Weekly Update: Why Manhood University matters

Friends,

You’ve heard me talk about our Manhood University program, which works to educate and enable men to be more productive, responsible members of society.

Today, I want you to hear from one of the graduates, Mr. Nehemiah Hicks. He appeared on WREG-TV’s “Live at Nine” show Wednesday to talk about how Manhood University has changed his life.

Check out the interview here.

In short, Manhood University helped Nehemiah land a better job, which has led to him buying a house and gaining stability for his family.

You know, we often talk about big developments, big budgets and big, complex pieces of legislation. That’s part of the job. But at the end of the day, it’s rewarding when government can impact lives, one at a time. That’s what Manhood University is doing.

Even more, I was proud to have dinner Wednesday night (photo below) with leaders in our city who want to help us expand this program. They committed to become more involved and help mentor participants — and I appreciate their support.

Learn more at memphistn.gov/manhood.

Protect our aquifer: You may have seen where the Tennessee Valley Authority announced earlier this week its findings in regard to arsenic being found near the Allen Steam Plant. You can read the TVA’s findings here.

Our aquifer is extremely important to Memphis. This is why we have called for extensive testing of the arsenic findings and for TVA to purchase all of its water supply from MLGW. It’s also why we worked with the City Council and MLGW to initiate the first truly comprehensive study of the quantity and quality of the aquifer, which the University of Memphis will soon start.

New flights: It was a busy week at Memphis International Airport. We added a new Allegiant flight to Oakland and a new Southwest flight to Denver, both non-stops.

Congratulations, MPD officers: It was my honor Thursday afternoon to stand in front of 27 new lieutenants and 46 new sergeants in the Memphis Police Department’s latest promotional ceremony!

We said we would unclog the promotional pipeline when we arrived in office in 2016, and we’ve done that — promoting 123 lieutenants and 202 sergeants. We will begin another promotional process this summer. To the MPD officers reading this, I hope you see that we’re continuing to work to make your experience here better. And to those reading who aren’t MPD officers, I hope you understand how important the prospect of career advancement is when it comes to retaining our officers and ultimately rebuilding our department.

Our next recruit class of new officers begins later this month. We currently have 2,014 officers — almost 100 more than we had just seven months ago. Our work to rebuild MPD is showing results.

Yours,