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- (female announcer)   Production funding   for Behind The Headlines   is made possible in part by   the WKNO Production Fund,   the WKNO Endowment Fund,   and by viewers   like you, thank

you. - The Greensward, year round school, Brian Kelsey and much more tonight on Behind The Headlines. [intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, thanks for

joining us. I am joined this week by a roundtable journalists to talk about some of the biggest stories of the week. First up is Toby Sells from The Memphis Flyer, thanks for being here

again. - Thank you, sir. - Bill Dries from The Daily Memphian, thank you for being here. And Daja Henry from The Daily Memphian, as well. Thank you for being here again. - Thank you. -

We'll start with the plan, the final plan. It is all done, the Overton Park fight and dispute with the zoo over the Greensward and parking, a whole new plan came out this week. Bill,

maybe you walk us through the details for people who haven't seen it when we talk through some of the long, torturous history behind it. - About eight years. - Ah. - Yeah, yeah. Well,

here's what's gonna happen, in the next two years the goal is to make some changes in the park and who owns what and what happens in those areas so that two years from now all zoo

overflow parking on the Greensward ends. What this begins with is having a north entrance to the zoo off of North Parkway that is in what is now currently a zoo maintenance area. This will

include 300 parking spaces for zoo members. That maintenance yard that the zoo has there now would move to what is now the city maintenance yard on the East Parkway side of the park. The

City has been in the process over several years now of moving their functions out of that area to the old Walter Simmons, the site of the Walter Simmons housing project as well as the Coke

bottling plant, which is by the Fairgrounds and the City should be out by summer of 2023. About 17 acres of what was originally The Old Forest that the zoo had claimed for a Chickasaw Bluffs

exhibit is going back to the Conservancy for public use. - A plan that they never, the forest was untouched, it was just fenced off. - Right. - They never executed that plan. - Right, the

zoo did clear some trees- - Yes. - Along the eastern edge of Rainbow Lake at some point that was a part of that plan, a part to delineate it's property, that's also going back to

the zoo, to the Overton Park Conservancy, as part of The Old Forest. The Conservancy's plan is to treat the new part of The Old Forest that they're getting control of as if it were

part of the State Reserve Area that currently exists in The Old Forest. - This replaces, so there were, you know, renovations or changes to the Prentiss Place parking lot over towards

McLean. There was talk of putting a deck over there, that got too expensive, and all this was against the backdrop of, some years ago, I've lost track, the Overton Park and zoo mediated

the solution, which about a acre and a half of the Greensward was gonna be given to the zoo for the existing parking lot, which would be reconfigured. Full disclosure, I was chair of the

board of Overton Park Conservancy at that time when that was agreed to. So, Toby you have, but all that's off the table now- - Right. - And you've been covering this, Bill said

eight years-- - Mm-hm. - But it really goes, I mean, parking on the Greensward has been happening for a few decades. - Since the '80's. - Yep, '80's, yep. - Since the

'80's, based on a simple letter from, I think, I believe it was Mayor Herenton- - Mm-hm. - It's always been a point of contention. It blew up when the Conservancy was formed

and it just, it has rattled and frustrated and angered people and divided friendships, I mean it just- - Sure. - And for Daja, who was not here reporting, I feel terrible because we're

gonna leave her out of this 'cause it, [laughing] [all laughing] what did you say before the show? - I like the trees in Overton Park. - Yeah, exactly! [all laughing] So, I mean, you

come to this wonderful, you don't have to worry or know about this stuff that so many people have been furious about on both sides of the issue for so long. - I started, I went back

yesterday and looked and my first story about this, I interviewed somebody from Citizens To Protect Overton Park and we walked out on the Greensward and they showed me this big long, you

know, rutted trail here where the cars would come off the lot and into the Greensward and it was kind of an ugly thing, they started a campaign called "Get Off Our Lawn", right,

and even before that, Bill and I were talking at City Hall earlier this week, even before that, they were just a group of dudes that would go out on the weekends, they saw where that was,

and they would go out with camp chairs and just sit 'em out there with cones and things and just kind of block it off as sort of a- - High school students. - High school students that

would go and try to block these cars from coming there. So, I definitely know that 2014 was kinda the first time I wrote about this tension out there, it went and went and went. I covered

City Hall off and on and I would always do, like, you know, a City Hall story, what was happening in the day and then my Greensward story because that was also a story, right, and I

can't tell you how many times I've written about the Greensward over the years, but it's been eight years and I gotta say, credit to Bill Dries where it's due, hat tip,

he beat everybody in the Memphis market on this new plan by about two or three hours, I think, before it was formally announced by the Mayor and all of those, but it turned my head around.

