- (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.

- Democratic candidate for 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.

He is the Democratic candidate for county mayor and a current County Commissioner.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thanks for having me.

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

A quick bit of housekeeping before we get started with Mickell.

We had his opponent, John DeBerry, the Republican candidate for county mayor, on the show some weeks ago, just with scheduling and the way things worked out.

You can go to wkno.org, The Daily Memphian, or YouTube and get that full interview.

We also have coming up soon the Republican candidate for county sheriff, Brad Less.

We had the Democratic candidate, Anthony Buckner, on the show some weeks ago.

Again, all this is just scheduling and just getting everybody in the same place.

That's also available at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian, and YouTube.

And the county general and federal state primary, but the county general, where the county mayor, the county sheriff, commissioners, a whole lot of stuff will be settled, election day is August 6th, but early voting starts on July 17th.

Then, of course, we have the big, the federal elections.

Those happen November 3rd.

We'll talk more about that and those candidates as we get closer.

But with all that laid out, Mickell, thank you for being here.

I think, right now, probably the biggest story in county, I mean, it's hard to say.

There's a lot going on, but obviously, the takeover of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools by the board, the lawsuit filed that put a temporary restraining order in terms of that state oversight board, we'll call it, taking over.

That happened this past week.

I should also note, we're recording this a week early because of the holidays.

What is your take on what's happening?

What needs to happen for the school to operate properly with this takeover board, these lawsuits, the elected board going maybe in one direction, County Commission, I can't get my brain around it.

- Yeah, I'm with you.

It's a lotta moving parts when it comes to this thing.

And obviously, the most important people that are associated with it is our children.

So we gotta make sure we're doing right by them.

However, you know, I've gone on record for saying that I think that Shelby Countians should be governed by Shelby Countians.

And obviously, even with the oversight board, there's some great people no that board as well, but we need to make sure everything is aboveboard.

And so there's nothing wrong with obviously letting the courts determine what happens, because if these boards, whoever it may be, make decisions down the line, those things could be challenged.

So we need to make sure that everything's aboveboard and everybody else is on the same page from a legal standpoint.

So I think that's a good thing.

- Should the elected board be, I mean, they approved a bunch of contracts.

I mean, what, $200 million, I think, this last week in contracts.

Should they be moving forward that way, or should they wait for all this to be settled because there's a certain amount of uncertainty with spending and direction?

- Well, the board was elected by people.

So if they were elected to make those decisions, then definitely, the business of our schools cannot stop, right?

These decisions are made to benefit our children.

I have children in our school system.

So we can't put a halt while some court process is taking place in the background.

We don't know how long that will take.

So the business has to continue.

Educating our children has to continue, and then let the courts decide, obviously, which board should be in place and then we'll work accordingly.

- There's a bunch of ifs in the question [laughing] because of the nature of things.

- Right.

- If you win the mayor's race and if the takeover board is continued to allowed to be over the elected board, as county mayor, how would you wanna work with the school system?

The county, you know, county does a lot of funding of Memphis-Shelby County Schools but doesn't have a lot of authority on, you know, how people read, are taught.

I mean, it's more of a block of funding, but with some discretion in there.

How would you wanna work with these entities?

- Well, I have to make sure I'm the chief relationship officer for the county.

I've said on record, I don't like the process.

I don't like the process that the bulk of our funding goes to the schools and the county mayor and the County Commission has very little say so about what happens with those dollars.

However, that saying, I'll make sure I'll work with whoever is in charge, work with the current superintendent, looking forward to doing that, or whatever board that's in place.

That's my job, that's my job, make sure we're doing the best things for our children going forward.

And again, if this oversight board is put in place, you know, my goal is for that to be temporary, right?

Again, we need people that are elected by Shelby Countians to govern Shelby County going forward.

I welcome collaboration with the state.

We need that.

There's a lot of things we need from funding and everything else.

So I'm gonna work with whoever's in place to make sure we're doing the best things for our children.

- Bill.

- To your County Commission job, this past week, two weeks ago as people see this show, the Commission ended its budget season with a decision on the tax rate.

There had been a two-cent hike above the current 2.69 proposed.

You guys wound up with about a penny and a quarter, I think, of a tax increase.

How do you feel about the decision that was made?

Everybody pays attention to that tax rate.

- Yeah, as they should, right?

And I think what people need to understand, for Shelby County, there hasn't been a tax increase in Shelby County in over 15 years.

I think we've been very good stewards of what we've had, obviously with some financial challenges as well.

