Tag: AC Wharton

Categories
Cover Feature News

Will a TDZ TCB? The Future of Memphis’ Fairgrounds

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

A critical decision looms on a years-in-the-making plan that could transform one of the largest pieces of public property in Memphis.

The stakes could not be higher for the city’s plan to turn the largely fallow Memphis Fairgrounds into a youth sports tourist magnet. It’s the end of the road. There’s no appeal. There’s no review-and-update process. The city either gets the money and builds a “world class facility,” or it doesn’t get the money and then, well, who knows? The plan lives or it dies.

The city wants to create a Tourism Development Zone (TDZ) around the Fairgrounds. An increment of state sales taxes would be collected in the zone to pay for the project. The problem is that legislation approved in the Tennessee General Assembly this year deadlined consideration for any and all outstanding TDZs at December 31, 2018. And the only one left to be considered is for Memphis’ youth sports idea.

The high stakes were enough to cause city officials to hone the plan, shrinking the project in scope, size, and price tag. Meanwhile, local grassroots advocates for the Fairgrounds and the Mid-South Coliseum have continued to beat the drum of local access to the property and for re-activiation of the building. Through it all, developers have stayed mostly on the sidelines, waiting to see if the plan gets an up or down vote before they move in.

If the city’s plan is approved by the state, the Fairgrounds could get a brand-new, multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art indoor sports building, retail shops, a hotel, play areas, and more. It’s a play to attract out-of-towners and their sports-playing children (and the tax dollars that come with them) to the city.

Justin Fox Burks

How We Got Here

The most recent moves to reanimate the Memphis Fairgrounds began in 2005, 13 years ago. Back then, the city was “eager to revitalize and re-imagine,” the Fairgrounds, as reporter Ben Popper wrote in the Flyer at the time. 

“It is really the nexus between East Memphis and what is going on Downtown,” Robert Lipscomb, then-director of the city’s Housing and Community Development (HCD) division, said at the time. “I think it’s under-utilized and potentially has much greater value. Our job is maximizing that asset.”  

That year, Lipscomb formed a special Fairgrounds Redevelopment Committee to envision the Fairgrounds’ future. The architectural firm Looney Ricks Kiss drew up six proposals for the site.

The group picked an option with “large green space, small-scale retail, and 40-plus acres for sports and recreation.” The plan did not include Libertyland, the Mid-South Coliseum, or the Mid-South Fair. The committee’s selection decision came on the same day leaders decided to close Libertyland, citing several years of financial losses.

Retail, green space, sports, and recreation. Sound familiar?

But then-Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton told the Memphis Business Journal‘s Chris Sheffield at the time he wasn’t in a hurry to get anything done “given the nostalgia and fond memories and public importance of the property. There’s nothing wrong with going through a laborious process,” Wharton said in 2006.

Laborious, indeed. Two years later, John Branston, writing for the Flyer, described the scene at the Fairgrounds this way: 

“The stadium and the Children’s Museum [of Memphis] still draw crowds, but the rest of the property is demolished, abandoned, or underused. Libertyland amusement park, part of its roller coaster still standing, is closed. So is the Mid-South Coliseum, home to concerts and basketball games … before giving way to The Pyramid and then FedExForum. 

“Tim McCarver Stadium was demolished a few years ago,” Branston wrote in 2008, “long after it was replaced by AutoZone Park. The annual Mid-South Fair is moving to Tunica, Mississippi, next year. Fairview Junior High School is blighted and has about 300 students. The main feature of the Fairgrounds on most days is several acres of asphalt parking lots.”

Those comments came in Branston’s story about a new group heading up a new push to, finally, finally, finally get something done at the Fairgrounds. It included a heavy-hitting bunch of names: Henry Turley, CEO of Henry Turley Co.; Bob Loeb, president of Loeb Properties; Archie Willis III, president of Community Capital; Mark Yates, now-Chief Visionary Officer of the Black Business Association of Memphis; Jason Wexler, president of business operations at Memphis Grizzlies; Elliot Perry, retired pro basketball player; and Arthur Gilliam Jr., president of Gilliam Communications.

Called “Fair Ground,” the idea was to make the Fairgrounds a common area for all Memphians to meet, play, and mingle. At its core, Fair Ground would have transformed the sleepy area “into a combination of sports complex, renovated stadium, park, and retail center.” Sound familiar? A big difference, though, was that Fair Ground also promised a “network of new public schools” good enough to rival private schools.

In 2007, the city applied for its TDZ with the state and the Salvation Army Kroc Center bought a parcel of land to build upon. But by 2009, Lipscomb was referring to the Fair Ground deal with Turley and his folks in the past tense. He said they couldn’t come to an agreement. He pivoted quickly to a Plan B, in which Lipscomb tapped former Memphis City Council member Tom Marshall to design a plan that centered on — wait for it —  sports, recreation, and retail. 

That $125 million plan was ultimately panned, though the city did add that formal TDZ request to its quiver. A 2009 Flyer headline read, “The Fairgrounds: Big, Complicated, and Leaderless.” 

Come 2013, another plan — this one with a $233 million price tag — centered on (surely you guessed it by now) sports and retail. By 2014, Lipscomb was reported selling the plan to the Shelby County Commissioners in a Flyer story by Jackson Baker. Some commissioners worried the TDZ would “cannibalize” future sales tax from Cooper-Young and Overton Square and that the scheme would siphon funds (maybe $1 million to $2 million every year) from Shelby County Schools. 

“But it hardly seemed to matter as Lipscomb, at his super-salesman best, seemingly had the members of a commission largely revamped by the election of 2014 treating Lipscomb’s propositions like ‘candy in the palm,'” Baker wrote. 

Lipscomb, who Baker described as “the city’s veteran Svengali of urban planning,” said the buildings that would rise on the Fairgrounds would be “world class,” helping to raise “a great new city right before our very eyes.”

Commissioners loved it. Van Turner congratulated Lipscomb. Terry Roland called it a “world-class deal,” and only Steve Basar and Walter Bailey seemed cautious.

That was November, but by December, commissioners shelved a vote on Lipscomb’s plan, hoping to bring a compromise plan of their own. 

In January 2015, Lipscomb told city council members he’d bring his plans to state officials in February. But public concerns crept into Lipscomb’s plans, fears that Fairgrounds neighbors and local stakeholders were being left out the conversation. Lipscomb vowed to get more people involved. That was February. 

To get there, the Urban Land Institute, a third-party group of of city planning professionals, had a look at the plan. Their $184-million recommendation included sports and retail, natch, but also more improvements to Tiger Lane, a park with a lake, a surf park, a “Coliseum stage,” and more. That was in June.

