Month: September 2007

Categories
News The Fly-By

Meet & Green

CREDIT: Pathathai Chungyam | dreamstime.com

When Greening Greater Memphis (GGM) hosted a public meeting last February, they learned a
valuable lesson: Always, always reserve space for sponsors and VIPs.

The meeting and manifesto-signing, held at the Memphis Botanic Garden, drew an overcapacity crowd of more than 1,000. Parking overflowed onto Cherry Road, and there’s no telling how many people were turned away.

“We were really shocked by the response,” says Laura Adams, director of development for GGM-member organization Shelby Farms Park Conservancy. “We kept saying maybe we’ll have 200 [people]. If we get lucky, we’ll have 400.

“To have more people than the Botanic Garden could handle … We came to understand quickly that this was more than just an event. This is a movement.”

Adams won’t say which VIPs couldn’t get in but thinks that local politicians took notice, even if they had to hear about it the next day.

“People want walkable, bikeable communities. They want well-funded park amenities,” Adams says. “They want clean, green cities.”

GGM will take its next step Thursday, September 27th, with the Green Volunteer Expo, a chance for interested community members to “shop” for volunteer opportunities and learn about various green groups.

“It took a little while to come up with a next step,” Adams says. “Most of the comments we heard were: Okay, what comes next? How do we get involved? What can we do?”

Environmental activist Nancy Ream is something of a professional volunteer. She works with several of the GGM organizations and is the volunteer project manager for the expo.

“We’re trying to get the entire community involved. People say this isn’t about the whole community. Well, yeah, it is,” Ream says.

Greening Greater Memphis is composed of the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, the Wolf River Conservancy, the local Sierra Club, the Greater Memphis Greenline, and the Botanic Garden. More than 30 green groups will be in attendance at the expo, including the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council, Healthy Memphis Common Table, and the Coalition for Livable Communities. Groups that specialize in roof-top gardens and solar power will also be there.

“People can take a look at these different groups and see what they’re doing and where they’d like to volunteer,” Ream says. “Maybe they want to help with bike lanes. Maybe they want to work in community gardens.”

The range of volunteer opportunities is indicative of the movement’s broad focus. Though the February event included signing a statement to support improving public parks, “green” means a lot of different things to different people.

“People came for different reasons,” Adams says of GGM’s February meeting. “Some were involved in the parks movement, some were involved in the greenways movement. Some people are more interested in recycling or clean water and air.”

Adams anticipates GGM will become more focused in the coming months. Immediately after the expo, GGM plans to host another meeting, this one with the leaders of the green groups already in attendance.

“The leadership is going to talk about where GGM goes next,” Adams says. “One thing we’re talking about doing is bringing in a national authority on walkable, bikeable communities to instruct us on how we can develop those kinds of opportunities in Memphis.”

In time, Adams would like to see GGM function as an umbrella organization for other green groups. “I would love to see this organization with a 501(c)3 and be an advocate and a fund-raiser, something like an ArtsMemphis.”

On a more grassroots level, Ream hopes the expo will drive momentum. “It may be small in the beginning,” she says. “There are changes that every person can do. You can change the lightbulbs in your house to more energy-efficient ones. Eventually your utility bill will go down.”

Like February’s meeting, the volunteer expo will be held at the Botanic Garden. GGM plans to open up another parking lot this time, and they’ll definitely be saving space for the event’s sponsors and VIPs.

As for everybody else, plan on showing up early.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

A New Stadium

Regarding all the hubbub about building a new stadium on the University of Memphis grounds or the Fairgrounds: Does anyone realize how many SEC stadiums are older than the Liberty Bowl? Except for Arkansas — all of them. And they manage to keep their stadiums up-to-date.  

On Saturdays, most of those stadiums are full. The Liberty Bowl is lucky to be half-full. So what does the future hold? If you saw the U of M’s performance against UCF in Orlando last Saturday, [you would] say they should move to the CBHS field. But before they do that, Mayor Herenton should hire a consultant.

Joe Mercer

Memphis

Voting Machines

Does anyone care that Shelby County voters no longer have the secret ballot? That basic voting right, designed to protect voters from intimidation and to ensure that their votes will be free from retaliation, is impossible with the voting machines used in this county.

Gone are folded ballots and curtained booths. Anyone standing in the vicinity of the machines can now see what votes are being cast without any difficulty.

