Month: March 2011

Decisions, Decisions

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date March 31, 2011

CREDIT: Woodsy007/Dreamstime

April was famously designated by poet T.S. Eliot as “the cruelest month,” and, while many lovers of springtime would take issue with that assessment (which was founded on numerous ironies of outlook on Eliot’s part), it could indeed be a hard month for the two Democratic members of the Shelby County Election Commission.

That would be Myra Stiles, the commission’s longest-serving member, and James Johnson, the commission’s former executive director. Both are held in high personal esteem by local Democrats and by Democratic members of the Shelby County legislative delegation, but Stiles and Johnson have been the subject of nearly non-stop criticism — some of it public, much more of it privately rendered in party circles — for what many local Democrats see as their lack of vigilance in questioning the results of the county general election last August.

It will be remembered that Republicans swept that election, despite the GOP’s being an acknowledged minority party in Shelby County. Because of an election-day electronic snafu in which a few thousand eligible voters were erroneously listed as having already participated in early voting, an indeterminate number of such voters were turned away when they came to cast their ballots on Election Day itself. The error was ultimately corrected — within an hour or two of the polls opening, said Election Commission officials; much later than that, argued angry Democrats.

Most estimates — presumably including that of Chancellor Arnold Goldin, who would ultimately dismiss a legal challenge to the election results — were that the number of votes that might have been affected were insufficient to change any of the election outcomes. But a number of protest meetings were held by Democrats, who contended that the electronic gaffe, along with other irregularities, made the results questionable at best.

During all of this Stiles and Johnson kept their distance from the protests, and Stiles would issue a public statement in defense of the good faith of the GOP-dominated Election Commission.

Rightly or wrongly, the two Democratic election commissioners may thereby have made their replacement next month by other Democrats an inevitability. Though public reaction to the August election has moved well off the front burner, Goldin’s ruling is still under appeal, and local party spokespersons have declined to back off from their skepticism about the election results.

Moreover, many rank-and-file Democrats, including several on the legislative delegation which will decide on the party’s Election Commission members next month, remain disappointed that a greater show of vigilance — if only a pro forma one — was not put forth by Stiles and Johnson on the commission.

For his part, Election Commission chairman Bill Giannini, one of the three-member Republican majority, commended Stiles and Johnson for what he said was their consistent collegiality, hard work, and good faith. For obvious reasons, that endorsement may not count for much among the Democratic legislators who will make the decision in April.

• Brian Stephens, a former Republican member of the Election Commission and a founding member of the Cordova Leadership Council, is hoping that the same Republican majority in the current Tennessee General Assembly that made for quick passage of the Norris-Todd bill on local school merger will benefit a mission of his own this week. And Stephens, who maintains good relations with Democrats as well, will work both sides of the aisle.

As spelled out in this week’s Flyer Viewpoint (p. 17), Stephens and others are suspicious of the intentions of well-known strip-club owner Steve Cooper, whose Stella Marris restaurant in Cordova is closed for remodeling and for which Cooper is now seeking a compensated dance permit from the City Council.

Such a permit allows dancers in clubs to be paid and to receive tips for their dancing. But there are “loopholes” in current law that allow for activities bordering on sexual improprieties, or even crossing that border, Stephens says.

What he seeks to get from the legislature is enactment of stiffer penalties for abuses of a compensated dance permit. As of now, violations may range from $50 for a first-time offense to $1,500 for consistent, repeated ones. “And that’s pocket change for these guys,” Stephens says. “I’d like to add some zeroes to the fine.”

He and other members of the Cordova Leadership Council are also lobbying the City Council to clarify the restrictions involved in a compensated dance permit so as to rule out activities — including nudity and improper trafficking with customers — that are defined as violations under existing laws governing sexually oriented businesses.

• Next Monday is D-Day for U.S. District Judge Samuel Hardy Mays to decide on whether or not to issue an injunction against the Shelby County Commission’s intended appointment of 25 members of a unified all-county school board.

On Wednesday of last week, the commission interviewed almost 200 applicants for the districts it had previously created for a provisional board to function in the wake of the merger of Memphis City Schools and Shelby County schools that was authorized in a March 8th citywide referendum. A maximum of three applicants per district received straw-vote recommendations for the commission’s final decision on board members scheduled for this Monday, but the appointment session was postponed by commission chairman Sidney Chism in response to Mays’ request at a preliminary hearing on Friday.

A commission majority has maintained that it — and only it — has the authority to make appointments, and its calendar calls for an active board by August 2012, a full year earlier than what is prescribed by the Norris-Todd bill, enacted by the General Assembly in January and promptly signed into law by Governor Haslam.

Shelby County Schools, along with the state Education Department, had filed in Judge Mays’ court for a declaratory judgment against the commission’s action.

The united SCS front against the commission’s action was broken last Wednesday when Ernest Chism (no relation to the commission chairman), a senior SCS board member, allowed himself to be interviewed for the Position 7 post. The commission’s grateful acceptance of Chism’s acquiescence, culminating in his inclusion on the list of commission recommendees (a maximum of three per district), was in contrast to the treatment given MSC board president Freda Williams, an outspoken merger opponent who was denied the commission’s recommendation for District 25.

