Tag: AC Wharton

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News News Feature

Memphis’ Political Morass

In an interview after he had been selected as the new interim

District 7 Memphis city councilman, a relieved Berlin Boyd admitted he had been temporarily been taken aback by a question from Councilwoman Janis Fullilove.

At first, warmly referring to Boyd’s previous interim tenure on the council after the resignation of former Councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware, who also happened to be a candidate for this year’s opening, Fullilove abruptly spit out a hypothetical inquiry into whether, if chosen, Boyd’s loyalties would lie with the seventh floor (code for Mayor A C Wharton) or with the constituents he’d represent in the 7th District.

To his credit, Boyd was unwavering in his answer. “I am my own man,” he said. “No one has given me anything in life. I have and will make my own decisions.” With those resolute remarks there was no need for any additional follow up.

That exchange struck me as the epitome of the political morass in Memphis we have endured for decades. Never has a city administration and the council been at loggerheads as strongly as they are now. The past week’s announced mediation settlement of the long-delayed funding for Shelby County Schools only reflected the great chasm of distrust, contempt, and miscommunication that exists between the seventh and bottom floors of City Hall. With a city-wide election coming in October, the level of rancor would only seem to be headed toward even greater depths of political grandstanding, divisiveness, and the embarrassing exploitation of racial bigotry from blacks and whites alike.

But, 2015 offers us a chance to get on track toward positive change, and I’ll tell you why it should happen.

Since Councilman Jim Strickland officially entered the mayoral race, I have read the fervid Facebook comments of those who believe that a white candidate cannot possibly understand or embrace the hopes and dreams of a predominately black populace. But, isn’t a mayor someone who is supposed to be a visionary leader for all citizens regardless of his own ethnic background? Isn’t a mayor the chief executive who vows, “The buck stops here,” and then comes before the city’s governing body to make his case in person, rather than send others to do it for him?

Let’s be brutally realistic. It’s been almost 24 years since Willie Herenton became the first African-American mayor of Memphis. During his tenure, there were stellar successes, not the least of which was the extinction of many blighted areas in black communities that had come to symbolize degradation and hopelessness.

But tearing down those concrete facades did not really elevate the majority of the city’s black — or white — population. Memphis is still one of America’s poorest cities, and we still have one of the highest crime rates in the nation. Has black leadership on the seventh floor or black majority representation on the council changed the fact that 47 percent of Memphis’ black children are still caught in the cycle of generational poverty? We should have learned by now that the color of our leaders’ skin is irrelevant.

There are those who want to perpetuate the stale argument that a white man could only be elected to lead this city if the black vote gets split up among a handful of candidates, including the incumbent. I’ve lived in this city way too long to swallow the notion that because someone has my skin color, my life is automatically going to get better if he or she is elected to public office. When it comes to those we’ve voted for to lead this city over the past two decades, too many of us, black and white, have ignored the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Our choices shouldn’t be based on a candidate’s skin color, but rather the content of their character.

That’s probably why Boyd’s heartfelt response to Fullilove’s politically motivated question made such an impression on me. In this year of decision, we must closely look at those who promise results but whose track records would indicate otherwise. Go to political forums where you can see and talk to candidates, not just for the mayor’s office, but the council, as well. Then decide who you think offers the best direction for this city. If it will help, close your eyes and just listen to what they have to say.

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Politics Politics Feature

It Was What It Was

The year 2014 began with a call for unity from several of the political principals of Memphis and Shelby County — remarkable circumstances given that just ahead was another one of those knock-down, drawn-out election brawls that characterize a big-ballot election year.

Speaking at an annual prayer breakfast on January 1st, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen called for an end to bipartisan bickering in Congress and touted the achievements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (aka Obamacare). Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell asked for civility in county government, and Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, amid a good deal of wrangling over city pension reform, among other matters, said something similar and declared, “I’m through with whose fault it is!”

Surely no one is surprised that few of these hopes were fully realized in the course of 2014.

Not that some concrete things didn’t get done. The nervy national website Wonkette crowned Tennessee state Representative Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) “S***muffin of the Year,” and, lo and behold, the voters of Knox County would come to a similar conclusion down the line, voting out the incumbent madcap whose most famous bills had come to be known, fairly or otherwise, as “Don’t Say Gay” and “Starve the Children.”

