Month: May 2003

One of the more remarkable sights to be had on Friday night, whose torrential rains and persistent tornado threats curtailed a session of the barbecue festival, was that of A C Wharton, dressed to the nines and paying a ceremonial visit to the tent of which he and 9th District U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. were the titular impresarios.

Even in that environment, shortly to become pandemonium, the Shelby County mayor looked immaculate and unflappable as he bestowed some gracious banter on a group of visiting German tourists, who became instant admirers all. And on the evening before, at a big-ticket East Memphis fund-raiser for his governmental counterpart, Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, Wharton had pulled off an equally impressive trick.

Asked what the current state of his budget was, Wharton looked upward reflectively and became an instant abacus. “Let’s see, there was a debt trade-off here…” he calculated it as worth $4 million, “…and reductions worth such-and-such here…” he gave the actual numbers, “…and applying a 5-percent spending cut here…” he paused and toted, “…all that puts the deficit at $29 million, down from $44 million, which means” he paused and toted again, “…as of right now we’re looking at a 25-cent property-tax increase.”

Only a day or two before, the morning newspaper had put the number at 41 cents, but that was before the county mayor and his team went back to what these days is the constant task of number-crunching. The 25-cent figure, Wharton indicated was hot off his own interior press, and the result of a good deal of jawboning and other effort.

One is tempted to say “arm-twisting,” except that dapper, almost dainty Shelby County mayor is clearly no bully boy and works almost exclusively through charm and good manners and gentle persuasion. Not to omit the aura of good faith he communicates.

It was clear that he was disappointed that a predictably well-orchestrated pressure campaign by local homebuilders and developers had forced both himself and the Shelby County commission to put off for a year any real consideration of his proposed “Altered Facilities Tax,” a de facto impact fee. “But we’re not going to lose any potential revenue as a result of that,” Wharton said philosophically. “And it’s important to set up something recurrent that we can depend on that everybody can agree on.”

His own use of the word “recurrent” made him wince a bit, as he recalled the deluge of complaints that he, like the several previous Shelby County mayors, had received about the notorious “wheel tax,” first passed during the Bill Morris administration to cover the costs of upgrading public education — then as now the squeaky wheel of county government.

“I never stop hearing about that damn thing!” Wharton exclaimed, his game smile hardly masking the genuine pain of recollection.

The task now, especially since the Altered Facilities Tax has been put on hold, is to find another “damn thing” that will pass muster with enough of the contentious pressure groups in Shelby County to get by a perpetually divided and squeamish commission.

One possibility is a payroll tax, and, after the homebuilders and developers pumped for it as an alternative to the AFT, he carefully began to drop it into his public discourse and to seed the idea with friendly members of the commission — like Deidre Malone, a newly elected Democrat (like Wharton) who brings it up every chance she has.

Participants in the public weal as diverse as mega-developer Ron Belz and Commissioner John Willingham, an unorthodox Republican also elected just last year, are talking the idea up in tandem with the idea of a proportionately discounted property tax — a sop which they hope will appeal to big employers like FedEx’s Fred Smith, widely credited with killing the payroll tax the last time it reared itself.

A C Wharton is optimistic that a solution will be found. Like Governor Phil Bredesen, another moderate Democrat and yet another reigning public official birthed in the fiscal desert of 2002, he is skilled enough to sell the idea of across-the-board cuts. His five–per-cent variety is close kin to the governor’s nine-percent version, and, like it, may be subject to a modicum of negotiaton before it or something like it gets into the lawbooks.

“We gotta find something,” says A C Wharton, looking both determined and patient, knowing that anybody less trusted or less mellow would have hell to pay. And so may he, if the current purgatory which, for better or worse, constitutes his moment extends too far.

It was perhaps inevitable: This is an election year, is it not? And what is an election year without the name of Joe Cooper on a local ballot? Cooper candidacies and rumors of Cooper candidacies are part of the very fabric of local politics — its warp and woof, as it were (and you can make your own puns involving those terms, thank you; it’s not brain surgery).

Cooper picked up a petition at the Election Commission Monday to run for the District 5 city council seat about to be vacated by two-termer John Vergos, who has announced that at some point he will endorse one of his would-be successors, specifying so far only that the endorsee would not be last year’s Republican nominee for county mayor, George Flinn. Lawyer Jim Strickland and community activist Mary Wilder, Democrats like Vergos, are real possibilities.

Cooper has run as a Democrat in recent years, but he isn’t holding his breath in anticipation of getting the nod from Vergos, an environmentalist who was probably scandalized, as so many were, by Cooper’s proposal to commercialize a hunk of Shelby Farms in his race for the county commission last year.

“Naw, all I’m looking to John for is some more of those world-famous ribs that he and his family [at The Rendezvous restaurant] are so noted for,” Cooper says modestly.

As for his ill-fated Shelby Farms proposal, Cooper says, “I’ve learned my lesson. The people in this district made their opinions known loud and clear. They want Shelby Farms to remain like it is.” That’s actually a plank in his newest platform (or it is a message tied to his finger by a string?) : Leave Shelby Farms Alone.

Another plank may cancel out the effect of that one for some voters, however. Cooper wants to fire the top administrators at the Office of Planning and Development and “reform” the structure of that agency generally. That typifies the point of view of several disgruntled members of the development community with whom Cooper has been close in recent years.

As usual in one of Cooper’s races, he proposes a 24-hour action line for seniors, and this year he adds to that a call for a new police precinct to focus on the area covered by District 5, whose center of balance is Midtown.

“I’m the most experienced candidate in this race. That’s the bottom line,” says Cooper, who is without doubt the most experienced at being a candidate, as well.

Cooper’s slogan is the same as it has been since 1995 when he coined it for a race for city court clerk which he almost won: “It’s Time — Now.” That has been preceded by his name and, sometimes, by the office he seeks. “What I think I’ll do is take last year’s yard signs and paste “city council” over the words “county commission,” he muses. Under the circumstances, not a bad idea.