Robert A. Lanier

Memphis

Air America

In response to a recent disgruntled letter-writer’s sorrowful lament regarding Air America biting the broadcast dust (Letters, September 13th issue), another perspective is in order: Since only the letter-writer and three others were even listening to the daily bile spewed forth on Air America programs, it fell victim to the good old American marketplace.

Advertisers go where there is listenership. Hateful anti-American sentiment rarely sells long-term. As for conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and others started from nothing and built up their following by being not only entertaining but informative, drawing listeners and then advertisers. The secular progressives can’t compete in the marketplace with their bankrupt ideas.

Never fear though. There’s always National Public Radio and public television (taxpayer subsidized, I might add) with the ever-objective Bill Moyers and his ilk in total control. Only while on the public dole can they survive. So you do have an alternative, funded, I might add, by us generous conservatives.

As for me, I read and or subscribe to several alternative news organizations (Memphis Flyer, The New York Times, Time magazine) in order to keep abreast of what the far side is thinking.

Frank P. Lamanna Sr.
Germantown

Talk radio in Memphis again has reached another all-time low. With WWTQ AM-680 dropping Air America Radio, we are again stuck with the fascist opinions of the likes of the drug-dealing Limbaugh and the opinionated Mike Fleming.

Whenever I call and counter whatever lies Fleming throws out to his listening ostriches (neo-cons with their heads in the sand), he keeps his finger on the exit button, because I constantly prove his misleading stories wrong. Fleming is nothing more than a coward and cannot allow a liberal opinion more reasoned than his to be heard. This is exactly the same as the administration in Washington.

The people of America had better stand up for their rights under the First Amendment, because with the control over the airwaves these right-wing extremists have, this country is going down the drain. 

Paul Gagliano

Memphis

LeMoyne-Owen

It is not surprising that the City Council voted to give LeMoyne-Owen College $3 million. We have come to expect bizarre behavior from our city government. However, I am somewhat surprised that the county commissioners recently voted nine to two to give $500,000 to LeMoyne-Owen.

Commissioner Henri Brooks whined, “I don’t know why we have to always come to the mic when you have an African-American organization asking for their share … .” Apparently Brooks missed the day in school when the First Amendment was taught.   

LeMoyne-Owen College (a church-related college) is a grand, historical college, but it isn’t due one cent from the taxpayers of this county. Nor is Crichton College or Rhodes College or any other college in Memphis associated with a religious body. Taxpayers in Memphis and Shelby County are not obligated, and indeed are not permitted by constitutional law, to provide financial assistance to any Christian organization. If we have $3.5 million extra in our government coffers, why is this money not used to upgrade our underfunded public schools?

Dan Hankins

Memphis

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Being There, 2007

Recently, various members of the Flyer editorial staff were sounded out by a newly established local political-action group for help on the score of drumming up the voter turnout for next week’s city election. Opinion among us was divided, with some concurring with the local group’s basic goal. Others, however, argued that increasing the number of voters without corresponding increases both in their appetite for voting and in their awareness of the candidates and the issues could be counterproductive.

Which is to say, some of us will gladly take our consistent sub-50-percent turnouts for city elections in preference to the nearly 100 percent turnouts boasted by such enlightened political systems as Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Coincidentally, perhaps, virtually all of the votes recorded in those places went in one direction — which was, generally speaking, the only direction available.

Even so, the basic outlook of the group soliciting our support was sound enough, based on the theory that for a democracy to work, it requires citizens showing up and being there.

There’s a corollary to that: In an age in which direct communication is in danger of being overwhelmed by various forms of P.R., electronic and otherwise, in which truth isn’t served nearly so consistently and so well as is someone’s checkbook, it is necessary for the candidate to show up and be there too.

This is the case even at the presidential level. The reason for tiny New Hampshire’s longstanding pre-eminence as an early primary state is precisely that its distances are small enough that dedicated candidates have a fair chance of encountering most interested voters.

No presidential hopeful would dare try to electioneer in New Hampshire — on in Iowa, another early state, for that matter — without pressing as much flesh and engaging in as much discourse with their opponents and with the public as possible.

Why then should we have had several conspicuous examples locally of candidates eschewing such contact? The best-known example is Mayor Willie Herenton, who forsook any and all give-and-takes alongside his challengers at the several scheduled public mayoral forums. The mayor did, however, conduct public rallies and submitted to media questions here and there. Councilman Joe Brown, another elusive candidate, has been harder to find in his race for reelection, avoiding all forums, but his constituents presumably know where to find him.

