Chris Herrington surveys the music of Lucinda Williams, who plays Minglewood Tudesday, and the sassy Elizabeth Cook (above), who performs at Levitt Shell Thursday.
Categories
Month: September 2013
- CFY Catering
For their first year participating in the Dixon’s annual Art on Tap event, CFY Catering was asked to bring something sweet.
After some brainstorming, they came up with an idea they thought fitting for a beer-centric event held in the waning days of summer: the Hops-icle, popsicles made with beer.
CFY created two flavors: the Lunar Linen with Belgian Ale and hard lemonade, and the Angry Bird, made with a lager and hard cider.
In addition to the Hops-icles, there will be beer from Wiseacre, Boscos, Ghost River, the Bluff City Brewers, High Cotton, and many others. Food will be provided by Bar Louie, One & Only BBQ, Frost Bake Shop, Gus’s, Rock ‘n’ Dough, Las Delicias, and Boscos.
Art on Tap is Friday, Sept. 6th, 6 p.m. Tickets are $40. Wine-tasting tickets are an additional $10.
Categories
Fast Food, Low Wages
Chris Shaw reports on the recent strike by local fast food workers.
In theory, 2013 should be an off year on the Shelby County election calendar — for most county residents, anyhow. One year out of every four is outside the normal cycle of statewide, county, national, and Memphis municipal elections. But, in fact, with 2013 well more than half over, four elections are yet to come.
ON SEPTEMBER 19, regularly scheduled municipal elections will be held in Arlington and Lakeland.
In Arlington, there are three contested races for alderman: Oscar L. Brooks, Sr. vs. Brian “Brian Elder” Groves in Position 4; Joshua Fox and Harry McKee in Position 5; and Larry M. Harmon, Jr. and Brian Thompson in Position 6.
In Lakeland, there is a mayor’s race, featuring challengers Jim Bomprezzi and Wyatt Bunker and Scott Carmichael, and a commissioner’s seat, contested by Donald O. Barber, Sherri Gallick, Clark W. Plunk, Cecil Tompkins, and John Wilkerson.
ON OCTOBER 8, there will be a Democratic primary to determine that party’s nominee on November 21 for the right to succeed the late Lois DeBerry as state representative in House District 91. Eight candidates filed valid qualifying petitions. They are: Raumesh Akbari, Dwight DeBerry, Doris A. DEeBerry-Bradshaw, Joshua R. Forbes, Kemba Ford, Terica Lamb, Clifford N. Lewis, and Kermit Moore.
ON NOVEMBER 7, six Shelby County suburban municipalities — Arlington, Lakeland, Collierville, Germantown, Bartlett, and Millington — will hold elections for their soon-to-be-created school boards. Numerous petitions have been issued by the Election Commission so far. Filing deadline is September 26, and the Flyer will publish a complete list of candidates as of that date.
ON NOVEMBER 21, the special general election for state House District 91 will be held, with the winner of the October 8 Democratic primary opposing Libertarian Jim Tomasik, who will be listed on the ballot as an independent, and potential write-in candidates.
On the same date, Memphis voters will cast ballots on a referendum to raise the city sales-tax rate half a percentage point from 2.25 percent to 2.75 percent — the proceeds going toward funding a pre-K program for Memphis children, with any leftover monies to be used to lower the city’s property tax rate.
Categories
The Problem with Quick Consensus
Don’t let it go to your head, Superintendent Dorsey Hopson.
Six votes ain’t a landslide. Anyone who says, as a certain newspaper did, that “many applaud” your swift appointment has a bit of a counting problem. Six people quoted in an article, two of whom are current school board members, is not that many, and yes, I know headlines are shorthand and I have been guilty of this myself. “Many” times.
Take it from a veteran of the scribbling class: If someone says you’re wise or smart or insightful it means they agree with you, no more.
The 23-member unified school board was a circus, for sure, as those who attended the 5-hour meetings well know. But that stage of the process probably had to happen. Birthing a baby often takes hours, and, I am told, is quite painful.
Hopson never would have gotten the job a year ago or two years ago, much less a week ago. I thought he was a cold fish, but I was wrong. He was doing his job as general counsel the way he was supposed to do it. Now that I have gotten to know him a little bit I think he’s a swell guy and right for the job. (That means he agrees with me.)
A 23-member board is too big, but a six-member board, in addition to being an even number, is too small. That’s one board member for every 24,000 students in the system. That doesn’t square too well with the theory that school governance should be as close to the people as possible. In the six future municipal school systems, assuming they happen, there will be five board members, for a ratio of 2,000-1 or less. And notice that most of those positions are going to be contested races. There is always disagreement.