State Senator Brian Kelsey had mixed results, losing again on a renewed effort to force Governor Bill Haslam into a big-time school voucher program and in a quixotic attempt to strip Shelby County of two of its elected judges but getting his props from those — including a majority of Tennessee voters — who supported his constitutional amendment to abolish an income tax in Tennessee for all time.

All four constitutional amendments on the state ballot would pass — including one to strip away what had been some fairly ironclad protections of a woman’s right to an abortion and another to transform the selection and tenure procedures for state appellate judges. Another little-noticed amendment guaranteeing veterans the right to hold charity raffles also passed.

The battle over the key three amendments all reflected a growing concern that Republican-dominated state authority had begun to enlarge its control over local governments and individual citizens alike, not only in the nature of the constitutional amendments but in the legislature’s effort to override local authority in matters including firearms management, public school oversight, public wage policy, and the ability of localities to establish their own ethical mandates.

Shelby County Democrats, who had been swept by the GOP in 2010, had a spirited primary election, with most attention focusing on the mayor’s race between former County Commissioner Deidre Malone, incumbent Commissioner Steve Mulroy, and former school board member and New Olivet Baptist Church pastor Kenneth Whalum Jr.

When votes were counted on May 6th, Malone emerged to become the head of a Democratic ticket that would challenge several well-established Republican incumbents. Democrats’ hopes were high at first, but two of their expected election-day stalwarts began to suffer self-destructive moments at an alarming rate.

The two were lawyer Joe Brown — the “Judge Joe Brown” of nationally syndicated TV fame; and County Commissioner Henri Brooks, a former legislator who had an abrasive way about her but who had recently won laurels as the watchdog on Juvenile Court who had forced the Department of Justice (DOJ) to mandate a series of reforms.

Both District Attorney General candidate Brown, through his celebrity and what was thought to be his ability to bankroll much of the Democratic ticket’s activity, and Juvenile court Clerk candidate Brooks, riding high on her DOJ desserts, were thought to be boons, but they rapidly became busts.

Brown, it turned out, had virtually no money to pass around, even for his own campaign efforts, and he got himself arrested for contempt in Juvenile Court. When, late in the campaign, he launched a series of lurid and seemingly unfounded attacks upon the private life of his opponent, Republican D.A. Amy Weirich, he was dead in the water.

Brooks engaged in successive misfires — browbeating a Hispanic witness before the commission; assaulting a woman she was competing with for a parking spot; and, finally, turning out not to have a legal residence within the commission district she represented.

The bottom line: Shelby County Democrats — underfunded, under-organized, and riven by internal rivalries — were overwhelmed once again on August 7th, with county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Weirich, and Sheriff Bill Oldham leading a Republican ticket that won everything except the office of county assessor, where conscientious Democratic incumbent Cheyenne Johnson held on against a little-known GOP challenger.

All things considered, the judicial races on August 7th went to the known and familiar, with almost all incumbents winning reelection on a lengthy ballot in which virtually every position in every court —General Sessions, Circuit, Criminal, Chancery, and Probate — was under challenge.

Meanwhile, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who had dispatched a series of Democratic Primary and general election challengers since his first election to Congress in 2006, faced what appeared in advance to be his most formidable primary foe yet in lawyer Ricky Wilkins. Cohen won again — though only by a 2-to-1 ratio, unlike the 4-to-1 victories he was used to.

The final elections of the year, including the referenda for the aforementioned package of constitutional amendments, would take place on November 4th.

But for the amendments, there was no suspense to speak of. Two Democrats running for the U.S. Senate — Gordon Ball and Terry Adams, both Knoxville lawyers — had run a spirited and close race in the primary, but winner Ball ran way behind Republican incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander, despite Alexander’s having barely eked out a primary win over unsung Tea Party favorite Joe Carr.

Haslam, the Republican gubernatorial incumbent, easily put away Charlie Brown, an unknown quantity from East Tennessee who had won the Democratic primary mainly on the strength of his comic-strip name.

Throughout the year, there had been persistent wrangles in City Hall between Wharton and members of the city council over dozens of matters — including pension and health-care changes, development proposals, and failures to communicate — with the result that influential councilmen like 2014 council Chairman Jim Stickland and Harold Collins were possible rivals to Wharton in a 2015 mayoral race that might draw in a generous handful of other serious candidates.

