Author: Ashley Fantz

It’s back. The dreaded property reappraisal that is, and this time Shelby County Assessor Rita Clark and her staff are promising extra-close scrutiny of the biggest and most expensive homes.

The reappraisal is due to be finished in April 2001. If homeowners feel like they’ve been through this before well, they have. It’s the second reappraisal in three years and the fourth in ten years, following the decade of the 1980s when the assessor’s office (under different leadership) failed to complete the job. Normally a reappraisal is done every four years, but Shelby County is on a three-year cycle this time because of delays in the last reappraisal.

By state law, appraisals are supposed to be at market value. In the strong economy, home sales prices have generally been going up, making a reappraisal tantamount to a tax increase for many homeowners. The difference between a $200,000 house and a $300,000 house in the city of Memphis, for example, is $1,727 a year in property taxes.

But the 1998 reappraisal, like its forerunners, missed the target on so-called “high-end” homes. In a spot survey in Memphis magazine two years ago, some houses that sold for over $1 million were appraised at half that amount or less. Other wealthy homeowners got their appraisals reduced on appeal under questionable circumstances. The resulting publicity led to a nasty break-up of Clark and one of her top appraisers.

The 2001 reappraisal is being led by Cheyenne Johnson, a 14-year veteran of the assessor’s office. In an interview, she and Clark said “we are doing everything we can” to identify possible errors in high-end appraisals including field checks and verifying square footage, permit information, and comparable sales. A complete report on high-end appraisals will be finished by the end of the year.

The assessor’s office defines “high-end” as over $600,000 and 4,000 square feet. There are an estimated 6,000 high-end parcels in the county.

“An appraisal is an opinion of value,” says Clark, elected to a second term in August.

“There is no way a mass appraisal can adjust to every situation. The problem with the high end is that you just don’t have a large number of comparable sales.”

In September, the Multiple Listings Service (MLS) of the Memphis Area Association of Realtors showed 44 homes either sold or listed for over $1 million since 1998. Twelve homes had been sold, two more sales were pending, 26 were still on the market, and four listings had been taken off the market.

This list does not include new construction. If this year’s Vesta Home Show is any indication, million-dollar homes are becoming more common in Shelby County. Five of the six homes on the tour were priced at over $1 million.

“We have had more sales over $1 million between the last reappraisal and this one than we have ever had,” says Robert Trouy, manager of residential maintenance for the Assessor’s office.

With two exceptions, sale prices were higher than the 1998 appraisal values, which is not surprising since the numbers are nearly three years old. Given the general rate of housing inflation since 1998, Clark and John-son were satisfied with most of their valuations. If a sale falls within 80 to 110 percent of the 1998 reappraisal, it is “validated” by the office.

In some cases where sales price and appraisal were far apart, they found that the sale had not been validated because there were unusual circumstances such as a family or corporate relationship between the buyer and seller, inclusion of personal property, or a large piece of prime property that can be subdivided for future homes.

If the sale was indeed an arms-length transaction and the sale price and appraisal are still far apart, then Johnson and Trouy try to find out why. This may include a field inspection.

“By law we can’t go in the house but we can go on the property,” Johnson says.

If the office concludes that its appraisal is too low, it can make an adjustment in the next reappraisal but not until then.

To illustrate some of the issues in high-end appraisals, Memphis magazine looked at public records for three homes in different parts of Shelby County that each sold recently for more than $1 million. Then we asked Clark’s staff to comment.

¥ 517 East Parkway South. This Midtown home built in 1923 is currently appraised at $459,000 by Clark’s office. It sold for $519,000 in 1995. The owners took out permits that year for remodeling valued at $143,000. They more than got their money back. Last year the house sold for $1,370,000.

Trouy explains that the current appraisal is based on the 1995 sale and improvements. Midtown, he says, is especially hard to value because of the variety of housing conditions and the scarcity of high-end sales.

Based on the most recent validated arms-length sale, however, this appraisal is likely to jump next year, he said.

¥ 5885 Garden River Cove. This house was built in 1996 in one of the most expensive sections of East Memphis. The building permit for the new construction was for $500,000 plus $90,000 of improvements, but the house appears to be worth much more than that. It is appraised at $758,600.

The house has been sold three times in the last two years, and on two other occasions the owners filed quit claims, which is a way to transfer property to an estate. The first sale, in January 1999, was for $2,999,000; the second sale was for $2,700,000 in April of this year; and the most recent sale, in June, was for $2,750,000. The owners have included a corporate CEO, a physician, and a merchant.

Trouy was puzzled by the sales, which were not validated. Other homes in the neighborhood sold for $150 to $200 a square foot, but this one sold for around $325 a foot.

