Memphis Flyer – Page 959

Cranking Up

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date January 24, 2019

So far, fans of sports betting, transparent government, and vape-free zoos have reasons to cheer as the Tennessee General Assembly cranked back up week before last, but fans of raw milk may have a reason to jeer.

State lawmakers converged on Nashville and gaveled in the 111th General Assembly on Tuesday, January 9th. Lawmakers have filed bills to make it easier to bet on sports but harder to vape in public places and to legally get raw milk. Other bills expected this session might include cutting exemptions to the state’s Open Records Act and, perhaps, a medical marijuana bill named for President Donald Trump.

Raw milk — Tennesseans can now legally consume raw milk “from a hoofed mammal” if they own a part of a cow through a herdshare agreement. But a new bill filed by Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville), a physician and retired Army colonel, would strike that allowance.

Lawmakers seek to tackle sports betting, vaping, ad raw milk.

Sports betting — Shelby County Commissioners approved a resolution last year to ask state lawmakers this year to allow sports betting here. The move comes after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year allowed states to set their own rules on sports betting. Commissioners here want sports betting isolated to Beale Street.

The bill is sponsored by Senator Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) and would allow betting only after a local option election. Betting revenue would be taxed 10 percent. Funds generated for the tax would be given to the state (40 percent), state technical schools and community colleges (30 percent), and local governments (30 percent).

Fitness taxes — If you pay dues to a smaller gym, spa, golf club, or country club, you’re paying sales taxes on it. But a new bill would do away with that.

An 1980s-era “amusement tax” was placed on such facilities smaller than 15,000 square feet. Removing it would cost state coffers about $21.8 million on annual dues and fees of more than $312.4 million paid by Tennesseans every year.

TRUMP Act — in 2017, Representative Bryan Terry (R-Murfreesboro) and Senator Steve Dickerson (R-Nashville) made an unsuccessful run to legalize medical marijuana in Tennessee. But they told The Chattanooga Times Free Press in June that they were working on a new bill, encouraged by off-hand comments made by Trump in support of allowing states to decide marijuana policy. That new bill, they said, would be called the Tennessee Responsible Use of Medicinal Plants — or TRUMP — Act.

Other Republican lawmakers are at work on a bill to establish a commission to regulate the marijuana industry.

Open government — The House has already made it easier to track bills through the legislative process this year. Amendments added to bills through the committee process will now be added immediately online in a move the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government said will “add a great deal more public transparency.”

Vaping — A new bill would prohibit vaping in child-care facilities, rooms in community centers where children are present, group care homes, health-care facilities (except nursing homes), museums, public and private Kindergartens, elementary and secondary schools and their grounds, youth development centers, residential treatment facilities for children, and zoos.

News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1561

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date January 24, 2019

Dawg!

Fly on the Wall says hats off to WATN reporter Mike Matthews, also known as The Watchdog! We appreciate his years of service to Memphis TV news, and admire his gruff, film-noir style and delivery. But last week, the Dog’s social media musings trotted in a weird direction.

“From a distance city hall looks babelicous,” Matthews tweeted, anthropomorphizing, feminizing, and sexualizing an admittedly nice-looking building, in under 50 characters. He went on to objectify Memphis City Hall, writing, “But you gotta remember the building is almost 51 years old … and as I can tell you, certain parts loosen up as you get older.”

Verbatim

“The dirty little secret is that [Digital First Media] learned — at least for now — that it can sell longtime readers an inferior (or, to use the technical term, crappier) newspaper and only 10 percent of reach each year will cancel.

Do the math, though, and it’s clear that much of America outside the biggest cities will become news deserts by the early 2020s, after [hedge fund Alden Global Capital founder Randall] Smith and his fellow hedge-funders have sucked out every last drop.” — Will Bunch, national opinion columnist for philly.com on Digital First Media’s move to acquire The Commercial Appeal’s parent company, Gannett Co.

Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open: Inspire Cafe in Binghampton.

Post author By Susan Ellis
Post date January 24, 2019

CREDIT: Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

Along one wall at Inspire Cafe, newly open in the Binghampton neighborhood, is the cafe’s menu. It is massive, covering nearly the entirety of the wall.

