As County Commission Economic Development Committee Chair, Commissioner Mickell Lowery has presided over 38,456 Shelby County job losses since 2019. In this way, public economic development practice has been ignored and dismissed by the County Commission.

Economic development involves the work of improving public revenues away from raising taxes, through increased wages, employment and private investment. But sadly, fueled primarily by staggering job losses, Memphis/Shelby public revenues can be shown to be $100M+ per year deficient when compared to peer cities.

Like his predecessor Commissioner Willie Brooks, Lowery is employed by FedEx. FedEx employed electeds have held the Commission Economic Development Chair going on 10yrs, with this Chair oddly not rotating as does other Committee Chairs.

Economically cataclysmic is this FedEx employee/elected official combination.

At -7.6%, Memphis/Shelby ranks last among their national peers in percentage employment change since 2019. Those Chamber selected national peer cities include Birmingham, Indianapolis, Louisville, New Orleans, Kansas City, St Louis County, St. Louis City, Oklahoma City, Nashville and Milwaukee.

More stunning is the $1B in abated local taxes, for job creation, since 2010 to instead result in job losses. With the recent Bureau and Labor Statistics June report, Shelby County employment levels are 466,225 or 551 less than the 466,776 employment 2010 levels that preceded EDGE’s creation. Along with other municipal abating boards in Shelby County, EDGE was created to generate job growth, not job losses.

Again, $1B in abated public dollars, since 2010, for job losses!

Effectively, the abandonment of public economic development oversight and practice, as exercised by Commissioner Lowery, further ensures public ripoffs by the FedEx//Memphis Tomorrow/Chamber complex. After all, corporations like FedEx enjoy taking on bullshit “branding” exercises, away from increasing local wages and the actual work of public economic development.

Besides, there is really nothing in a corporate charge that would have a corporation like FedEx give a shit about public economic development. Some may feel this assertion is harsh against FedEx, but not so much. Increasing wages is typically not a priority for corporations. But somehow the County Commission seems to want to entrust FedEx advice in raising local wages as contained in the work of public economic development. This reality is both baffling and idiotic! As clearly shown in the public data, there is no indication that FedEx or the Chamber give a fat ass damn about the local economy.

The Chamber fails, in every way, to represent the overall business community and in effect works as a public botcher staging public projects to benefit the elitist punk families of Memphis. The chart below documents Chamber public botching. In June 2022, the Chamber Prosper 2030 plan promised 20K more high-quality jobs by 2026. Instead, as of June 2025, 27,000 jobs have been lost. And then there was the December 2023 Accelerated Skills Center announcement. The Skills Center never opened and 10-20K job losses followed.

The chart above shows MEM/Shelby employment change vs their national peers’ average and TN municipal peers.

Besides Lowery, there’s even more County Commission economic development idiocy.

MORE COUNTY COMMISSION IDIOCY

Proving Commissioner Mickell Lowery’s abandonment of public economic development practice is simple. Just look at the Economic Committee agendas, which include the rubber stamping of tax incentives and zero discussion of staggering job and public revenue losses.

Then there are those like Commissioner Brandon Morrison, who recently said on the public record that the County Commission should not be legislating public economic development. How idiotic is that ?!?! Legislation is the only medium by which incentivized public economic development can exist !

And as far as workforce development, there sits Chair Erika Sugarmon. The Commission Workforce Development Committee rarely meets and when it does there is no discussion of local Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programming or aligning educational and workforce programming with future employer demand. It’s like Commissioners are unable to stage their own public discussions, without testimony from punk orgs like the Chamber, EDGE, Downtown Memphis Commission and others.

All that to say, the City of Memphis and Shelby County have been ripped off by the elitist punk families of Memphis. This small few group attempts to impress the public with their knowledge of history, art and culture. Come to find out, these families are nothing more than a band of Rednecks ripping off their own city. So idiotic.

For those that want to believe that Memphis is the victim of “boogie man” out of town investors, I can’t help you. But there is one thing for sure, if local government consolidation occurs, the punk families of Memphis will bully their way to the front of the line to begin ripping off that new local government. After all, it’s all the Chamber and elitists really know.

The above results in the same small few hogging the public plate, promising a glorious future, making money in the present day and sitting on the economy like an elephant, shutting out economic growth and others from participation. And KNOW, with a raging public revenue crisis, there are those at the Zoo insanely clamoring for a $100M elephant sanctuary. Go figure…

Given this public revenue crisis, local elected officials should be outraged but are not. The former, perhaps due to ignorance from inhaling elitist propaganda and a deficient media apparatus. Excluding municipal industrial development boards, EDGE propaganda alone claims 52,350 jobs exist locally due to EDGE’s work, while BLS claims 551 job losses.

Or perhaps local electeds are just too quantifiably stupid to understand the scale of the public revenue problem to be pissed. But really $100M in deficient annual local public revenue and $1 billion in abated taxes since 2010 for fewer jobs? WOW ! And no public officials are repulsed and pissed? C’mon….

Meanwhile, Commission Chair Shante Avant, at a minimum, should replace Commissioner Lowery with a new Economic Development Committee Chair.