else and taking care of our residents who may not have the financial capacity is extremely important.

It's our responsibility.

But getting to the end goal is what now is our responsibility to figure out what that total financial package should be.

- Have your talks with state officials included any discussion about the state getting involved?

Because there was a whole plan for doing that in which the state would in essence become a co-owner of what's now a county-owned hospital.

- Well, I haven't had that specific conversation with the state just yet.

Again, in week three, in week two, I was in Nashville making the rounds, obviously to make sure I'm introducing myself so they'll know that they're going to have a partner with me in Shelby County because again, I want what's best for our community.

So obviously I'm going to be looking to ask for resource when it comes to helping with that hospital and everything else.

So we'll see.

I've had a conversation with the governor.

I look forward to having conversations with the incoming governor and state representatives and congressional members and everything else because we're going to need all hands on deck.

Because again, Regional One is extremely important, not only to Shelby County, but the other surrounding counties that utilize our facilities as well.

So we got to get everybody on the same page.

- Right.

And when you were on the Commission, the body approved $350 million in funding for this.

And it's also important to note that hospital isn't going to be built in one fiscal year.

- No, it's not.

It's not.

We wanted to get the ball rolling and show that we're going to make investments soon within ourselves.

And sure, we will also, again, in my County Commission capacity, we're told that the state was going to be involved with this as well.

All right, so some things have changed, but I can't worry about that now.

I'm in the job right now.

So my job is to go forge forward and figure out how we go and make sure we're doing this best for our community, but what can we afford going forward?

We know it's an important project.

We know it's important to the entire healthcare ecosystem.

And again, our ecosystem is just not about Regional One.

It's about all the hospitals in our community that help take care of our residents.

So we know we need all of them to be successful.

Regional One is no exception.

So my job is to make sure how do we get us all on the same page and figure out the funding for it.

- You mentioned going up to the state and sometimes the state, people feel like the state is hostile to Memphis and the Memphis area.

Other people say we welcome the interventions they do with schools or Memphis Safe Task Force or other changes they've made.

Let's just start generally, what was your general reception from state officials?

I mean, were they skeptical?

Were they, oh, here's another person who's been elected to this place that we want to have a lot of oversight on?

I mean, what was the general?

- You know it was good.

It was good.

Listen, our success is paramount to the state of Tennessee, right?

We're the largest county in our state.

We cannot see our population continue to decline and we cannot see people moving out of Shelby County, that affects our entire state.

So again, there are going to be a myriad of things.

There are a myriad of things that I disagree with happening on with our state with state interventions and everything else.

I've made no secrets about that.

However, that doesn't mean I can't go work with them on things that help to make our community better.

Education's a priority.

Healthcare is a priority.

So it was a good conversation, initial conversation.

So again, my job is to say, hey, we got a clean slate.

This is a new administration.

This is how we want to forge forward.

- I mentioned Memphis Safe Task Force.

We're about one year, the one year anniversary of that beginning has passed.

There's a big state component to that.

County mayor does not have a police force, right?

The Sheriff's Office is separate.

We had Anthony Buckner, the new sheriff on recently.

But from your seat, we're going forward with these kinds of, be it federal interventions, which predated in many ways, I mean, certain level of federal partnerships on crime happened before Memphis Safe Task Force, Tennessee Highway Patrol, TBI.

Where do you want to be ideally in that mix of decision making?

- Well, I want to be at the table.

Again, we have a sheriff that's elected, so I'm excited to continue to work with Sheriff Buckner.

He and I have conversations on the regular about what's going on within our community as well.

But the county mayor should be at a seated table to make sure we're communicating to our residents what's happening.

We welcome collaboration, the right kind of collaboration.

I made no secrets about that as well, but also we also understand what's the plan for when the Safe Task Force is no longer in our community.

We know they won't be here forever.

I believe there was a timeframe that was almost coming to an end.

I look forward to having that conversation with the governor so we can understand what that timeframe looks like.

- And are there appropriate places for, let's just stick with the state, for the state to stay involved on an ongoing basis?

- Well, I think we've seen some really good things when it comes to our highway patrol.

We had a lot of issues when it came to drag racing and speed races on our highways.

I don't think we see that as much anymore.

I think our citizens welcome that.

And this obviously cuts down on accidents and keeps our people safe as well.