There are coffee and tea drinks, smoothies and ice cream. Breakfast, which is served all day, includes pancakes, egg scrambles, and puddings made with chia seed. For lunch and dinner, there are salads, chilis, quesadillas, nachos, and quinoa bowls. And because Inspire Cafe closes a little early, at 6 p.m., to allow their staff to go home to their families, they also offer Value Family Meals to Go, which feed four. Among the meals are Costa Rican black beans and roasted sweet potatoes over rice or quinoa with a salad and chipotle three-bean and beef chili served with corn chips and cheese, along with a salad. These meals run from $30 to $35.

Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

The food leans toward healthy but is otherwise hard to pin down. When pressed, Inspire Cafe’s co-founder and chef Terrence Whitley says, “It’s something for everyone.”

Emphasis on the everyone, for Inspire Cafe is a community space and was designed as such. Some of the restaurant’s produce comes from the Carpenter Art Garden’s community gardens. Likewise, all the works of art on the walls are by the Carpenter Art Garden’s kids. Bread is from La Baguette. The vegan cookies are from Araba’s, ice cream from Sweet Magnolia. The staff is paid a living wage and participate in profit-sharing. Ten percent of the cafe’s net profit will be donated to a local nonprofit committed to racial and economic justice.

Inspire Cafe

Owner and co-founder Kristin Fox-Trautman has a background in nonprofit work. She says it was a passion for the city that drove her to create Inspire Cafe and to nurture her coworkers. “People have worth,” she says of the fair wage. “They shouldn’t have to struggle to make ends meet.”

The restaurant has been pretty much packed since they opened a few weeks ago. But Fox-Trautman and Whitley say they were prepared for the rush. The pair ran a food truck for a year before opening the restaurant. The space is at Sam Cooper and Tillman in the Binghampton Gateway Shopping Center. Fox-Trautman’s husband had opened a Jujitsu studio in one of the center’s spaces and alerted his wife, it may be a good fit for a cafe. Fox-Trautman was encouraged by Binghampton Development Corporation’s commitment to places that only served for the betterment of the community.

The space is on the smallish side — cozy and homey with tables made by the staff. The look they were going for was something warm and welcoming but vibrant. “I want people to feel at home here,” says Fox-Trautman.

Whitley says that he and Fox-Trautman use the word inspire all the time, so it made sense as a name for the cafe. “We want to inspire people to have a good day and a good life,” he says.

Inspire Cafe, 510 Tillman, inspirecafememphis.com

Donuts!

Midtown Donuts, at the site of the old Donald’s Donuts on Union, is set to open February 1st, according to owner Ly Touch.

Touch’s family runs Howard’s Donuts on Summer, but Touch says that Midtown Donuts will offer more than Howard’s Donuts.

Touch says that Midtown Donuts will offer the same donut menu as Howard’s Donuts, but also offer breakfast sandwiches and salads and sandwiches for lunch. There will be iced coffee drinks as well.

The space will offer outdoor seating. The inside looks similar to Donald’s. There’s definitely more seating.

Midtown Donuts will be open from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. Midtown Donuts, 1776 Union

Tags Inspire Cafe, Midtown Donuts

Film Features Film/TV

Glass

Post author By Ben Siler
Post date January 24, 2019

“How much of human life is lost in waiting?” is a line by Emerson quoted in one of the worst movies of all time, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I could not help but think of it while watching M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass, the capper to a trilogy that took 20 years to make. It started with 2000’s Unbreakable, a drama whose ending twist explained that it was really the prologue to the adventures of a superhero, David Dunn (Bruce Willis), and a mad genius, Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson). 2017’s Split was about James McAvoy’s dissociative identity disorder-suffering villain, The Beast, with an ending twist that this took place in the same universe as the previous film, with the director resurrecting earlier characters. Glass is here to let these superbeings finally be unbound, which it tries to accomplish by stranding them in an insane asylum and locking them in cells for most of the film.

Shyamalan was hailed as a wunderkind after The Sixth Sense. He quickly fell into self-parody: His twists strayed to left field, his quirky dialogue turned odd. I prefer his films when they got weird. The Village has so much craft and prestige wrapping its silly, trashy plot. The Happening had none, and I love it the most: the cast speaking entirely in non sequiturs about a world taken over by angry plants, who in the end are defeated by love. Pure, glorious schlock.

Like Spielberg, Shyamalan is good at dramatizing neurotic childhood fears of loneliness and abandonment, but when the emotion becomes positive, it gets manipulative. Orchestral music tells you to feel happy, but you might feel alienated instead. Shyamalan is great at showy long takes. He loves to hold on a medium or close-up reaction shot well past the point most movies cut. It’s both economical and unnerving.