In August, Lipscomb said he’d take the new plan to state officials in October. But when allegations surfaced that Lipscomb had raped a young man, his grand plan for the Fairgrounds was stalled, to say the least. Memphis Mayor Wharton fired Lipscomb immediately.

The Plan’s “New” New Era

Jim Strickland was elected Memphis mayor in October 2015. He hired Paul Young, former director of legislative affairs for Shelby County government, as director of HCD. Plans for the Fairgrounds weren’t really discussed much for two years. 

In 2017, rather than starting from scratch, Young dusted off the recommendations from the Urban Land Institute panel (with youth sports and retail as the centerpiece, of course). But Young and the Strickland administration did something different this go-around. They began the conversation of the Fairgrounds’ future in public forums and actually used some options they got to shape the final plan. This was August 2017, and Young hoped to present his plan to state officials by the end of that year. 

In November, Young unveiled the new $160-million Fairgrounds plan. It included an $80 million youth sports complex, retail and hotel space, a 500-space parking garage, $20 million worth of upgrades to the Liberty Bowl, upgrades to nearby Tobey Park, renovation of the Pipkin and Creative Arts buildings, basketball courts, a track, a soccer and football field, renovations to nearby Melrose High School, and new infrastructure to spur investment at Lamar and Airways.    

But Young (some say on the advice of the state officials who’d vote on the plan) decided to have another look. Earlier this month, he brought a scaled-back, “workable” proposal to Memphis City Council members, who approved it. Almost everything (save for the $20 million improvements for the Liberty Bowl) was shaved. Two youth sports buildings became one. The parking garage was halved, basically. Off-site projects were cut out of the plan. 

Courtesy of Allen & Hoshall

Why?

“As we really dove into the specifics and saw that TDZ revenues were much lower than we expected them to be, it was incumbent on us to take some time and really, really hone down the plan and try to figure out what things do we have to do to make this site activated,” Young said in an interview last week.

So, now — with more than a decade of plans, dreams, opinions, and varying degrees of political will on the project — Young and his team are slated to take their plan to Nashville later this year. If the State Building Commission doesn’t give the city the money, the Fairgrounds will stay largely the same as it is today, Young said.

Money Ball

At the very core of the new plan — and almost every plan proposed so far — is youth sports. That might not be what you think it is. It’s not your kid’s T-ball team sponsored by a local insurance agent. Youth sports is a big, sophisticated business. The teams the city wants to attract are called travel teams or competitive teams. The kids who play are elite (or at least seen that way). Not every kid makes the team. Those who do practice at private facilities, wear custom uniforms, carry custom equipment bags, get elite coaching, travel around the country to tournaments, and pay mightily for the privilege of doing so. Many parents see these teams as a path to help their child get a college scholarship and then, perhaps, to play in the bigs. In short, these parents often are monied and motivated.

How much money? According to WinterGreen Research, an independent organization that tracks the youth sports market, the U.S. market is worth $15.5 billion. There’s more. 

“This is a nascent market, there is no end to growth in sight,” WinterGreen reported in September 2017. “Markets are expected to reach $41.2 billion by 2023.”

Young says the Memphis sports market is worth $120 million, without an indoor youth sports facility. The Rocky Top Sports World in Gatlinburg created $35.4 million in economic impact for that city last year, according to Young’s report. A Fort Myers, Florida, venue yielded $47.7 million. Another in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, grossed a whopping $186 million.     

Critics of the city’s Fairgrounds plan have said that leaders want to build an elite facility for rich kids and their rich parents.

“It’s not for them,” Young responds. “It’s for our economy.”

Young adds that the facility would be available to locals anytime it isn’t being used for youth sports tournaments, which usually run from Thursday through Sunday. 

Jamie Harmon

Reviving the Roundhouse

In 2015, some Memphis folks got together and decided they wanted the Mid-South Coliseum saved and re-opened. After years of community meetings, government meetings, tours of the building, business research, creating a business plan, media interviews, three Roundhouse Revival events, and a top-to-bottom examination of the massive building, they are still at it. They say the future of the Coliseum has never looked brighter. 

“There is a wider wind in our civic sails, and we’re racking up civic win after civic win after civic win with Crosstown Concourse, the Chisca Hotel, the Levitt Shell, the Tennessee Brewery, Broad Avenue, and Clayborn Temple,” says Marvin Stockwell, co-founder of the Coliseum Coalition and a second group, the Friends of the Fairgrounds. “This seems a whole lot more possible than it did when we first started, and way more possible than it did 10 years ago.”

That enthusiasm is shared by Coliseum Coalition president Roy Barnes and Charles “Chooch” Pickard, a coalition member and preservation architect, even as the city’s new plan (and just about every plan so far) aims only to “preserve” the Coliseum. To them, preservation is at least a step away from razing the building, as Lipscomb wanted to do. 

Two Saturdays ago, July 21st, hundreds of people sweated together outside the Coliseum, with 90 degrees of Memphis summer sun blasting from above and radiating back off the parking lot. Barbecue smoke scented the air, vendors sold vintage T-shirts, and a brass band covered the Meters’ classic “Cissy Strut” inside a wrestling ring. 

It was the third spin of the Coliseum Coaltion’s Roundhouse Revival event, which featured music, wrestling, food, and a few public service announcements. “The Coliseum is in great shape,” read a flyer posted on a column. The group has used the events to garther input from community members and garner support for their cause. 

“I just saw these photographs over here that show me that the building is in great shape,” said Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Craig Fitzhugh, at the event. “To me, now it’s a perfect-sized venue. It won’t compete. There’s not any competition for it. They could put a lot of different things in here — from music to wresting to whatever — roller derby. For the Grizzlies, this would be a great place to put their … developmental league team.”

Fitzhugh hit upon the No. 1 problem for re-opening the Coliseum, according to the Coliseum Coalition — the Grizzlies non-compete clause. With the clause, Grizzlies officials have a measure of control over the local entertainment market and local venues. The team is on the hook for any operating losses at the FedExForum (not the local government) and might perceive a revived Mid-South Coliseum as competition.

That was city council members’ central argument against Elvis Presley Enterprises’ proposed $20-million arena in Whitehaven. And it’s been a central argument against re-opening the Coliseum. Barnes thinks it’s bogus.

“There’s nothing in it … that gives the Grizzlies the ability to say, ‘Sorry you can’t re-open the Coliseum,'” Barnes says. “It doesn’t give them the ability to say, ‘You can’t have events there.'”

Only certain events are blocked by the clause, Barnes says. Stockwell says that the perception that the clause blocks any new, large-ish venue from opening is “completely false.” But there is little political will to alienate the Grizzlies, a major city brand and a major corporate citizen, Barnes says.

