Sheriff Floyd Bonner had ample reason to feel satisfied last week. Previously he had been informed that the Republicans would not include his office in their 2022 primary elections. And on Wednesday of last week, he was treated as something of a conquering hero by a large crowd of rank-and-file Democrats and candidates for other offices at a party forum.
Indeed, Bonner spoke early, as a de facto head of the party ticket, at the forum, which was sponsored at the Great Hall of Germantown by District 4 (Germantown, Cordova) of the Shelby County Democratic Party. And he was well applauded.
Yet all is not sunny weather for the sheriff. He is currently vexed by the matter of the county jail, as he made plain in his remarks at the forum. In effect, Bonner made a somewhat desperate-sounding plea, asking that those present help him in rounding up candidates to work at the jail, promising a $5,000 bonus for anyone applying and accepted, to go with a salary in the $40,000 range.
“And they can be 18 years old,” he said.
The sheriff did not mention another fact about the jail — that he has been the subject of a suit filed by the ACLU on behalf of the inmate population, which, according to the suit, is seriously underserved in the matter of protection from the ravages of Covid-19. Bonner is also bound by a consent decree to remedy the matter, overseen by federal Judge Sheryl Lipman, who finds both staff and inmates, a small minority of whom are vaccinated, to be in “deep peril.” (Three deputy jailers have died from Covid, and numerous inmates have become seriously ill.) Lipman has issued a follow-up order denying a motion by the sheriff to suspend the decree.
Supporters of the ACLU action succeeded in getting a resolution critical of the sheriff’s inaction on the agenda of the SCDP’s executive committee Thursday night, but it was rejected 21 to 3, with members of the majority proclaiming a reluctance to impose judgment on the sheriff’s prerogatives. And clearly the realpolitik of 2020 electoral politics played a role in the outcome.
The court order remains, however, as does the resolve of local activists demanding compliance.
As this week began, Sheriff Bonner, who won all the votes last week, lost one. The first reading of a resolution to raise his annual pay from $164,765 to $199,500 failed in the Shelby County Commission by a vote of two ayes, two noes, and seven abstentions. The magic number would have been nine, a two-thirds majority.