I watched all of his unclassifiable trilogy in one day, like a child forced to smoke a pack of cigarettes in order to hate them. Unbreakable is a dour retread of The Sixth Sense, enlivened by Jackson in a purple jacket and shock hair dramatizing the nightmare of brittle bone disease. Split is buoyed by McAvoy.

Unfortunately, Glass is horrible, but it’s as odd and idiosyncratic as his other films. Psychiatrist Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) captures Dunn and The Beast and moves them into an asylum with Glass. She tries to convince them that their superheroic abilities are just delusions. When Dunn believes her, he does so because the story needs to sideline him, and the seams of threadbare writing start to show. Most of the budget may have gone to the salaries of the three headliners, and their schedules might not have connected, as they rarely share the same screen.

For half the runtime, Jackson is in a comatose state, staring emptily from a wheelchair, and when he wakes he says meta lines that might have been fresh 20 years ago, when Unbreakable opened with text explaining what comic books are.

Memphis filmmaker Chad Allen Barton has pointed out that Shyamalan is a religious storyteller. He often shows characters needing to believe in themselves, their family, and the afterlife. This is usually expressed in a spiritual way and affirmed with an inspirational twist. This faith serves an additional role of keeping expensive special effects to a minimum.

In what other superhero movie would the final fight between good and evil (in a parking lot) cut away at first punch to the viewpoint of nameless extras looking at a van? Or be preceded by Jackson pointing at a skyscraper where the fight would have occurred had the film had more money? Shyamalan is interested in not just twists, but delayed gratification.

In the theater on opening weekend, you could feel the excitement slowly go out of the audience. The final twist here is a conscious wrongheaded choice that is bugfuck in its disconnection from viewers’ enthusiasm, yet lovely for its wrongness. Marvel is sleek and sometimes great, but when it doesn’t fire on all cylinders, it smothers you like a committee-made sitcom. Glass is terrible but at least feels personal.

The finale doesn’t work as storytelling, but it might make sense as an accidental middle finger to the idea that superheroes are inherently inspirational, when the reason for their omnipresence is monetary, as with westerns and Roman movies before them. Remove the money, and you lose the faith.

Tags Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, M. Night Shyamalan, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson

Music Music Features

The International Blues Challenge is Back

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date January 24, 2019

CREDIT: Roger Stephenson

It’s hard to imagine a massive annual music festival, one that brings thousands to Memphis every year, somehow taking place under the very noses of the unsuspecting locals. Yet that’s exactly what happens every January, when the International Blues Challenge (IBC) goes down. The 2019 version starts Tuesday this week in various clubs along Beale Street, Main Street, and Second Street, culminating with the finals at the Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, January 26th.

As Blues Foundation president Barbara Newman notes, “We did an economic impact study and learned that this event brings close to $4 million of fresh tourism money into Memphis every year. And that doesn’t even account for the peripheral stuff that happens when people stay after the event to visit Mississippi or spend extra time in Memphis. Everything takes a big bump up during IBC week. And it’s an otherwise quiet, almost dead time for Memphis. So it’s great that we’re here to energize the city every year.”

Roger Stephenson

Kevin Burt

And, Newman adds, the IBC affects every community that sends artists to compete. “One part of it is discovering that next great musician that’s ready to take a bigger stage. But another part is about offering the blues societies an opportunity to do something engaging in their local communities to keep the blues scene vibrant where they are.”

This year, blues societies worldwide, having staged their own mini-competitions, are sending local winners from as far away as South Korea. And for those who come, the experience can be life-changing.

“Susan Tedeschi was an IBC finalist,” says Newman. “Southern Avenue didn’t even make it into the top three, but they got a label deal. Then they won best emerging artist at the BMAs last year. Danielle Nichole and her brother won in 2008, and she’s up for a Grammy this year. [2018 winner] Kevin Burt went on to record his first CD, and he just got nominated for a Blues Music Award as best emerging artist.”

