City Council Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone. It is 1116 a.m. and I hereby call our personnel and government committee to order.

Thank you.

We have one matter on this agenda, and it is the Memphis Area Transit Authority appointments of Sharon Harris, Tate Wilson, Willie Gregory, Dr. Gwen Sutton, William Mallory IV, Allison Donald, and Antoine Clark, and the reappointment of Mr. Brandon Arendelle with a request for same-night minutes. May I get a motion and a second?

Second.

I got a motion from Councilman Ford, a second from Chairwoman Swearingen-Washington. Good morning, Mayor Young. It's great to see you this morning. How are you?

Morning, Chairwoman.

And happy 901 Day.

Happy 901 Day to everyone. Thank you all for allowing us to be here for this moment. I want to first say thank you to Councilman Ford for his leadership with the Transportation Committee. We also have Rod Holmes here with MATA. As you all know, the MATA board has been somewhat in flux. There hasn't been a quorum for quite some time now. MATA as an organization is still going to continue to be under this trusteeship relationship. But we all know that at some point we have to move towards bringing in a CEO and reestablishing the structure of MATA. And so this is one step in moving in that direction. And that's reestablishing the board. We have two members that will maintain. Maya Siggers is a current board member and her term is not up. Brandon Arendale is a current board member, but his term has expired. And so we are asking for reappointment with him. And I'll just run through the list really quick and we can bring anyone up that you would like if that meets your approach. Chairwoman, does that work? I'll just run through them real quick. And so new proposed board members would be Neely Mallory, who serves as a director at International Paper, has significant experience in real estate and in the business community. The next one would be Sharon Harris, who was a Vice President of Human Resources for Anavorks Holdings, also a Board of Trustees member at LeMoyne-Owen College, former Lynx member. A lot of great things that she does across this community. Willie Gregory, many of us know Willie, Director of Global Investment at Nike. Before Nike, he did marketing and sales at IBM, serves on a number of boards throughout our great city. Tate Wilson is the CEO of the Kimmons-Wilson Foundation, obviously does a lot of work in the philanthropic community. Thought that it would be great to have that perspective on the board. We also have Dr. Gwen Sutton, who's the president of Tennessee College of Applied Technology. Given her work in workforce training and development and the important role that TCAP plays in our economic development continuum. We thought it was important to have her perspective. Allison Donald, Independent Living Specialist, Disability Connection Mid-South, has been a transit advocate for many years. I've had a number of meetings with her. as she advocates for things around transit and how we can continue to improve the system for riders. And then lastly is Antoine Clark, who serves as an employment development manager at the Binghampton Community Development Corporation. He also, I just recently had an experience with him. He has a team, the Southside Wildcats, where a lot of young people are engaged in youth sports through his program. It's a really remarkable sight to see. So with that, those are the names I humbly ask for your approval for these individuals. I think that they have the expertise and capability to lead this organization as we go into the next chapter for MATA.

Thank you. And let the record reflect that the resumes or CVs of all of these potential appointees have been placed in your binder, so hopefully everyone has had an opportunity to review those. Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton, did you raise your hand? Yeah, I'm done, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you, Mayor. I spoke to you in regards to re-establishing the matter board, the transit board. All the hard work that has been done since we've had the interim CEO attorney Rod Holmes there. And what I found very interesting here with us here in Memphis is we always think we have to keep the same playbook and we end up with the same results. My take on getting and reestablishing a board right now, I told you how I felt about that. And that I was not eager to move forward with that. Because what concerns me is this. All the hard work that Interim Attorney Rod has made possible, made happen, I don't want anyone on this board coming in power pulling and power moving and change all the hard work that has been done. A board, we've been functioning so far with a board, and I don't think it's enough time to be even implementing a board. I read every resume that's in here. I'm not saying that anyone is not qualified, but the people out there that ride these buses, has anyone of you rode the bus lately? Okay. Well, I did a whole two weeks tour with the approval of CEO Intram Holmes, And so getting on there and you're not understanding the dynamics of it, and I can understand you're native Memphian, some of you are, and you've lived here and all of this, but you ain't actually lived what's happening now, their lived experience now. And so coming in and dismantling everything that interim and attorney homes have put in place and now that's working, I asked the mayor just to hold off because what good is a board? Moving forward right now, we need to make sure that all ducks in a row, everything is in place, everything is squared away, and whoever is on the board understands the importance of not dismantling what is working. And not coming in there and changing the CEO and all of this here. This is how we're in the mess that we're in now. And I've looked at every one of your resumes. I don't know anything about any of you all, no more than what your resume says and what the mayor says. And I want to always align myself with him and believe whatever choices that he makes is best for this city. But what I will not be and what I'm not going to be right now at this point is be a part of putting things back in place and we end up where we were before. And I'm going to be like Pompous Pallet with Jesus. I'm going to clean my hands of it because we've been here too long. And that gentleman over there and that team that's in place have worked and worked and worked and tried to get us in the place that we're in now. And then you get a board and then they come in and they don't want this and they don't want that. And this, this, this, this, this. I'm just not in agreement with it right now. And I shared that with you.

