Weekly Update

Friends,

As we head into the holiday weekend, a quick roundup of things you should know:

Holding us accountable: Our team held its monthly data review meeting Wednesday, and we saw plenty of continued strong trends.

We continue to improve our performance on 911, answering your call in 9.6 seconds on average. When we took office, that number was 59.7 seconds.

Outcomes at Memphis Animal Services continue to improve. Our rate of euthanasia for time and space in July was 78 percent lower than July 2016.

And big congrats to the Memphis Area Transit Authority, which set a new record for on-time performance for its fixed-route buses.

Oh, and be sure to notice the following chart on youth engagement at our libraries. Keenon McCloy and her staff members are doing an amazing job.

 

We’ve posted the full data set here. You’ll see that crime continues to be at an unacceptable level, and we have work to do in other areas, too. But we post all of these numbers, good and bad, because you deserve a transparent government.

Building our future: Our Memphis 3.0 comprehensive planning team has four meetings this month to decide where population and job growth should be focused. All four of these meetings will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m.:

• Sept. 14, Raleigh Community Center, 3678 Powers Road
• Sept. 20, Whitehaven Golf Course & Ballroom, 750 East Holmes Road
• Sept. 21, McFarland Community Center, 4955 Cottonwood Road
• Sept. 27, Memphis Leadership Foundation, 1548 Poplar Ave.

Helping the community: Reducing violent crime is the No. 1 task of our administration, which is why I've been telling you so much lately about how we're rebuilding MPD, how we're providing more opportunities for our young people, and how we have successfully lobbied for tougher laws against gun crime and domestic violence.

But we know that the community plays a major role, too.

That's why Tuesday, I was so proud to be part of an event where we awarded $40,000 in grants to neighborhoods to advance their crime reduction projects. This is the ninth round of the grant program, which is administered by our Memphis Area Neighborhood Watch and has distributed $277,194 since its inception.

Want to explore a grant for your group? The next application deadline is Nov. 15. Learn more here.

Congrats, new officer recruits: Monday marked the start of the 124th Basic Recruit Session at the Memphis Police Department Training Academy. One hundred recruits will have the opportunity to join MPD in January. Couple this class with the one that graduated three weeks ago, and we’re looking at the first net gain of MPD officers in seven years.

Thank you, Tennessee Task Force One: We’ve all seen the shocking videos and read the stories out of Houston and all of southeast Texas, where Hurricane Harvey has changed the course of that region for years to come. I hope you’ll join me in keeping those affected in our thoughts and our prayers.

I’m particularly grateful and proud of Tennessee Task Force One, a group of local search and rescue professionals including Memphis Fire. As of Tuesday, this group had completed more than 1,300 rescues in the Houston area. This is great, meaningful work of which we should all be proud.

WREG-TV had a nice story on its work this week that I think you might enjoy.

Yours,