So there's definitely some collaboration that we're going to need with state resources.

I think there's nothing wrong with that.

- We mentioned 201 Poplar is a spending.

I mean, we had Anthony Buckner, the new sheriff on.

People can get that at wkno.org or Daily Memphian or YouTube.

I'm talking about the sheriff, that's his purview.

But obviously county's going to be involved if there's any funding, be it fixing doors, fixing HVAC, or building a whole new facility.

What are the next steps in assessing what needs to be done?

There are lawsuits.

Again, Buckner is not happy with how things are and he's talked about that, but from your seat, what do you want to see county government do next with these challenges at 201?

- We want to make sure that that environment is safe for the people who work there and the people who live there.

They're all our responsibility.

I don't think anyone's happy with the conditions of 201 Poplar, right?

We're talking about a building that's almost 50 years old.

It predates a lot of us.

So we got to make sure we have right processes in place to keep people safe.

We got to make sure that we have the right medical provider there, which is our responsibility to make sure people get their medications timely.

No one should obviously die while they're being incarcerated.

So none of us are happy with it, but we have to figure out what's the plan going forward to make sure that in the immediate future that people are not only safe, but our chillers are working, everything else.

And then what's the long-term plan for that?

The step in the right direction is the mental health facility that we're opening here as well.

Again, not everyone incarcerated should be a 201 Poplar.

Some people have mental issues and everything else that go into this separate facility now cuts down on the amount of capacity we have in our holding areas as well.

So it's combining a lot of these things to make sure we have the best facility possible until we build out a long-term plan what's going to be for that facility going forward.

- One more before we go to Bill, which is in the last, what year and a half, Lee Harris, the county mayor, took over, the county government took over the security and so on at the Juvenile Court and the juvenile detention.

Did I say that right?

I think I did.

You plan to continue that?

Have you even had a chance to look at that?

Lee Harris was very happy.

There were a lot of questions before.

The sheriff no longer wanted to be in charge of that.

The previous sheriff.

Are you looking to pass that back to Anthony Buckner or for the county government too keep?

- I believe that process is going well.

Again, everything I've heard is that that process is going, you know, extremely well.

We're happy with the way that that's being done so far.

So as long as that's the case, we're happy to run it.

- Bill.

- Part of the discussion with the new sheriff involved some closer work with county corrections, which is part of your administration.

Is there going to be more of a sharing of roles on that or does the county charter kind of dictate, "Hey, the jail is the sheriff?"

- Well, the county charter does dictate who's responsible.

However, that doesn't mean we can't have more collaboration when it comes to it.

Again, I know the sheriff has his plans and ideas, and again, that's where we have to mirror up.

We got a great relationship.

We want to make sure that we're working together when it comes to this.

So if there's more collaboration that needs to be there, then so be it.

The charter does dictate who's responsible and we're going to abide by that, but obviously we want the best facility for our residents as possible.

That's our responsibility.

And also we can utilize this, how do we change the culture for public safety as well?

So we got to work in concert together from that.

So if that's a mirroring between corrections and the Sheriff's Department where need be, then I'm for it.

- Okay.

You've made your first five appointments to your administration.

In making those appointments, you talked about a new direction on that.

Talk about how you picked these folks, because it's an interesting mix.

These are not holdovers from the previous administration, but they're also people who have experience in local government here.

- Well, first, my hat's off and thanks to everyone that has served in those capacity, those roles in the past.

It's a tough job to work for the people of Shelby County, so I appreciate their service.

But you're correct.

I want to make sure that we're moving in a different direction and to put people in place that have the experience with turnaround situations and also have government experience, schools experience, and it's paramount.

So I'm excited about those new hires.

I know there are tremendous amount of relationships that we have to build, not only locally for our state as well, and those new hires have those relationships already built in.

So, excited about the move we're going to go forward.

Again, from my CFO standpoint, one of the reasons why I selected him is because he had an opportunity to turn around some things at the city.

Well, we got to turn around some things at the county as well.

So I'm excited about it.

- And so Brian Collins, your CFO, is already at work and basically what happens when a new mayor comes in and begins his or her term, there's a financial review.

It's not about who was elected.

It's a process, right?

- Well, that's exactly right.

And again, any leader taking over a new entity, whatever it may be, should do that.