It was a real shock to see what the plan was, in October we were going back to that original plan that came from the mediation and then just a few short months after that, here's

Overton Park Conservancy getting 20, 25 acres of park land back with all of this reshuffling done, it was really impressive to see a plan that they came back with. - And the Greensward

remains intact, I don't think we pointed that out- - That's right. - In the beginning, but the Greensward does remain intact, no trees would be taken from it. There will be a kind

of a walking trail that is along the raised berm that separates it currently from the parking area, but this had reached the point where they were about to start taking some trees- - Mm-hm.

- And that was kind of the deadline pressure that was on this. Meanwhile, Chuck Brady, who- - Former President of the zoo. - Right, right, who had been with the zoo, had taken a kind of hard

line and as early as two years ago, we saw a real contrast in that when Jim Dean came on this show- - That's right. - And it was kind of a throwaway question about the Chickasaw Bluffs

exhibit and he told us right at this table, "We don't really need that. We've put that on hold, we're not gonna do that." - It was, I mean, I can't help, I was

so wrapped up in this 'cause I was on the board at the time. I think, one thing and then we'll move on, that for people and, you know, it's good to have Daja here to remind

that not everyone knows all the backstory, the backstory for the people who are very pro-park was, in no small part, the history of Overton Park some 50 years ago when the federal government

was gonna put a highway down the center of the park, through Evergreen and, you know, straight on over to Arkansas and the fight that stopped that was a really, you know, pivotal moment in

Memphis history and a pivotal moment for the park and so cars and traffic were, it was beyond the cars that were on the Greensward,- - Right. - Which a lotta people didn't like, but it

was also this history of the park. The zoo is a beloved Memphis institution. - That's right. - I took my kids there when they were little, I mean, people loved the zoo. People love the

zoo, I mean, it's a huge driver of economic growth and so it just was so painful and I think there is huge credit for changes, you know, that Jim Dean, when he came on, was a complete

change in tone and the board that hired Jim Dean that, you know, Richard Smith and Tommy Farnsworth and others who said, "Hey, we gotta stop fighting, these are great institutions"

and then Tina Sullivan and a lotta people on, who is the Executive Director of Overton Park, I will also point out and [laughing] I can't help it, there is not a single solution

that's been proposed, the parking deck and what has been basically resolved at this last week that wasn't proposed by people on both sides eight years ago, behind closed doors. -

Wow. - And it's very sad that it took this long. Many of those conversations were led by George Cates, the original Executive Director and one of the founders of the Overton Park

Conservancy and who tragically died, a friend who died last year, and so it is, you know, you sorta look and go, well, all these pieces were there, they were all there the whole time and it

is, you know, thanks to some people who said, "Hey, let's go back to those ideas and we can get this done." You wanna? - Just to finish it off, you were talking about all the

different plans for the park over the years, the original plan then maybe the parking deck and I was talking with Doug McGowen who's the Chief Operating Officer for the City and he said

the garage was more of an exploration, you know, instead of a hard plan and I said, "What guarantee do we have that this new plan is the plan that's gonna stick around?" and

he said, "It's about as guaranteed as you're gonna get." It's got sign off from everybody that needs it. and so, hopefully, this will go forward. - Yeah. Let's

switch gears, [laughing] Daja, and talk about education, which is your beat for Daily Memphian. There's a lot going on, maybe we start with Joris Ray, the Superintendent of Memphis, I

gotta get used to it, it's not SCS anymore, it's Memphis/Shelby County Schools had his state of the, state of the State, state of the school system- - State of the District. - Talk

about some of those things that he put forward and where we are with the school district. - Well, probably the most attention grabbing thing was that Dr. Ray suggested that he wanted to

explore year-round schooling and that's still in the exploration stages, he really stressed that there's no concrete plan to do it, but that he wanted to look at that basically, as

we have a lot of not only the summer slide where kids are not learning in the summer, but also kinda catching up from COVID-19 and then he also mentioned that Memphis has a lot of latchkey

kids, meaning, like, kids who are at home when their parents are at work during the day and, kinda, just living. So, another, and then another thing that he mentioned was some bonuses for

teachers, so raising teachers salaries. - Let's stay with the year-round thing. I mean, it is interesting because over the years of many school shows and, you know, not just on this

show and not just in Daily Memphian, writing about that summer slide, I saw it as a parent when my kids would, you know, sort of devolve, you know, by July, you're like, "Oh my