Toward year’s end, though, Wharton pulled off a series of coups — announcing new Target and IKEA facilities and appearing to finesse the pension and school-debt matters — that underscored his status as the candidate to beat.

In Nashville, Haslam seemed to have achieved the high ground, finally, with his espousal of a bona fide Medicaid-expansion plan, “Insure Tennessee,” and a determination to defend the Hall income tax and at least some version of educational standards. But battles over these matters and new attacks on legal abortion loomed.

We shall see what we shall see.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

No Rest for the Weary

CREDIT: Kyle and Norris photos courtesy of Jackson Baker

Shelby Countians have figured in several post-election moves:

The Rev.  Kenneth Whalum Jr., a possible candidate for Memphis mayor next year, isn’t waiting until then to make some waves. Whalum is one of eight plaintiffs from across the state in a suit in federal court designed to invalidate the ‘Yes’ vote seemingly conferred by a majority of voters on Amendment 1, which grants the General Assembly considerable new authority in legislating on abortion matters.

The basis of the suit, which was filed Friday in Nashville, is the language of Article XI, Section 3, of the state Constitution, which states that voters “approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor, voting in their favor.”

The plaintiffs, all of whom opposed Amendment 1 and all of whom aver that they cast votes in the governor’s race, say that the constitutional language should be taken literally and that the state has a duty to determine and count only those votes on an amendment question that were cast by persons who also cast votes for governor.

Records compiled by the office of Secretary of State Tre Hargett showed that 32,570 more votes were cast on Amendment 1 than for governor, 1,385,178 as against 1,352,608. The plaintiffs alleged that the disproportion was the direct result of what their attorney Bill Harbison of Nashville, president-elect of the Tennessee Bar Association, said was a strategy by proponents of the amendment of “intentionally abstaining from the governor’s race in an effort to manipulate the numbers in order to pass an amendment” and “a clear violation of [others’] 14th Amendment rights.”

It seems anything but clear to Hargett, a former state representative from Bartlett and a nominal defendant in the suit, along with Governor Bill Haslam, new state Attorney General Herb Slatery, and the seven members of the state Election Commission.

Hargett notes that state election officials have never tried to match votes on amendment questions with ballots cast by the same voters for governor but have measured amendment votes, more abstractly, against a threshold of 50-percent-plus-one of the total votes cast in the governor’s race. “It does not make sense any other way,” he has said.

Also weighing in was Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life and a coordinator for the Yes on 1 campaign. “Even if you wrongly discount those who may have voted for Amendment 1 but not in the governor’s race, there is still a margin of almost 20,000 votes in favor of the amendment,” said Harris.

Aside from legalities, some complicated mathematical reckonings may figure in this case, due for a first hearing in U.S. District Court in Nashville on January 12th. Meanwhile, legislative advocates of new restrictions on abortion are known to be readying bills in time for the new session of the General Assembly, opening up the same month.

• And speaking of enabling legislation, Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville) issued a press release on Monday, the eve of Veterans Day, announcing that he and state Representative Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City) were drafting legislation to allow veterans’ organizations to conduct raffles and games of chance for fund-raising purposes, in accordance with the provisions of Amendment 4, which passed handily in the election.

The amendment expressly grants to 501(c)(19) organizations (veterans’ groups) the same ability to hold such fund-raising affairs as are currently permitted to 501(c)(3) organizations, so long as the veterans’ groups observe the same deadlines for submitting applications to do so — January 31st of a given year for an event scheduled to occur between July 1st  of that year and June 30th of the next. 

A technical point, even a housekeeping matter, but a necessary one. 

Norris, who doubles as chairman of the veterans subcommittee of the Senate State and Local Government Committee, said in the release: “Our legislation will allow this process to move forward and will ensure that the deadline affords these organizations enough time to get their applications in.”

            

• Hargett and Norris, along with state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown, were among Republicans cited this week by The Commercial Appeal‘s veteran Capitol Hill reporter Rick Locker as likely candidates for governor in 2016. Though their ranks have progressively been thinned in recent years by an accelerating statewide shift of political power to the GOP, there are Democratic names involved in gubernatorial speculation as well.

One of them is that of Gordon Ball, who was recently defeated by Republican incumbent Lamar Alexander in this year’s U.S. Senate race.

The wealthy Knoxville lawyer, who made his legal reputation and his fortune suing big-ticket corporations, is meanwhile going through some significant personal changes.

