Weekly Update

Friends,

It’s been an eventful week in Memphis -- no question about it.

But as I said when I sent this special email with my remarks from Wednesday night, it’s much more important to me that we think about where our city goes from here.

I’m grateful that The Commercial Appeal allowed me the space to make that point again today. I encourage you to read my guest column -- and I challenge you to get involved in casting our next hundred years.

But that’s not all that’s been going on at the City of Memphis. As we head into the holiday weekend, here are a few items I want you to know:

MPD roundup: Credit to the Memphis Police Department, which completed an operation this week that led to the indictments of 25 individuals on charges of conspiring to sell and distribute heroin. Several of the individuals are part of a gang.

And I think we’re all appreciative of the work MPD has done in recent weeks and months to help bring resolution in the murder of former Tigers and Grizzlies player Lorenzen Wright.

Nice work, Best in Blue!

More jobs: We recently partnered with the state to announce an expansion of Agilent Technologies’ operations in Memphis, which means 100 new jobs on the way!

We’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: About 12,000 more Memphians are employed today compared to the beginning of last year.

Nice work, Peter!: We have a lot of heroes in the employ of the City of Memphis, so it was nice to see City Hall security guard Peter McNeal get some praise this week. He was off duty on Thanksgiving week and having lunch at a local restaurant when he saved a choking man’s life. 

The City Council honored him with a resolution this week, and I’m happy to honor him here today.

Collection schedules: For Christmas week, your garbage and recycling collection schedule will change. We’ll work on a one-day delay all of next week, which means Monday (Christmas Day) customers will receive collection Tuesday, and every day after that will be bumped back a day. That includes Friday customers, whose collections will come on Saturday.

Merry Christmas: The generosity in this city never ceases to amaze me. I was struck by it again last Saturday, when so many volunteers gathered at the convention center to hand out 6,000 Christmas baskets to those in need -- up from 5,000 the year before. It’s a great partnership between Team Max, the City of Memphis, and so many others. 

It was a wonderful reminder of the spirit of the holidays. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Yours,