WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (HOST): After a devastating fire destroyed a Downtown Memphis landmark, city leaders are vowing to rebuild. But how? And to what end? With us again is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris. My pleasure.
BLANK: Otis, no doubt losing Clayborn Temple to arson was a tragedy. On Wednesday, many local officials and even Martin Luther King III gathered to talk about rebuilding. One group even committed $1.5 million. But if I could play Devil's Advocate here, the original restoration project was a kind of adaptive reuse of a historic church. But now that a lot of the interior history is gone, it seems like there needs to be a discussion of what purpose this new reimagining will serve. And I'm wondering: do you think that's missing from the conversation so far?
SANFORD: Well, you make a very valid point here, Chris. And I do think it's missing from the conversation. As you said, when the church was still there in its original frame, there was a reason to restore it and bring it back as close to what it originally looked like. But now that the whole thing has been gutted, I still think there is a valid reason for restoration, but I don't think it will serve any purpose to try to recreate the old Clayborn Temple.
BLANK: I'm sensing that public officials are talking up the project because of that history, but I haven't heard any commitments of tax dollars. What would you need to see for this to become something that, maybe, the city council actually gets behind financially?
SANFORD: I would like to see a multipurpose facility here, perhaps even tied to the National Civil Rights Museum in some way that focuses on things like job training and workforce investment.
BLANK: But not so much a like an auditorium space, which is what the church was going to be. You know, a place for concerts and community organizing and things like that. Now, we're looking at more of a civic building that has maybe more nonprofit concerns going on inside of it.
SANFORD: Well, I mean, I think its could be a combination of both. I mean, the place is big enough, the space is big enough. But yes, I think it needs to be reimagined as a place that would hold to what the sanitation workers were trying to do, which was to try to force the city to recognize them and their worth as human beings for jobs and being trained for jobs and being well paid for jobs. So, I think if we stick along that line, I can see some progress here.
BLANK: Well, the city council has been talking about some other Downtown buildings. Council member Jeff Warren believes if a new jail does get funded by the county, it should not be Downtown. And there are some people who would agree with that. What's the reasoning for moving the jail?
SANFORD: There may be a valid reason to move the jail out of Downtown, but I don't think this is a conversation that Jeff Warren, as well-meaning as he is and civic-minded as he is... I don't think it's a conversation that he needs to be leading since the city doesn't have any financial involvement in the jail. This is a conversation that needs to be held across the street in county government.
BLANK: Speaking of county government, the Shelby County Commission has for quite a while been talking about bringing back its Ethics Commission, making sure rules are followed. Then suddenly this week, that idea got scrapped. So, what happened there?
SANFORD: Well, I just think that there's too much bickering, there's too much backbiting, personality conflicts, and it is hamstringing the effort to do what is right here, Chris. There is absolutely no reason why we should not have a strong ethics board or group that is tasked with looking into things that the elected leaders are doing wrong here. And we should not be letting personalities get in the way of that, and it's a shame that it is.
BLANK: You mentioned personalities and I think the personality in the foreground here has been Commissioner Edmund Ford, Jr. who is facing a federal trial for bribery and tax evasion. But he has been already in the court of public opinion waving cans of bug spray and threatening to go after "cockroaches." I guess he's referring to other members of the commission here. What's with that? Is he the one pulling the strings somehow to stop this ethics commission from being revived?
SANFORD: Let me just be frank here, Chris. Commissioner Ford has done and is doing a total disservice to his position on the county commission. The end of his term can't come soon enough because I think he is standing in the way of progress that is being made here. We absolutely need strong ethics in county government. But really what we need most of all is for this commissioner's tenure to be over and let him deal with his own legal issues in the federal court.
BLANK: That will be happening in July, apparently, when he uh gets a trial date set, I suppose.
SANFORD: And if he's found guilty of the charges, maybe his term will end even sooner than 2026, who knows?