On the plus side, Ball, a graduate of the University of Memphis Law School whose son Tanner is now a student here, told the Flyer last week that he plans to transition at year’s end from his life-long residence in East Tennessee to a residence on Memphis’ Mud Island. 

On the down side, Ball also saw his marriage of less than a year to wife Happy Hayes Ball, who accompanied him on his first several campaign trips to Memphis, come to an apparent end. He filed divorce papers last Friday, listing a variety of complaints, including his wife’s alleged unauthorized use of funds from his business account.

Ball’s estranged wife also figured in another possibly unauthorized action that became a campaign issue. It was her removal of a television set and several other furnishings from the couple’s condo in Destin, Florida, that prompted Alabaman Barry Kraselsky, who had purchased the condo from Ball, to sue for breach of contract over the missing items.

That dispute is yet to be adjudicated. Meanwhile, Ball, who has resumed his law practice, says he intends to play golf and take a post-election vacation in Naples.

• An uneasy truce that settled over the Shelby County Commission following a hearing on the body’s rules last week by Chancellor Jim Kyle was in danger of erupting into discord again in this week’s committee sessions.

In a hearing on Thursday, Kyle opted not to rule in the matter of a suit brought against commission Chairman Justin Ford by a group of commission plaintiffs — six Democratic members plus Republican Steve Basar — who allege that Ford violated the body’s rules in arbitrarily keeping a proposed rules change off the commission agenda.

The chancellor told both sides that the commission, in essence, had no rules to break, inasmuch as each elected version of the commission is obliged to set its own rules, and the body elected in August has not yet done so.

Both sides to the dispute had assumed that the commission was bound by rules inherited from previous commissions. The rules change sought by the plaintiffs would have lowered the threshold necessary to enact further rules changes from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority. 

Democratic Commissioner Van Turner, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and chairman of the body’s general government committee, which was scheduled to meet on Wednesday, said he intended to bring up the whole matter of commission rules. Meanwhile, said Turner, Kyle’s ruling apparently left the county charter, which calls for a simple majority to decide such matters, as the commission’s sole authority.

Behind all the legal complications is a simple power struggle, pitting the commission’s Democrats and Basar, who was vice-chair in the commission’s last session but lost his bid to become chairman in the current session, versus the other five Republicans plus Ford, a Democrat who gained the chairmanship with GOP support.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Election Year 2015 is Upon Us

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Even as time was running out on the elections of 2014, with early voting ending this week in the election process that ends Tuesday, November 4th, the stirrings of Election Year 2015 were at hand. 

Among those in attendance at a Monday morning rally for Democratic candidates at the IBEW building on Madison were Kenneth Whalum and his wife Sheila. And while neither was quite ready to commit to a candidacy for Memphis mayor by the New Olivet Baptist Church pastor and former school board member, both seemed to relish the thought of a follow-up race to the Rev. Whalum’s surprisingly close second-place finish to Deidre Malone in last May’s Democratic primary for Shelby County mayor.

“Maybe it’s time for another tour of India,” joked the reverend, who had been absent on that East Asian sub-continent for a prolonged period just before election day but who finished strong, a fact indicating either that 1) absence made the hearts of voters grow fonder; or that 2) a more vigorous late effort on Shelby County soil might have put him over.

Either scenario, coupled with the fact that his appeal of a 2012 school board race narrowly lost to Kevin Woods had been finally disallowed by the courts, clearly left the irrepressible Whalum available for combat.

Who else is thinking about it? The proper question might be: Who isn’t?

Also present at the IBEW rally was former Shelby County Commission Chairman James Harvey, who is already committed to a race for Memphis mayor to the point of passing out calling cards advertising the fact.

“Changing parties again?” a passer-by jested to Harvey, a nominal Democrat who, in the past year or so on the commission, often made common cause with the body’s Republicans.

“I need ’em now!” responded Harvey, good-naturedly, about his attendance with other Democrats at the IBEW rally, which featured Gordon Ball, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator, at the climax of his statewide “No Show Lamar” bus tour; District 30 state Senate candidate Sara Kyle; and District 96 state House of Representatives candidate Dwayne Thompson.

Not so sunny was another attendee, Memphis City Councilman Myron Lowery, who, when asked if he was considering another mayoral race (he ran unsuccessfully in the special election of 2009 while serving as interim city mayor) answered calmly, “No,” but became non-committal, to the point of truculence, at the follow-up question, “So, are you closing the door?”