Three other MSC board members, Betty Mallott, Stephanie Gatewood, and Martavius Jones, were recommended; all were part of the MSC majority favoring merger — though Mallott had not initially been a supporter of the charter surrender that was the necessary prelude to consolidation of the two extant school systems.

Asked by commissioners about the frequently heard challenge, mainly from three boycotting District 4 (suburban) commission members, that members of the MCS majority who voted for charter surrender had in effect jumped ship and should not be reappointed, Gatewood responded, “Are they here? They’re not part of the process anyhow.”

As Wednesday’s interviewing process wore on, commissioners came and went in shifts as their itineraries permitted — though a hard core group, including Commissioner Mike Carpenter, who chaired the event, and commission chairman Chism, stayed at the task throughout. At several points, commissioners expressed appreciation at a candidate field so good that it seemed to them an embarrassment of riches.

• The 2011 Memphis mayoral race is officially on: Shelby County Commissioner James Harvey, who nearly made a run for city mayor in 2009 and has ever since talked up a race against the winner of that special-election race, incumbent mayor A C Wharton, ever since, is now in it for real.

A “Campaign Kick-Off Fund-raising Event” was held for Harvey Tuesday evening at the Blue Suede restaurant on Elvis Presley Boulevard.

Businessman Harvey has made it increasingly clear that he intends to make an issue of Wharton’s industrial recruitment policy — one that he regards as offering too many concessions at the expense of the city’s revenue base.

Harvey has been especially critical of the $20 million incentive offered by the city (and matched by the county) in order to attract a large new Electrolux plant from Canada. And he insists that elected officials should be actively involved in recruitment efforts and kept informed about the nature of incentives being offered.

Food & Wine Food & Drink

Close to Home

Post author By Hannah Sayle
Post date March 31, 2011

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Jennifer Chandler has reopened her café, Cheffie’s, in the shopping center near where the Greenline meets High Point Terrace. The original Cheffie’s Market and More, in East Memphis, closed 10 years ago.

“This past year I was approached by Matt Wilson of Swanky’s Taco Shop,” Chandler says. “He had been approached by Charlie McVean who owns the bike shop [Cruiser’s High Point Hub], and they wanted to have a café next door. They said, ‘Since Swanky’s is all about building your tacos and burritos just the way you like them, and you know sandwiches and salads, let’s partner together to bring Cheffie’s back to life.'”

The new Cheffie’s features the same motto as its former incarnation: “Be the chef at Cheffie’s.” Build-your-own salads and sandwiches are the core of the menu. Choose from arugula, baby spinach, romaine, and mixed greens as a base for your salad and top it off with a selection of meats, vegetables, olives, nuts, and homemade dressings. Sandwiches can be made on a variety of Le Brea breads (country white, wheat, multigrain, ciabatta, and soft white) with Boar’s Head meats and cheeses.

There also are a number of signature salads and sandwiches for those who prefer to leave the assembly up to the chefs.

Specialty vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free items are marked accordingly on the menu. Chips, potato and pasta salads, and cookies and dessert bars accompany the entrée options. Old fans of Cheffie’s will be glad to hear that the giant Rice Krispy treats, sun-dried tomato hummus, and egg and chicken salads will be available once more. A gelato bar with 14 different flavors rounds out the dessert offerings.

Chandler is working on getting the Project Green Fork certification and using as many local ingredients as possible. She has sourced her pecans from Delta Pecans, hydroponic tomatoes from Micmak Farms, and coffee from Ugly Mug. Ghost River beer is available on tap along with an assortment of imported and domestic bottles. Wines on the menu come from Grateful Palate Wines and North Berkeley Imports — a wine retailer based in California but owned by a Memphian.

Cheffie’s is open every day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sandwiches and salads run between $6 and $8. Chandler says she hopes to catch the morning workout groups for a breakfast of coffee, muffins, cinnamon rolls, yogurt, and fresh fruit.

“We’re on the Greenline. We’re hoping that when people have been biking or exercising they’ll want something healthy and delicious to eat, and they’ll come by our shop,” she says. “We also want to be a neighborhood café, so we tried to think of all the things we would want in our neighborhood.”

Cheffie’s Café, 483 High Point Terrace (202-4157)

Josh Belenchia, formerly of Interim, has taken his talents to Mississippi. After three-and-a-half years at the popular East Memphis restaurant, Belenchia opened Buon Cibo (Italian for “good food”) in Hernando earlier this month.

“I live in Hernando, and I’ve been commuting for about five years,” Belenchia says. “This place is three minutes from my house, and this town was in need of a new restaurant and a new spin on things. I’m trying to bring that to the table.”

Buon Cibo is in the former location of Docs. Already outfitted with a pizza oven, the space was perfect for a pizza and sandwich joint. “I didn’t really want to do fine dining. I designed my menu around the equipment that was here,” Belenchia says.