So we're having a financial review.

There's no indictment on the previous administration, everything else.

We need to understand because he and I are both new at the job.

So what's been done, what can we correct, and what can we do going forward?

And I think that's going to bode well with our comptroller and everything else to show that we're going to look deeply at our expenditures and our revenues to make sure that we don't have the same problems going forward.

So looking forward to doing that.

- What does the mix look like of what's on your plate?

In other words, how much of it are things that started during the Harris administration and how much is things that you walked in saying, "This is where we want to go to."

- Well, it's a myriad of both, right?

Because government doesn't stop just because we elected a new leader, right?

There's some things we have to take in fruition.

You just mentioned Regional One and everything else.

You also would talk about what's happening with the Grizzlies.

We want a long-term partnership with them as well.

We're excited about that.

They're a big part of our fabric for our county, and so we're looking forward to doing that as well.

So I stepped right into that.

There's a myriad of things I stepped right into, but also you bridge that with what we want to do going forward with making sure we're having more involvement when it comes to our schools, increasing seats when it comes to pre-K, more involvement when it comes to mental health in our schools, and workforce development opportunities for those that are in high school.

We're stepping right into that because there's a new process that may be laid out from our state that we have to go ahead and make sure that we're already working towards.

So those things that help move our county forward when it comes to early child education, workforce development are things that we're working in concert to start with, as well as inheriting some of the things that we have to take over.

- So some of the school system stuff, I'll call it that, got hung up in court.

So you're looking ahead to what could come after that once it's decided.

- Sure, but again, I can't worry about what happens in court.

The education process doesn't stop.

Educating our children doesn't start.

So we're already putting plans in place to work with whoever's in place.

I've already had a conversation with the superintendent since I've been in this role about how we can be a better partner and some things I'd like to see us be more involved in.

So no matter what happens in court, we're going to continue to do the work.

- Would you like to see the county continue to have more of a say of where new schools are built?

- Definitely, because again, our tax dollars pay for it as well.

So again, I made no secrets.

I never liked that process in the past, and I'm looking to be a good partner with the superintendent and the board when it comes to that.

We should have some input about where schools are built and also what happens when schools close.

Because some of those schools closing have an effect on our communities.

It creates blight.

They're closed for years.

And again, we understand communities change, populations change.

Sometimes schools have to close.

That's understandable.

But having them sit there for years on years with no plan going forward is not something I want to see continue going forward.

And because our tax dollars pay for it, we should have a say so in what happens to the building.

- As we record this on a Thursday, in about an hour, you will have your final meeting with your transition team.

What are you going to tell them?

- Well, first I'm going to tell them thank you for the work and for volunteering because it's going to take all of us.

When I talk about One Shelby, it's just not my ideas.

It's about how do we collectively bring the community together, help us put the best process in place.

So even though it's a final transition meeting, the work doesn't stop because again, short transition, some of these things will continue to go on.

I need policy papers and things that put us in position to help accomplish the goals we want to accomplish.

So I appreciate their time, appreciate their work, but the work doesn't stop just because of this meeting.

- You were on the Commission, County Commission for eight years, two years as, or one year I believe, as chair of the County Commission.

Right now there are five holdovers in the new County Commission, eight new members.

What works in terms of a mayor working with the County Commission?

- I think just building relationships and make sure they have the information ahead of time before our meetings as much as we can.

And I look forward to doing that.

I need to make sure I'm making the rounds with all these commissioners to make sure that, hey, we understand we're on the same page.

We all want the same things.

We want the same things.

We want to make sure that we're doing what's best for our communities.

I want to make sure I'm doing best for what the districts are.

So the good thing is I've sat in their seats.

I know what they expect.

I know the type of information we're going to do differently from our previous administration.

So I'm excited about working with that new body.

- There are a number of, and you are not involved in this, but I'll just, you know, county commissioners, former county commissioners, Edmund Ford pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

Will Richardson, newly elected, was arrested for tax fraud.

Erika Sugarmon was accused of destroying election signs.

Lashanta Rudd is accused nothing criminal, but just of an audit at the city of questions around a $13,000 city grant.

Does it worry you?

I mean, that hurts people's trust in government.

I think that's obvious.

Those are accusations.

There's one pleading guilty.

I want to be real clear.

