The Memphis City Council convened its regular meeting on February 21, 2023. The meeting opened with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by multiple honorary resolutions recognizing community members. The council also debated and voted on a series of consent agenda items, including zoning amendments and public safety ordinances, responding to public demand for police reform following the death of Tiree Nicholes.
Mr. Sergeant at Arms, will you please call our February 21st meeting of the Memphis City Council to order? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I would like to recognize our chaplain of the day, Reverend Leonard Perkins, Patmos Island Community Church has been invited by Councilman Morgan. The prayer will immediately be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Reverend Perkins, please lead us in prayer. Thank you, Lanka. Thank you all for your invitation. Let us pray. Merciful and Almighty God. Thank you for this opportunity to come before you in prayer. God, we ask you first of all to forgive us where we've fallen short. Thank you for the opportunity to pray for those who have given their lives and careers through serving our public. Thank you for those who have taken the time to educate themselves and to practice those things to help us to accomplish the common good. Help them to achieve their goals. As a collective body of citizenry, I pray that we all work together to accomplish those things that would make Memphis and the greater community of these United States of America a better place. We pray this in no other name than your daughter and son. Amen. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Reverend Perkins, you can you can stay on up here. Um just a moment. Um we got a I've got a resolution for you and also just an honorary thank you. But I want to speak from my heart for a moment to council members and and medium people in the audience. If you don't know Reverend Perkins, uh, I hope you get to do. Um I uh over the last year has been a joy of mine in this job to experience new parts of our community and city and to meet people who have given so much to so many. Um and Reverend Perkins certainly is one of those. Twenty-three years ago, he started his church in a in a busted out run-down house uh in humble beginnings, but the service he's given is greater than what appears on the surface. Um he served on our Air Force in the early 70s, and since then he has been a stalwart in our community for the veterans, the thousands of veterans in the Memphis and Shelby County area that just need a little bit more help than they're getting. If you've got a veteran that is living under an underpass and didn't quite get on the right footing when they got out of the service, you'd see Reverend Perkins there talking to them, engaging with them and helping them through the red tape and the bureaucracy of the VA or the hospital system in order to make sure that they were cared for, that they were heard, that they were understood, and they were put in the right hands and on the right footing. He has been an unsung hero of our community, especially in service to the veterans. Uh, for uh a life well lived and an example, shining example to all of us for what it means to love your neighbor. Thank you. I want to thank you for for this honor, and and I appreciate it very much. And this gives me the opportunity to make everybody aware uh of the work that we are doing for veterans at 2146 Ball Road. Uh, and we call it the All Veterans Adaptive Sports Center, where we take all veterans of all periods, regardless of where you've served or when you served or how you served, uh, you can become a member of our organization. And what we do there is uh a very uh it's it's a very therapeutic environment. We provide uh adaptive sports for uh physically and visually disabled veterans. We have the blind veterans of West Tennessee on our property, and uh we are uh engaging now in the youth uh physically disabled and blinded youth. We're having uh an exhibition there on the 23rd of April. You can follow it on our website at VVA1113.org. But we are the largest and fastest growing veterans initiative in western Tennessee, and we're getting ready to add equine therapy uh where we'll be working with horses to help bring down the symptoms of uh PTSD anxiety and depression. I see Brother Allen back there, one of our equestrians that helped us with the horses, and we just thank you so much for this opportunity to shed some light on that. And if I could for a quick moment, if you've served in the armed forces and the reserves, will you please just stand and be recognized so we can just say thank you to everyone out here and uh make sure to stop in and visit with Reverend Perkins at lunch one day? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.