Announcer: This is The Takeaway from WNYC and PRX, in collaboration with GBH News in Boston.

Mayor Maddie Parker: My name is Maddie Parker and I'm the new mayor of Fort Worth, Texas. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3: When the mayor has swagger, city has swagger.

Speaker 4: To everyone who will join our mission to move LA in a new direction, mark my words, we will get big things done.

Speaker 5: I was born and raised here and I love this city, and I walk with the city in my soul and in my heart.

Speaker 6: Who's ready to move [unintelligible 00:00:33] in a new direction?

[applause]

Janae Pierre: Today we're continuing our series "23 Mayors in 2023", where we're talking to 23 mayors from cities, big and small, all across the country. You'll be hearing about how these mayors are confronting the unique challenges facing their communities and hear about some of their tragedies and triumphs. You might even get some travel tips.

Song: Going back, I'm going back to Arkansas.

Janae Pierre: This week, we're heading to small town Arkansas to talk with one of the most intriguing new mayors in the country.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: Earle, Arkansas is a city where we're surrounded by a lot of farm land crops where they grow beans, and also the community here is a big family. My name is Jaylen Smith, the mayor of the city of Earle, Arkansas. When families fall short, as the community or as one big family, we come together to help those families that's in need around the city of Earle, Arkansas. That's what makes us great. Also, we have so much great history behind Earle as well, but the main part being one big family, loving and caring for each other, that makes Earle great.

Janae Pierre: Earle, Arkansas is a small town of about 1,800 residents in the Northeast of the state, just about 25 miles west of Memphis, Tennessee. In December, mayor Smith won a runoff election, receiving 218 votes to his opponent's 139 votes. He was sworn in on January 1st. While the city of Earle might be small, mayor Smith is trying to bring the city's fighting spirit to his new job as mayor.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: Our mascot is a Bulldog, so a lot of people say we're Bulldogs. When they come out of Earle, they just say, "We're Bulldogs."

Janae Pierre: Now, Mayor Smith is not your typical mayor. He's just 18 years old. In fact, he's the youngest Black mayor in US History, and he started his campaign while still a senior at Earle High School, home of the Bulldogs.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: When I announced my campaign in January, 1, 2022, a lot of people took me as a joke, but more so the young people and the middle-aged people were on board with the change that they wanted to see within the city of Earle, Arkansas. When I ran my campaign, I ran my campaign based off economic development, infrastructure and public safety.

The idea was, and how I won my campaign, how I won voters over was, "Do you want to see change within the city of Earle, Arkansas, or do you want to continue to see Earle move backwards?" I said, we want a change in the community. We want somebody young in the community. My next thing what I always tell them, "Why should I have to go be great somewhere else when I can be great right here in the city of Earle, Arkansas?"

Janae Pierre: Now, you may be wondering just what being mayor of a small town like Earle might entail. Mayor Smith is also a college student at Arkansas State University, mid-South. He's taking courses online so he can manage the many responsibilities of being mayor.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: A mayor job is not just a regular eight to four job, it's actually a 24/7 job. Mayors really pretty much run the day-to-day operations over department heads and mayors oversee a lot of things on the day-to-day operations. Also, I have a city council, so I have to take bills, budgets and proposals to the council to get them approved, but the council basically approved laws and resolutions within the city.

Janae Pierre: One of the major promises of Mayor Smith's campaign that he's trying to deliver on as mayor of Earle is bringing a grocery store back to the community. Earle has zero grocery stores and residents have to travel 15 to 20 miles to access one.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: It would make a big impact on the citizens of Earle because our community is more of a municipality community where a lot of people don't have money. The money they do have without having a grocery store is hard on them because we have to go to a place [unintelligible 00:04:15] West Memphis, Marion, Marked Tree, Jonesboro, we in Arkansas, to get groceries and we have to pay for transportation and people don't have a lot of money. If we had a grocery store right here within the community, our citizens would have a closer grocery store they can go to and shop, better money to spend.

They spend money on the groceries that they need instead of spending a lot of money paying people, they ain't getting groceries. It'd be a very [unintelligible 00:04:39] on our community and on our citizens as a whole, especially for our elderly because our elderly, they don't drive and they have to count on other people to take them to the store. When they take them, it's hot.

