Memphis Flyer

The Memphis City Council delayed filling its three vacant seats Tuesday until the first meeting of 2019.

All of the 10-member council was present at Tuesday’s meeting, following a walkout staged by four members at the last scheduled meeting earlier this month.

Supporting candidate Rhonda Logan, council members Joe Brown, Jamita Swearengen, Patrice Robinson, and Martavious Jones walked out of the December 4th meeting after Councilman Kemp Conrad made a motion to open the floor back up to all six candidates vying for the District 1 spot. The four council members called that move unfair, as Logan is the district’s choice candidate.

The walkout came during a continuation of the council’s November 20th meeting, which ended in a deadlock after more than 100 rounds of voting on the top two vote-getters from the previous rounds: Logan, who is the executive director of the Raleigh Community Development Corp., and Lonnie Treadaway, sales manager for Flinn Broadcasting Corp. Throughout the rounds of voting that night, Logan consistently garnered six votes, one shy of winning the seat.

The day after the walkout, at the first of four standing meetings called in an attempt to reach a quorum, Treadaway withdrew his bid for the seat, saying he wanted to do what’s best for the city.

The remaining six council members called their colleagues’ no-show “embarrassing” and “sad,” as without a quorum, the council was unable to vote on other city business on the December 4th agenda. However, last week council attorney Allen Wade suggested that the city charter deems a quorum as the majority of “duly elected officials,” and because the council is currently a 10-member body, six made a quorum.

Tuesday, the four council members who participated in the walkout returned to work, giving the council a quorum and enabling business to resume as usual.

But tensions flared once more when council member Reid Hedgepeth made a motion to allow only two more rounds of voting for Logan and if she didn’t get the six votes needed to win she would be eliminated. Though highly contested by Swearengen and Jones, that motion passed.

Logan, receiving four votes in both rounds, failed to garner the votes needed and was eliminated.

After a much heated debate over council rules and what constitutes a majority, Hedgepeth made a motion to delay the vote for the District 1 seat until the January 8th meeting, saying that in the meantime the council needs to find someone “that can get seven votes.”

During the public comments portion of the meeting, speakers criticized the council’s actions, in some cases, claiming their lack of support for Logan is racially motivated.

The council also delayed the vote to fill the Super District 8-2 and District 6 seats vacated by Janis Fullilove and Edmund Ford Jr. in November. 

FBI/Facebook

“Remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.”

That is one piece of advice the FBI Memphis Field Office has for anyone shopping online this holiday season. Cyber criminals have “aggressive and creative ways” to steal money and personal information and shoppers should be wary, FBI officials said Tuesday.

“Scammers use many techniques to fool potential victims, including fraudulent auction sales, reshipping merchandise purchased with a stolen credit card, sale of fraudulent or stolen gift cards through auction sites at discounted prices, and phishing emails advertising brand name merchandise for bargain prices or emails promoting the sale of merchandise that ends up being a counterfeit product,” reads a statement from the FBI’s Memphis Field Office.

Here are some of the FBI’s tips to avoid becoming a victim of cyber fraud:

• Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) email.

• Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited email.

• Be cautious of emails claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. Always run a virus scan on attachment before opening.

• Avoid filling out forms contained in email messages that ask for personal information.

• Always compare the link in the email to the web address link you are directed to and determine if they match.

FBI/Facebook

In September, the FBI caught a Nevada man who stole the personally identifiable information of multiple victims from his former employer and used it to open thousands of fraudulent PayPal accounts.

• Log on directly to the official website for the business identified in the email, instead of “linking” to it from an unsolicited email. If the email appears to be from your bank, credit card issuer, or other company you deal with frequently, your statements or official correspondence from the business will provide the proper contact information.

• Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the email to verify that the email is genuine.

• If you are requested to act quickly or there is an emergency, it may be a scam. Fraudsters create a sense of urgency to get you to act impulsively.

• If you receive a request for personal information from a business or financial institution, always look up the main contact information for the requesting company on an independent source (phone book, trusted internet directory, legitimate billing statement, etc.) and use that contact information to verify the legitimacy of the request.

• Remember if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

The Nathan Bedford Forrest equestrian statue that once stood in Health Sciences Park

Descendants of Nathan Bedford Forrest filed a lawsuit Monday against the city of Memphis, the Memphis City Council, and Memphis Greenspace Inc. for the desecration the family’s gravesite.

The Forrest family, including five of Forrest’s great-great grandsons filed the complaint Monday in a Shelby County Chancery Court, saying that the defendants “willfully and knowingly conspired to, and did, in fact, desecrate the graves and headstone monument of N. B. Forrest and wife Mary Ann Forrest in December 2017 by the defendants’ illegal removal of the monument and other actions.”

The equestrian statue of Forrest was removed from Health Sciences park last December

by the nonprofit Memphis Greenspace, minutes after the city council approved the transfer of the parks to the nonprofit.

Forrest and his wife still remain buried where the statue once stood

The Forrest statue, along with one of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a bust of Confederate Capt. Harvey Mathes, which were also removed a year ago, are still being stored in an undisclosed location.

The family maintains that the city violated several sections of the Tennessee Code Annotated relating to historic sites, cemeteries, burial sites, headstones, and monuments. The family also said the city and others violated the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act when the gravesites of Forrest and his wife were disturbed.

