Weekly Update

Friends,

 

I have written many times about our constant struggle with weak state laws governing sentences for violent crime, but here is yet another example of why it is so frustrating—the average time served for those convicted of attempted first-degree murder involving serious bodily injury is 5.7 years.

 

That is not typo—it is only 5.7 years.

 

Well, there may be some potential relief coming from the legislature in this year’s session to help us.

 

Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, introduced a bill that would require adults convicted after July 1, 2022 on any of 14 specific felony offenses to serve 100% of their sentence.

 

Some of the offenses to which this bill applies include: aggravated assault, attempted first degree murder, where the victim suffers serious bodily injury, and especially aggravated kidnapping.

 

While I am a firm believer in second chances and helping those individuals who want to turn their lives around (and that there should be an alternative to prison for non-violent offenders), I also believe that there should be significant consequences for those committing violent crimes in our community.

 

MLGW outages: Earlier this week, you may have seen where MLGW president J.T. Young and I agreed to convene a study commission that over the next 60 to 90 days will analyze the ways in which we can avoid widespread electrical outages in the future like we have experienced for 28 years since the 1994 ice storm to Winter Storm Landon.

 

Far too many throughout our community went without power for too long. This commission will be reviewing multiple options to reduce the loss of power services like more frequent tree-trimming, placing our powerlines underground, and other potential solutions to reduce to the chance of outages in the future.

 

As I said in last week’s Update, these types of storms are not going away any time soon, and we need to be prepared to handle them in the future. I look forward to hearing the results of the commission’s work once completed.

 

More splash pads: This Fall, we will be adding two more splash pads to Memphis parks at Hollywood Community Center and Orange Mound Park making that a grand total of five splash pads throughout the city. Memphis Parks director, Nick Walker, said it best in this recent story, “this is the beginning of a renaissance in Memphis parks, and these splash pads, to me, are going to be a great amenity for both of these neighborhoods”.

 

These two splash pads are in addition to the $75 million already allocated and currently being spent to improve parks through our Accelerate Memphis program. Our parks are the lifeblood of our communities, and these amenities will only add to the quality of life of the neighbors who use them.

 

Congratulations Mr. Brown: At City of Memphis government, we work hard to make sure our employees know they have the opportunity to better themselves professionally. We have also worked to create an atmosphere in which they have the confidence and support to achieve it.

 

I want to give a quick example.

 

Recently, Mr. Carlos McCraney (a senior recruiter in our Division of Human Resources) encouraged Mr. John Brown (a crew chief in our Division of Solid Waste) to get his high school diploma after being with the City of Memphis for 31 years. Mr. Brown took his advice and did just that.

 

This past December, Carlos attended Mr. Brown's graduation, pictured below. 

 

 

Congratulations, Mr. Brown, and thank you Carlos for supporting him through this journey!

 

Enjoy your weekend!

 

Yours,