The Coliseum, Pickard says, should be right-sized to about 4,900 fixed seats with about 1,000-2,000 on the floor. That would make it the perfect venue for up-and-coming artists and established artists who are playing their way back down the musical food chain from arena shows. 

“We’ve gone to the Grizzlies and said, ‘We think there’s a market for that,’ and they said, ‘We don’t think there is, but if there is, we can accommodate those shows,'” Pickard says. “We’re the venue for that.”

While there seems to be little movement ahead for changing perceptions on the non-compete or the clause itself, the Coliseum Coalition is moving ahead, working with city officials to allow them to clean up the inside of the building and, perhaps, hold a new event inside. They hope if the TDZ is approved and successful, funds could be found down the road to save the Coliseum. 

Plan B = Status Quo

So, what if the TDZ is not approved?

Some sources the Flyer talked to said a “no” vote could be used to further punish Memphis for its removal of Confederate statues this year. Others said moderate Republicans have convinced their right-wing colleagues the deal would be an economic development win for the state. Part of that deal, too, sources said, was the satisfyingly loud outcry from Memphis Democrats over the state lawmakers’ removal of $250,000 from the city’s bicentennial celebration, which was some tasty red meat for Republicans.   

In that case, political tea leaves may point to approval of a TDZ for the project. But if it’s defeated, nothing happens. 

“I think the Plan B is the status quo,” Young says. “It’s what we have today. When the mayor came in, he commented that the Fairgrounds, while we’d love to see it maximized, it’s not something that had to be done at that point in time.

“I think that opinion would still ring true. It is underutilized, but it’s not necessarily having a negative impact on the community as it sits today.”

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Taking Turns in Tennessee and Shelby County Politics

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Among other outcomes desired by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee was the voucher legislation long proposed by Germantown state Senator Brian Kelsey but now dropped in light of opposition from suburban school advocates.

But Lee, whom a recent Whit Ayers poll shows to be running a strong third in the ongoing GOP primary to U.S. Representative Diane Black and former state Economic Development Commissioner Randy Boyd, is still a strong believer in partnerships between government and the faith-based community. It’s the premise of his current statewide tour, the third so far in the campaign of the Williamson County businessman and farmer. Monday saw Lee and his wife Maria at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Life Choices pregnancy care center in Memphis.

Lee was preceded to town by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean, the former Nashville mayor, who was hosted at a Friday luncheon by another faith-based group, the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church on Wellington. Noting that in recent times Republicans and Democrats have taken turns with two-term incumbencies as governor, Dean said “It’s our turn” to occupy the governor’s chair. And he also noted in a conversation with reporters after his public remarks that Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam, the two governors preceding whoever is elected this year, had both, like himself, served previously as mayors. 

Jackson Baker

Bill and Maria Lee in Memphis

Dean deemed his service as mayor, a nonpartisan position, to be good preparation for the task of presiding over a state like Tennessee, with a population that stretches ideologically from left to right but has, for most of its history, kept a political balance.

All’s Well That Ends Well: The Shelby County Commission, with a light and theoretically non-controversial agenda to deal with on Monday, saw a bit of drama.

One audience member, District 13 Commission candidate Charlie Belenky, took issue with the body’s setting a relatively quick April 2nd date to appoint a successor to departing General Sessions Judge Larry Potter. Belenky’s point was that any appointee would have a running start and an advantage over potential election rivals. The commission’s retort was that the traffic in Potter’s court was so brisk as to permit no delay.

JB

Dr Yahweh, a.k.a. Lance ‘Sweet Willie Wine,’ at the dock during Monday’s Commission meeting

Another audience member quarreled in vain with the commission’s long-established practice of awarding grants to local nonprofit charitable organizations, the case in point being one to Memphis Inner City Rugby.

And a final audience speaker, the ubiquitous activist Dr. Yahweh, delivered a long philippic against what he deemed the poisonous evil of fluoridaton in local water. Against all expectations, he ended up earning an ovation as a hero, not for his anti-fluoride message, but for his proud history, 50 years ago, when, as Lance “Sweet Willie Wine” Watson, a member of the Invaders, he was associated with the cause of the sanitation workers striking that year and with the memory of the slain martyr Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

All’s Well That Ends Well II: Ed Ford Jr., a two-term city councilman, now one of eight candidates (7 Democrats and 1 Republican) seeking Position 9 on the Shelby County Commission, drew a slew of heavy hitters to a Monday evening fund-raiser at Alchemy restaurant. On hand were such as realtor Bobbi Gillis, Cooper-Young mogul Charlie Ryan, Grizzlies exec Jason Wexler, several sitting commissioners and fellow council members, businessman/political broker Karl Schledwitz, and former Mayor AC Wharton.

A grateful Ford delivered himself of some lengthy remarks in which he extolled the current council and remembered being the seventh or decisive vote in several controversial council measures, notably including a controversial one that altered the benefits package of Memphis poilicemen in the interests of the city’s solvency.

Wharton, whose election loss in 2015 may have owed something to that moment, responded with a reminiscence of his own, backing up Ford’s view. And, as an incidental part of the general kumbaya, the former mayor co-existed jovially with Schledwitz, a 2015 supporter whose inadvertently leaked election-day prophecy of a Wharton loss to Jim Strickland had been the source of tension at the time. 

For further political news and pictures, see also the slideshow An Eye on Politics at memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Peggy Brown: Queen of Memphis Soul Food

Peggy Brown was 7 when a pot of coffee fell off a table and severely burned her foot.

“My grandma was so upset,” Brown says. “She made me stay out of the kitchen.” But that didn’t stop her. “As soon as my foot healed, I was back in the kitchen. I got a whipping about being in the kitchen, but that didn’t deter me.”

She’s been in one kitchen or another ever since. Brown, 69, is owner of Peggy’s Healthy Home Cooking on Cleveland Street near Peabody Avenue in Midtown, and she recently opened another thriving restaurant, Peggy’s Homestyle Cooking, on Brooks Road. Brown has a reputation for putting out some of the best and healthiest soul food in town. But the road to success was long and difficult.

Until she had her own restaurants, Brown worked in many Memphis kitchens, including one at The Peabody, where she shared cooking tips with noted chef/journalist Burt Wolf.

“I think God gave us all a gift,” Brown says. “And I think my gift was cooking.”

But, she says, “Let me tell you something. I think the things that you go through in life — God shapes you. You don’t understand at that point in time when it’s all happening, but when you get grown and you look back, all these things served to make you strong. I’m telling you. I have survived stuff that would kill anybody else. Believe me.”

