Shelby County has a new mayor after a joint swearing-in Lee Harris and Shelby County Commissioners. Harris will resign from the Tennessee Senate Friday.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the first African-American to hold a leadership position in the Tennessee Senate. Senator John Ford served as Speaker Pro Tempore from 1987 to 1988.
New Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and members of the Shelby County Commission were sworn in Thursday during a ceremony at the Cannon Center of the Performing Arts.
This was the first time in recent memory that Shelby County commissioners and the mayor were sworn in during a joint ceremony.
Harris said that joint ceremony shouldn't be taken for granted.
“I’m enthused by the fact that we’re able to pull off a unity ceremony," Harris said. "I hope that will be a sign of things to come, that we’ll be able to work together collaboratively."
Harris will resign from the Tennessee State Senate Friday and take office as mayor Saturday.
He has served in the Tennessee Senate since 2014, becoming the youngest senator in the state at that time. Once there, he was named Senate Minority Leader.
Resigning from the Senate is "bittersweet," he said.
Harris, 39, is a law professor who campaigned for less blight and poverty as well as better mass transit and education.
He has already begun filling the more than 100 positions he'll appoint, naming his chief administrative officer Tuesday.
A transition team, divided into six task forces, is currently at work on a report that Harris will receive in October. That report will likely become the basis of a strategic plan for Shelby County, said Danielle Inez, who heads the transition team.
"This is an opportunity for the mayor-elect to put the county on a path forward where we actually have the types of issues that matter to the people that live in this county," Inez said at a transition team meeting earlier this week.
Harris said he wants to work closely with the new Commission and that he considers himself "just one of the commissioners."