It’s official! Well, not quite, since candidate petitions
for this year’s city election aren’t even available yet, and won’t be until
April. But if there was any remaining suspense about Carol Chumney’s mayoral
intentions, it was laid to rest at the University of Memphis-area Holiday Inn on
Central Avenue Thursday evening.
Before an appreciative crowd of more than a hundred
well-wishers in the hotel’s second-floor Kemmons Wilson ballroom, the maverick
first-term city council member from Midtown, declared loud and clear: “I want to
be mayor!” Likening herself to the innovative Wilson, late co-founder of the
world-famous hotel chain, Chumney promised to apply original thinking to the
problems of Memphis – including crime, out-migration, and an up-and-down
economy.
To accomplish her goals of civic regeneration, Chumney
promised she would build a wide-ranging coalition. She also went out of her way to praise local media for its attentive coverage of her activities over the last few years.
Chumney spoke in front of a montage of Wilson’s
autobiographical statements, including one which read: “I had no master plan. I
just rolled with the punches.”
That last part certainly describes the former six-term
state legislator’s experience during her own brief but dramatic tenure on the
council.
Displaying the same combative spirit that has earned her
something of a following citywide but cold shoulders within the ranks of city
government itself, Chumney made it clear that she is likely to throw a few
punches herself in this year’s campaign.
In the course of a single sentence, she condemned both the
Fed-Ex Forum garage deal which enriched the Memphis Grizzlies’ management but
ultimately cost the city $6 million in federal funding and the ill-fated
Networkz investment initiative pursued some years ago by Memphis Light Gas &
Water.
The former mischance can be laid, arguably, at the feet of
one opponent, incumbent mayor Willie Herenton, and the latter one can be blamed
on a second likely opponent, former MLGW head Herman Morris. Morris was also
plainly targeted by a Chumney jibe at would-be candidates who, unlike herself,
had not yet brought themselves to announce.
Meanwhile, lawyer Jim Strickland, a Chumney opponent during
her District 5 council race four years ago and a candidate for that seat again
this year, was holding a well-attended fundraiser a few blocks away at the East
Memphis home of current city councilman Jack Sammons.
Strickland, who battled a name recognition problem back
then, starts out the favorite in this year’s race. He made his own semi-official announcement for the council race in a news release earlier Thursday and netted some $41,000 at
Thursday night’s affair.