I tracked Burt down somewhere in his home state of Iowa to ask about the experience of winning best solo performer at the IBCs. “It’s created a lot of opportunities for me that I don’t think I would have been able to create on my own,” he said. “But, win, lose, or draw, I made some contacts, and I knew I was going to go some places that were outside of my reach, just having had the chance to network with people. There’s so much information and there’s so much opportunity, just walking around. The workshops they have, the different panel discussions that they do. It’s almost like getting a new set of keys. It’s a whole lot easier to get through certain doors if somebody gives you a key.”

Burt’s success is also an object lesson in how stylistically diverse contenders can be. One of the standout songs in his prize-winning set was a version of “Eleanor Rigby,” by the Beatles. “As I see it, I get to define my blues,” he says. “If I sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ I’m telling you I really want you to have a happy birthday. That emotional connection is to me what the blues is. There’s too many folks that get caught up in a specific sound.”

Paul Benjamin, who’s been an IBC judge many times over and now orients each year’s incoming judges, agrees. “Originality is important,” he says. “Judges don’t wanna hear ‘Mustang Sally’ or ‘I Got My Mojo Working.’ I go over the criteria with them. It’s broken down into the categories of originality, talent, vocals, and stage presence. Each is weighted, and originality’s weighted by three, whereas talent, vocals, and stage presence are weighted by two.”

For Burt, originality is tied to spontaneity. “I didn’t put together a set list for the IBC. Every experience I had while I was down there helped to shape my set list for the next show. That’s how I’ve always done this. I walk into the room, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do until I’m doing it. There’s something about that nervous energy that helps me connect. There’s a feeling that you get.”

Tags Barbara Newman, Beale Street, International Blues Challenge, Kevin Burt, The Orpheum

Book Features Books

Stephen Giles’ The Boy at the Keyhole.

Post author By Corey Mesler
Post date January 24, 2019

What’s the difference between a young adult novel and a novel for adults? The sophistication of the language? Subject matter? Age of the protagonist? All of these dissimilarities can be shot down with examples. The Wind in the Willows has language as rich as a Nabokov novel. Clockwork Orange has a young protagonist, and today’s YA fiction is often about formerly taboo subjects. I ask this question because Australian writer Stephen Giles is the author of a series of young adult novels and, according to his publisher, this is his first novel for adults. While reading it, I kept wondering how it was unlike young adult fiction.

I was perplexed, so I did what any inquisitive man would do faced with such a vexing poser. I asked on Facebook. And most people said this: A young protagonist is the main difference. Yes, the titular protagonist of The Boy at the Keyhole is obviously a young person, and the entire story is about him wrestling with the absence of his mother and whether or not his keeper, Ruth, is evil or good. One person also mentioned a simpler structure, fewer subplots. This succinctly addresses what I was asking. And still another answer that is germane: one person said “marketing.”

By any standard that I can bring to bear, this is still a young adult novel, regardless of what the publisher says. I don’t mean this in any way pejoratively. But it makes a difference in how one reads the book and, for my purposes, how one considers it for review. Comparisons on the cover to Daphne du Maurier and Shirley Jackson seem inapt.

The story is pretty straightforward and is practically a two-person play. Young Samuel Clay is left in the care of prickly stickler, Ruth, housekeeper and babysitter, who has let the rest of the staff go. Samuel’s father is dead, and his mother is in America trying to find a way to make her fortune (what she’s doing is rather vague). She sends Samuel postcards with brief notes, which do nothing to convince Samuel that she will be home soon. After some irresponsible taunting from his best friend, Joseph, Samuel begins to suspect that Ruth has done something terrible, perhaps even killed his mother so she could take over the house and the care of the recalcitrant only son. Samuel tells Joseph, “She’s a dragon, that one.” Joseph asks him if he’s checked the cellar.

As Samuel piles up his “proof,” he begins an emotional tug-of-war with Ruth. This battle of wills makes up the meat of the plot. There are tense, late-night creepings by both characters. Samuel thinks the postcards are forged. He also thinks Ruth might be trying to do away with him. In a piece of chocolate cake Ruth makes for him, Samuel chokes on a piece of broken glass. Ruth convinces him he does not need a doctor. As the boy’s investigations lead to more damning proof, the reader is left with two options: Either Ruth really is a murderous, duplicitous fiend, or Samuel is deluded in a childish and naïve way. The narrative is predominantly concerned with Samuel — he’s in every scene — so one is tempted to side with the lonesome lad and to believe his half-baked case against the overly authoritarian Ruth.

“You tried to kill me,” he says. “You wanted me to choke on that glass.”