As much as possible, Belenchia is sourcing his produce, meats, eggs, and dry goods from local suppliers. He serves a Heritage Farmworks bratwurst, uses local honey in his pizza dough, brews McCarter coffee, and offers a Buon Cibo retail “pantry” full of local dry goods for sale. His salad dressings are homemade; his chips are fried in-house; he makes his own corned beef for the Reuben; and the pizza dough is hand-tossed. All of the pizzas, sandwiches, soups, and salads are around $10 or less.

Pizzas are named after different towns in Mississippi. The Clarksdale is a barbecue chicken and goat cheese pizza. The Starkville is made with three-cheese sauce, sautéed mushrooms, arugula, and balsamic reduction. The Jackson is a smoked bacon, caramelized onion, and roasted sweet potato pizza. The coastal town Biloxi adds a tropical twist: pineapple, pickled red onion, ham, and jalapenos.

Imported beers and microbrews are available by the bottle. Desserts include a brownie-gelato sandwich and Nonna’s homemade pies — based on recipes from Belenchia’s mother. Buon Cibo is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Buon Cibo, 2631 McIngvale, Hernando, MS (662-469-9481)

buonciborestaurant.com

Tags Buon Cibo, Cheffie's Café

Cover Feature News

Point Man

Post author By John Branston
Post date March 31, 2011

CREDIT: John Branston

When Robert Lipscomb stepped up to a microphone under a pavilion at Foote Homes earlier this month to announce the beginning of the end of public housing in Memphis, it was a proud moment for the executive director of the Memphis Housing Authority.

A visiting official from Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., took note, saying that MHA, under Lipscomb’s leadership, has gone from a troubled and ineffective agency 20 years ago to a model of success.

It was just one part of the many-faceted public life of Lipscomb, who has held more titles than anyone in the history of modern Memphis government, including two of them at the same time. Since 1999, he also has been the full-time director of the Memphis Division of Housing and Community Development, a gateway for millions of dollars in federal funds. And from 2005 to 2007, he was the city’s chief financial officer.

Titles aside, his most prominent job is being point man for the city on its long-running courtship of Bass Pro Shops and even longer-running redevelopment of the Mid-South Fairgrounds. A few days before his appearance at Foote Homes, he briefed the Memphis City Council on both of those tantalizing projects. He is also point man for the city on the future of Overton Square, Beale Street, the Soulsville USA commercial center, and the proposed $250 million repackaging of Graceland and Elvis Presley Boulevard.

It would take a small book to describe all of those relationships. This story touches on only three of them: the Pyramid, the fairgrounds, and public housing. Lipscomb, 61, declined to be interviewed other than to confirm some biographical details.

“Self-promotion is kind of a gray area,” he explained.

Lipscomb was raised in the south Mississippi town of Crystal Springs and moved to Memphis as a teenager. He wanted to attend Hamilton High School, then a middle-class school in Whitehaven, but was, by his description, “too raggedy” and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1967. He went to LeMoyne-Owen College and, after graduation, the University of Chicago, where he earned an MBA degree.

He is single, lives downtown, and is partial to suits with vests. He is actually quite accessible if you are not writing about him. He has a wealth of information about wonky subjects as well as local folklore and history. More than once I have enjoyed riding with him on tours of the suburbs and inner city, where he pointed out the good and bad features of different retail centers and subdivisions, the childhood homes of various Memphians, former neighborhood hangouts, and old lovers lanes. Desk-bound and pretentious he is not. To veteran city hall employees and council members he is simply “Robert.” He tends to talk rapidly when he makes a presentation, with the impatient tone of someone explaining something for the umpteenth time, which he may well be.

There is another side to him. In celebration of its 35th anniversary this month, our sister publication, Memphis magazine, did a feature on 35 “movers and shakers of the past three decades.” Lipscomb isn’t in it, which suits him just fine, but a case can certainly be made for him. It would go something like this: Celebrity is a red herring. Many movers and shakers avoid it. It’s a pain. The opposite of a mover-and-shaker is someone well known for being well known. The same goes for politics. The hero can become the hated, as Willie Herenton found out.

True mover-and-shakerdom in the government realm equals influence times tax money under control times territory under control times number of years on the job. Add to that the fear factor, or how freely colleagues and people who have to do business with you feel they can speak candidly. On each count, Lipscomb is a man to be reckoned with.

The Division of Housing and Community Development was established in 1977 to address slums and blighted communities. In 1992, the year Herenton took over as mayor, HCD expanded its role to include economic development, especially in areas that had previously been underserved or ignored.

Lipscomb was the first director to wield the broader authority. He is political without being political in the sense of having to run for election. His career has spanned the popular Herenton to the unpopular Herenton, interim Mayor Myron Lowery, the two incarnations of A C Wharton as two-term Shelby County mayor and first-term Memphis mayor, Operation Tennessee Waltz, Operation Main Street Sweeper, and a couple of major turnovers on the Memphis City Council.