God, they'll never read again" [Daja laughing] and, but it is also, it comes off COVID, right, and the learning loss of COVID and now they've got this federal money to do, I

mean, we did a show with Dr. Ray or some of us did a show with Dr. Ray and staff, talking about all these specialists who are coming in and working with kids, and also they've got, at

the younger age, this State mandate, this law, that they've got to be ready, what is it, third grade? - Third grade. - Third grade ready. Summer is a big learning loss for especially

younger kids, so it's interesting that it was proposed. I know a lotta parents have talked about how they would love that, they would love to see more of that. We are an anomaly in

industrialized, you know, societies, in that we have this big two and a half, three month break in the summer. So, but it, right now, what comes next on that? And then we'll come back

to some of the other things he talked about. Just- - The main thing he said, the next steps were talking to experts and doing some more research about it. - Okay. Keep going, so they, you

mentioned spending on teachers and there's also more student assistants or teacher assistants that are coming in. Talk about that. - Yeah, so there's more money for teacher

salaries is in his plan and also adding another bonus or another step or another lane, it's called the step in lane salary schedule for educators, to adding another lane for principals.

So, including principals- - Right. - And raising teacher wages or educator wages. - They've also got, what, $776 million that they got in federal money through various COVID acts.

They've identified things as, you know, five million dollars for installing filtered water bottle stations. They've also talked about $170 million in classroom, a hundred and

seventy million dollars in classroom additions and HVAC, AC/heating improvements. Anything else that, any other insight on where that money will be spent? - The main thing I think you

didn't mention was tutoring. So, increasing tutoring for kids, again, addressing the issue of COVID learning loss, so- - Yeah. We'll come back to some of the other things. The

Governor has announced a new change for funding, but we'll get to that in a minute. I, as we maybe segue, and I'll go to you, back to you, Bill, of Brian Kelsey, the longtime State

Senator, before that was a State House member, announced that he's calling off his reelection bid. He is under invest, help me out, 'cause I wanna be fair- - He's been

charged with campaign finance violations, that it's a federal indictment. He is scheduled to go on trial about a year from now. - Yeah, and Brent Taylor, who was just on the show and

didn't break news by announcing this, yeah, and so I'm angry with him, Brent Taylor, who was the City, who was now or has just recently stepped down as head of the Election

Commission, he's a former City Councilman, former County Commissioner, has been involved in Republican, local, regional Republican politics for decades now, he announced that he is

running for that seat. - Yeah, he's getting into the Republican primary race. This was very significant, because you also had, even before Brent pulled his petition and got into this,

you had Brandon Toney in Germantown who had announced that he would also challenge Kelsey in the Republican primary in August, on the August ballot, not the May one coming up, but the August

ballot, that's when those primaries are, and you may have some other people who join in the Republican primary now that is an open seat. This is a big political development. Kelsey

enjoyed widespread support in the party prior to this, even when he was a State House member. - Yeah. - Before Republicans became the majority here. - He was very controversial for a lotta

people, though. I mean, certainly people on, to the left of Brian Kelsey made their voices heard on, you know, our comments, our social media, I'm sure The Flyer's comments and

social media, anything we wrote about him. I mean, he was a lightning rod for a lotta people. - He was and I did some research back in our archives, just on some kind of his greatest hits as

far as some of the controversial stuff. 2014, he supported the Religious Liberties Act which would've allowed businesses to turn away same sex couples. He pulled his sponsorship of it,

but that was after a lotta people were calling it the, you know, "Turn Away The Gays" Bill and that one earned national rebukes from Lance Bass, from N'SYNC, Steve Cohen

called it Neanderthal and Kelly English, who was a chef, local chef, said he was gonna do a fundraiser for anybody that would run against Kelsey at the time. In 2016, Kelsey sponsored a bill

that would've given accreditation to the Association of Classical and Christian Schools. Now, the founder of that organization is a far right religious leader and he openly supported

slavery and the exiles of gays at the time. Kelsey pulled that bill as well. Later, he, Kelsey recently wanted to require colleges to, you know, make students take the ACT before they got

into school and called anybody that it was against that, he called them, "Woke" for whatever that meant and then more recently, this was a couple days ago, he supported the bill to

strip local control from, only Memphis, of who could serve as first responders here. He's certainly a far right character. I mean, you can even hear it in, you know, when the

indictment came down, he tweeted, "This is nothing but a political witch hunt. "The Biden Administration is trying to take me out "because I'm conservative "and

