More details of the impending deployment of the National Guard to Memphis came out last week via a press conference Gov. Bill Lee called Friday. Among the news dropped by the governor:

• Crime reduction efforts under the Memphis Safe Task Force will begin this week.
• The state is chipping in $100 million to the effort.
• Guard personnel will be Tennesseans who will not be making arrests and will not be armed unless local officials request it. 
• And Lee has assigned about 300 Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers to the region, meaning there should be almost 100 on duty at any one time.

Also the both Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission voted down resolutions that would have recorded formal opposition to the guard’s deployment. Both resolutions were nonbinding requests, meaning they would have had no power to actually stop President Donald Trump’s memorandum establishing the task force. And a group of 130 attended a local protest organized by a coalition of 18 groups unified in opposition to the guard’s deployment.

Outside of the task force news, Memphis-Shelby County Schools leaders have recommended closing four school buildings and transferring a fifth at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. The woman charged in a bizarre and brazen attempt to illegally sell Graceland was sentenced to more than four years in prison. And Rhodes College is celebrating its 100th year in Memphis, a union that columnist Geoff Calkins writes is crucial and collaborative, for both the city and the school.

— Metro editor Jane Donahoe

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Gov. Bill Lee outlined plans for Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force on Friday, saying that the first personnel could be in the Bluff City on Monday, Sept. 29.

City Council votes down National Guard resolution By Bill Dries

Resolution opposing National Guard deployment fails to pass County Commission By Bill Dries

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Calkins: For 100 years, Memphis and Rhodes have needed each other. That's truer than ever today. By Geoff Calkins

March against guard deployment targets 'occupation' as well as Trump and Lee By Bill Dries

Struggling CBU loses a third of its student population in one year By Jody Callahan

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