The city’s partner on the Pyramid and fairgrounds projects is O.T. Marshall Architects and Engineers, headed by Tom Marshall, a former councilman for 20 years. After a decade of deterioration, grand plans, and false start at the fairgrounds, this collaboration, with some timely support from FedEx boosters, spurred the council to action and produced the $16 million grand entrance and west face of Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium known as Tiger Lane.

Tiger Lane and the removal of the cow barns and other “quick wins,” Lipscomb has said, set the stage for requests for proposals from a private developer for an “urban village” of sports facilities, retail, and housing. For $25 million, the stadium would get two Jumbotrons and more upgrades, the Mid-South Coliseum would be torn down, and some neighboring property would be acquired. The city acts as project manager.

The last part — city as project manager — is one of the things that distinguishes this plan from Henry Turley’s proposed Fair Ground sportsplex, which was chosen by a selection committee in 2008 and sidelined by interim Mayor Lowery and the council in 2009. Turley insisted on an independent oversight board.

Lipscomb’s proposal envisions two special financing tools: a Tourism Development Zone (TDZ) and a tax-increment financing (TIF) district. They rebate to the city a portion of state sales taxes and capture taxes above a baseline amount within the district, which in this case includes most of Midtown. This triggers the now familiar refrain that “no money from the city’s general fund will be used.” It was Turley who got the legislature and governor to approve the fairgrounds TDZ, with the stadium as the “qualified public facility” and a Target-type store and hotel as tax generators.

A 2009 retail market analysis by a consulting firm said a fairgrounds TDZ would produce enough taxes to retire $65 million in bonds, but that would not necessarily be new revenue because the fairgrounds “lacks highway presence and the tenant mix to be a regional consumer draw.”

The TIF is a new wrinkle that indicates a funding shortfall and some mission creep. If approved by the city council, it would capture tax growth from Cooper-Young, Poplar Avenue, Union Avenue, and residential neighborhoods in Midtown. It could be used for Overton Square as well as the fairgrounds, Lipscomb said.

“The Fairgrounds Vision” packet handed out to the city council says “the current operational structure is working optimally, and Tiger Lane is testament to its effectiveness. In addition, the City of Memphis has performed a similar project management role in the mixed-use, mixed-income developments funded by HOPE VI,” the program that replaced the housing projects.

In the Pyramid part of his presentation, Lipscomb said Bass Pro wanted to “test the appetite” of the council for spending up to 20 million additional dollars on seismic remediation. The phrase “test the appetite” is apt. A few times a year, Chef Lipscomb presents his seasonal specials to the table of hungry diners known as the city council. After some questions about the cost of demolishing the Pyramid (estimated at $6 to 8 million, less salvage), council chairman Lowery said, “I have not heard anything negative.”

Once again, thanks to a TDZ, “no general fund money from city government will be used,” and Bass Pro’s mouthpieces can imply that the city is getting something for next to nothing. At a Center City Commission meeting last November, the total cost of the Pyramid, Pinch, and Lone Star property improvements was estimated at $121 million. We are now at $140 million.

Contrary to reports that Poag & McEwen Company will develop the Pinch District east of the Pyramid, the status report says “the city has not previously selected or negotiated a contract with a developer for the Pinch District.” Bonds have not been issued. After a study of revenue projections and a final decision about seismic costs, Morgan Keegan & Co. will determine the project’s bonding capacity.

The Bass Pro courtship is now in its eighth year, and the Pyramid looks pretty much like it did when it closed in 2004. Two things have kept it in the news. One, obviously, is that the Pyramid is a white-elephant arena and a Bass Pro super store on the river would be a catch in a city that badly needs jobs and economic engines. The other is the bulldog tenacity of Lipscomb, a steadfast champion when others called Bass Pro a “bait shop” or questioned its sincerity.

If, in the end, Bass Pro backs away from Memphis as it has from Buffalo, New York, Lipscomb will still have a legacy. He and HUD and Herenton got rid of the housing projects that warehoused thousands of poor people for 70 years, including the young Elvis Presley.

Visually, the HOPE VI developments have been a smashing success.

“When you drive by them you can’t tell that they’re public housing,” said Ricky Wilkins, chairman of the board of Memphis Housing Authority.

Hurt Village, Lauderdale Courts, Dixie Homes, Lamar Terrace, LeMoyne Gardens — one by one, the barren, crime-ridden, densely populated two-story brick housing projects that bordered downtown have been demolished and replaced by apartments, houses, duplexes, landscaped streets, and green grass. Cleaborn Homes south of FedExForum, a housing project that once had 3,000 residents, will come down in April.

Their successors — College Park, Uptown, Legends Park, and University Place — dressed up main streets, encouraged the expansions of neighbors including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Methodist-Le Bonheur Hospital, and replaced old buildings with New Urbanist architecture whose beauty is in the eye of the beholder. An estimated 30,000 residents were displaced and dispersed to other parts of the city. Thousands of them were given Section 8 housing vouchers, but Wilkins admits no one knows where all of them landed.