If quick consensus is such a great idea then why not just have 3-member boards? The former Shelby County school board had 7 members. For most of the board’s existence, all of the members were white and male, even though the county system had thousands of black and female students. No wonder there was so much harmony and consensus, as board members endlessly reminded us dysfunctional Memphians.
I rarely covered the old county board but I knew one of its customers, developer Jackie Welch, well. As he told me once, he “kinda had the market” on new schools and the subdivisions that fed them for several years. It’s hard to get that kind of clout in a place like Memphis where there is/was more diversity and scrutiny.
Hopson, as he knows, is in the honeymoon period. Let’s see how much consensus there is when the size of the board is finalized, members are elected or appointed, and the tough issues come down the pipe. Like who gets the buildings and the students, and at what cost.
One more note. The details of Hopson’s contract are being worked out. That presumably includes his pay, which is likely to be higher than the pay of the city and county mayors. Anyone alarmed by that should take a peek at the publicly available tax forms (form 990, available on line at guidestar.org) of local private schools that are about one percent the size of the unified system but pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to their leaders.
Categories
“American” Football Picks: Week 2
LAST WEEK: 7-2
FRIDAY
UCF at Florida International
SATURDAY
Duke at Memphis
Montana State at SMU
Norfolk State at Rutgers
Houston at Temple
Eastern Kentucky at Louisville
USF at Michigan State
Cincinnati at Illinois
Okay, that headline was completely false and misleading, but last week Hog & Hominy was named among the “5 Best New Restaurants in the South” by Southern Living. This is the latest list, and perhaps even the last list that the year-old restaurant can possibly be placed on.
H&H was named one of GQ‘s Most Outstanding Restaurants; chefs Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman were among Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs; and its staff was listed as the number one Plaid-wearingest staff in America by American Plaidwearers Magazine.
Okay, maybe the last bit isn’t true either, but the Southern Living honor cements Hog & Hominy as the most important restaurant in Memphis, if not the world, and it won’t be long before food nerds start writing fan fiction, while Poutine, and other delicious H&H menu items begin to emerge as popular baby names. Write it down.
Categories
What They Said
About “Marriage Equality Rally”:
“There is no good reason to deny that we must keep evolving until an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, monogamy or polyamory, race, or religion is free to marry any and all consenting adults. The limited same-gender freedom to marry is a great and historic step, but is NOT full marriage equality, because equality ‘just for some’ is not equality.” — Keith Pullman
About “Children’s Museum to Display Real Children”:
“Finally, my family will get its money’s worth going to the Children’s Museum. (But I’m not paying to buy special feed. Those kids can have whatever crackers my kids can eat.)” — Samson
About “Letter from the Editor” and those international flights to New Mexico:
“It’s not the flight that’s a pain; it’s that strip search in customs once you get to Albuquerque.” — staythirstymyfriends
About “The Onion Was Right About Miley Cyrus” and that whole VMA Awards thing:
“The attempt to put the ‘child’ career behind has been difficult for many artists. We get it, sweetie. You’re all grown up. The sad part is MTV rated this event for 14 and up knowing those as young as 9 would seek their ‘Hannah Montana.'”
— thecatsmeow
“When you have a net worth of 120 million at the age of 20, you can twerk with or without a trunk. It is amazing that so many people feel sorry for her, and they don’t have a crying dime to their name. If this is the way she wants to be, then it is on her to want to change when she gets ready. She can afford it!”
— oldtimeplayer
Comment of the Week:
About “The Rant” and the “unseemly pillaging of the Voting Rights Act”:
“I am personally surprised that the Dear President doesn’t support these photo ID laws, after all, isn’t it easier to find, spy on, and harass those who don’t support you if they have to obtain a government ID?”
— CEBorst
Categories
Fast-Food Nation
Fifty years after Dr. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington to highlight the need for all Americans to share a decent standard of living, many service workers are still fighting for a living wage.
Fast-food workers and community activists gathered at the AFSCME Local 1733 Union Hall downtown last week before leading a march to the National Civil Rights Museum protesting what they claim are unfair working conditions in service industry jobs.
Chants of “We can’t survive on $7.25” were heard in between speakers making arguments for not only a pay increase from minimum wage to $15 but also the right to unionize without unfair retaliation from upper-level management.
The nationwide fast-food strike took place the day after the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, which called for a minimum wage of $2 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, that would equal $15.26 an hour today.