More befuddling is the case of Reid Hedgepeth, the intended heir-designate for the seat of outgoing councilman Jack Sammons, who has played shepherd for the well-financed young developer’s campaign, apparently ruling out all appearances by his protégé at candidate forums or before inquiring neighborhood associations. Hedgepeth — who may, for all we know, be God’s gift to the council — is sighted mainly via TV spots and via the medium of his highly proliferated campaign signs. That is unfortunate, especially since the rest of the field seeking Sammons’ super-district seat seems especially talented and willing to lay things on the line.

All three of these worthies may win, and, if so, all three may do well and commendably in office. But they’ve all slighted the process by keeping the people they wish to serve at such a distance.

Categories
Cover Feature News

How I Tried To Screw Up My Vote

It is possible but certainly not easy to cast a vote for someone you don’t mean to vote for. I tried. I really tried.

Following Mayor/candidate Willie Herenton’s two press conferences last week, I walked over to the Shelby County Election Commission office two blocks from City Hall hell- bent on making voting as difficult as possible, given that the mayor/candidate had said that early voting is flawed by voter error, machine error, and possible skulduggery.

First, I cast my real vote for mayor and City Council. (As of September 24th, a total of 30,000 people had voted absentee or in early voting, according to the Election Commission.)

Then I went and talked to James Johnson, administrator of elections for the commission. With Johnson standing at my side, I voted again on a “demo” machine with a mock ballot featuring such names as Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Things being what they are in Memphis, I suppose I should add that those gentlemen are dead and not running for mayor of Memphis.

The real machine and the demo machine were identical, and they are both identical to the machines being used at early-voting sites around Memphis.

Here’s how I tried to break the system. I presented my driver’s license, verified my address and Social Security number, and received a plastic card for Machine #4. I inserted the card, and a screen with instructions came up. It explained how to choose a candidate by touching the candidate’s name on the screen. After that, an X would appear, which could be erased by simply touching the X.

I went to the next screen where the candidates for mayor appeared in two columns. I deliberately and carefully pressed the line between two candidates several times, erasing my dummy vote each time. By pressing the line, it was pretty much a toss-up as to which name registered as my choice, but the choice was clearly indicated by a white X against a maroon square about the size of a small postage stamp next to a name.

It so happens that the names Willie Herenton and Carol Chumney are right next to each other on the ballot. Herman Morris and John Willingham are in another column.

I voted and erased my vote a dozen times. I tried and failed to make the machine record “Herman Morris” by touching “Willie Herenton” and vice versa. I also touched the line between Herenton and Chumney, with the results I already mentioned.

After my final vote, I touched “next” on the screen, voted for City Council members, and touched “next” again. That put me on a “summary” page where the names of the candidates I had voted for appeared in somewhat smaller although clearly legible type. The names were the same as the ones I had pressed on my final and “real” vote.

So of course I touched “back,” erased everything, and repeated the process several more times. I got the same correct result when I went to the summary page. At that point I pressed “cast ballot” and my vote was recorded and I was done.

Johnson told me he is “very confident” in the voting machines and the process, despite Herenton’s accusations. He also said it is impossible to state with certainty that any candidate is ahead or has no mathematical chance of winning, because the votes are not counted as to candidate choice by anyone until after the polls close on October 4th. Herenton and campaign manager Charles Carpenter asserted that Herenton is leading and that the race is between him and Chumney. The mayor said an unnamed male candidate has no chance mathematically of winning. Carpenter said this assessment is based on exit polling, phone calls, and their “proprietary system.”

With Johnson in tow, I tested the demo machine. I slapped it. I palmed it with an open hand. I poked it with my finger. I poked it with the tip of my pen. I poked two names at the same time. But I could not turn Willie into Herman or Carol into John.

Maybe you can. But — bear with me here — to make a mistake you have to know you made a mistake. Once you press “cast ballot” there is no way of knowing if the machine screws up and records your vote for someone else. And if you goof and get totally flustered, why would you press “cast ballot” before notifying a poll worker of the error? Unless, that is, you wanted to make a stink for the sake of making a stink.

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

No Vacancy?

When Jennie Hill returned home from college last spring, she knew she wanted something different from “my other life,” as she puts it, referring to growing up in the suburbs of Memphis. Close proximity to her job as an intern architect with Looney Ricks Kiss Architects was a priority, as was being a part of the hubbub of city life.

