Author: Susan Ellis

The thinking went something like this: We’ve already got two mayors. Why not three? And just like that, Jim Keras became the mayor of Covington Pike.

The mayor’s domain, as the name suggests, is Covington Pike, that northeast Memphis street bulging with car dealerships. He grew up in Nashville and moved to Memphis in 1972. He owns five car dealerships: Buick, Nissan, Subaru, Chevrolet, and Pontiac. He’s been married to his wife, Penny, for 33 years, has three children, and is, happily, a first-time grandfather. He explains his background in cars this way: “The only way I got into this business is that I married the boss’ daughter. That’s the truth. I was a 2.0 student at the University of Tennessee.”

A cartoon character (and doll) — a round-headed, top-hatted, bow-tied little guy with absolutely no lower body, save his feet — serves as the logo for the mayor of Covington Pike. It’s inaccurate. For one thing, the toon’s dark hair does not match Keras’ own curly gray locks. And, chiefly, the mayor of Covington Pike does have a torso and legs.

The mayor recently sat down to discuss his time in office. With him was his son, Ben, general manager of the Buick/Subaru operation, who, for these purposes, we called the deputy mayor.

Flyer: How many years have you been mayor of Covington Pike?

Mayor of Covington Pike: I was appointed in the early ’90s.

How did you become mayor?

As you know, Covington Pike is a cluster of automobile dealerships. We were trying to come up with a character or a theme that would set us apart from the other dealerships. So, John Malmo, and I want to give credit to him, was doing our advertising, and he came up with this idea — that the mayor could make a lot of proclamations and do a lot of events. He came up with a drawing of what the mayor should look like — a little man with a top hat and a bow tie and glasses. We made big balloons [of the character] and put them on top of our building, used him in all our advertising, and it caught on.

You’re wearing a bow tie.

That’s for you.

Do you always wear a bow tie or are you following the character?

I follow the character, some, some.

One time we had a customer who called me, came to me to complain about one of my fellow dealers. I said, “I don’t sell that make and model,” and he said, “Well, you’re the mayor. You need to go straighten that out.” He was serious.

And did you?

I think I called them. I may have. I certainly directed the customer to the right channels.

Who are your constituents?

All my customers and managers.

Deputy Mayor Ben: The greater Mid-South. All individuals with a driver’s license.

What’s your platform?

[The mayor has prepared a written statement on this topic.]

· In my years as mayor of Covington Pike, we have had no tax increases.

· As mayor of Covington Pike, I have had nothing but good relations with the City Council.

· As mayor of Covington Pike, there have been no controversies about my appointees. All of my directors have performed without controversy or legal problems.

· My time in office has been so popular that I have been unopposed in each of my reelection campaigns.

· At no burden to taxpayers, I am building a brand-new “Covington Pike City Hall” as we speak.

· At no cost to Covington Pike taxpayers, my advertising has greatly increased Covington Pike tourism.

· Also at no cost to taxpayers, I have extended Covington Pike services to Summer Avenue, Mt. Moriah, and Somerville.

What’s the best thing about being the mayor?

It’s a lot of fun. It’s just light-hearted. It’s a positive thing. The awareness factor is tremendous. Because of our advertising, people recognize the name. In fact, Mayor Herenton calls me the mayor when I see him.

Have you ever thought of branching out? Maybe be the mayor of the I-40 loop?

Well, I’ve thought about maybe just being the mayor. [Laughs] No.

We have a dealership out on Highway 64. We have a small presence on Summer Avenue and a small presence on Mt. Moriah, so we are absolutely encompassing all. That might be in our future plans. We need a good campaign strategist. I haven’t been able to find one yet. I’m working on that. I do plan to expand my mayorship all over the city.

Oprah recently gave away 276 cars. Don’t you think you should do her one-better by giving away 300 cars?

Deputy Mayor Ben: Actually, Oprah didn’t give them away. General Motors gave them away. It was a ploy. We welcome General Motors to offer Jim Keras Automotives the same ploy on our campaign behalf.

Mayor of Covington Pike: I plan to contact General Motors to make sure I’m not being slighted.

Anything else you want to add?

That I’ve got all the power. No one would try to unseat me when I’m doing such a great job. Just ask my councilmen up and down the street. •

by

Not to get all Dickens on you, but this little stretch around the Flyer‘s Best of Memphis issue is both the best of times and the worst. It’s a fun issue to put together, and it’s the one time of the year we get to really interact with our readers.

But, geesh, the complaints. For a few weeks after the Best of Memphis issue comes out, we get calls from readers who are furious with the results. This place is not the best, they say. Well, that’s how our readers voted, we reply. But nothing we say will soothe those who are irate.

One year, I received a call from a man who had just found out that one of our winners in the Food & Drink section uses frozen meat. Now, this particular restaurant has about 100 locations, so the idea that this place has a freezer was not alarming to me. This guy, however, felt very, very betrayed and was further incensed by my obvious indifference. Don’t you think your readers who vote for this restaurant should know? he asked. But this place has such a stranglehold on its category, I told him, that it probably wouldn’t matter if they served puppy. That was when he hung up on me.

The point is, the readers control who wins. Winners are not, as some believe, solely those who advertise with us. The only influence we have over the ballot is weeding out the stuffers.

I’m certain that a few cheaters have squeaked through to make it into the Best of Memphis list. (I hope their victories feel hollow.) But, over the 11 years we’ve been doing this, we’ve come up with a number of strategies to make cheating harder.

Each year, after all the ballots are received, they are given to a group of people independent of the Flyer. As they tally the votes, they set aside any suspicious-looking ballot. After the counting is completed, the ballots are given back to the Flyer, where each ballot is looked at by at least three staff members, which results in more ballots being thrown out. For instance, last year, about a third of the ballots we received were tossed.

Stuffers are relatively easy to spot. We might receive 30 ballots filled out in purple ink in the same handwriting. Or, all the answers will be the same. Usually, these ballots are sent from one place at one time, so we’ll get them in a bundle. The stuffing becomes obvious rather quickly.

A couple of rules we adopted early on have made it tougher on stuffers. At one time, we let readers drop off their ballots at our office. That meant we’d get huge stacks of ballots delivered at one time. (You can just picture a bar full of people filling out the ballots at the behest of the bar’s owner.) Now, we make readers mail ballots individually. We also started requiring readers to fill out at least 50 percent of the ballot. The result was that we no longer had to deal with stuffers who filled in just one category.

For the first time this year, we offered an online ballot. Registration required the voter to enter an e-mail address, which then could not be used again. The Flyer‘s tech guy had several of his friends try to hack into the system. They couldn’t.

I’m not sure people are aware how difficult it would be to successfully cheat. Say you’re desperate to unseat Jarvis Greer, the perennial winner of Best TV Sportscaster. This year, he got 318 votes out of a total of 460 votes cast in that category. That means you would have had to pick up at least 319 Flyers, filled out the ballots, and mailed each one at a postage cost of $118.03. Doesn’t seem worth it, does it?

Admittedly, there’s a gray area when it comes to what constitutes cheating and what is simply aggressive campaigning. A business owner might ask his regulars to remember him at voting time. That seems okay. Then, again, a business owner might demand to see filled-out ballots before his staff can get their paychecks. That would be uncool.

With the Best of Memphis ballot, as with everything, let your conscience be your guide. •