Brown grew up on a farm in Arlington. “My mom was part Indian … white, black, and I don’t know what else. My dad was black as these shoes I got on. When we got old enough, we’d go to the field and pick cotton and chop cotton. The sun didn’t like me. I would welt up and be at home at night crying.”

She made her kitchen debut at the age of 8, because her parents made her “stay at home and cook.”

Brown’s mother and grandmother — her father’s mother who lived with them — did the cooking. “My mom was a good cook, but my grandmother was a great cook. I don’t know what it was, but she could make anything taste good.”

Brown says her grandmother was “what you called a Mississippi cook. That’s old South. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas. All of it is going to taste similar because the recipes were passed down from one generation to the next generation.”

Cutting out biscuits with an empty jack mackerel can was Brown’s first kitchen duty. “It was like playing with Play-Doh for me.”

She progressed to making the biscuits and, finally, making lunch. “I knew how to make things because my grandmamma made them.”

Brown cooked lunch until she was 15, when her mother and father separated. “They went their separate ways,” she remembers. “And everything just seemed to fall apart. After that, I stayed with my grandmamma. My mom disappeared for about three or four years.

“My brother was a baby when my mother left. I was a child raising a child. My grandmother was a fantastic cook, but she was also an alcoholic. That’s who my mom left us with — my dad’s mother. She drank like a fish. And half the time I don’t think she knew if we were living or dead. Because the older she got, the more she drank.”

Brown’s mother finally returned, and she had remarried. At that point, Brown says, “Everything — as old people say — went to hell in a handbasket. Nothing was ever the same again. Everything was just different. Basically, we had a stepdad who wanted to be married to our mom, but didn’t want to be bothered with her children. It was just one of those things.”

Brown and her brother continued to live with their grandmother. Their stepfather “was very mean to us. My mom did not allow him to hit us, but, you know, words hurt worse than nicks sometimes. That’s the reason I tell people, ‘You have to be careful what you say to children. You can damage children by talking down to them all the time.’ That’s what he did. He always said, ‘Well, your children ain’t going to be nothing because their dad wasn’t nothing.'”

Brown was raped when she was 15. She refused to have an abortion and gave birth to her first child, Marvin Anderson. After he was born, she took a job washing dishes at the old Shelby Restaurant. But even then, she couldn’t resist the lure of the kitchen. “The frozen pies they would buy, they were just plain old pies to me. I would always take butter and sugar and everything, kind of dress them up and put them in the oven and make them taste good.”

After her stint at Shelby Restaurant, Brown worked at a Chinese restaurant and, later, at a doughnut shop. Then she got a job cooking at Shoney’s, where she “doctored on a lot of things,” including their meatloaf and soup.

Brown left home at 18. “For the longest time, I didn’t speak to my mother. I felt like she should have left that fool and taken her children. She shouldn’t have let us be abused and talked to that way.”

Brown had another son, named David Nelson, who has since passed away. She got married in 1972 and had a daughter, Tina Brown. But after her marriage didn’t work out, she moved to Indiana and began cooking for a division of Ford Motor Company. The company paid for her to take cooking classes at a local college.

But fate — and her family — intervened. “My mom got sick,” Brown says, “and I ended up moving back home.” By then, she had forgiven her mother, influenced by a woman at church who told her “hatred is one of the worst diseases you can have. It’s a disease that can destroy you.”

Then came a career change that would shape the rest of Brown’s life. In the early 1980s, Brown got a job as a cook in the employee cafeteria at The Peabody, where she met Wolf, who was then head chef. “I thought he was the most amazing person I had ever met in my life,” Brown says. “I still do. Because he knew so much about food. I knew things that he didn’t know. And he knew things that I wanted to know.

“He knew about filleting fish. He knew about pork chops. He knew how to marinate meats and everything to make them taste good, make them tender. He just knew so much, but he knew nothing about Southern cuisine. That was not his thing.”

After she got off work, Brown would stay and watch Wolf cook. He asked her what she was doing in the kitchen after hours. Brown said, “I’m up here hanging with the chefs because I want to know what y’all know.”

And before long, that’s what began to happen.

“[Wolf] started showing me things. He’d show me how to cut up this and how to marinate this and what to put in this. And we just started sharing things.”

There was the “turkey fiasco during Thanksgiving time,” Brown remembers. Wolf made “stuffing” for the employee holiday dinner. “I said, ‘Chef, what in the world is this? People in the South don’t eat this.’ It wasn’t anything but just dough. Dough rolls. People in the South eat cornbread dressing.”

Wolf told her to serve it anyway. “So, we wheel all this stuff downstairs to the employee cafeteria. Phones start ringing upstairs. ‘Chef, what’s this mess you sent down here?'”

Wolf, knowing when he was licked, told Brown to make her dressing. She made cornbread stuffing with sage, onions, celery, bell peppers, butter, and margarine. “I had to make my giblet gravy and everything. I don’t know what kind of gravy chef made, but it was a mess.”

She added some turkey meat to her dressing and took a cup to Wolf in his office. “I said, ‘Chef, here you go, dude. This is what you have in the South for Thanksgiving.'”

Wolf ate the dressing and then asked her for another cup, Brown says.

Wolf kept passing along his knowledge to Brown. “If you admire a person for what they know,” she says, “a lot of times they don’t mind teaching you.”

After Wolf left Memphis to open the Peabody Orlando, Brown stayed at the Memphis hotel another year and then went to work as the chef at Stonebridge Country Club. When the club was sold, the former owner wanted Brown to relocate to a club elsewhere in Tennessee, but she refused. “I wouldn’t because my mama was still sick and I wasn’t going to leave her.”

Brown briefly went to work for a diner, but says she “got tired of the racism.” At that point, she decided to open her own restaurant.

“I kept telling everybody I was going to have my own business and work for myself. I was serious as a heart attack. One of the other girls asked me, ‘Miss Peggy, what are you going to name your place?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, but it’s going to be ‘heavenly’ something ’cause you have to put God first.'”

As for the kind of food she’d serve? Brown says, “I just wanted people to have a good, home-cooked meal. Because everywhere I went to eat food, most of it was out of a can and people can’t cook worth a crap.”

Brown opened her first restaurant in 1996 — Heavenly Hash on Highway 51. She closed it three years later, after her mother died. “When I opened that restaurant,” she says, “it was because I wanted to buy my mom a house. She always wanted her own house. After mom died, it just didn’t have any meaning for me anymore.”

Brown then bought a restaurant in North Memphis and named it Peggy’s Just Heavenly Home Cooking. After a fire struck the restaurant, Brown briefly got out of the business. But it wasn’t long until her daughter asked her to cook at the restaurant where she was working. Brown eventually bought the restaurant, now called Peggy’s Healthy Home Cooking. She serves meatloaf, chicken, and pork chops, but the emphasis is on healthy food, Brown says. And business is good.