“I wanted to be downtown because that’s where stuff happens,” Hill says. “There’s always something going on, with plenty of cool things to do.”

Though it took time, she eventually found an apartment on Mud Island she liked. She put down $300 in May as earnest money to hold a place that wasn’t even available until September. And her rent, at $725 for a 630-foot studio, is steep. As more young professionals clamor to call downtown home, they may find locating a rental tricky — in a neighborhood that’s increasingly tight for apartment space.

Condo conversions have played a significant role in the shrinking of apartment stock downtown. Over the past several years, signature apartment buildings like the Shrine, the Lofts at South Main, Claridge House, RiverTower at South Bluff, and Paperworks (the first warehouse-to-apartment conversion in the South Main district), have all been converted to condominiums. According to figures from the Center City Commission, 593 apartment units have gone condo. And the conversion craze hasn’t stopped at downtown’s doorstep.

Memphis Is a Good Deal

Investors from across the country have been scooping up older high-rise properties from Midtown to Germantown. For example, the Glenmary at Evergreen (formerly Woodmont Towers) on North Parkway is being developed by the Gintz Group from Tacoma, Washington, and Nashville-based Bristol Development converted the former Park Place apartments in Germantown into a condo development called the Monarch.

Part of Memphis’ appeal is its high occupancy rate, coupled with a strong national economy and the relative affordability of properties compared to other urban markets. “Investors are seeing that nationally, Memphis might be the last bastion of condo conversions because it’s been overlooked for so long,” says LEDIC Management CEO Pierce Ledbetter.

From a development standpoint, conversions have been a good thing for properties that were in need of refurbishing. A case in point is RiverTower at South Bluffs (formerly the Rivermark), a downtown rental property that had languished in an ’80s time warp until being purchased and converted to condominiums by McCord Development, Inc., based in Houston, Texas.

RiverTower, overlooking the Mississippi, has gone from hotel to apartment house to condos.

While offering exceptional views of the Mississippi River, the 240-unit complex suffered from “an identity crisis,” notes Ledbetter, referring to the building’s history as a hotel and later apartment high-rise, which left it with an odd mix of both spacious and cramped apartment units. With its purchase by McCord Development, an assets management and development firm, the building received a complete renovation and is now selling stylish one-, two-, and three-bedroom condo units. McCord has developed similar high-rise communities in Texas, California, and Florida.

“What [investors] like to see is a city with a reduced supply of land, high occupancy rates, and increasing rents,” says Ledbetter, whose company is the largest apartment and condominium manager in the city. “That makes it much easier for banks to underwrite the loan for the property. And with so many good things going on downtown, it keeps driving the trend.”

High Occupancy Rates

According to “The Source: Greater Memphis Area Multifamily Market Statistics for 2006,” a survey released by the Apartment Association of Greater Memphis, occupancy rates downtown hover at 94.6 percent, almost five points above the countywide rate of 90 percent. (The Center City Commission — CCC — pegs downtown’s rate closer to 91 percent.) Living downtown also costs apartment dwellers more. The survey, which canvassed 50,000 apartment units in 12 submarkets, looked at categories such as amenities, rents per-square-foot, and floor plans. Their findings: The average rent for a 950-square-foot apartment in Shelby County is $685, but downtowners can expect to pay $893 for a slightly smaller space, at 917 square feet. Though rents may be higher downtown, Leslie Gower, director of communications for the CCC, says their market research shows most people prefer to live where their social life is and commute to work. Since downtown’s entertainment sector has strengthened, so too has its desirability as a neighborhood.

Are more apartment complexes on the horizon for downtown? Such high occupancy rates would suggest they’re needed, particularly with the addition of the University of Memphis’ law school soon to call Front Street home. “Downtown is probably ripe for more apartment units,” agrees Amy Carkuff, who’s been involved as an interior designer with a host of condo projects downtown. “I think there’s a market for students and young professionals.”

Manny Heckle, president of the Apartment Association of Greater Memphis and HM Heckle, a properties management firm, says, for him, the question is simple: “How many condos are selling and how many will revert back to rentals? I would say too many condos have hit the market in the last few years. I think we’re condo-saturated.”

View of the Claridge House on Main Street: facade.

View of the Claridge House on Main Street: bedroom.

