Harris, Lenoir best choices for county mayor

Four of the five elected mayors of Shelby County — Bill Morris, Roy Nixon, Mark Luttrell and Jim Rout (briefly as coroner) — were county sheriffs first. Another — A C Wharton — was a longtime county public defender.

The next mayor of Shelby County, turning 200 next year, will need more than a background in criminal justice.

To be sure, the sheriff’s budget is by far county government’s largest (not including Shelby County Schools, which is largely state-funded and run by a separate board and superintendent).

More than six in 10 county employees work in some part of the county’s vast criminal justice system (sheriff, courts, corrections).

And the next mayor’s challenge will include two vexing criminal justice matters – burgeoning Shelby County Jail and federally-monitored Shelby County Juvenile Court.

But the next county mayor — Republican or Democrat — will need to have the knowledge, vision and temperament to take the lead in addressing a complicated and evolving array of challenges that will determine this county’s progress and prosperity for next generation.

That’s why we are endorsing the mayoral candidacies of state Sen. Lee Harris and county Trustee David Lenoir. Harris is seeking the Democratic nomination and Lenoir the Republican nomination in the May 1 county primary. Early voting begins April 11.

This newspaper typically waits until after primaries to endorse candidates for office. But this mayoral election is too important to wait for the Aug. 2 general election.

The next county mayor will become chief executive of a county dominated by a majority black, politically blue and economically challenged city, and several majority white, politically red and more affluent suburbs.

The next county mayor will become chief executive of an increasingly diverse urban county in a state dominated by a largely rural, ultra-conservative legislature that has emphasized state over local control.

The next county mayor will be tested by a federal government working to shift the costs and responsibilities of public education, health and safety, infrastructure, environmental concerns, and economic development to state and local governments.

The next county mayor must take the lead on a wide assortment of executive challenges — finance (shrinking population, budget surplus, tax-cut pressure), education (pre-K funding, job training), infrastructure (sewer systems, blight abatement), health care (obesity to opioids) economic development (tax incentives, urban disinvestment and poverty, suburban growth).

The next county mayor must collaborate with a wide range of power brokers — a new sheriff and county commission, the superintendent and school board members, city and suburban mayors and councils, state and federal officials, and corporate and nonprofit leaders.

Harris, 39, an attorney, is a University of Memphis law professor, a state senator and a former city council member. Lenoir, 49, an accountant who worked in the private financial services industry here for 20 years, has been county trustee since 2010.

Both have served the public responsibly and respectfully, and worked well and admirably with other political leaders in these trying partisan times. Both have demonstrated high levels of energy, initiative, integrity and imagination in their respective elected positions.

Both have gained a breadth of experience and acquired a depth of knowledge needed to accurately diagnose, prioritize and address this county’s discouraging disparities and unrealized prosperity.

We believe all five candidates for mayor — including Democrat Sidney Chism and Republicans Terry Roland and Joy Touliatos — have their strengths, care deeply about this county and would serve it well.

But we believe Harris and Lenoir — in particular — have the qualities and skills needed to lead Shelby County.