According to CNN, the median pay for fast-food workers across the country is just more than $9 an hour or about $18,500 a year. That’s roughly $4,500 lower than the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty income threshold of $23,000 for a family of four.
Rev. Herbert Lester, chairman of the Workers Interfaith Network, said one of the most common misconceptions of the fast-food industry is that the jobs are stepping stones and not designed for long-term employment.
“The notion that these are entry-level jobs just isn’t true, even though it’s the dominant perception. The average age of a fast-food worker in Memphis is 29, and over one-fourth of all fast-food workers have children,” Lester said.
Fast food is a $200 billion-a-year industry, yet many service workers across the country earn minimum wage or just above and are forced to rely on public assistance programs to provide for their families. Nationally, the median wage for cooks, cashiers, and crew at fast-food restaurants is $8.94 an hour.
Anthony Cathey has worked at the McDonald’s at 905 Union for more than five years and still gets paid $7.40 an hour, 25 cents less than the cost of one Big Mac combo meal.
“They pay us less than one Big Mac meal an hour. How many Big Mac meals are they selling in an hour? At least 30,” Cathey said. “McDonald’s makes enough to pay me for eight hours of work in about 30 minutes, just off of one combo. If they raised one of their meals 10 cents, I think it would be enough to pay us what we need.
“We’re asking for $15 [per hour] and a union because we want health-care benefits, paid vacations, and sick days. No one has helped us get what we want so far, so we decided to come out and do this the right way,” Cathey added.
Lester said that even though this is the first step in a long fight for workers’ rights and wage increases in service-level jobs, he hopes that the strike brought some overdue attention to the plight of fast-food workers.
“We will continue to shed light on these topics and hopefully inspire workers in other industries to stand up for their rights,” Lester said. “We aren’t going to stop until common needs are met across the board and a fair wage for a fair day’s work becomes the law of the land.”
Categories
Cutting the Cord
Anyone used to listening in to committee meetings of the Shelby County Commission via audio streaming on the commission’s website came a cropper last Wednesday — literally. Workmen on the 11th floor involved in the renovation of the Vasco Smith County Administration Building inadvertently cropped the fiber optics cord that enabled transmission of commission activities.
James Harvey
The unfortunate circumstance wiped out audio records of some lively debate, though recordings survive of the commission’s interviews with 11 candidates for the appointment to a vacancy in District 6 of the Unified School District’s board.
The candidates for the seat vacated by Reginald Porter, now chief of staff for the Unified District, were: Shante Avant, Perry Bond, Tony Braxton, Justin Casey, Cherry Davis, Clara Ford, Rosalyn Nichols, David Page, Joya Smith, Rhoda Stigall, and Sharon Webb.
The commission will vote on a successor to Porter on Monday.
Another matter introduced last Wednesday was that of committee assignments made by chairman-elect James Harvey. Normally, the commission’s approval of such assignments is pro forma, and it may turn out to be that way when the commission holds its next public meeting on Monday.
But Commissioner Walter Bailey, a Democrat, fired a shot last Wednesday across the bow of fellow Democrat Harvey, who on Monday will formally accede to the chairmanship, which he won in large part with Republican votes.
Bailey objected to the appointment of Republican Heidi Shafer as budget committee chairman and sought instead to amend the appointments resolution to reappoint Melvin Burgess as budget chair. Shafer objected, as did GOP commissioners Terry Roland and Chris Thomas, and Bailey’s motion was defeated, with the full commission due to consider the issue next week.
What is involved is something more than mere honorifics. Shafer was a vociferous opponent of the increases in the county budget and tax rate sought by county mayor Mark Luttrell and approved this year after a protracted struggle. She is known for close line-by-line study of budgetary matters and sees herself as a watchdog against overspending.
Burgess, who works as director of internal audit for the Unified School District, is meanwhile still under attack by Roland, who unsuccessfully sought to have Burgess disqualified from voting on the budget and tax rate because of his employment with an agency receiving county funds.
As the interviews with candidates for the school board were being held on Wednesday, Roland apprised the Flyer of his intention to challenge Burgess’ right to vote on the matter on Monday. “Melvin can’t do that,” Roland said. “He’s trying to vote [to select] his own boss.”
• The list of candidates who met last Thursday’s filing deadline for a special election in state House District 91 indicates that name identification may play a major role in determining the winner. The seat was held for some four decades by the late, revered former House speaker pro tem Lois DeBerry, and the surname DeBerry is represented twice in the field of 11 candidates.