Noted songwriter/producer David Porter is a big fan of Brown’s restaurant. “The consistency and the quality of the meals is just something you can be comfortable with,” he says. “You know if it’s good on Monday, it’s going to be good on Tuesday. It’s one of the best soul food restaurants in Memphis.”

Former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton is also a fan. “You might as well forget about the salt and pepper shaker,” he says. “It’s ready to eat. All you need to do is add fork and knife. It reminds you of back home, watching your mama cook in a small pan. And every morsel tastes the same way.”

Of Brown, Wharton says, “She’s always willing to sit down and talk a minute and catch up on the news. Just a lot of good common sense talk. So, it’s just like being home around the kitchen table.”

“I think God allowed me to go through all the hardships and all the hurt and all the pain and anger and stuff that I went through,” Brown says. “I couldn’t understand why it was happening then, but I think I understand it now. Because I feel like God has put me in a place where I was going to meet people that had been through the same things I’ve gone through.

“One day I was praying, talking to the Lord. I talk to God the same way I talk to you. I said, ‘Lord, just let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man. Because [there are] so many hurting people. And I think I know how people feel. Just give me a little house by the side of the road.’

“Well, he didn’t give me a house by the side of the road, but he gave me a restaurant by the side of the road.”

No Cook Banana Pudding from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Peggy Brown: Queen of Memphis Soul Food

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Reginald Milton

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Whether one is running for an office anew or is preparing for a reelection race, it is necessary to have a fund-raiser at regular intervals.

The most obvious reason for this is, duh, to raise funds. No one (or virtually no one) gets elected these days without having enough money to pay for mailers and other advertising, staffers, office space, etc., etc. Beyond the purely material, though, there are other reasons for doing fund-raisers. A good fund-raising event also serves as a mixer, whereby supporters, donors, staffers, the host, and — believe it — curious voters looking for a horse to back can get together, get a sense of who they are, and gauge something of the long-term outlook for the candidate in question.

And, finally, a good fund-raiser is a good party, as well as yet another occasion in a series in which the candidate gets to do his/her song and dance and perfect the campaign message.

All those qualities were working for Shelby County Commissioner Reginald Milton last Friday night at a fund-raiser for his reelection campaign held at the Peabody Avenue home of Allison Stiles and Robert Cohen. The address was good, the hosts were known to be quality folks, and the hors d’oeuvres and light libations made for sociability.

Most important was the mix of attendees — diverse by race, by gender, by class, and, perhaps most importantly, by party. Former Commissioner Mike Ritz, a Republican, was there. The guest speaker for Milton was 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen. Former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton was on hand. Organization Democrats were there in force, as were Republicans, independents, and candidates for other offices, taking advantage of the opportunity to show themselves in such company.

And Milton put in a good word for himself and his intentions, talking about his history as a proprietor of a nonprofit, working directly in his District 10 community.

All in all, the auguries were good for Milton, who may or may not have a significant opponent next year in his county commission reelection bid (in which case, said opponent — or opponents —  will surely also get their proper due in this space). The likelihood, though, is that, like most incumbents who have performed well (and well in this case means consistently, with effort, with effect, and with apparent sincerity) Milton should be in good shape for reelection.

It was not ever thus. Milton made several runs at elective office before finally winning his current seat in a 2014 nail-biter with Martavius Jones (now a city councilman). And he spent much of his first term learning by trial and error, as one does.

He seems to be peaking at a good time. In the last year he has been a prime mover of the commission’s adoption of MWBE (minority and women business enterprises) and LOSB (Locally Owned Small Business) programs, designed to diversify the dispensing of county contracts in the interests of fairness. He also was the force behind the commission’s Enhancement Grants, the device whereby each individual commissioner is allowed to determine the local beneficiaries of county grant funds, a not unimportant source of the current more generalized dispersal of authority that partly underlies the ongoing reapportionment of county power vis-a-vis the commission and the county admininistration.

Milton is one of four commission Democrats (of the current seven party members serving) who will be seeking reelection. The others are Van Turner, Willie Brooks, and Eddie Jones, and each of them no doubt harbors thoughts of offering personal leadership for a party contingent that stands a fair chance of increasing its numbers next year.

Milton has served notice of that ambition, by word and deed, and organized the joint filing of the (would-be) returning four at the Election Commision last week. So far he has gone largely unsung in publicity emanating from the commission — in this space and elsewhere. This column is in one sense a means of amending the balance sheet. The man indeed has a song — one likely to become louder in the course of time.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Little Big Town

I was wandering through the Midtown Kroger on a recent Saturday night. Sounds like the beginning of a really bad novel, right? Or maybe I just have a lousy social life? Neither, actually. We were having friends over the next day and I needed a couple of things, and decided I’d rather go at night than battle the Sunday post-church crowd.

So, there I was, pondering whether or not I needed another package of bacon, when I saw former Mayor A C Wharton, also shopping alone. He was wearing a sharp, pin-striped seersucker suit. Crisp white shirt. No tie. I felt a bit under-dressed.

“Hello, Mr. Mayor,” I said.

“Why, hello,” he responded. “How are you?”

“Pretty good, sir.”

“You have plenty to write about these days, don’t you?”

“I sure do.”

The former mayor went on to mention that he really liked a column I wrote about President Trump’s cabinet meeting — the one where everyone in the room toadied up to Trump with fulsome praise.

“I now require my staff to praise me at the beginning of each meeting,” Wharton said, grinning.

“Good plan,” I said. “I do the same. Keeps them on their toes.”

And on we went about our shopping. It was such a Memphis moment. At that same Kroger I’ve seen tons of Grizzlies players, notable musicians of every stripe (from Stax legends to opera singers to current stars), leaders in the arts and education and theater, congressmen, chefs, hotshot lawyers — you name it. Everybody in Memphis goes Krogering, it seems. It’s the great equalizer.

Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant at Poplar and Humes was also that kind of place. You’d see Wharton, Harold Ford, Steve Cohen, Willie Herenton, Jerry West, and every Grizzlies coach who ever coached, including the three Italians in a row we once had (Fratelli, Barone, and Iavaroni), each of whom I saw hanging at Ronnie’s bar on many occasions.

It was the center of the Memphis dining universe from the mid-’90s to the mid-aughts, and it was often my habit to go on Tuesdays after we put the Flyer to bed. I never had a boring evening or a bad meal.