The migration has had a ripple effect on school enrollment, neighborhoods, politics, retailing, white flight, black flight, and crime. The big-picture story caught the attention of the Memphis Police Department, criminologist and MPD adviser Richard Janikowski, and The Atlantic magazine. In 2008, it published a deeply reported, hard-hitting story that linked dispersal of public housing residents to the dispersal of violent crime in Memphis, which earned the dubious title of America’s most violent metro area that year.

“Memphis has always been associated with some amount of violence,” the article said. “But why has Elvis’ hometown turned into America’s new South Bronx?” The article went on to say, “It’s a dismal answer, one that city leaders have made clear they don’t want to hear. It’s an answer that offers up racial stereotypes to fearful whites in a city trying to move beyond racial tensions.”

The article quoted Lipscomb’s objection: “You’ve already marginalized people and told them they have to move out. Now you’re saying they moved somewhere else and created all these problems? That’s a really, really unfair assessment.”

Through its spokeswoman, MPD declined requests to interview either outgoing director Larry Godwin or incoming director Toney Armstrong. Janikowski did not respond to requests for an interview. Wayne Goudy, commander of special operations for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, said he read the Atlantic article when it came out and shared it with Mark Luttrell, who was then sheriff and is now county mayor.

“I agreed with it at the time,” Goudy said. “In Northaven in particular we really saw an uptick in crime and gang activity. There is gang activity in the southeastern county too, but I cannot attribute that to the relocation of people from the housing projects. In 2011, I think things have settled down.”

The crime trends in Memphis have been reversed since 2008. According to the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, due to targeted policing and a five-year plan called Operation Safe Community, in 2010 major violent crime was down 23.6 percent, including a drop in murder by 40 percent and a drop in aggravated assault by 13 percent compared to the same period in 2006.

Although he did not grow up in the projects, Wilkins was from a poor family and graduated from Carver High School, Howard University and Vanderbilt Law School. He has been involved with MHA since 1992.

“From my vantage point, we have to believe in the power of human potential,” Wilkins said. “The poor will always be among us. We are judged by how well we treat them. We are giving people resources and housing that allow them a fighting chance.”

Bass Pro/Pyramid Timeline

2004: Pyramid closes.

2005: Bass Pro says it will take control of Pyramid in six months.

2006: Bass Pro says it is “coming to the Memphis Pyramid and should open store in 2008.”

2008: Bass Pro signs development agreement with Memphis and Shelby County.

2009: Bass Pro starts making $35,000 monthly payments.

2010: Bass Pro signs a lease for the Pyramid with Memphis.

2011: Mayor A C Wharton says seismic concerns put project in “serious jeopardy.” Bass Pro asks city council to “test its appetite” for added cost of seismic upgrades.

Fairgrounds Timeline

1997: Memphis Park Commission director Wayne Boyer unveils a $200,000 master plan that “will give us a road map for the next ten years.”

2005: Libertyland amusement park closes.

2007: Mayor Willie Herenton unveils Project Nexus, a plan for demolishing the stadium and replacing it with a new one. “Why invest $50 million in a gutted stadium?” he asks.

2008: Fair Ground, a proposal from developers Henry Turley and Robert Loeb, is chosen by the city’s appointed fairgrounds reuse committee.

2008: The Mid-South Fair is held for the last time at the fairgrounds.

2009: City council informs Turley his proposal is off the table.

2010: Tiger Lane opens in time for football season.

2011: Robert Lipscomb unveils “The Fairgrounds Vision.”

News The Fly-By

Slammer Shakedown

Post author By Louis Goggans
Post date March 31, 2011

Toothbrush shanks, cell phones, and cocaine are among common contraband items confiscated inside the Shelby County Jail over the past few years.

But the recent bust of a guard attempting to smuggle forbidden goods into the jail sheds new light on the problem of staff sneaking drugs and other items to inmates.

In early March, Shelby County deputy jailer Rumeal Moore was busted in a contraband sting when he took marijuana, loose tobacco, and $300 from an undercover officer on Hickory Hill Road. Moore was charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell and attempting to bring contraband into a penal facility.

Moore is the most recent example of jail staff caught smuggling contraband into the jail at 201 Poplar. Mark Dunbar, assistant chief deputy of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, said the department has indicted more than 90 employees for the crime since 1990.

“Some employees have a tendency to develop friendships with inmates, but they let these people start manipulating them,” Dunbar said. “Once they do one favor for them, it’s difficult to stop.”

Jailers administer daily “shakedowns,” an intense search of inmates and their cells. Shelby County Jail director Robert Moore said the jail conducts more than 100 scheduled shakedowns a month, plus more than 200 unscheduled, random searches.

In addition, employees must now stay inside the facility during their eight-hour shifts. Before, employees could come and go, which enabled some to smuggle contraband in with them more easily.

“There’s a lot of outstanding employees in that jail who work hard, but it’s those few bad apples that make the facility look bad as a whole,” Dunbar said.