Ruth answers: “It’s been a trying night, and I think we’re both ready for bed.”

Giles writes: “Samuel thought of his mother, murdered at Ruth’s hand, and he wanted the hate to glisten in his eyes.”

One can imagine this as a film, and it would make an especially fine thriller in the right hands, say a modern Hitchcock. The ending is certainly Hitchcockian — I’m pretty sure you won’t see it coming — and is a marvelous reward for the subtle, measured unfolding of the tale. The Boy at the Keyhole is a fast read, and I predict it will be a popular book, the kind of thing book clubs gobble up. It should also please fans of young adult thriller writers like John Bellairs, Ransom Riggs, Lois Duncan, and Enid Blyton.

Tags Stephen Giles, The Boy at the Keyhole, young adult fiction

Opinion Viewpoint

Thoughts About How to Win Memphis Council District 5

Post author By John Marek
Post date January 24, 2019

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Some readers may recall that, in 2015, I ran unsuccessfully for the Memphis City Council as an avowed progressive in District 5. Since then, I have heard several people comment that District 5 was won by a conservative because three progressive candidates ran and split the vote. Now that the 2019 city elections are on the horizon, I would like to dispel that myth and look at what is potentially different for the district in 2019.

Justin Fox Burks

John Marek

Even if only one progressive had run in 2015, that one progressive would have lost. Worth Morgan, the current councilman and eventual winner, had $300,000 in his campaign war chest, and the votes of conservatives Dan Springer and Morgan combined were 55 percent of the total vote, as compared to 42 percent of the combined percentages of Mary Wilder, Chooch Pickard, and, me, all progressives in good standing.

Democratic turnout was lower than expected that year. A lot of working-class and middle-class voters were upset over the city council’s votes on pension retrenchment, and they evidently did not see any alternative that excited them enough to show up to the polls. Meanwhile, conservatives came out strong for mayoral candidate Jim Strickland.

Strickland and I both happened to be at one of the polling sites on Election Day, and I said to him: “Based on who has voted early and the seemingly low turnout today, I believe what is going to help you is going to hurt me.”

Having seen the early voting data, I also mentioned to Mary Wilder my belief that it would be Morgan versus Springer in the runoff, because of the high conservative turnout.

The fact is, District 5 is not exactly a blue district. Yes, it has Midtown and Binghampton, but it also contains most of East Memphis. In essence, Midtown progressives saw all of their districts either transformed or moved elsewhere in Tennessee in post-2010 redistricting. Congressman Steve Cohen’s former state Senate district was affected, as were the state House seats formerly occupied by Jeanne Richardson and Mike Kernell.

I would consider the current council District 5 to be purple in a high-turnout scenario and red in a low-turnout scenario. It’s regrettable that we don’t hold all of our local general elections on the same day we hold our state and federal general elections. We would save money thereby, and simultaneously reap a higher turnout of progressives.

In any case, in 2015, any progressive who might have made the runoff would have lost handily. I thought I could prevail on the strength of personally knocking on some 6,500 doors in a four-month period, while my supporters were doing likewise. Hindsight tells me I was over-optimistic.

Had any of us progressives made that runoff, the older and wealthier white vote would have shown up in higher numbers, and no amount of knocking on doors would have prevailed over the tidal wave of money committed to the conservative contender.

Instant runoff voting (IRV), which should already have been implemented after the 2008 referendum approving it, could well transform the electoral situation if it is employed in 2019. Runoffs have allowed the city’s economic elite to control a council that should by all rights have a majority voted in by working-class voters and people of color. That is why the IRV issue mattered enough for me to volunteer on its behalf in the referenda of both 2008 and 2018.

Looking ahead to 2019 voting, I find myself wondering whether or not the blue-wave turnouts we saw last year will continue to prevail in non-federal elections. If IRV is properly implemented, a progressive could win District 5. That result would not be guaranteed, although a progressive with the ability to at least partially self-finance would, in my judgment, have a fair chance of success.

I have heard rumors about one potential progressive candidate who would fit that profile, and that person would benefit from the absence of a runoff via IRV, as well as not having to worry about the divisive effects of multiple progressive candidates, as in 2015.

Our current council members — and the status quo types behind them — thought it was a good idea in 2018 to try to undo decisions already made by voters in 2008, and they had the temerity to spend $40,000 of our taxpayer money to campaign for such a result in last fall’s referendums.