Now, the Forrest family is seeking the repair and re-installation of the Forrest statue and the headstones of the graves, as Forrest and his wife are still buried in the park.

Bruce McMullen, chief legal officer for the city of Memphis said the city anticipated this lawsuit and is prepared to defend its actions.

“Every oversight body, including the courts and state comptroller, has found our actions to be lawful or appropriate,” McMullen said. “We expect the same outcome in this case. The city sold Health Sciences and Memphis parks to Memphis Greenspace, legally.”

USGS

Groundwater discharge from an aquifer test at the Tennessee Valley Authority Allen Combined Cycle Plant in October.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) officials said Friday they are “committed to not using the wells” in the Memphis Sand Aquifer a day after environmental groups urged a local agency to revoke the utility’s license for the wells.

TVA was given permits by the Shelby County Health Department to drill five wells into the aquifer, the source of the city’s famously put drinking water. The utility planned to pump about 3.5 million gallons from the aquifer each day to cool its new energy plant here.

However, TVA changed course on the plan after tests found high levels of arsenic and lead at the site of the wells. TVA now buys its cooling water from Memphis Light, Gas & Water.

Still, the Southern Environmental Law Center (on behalf of the Sierra Club and Protect Our Aquifer), made a formal request to the health department Thursday to revoke those original permits and to not re-issue them. The groups argued that regulations on well permits have changed since the original permits were allowed.

TVA officials did not directly address the groups’ request in a statement Friday. But they did say “we are part of Memphis and want to help preserve its most precious natural resources.”
[pullquote-1] Here is TVA’s statement on the matter in full:

“It is important to note that TVA has committed to not using the wells in the Memphis Sand Aquifer at the Allen Combined Cycle Natural Gas Plant. The wells have been tested to monitor water quality and the results, all indicating no plant-related contamination, have been provided to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and county water board. TVA purchases all water necessary to operate the plant from MLGW. In addition, we have built four large water tanks at our Allen Gas Plant to store water for peak seasons (winter and summer). TVA’s Allen Gas Plant represents a $1 billion initial investment in the local economy.

“In addition, we aim to be inclusive and to hear from the community regarding our environmental actions at the former Allen Fossil Plant site. We are providing opportunities for public comment on our Environmental Investigation Plan and the Environmental Impact Statement, both of which provide a process for carefully reviewing the potential environmental impacts from plant operations or the various options for closure of the ash impoundments at the site. More details are available at www.tva.com/nepa and https://www.tva.com/Environment/Environmental-Stewardship/TDEC-Order.

”We are a part of Memphis and want to help preserve its most precious natural resources.”

Karen Pulfer Focht

The Ketchums outside Kimbrough Tower Fine Wine.

A Memphis couple will fight the Tennessee liquor lobby before the U.S. Supreme Court next month, refuting a state law that many, including a past Tennessee Attorney General, have said violates the U.S. Constitution.

State law now requires anyone seeking a license to operate a liquor store to be a resident of Tennessee for at least two years before they can get a license. That law says that since these stores sell products with higher amounts of alcohol, it “is in the interest of the state of Tennessee to maintain a higher degree of oversight, control, and accountability” over the people who have liquor-store licenses.

“For these reasons,” reads the law, “it is in the best interest of the health safety, and welfare of the state of Tennessee to require all licensees to be residents of the state of Tennessee…” so they can best institute inspection, reporting, and education programs to insure state laws are being upheld.

But the law was twice deemed unconstitutional by Robert Cooper when he served as the Tennessee Attorney General in separate opinions issued in 2012 and 2014. Before his appointment to the post in 2006, Cooper had served as legal counsel to Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat.
[pdf-1] In 2012, Cooper wrote, “yes,” residency requirements here “violate the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.” The clause, broadly, empowers Congress to regulate commerce among states. Cooper repeated his opinion in 2014.

“A number of courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have rejected the argument that a state’s need for greater oversight with alcohol-related licenses can be served only by favoring residents over nonresidents,” he wrote in 2014.

[pdf-2]
But the law remained.

Fast forward to 2017. Doug and Mary Ketchum bought Midtown’s Kimbrough Towers Fine Wine.

They bought it because their daughter, Stacy, who has cerebral palsy, had a lung collapse when temperatures changed quickly in their home in the Salt Lake valley. To save her life, according to the group representing them, they had to find another place to move.

The opportunity to buy Kimbrough came along and the Ketchums thought the move to Memphis would allow for a better climate for their daughter’s health and would allow them more flexibility to care for her.

They applied for a license to operate the liquor store. But the Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association threatened to sue the state Alcohol Beverage Commission if the Ketchums were approved, citing residency requirements in state law. All of this is according to the Institute for Justice, the group representing the Ketchums in court. The group describes itself as a ”legal advocate for economic liberty” .

A federal district court in Tennessee ruled for the Ketchums and later, too, did the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. State officials did not seek a stay of the district court’s injunction, which allowed the Ketchums to get their liquor license and buy Kimbrough in the summer of 2017.

But the liquor lobby aims to prove its case in court and now oral arguments are slated for January 16th before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Three separate parts of Tennessee’s law will be argued. One, the two-year residency requirement to get a liquor-store license; two, a 10-year residency requirement to renew liquor-store licenses; three, that corporations cannot get such licenses here unless every member of the corporation, its directors, and stockholders have lived in-state for at least two years.