The most common forms of contraband found in the Shelby County Jail are marijuana, loose tobacco, and cocaine. Other items found have included knives, bullets, Oxycontin, and even a stereo system. Sometimes inmates create contraband from allowed items, such as knives carved from toothbrushes.

Moore said contraband is a lucrative trade for employees and inmates. A pack of cigarettes, which are not allowed in the facility, sells for roughly $50 in jail.

So how is it possible for inmates to get away with smoking cigarettes or other drugs?

Dunbar compares the situation to a concert: “I reluctantly went to a Kid Rock concert once. While I was there, I could smell marijuana being smoked, but I didn’t know where it was coming from. That’s how it is in jail. There’s so many people, so it’s impossible to monitor everyone. You might smell something, but you don’t always know where it’s coming from.”

Since more than 60 percent of the facility’s employees grew up in Shelby County, Moore said many workers know inmates prior to their incarceration.

“One of the inmates may be their friend, their next door neighbor, or their relative,” Moore said. Prior relationships can make it more difficult for a jailer to deny the inmate desired contraband items.

Q.B., a Memphis resident who preferred to not reveal his full name, spent two years behind bars and over that time, he said he witnessed a tremendous amount of contraband being smuggled by jailers to inmates.

“Why would you put yourself in a situation that risks your career for someone who’s already incarcerated and in deep water? It’s not worth it at the end of the day,” Q.B. said.

Besides drugs and weapons, Dunbar said cell phone contraband is also a major problem. Steven Rucker, a 21-year-old Memphis resident, said his incarcerated brother communicates with him from jail via cell phone and also possesses a portable PlayStation gaming device.

But Rucker said he doesn’t agree with the smuggling of contraband to inmates: “As long as you have contraband, you’re going to have killings, raping, and violence. There’s always going to be someone who wants to take what you have.”

Music Music Features

Exene Cervenka at the Hi-Tone Café

Post author By Chris Herrington
Post date March 31, 2011

As part of the tag-team front line for the great early-’80s Los Angeles country-punk band X (her other half, John Doe, will be at the Hi-Tone on April 14th), Exene Cervenka is sort of the godmother of the alt-country scene. Fitting then that she now records for Chicago’s Bloodshot Records, a venerable alt-country label that X probably helped make possible. These days, Cervenka isn’t quite as confrontational as she was during the early X days, when she wailed through classics such as “We’re Desperate” and “Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You’re Not.” Cervenka’s latest album, The Excitement of Maybe, which was released on March 8th, is a softer, more contented affair, driven by front-porch acoustic guitars, Western steel, and soul horns more than revved-up rockabilly riffs. Call it aging gracefully. Exene Cervenka plays the Hi-Tone Café Saturday, April 2nd, with Kevin Seconds (of fellow ’80s punks 7 Seconds). Doors open at 9 p.m. Admission is $12. — Chris Herrington

We Recommend We Recommend

Home Sweet Homeless

Post author By Bianca Phillips
Post date March 31, 2011

On Tuesday, April 19th, the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development will present Mayor A C Wharton’s new plan to end homelessness to the Memphis City Council. A group of artists, poets, speakers, and homeless people are raising awareness before the presentation through “Reaching Home,” a two-day art and informational event.

A forum called “Home Sweet Homeless” kicks off the weekend at the Center for Transforming Communities in Binghamton on Saturday, April 2nd. Anita Beaty of Atlanta’s Metro Council To End Homelessness, Michael Stoops of the National Council for the Homeless, and local housing advocate June Averyt will speak on how homelessness affects health-care costs, the justice system, and domestic violence. The event will also feature testimonials from homeless and formerly homeless Memphians, as well as performances by poets and musicians.

On Sunday, April 3rd, at the Buckman Arts Center, dancers from the Performance Arts Network and other local companies will perform “Reach: An Evening of Music and Dance.”

Brad Watkins of the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center helped organize the two-day event, which he hopes will bring more people out to show support for the mayor’s action plan.

Said Watkins: “This plan is the most progressive and historic set of reforms for the homeless this city has ever seen.”

“Home Sweet Homeless” Panel Discussion, Saturday, April 2nd, 1-3:30 p.m., Free, The center for transforming communities,

258 N. Merton. “REACH,” Sunday, April 3rd, 5:30 p.m., $10 adults/$5 students, The Buckman Arts Center at St. Mary’s school,

60 Perkins Ext. (725-4990).

News The Fly-By

Siren Song

Post author By Andrew Caldwell
Post date March 31, 2011

Anyone downwind of the Wolf River last Friday evening may have felt a peculiar and undeniable calling to the mythical beings in its murky waters.

Folks gathered in the mist along the shoreline of the Wolf on Friday to listen to the siren’s song of mermaids for the closing of artist Emily Stout’s week-long sculpture installation off the bank of Mud Island. The mermaid statues, made of silicone-coated insulation foam and burlap, were the product of nearly six months of work as a part of Stout’s master of fine arts thesis for the Memphis College of Art (MCA).

