TWO FOR THE ROAD
John Vergos is still telling people he’s uncertain about running for reelection to his District 5 (Midtown) city council seat, and at least one solid contender — Memphis lawyer Jim Strickland — is lining up for the race, just in case.
A former chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party, Strickland is a law partner of former Shelby Republican chairman David Kustoff and maintains the right kind of crossover connections for a non-partisan city council race.
In Democratic circles, Strickland is not a member of any particular faction but maintains reasonably good relations all around. He was the main man for Bartlett banker Harold Byrd last year in the latter’s campaign for county mayor — one aborted when too much mainstream force got attached to the cause of ultimate winner A C Wharton.
Strickland became Democratic chairman in 1995, in the wake of the party’s disasters — local, statewide, and national — of the 1994 campaign season. In the run-up to the 1996 campaign, he was privately asked to step down — or, more accurately, told he was stepping down — by then 9th District U.S. Representative Harold Ford Sr., who was preparing to hand the congressional baton to his son and namesake, Harold Ford Jr. and had prevailed on longtime party eminence and legendary fund-raiser Bill Farris to take over the helm.
Dutifully, Strickland played the role of good soldier and relinquished the post without a fuss.
Another candidate who, like Strickland, was an early starter, politically, but endured a setback or two to his ambitions is Scott McCormick, already campaigning for the District 9, Position 1 super-district seat (central and east Memphis) now held by long-term incumbent Pat VanderSchaaf, who has already indicated she will run again.
McCormick, owner of a printing company, first entered the candidates’ ranks in 1995 when District 2 council member Mary Rose McCormick (no relation) made a surprise withdrawal from her reelection campaign and endorsed her partial namesake.
After the incumbent’s withdrawal, the four-man race came down to three real contenders — McCormick, Beale St. impresario John Elkington, and funeral home administrator Brent Taylor. The well-known Elkington was the early tout, but discovered what many a political newcomer has found out — that grunt-level experience in politics is virtually indispensable to a candidate. Without a bank of loyal cadres to draw on, Elkington faded, and the resultant dead heat between McCormick and Taylor required a runoff, which Taylor won by just 400 votes.
Still, McCormick came off well and made a run for Pete Sisson’s suburban District 1 Shelby County Commisson seat when the incumbent decided not to run again. Other challengers in the Republican primary field were lobbyist Paul Stanley (now a state representative) and activist Marilyn Loeffel. No runoff would be necessary in that one, as Loeffel’s long-standing army of social conservatives helped her sweep Cordova and capture the nomination
McCormick’s name comes up virtually every time there’s a local election with an open seat in his neck of the woods. He is no perennial, however, and will proceed into the campaign with the backing of such established political types as Probate Court Clerk Chris Thomas, his campaign chairman.
VanderSchaaf, of course, is no slouch. She has already served 28 years on the council — a record — and, while that fact might be a provocation to voters of the turn-the-rascals-out variety (as it was for the voters who turned out her ex-husband, Clair VanderSchaaf, in his bid for reelection to the county commission last year), her longevity in office also attests to an undeniable long-term popularity.
VanderSchaaf’s vulnerabilities include an arrest for shoplifting some years back that will undoubtedly serve to encourage other candidates, and that would be good news for the incumbent, since super-district races — unlike those for regular districts — have no runoff provisions and go to whoevever has a plurality.
This is the proposition sanctioning the efforts of a private company, the Lakes Corporation, to investigate the conversion of The Pyramid into a casino that would be operated by Native Americans. The brainchild of Commissioner John Willingham, it went down by a single vote last week, but may be up for reconsideration as part of a trade-off in which the languishing issue of rural school bonds will come up for a vote.
The bond-issue proposal would fund a new school in Arlington and improvements elsewhere in the county system by raising the county property-tax rate while circumventing the current funding ratio requiring that three dollars be lavished on Memphis city school construction for every one spent in the county. The commissioners to watch for possible switches are Willingham, who has not favored the bond proposal, and Tom Moss, who has been equally dubious about a downtown casino.
The other deferred issue to be voted on Monday is a resolution calling for additional vacation pay for former commissioner administrator Calvin Williams, whose involvement in potential conflict-of-interest situations forced him out of his job in January. Though former Commission chairmen Buck Wellford and Tommy Hart spke on Williams’ behalf last week, his chances of prevailing are rated as highly problematic.
Still rated as the favorite to succeed Williams is his former deputy, Grace Hutchinson, now serving as acting administrator. She and three other candidates — former Memphis police director Winslow “Buddy” Chapman; Chamber of Commerce administrator Jesse Johnson; and Memphis city council administrator Lisa Geeter — are the finalists pared down from a field of eight on Monday. (Those eliminated were veteran political and governmental hand Joe Cooper; investor Joe Rodriguez; veteran human resources administrator Elizabeth Walters; and Juvenile Court administrator Frank Conti.) Besides the finalists, one other applicant (from an original field of 176!) considered to have a chance for the job of deputy administrator is Clay Perry, now a local field director for Rep. Ford.