But you gotta think about it.

Every year, we have to deal with inflation.

Every year, things go up.

Every year, we're talking about giving increases, obviously as we should, to our employees when we can and obviously paying for projects.

So if you think about what we just approved, if you own a $100,000 house, your taxes, you'll pay $3 more than you paid last year.

If your house is a $200,000 house, you'll pay $6 more than you did the previous year, $300,000 house, you'll pay $9 more.

It's not a lot to ask to make sure we're making investments in our children, making investments in pre-K, and making sure that we have infrastructure that's gonna sustain us for going forward.

So I think, when you look at it in totality, when you have a lot of municipalities that have raised taxes and everything else, from a Shelby County government standpoint, in over 15 years that we've done it, maybe a penny, I think we've done a good job at that.

- Mm-hmm.

Of course, this budget year started July 1st, and if you win this election, this is the budget you operate under for your first year in office.

How do you feel about what this is able to do for the fund balance, which is really important to keeping government running until those tax revenues start coming in?

- Exactly right, Bill.

There's a certain amount of money, for people who don't understand that, we have to have in the bank, let's just say that, and to make sure that we can issue bonds and pay for projects and everything else and keep a high bond rating.

It's extremely important.

So walking into the next fiscal year, we have to make sure that we're in a healthy financial position and that we're not talking about borrowing money from the general fund to pay salaries or whatever it may be.

So we have to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for the future.

So hopefully that's what this budget's going to be able to do.

I'm looking forward to working with the current administration, 'cause obviously they're still administering that.

They still have obviously a little bit of time to make some decisions there.

But hopefully we can do that in collaboration, in concert, to make sure in good fitting going into the next fiscal year.

- There were lots of amendments, some made it, some didn't.

One notable change in capital was that a majority on the Commission voted to take about $11.8 million and put it toward deferred maintenance in the schools.

The mayor's plan was to build a new Treadwell K-8 school.

Where were you on that?

- Well, I don't believe we had enough information to talk about if that's the school system's plan going forward as well.

Again, we want new schools.

We need to build new schools when we can.

In fact, it's probably, you know, less expensive to build a new school than talk about all this deferred maintenance on other schools.

However, we gotta make sure the plans are together when it comes to that as well.

So I think what we did is say, look, let's make sure we're taking care of some of the schools we have from this deferred maintenance.

We wanna make sure that there's no roofing issues, that obviously HVAC's working, everything else that our kids are going to school every day.

And let's look at the long-term planning to see where the next building should be going forward.

I'm proud that we've already started, you know, forget construction, we're, you know, just had the last, you know, beaming ceremony for Frayser.

And that's gonna transform communities.

We have that deal about the east region in Cordova next.

So we've done that as far as made investments in new schools.

We gotta take care of some of the things we have going forward and make sure the plans are in concert.

- Mayor Harris has a few months left in office.

So he could start the ball rolling, but you know, if not, if it doesn't get resolved, can you find a new site for that east region school?

- Well, as you know, we gotta work in concert with the City Council when it comes to that as well.

They have to approve a site.

So there are a lotta cooks in the kitchen when it comes to that, deciding where that school's gonna be.

So we already administered the funding for it.

It's there.

Now we have to work and figure in concert with the City Council where that's going to be, and we have to move forward with it.

We have a timeline that's ticking, right?

The courts say we have to have that school built by a certain amount of time, so we don't have time to basically just put this or kick this down the road.

We have to find a site for that school and start construction pretty soon.

- Well, continuous spending at the county level, which again, you've been involved with as a County Commissioner and would be as a county mayor, the commitment to Regional One.

I think, you know, Mayor Harris made it a really big project, along with the schools that y'all have been talking about, to do, you know, support this essentially billion-dollar rebuild, expansion, reimagining of Regional One.

I think the county's commitment was about $350 million over multiple years.

And then the rest, Regional One wants money from the state, which it hasn't been able to get over the last few years of trying, and a lot of private money, philanthropy to support that.

Is it a realistic goal to do a billion-dollar-plus rebuild and reimagining, for lack of a better word, of Regional One?

- Well, we'll see from the price tag, but what's really possible is to make sure that we have a world-class trauma center in Shelby County.

It's needed, right?

The current facility is outdated.

It's our responsibility.

If we have a catastrophic event or power outage from long periods of time, quite frankly, people die.

And we don't need that, obviously, when it comes to healthcare in Shelby County.

And it's bigger than just one facility, right?

The healthcare ecosystem is made up of all of our hospitals and every healthcare institutions.