I'm the number one target of the Tennessee Democratic Party." So, a lightning rod for sure. - Speaking of bills he pursued, he was a big advocate for the Constitutional amendment

to ban a income tax, I believe. I don't know- - Right. - That he led that bill, but he was a huge advocate for it. - He did. - He was always a huge advocate for school vouchers, which

had lots of support, and there is now a voucher in no small part because of the efforts that he's brought forward. - Mm-hm. - Other notable bills, bills, Bill, [Bill laughing] that come

to mind? - He is also a sponsor of the Constitutional amendment that is proposed, which is on the November ballot, which would make Tennessee even more of a right-to-work state at a time

when we have this more than $5 billion Ford plant going in out at the Megasite in Haywood County, and which Ford has said that they anticipate that there will be union representation- -

Right. - Of that workforce by the United Auto Workers and just last night, as we record this on a Thursday, he tweeted that his number one goal before he leaves will be to pass the law that

would ban residency requirements for fire and police, firefighters and police officers here in Tennessee. The latest version of that bill in the House, which conflicts with the Senate

version, would have that bill apply only to Memphis. - Yeah. We'll stay with the State House and come back to you, Daja, on education. Obviously, the State has huge influence on funding

and control and policies over how local schools work, very much including Memphis/Shelby County Schools. Talk about the Governor's plan for changing the longtime formula for how school

funding from the State goes to local schools. - Yeah, so this new formula, they're calling it TISA, Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act, and, basically, it is shifting to a

student-centered funding formula, kind of, I'll borrow some language from Dr. Ray, Superintendent, "reimagining" this way that education was funded. So, there was the Basic

Education Program and now with TISA, basically what Governor Lee says that he's doing is shifting that money to follow the students. To have factors for or have considerations for

certain factors such as poverty or whether the district is in a rural area. So, there are basically, it's basically a one, they, the presentation that he gave showed, like, a one page

formula. Basically you can plug in, like, This district has X amount of students living in an impoverished area, things like that that will shift that funding to- - Yeah. - Students. - And

B-, see now they changed it and I, only after 11 years, I finally got used to saying BEP, Basic Education Program? - Yeah, mm-hm, yeah. - Is that right? See, and now they're gonna

change it, [Daja laughing] that's why I'm totally opposed to this. There have been lawsuits over the years, Bill, lots of questions about whether BEP was ever really being

followed. Do I have that right- - Yeah. - In terms of the backstory of BEP? How, let's start with Dr. Ray or maybe the school board here, are they generally in favor of this new funding

formula? Did they feel like it's a positive for local schools? - So, I mean the Shelby or Memphis/Shelby County Schools, Shelby County Board of Education and advocates as well have

said that, you know, they're cautiously hopeful about this bill. - Okay, yeah. - Like, it sounds good- - Yeah. - But once, we'll see when it's, how it is put into play and one

thing that some parent advocates were saying was that they wanna see how this will be, how the districts will be held accountable in this new funding formula, because when it was presented,

the Education Commissioner, Penny Scwhinn, basically said that, you know, "We're doing this but it's on the districts to", um- - To implement and spend in a way- -

"Implement and spend that money." Yes, she said, "It's not a spending formula, it's a funding formula." - Very good point, that's very interesting. Bill,

were you gonna add something on that? - Yeah, I think that there have been some long-standing concerns because this concept of the funding traveling with the individual student, it is

certainly not a new concept and it's one that has given rise to the prominence that charter schools have in the state, as well, so I think there's gonna be some careful watching of

the language of this to see how much more separation you get in terms of that funding traveling with students because the ultimate suspicion here is that this is a back door plan to go to a

full voucher system- - Yeah, right. - Which has been a debate over several years now in Nashville. - And also, Governor Lee has talked about bringing more private schools, making them, I

mean, essentially it's vouchers, but from a different angle, right? - Right. - A whole series of schools that could be brought in and approved for public money, so- - Because the

funding is- - Child by child. - Broken down on per pupil and it travels with the student- - Right. - Wherever they go. - Which how it works with, to be fair, how it works now if someone

goes, you know, in some of the suburban schools that have, you know, gray areas where the students are and they go across boundaries, it's how it works with the charter schools, right?