Lowery has confided to acquaintances, however, that he is indeed once again measuring the prospect of a mayoral race, while simultaneously contemplating a race by his son, management consultant Mickell Lowery, for his council seat should he choose to vacate it.

Another council member, Harold Collins, has formed an exploratory committee and is contemplating a mayoral race based largely on the theme that the current administration of Mayor A C Wharton is acting insufficiently in a number of spheres, including those of dealing with employee benefits and coping with recent outbreaks of mob violence.

Another councilman considered likely to make a bid for mayor is current council Chairman Jim Strickland, who has built up a decently sized following over the years by dint of his highly public crusades for budgetary reform. He, too, has often been critical of the incumbent mayor.

In accordance with assurances, public and private, he has made over the past year, Wharton himself is still considered to be a candidate for reelection, though there are those who speculate he may have second thoughts, given his advancing years and the increasing gravity of fiscal and social problems confronting the city.

The mayor’s supporters tend to pooh-pooh such speculation and suggest that only Wharton is capable of achieving across-the-boards support from the city’s various demographic components.

Others known or thought to be considering a mayoral race are former state legislator and ex-councilmember Carol Chumney (who has run twice previously); current county Commissioner Steve Basar; and Memphis Police Association President Mike Williams.

The list of potential mayoral candidates is a roster that may grow larger quickly.

• In introducing Ball at the IBEW rally, state Democratic Chairman Roy Herron contended that incumbent Republican Senator Lamar Alexander‘s poll numbers were “going down and down and down and Gordon Ball’s are going up and up and up, and those lines are going to intersect.”

In his own remarks, Ball charged that “my opponent has spent millions of dollars trying to smear and discredit us” and cited that as evidence of how seriously Alexander was taking the threat to his reelection.

The Democratic nominee spent considerable time addressing the recent publicity about a suit brought against him by one Barry Kraselsky, an Alabama resident who recently purchased a Florida condo from Ball and is accusing Ball and his wife, Happy, of having “duped” him by removing items from the property.

Ball said he was being sued for $5,300, even though he had posted an escrow account of $5,000, which was available to Kraselsky, whom he said was a “charlatan” and a major Republican donor. “We’re going to take care of him after November 4th.”

In remarks to reporters after his formal speech, Ball, who opposes the proposed Common Core educational standards, contended that Alexander, who has mainly been opaque on the subject, was a supporter of Common Core, which is opposed by many classroom teachers. Ball noted that Alexander had bragged on well-known teachers’ advocate Diane Ravitch, who is now a Common Core opponent, in Lamar Alexander’s Little Plaid Book, which the senator published years ago.

“He doesn’t mention her anymore,” said Ball. “He and [state Education Commissioner] Kevin Huffman and [educational reformer and Common Core supporter] Michelle Rhee are in this together.”

Also taking part in the IBEW rally were Whalum and Ashley Coffield, CEO of Memphis Planned Parenthood, who passed out to all the candidates T-shirts opposing Constitutional Amendment 1 on the November 4th ballot. Amendment 1 would in effect nullify a 2000 decision by the state Supreme Court that granted more protection to abortion rights than have the federal courts, as well as empower the General Assembly to legislate on a variety of potential new restrictions to abortion.

• The Shelby County Commission, which was unable on Monday to come to a decision on proposed changes in County Mayor Mark Luttrell‘s amended health-care plan for county employees (see this week’s Editorial) also was somewhat riven on another – more explicitly political – issue.

This was a suit filed by seven commissioners in Chancery Court against current Chairman Justin Ford challenging his right to arbitrarily keep items off the body’s agenda.

The plaintiffs are the commission’s six Democrats and one Republican, former vice Chairman Steve Basar, who previously voted with the Democrats to stall the committee appointments by Ford, who was elected in this fall’s first organizational session by a combination of his own vote with that of the commission’s five Republicans. As the GOP’s Heidi Shafer explained at the time, the outnumbered Republicans had a choice between Ford, who has fairly consistently voted their way in previous years, and Bailey, who rarely has.

Basar was aggrieved by having been denied votes for the chairmanship, which he believed himself to be in line for, by most of his Republican colleagues.