But we need to make sure we've investing in Regional One.

We need a world-class trauma center here in Shelby County.

So we'll see what the final price tag will be.

But I welcome the collaboration with the state and private donors and everything else to make sure this comes to fruition.

Besides, in my opinion, being the moral thing to do, it's also going to be a economic driver for Shelby County.

So we need to move forward.

- Another big item on the table, capital item, is whether or not we need a new jail.

People have talked about the conditions at the jail.

I think the recent County Commission said y'all have put something or approved at least almost $60 million since fall of 2024 in just repairs and, you know, fixing things, patching things together.

People have talked about $1 billion to build a new jail and a 10-year horizon for that.

We talked a bunch with Anthony Buckner, the Democratic candidate for mayor, about the jail.

- Sheriff.

- Excuse me, thank you, sheriff.

Too many people.

What is your take on whether the county should prioritize a new jail?

- We definitely have to prioritize it.

Now, we'll see when it gets built and what we go from that and how much it's going to cost.

But we can't, again, that's how government works sometimes.

You really just kick the can down until you have no choice but to build another building.

Now it's almost 50 years old, right?

Even the talk about renovating that up to where it needs to be now, I've heard it's been upwards of 400, maybe even $500 million just to renovate.

So we gotta have a plan in place.

And again, that could outlive my term, if elected, and sheriff and everyone else's.

But we have to have a plan in place to show how we're gonna pay for it, where it should be, and how we do what's best for the people that we're responsible for.

It's not the ideal conditions for the people who work there or the people who live there at the end of the day.

So we need to make sure we have some plans in place.

We need to do something about the processes that's in place right now.

- Yeah, the management of the jail.

And that was gonna be- - That's right.

- My next question, you know?

- Correct.

- That's been a controversial, a lot of questions of, are the problems with the jail the physical plant or the management approach?

The sheriff runs the management of it, but the county has a big say on that funding and direction, arguably more even than the schools.

- Yeah.

- I mean, arguably.

What would you like to see done with the management of the jail, regardless of the facility?

- Well, I'd like to see us work in collaboration and concert with the sheriff when it comes to that as well.

Obviously, our management of facilities are decentralized.

There's someone that's responsible for the jail and the other buildings and everything else.

I think we need more of a centralized approach when it comes to it, so we'll understand what buildings get priorities.

Because now we hear Juvenile Court is the issue and everything else, and now we'll hear our next building is an issue.

So we need to have a centralized understanding of what's our responsibility.

So I'd like to see that done in collaboration.

Again, I am in agreement that we have to do something about that building.

Again, we don't wanna be mandated by the state or anybody else to make sure that we're having to do that.

So the management of it and the processing of it I think needs to be done in collaboration, understanding that we elect a sheriff and the sheriff's responsibility is to make sure that that building is in the condition it needs to be.

But we can't do any of these things in a vacuum.

- Okay, about midway through show, Bill.

- You started this campaign talking about the balance of being able to disagree with what the state is doing in certain instances, but also being able to pick up the phone and talk to those same leaders.

Since you started this campaign last year, right, late last year, how has what's happened complicated trying to do that?

- Well, these aren't easy issues to deal with, right?

It's not gonna be an easy job, because things that we're going to disagree with when it comes just for politically and everything else, or the people that I represent in my County Commission district.

It's no different than the County Commission.

Some of my colleagues, we disagree.

We represent different areas, but we find a way to compromise, hopefully, to do what's best for Shelby County, and that's what I'm going to do.

I've said on record many things from the state standpoint that I disagree with what we're doing when it comes to the state takeovers and everything else.

And my job is still collaborate at the end of the day as county mayor.

That's what I look forward to doing.

I look forward to hopefully changing the culture when it comes to that as well, to show them that what's best for Shelby County is what's gonna be best for the state at the end of the day.

So I look forward to doing that.

- It seems as if that becomes more difficult, because the state's attitude has been, for instance, with the task force, that that task force, according to some Republicans, is solely responsible for the reduction in crime in the city, even though crime started falling two years ago.

So it seems as if there's a lot of politics, at least on the surface.

Is it that way when it's just you and whoever the Republican official might be behind closed doors?

- You know, I think what you just said was a lot of political rhetoric, basically, right?

Everyone's gonna tout their wins.

You just said, and I'm glad you said that, the crime was starting to fall two years prior to this.

And obviously, we have a president that's going to say, "Hey, I wanna take credit for the win."

And you have some people that are politically engaged that says, "Hey, I wanna align myself with that talking point."