“You will rarely see sales in excess of $200 a square foot in Shelby County with the exception of custom houses like the Quantum House,” he says.

¥ 2847 Keasler Circle West. This house in East Germantown sold for $664,300 in 1996 and is appraised at $646,400.

In 1999, it sold for $1,350,000, although there was no permit activity between sales. So the house seems to have doubled in value in three years. Trouy says this could be due to general growth in the Collierville/Germantown area. The appraisal is likely to be much higher next time because of the sale price and fact that there are more comparables.

Here is a complete listing of homes that sold for over $1 million in the last two years, with the 1998 appraisal in parentheses.

1. 163 Cloister Green Cove, $1,338,500 (sale pending)

2. 2556 Houston Levee Road, $1,197,000 (sale pending)

3. 517 East Parkway South, $1,370,000 ($459,000).

4. 6381 Swan Nest Cove, $1,000,000 ($792,000)

5. 5965 River Oaks Road, $1,000,000 ($1,048,200)

6. 5849 Garden River Cove, $1,050,000 ($894,000)

7. 5885 Garden River Cove, $2,750,000 ($746,300)

8. 2412 Carter’s Grove Lane, $1,200,000 ($1,234,000)

9. 9485 Inglewood Cove, $1,000,000 ($745,700)

10. 2590 Johnson Road, $1,150,000 ($673,800)

11. 9282 Ingleside Farms Rd. N., $1,175,000 ($858,000)

12. 2847 Keasler Circle W., $1,350,000 ($569,000)

13. 9293 Poplar Avenue, $1,362,608 ($233,300)

14. 835 Bray Station Rd., $1,425,000 ($673,000)

[This story originally appeared in the November issue of Memphis magazine.

At first glance Federal Express and Netscape seem to have little in common. Little, that is, except for Jim Barksdale.

Barksdale, a former Memphian who has received accolades from a string of business and technology watchdogs, came back to the Bluff City on Tuesday to speak at The Orpheum to a packed room of tech-heads and would-be entrepreneurs. Barksdale, as keynote speaker for the Chamber of Commerce’s Memphis Technology Summit, entertained all present with a brand of folksy humor not expected from a guy who made his fortune in wireless telephones, package shipping, and Internet searching.

“If you see a snake, do not call a committee on snakes, do not make a phone call about the snake, do not send e-mails about the snake – kill the snake,” Barksdale said to the group, paraphrasing Ross Perot and explaining the management theory that he used while taking Netscape from 100 employees to 3,000. Barksdale went on to highlight two additional “snake” rules used by Netscape, these not derived from Perot.

“The second snake rule is this, ‘Never play with dead snakes.’”

After pausing for a moment while the crowd laughed, Barksdale explained that some employees tend to rehash the death of an idea, a.k.a. “a dead snake.”

“The third snake rule,” said Barksdale, “is this — All opportunities start off looking like a snake. If it’s not a problem, don’t kill it. But if it is a problem and you can fix it, you can provide a service to someone else, and they might even pay for it.”

This third snake rule is the one that Barksdale said played most heavily during the early days at Netscape.

Operationally speaking, there are few similarities between FedEx and Netscape. One, the international shipping giant that made overnight delivery a reality and the other, the communications company that made surfing the web possible for the technology challenged. But besides Barksdale, and according to him, both companies took advantage of converging technologies and this was the theme of his speech.

“Converging technologies are two or more technologies that come together at the right time,” explained Barksdale, picking up on the theme of the day-long workshop the Chamber of Commerce had arranged to highlight the advantages Memphis offers to technology companies.

Ending his speech, Barksdale offered three pieces of advice: “First, figure out what you’re interested in, then figure out what road to take, and watch out for any snakes in the road.”

Next to the Billion Bubba March and 6th Street after dark, Austin, Texas is a pretty great place to hang your hat for a couple of days — well, if you can find a coatrack that isn’t guarded by the police. Don’t forget the right credentials. Oh, and it’s a good idea not to be a protester, a Ralph Nader supporter, or the Green Party’s main man himself. The average Austinite trying to go to work, get to school, get on with life as usual, woke up Tuesday morning to their fine city more heavily barricaded than the Alamo.

Austin appears to be Bush country from convenience stores papered in the candidate’s posters to Bush/Cheney litter strewn UT campus. To show its support for the son of Bush, the city council moved to spend a little taxpayer dough to construct looming red, white, and blue plume-like archways to show their patriotism. A friend and student at UT whom I’m slumming with this election night just rolled her eyes at it all, opting to take a longer route to drop me off in the middle of Congress Avenue’s impending circus.

