Council members make case for exempting city from state residency bill
Council member J.B. Smiley argues that if the city accepts police and fire applications from outside the city, more effort will have to be put into screening candidates.
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Council member J.B. Smiley argues that if the city accepts police and fire applications from outside the city, more effort will have to be put into screening candidates.
On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, City Council member JB Smiley Jr. says the Health Department needs “boots on the ground” in Black communities to remedy a racial disparity in who is getting the COVID-19 vaccines.
Council Chairwoman Patrice Robinson said council members who behave badly, as council member Edmund Ford Sr. did two weeks ago, can’t be removed or suspended. And restoring order is “a question of judgment” by the chairperson.
The outburst by City Council member Edmund Ford Sr. two weeks ago still raises questions about how to apply rules of conduct to elected council members. And it’s a discussion past councils have had about Ford and others on the body.
Council member JB Smiley is also seeking a change in council rules that would allow the chairman of the body to bar a council member who does what Ford did twice during Tuesday’s council meetings.
Two conversations about police reform show the more detailed the proposed reforms become, the more differences they reveal.
On “Behind The Headlines,” the first-term council member said the proposals to come will push further on changing the Memphis Police Department beyond nonbinding resolutions approved last month.
A city task force on public safety started its work this week with several calls for hiring local in the police and fire ranks. Meanwhile, an effort to remove from the Nov. 3 election ballot a proposal for allowing the city to hire police and firefighters who live outside the county may be picking up momentum.
The action came with word that owners of the restaurant were buying out their partner in the business venture. The council also passed three resolutions on law enforcement that are the first acts by the group in the discussion about the role of police and use of force policies.
The Memphis City Council has three resolutions on its Tuesday, June 16, agenda dealing with law enforcement.
Memphis City Council member JB Smiley is pushing a resolution to urge Mayor Jim Strickland’s administration to put data, complaints and other information regarding police misconduct and use of force on the city’s website.
The first reception to the council resolutions presented Tuesday comes with a record of past resistance that indicates it probably won't be as easy as a council vote. The resolutions are advisory.
Three of the six new Memphis City Council members talked about the larger issues on "Behind The Headlines." They are the latest council members in more than a decade to take up the topic of residency.
'We must be a unified and united body. If we are not, we run the risks of watering down our legislative authority and allowing outside entities comprised of individuals not elected by the citizens of Memphis, essentially, to make legislative and budgetary decisions.'