I would just say this: If you are a progressive prepared to run hard and govern well, please announce your intentions soon, because your city needs you.

John Marek is a lawyer, activist, and
occasional candidate for various offices.

Tags Chooch Pickard, Dan Springer, District 5 Memphis City Council, John Marek, Mary Wilder, Worth Morgan

Opinion The Last Word

No Crisis! You’re the Crisis!

Post author By Maya Smith
Post date January 24, 2019

CREDIT: REUTERS | Earnie Grafton

When the orange terror — I mean President Donald Trump — said he was going to build a wall at the southern border, I thought it was a joke. It’s expensive, it’s anti-immigrant, and seems regressively un-American. Not only was it not a joke, but, as of press time, the orange terror is seemingly willing to allow the federal government to be partially shut down indefinitely, halting federal services, hurting people’s pocketbooks, and causing a slew of other disruptions, in order to force the issue of the border wall.

People’s livelihoods are being played with, like this is one big game of Monopoly, all for what the president calls the “crisis” at the southern border.

Merriam-Webster defines a crisis as a “situation that has reached a critical phase” or an “unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending, especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.”

REUTERS | Earnie Grafton

The southern border

There is no real crisis at the border. There are crises, however, in our schools, in the health-care system, in the criminal justice system, and elsewhere in this country. And the billions of dollars Trump wants to spend on border security could make a huge dent in those areas. But, that’s a discussion for another day.

The most current crisis is the 800,000 federal employees who are not getting paid. Why should they be punished? Let’s talk about the rent they won’t be able to pay, or the car note, or the groceries they won’t be able to afford for their families. What about the mothers and babies who could stop getting WIC benefits and therefore not have the things they need to survive, the kids whose school lunches will stop being provided, or the immigrants whose court dates have been rescheduled for a time in the unforeseeable future?

The FDA isn’t regulating or inspecting food and drugs, FBI agents are working without pay, food stamps will stop being dispersed at the end of February, national parks are turning into waste zones, and airports are closing entire terminals due to a limited number of TSA agents. And this isn’t even an exhaustive list of all the other chaos the shutdown has caused.

This is the real crisis, which could have, and should have been, avoided.

Trump’s behavior mirrors that of a prepubescent child who throws tantrums when they don’t get their way. That’s all this government shutdown is: one big temper tantrum. When you are a 12-year-old girl, it’s fine and even expected. But, when you’re the leader of the free world and are responsible for the well-being of an entire nation, you need to do better.

Trump seems to have no regard for the millions of people his hissy fit is affecting. That’s a slap in the face to the people who chose jobs, in some cases for an unglamourous amount of pay, who serve the country — and those of us who depend on their service. You can’t just shut down the government of the world’s most prominent country because you didn’t get what you wanted.

The United States looks like such a joke to other countries around the world right now. I mean, I lost some faith in our country the day it elected the orange terror. But now? Trump’s warranted a whole new level of disrespect.

Though it’s unlikely Trump will ever be able to redeem himself from the absolute joke of a president he’s become, he still has the time and opportunity to offset some of the havoc he’s wreaked. If he does, maybe some day the history books can at least say one nice thing about him.

If he backs down now, it would show the world that he has at least an ounce of sense and reasonableness — not much, but some. But, I doubt that’s coming. He’s still talking about declaring an emergency to build the wall. He’s going to have a real emergency on his hands if this continues. What happens when TSA agents can’t survive working like unpaid worker bees anymore? Or when FBI agents decide to stop working for free?

And would a wall even solve the immigration “crisis?” Not unless it’s coupled with updated, strong, fair legislation. A wall won’t fix this country’s problematic immigration system. Good leadership will.

At the end of the day, the United States is a country of immigrants built by immigrants. Those who came here 200 years ago to seek a better life have little room to criticize those who are coming in 2019 for the same reason.

The government shutdown is just another reminder that we are all living in a wonky Twilight Zone, a nightmare episode that, hopefully, we’ll soon wake up from.

Maya Smith is a Flyer staff writer.