Can I respond?

Of course, always.

So I share your desire to make sure that what we have done over the past year maintains the level of stability and has forward movement. The challenge that we have from a timing perspective, and obviously I don't want to break Rod's news or President Holmes, He's going to have to shift at the end of the year. And so the timing for the board is to bring on a board that can help select the new CEO. As I stated when I started, this does not change the trusteeship relationship right now. the trusteeship relationship where the council is overseeing with Rod as the interim CEO doesn't change with reestablishing the board. This just allows us to work on parallel tracks. So it's not changing the leadership structure today, but it's preparing for the future. And that's what my goal is, is to make sure that we're able to do both because Trust me, I've been in the weeds with this on a very regular basis, and I know that the system is far better than what we all inherited a couple of years ago. We want to make sure that we're continuing to move in the right direction, and I believe that these folks have the ability to get us there.

Well, we said that the last time, and look what we ended up at. So I'm just saying that we need to be very, very... Use wisdom... on how we move forward and not on no friendship, partner, frat brother, sorority, I'm just sick of it here in Memphis. We need people in place that loves Memphis, cares about this community that's underserved, that use the bus and understand that we have to take it to the next level and not all this personal stuff. Because that is what's gotten Memphis in the shape that Memphis is in now. So I'm going to trust you once again with these new appointments and working on a CEO or whatever, because the mindset of the way things are structured, it's very hard for people to change here. Very hard. Very hard. I've been here for 30 years. And you want to keep the same playbook and want different results, and we end up with the same thing over and over and over again. So that's my take on it. I don't know whether I'll be voting yes or no, but I'm going to... I'm going to... You know, you're the mayor, and I respect that always and try to be in agreement with you. I just hope and see. I know that he has to go, but I hope... and very prayerful that wisdom is used when making decisions and picking the CEO. You may not like me, and that doesn't matter. I'm not here for likes. I'm here because of the people that voted me in here and what they've suffered through for decades. And this administration has to clean up. We've cleaned up a lot of mess, a lot of mess in this city. So that's where I am. That's where I stand. Before I take any of it back, I add to it. I yield.

Thank you, Councilwoman Cooper-Sutton. Do we have any other colleagues in the queue? Councilman Ford, you're recognized.

We've come a long way. Trustee Holmes, you've done a great job. I think it's about time to put this board, we've talked about it. This board can be hired, fired, whatever. If they don't do the job in which, hey, what we've come through in the last, what, almost a year now, we're gonna keep it together. We're not going backwards, we're going forward. We got a lot more things to do. I want everybody to kind of realize that, hey, two years ago, we were going through hell. We're finally getting it together now. We're getting some new buses. We're getting new everything. Hey, we're doing what we're supposed to do. And now with this board coming in, hey, and I think it's a good board. And I need everybody to really let everybody see who you are. Just don't name them. I need y'all to stand up where y'all can be seen, everything else. And I need y'all to end up getting ready to do this job. Okay, because we've come real far. And like I said, with Attorney Holmes, hey, amazing man. But his time is going to come to an end. But he's not going to be leaving us. He'll still be making sure everybody's doing their job. And then when we get someone to take over, hey, that person too. So hey, I think this is the beginning. getting this board back. Then, hey, once we get this board back, we can get somebody that's going to be over matter. But like I said, we're still going to have our trustees that's going to be watching everything that everybody do. And we can move forward. That's all I got to say right now. And each one of y'all say y'all's name where everybody know who you are. Yes. Good, okay. Thank you. People are watching, they want to see you too, know who you are.

Thank you all, you all may be seated. Any other council members in the queue? I just wanted to say, well, I just wanted to say, Was it somebody else in the queue? Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted to say thank you, Mayor, for these recommendations. I'm always looking at resumes and diversity in terms of background that people can bring to the board. You have, in my opinion, picked a great selection of individuals to take up. And I want to say to you all, thank you very much for the sacrifice of agreeing to serve on the board. We understand just as we serve on this body that you do this in addition to the work that you do daily, and that this is an addition and a sacrifice to serve in this capacity, especially something as important as our transportation system, and all of the woes that we have had. We are thankful to Trustee Holmes for the direction that he has put MATA in, and I feel certain that you all will further carry us in a great direction. So again, thank you for your willingness to serve, and I'm very pleased with the selections. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. This will go down with the favorable recommendation with the same nine minutes. Thank you.

Thank you.

There are no other matters in this committee. We are adjourned.