Sawyer and Goff face off for District 7 seat
Republican Sam Goff, 66, and Democrat Tami Sawyer, 36, are vying for Shelby County’s District 7 seat, which serves the North Memphis, Overton Park, Raleigh and Frayser communities.
The winner of the Aug. 2 election will replace Commissioner Melvin Burgess, who has reached his term limit.
While Goff and Sawyer want to be a voice for different issues in Shelby County, they both see education as the biggest concern.
“Education is my number one priority,” said Sawyer, a local activist and director of diversity and cultural competence at Teach for America’s Memphis branch.
The Midtown resident said it is the county’s responsibility to fulfill requests of Shelby County Schools, and she wants to ensure they are fulfilled.
As schools move toward career technical education, Sawyer says she wants to see college preparatory classes also included in the curriculum.
“We need both there,” she said, adding that they both have value.
She also wants to see funding go toward a program that helps fill teaching vacancies in the school system.
Goff, a Sowell & Company realtor, wants to see more resources put into the Shelby school system.
“Education is the long-term answer to many of the social ills we have,” he said.
He said pre-kindergarten should be funded and schools need more wraparound services. “We don’t have nearly enough,” Goff said.
He said schools in areas like North Memphis — with high levels of poverty and other challenges — should reduce class sizes to ensure students get more more individualized attention.
Goff added that such increased attention could give students a mindset to succeed. He added that with twice the amount of resources, schools could help fight the challenges affecting inner-city students.
In addition to education, Sawyer wants to see criminal-justice reform.
“We are still monitoring disparity,” she said, adding that she wants to have better training for jail deputies.
She also said that she wanted to help educate children in the area and give them opportunities to start small businesses and embrace other opportunities.
She also said that the city is struggling to provide resources to fight health morbidity.
“We have the highest rate in the state of STDs and HIV,” she said, adding that both are ranked high nationally.
As commissioner, Sawyer said she would push to fund programs that seek to reverse infection rates and educate people about the risks of STDs and HIV.
Goff wants to focus on economic development.
“We’ve seen what PILOT (Paymentin-lieu-of-Tax) programs can do,” he said, adding that he would like to invest in infrastructure so that “great investors” come to the city.
“There’s more than just food deserts,” he said. “There are also retail deserts.”
Goff said transportation options are lacking in the community.
“We hear often in Shelby County, there are 15,000 open jobs,” he said, adding that it could take a person threeand-half hours on public transit to go from Frayser to the FedEx hub.
He said potential employers should dedicate resources to get employees to work.
“It just takes a mindset of how do we solve this,” Goff said.
To read more about Sawyer, go to www.tamisawyer.com. To read more about Goff, go to votesamgoff.com.