Looking back at your time on County Commission, is there a way the Commission can self-regulate better or is this just how it works and it's outside people, you know, outside law enforcement accusing people?

I mean, how do we end up here and how do we not end up here again is my question.

- I think there is a way that we can make sure that the public knows we can build trust.

And one of the things I've introduced to the County Commission is make sure that we get an ethics ordinance and ethics board in place.

I think that's something we all want.

And I think the public will benefit by saying, "Hey, we want to make sure that everyone's on the same page when it comes to those things."

So again, those situations you spoke of, there's some that are still legally pending and everything else, right?

And people deserve all of their day in court, but people need to make sure they're trusting county government.

So that's my job.

I will be introducing some things when it comes to make sure we have those ethics ordinance in place.

I look forward to getting support from the Commission on that.

- Just a couple minutes.

We're going to run through some things that we can do whole shows on and we'll hope to have you back to talk about these things.

There's a new county clerk.

The county clerk is independent.

I mean, county government has a lot of islands, as you're well aware.

La Sonya Hall is the new county clerk.

She's working weekends.

They're moving through crates of titles and a backlog.

Where is your role with the county clerk?

I think everybody in Shelby County applauds that these things are getting out.

My girlfriend got her title and we celebrated.

I mean, you know, all these, everyone feels, but it is the bread and butter of county government.

Most people who are in the county don't understand that the county mayor doesn't, they just assume the county government does one thing and they put the tags out.

And the tags came out there and there are all these temporary tags and it makes people feel, I think, like government is failing.

So what is your interaction with the county clerk right now?

- My job with the county clerk and any other clerk is to hopefully support what they're doing to make sure they're delivering the best services when they can.

You're right, they're all elected.

They're accountable to the people.

But again, people don't want to hear that.

They assume that we all have the responsibility.

So my job is to support the clerk.

I applaud the clerk for making sure we're working through those backlogs.

People are getting tags, which are great.

And so I know whatever she needs when it comes from a technology standpoint, we want to be a strong partner with her to make sure she's doing her job well.

- Your relationship with Paul Young is what?

- Good.

- But I mean, no, no.

I mean, you know, and I should have, we can go on a whole show on this.

I remember when AC Wharton, he went from county mayor to city mayor, he and Mark Luttrell two different parties, they were everywhere together.

They were always together.

Openings, economic development things, less so over the last eight years.

Your ongoing relationship, not just with Paul Young, but the suburban mayors should be what?

- It should be a collaborative one.

And so just to, you opened that up, I've had more conversations with Mayor Young in my first two and a half weeks in the job than probably took place in previous administrations.

But it also goes with all the municipal mayors.

I've already met with all the municipal mayors, attended meetings.

We have another meeting coming up with all the mayors to have collaboration.

So we need to work in concert together because again, we can't exist in silos.

So I plan to have a good relationship, I already do, with every municipal mayor because obviously we have to work together, some things that we can figure out.

How do we take some things off each other's plates and make sure we're delivering the best services to our citizens.

And your role, I remember asking this question of Lee Harris of what his role would be in economic development.

He kind of shrugged it off.

That was not his thing.

Your role in economic development, business recruitment, all that kind of stuff should be what?

- I want to be at the tip of the spear.

Again, anytime we're talking about businesses relocating or coming or growing in our community, I believe you need to have the executives, which are the mayors at the tip of the spear when it comes to economic development.

Our job is to recruit and have great paying jobs here.

So I'll be at that table.

- Another one, I'm not giving you enough time, but data centers.

Do we need a moratorium countywide?

- Well, I think we need to make sure we slow down and put some guardrails in place.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Again, this is new to our community and new to obviously to the US.

Again, I welcome economic development, but we got to make sure we're doing it safely where our environment and our people are protected.

And so we're going to make sure we put some guardrails in place from the Health Department.

I'll ask the County Commission to approve those things as well.

- All right.

We'll get you back.

We'll talk more about all these issues.

We appreciate you being here.

Thank you, Bill.

And thank you all for joining us.

If you missed any of the show today, you can get the full episode online at wkno.org, YouTube, The Daily Memphian, or you can download the full podcast to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Again, Justin Pearson coming up next week.

Heidi Kuhn week after, and we hope to get some of the remaining Republican candidates that we haven't had on the show in coming weeks.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

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