Those thoughts prompted developer Jason Wexler to put his money in the rental market. Wexler’s company, Green Hat Partners, already has completed two historic rehabs (Cornerstone and Main Street Flats apartments), and he’s now among a handful of developers working on creating additional apartment buildings downtown. Radio Center Flats, a project currently under way at the old WDIA building, is one of Wexler’s projects; and according to the CCC, there are 14 other apartment developments in the planning or construction phase for downtown.

View of the Claridge House on Main Street: lobby.

Paperworks in the South Main District is Memphis’ first warehouse-to-apartments conversion.

“We’ve been pretty cautious about condos and decided not to go that route because of the number that have come online,” Wexler says. “We thought there was a need for more apartments in the downtown core, in part because of the number of projects that were going from rental to condo conversion.” The combined buildings will eventually create 587 new apartment units. But when you consider that condo conversions have removed 593 rentals from the market, the likelihood is that the rental market downtown will continue to remain tight.

“We do minimal marketing or advertising, and our occupancy rate is 100 percent most all the time,” says Wexler. “We rely on word of mouth or put an ad on apartments.com to find new tenants.”

Glenmary, a high-rise located on North Parkway, was once Woodmont Towers.

And who knows? That may simply add to the luster of nabbing a downtown address. ■

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Is There an Echo in Here?

Editor’s note: The Flyer received many letters from Memphis musicians in response to our September 13th cover story, “Standing at the Crossroads,” which detailed the revival of the Memphis Music Commission and Music Foundation. Among the responses was this one from legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson.

Yeah, that’s just what we need: “a multi-Grammy-winning producer coming to town to build a studio.”

Tell that to multi-Grammy-winning producer Norbert Putnam of the sadly flawed and failed Cadre studio.

Does the name Chips Moman mean anything? The Moman-return scenario was tragic for everybody concerned and all but ended the career of the most successful producer in the history of Memphis music.  

House of Blues studios A, B, and C stand empty. The Three Alarm and 315 Beale studios are gone. Easley Recording is in ashes. Posey Hedges shut his studio down.

Other Memphis studios teeter on the brink of extinction: Knox Phillips will keep Phillips Recording open until it falls over in a heap. Willie Mitchell is going nowhere, thank God. Stax is a museum and a label destined to fail, owned by out-of-towners. John Fry at Ardent has enough money to burn a wet mule. Ward Archer is in the process of renovating the old Sounds Unreel studio into what will be the most modern, world-class studio in a 200-mile radius. God only knows why.

As anyone with any knowledge of the music business knows, studios are going toes up all over the country.

The new ideas touted by the new music “leaders” are just as unrealistic, though not as self-serving, as former commission head Rey Fleming’s.

I’ve seen them come and go — the saviors of Memphis music. And we the musicians will be here when the latest bunch is gone. We will have to live with the fallout and clean up the mess.

Memphis’ musical strength is not in studios or venues or festivals. Our strength is our musicians. In the years since the self-destruction of Stax, many a deserving artist has slipped through the cracks: Kevin Paige, Wendy Moten, and Eric Gales, to name three. The great O’Landa Draper was on his way to true superstardom when he suddenly died, far too young.

Music is a business where how good you are doesn’t necessarily matter, and sometimes even genius is not enough.

Phineas Newborn Jr. and Shawn Lane both died in relative obscurity and financial distress. How many others have there been? They give up or move away or struggle along against impossible odds.

Witness the success of Cat Power — a mediocre talent who came to town, recorded a successful record with great Memphis musicians, and toured with the recording band. So much of it is dumb luck. Getting a job at Tater Red’s on Beale Street will do more good for musicians than a tax break for rich folks with investment capital.

Don’t take it personally, Memphis. It’s not happening just to us. It’s just happening. Studios on Music Row in Nashville are standing empty. The best studio in the state recently went out of business. Artists make recordings at home. Mick Jagger records on a laptop.

I have a near-religious faith in Memphis music. Our music endures. Pop culture is disposable, designed to become obsolete and create a demand for more and more. Art is for the ages.

On a recent trip to New York to play Carnegie Hall with my sons, we had a meeting in the Sony Tower. After the meeting, we rode the high-security elevator down — past six empty floors that used to be the once-mighty R.C.A.

Things are tough all over. Hang on, Memphis. Suck it up and tough it out. As the late, great Charlie Freeman once said, “They don’t call it the Bluff City for nothing.”