“I’ve concentrated on art in the public sphere in the past, and for this project, I wanted to play with the whimsical, the grotesque, and the unexpected,” Stout said.

Indeed, Stout’s mermaids have taken eerily misshapen and otherworldly forms. Stout said that, in creating their bodies, she was interested in manipulating the human form by exaggerating their twists and folds, a statement on society’s tendency to view the human body as unnaturally disfigured.

“They were strangely grotesque,” said MCA sophomore Clare Freeman, who attended the closing reception on Friday. “It was startling because, growing up, mermaids were never portrayed that way. [Stout’s mermaids] were beautifully crafted and fantastically ugly, and along with the music, there’s kind of a treacherous undertone. It leaves you feeling like nothing is quite what it seems.”

The mermaids’ whispered song, which Stout wrote and recorded, played from speakers placed inside the figures’ tails, creating an accompaniment to the strangeness of the sculptures themselves.

Though the mermaids were removed from the Wolf River after the closing reception on Friday, they will be on display at the Jeff Nesin Graduate School at 477 South Main from April 16th through May 14th, with a reception held on April 29th during the South Main Art Trolley Tour.

Because the mermaids have held up remarkably well for a week in the Wolf, Stout said she thinks it would be fun to implant tracking devices in the mermaids and set them adrift in the Mississippi.

“They just lose something when they’re out of the water,” Stout said. “It’s where they were meant to be.”

Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Post author By
Post date March 31, 2011

Club Clearpool was the scene for the 1964 Les Debs dance, and the girls had hired my band, Randy and the Radiants, to supply the music. At evening’s end, there was an argument between the club owner and the band over what time to stop. He had flipped the lights on 15 minutes early, and we were contracted to play to the hour.

When the partygoers were herded out, a tussle broke out between band members, the owner, and his two greaser bouncers, one of whom followed me outside and punched me while my hands were filled with musical equipment.

I was just 16, and when I entered my parents’ home with a bloody shirt and a busted lip, my mother lost her mind and my father called the police. We went to court, where the club owner and his bouncers received stiff fines for assault and battery and malicious mischief, which would have been great were we not scheduled to appear at Club Clearpool again the next weekend. This time, I hired a security guard with a sidearm to join the band, but when we set up on the stage facing the concession stand on the opposite wall, the same three men were glaring at us with blood in their eyes.

Suddenly, the front door crashed open and in walked Sputnik Monroe, followed by our young DJ manager, Johnny Dark. The entire room erupted, and the dance stopped cold. Then, like Babe Ruth at bat, Sputnik pointed directly at the concession stand, saying, “I want to tell everybody” (then he paused for dramatic effect and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder in the band’s direction), “these boys are Sputnik’s boys, and if you mess with them, you’re messing with Sputnik.” Thanks to Johnny Dark, Sputnik took a rare Saturday night off to attend a teenage party and put the fear of God into some bullies. The following morning, the club owner called and apologized for the entire mess, telling me that he had fired his two associates and we were always welcome to play at Clearpool. I have been one of “Sputnik’s boys” ever since.

Like others of the Mouseketeer generation who grew up in Memphis, I was addicted to Saturday-morning TV wrestling and especially fascinated by the blood feud between good-guy Billy Wicks and the evil Sputnik. After one particularly violent encounter, Sputnik swore revenge at the Monday-night matches at the downtown Ellis Auditorium. I had never been to the live matches before, and I begged my father to take me. He said, “Call your grandfather. He loves wrestling.” My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe my immigrant grandfather, with his continental manners and ever-present jacket and tie, could be a closet wrestling fan.

We drove downtown in a taxi and got ringside seats to view the mayhem. I watched fascinated as toothless men screamed epithets at Tojo Yamamoto and howled at the shoulder-length hair of Mario Galento, but the main attraction was Wicks and Monroe. When Sputnik entered, the arena burst into open hostility, with boos and calls of “Commie” and “Skunky,” referring to the white streak in Sputnik’s hair. Wicks arrived like the Golden Boy. It was a two-out-of-three fall marathon match, which Sputnik won by cheating. He hit Wicks with a foreign object and held his trunks while applying the pin, but the referee raised his arm in victory anyway. I was aghast that he could get away with it, and it was left to my grandfather to explain to me that sometimes the good guys have to lose for the sake of the gate.

As a Billy Wicks fan, I could never have imagined myself 15 years later, hanging out at the Phillips Studios on Madison, sharing a joint with the evil Sputnik. It was the early ’70s, and Sputnik was frustrated because he couldn’t get the fans to hate him like before. I said that in these times, everything was upside down and what the fans truly despised were the hippies preaching peace and love. My friend Skip Ousley, a black man, suggested that Sputnik find a black wrestler to tag-team with.