“Nobody that I know cares too much,” she said, sighing. “We’re in the middle of exams. There are probably a lot of students who aren’t going to vote. If I vote for Nader, I’m voting for Bush. If I vote for Gore, I’ll vomit. He’s phony. And Bush is even less an option.”

I don’t know why, but as soon as I got to her campus apartment, I felt like ordering a pizza, putting on a sweatshirt, sleeping late, and forgetting about it all.

Instead I met a group of prominent journalists for drinks at the downtown Hyatt. Reporters always find a way to get together and drink during major news events. One of the hotshots to my right told me that what the UT student had predicted was really good news.

“That’s better than the national average, isn’t it? Or something like that?” He confessed that he doesn’t listen to readers of his D.C.-based national magazine because they distract him.

“Your friend has it probably right on there,” he said. “She’s right; not a lot of people your age are going to the poles tomorrow.” Then he went back to a long pontification about the Green Party’s “subtle introduction of advanced sociology similar to Vladimir Putin’s hoped for regime which is antithetical to Reaganomics contrary to what most pundits are saying.”

I had another drink. I read three story leads in the Austin Statesman newspaper that began with poll results. I listened to the other reporters analyze very deeply and thoroughly the very analytical and deep implications of this election. And when I got back to my friends’ apartment, I wished her good luck on her exam, and said I understood perfectly well why she might not vote. Disconnect between the establishment — the politicians, the well-paid journalists, the pundits and the voters is what will linger long after we know tonight’s election results.

Disillusioned and disappointed in Austin — Ashley Fantz.

(You can write Ashley Fantz at ashley@memphisflyer.com)

WASHINGTON, DC — It’s not the only house in D.C., but maybe the toughest.

Memphis public defender Mark Ward held his cool under intense pressure Wednesday to present a controversial case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Weathering both sharply critical and insightful questions from the justices, Ward argued that the Tennessee Supreme Court cannot retroactively punish an already convicted person, even if state laws change after the crime.

That’s the legal issue at hand. The details of the case are a bit more messy.

Six years ago, Wilbert Rogers was invited to play cards with one of his buddyÕs wives. His friend was in jail at the time and when Rogers arrived at the woman’s house, he met another man, Ira Bowdery, allegedly the woman’s boyfriend. The three played cards into the night — drinking and smoking dope. Rogers lost about $20 to Bowdery, who eventually retired to the bedroom with the woman.

The following few hours were very sobering. Rogers admitted to bursting in the bedroom door with a butcher knife and attacking Bowdery. One of those swings sliced clean into Bowdery’s heart. While the woman hysterically chased Rogers as he fled the home, Bowdery — bloody and barely coherent — stumbled through the door of a neighbor’s trailer. They took Bowdery to the hospital where he clung to life for over a year-and-a-half before dying in 1995. Rogers was convicted of first degree murder, and is serving a 33-year prison sentence.

Ward argued before the Supreme Court that RogersÕ defense should have been in accordance with the laws on the books at the time he attacked Bowdery. That law in question stipulates that a defendant cannot be tried for first-degree murder if the victim does not die within a year and a day of an assault. It was was written in 1907 and abolished by the state legislature in 1997.

“The law was reasonable a hundred years ago when we didn’t have the medical advances to keep someone alive for that long,” said Ward in September while preparing for his allotted 30 minutes before the high court “A person should be punished under the law existing at the time of his crime. If retroactive application of laws is allowable, then where does that stop?”

In early 1997, Rogers appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court to consider the year-and-a-day law and reduce his sentence. The court rejected the appeal. Rogers then appealed to the state Supreme Court who agreed with the Sixth Circuit. But, most significantly, the Tennessee Supreme Court also ruled that the year-and-a-day law was archaic and no longer applicable in murder trials.

The question before the U.S. Supreme Court is whether the Tennessee Supreme Court can retroactively apply its 1999 ruling abolishing a law for a defendant whose criminal act occurred five years earlier.

Wednesday afternoon Ward had to argue not just the legality of the issue, but why the court should be lenient on a confessed killer, whose only defense is that his victim lived longer than expected.

“There’s an aura of unreality about your case,” Justice Sandra Day O’Conner said. “It seems to me that your client is just taking advantage of this law. I mean, I have to ask, ‘What purpose does it serve to make concessions for a murderer?’ It’s reasonable to assume that he hoped Mr. Bowdery would die.”

Infliction of a mortal wound, the justices could rule, is enough to constitute punishable first-degree homicide.

Tennessee Solicitor General Michael Moore used that rationale, but made it only a minor component of his argument. Moore told the U.S. Supreme Court that the year-and-a-day law was irrelevant, or a “loophole principle,” when reasonably assuming that the first thing on Rogers’ mind was to kill.

