Building Together: City of Memphis Weekly Newsletter

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After a brief summer break, we resumed our One Memphis town hall meetings this week at the McWherter Senior Center on Estate. This series allows our administration to hear from you regarding the issues and concerns you are experiencing in your neighborhoods. And this week’s meeting brought some new questions and new energy from the very involved community at McWherter.

I believe the town hall meetings provide a valuable platform for residents to express their thoughts and opinions directly to the administration. It's a great opportunity for open dialogue, and it's encouraging to see the community actively engaging in discussions about the issues that matter to them. 

At the McWherter Senior Center, we had the chance to address a wide range of topics, from infrastructure and public services to community development and animal-related initiatives. The enthusiasm and participation from the attendees truly highlighted the passion and dedication of the community members in making Memphis a better place for everyone.

Thank you to everyone who attended the session. We loved hearing from you, and you have my word that we will continue working to make our community safer, stronger, and more welcoming. 

The Town Halls are some of my favorite community gatherings. They have sparked meaningful - sometimes emotional - conversations. And they have definitely guided our efforts to set priorities - especially around our public safety strategy with our Operation Code Zero and Blight Zero work. I don’t take any of these interactions for granted. I don’t take the questions and comments lightly. They stay with me. I carry your concerns as my own, and I use them to help push myself and the team to create a better Memphis.  

I have paraphrased a few of the questions and answers from the McWherter event below. If you would like to watch the entire livestream, you can find it on our social media channels here, or find future dates here.

(This map shows the topic-list by location, as you can see most of our concerns are the same no matter what neighborhood we live in.)

Community Questions from our most recent One Memphis Town Hall.

Is the xAI Supercomputer worth it for our community?

Yes. First, they will pay millions of dollars in property taxes. This is good for our community. Property tax is our primary revenue stream and more property tax revenue allows us to provide better services for our residents, all of our residents.

Regarding their use or potential drain on our power supply or power grid: xAI has opted into the demand response program - which means when we need more energy, they will reduce their usage. So, during those high-demand times they will shed energy, or cuts things off, so they will not be contributing to the excessive load. 

Regarding their use of water: Currently, they are pulling from the tap, not drawing from the aquifer and paying those water fees to MLGW. But they are also committing to building a greywater facility, which will take water already being used at our waste-water treatment plant and treats it to a level appropriate for industrial cooling. And this won’t be a benefit for only xAI, they will also make this plant and the services provided available to others who would benefit from grey water for cooling. This is a significant benefit to our community and will reduce our use of aquifer water, including others who are currently not paying for water by drilling into the aquifer. 

What can we do to support the investment at the Convention Center? 

The Renasant Convention center represents a $200 million investment into our tourism infrastructure. Which is critical for the future our city. 

We are focused on making Memphis a city of choice in part by investing in our tourism and downtown economy. We have already built a state-of-the-art convention center and we need more hotel rooms and more high quality hotels to make sure we are optimizing that investment. 

These kinds of investments - in tourism and in our downtown and riverfront - benefit our entire economy. The convention center attracts non-residents who will spend money here. And those dollars benefit local businesses like restaurants, hotels, and attractions. And those visitor dollars don’t come with the need for resident services. That money is just an injection of cash, and that is the kind of money we like. 

We will be talking more about our convention center investment in the next few weeks. 

How can the city better assist MATA?

Let me be clear, we are all in on transit. So much so that we have hired an external transit group to help MATA determine their best path forward, which not only includes determining the appropriate funding levels, but also creating a route structure that will BETTER serve the residents of Memphis. 

The current MATA schedule requires 74 buses to meet customer needs, but on average MATA is currently running only 55 vehicles per day. Which means 20% of customers are waiting for a bus that may never come. 

We have also learned that over 90% of MATA riders are dependent on MATA for their transportation needs, they do not have another vehicle. For those people, the operational state of this system is crucial. These riders must have reliable, on-time transportation to get and maintain their jobs, for childcare, and medical appointments. Without a system they can depend on, they can’t take care of themselves or their families.  

Industry standard for optimal wait times is 30 mins on average and 15 minutes for the higher ridership routes. So, we have asked MATA - and the outside transit professionals - what it would take to get to 15-20 minute wait time on all of our routes, but definitely on our busiest routes. 

Industry standard for how far someone will walk to a stop is a quarter of a mile. So, we have asked MATA - and the outside transit professionals - to reimagine routes. 

We are confident that with the right plan, we can make MATA work for more Memphians. 

Weekly Crime Trend

The report below provides our weekly update on Part 1 Crimes. It updates daily and shows a continuous rolling 7-day total compared to the prior 7-day total. The charts on the right show the calendar week trend, comparing 2023 to 2024.

(We maintain two crime dashboards, the Weekly Crime Trend report can be found here, and the Crime Analytics dashboard can be accessed here.)

Blight Zero. Our entire public safety team worked in six locations around the Douglass Community this morning. Check out more from todays efforts here.

Our Strike Team worked in the following zip codes this week: 38109, 38115, 38118.

Safer Communities Grant. The City of Memphis is offering Safer Communities Grants to help fund non-profit organizations that create safer communities through crime prevention, intervention, or suppression efforts. Grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 are available! Apply and see full details here. 

Social and Community Shout-outs:

Southwest Twin Harvest Festival. Want to showcase your business? Southwest Twin is looking for vendors for their Harvest Festival on October 19. Apply here. 

MAS Adoption Saturdays. Bring home a furry friend this Saturday, September 21 from Memphis Animal Services at PetSmart in Collierville. See full details and share here. 

District Dumpster Days. This Saturday, help keep our streets free of litter and unwanted items by utilizing our FREE dumpster in District 5 open to all Memphis residents! See more details and share here.

Blight Zero Initiative. The Senior Leadership team joined me in taking a powerful step towards revitalizing the Douglass Community as a part of the Blight Zero Initiative. Take a look at the excellent work that is being done! See more details and share here.

Weekly round-up

in partnership and progress,

Paul A. Young