- Mm-hm. - The State money follows the child from the Memphis/Shelby County Schools into the charter schools. Real quickly, and I'll stay with you, Bill, 'cause you were out, off

last week, the 3-G legislation, the three Germantown schools and the effort of the State Legislature to turn those, force those back into the hands, or bring those, I shouldn't use

force, however you, depends on what side of the issue you're on, but move those back into the hands of local Germantown control is where? - It popped back up in what are kind of the

closing days, the Legislature's moving toward a shutdown and it's one of numerous bills that have bobbed back to the surface. Our Abigail Warren has done extensive reporting on

this. Basically, the State had left this as, "You guys at Memphis/Shelby County Schools "and the Germantown Municipal School District "and the City of Germantown, you guys

talk on this "but if you can't reach an agreement, "we will come up with some way that those three schools, "Germantown Elementary, Middle and High School could go back

to Germantown Municipal School District"- - Right. - Or to Municipal School District. - We will continue to track that and write about that. With four minutes left, I, we have a bunch

more to get to, we won't get to everything, but Toby, I wanted to turn to TVA and MLGW, obviously the huge negotiation discussion, the angling that's going on right now of whether

MLGW will renew its contract with TVA. TVA pouring a lot of money, effort and time into the Memphis area to try to convince MLGW to renew that agreement. MLGW is the biggest customer- -

Mm-hm, right. - In the entire TVA system. What have you been finding and writing about with TVA? - I have been working on a story that'll be in The Flyer week about TVA and renewables

and there's a lot of, you know, environmental advocates out there that don't feel TVA is doing enough to really get us to, you know, our climate goals in Memphis, especially if you

look at the Memphis Climate Action Plan that was passed in 2019. Our goals there are really tied to what the TVA can do and they say they're not gonna be zero, you know, zero carbon

energy source until 2050. The Biden Administration wants it to be 2035. There's a lot of push and pull there. These advocates will tell me to look at solar in America. They say the

South, the southeast is far behind the rest of the country and TVA is far behind all of the other utilities in the southeast and then MLGW, as far as, you know, watts per customer that are

solar is below average. So, we're not doing really well in solar that we can do here. They say there's a lot of different goals and hurdles that TVA will put up to make it harder

to integrate solar and renewables into our overall capacity grid. I'm still kinda looking into a whole lot of that, but it's pretty plain that the TVA is making it pretty tough to

get into renewables here. - They, we've done a number of stories lately, I mean, again, MLGW has some questions about making sure everything is transparent- - Yeah. - In terms of

financial disclosures, we don't have time to get into that. MLGW has kind of responded to some of the things we and others have raised about, you know, having everything transparent,

everything above board as this decision goes forward. To that end, we do have the folks, 450 Million For Memphis, who have been advocating for Memphis, advocating very hard for Memphis to

leave TVA and go with MISO out of Arkansas, a different cooperative. We also are reaching out to TVA. We've had Jeff Lyash, the CEO of TVA on, somewhere in COVID,- - Mm-hm. -

'Cause I remember we did it by Zoom and hopefully get him back on as well as Mark Yates that we've reached out to as the Regional Director on that. We are coming up to the end,

though, and I wanted to take a quick moment to say thanks and mark a friend and in, behind the scenes, a friend of the show, John Gamel, who was the head of the local HUD office here for

many years. I never could get John Gamel to come on the show, he wouldn't do it, but he would criticize shows we did, he would give me ideas for shows we did. He was a huge advocate for

work that Bill and I used to do at Daily News and at Daily Memphian and he worked with all kinds of things, very much behind the scenes. He was a transplant to Memphis and he worked, you

know, on blight issues and neighborhood issues and with community development groups around the city. He passed away at what, for me now, is a much too young age recently and it was a huge

loss. He loved the city, he came here from Birmingham. He sort of traveled the country as working for HUD and he really did fall in love with this place and he did some pretty amazing things

and he died of cancer at really much too young an age and is a huge loss. I hate to leave, we'll end on that, but I wanted to note that the influence behind the scenes that John had

had on me and many of the types of neighborhood and development and smart growth kind of conversations that we've had over the years. That is all the time we have, though, if you missed

any of the show, you can get the full show as well as past episodes at WKNO.org. You can get just, you can search "Behind The Headlines" on YouTube. You can also download the full

podcast of the show, including a few more questions from our guests that we may have, and you can get the podcast at The Daily Memphian site, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your

podcasts. Next week, we look at redevelopment in Whitehaven. Thanks and we'll see you then. [intense orchestral music] [acoustic guitar chords]