Memphians outline budget priorities
Laura Sullivan, a 47-year-old Cooper-Young resident, stood at the Benjamin Hooks Central Library Thursday night and delivered a list of ways the city of Memphis should spend its $632 million operating budget supporting most city services.
Get rid of the data-driven model of policing and substitute community policing, Sullivan said. Increase pay and benefits for Memphis police officers so they are not lost to betterpaying places. Deliver business incentives after jobs are created, rather than before. Supply more funds for Memphis Area Transit Authority buses but make MATA do what it should be doing. Reopen libraries, don’t privatize sanitation, and more.
She was one of several to speak after a small-group discussion during the first session to collect public opinion for the city’s 5-year Strategic Financial Plan.
David Williams, presi- dent and CEO of Leadership Memphis, served as facilitator for the meeting, which drew about 50 participants. Mayor A C Wharton and City Council member Jim Strickland, who chairs the council’s budget committee, stayed for a portion of the meeting, but weren’t there to influence or debate.
“We are here to listen,” Wharton said as the gathering, which lasted about two hours, kicked off.
Seven similar meetings, one in each City Council district, are being scheduled through the end of March, Williams said.
With a simplified version of a city budget, interactive surveys, and brief information, the central question about which services receive how many dollars was: “What would you do?”
Lewis Martin, 41, an East Memphis resident and painter, suggested that spending more on trade schools would reduce crime, allow the police budget to be slashed and lead to a program to repair elderly people’s housing.