Dwight DeBerry, a political newcomer, is a cousin of Lois DeBerry, while Doris A. DeBerry-Bradshaw is the sister of District 90 representative John DeBerry (no relation to Lois). The extended Ford family figures in with the filing of Kemba Ford, daughter of former state senator John Ford, who is making her second electoral effort after running unsuccessfully for the city council in 2011.
Other candidates in a fairly nondescript field are Raumesh Akbari, Joshua R. Forbes, Terica Lamb, Clifford Lewis, Kermit Moore, Gregory Stokes, Mary Taylor Wright, and Jim Tomasik. All except Tomasik, an avowed libertarian and an independent, are running in the October 8th Democratic primary. No Republicans filed in District 91. The general election is November 21st.
• Stephen Fincher, a member in good standing of the congressional Tea Party caucus and an unabashed member of the Republican Party’s right wing, struck some unwontedly moderate-sounding notes last Tuesday night as the featured speaker at the annual Master Meal event of the East Shelby County Republican Club.
Noting that he was “the first Republican to hold this seat,” the 8th District congressman from Frog Jump in Crockett County called for unity among all Republicans of whatever faction. “This is a two-party system. We cannot eat our own. We must stay united if we’re going to beat Barack Obama and the Democrats,” he said.
And Fincher, who spoke before a packed house at the Great Hall of Germantown, urged caution regarding a proposal by some Republicans to force a shutdown of the government rather than allow the funding of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act).
“If we do a CR [continuing resolution] without Obamacare, [Senate Democratic leader] Harry Reid is going to put it right back in and send it back to the House,” Fincher said.
Then, after asking for a show of hands over the proposition that “the president will be right back on the campaign trail, and IRS scandals and Benghazi and all that will be swept under the rug, and he will use this to keep control of the Senate in 2014,” Fincher said, “I think that’s what’ll happen. … I think he’s baiting us, he’s trying to divide us.” The congressman advocated instead a strategy of delaying the onset of aspects of Obamacare.
But Fincher made it clear that, in proposing discretion, he was not advocating that Republicans surrender their principles. “If we fall, it won’t be because of the Democrats. It’ll be because of the Republicans not standing up.”
Other speakers at the annual East Shelby GOP affair included Luttrell, Shelby County Republican chairman Justin Joy, and state Republican chairman Chris Devaney of Nashville. Devaney defended a decision by the National Republican Committee to keep NBC and CNN out of the GOP’s future televised-debate plans as the penalty for those networks’ pursuing program projects relating to potential Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
• Shelby County chancellor Arnold Goldin, who has figured in several important cases in recent years — notably the challenge by several Democratic losing candidates to the county election of 2010, which he denied — is one of three judges appointed last week by Governor Bill Haslam to fill appellate-court vacancies a year from now.
Goldin will replace Judge Alan Highers, who is retiring, on the Court of Appeals, Western Section.
The other judge-in-waiting appointments are those of Nashville lawyer Neal McBrayer to the Court of Appeals, Middle Section, to succeed Judge Patricia Cottrell, and Criminal Court judge Robert Montgomery of Sullivan County to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Middle Section, to succeed Judge Joseph Tipton.
The unusual situation is the result of the General Assembly’s failure during the 2013 legislative session to renew the state’s Judicial Nominating Commission, which has had the duty of recommending candidates to fill appellate vacancies. Mindful of the situation, Judges Highers, Cottrell, and Tipton gave the governor early notice of their intention not to be on the August 2014 retention ballot.
The Judicial Commission, which expired at midnight on June 30th, did its part to fill the procedural gap, meeting in the two or three days prior to that and making its last recommendations to Haslam for the three positions.
The November 2014 statewide ballot will contain a constitutional amendment empowering the governor to fill such appellate vacancies on his own, subject to the legislature’s confirmation.
Meanwhile, another Memphian, state Supreme Court justice Janice Holder, has also announced that she intends to retire when her term expires on August 31, 2014, and, since the Judicial Commission expired without making recommendations for her successor, Haslam is in something of a quandary as to how to proceed.
• Memphis Democrats used to getting emails from the Daily Buzz newsletter, published by Trace Sharp and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike McWherter of Dresden, will be getting a bonus from now on.
The Daily Buzz email, reconfigured as the Crockett Policy Buzz, will now incorporate investigative and analytical efforts of the newly formed Crockett Policy Institute, whose executive director is Sharp.
As she wrote, in a message to subscribers, “It is time for reasonable and educated discussions on policy, reaching out for common sense solutions that can change our state for the better. … The Crockett Policy Buzz which will come to your emails each morning will continue to focus on news of the day as well as looking at how we can problem solve effectively the tests we face in our society right now.”