Subsequent attempts to place items on the commission agenda proposing rules changes that would threaten Ford’s authority have been arbitrarily removed by the chairman.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Let’s Go Krogering: A Rorschach Test

When a mob of black teens rampaged through a Kroger parking lot one night last week and attacked three people, it started a storm of controversy, mainly because a store employee caught much of it on video. As is inevitable these days, the video was put on every media site in town and shared countless times on Facebook and Twitter. Some national websites then picked it up.

The Flyer‘s Louis Goggans posted a report and a link to the video on our website. The incident — or better said, the video of the incident — served as a sort of social Rorschach test. Viewers mostly used it to enhance and support their own narratives in the comments section.

Racists found it the perfect excuse to use the “n word” and/or to disparage all black teens as “thugs” or “animals.” For Memphis haters, it offered a wonderful opportunity to bash the city and brag about how they “got out in time.” Gun lovers pointed out how much better the situation would have been if someone had just shot some of the teens. Liberals saw the incident as the inevitable result of income inequality.

Also getting some play were: “Where are the parents?” “The school system sucks!” “This was a hate crime!” And “Where’s Al Sharpton?” (Which is apparently comedy gold for a lot of angry white people.)

Then a few facts emerged: The teens left a nearby pizza joint en masse and came after a guy getting out of his car; probably the first person they saw. The police called him “non-African American,” which could mean he was Hispanic or Asian or white. Two Kroger employees — one black, one white — came to his assistance and were attacked and knocked unconscious.

Within a couple days, the MPD had rounded up 11 of the teens; some of whom had been turned in by their parents. The mayor and the police chief, both African Americans, held a press conference, denounced the incident, and pledged to arrest all involved. This calm and professional handling of the incident disappointed a lot of commenters, mainly, because the teens were not charged with a hate crime, which is difficult to prove and likely not applicable in this case. But apparently, for some folks, if someone you hate commits a crime, it’s a hate crime. Case closed.

And I learned something interesting about those “discussing” the incident on the Flyer website. After deleting more than 20 racist and/or vile Memphis-hating comments one evening, I decided to use our site technology to see where they came from. Seventeen of those comments came from out of town, and I don’t mean Bartlett. People from Michigan, South Carolina, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and elsewhere were flooding the Flyer site with ignorant racist remarks and Memphis-bashing.

It’s a good example of how a discussion about how to deal with a local problem can be distorted by those with no real knowledge of the situation and no skin in the game — except a desperate need to promote their own sad hatred.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s Politics Blog post, “Judge Joe Brown Uncorks a Shocker, Taunting Weirich About Her Sexuality” …

I’m a 65-year-old African-American male who grew up in Memphis. Anyone who knows Joe Brown knows that if you attack him, duck! They also know his justice is justice and not “just us” and the punishment fits the crime. They also should know Memphis politics, so don’t get caught up in the smoke. Mr. Brown dispenses justice not politics. The power structure in Memphis — primarily white male and home-grown, black point-men can’t get comfortable around him. If you’re a single mother, at or below the poverty line, trying to rear sons, you need Joe Brown; that is if you’re interested in justice.

Sylvester

I actually believe that there are enough decent people in this county, of all races, who will vote against Joe Brown and Henri Brooks. Sure, there will be people who vote for them, but I expect an overwhelming rebuke in a few weeks in August.

Greg Cravens

BJC123

Does this mean that Joe Brown won’t be attending the annual Memphis Pride Parade?

Tom Guleff

About Bianca Phillips’ post, “TVA Proposes Retiring Allen Fossil Plant” …

Wind and solar costs are dropping so fast that the media, let alone our collective consciousness, are having a hard time keeping up with it.

Yes, we need to maintain some local spinning generation capacity to provide power during peak demand and to assure reliability for local industry like Nucor, but we don’t need a full-time gas plant that’s larger than the existing Allen coal plant as TVA prefers.

Scott Banbury

Retiring the coal plant is a big step in the right direction, but cheap natural gas from fracking is not going to last forever. This would be an excellent opportunity for TVA to investigate solar thermal technology. There are new techniques available that can store the heat generated during the daytime to continue producing electricity at night. And if you don’t think solar thermal will work in Memphis, just think about how hot your car gets if you have to park it in the sun in the summertime.