We want to try to bridge that gap, because Earle had a grocery store a few years ago, but the plan, we know that it's going to be a struggle getting us back a grocery store due to our population, but we're still pushing to get a grocery store. It might not be a bigger size of a Kroger or a Big Star, but it can be a smaller section of a supermarket within the community. We're very grateful to whatever we get within this community. We're still fighting, we're still working with our state legislators, US Congress, our governor, to see what are some ways that we can get a grocery store within this community.

Janae Pierre: Another top priority for Mayor Smith is working to improve public safety in Earle. He believes that begins with greater police presence.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: We have a lot of concerns within the community about not having police officers out on duty 24/7, which we are addressing that. We are actually now a full staff police department, but we don't have all our shifts covered, but that's one concern that people want to see more police presence in the community and they want to feel safe. Back before I came here, our police was not even a full-functioning police department within this community. We have to wait on the county like 30 minutes away to come.

By time the county get to a call the crime that has been committed, the criminal's already gone. We want to try to bridge that gap with our community to make sure that our citizens feel safe and we have police officers here and responding to calls quickly and effectively. Also, we're trying to find other funding in other ways, in other avenues that we can get more funding in our police department to hire more full-time officers, maybe two or three, so we can bridge the gap to have overnight police officers.

Janae Pierre: We have to take a quick break, but more with Mayor Jaylen Smith Smith of Earle, Arkansas when we come back. This is The Takeaway.

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Janae Pierre: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Janae Pierre in for Melissa Harris-Perry. We've been hearing from the 18-year-old mayor of Earle, Arkansas, Jaylen Smith, for our "23 Mayors in 2023" series. In his second month on the job, mayor Smith says that increasing police presence is one of his public safety priorities. Earle, Arkansas is just 25 miles west of Memphis, where Tyre Nichols was killed last month at the hands of Memphis police. The Takeaway asked Mayor Smith how that tragedy has changed how he's thinking about public safety for his city.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: It's changed the perspective of law enforcement within our community. Our citizens are in sadness of what happened to Mr. Tyre Nichols from Memphis. Our heart goes out to the family and it just bridged the gap again between police officers and the public. As people in this Earle community, we want to continue not only in Earle, but as people in the United States, but particularly mainly in Earle, we want to bridge that gap between our police officers and the community. Our police department is moving it more from a police department to a police community-oriented police department.

Janae Pierre: Faith plays a big role in Mayor Smith's life and he cites the pastors from the many churches in the city of Earle as role models. As mayor of an entire town, he's also thinking about what his own leadership looks like, especially towards his peers and during this Black History month.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: This month, I'll be going to churches and speaking to the youth about Black history, but this Black History month, I want to just talk with youth and hopefully encourage them to live their dream and anything is possible. That's my mission to them as a young mayor. It's not about what people think or what people feel or how people feel about you. It's about how you feel and what you think you should do, because if you don't believe in yourself, how can you expect someone else to believe within yourself? That's my message I'm bringing the entire February. That's my message to the young people.

Janae Pierre: Mayor Smith is certainly living the message to dream big. He's just a couple months into his job as mayor of Earle, but he doesn't hold back when he looks ahead at his own future.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: The future for me, wherever God leads me, that's what I'm going to go, but I set goals and expectations for myself. I plan to either be in probably in the state legislative, US Congress, or even governor in 20 years.

Janae Pierre: For now, mayor Smith is focused on his big dreams for Earle, Arkansas. 20 years from now, he sees a better future for Earle and its residents.

Mayor Jaylen Smith: My hope from Earle is a lot of growth. Our population is increasing to at least about 20,000 people within this community or more, and have the best quality of living here with the best energy solar systems, and better proven public safety, better housing, better educational system. All our streets and drains are fixed, where people can come in and grow their own business, more opportunities for our elderly and our youth. Basically in our future, in 20 years from now, I see City of Earle as the best quality of living place.

Janae Pierre: Thank you to Mayor Jaylen Smith for sharing a part of Earle, Arkansas with us on The Takeaway. He's part of our year-long series "23 Mayors in 2023". Keep checking back for more of these.

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