And Ronnie was at the center of it all, greeting everyone by name, shuffling you to the bar with a bit of gossip in your ear while you waited for your table. No reservations at Ronnie’s. You showed up and took your chances. And if you were a regular, at some point Ronnie would take your picture and put it on the wall somewhere. Mine was on the men’s room door, but hey, it was there, a badge of honor, a sign I’d made it. Or something.

Ronnie died last weekend, at 79, marking the end of an era. He’d moved his restaurant out to Collierville in recent years, out of my dining comfort zone, but I’m sure it was a nice place, because he was a nice man — larger than life — and he’ll be missed by all who knew him.

I spend my Tuesday nights at another joint now, a cozy, friendly place at Cooper and Peabody, near my house. I call the owners and bartenders my friends. I can’t go there without seeing 10 people I know. And that’s the way I like it, a home away from home. A place where everybody knows your name.

In these tempestuous times, where change comes at the drop of a tweet, it’s good to have traditions and to savor them, like you savor your food and your friends and your family.

And your memories.

Bruce VanWyngarden
brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Memphis’ Big River Crossing is a Game-Changer

CREDIT: bigrivercrossing.com

bigrivercrossing.com

As is well known, the city of Memphis sprawls a good bit. In fact, we are used to hearing politicians contend that, area-wise, Memphis is larger than Chicago, although that claim has an apocryphal ring to anyone who has driven through the Windy City from north to south.

It is undeniable, though, that over the weekend an event occurred on the downtown side of Memphis that will both magnify its size and extend its borders enormously in the eyes of the outside world.

This was the event known as the Big River Crossing, a commemoration that occurred in tandem with the completion of the Main Street to Main Street project that now links downtown Memphis with downtown West Memphis — and does so via an innovative pedestrian/bicycle pathway extending all the way across a refurbished Harahan Bridge, heretofore used only by trains. At night, moreover, the bridge has the capacity to be visually spectacular, thanks to a lighting system that can shine in “architectural white” or, as it did on Saturday and Sunday nights, in dazzling rainbow colors.

This new addition to the city’s landscape is no serendipity. It is the result of years of visionary thinking and liberally applied elbow grease on the part of several local pioneers, who, in tandem with counterparts across the river in Arkansas, worked together to accomplish what, at first blush, had seemed a crazy idea, even to some of its most avid backers.

The father of this project is the distinguished trader/investor Charlie McVean, but he had help in designing it, funding it, and executing it from a host of others — notably the late Jim Young of Union Pacific Railroad in Little Rock, who overcame his industry’s bias against shared rail/pedestrian structures, and 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who went to bat for the project in Washington and ended up making it possible through the acquisition of a $15 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant that completed the necessary funding package.

The TIGER grant not only significantly underwrote the project (technically known as the Main Street to Main Street Multi-Modal Connector Project) but also made it possible for both of the bookend cities, Memphis and West Memphis, to undertake significant rehabilitation of their downtown cores. It is one of those rare circumstances from which environmentalists and urban-growth enthusiasts can both take heart.

And McVean and his collaborators aren’t resting on their laurels. They imagine further work on the adjoining Mississippi River levees that would result in a recreational artery extending all the way to New Orleans and to the creation of what would be, in McVean’s words, the world’s largest land park.

Categories
News News Blog

Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke Addresses Summons to Memphis Luncheon

Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke

Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke gave a spirited and provocative speech at Memphis Magazine’s fourth annual “Summons to Memphis” luncheon Thursday, at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis.

The crowd of 300 or so was fronted by a Who’s Who table that included Mayor Jim Strickland, former Mayor AC Wharton, County Mayor Mark Luttrell, Berke, and Maura Sullivan, now chief operating officer of the city of Chattanooga and formerly a top aide in the Wharton administration.

Mayors Strickland, Berke, Luttrell

Berke began by acknowledging the difficulties all four major Tennessee cities have in dealing with a GOP legislature that is controlled by rural interests. “This legislature doesn’t like cities very much,” he said.

Moving from that point of urban commonality, Berke said his city has followed a four-point plan that has lowered its unemployment to 4 percent and has resulted in a booming economy and a thriving city built on the ashes of its departed steel-manufacturing industry.

“In 1967. Walter Cronkite called Chattanooga ‘the dirtiest city in America,'” Berke said. “And when the most trusted man in America says you’re the dirtiest city in America, people believe it.”

Berke alluded to the ‘Chattanooga Way,’ the four points of which are: Working Together Works; Investing in Public Spaces; Great Cities Plan for a Great Future; and Provide More Paths for the Middle Class.

Berke went into each seemingly platitudinal point in great detail, demonstrating the concrete steps Chattanooga has taken to achieve each goal. He was particularly proud of the city-owned broad-band network that is available to every home and business in Chattanooga.

The crowd was attentive and appreciative, seeming to enjoy Berke’s occasional irreverence and his upbeat message.

Contemporary Media, Inc. publisher Kenneth Neill presented Berke with a signed copy of Peter Taylor’s novel, A Summons to Memphis in appreciation of his appearance.

Berke and CMI Publisher Kenneth Neill

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

2015: A Year of Change in Memphis Politics

Sitting uneasily at the same table for the annual Myron Lowery prayer breakfast on January 1, 2015 were future antagonists Mayor A C Wharton (left) and Jim Strickland (in center). At far right is Council candidate Mickell Lowery, who would be upset in a Council race by underdog Martavius Jones.

The year 2015 began with a bizarre New Year’s Day event in which Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland was asked to stand up by a reigning figure in city politics, whereupon said official, council chairman Myron Lowery, basically called Strickland out for his presumption in considering a race against incumbent Mayor A C Wharton.

The year will end with the selfsame Strickland preparing to stand on a stage on New Year’s Day 2016 and take the oath as mayor, while both Wharton and Lowery exit city government, and Mickell Lowery, the latter’s son, wonders what went wrong with his own failed bid to succeed his father on the council.

On the national stage, similar head-scratching must be going on at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport and in other establishmentarian councils where the old reliable form sheets seem to have gone suddenly and sadly out of date.

Everywhere, it would seem, the representatives and figureheads of things-as-usual are hearing variations on “You’re fired,” which is how it might be put by Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire and political eccentric whose out-of-nowhere surge to the top of the pack among Republican presidential contenders is one of the obvious indicators of the new mood.

One of the most trusted end-of-year polls of the GOP race had Trump at 42 percent and Jeb Bush at 3 percent. Less extremely, back in our own bailiwick, the formerly invincible Wharton, whose two earlier mayoral races netted him victory totals of 70 percent and 60 percent, finished his 2015 reelection effort with a woeful 22 percent of the vote, a full 20 points behind the victorious Strickland, in what was essentially a four-person race.