Tags border crisis, Immigration issues, Trump's wall

News News Blog

New Juvenile Justice Center Moves (Slightly) Forward

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date January 23, 2019

CREDIT: Shelby County Juvenile Court/Facebook

Shelby County Juvenile Court/Facebook

The Juvenile Detention Center here is in worse shape than the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar or the Shelby County Penal Farm, according to county leaders who moved forward a plan Wednesday for a new youth facility.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris brought his plan for a new $25 million Juvenile Education and Justice Center (JEJC) back to Shelby County Commissioners Wednesday in a day of committee meetings. Commissioners on those committees — public safety, budget, and facilities — gave their initial blessings for the $1.3 million needed to get the process for the new building off the ground. But that money can’t move until the full commission votes on it during its regular meeting Monday.

Harris introduced the idea for a new center last year, after he won the county mayor seat in August. Since then, much has happened around the existing center and the area’s juvenile justice system in general.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ended its oversight agreement to monitor the Juvenile Court in October. A DOJ report in December said the court still has many issues. In January, a disturbance at the Juvenile Detention Center had leaders put five Shelby County Division of Corrections officer put on suspension and saw almost a dozen detainees moved to an adult jail facility. That disturbance is still under investigation.

Harris said he wants a new facility geared toward rehabilitation. He said that means a place with a classroom, recreation opportunities, a place for visits with parents, and a space for doctors to conduct visits without having to share the space between male and female detainees.
[pullquote-1] “We think we need a better facility if we’re really going to treat these juveniles better and put them on the path to rehabilitation,” Harris told commissioners. “In my opinion, the facility we have is not suitable for that purpose. In my opinion, the facility is worse than how we treat and house felons at our penal farm. In my opinion, we should do something about it if we can.”

Sheriff Floyd Bonner told commissioners that the existing facility is “outdated and not conducive for learning and rehabilitation.” Providing a space for that is “high on my priority list,” Bonner said.

The current detention center was originally built in 1935 for Christian Brothers College, according to Jimmy Tucker, a principal with Self+Tucker Architects. The firm conducted a complete facility assessment of the juvenile detention center and the juvenile court buildings.

Tucker said the only place for recreation at the facility now is an outdoor rooftop area that can only be used at certain times per year. Four classrooms that can each accommodate 15 people at a time pose major issues for the 97 people now detained at the center.

Lack of facilities for people with disabilities is a “major problem” in the building. The building is not best arranged to move people out in case of an emergency situation, Tucker said. Also, lack of natural light is a “major problem.”
[pullquote-2] Commissioner Mick Wright pointed to the 18 pages of the 100-page report that focused solely on the building’s mechanical systems.

“The term ‘poor condition’ is listed 11 times (in the report),” Wright said. “The term ‘at the end of useful life’ is mentioned 47 times. I imagine in the two years since January 2017, when we’ve not done anything to the facility, that it’s still at the end of useful life and still in poor condition.”

Commissioner Amber Mills said, “when I heard other people saying that the building is worse than 201 Poplar, I had to see it for myself.”

“After I saw it, I thought we need to move forward,” Mills said. “These people are going to be in this building for the three or four years until (a new building) is completed. I’d like to see boots on the ground, talking about the design, and not just in theory. And I think we need to do bigger versus smaller.”

Shelby County Public Works director Tom Needham told commissioners his division has been “putting Band-Aids on things” at the current facility until a complete renovation of the space could be completed. Though, that renovation was not scheduled until 2022 or 2023.

As for timeline for a new juvenile justice building, it was clear during Wednesday’s meeting that it won’t happen as fast as leaders would like. Needham said a requests for proposal could not move ahead until next month, an architect could not be chosen until April, the design process would take about 12 months. In all, the project could not even go out for bids to contractors until June 2020, Needham said.
[pullquote-3] Asked if the timeline could be accelerated, Needham said he doubted it, pointing to the 18 months it took for the design process for the new, yet-built Shelby County Health Department building.

“We’re almost at the sixth-year anniversary of the discussion of the health department building,” Harris said. “There is no construction equipment on site and not one shovel full of dirt has moved.

“This is a very difficult process. But we’re…moving as fast as possible.”

Of the nine commissioners present, seven voted for the project. Edmund Ford Jr. and Tami Sawyer abstained.

Sawyer asked before the vote that those leading the project to remove the word “juvenile” from the building and the project altogether. The term, she said, has negative connotations. She said she prefers the word “youth.” She also pointed to larger issues that also need to be addressed as the process moves on.

“I cannot reiterate my hesitancy and concerns until we address the systemic racism that permeates the juvenile — the youth! — justice system,” Sawyer said.