Fine, go have all the talking points you want.

When I get behind closed doors, I'm gonna talk about what's best for Shelby County and you go say whatever you need to say, doesn't matter.

How are we gonna collaborate together?

So for me, that's all political talking points.

Who's right, who's not, our people wanna feel safe, our people wanna have the best education system possible, and it's our job to make sure we're doing that.

And again, even if I disagree with you, I'm gonna pick up the phone or I'll be in Nashville making the case for Shelby County.

- Mm-hmm.

Were there points during the primary campaign where you felt like you had to make sure people understood that part about we're going to disagree on some things?

- Yeah, definitely.

Again, it's a partisan campaign, and there are gonna be some people who think to get votes that they gotta go very far whatever on the spectrum.

My job was to show people that I can disagree and have disagreed, but also, how do we get things done?

For me, it's not just about making strong talking points or disagreeing on camera or making statements or press releases.

People need to see action.

People wanna see people get things done.

And I can disagree with you, but also, where's the compromise?

And sometimes disagreeing, Bill, is just fine.

I may not get everything I want, you might not get everything you want, but sometimes we meet in the middle.

And that's what we've done when it comes to building, hopefully, Regional One, these two new schools and everything else.

We found the right compromise to move our county forward, and that's what we have to do.

We have too much generational development just to stand in our corners and just throw things back and forth at each other.

- As this campaign goes along, the Republican nominee, John DeBerry, on this program talked at several points about the necessity of state intervention.

Is state intervention a... necessary ingredient or does state intervention roll over some important distinctions between local and state government?

- State collaboration is necessary.

That's what's necessary.

Not intervening, collaboration is what's needed.

We need the state to make sure that Shelby County is progressing, obviously.

From our school system and everything else.

But we also need to make sure that those decisions are based on by people that are elected in Shelby County.

So collaboration is definitely needed.

We need to make sure we're working together.

My job is to make sure that we're collaborating effectively so we don't have to talk about intervention, so we won't have to talk about takeovers and everything else.

I'm going to be as open and transparent with the state and with the people about our spending, our budgets, and everything else.

And hopefully that transparency will give everybody confidence that we're moving in the right direction.

- In our politics, are we realistic enough, do you think, about the city's problems?

- Are we realistic enough about 'em?

I think, sure we're realistic.

We know that there are issues that we have in our city, but just like any other major city, Bill, what we wanna do is have growing pains.

And that's what we don't have.

We want our city to grow.

I want every municipality in Shelby County to grow.

I want us to grow as a region.

We gotta compete as a region and we haven't been doing that when it comes to us going after economic development and everything, dollars and everything else.

So I want us to have growing pains, and we know that we're realistic about the issues that we have when it comes to the poverty gap that we have to do something about, when it comes to the educational system, making sure our children have access to pre-K and everything else.

So we have our challenges, but those, for me, are opportunities.

And if we are open about them and are willing to work together, and I believe that all of our municipal mayors are willing to do that, I've met with all of them, that we can move Shelby County forward.

- Back to the task force for a second.

The task force was many things, right, federal, state, and local.

Are there aspects of the task force you would like to see continued and those you'd like to see ended?

- Definitely ending when it comes to ICE and their representation here.

We have people that have been, quite frankly, afraid to go to work, afraid to go to school and everything else.

We don't have an immigration problem in Shelby County, so I don't think that's needed.

And so and I don't think we need to have masked law enforcement in our community when it comes to that as well.

So definitely that aspect of it.

I think also, again, Shelby Countians should be governing and policing Shelby County.

There have been some aspects of the task force that I know people have said, "You know what?

I feel safer and everything else."

And sometimes perception becomes reality.

That's fine.

But again, they're not gonna be here forever.

So what do we do to make sure that we continue this downward trend when it comes to especially violent crime in Shelby County?

And I know we can do that in concert with the Sheriff's Department, MPD, and every other municipality.

- The county government is made up of many different elected officials, right?

The county mayor is not, you know, it's not the equivalent of the president at the top of a pyramid- - Right.

- Of all these federal agencies.

So I wanna preface that when I say, Mayor Harris, who will be on the show, I think, in a few weeks as he's going out, has talked a lot in the last year or two about the nonprofits and funding of nonprofits and we need to get our arms around that as a county.

Adjacent to that is one of your former colleagues, Edmund Ford Jr., pled guilty to using grants out of, you know, grants from county government to fund his own business.

We have Tami Sawyer, the General Sessions clerk, accused by the federal government of misusing government money and paying herself back.