It takes no crystal ball or soothsaying skill to see that there was discontent against traditional management — again, what we call the establishment — in all the public places: locally, nationally, and even statewide. Governor Bill Haslam, a pleasant, well-intentioned man with a little sense and sensibility, was spurned by the leadership and rank-and-file of his own Republican Party in the General Assembly in Nashville. 

His prize proposal, a home-grown version of Medicaid (TennCare) expansion called Insure Tennessee, was just different enough from the semantically vulnerable Obamacare to pass muster with the state’s hospitals, medical professionals, and — according to polls — the Tennessee public at large. It was opposed by the GOP speakers of the two legislative chambers in both a special session in February and the regular session later on and kept thereby from ever getting a vote on the floor of either the House or the Senate.

As Haslam noted in a barnstorming expedition across the state later in the year, the state also had a serious need for upgrading of its roads, bridges, and infrastructure in general, but — once burned and twice shy from the rejection of Insure Tennessee — he dared not advocate a gasoline tax or any other specific plan to raise revenue for infrastructure purposes. He was reduced instead to voicing a hope at each of his stops that an aroused public itself would clamor for such remedies. No such luck.

Meanwhile, the once-dominant Democratic Party had become such a shell of its former self that it was powerless to suggest anything of its own legislatively or to oppose any initiative of the Republicans, who owned a super-majority — and a Tea Party-dominated one — in both houses.

What the Democrats could do, in Shelby County and statewide, was outfit themselves with new leaders. Mary Mancini, a veteran activist from Nashville, became the new state party chairman, while Randa Spears was elected in Memphis to head Shelby County Democratic Party and to impose overdue reform on what had been some serious mismanagement of the party’s finances.

The local Republican Party elected a female chair, too,  Mary Wagner, suggesting the existence of a trend and the possibility that, as confidence in the old order continued to erode, political folks were increasingly looking to the women in their ranks as a source of new leadership.

• City and county politics were crucially affected by budgetary matters during 2015. 

In the case of the city, austerity measures approved by both Mayor Wharton and a council majority — specifically pension reform and reduction of health benefits for city employees — would taint public confidence in city government and shape the resultant four-way mayoral race to the incumbent’s disadvantage.

Even such seeming talking points for the mayor as the new Electrolux and Mitsubishi plants failed to diminish local unemployment to the degree that had been expected.

Mayoral candidate Harold Collins was telling with his mockery of the $10-an-hour jobs for temps he said prevailed at both locations. Memphis Police Association president Mike Williams embodied resentment of lost benefits for first responders in his mayoral bid. 

And, most effectively, the aforementioned Strickland hammered away at a triad of issues — public safety, blight, and a need for more accountability on the part of public officials — that his polling suggested were winning themes among voters of all ethnicities and economic classes.

Some considered these mere housekeeping issues, but as poll-derived distillations of the Memphis electorate’s concerns about the here and now, they were evidently on point — enough so that Strickland, in many ways a generic white man, would eventually capture 25 percent of the city’s black vote, pulling his mathematical share against African-American candidates Wharton, Collins, and Williams.

On the council front, six new members were chosen in open races, and in each case it was the most business-friendly candidate who won. This was undeniably the case with candidates such as Philip Spinosa, a young FedEx executive who raised a prohibitive $200,000 in an at-large race, avoiding public forums with his five opponents or much public contact of any kind except for a forest of yard signs bearing his name along the major traffic arteries of central and East Memphis.

Another financially well-endowed council newcomer, Worth Morgan, advertised himself similarly, but was willing to confront the rest of his field — and in the runoff a well-regarded Republican activist — in open debate, where he held his own.

Along with Strickland’s nonstop emphasis on public safety, there was an abundance of pro-police rhetoric among the winners of city races. The question — one that achieved the level of irony — was how all this public empathy, short of restoring lost benefits, could arrest the ongoing fallout from the ranks. Some 200 to 300 cops had already responded to benefit cuts by going elsewhere.

The general sense of rebellion that, in one way or another, seemed to characterize the political scene in 2015 may have found its fullest fruition in Shelby County government, where, after enacting various expected rituals of partisan rivalry amongst themselves, the county comissioners began to mount a coordinated campaign as a body against the administration of county Mayor Mark Luttrell. This development was a direct outgrowth of the budget season, during which commissioners on both sides of the party line convinced themselves that they were being spoon-fed half-truths about money available for public purposes and at year’s end were attempting to assert their own authority as superceding that of the mayor.

As with so much else on the political landscape in 2015, the accustomed way was under challenge. The new year of 2016 will presumably have to come up with some answers.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Tis the Season for Memphis Politics

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Jackson Baker

Drawing a crowd of local and statewide Democrats at a party fund-raiser over the weekend was visiting U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ). Booker is the tall, balding fellow behind Mayor AC Wharton.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus — if you happen to be a political junkie. Those whose appetite for the electoral process was not sated by the close of the Memphis run-off races on November 19th have a freshly wrapped gift under the tree — the prospect of fresh voting March 1st, “Super Tuesday,” for which a preliminary deadline of sorts passed during the week. 

Last Thursday, December 10th, was the filing deadline for the 2016 General Sessions Clerk’s race, the party primaries which will take place on Super Tuesday, along with presidential primaries for both parties.

The deadline came off as something of a stealth event — save for those individuals directly involved in the outcomes or a relatively few activists in the two local political parties or the really zealous members of Shelby County’s aforementioned political-junkie class.

But, whether or not many people were paying attention or even thinking about it, at the stroke of noon on Thursday, December 10th, the curtain did indeed fall at the Election Commission on applications for the General Sessions clerkship, which is now held by Ed Stanton Jr., who is not to be confused with his son, Ed Stanton III, who is U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee.

(The younger Stanton is involved in a stealth situation of sorts, too. He was appointed last April by President Obama to be a U.S. District Judge at the urging of 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, a Democrat, has been backed for the appointment by U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both Republicans, and easily sailed through a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October. But his final confirmation vote by the full Senate, along with those of many other judicial nominees, has been snarled in a delay that stems from the continuing partisan gridlock in Congress.)

Stanton Jr. is regarded as a heavy favorite to be re-elected as clerk, though at the filing deadline he had drawn two Democratic primary opponents, Del Gill and William Stovall; one Republican challenger, Richard Morton, and one independent opponent, William Chism. 

Stanton is one of two Democratic incumbents who have successfully withstood challenges from Republican candidates in recent years. The other is Shelby County Assessor Cheyenne Johnson. Both were reelected four years ago, in part of an off-year cycle for county officials. 