I applaud Three 6 Mafia. I applaud Saliva. Getting out of town is no easy task, but it is necessary. Our music has power worldwide. Once upon a time there was this teen-age truck driver from Tupelo …

Jim Dickinson has been playing, recording, and producing music in Memphis since the late 1960s.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Chalk It Up

CREDIT: Michael Flanagan

Memphis’ characteristic autumn tease was definitely over by 10 o’clock Saturday morning. The Memphis Farmers Market downtown was full, and 40 people were there as part of the local American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) annual Chalk Art Festival.

Held in conjunction with the Memphis Heritage Foundation, the festival was part of Architecture Month. Teams created their best tribute to Memphis architecture in five-by-five-foot squares taped off on the ground. The Art Center on Union supplied the chalk, and the teams, already hard at work, consisted of families or members of architecture firms.

“We’re here to have fun,” said architect Rebecca Lee of Askew, Nixon, and Ferguson. “It’s nice to spend the day out.”

Throughout September’s Architecture Month, the Memphis AIA and Memphis Heritage have hosted a series of lectures and films to help Memphians see the city as a growing organism that requires thoughtful planning as well as aesthetic creativity.

“When there are tourists looking for Memphis history, they’re usually just shown Graceland and Beale Street,” said June West, executive director of Memphis Heritage. “There’s a lot a person can see in Memphis that we never show them.”

Under the morning sun, the artists drew and colored with their chalk, racing to finish before the noon deadline. The pieces were judged in four categories: teams, families, individuals, and Best in Show.

All over the pavement, the designs grew from simple sketches and outlines, slowly taking form and color. The pieces included one in which buildings played guitar, a vegetable motif by members of the Farmers Market, and a large likeness of Family Guy fussbudget Stewie Griffin warning the world to love architecture or face the consequences.

“We wanted to do something original,” said Mario Walker of Self Tucker Architects, who, along with associate Rodrigo Garcia, created the Family Guy entry. “We knew everyone else was going to do something appropriate.”

Last year’s winner in the team category, Fleming Associates once again took home bragging rights, winning Best in Show. Their design was a view of a Redbirds game from the right-field bleachers at AutoZone Park.

“Nine out of 10 of our favorite things to do in Memphis involve eating and drinking, and this was a scene that combines the two,” said Fleming’s Richard Wiggs, who, along with Debb and Bob Ross, created this year’s grand winner. “Getting dirty is all part of the fun.”

Categories
Opinion

Election Day Countdown

The voting machines aren’t broke, but the Herenton political machine sure looks like it is.

The mayor kicked off the New Year and his reelection campaign with the slogan “On the Wall” and a half-baked proposal for a new football stadium. Since then, Herenton paranoia has gone off the wall and demonized Richard Fields and unnamed snakes, Nick Clark, white people, the broadcast media, The Commercial Appeal editorial page, pollsters, prosecutors chasing Joseph Lee, the City Council, Herman Morris, Carol Chumney, and haters.

And now it’s voting machines and the Shelby County Election Commission. The evidence was scant — an unspecified number of complaints to Herenton headquarters and to poll workers. But as of Monday, 34,841 people had voted early, and there was no indication of widespread problems.

Not that there are no real problems. Specifically, there are at least three of them. First, Herenton presented his appointee, city attorney Elbert Jefferson, to make the premature claim of machine malfunction. Second, the mayor’s campaign headquarters is distributing a handout from the Memphis Democratic Club that uses the city of Memphis seal to make it look official. And third, the mayor has failed to remind city and MLGW employees, including his appointees, that they should not do politics on city time. Herenton could stop all of this with a word, but he fans fears instead.

This is not the behavior of someone who believes he is cruising to a fifth consecutive term. The man Herenton beat by 142 votes in the 1991 mayor’s race thinks this will be the closest one since then.

“Forty percent absolutely wins it for anyone, and that could be generous,” said former mayor Dick Hackett. “I think 35 percent, give or take 3 percent, could be the turning point. The key is getting out your base.”

Forty percent of the vote would be almost seven percentage points less than Herenton got in 1999, when he was challenged by Joe Ford and several lesser candidates. The turnout that year was low to middling by Memphis standards in the Herenton era — 163,259 compared to 247,973 in 1991 and 104,688 in 2003.