Again, these are accusations that have to go through the court system.

We have, you know, Brian Kelsey some years ago, the state senator, who pled guilty to, you know, transferring money from one county to the other.

He was ultimately pardoned by President Trump.

My point is, what can county government, county mayor do, if anything, to hold people more accountable on these issues?

Or is it all just a matter of, these things happen and it's up to the justice system, be that federal or state or local, to figure these things out?

- Well, two things can be true, but I think what we need to make sure we're doing is having the strongest ethics policy in place.

And that's what I'm gonna lead with if elected as county mayor, that we're gonna start with the ethics policy that hopefully all of our County Commission and all of our elected county offices will be able to adhere to.

And I look to be in collaboration with the city and other municipalities as well.

And I think there are two different issues you just mentioned, right?

One's a grant program, one's with other things, right?

But just like the public, they lump them all in together.

- Exactly.

- So they're very different.

But those programs, when you talk specifically the grants, have been beneficial for a lot of small nonprofits that don't get a chance to obviously come and present and be in the budget when it comes to doing things for feeding our population.

Even the grant program has benefited some of our police departments in other municipalities as well.

So it's been good, but we have to make sure that the people have confidence in the program.

And I think in having the right ethics in place is gonna be beneficial for that.

- You mentioned economic development and growth.

One piece of just objectively a big amount of growth in economic development was the xAI facility, an increase in property tax from that.

That may go down over time.

There's questions about the water treatment facility.

Do you support xAI being here?

- I support any business that's gonna be here and be a good public partner for Shelby County when it comes to making sure our environment is safe.

And that's for any business.

I appreciate anybody that's gonna come here and invest in our community as well, in our schools, in our neighborhoods.

And we're gonna welcome the tax dollars that come from that as well, 'cause we need the support.

I'm glad to hear that that gray water facility's back on track.

I did not like the fact that that entire project did not have to come through the County Commission.

I understand from a legal standpoint, but we didn't have any say so or didn't have any presentations whatsoever.

I didn't like that process, so I'm gonna look to change that as county mayor.

You gotta have some concert there as well.

But again, I support any business that wants to be here, but doing the right way, effectively, making sure that we have the right things in place to protect our environment and that it's gonna be a good corporate citizen.

- All right, just a minute and a half left, Bill.

- Does that mean that there should be some changes in the jurisdiction of the Health Department, which as mayor, you would appoint the head of that?

- Yeah, I definitely agree when it comes to that as well.

I think our Health Department has to have a little bit more teeth when it comes to determining and understanding what businesses are here.

And again, this is not new to the country, right?

Other municipalities, other cities have these legislation things in place.

But our voters, not voters, constituents need confidence to know that the environment's safe, water's clear, and everything else, and that whoever wants to come to Shelby County is then going to do it the right way and the effective way.

So we do need to have a little bit more teeth with the Health Department, and I look forward to working with the County Commission to make sure there's some things in place for that.

- And of course, SpaceX is not the only entity doing data centers, even within Shelby County, much less in the region, for that.

Are we set up, in local government in general, to keep an eye on the growth of those centers?

- Well, not yet, in my opinion.

That's why we have to put these things in place.

Data centers are going to, over our country, are probably going to triple in the next decade.

Those are just talking about facts and numbers, you look out in our country.

So we gotta be prepared for that to make sure we have some things in place, to make sure that we're prepared if that's what we choose to do as a county going forward.

So right now, I don't think we are.

I think even in, you and I, we're talking about Shelby County, but look what's happening in West Memphis, look what's happening in Southaven.

That's still a part of our region at the end of the day, so we gotta make sure we're working in concert with everyone to make sure that there are things in place and provisions in place to help us be prepared, to make sure that anybody that wants to come here and operate is gonna be doing it effectively and taking care of our environment.

- All right, we are outta time.

Thank you very much for being here, Mickell Lowery.

Thank you, Bill.

A reminder, everyone, we taped this and played it before the Fourth of July weekend and played it after.

So if any news came that we didn't talk to Mickell about, it's a timing issue.

I'll also note that we had Republican candidate for county mayor, John DeBerry, on the show.

You can get that at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian, or YouTube.

We also have coming up Brad Less, Republican candidate for county sheriff, and had the Democratic candidate some weeks ago.

You can get that.

But that is all the time we have this week.

If you missed any of the show, go online, download the podcast.

Thanks very much, have a great holiday, oh well, I hope you had a great holiday weekend.

And we will see you next week.

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