Ward referenced Bouie v. City of Columbia which barred retroactive application of any laws pertaining to criminal statutes.

Ward also pointed out that the majority of America’s courts have not applied their rulings retroactively. That fact contradicted Moore’s brief.

He writes that the Tennessee appeals court rejection of the year-and-a-day rule was not “unexpected,” but that common law courts across the country abandoning it should have indicated that Tennessee would have followed suit.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Rogers v. Tennessee is that state prosecutors are already exhuming bodies of individuals who died more than a year after they were attacked. These people were victims of crimes before the 1999 Rogers ruling abolishing the year-and-a-day law.

And it wouldn’t be a day in Washington without talk of politics. The Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has issued a statement in support of Rogers. Because state appellate judges are pressured to maintain a tough-on-crime image with voters, they might be persuaded to apply retroactive laws that seem harsher than the laws in existence when a crime was committed.

A decision of the case is expected before the end of the Supreme Court’s winter session.

(You can write Ashley Fantz at ashley@memphisflyer.com)

Imagine the Gnome scientists tinkering with N’Sync.

Picturing a hundred waxed, puny pecked, faked tanned, lisping wussy boys with strategically mussed hair? A group of duh-faced designer clothes wearing pin-ups with the intellectual depth of a Madonna chapbook?

After halftime, if you went to the bathroom to vomit as I did, you might have missed the Proposal competition in which contestants got down on one knee and described how they would pop the question. How tempting it must have been for the host, a tepidly funny Caroline Rhea, not to pop them in their whitened teeth. Virginia Beach skyrocketed to first place at that point by holding Rhea’s mascara caked gaze with his stalker glare. But those scoring at home knew all along that this smoothy had the edge. He consistently scored high with the judges: two soap opera actresses, two models, and Nicole Eggert, the slut daughter from Charles in Charge and washed up Baywatch uniboob. Models and actresses know a well-executed image when they see it. Providing skybox commentary was a couple of blow up dolls wearing more make-up than Leeza Gibbons. They sputtered witticisms throughout the evening such as “That’s beefcake good enough to eat.”

Though it was a challenge to tell the beefcake apart at times, the most shameful denunciation of traditional– and obsolete?– manliness came from a guy who incessantly winked and pistol shot the audience. This misled fellow whose hair was gelled, sprayed, dried, and then apparently curled to one side, sang a line from a boy band hit. Look for his album in the fall of 2000 and never. One could just sense the other guys holding their breath as if their fellow contestant might impulsively confess to loving Bette Midler and blow his cover. True, some women swooned over this Backstreet display, but most probably were reminded of that ass who was voted Prom King but is now assistant manager at their hometown Target.

The remaining eight simply fit a stereotype. And what network does a better stereotype than Fox? There was David from Jersey, a guy dressed like a gay Miami housekeeper in capris, a tight pastel T and leather flip flops. Winner of the highest hair award, Mr. Jersey tried to explain that the greatest achievement of his life was being the first person in his family to graduate from college. He punctuated that sentimental confession with “Exactamundo.” Rocky almost walked away with Congenial Genital honors when during the swimsuit competition, he pranced around the stage in testicle hugging hot pants.

Taking home honors for originality was a floppy-eared Illinois cop who cashed in the “Long Walk on the Beach” scenario during the Proposal Talent division when he brilliantly promised to write, “Will You Marry Me?” in the sand on a secluded beach. One can only imagine the beta bitch who would swim upstream for that.

There was a 10-way-tie for Greatest Liar of All Time, but special recognition went to Reed Randoy (not his Playgirl name) for saying that the best part of a woman’s body is her eyes. The only contestant brave enough to forgo hair gel, this sloppily shaven ex-baseball player from Arizona paused before stepping deeper in it. “The soul is what you can see in eyes that you’re looking into. Eyes can be looked into to see the soul.” Amazingly, Reed then ripped his latex mask off to reveal, gasp!, George W. Bush.

Fox could have saved itself a good hour if they just would have jumped to the penis comparison and tongue agility contest. I’m assuming that the word “sex,” was mentioned at the Sexiest Bachelor concept meeting. But maybe that’s unfair. Obviously, the American woman’s idea of what’s desirable is morphing into something that looks and acts just as dainty as them. Gone are the real cowboys with calluses. In their place are men who apply bronzer and wear ten gallons of cologne. According to Fox, the millennial woman needs a man’s commitment, yet the last time I met my girlfriends for Sunday breakfast, they weren’t talking about how big their Saturday night date’s dowry is.

But that’s not to say that the network is totally off-base. They kicked off a season of quality trash that, unlike last night, I don’t hear anyone yelling, “Take it off!”

(You can write Ashley Fantz at ashley@memphisflyer.com)