If Hackett is right, then the candidate who collars 70,000 votes could win it, assuming a turnout in the neighborhood of 180,000. A tantalizing thought, that. Because 70,000 votes are only a little more than half of what Herenton and Hackett each got in 1991. So the potentially decisive votes are out there. Victory for a challenger is possible in theory and in fact, contrary to Herenton’s assertion that Morris has no chance, mathematically or otherwise.

This year’s turnout is anyone’s guess. Early voting is on course to set a record, according to Election Commision administrator James Johnson. Monday was the heaviest day yet, with 5,435 votes cast. But early voting, which is easier than ever with short lines and more locations, can simply eat into Election Day voting.

The final turnout is not likely to approach 247,973. In 1991, Hackett was at the top of his game, Herenton was the consensus black challenger, and charismatic master organizers like Harold Ford Sr. and Jesse Jackson lent Herenton their support. Since then, apathy has been the rule. An estimated 150,000 to 250,000 registered and presumably eligible voters don’t vote in city elections every four years.

That untapped pool, coupled with the fact that they don’t like each other much more than they like Herenton, is what kept Morris, Chumney, and John Willingham in the race. The king is wounded. He has reigned a long time. Seventy thousand votes could topple him! The challenge is to go get them.

Whatever the outcome, Memphis will get the leadership it deserves. Herenton has enjoyed the financial support of the city’s movers and shakers, who, until this year’s unsuccessful attempt to draft A C Wharton, made no effort to find an alternative. If he wins with a plurality, it will be because his opponents and their supporters could not find a consensus. If Chumney or Morris wins, they can thank Herenton fatigue and a federal judge’s 1991 now outdated ruling on “minority” representation and runoff elections. And if Herenton wins with a majority, then he was right and Dick Hackett and a lot of other people were flat wrong about the mayor’s popularity.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: On O.J.’s Memorabilia Theft

A mysterious package came to me in the office mail last week. It was wrapped in brown paper, and there was no return address. Inside was a thick document apparently consisting of the detailed notes from a meeting between several lawyers representing O.J. Simpson.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t publish such confidential information, but since the O.J. story is now the most important issue of our time, I feel obligated to pass along some of the highlights from the transcript:

“… So it’s agreed. We need a slogan.”

“Yep. How about, ‘It’s my memorabilia, so I cannot steal,’ yo?”

“That’s weak. Very weak. What about, ‘It’s my crap, so I must beat the rap’?”

“Nope. C’mon, fellas. We can do better than that. What would Johnnie Cochran come up with? WWJCD?”

“‘It was only a suit, and I did not shoot.'”

“Now, that’s better. Now we’re rolling. There are no bad ideas here. This is a brainstorming session.”

“‘It was just some threads, and nobody’s dead.'”

“Ehhh. Nah.”

“‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’?”

“Been done. Too obvious.”

“‘Since when is it a crime to be stupid ‘?”

“I don’t think that’s quite the image we’re looking for.”

“I know — ‘Room service! Room Service!'”

“Now that’s stupid.”

“Hey, you said there were no bad ideas.”

“Well, that one’s bad.”

“Could we get Ashton Kutcher to say it was a wacky, over-the-top episode of Punked ?”

“Please.”

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it. ‘It’s my shit, so you must acquit!’ ”

“Now that’s a winner. Gentlemen, I believe this meeting is over.”

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Big Heads

Since the mayoral election is upon us, this seemed like the perfect time to take a walk down memory lane and look at some perfectly ridiculous images of our leading candidates.

First, there’s Mayor Willie Herenton: Champ or egomaniac, take your pick.

Herman Morris was serving as president of MLGW when somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a bunch of bobbleheads in his likeness. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t.

FOXFunnies, the online creation of former Fox newsman Darrell Phillips, gave Memphians this rather boring likeness of Carol Chumney. If you visit the Web site, however, you can control Chumney’s “blink rate,” a truly satisfying endeavor.

And then there’s John Willingham, who appeared shirtless in the Flyer shortly after auctioning his pacemaker on eBay. This time, we’ll spare you.

So there you have it: big head, bobblehead, blinking head, and John Willingham. This really could have been Prince Mongo’s year.

Skirting the Issue

On Sunday, September 23rd, The Commercial Appeal ran a media column considering the potentially bleak outlook for women’s magazines. “Are women’s magazines obsolete?” McClatchy reporter Rachel Leibrock asked in “Whither the Women’s Mag,” a eulogy to Jane, a glossy girlcentric periodical that called it quits in July. In related news, the CA officially launches Skirt, a women’s magazine, later this week.