The next Saturday on studio wrestling, Sputnik appeared with Norvell Austin, the “Black Panther.” Their hapless opponents were tangled in the ring ropes when Sputnik retrieved a bucket of black paint from ringside and poured it over their heads. Grabbing the announcer’s microphone, Sputnik declared, “Black is beautiful.” Norvell shouted, “White is beautiful.” And linking arms they said in unison, “Black and white together is beautiful.” The next time I saw Sputnik, he was a happy man, and proclaimed, “They hate me again.”

Last Thursday was declared Sputnik Monroe Day by the mayors of Shelby County and Memphis, and Representative Steve Cohen read a declaration into the Congressional Record commending the late professional wrestler for his role in desegregating public accommodations. The honor was to coincide with the premiere of the new documentary Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’, and it was such a success, I would like to offer a suggestion. Make Sputnik Monroe Day an annual event, and then the congressman can take it national.

We need this, people. Directly on the heels of Valentine’s Day, where you are required to cough it up for cards, candy, and flowers, there needs to be a day when you’re allowed to tell somebody to kiss your ass. (Not you, sweetheart.) Every March 24th, in Sputnik’s honor, you would be entitled to spill your boss’ coffee in his lap and smash him over the head with a folding chair. (What would pro wrestling be without the folding chair?)

But listen good: Anyone who recalls a packed Mid-South Coliseum with Jerry “The King” Lawler, Bill “Superstar” Dundee, “Handsome” Jimmy Valiant, or the antics of Andy Kaufman on the bill and doesn’t see this film is just another ignorant, pencil-neck geek.

Opinion Viewpoint

The Whole Truth

Post author By Brian Stephens
Post date March 31, 2011

I loved the old Perry Mason reruns in which that peerless lawyer would get the alleged wrongdoer to admit to a crime in open court. But, of course, those of us who live in the real world understand that people do not always abide by the rules of honesty and full disclosure, even when caught in the act.

Several questions have been raised regarding the intentions of Steve Cooper for Stella Marris, his now dormant “restaurant” located in Cordova just off Germantown Parkway on Fisher Steel Road. Is he telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I’ll let the facts speak for themselves.

Cooper, a known proprietor of what lay-folks call strip joints, has done very well for himself in the adult-entertainment industry. It could even be argued, despite what you may think of him personally or of his tactics, that he has been successful at building businesses.

Several years ago, Cooper purchased the property on Fisher Steel, just across from First Tennessee Fields, a nationally renowned Little League baseball park. He claimed he had no plans to open another strip joint. Instead, Cooper said he was interested in using his wealth of business knowledge on behalf of the riskiest business model in the nation. He claimed he wanted to open a restaurant.

Notwithstanding Cooper’s business savvy, he seemed ill-prepared and uncommitted to any sound business philosophy, changing the name and type of restaurant several times before he opened. At first, he said he intended to open an Italian restaurant called “La Italiano.” Next, it was to be a seafood restaurant called the “Ocean Club.” Then Cooper finally settled on “Stella Marris,” a high-end steak and seafood restaurant.

Here was an experienced businessman deciding to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a restaurant, similar to what one would find in Las Vegas, in an industrial section of Cordova, with no clear plan of success.

It would seem Cooper’s past business success did not translate well into the restaurant business, because he closed after only a few months to “remodel.” Perhaps the fact that the “restaurant” does not have windows was the problem, or the fact that the building was built with dance stages typically not found in upper-end restaurants. Or it may have been the fact that there were so many private rooms in the building.

Did Cooper change any of these flaws during his remodeling? No, instead, he increased the size of the parking and filed for what is called a “compensated dance permit.”

Now, a compensated dance permit, if granted by the Memphis City Council, would enable all of the following:

Beer and liquor could be sold; women could be paid to dance in the club; they could take tips from customers; they could take customers to back rooms (of which the Germantown Parkway facility, as mentioned, has several) for private dancing; they would not be allowed to be totally nude — the relevant code specifies only that the dancers must cover up “the breast below the top of areola or any portion of the pubic hair, anus, cleft of the buttocks, vulva, or genitals.” They could not engage in prostitution, nor “touch, caress, or fondle the breasts, buttocks, anus, or genitals of any other person,” but they would be allowed to dance in front of and next to customers.

Should the dancers violate the “no touching” rule or expose more skin than the law permits — say, in one of those many back rooms — they could incur fines ranging from $50 on a first offense to as much as $1,500 for multiple offenses. Experience has taught us that operators of sexually oriented businesses are typically willing to accept the risk of such fines — mere slaps on the wrist — given the income generated by performers, coupled with the volume of alcohol sales.

We need to reconcile our adult-entertainment laws with our regulations regarding obtaining a compensated dance permit. That means, at a minimum, increasing the financial penalties and suspending beer sales on first offense.

Perhaps all Cooper wants to do, as he claims, is to open a fun club with live bands and lively dancers — something like, say, Coyote Ugly on Beale Street, which stays well within the bounds of legal propriety.

In that case, he should have little problem in joining with us to insist that the loopholes alluded to above be eliminated.

Brian Stephens is a founding member of the Cordova Leadership Council.