After that 2012 election, the office of assessor was rescheduled in sync with the general slate of county officials, and she was forced to run again in 2014, winning that race handily and leaving Stanton’s position as the only county office scheduled in a different four-year cycle. He will vie for the Democratic nomination with Gill and Stovall on the aforesaid “Super Tuesday.”

Early voting for both the presidential primary and the General Sessions Democratic primary will run from February 10th to February 25th. The winner of the General Sessions primary will run on August 4th against Chism and Morton, who will have been nominated without opposition by the GOP on March 1st.

August 4th is also the date for party primaries for state legislative races.

Confused? Don’t worry. We’ll keep reminding you as each case comes in its turn.

• It’s a fair bet that most political activists have focused more attention lately on the string of seasonal holiday parties that various Democratic and Republican groups have been holding.

Though they certainly play a role in binding the local organizations together, and several double as party fund-raisers, these gatherings, like holiday parties of all kinds, are more about good cheer and a break from routine, or, as was the case with the party held over the weekend by the Democratic Women of Shelby County, the expression of a special tribute to longtime party activist Myra Stiles, whose household has been the traditional home base for the DWSC’s annual holiday affairs. 

More pointedly political, perhaps, was the party held on Sunday at the riverfront home of Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bailey. This event featured a national political celebrity of sorts, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), was held to raise funds for the Tennessee House Democratic Caucus, and brought in numerous Democratic Party officials and state House of Representatives members. 

The event also enticed a significant turnout from local Democrats — a proverbial who’s who, including Cohen and outgoing Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, a late arrival who got an especially warm welcome. Suggested donation amounts ranged from $2,500 for PACs (Political Action Committees) to $1,000 for party finance council members to $250 for individuals. House Democratic Caucus chair Mike Stewart of Nashville set a goal of $20,000 for the event, and that fairly modest threshold would seem to have been easily met and exceeded.

Booker is one of the Democratic Party’s ascending stars on the national scene. Well aware of the current low ebb of Democratic fortunes in Tennessee, at least numerically, he reminded attendees of the event that he, too, had tasted defeat in his mayoral race in Newark, before finally winning in a second try and beginning his rise.

And he cautioned his audience against fatalism, contending that Democrats continued to prove they had the numbers to win in presidential races and that overcoming low turnout in non-presidential races was the key to an overall political revival.

Presidential politics was a subject much under discussion at Republican holiday events. Typical was the annual Christmas party of the East Shelby Republican Club at the Pickering Community Center in Germantown, Monday night. To judge by the comments volunteered in conversation, celebrity candidate Donald Trump still is riding high, though support was also evident for other candidates, notably Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

• Before the week is out, Mayor-elect Jim Strickland may — and no doubt will — get off a few more striking acts in his run-up to the New Year’s oath-taking, but, to those of us in the news business, nothing could have been more startling than his back-to-back selection of Ursula Madden and Kyle Veazey as major assistants  in his administration-to-be.

Talk about cherry-picking!

It was eye-opening enough last week when Strickland announced the appointment of Madden, longtime news anchor for major local television outlet, WMC-TV, Action News 5. To follow that up with this week’s announcement of a Veazey appointment is downright staggering.

Does the new mayor intend to launch a state-of-the-art news operation as an adjunct to city government? In the couple of years he has served as lead of the politics-and-government reporting team for The Commercial Appeal, Veazey not only resurrected that paper’s cachet as a leading source of political news, he elevated the public’s sense of urgency about public news in general.

A former sportswriter, he brought a statistician’s zeal and a fan’s passion to the business of covering politics. And for the rest of us in the field, he made it fun to compete, and that’s a word — “compete” — that he gave new meaning to.

Trying to keep up with Veazey in one sense was a lost cause: He had too much energy, too much commitment, and, to be honest, too much of an advantage in exposure to try to out-do. But he also enlarged the scope of the game itself. It wasn’t a zero-sum matter of win-lose. No knee-capping. No screw your buddy. In a way, it was like being in an orchestra. You still had ample play for your own instrument, and it was impossible not to admire the way he handled his.

Now, just what the hell is he going to do in city government that will top that act?

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Memphis Makes a Change

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Toby Sells

So, Memphis has a new mayor-elect. While many people were surprised at last week’s election results, those with access to various local political insiders were not. Polling numbers had been bandied about sotto voce for weeks, numbers that suggested Jim Strickland had a substantial lead over two-term incumbent A C Wharton. But none of the polling numbers I heard suggested a result in which Strickland would basically double Wharton’s percentage of the total vote.

The easy analysis was that Strickland got the white vote while the three African-American candidates split the black vote. And while it’s true that Strickland’s 42 percent represented only a plurality of the electorate, I think when our crack (ahem) Election Commission finally comes up with the precinct and ward breakdowns, we’ll learn that the results were not so black and white.

Fourth-place finisher Mike Williams, for example, had substantial white support among his constituency, which included the Save the Mid-South Coliseum crowd, Memphis Animal Services activists, the Memphis Police Department, and the anti-pension-cut true believers.

Wharton, too, had white support, especially in Midtown progressive circles and among the business community that financed his campaign. And Strickland’s camp is claiming that the numbers will show that their candidate had a decent slice of the black vote. We shall see, sooner or later. Probably later.

There will be at least six new faces on the Memphis City Council, including a couple of young, white newcomers who were heavily funded by family and business interests. Midtown’s District 5, for example, home to the city’s most liberal populace, will be represented (after a runoff election) by one of two Republicans: Worth Morgan, a poor lad from the wrong side of the tracks, or Dan Springer, who was backed by county Mayor Mark Luttrell, who announced last week that he would manage the local campaign for presidential candidate and professional Christianist sleazeball Mike Huckabee. Ugh.

What happened was that the three progressive candidates in District 5 (Chooch Pickard, Mary Wilder, and John Marek) split the liberal vote, opening the door for Morgan and Springer (both of whom are probably decent fellows, truth be told). But to say they represent progressive interests is probably a stretch.

I was saddened by the cheap shots that former Mayor Willie Herenton took at Wharton after the election. Wharton is a consummate gentleman, full of grace and humor. His concession speech, which I witnessed, was big-hearted and generous. He handled defeat like a winner. He represented the city with class, and we were lucky to have him, especially after enduring Herenton’s tumultuous final years in office. Wharton should leave with his head held high. He has a lot to be proud of.

And I credit Strickland with an equally gracious victory speech. A smooth transition benefits all of us. My hat is off to both men for the way the campaign ended.

Change is inevitable in politics, and change has happened in Memphis. I have confidence that the city is still on the upswing, and I’m hoping Mr. Strickland can keep the best initiatives of our outgoing mayor in place and still make the kind of changes that will fulfill his campaign pledge to more effectively fight crime and blight.

I wish him the best.