Chris McCoy

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s editor’s column on the city budget …

You need to check your facts on the pension reform. The city wants to put us into a 401(a) program, which has major differences not in our favor. Also, we have offered three scenarios to raise money that would tax visitors to the city more than residents: 1) a gas tax of $0.01 on every gallon sold; 2) a hotel tax of $2 on every $100 spent at a hotel; 3) a 25 percent increase on the sales tax.

As far as raising property tax, the average house in Memphis pays $100, therefore the tax increase would roughly be $5 a month. I am pretty sure citizens would give up a Starbucks latte for police and fire services. 

Lastly, Mayor Wharton and his crew of seven have got to stop spending on projects we don’t have the money for. They need to learn from Mayor Luttrell’s leadership; he suspended capital improvement spending until he balanced the county budget.

Keeley Greer  Officer PII

About Randy Haspel’s Rant on Dick and Liz Cheney …

My stock portfolio soared thanks to Dick Cheney and his little buddy Bush. At the club we figured we profited over $220 million for every American death. You can’t argue with results like that.

Ern

It is a complete waste of time to get worked up about the Cheneys while President Obama continues to prove himself as willing as his predecessor to mire the USA in foreign conflicts and nation-building. He labors under the same delusion as the neo-cons — that “democracy” is workable and ideal, anywhere and everywhere. Even John Kerry is singing a different tune these days than when I voted for him in 2004.

Brunetto Latini

Categories
Cover Feature News

25 Who Shaped Memphis: 1989-2014

Picking 25 people who had a major impact on the life and times of Memphis over the past 25 years is easy. In fact, you can easily pick 50. Narrowing the list down to 25 is the hard part. We made our final choices keeping in mind several areas of influence: politics, government, entertainment, sports, etc. We tried to pick folks whose contributions have stood the test of time or were responsible for a major shifts in attitude or direction.

It is by no means a perfect list, as these things are by necessity subjective. But it’s our list — and it’s a good one. — BV

Laura Adams

Laura Adams

Adams lives and breathes Shelby Farms Park. She was appointed as the conservancy head in 2010, but long before that, Adams advocated for increased use of the city’s largest urban park through Friends of Shelby Farms Park. Since she’s been in the lead role of the nonprofit conservancy, Adams has overseen the addition of the seven-mile Shelby Farms Greenline, a new foot bridge over the Wolf River, the state-of-the-art Woodland Discovery Playground, and new festivals and attractions, and soon, work will begin on expanding Patriot Lake.

Craig Brewer

Over the past 25 years, Hollywood has come to Memphis to shoot several high-profile movies, including The Firm, 21 Grams, and Walk the Line. But there’s only one local filmmaker who took Memphis to Hollywood: Craig Brewer.

On the strength of his first film, 2000’s The Poor & Hungry, Brewer got Hollywood backing for the movie that put Memphis Indie filmmaking on the map: 2005’s Hustle & Flow. The flick won Sundance, got a major theatrical release, and was nominated for two Academy Awards, winning one for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” by Three 6 Mafia and Frayser Boy.

Brewer followed it up with another Memphis-made film, Black Snake Moan, and then his biggest yet, a remake of Footloose. Nowadays, Brewer divides his time between Memphis and L.A., but make no mistake: There is no bigger or more powerful advocate for the Bluff City film community.

John Calipari

John Calipari

Let’s get one thing straight: Before John Calipari, there was great Memphis Tigers basketball. He did not make the program — but he did make it relevant again when college basketball was no longer essential for players to make it in the NBA. Calipari arrived in Memphis in 2000, licking his wounds after a failed stint in the professional league. He was greeted by some here as a savior (U of M basketball was on the ropes following the Tic Price scandal) and by some as a slick operator (Calipari’s previous college employer, UMass, had to vacate a Final Four because of NCAA violations while he was in charge). But when Calipari’s teams began winning big here, the coach went from someone Memphians hated to love to someone we loved to love. And, when he left for a job at the University of Kentucky — taking some big-time recruits with him — he turned instant villain, someone we loved to hate. Even now, five years after he’s gone, not many a day goes by where his name isn’t uttered on local sports talk.

Karen Carrier

Karen Carrier

Anybody with taste buds in this town should be grateful that Karen Carrier is the restless type. In 1991, she opened Automatic Slim’s Tonga Club on Second Street across from the Peabody. When not a lot was happening in that area, this restaurant’s cool décor and innovative fare inspired by “sun-drenched” locales offered a chic downtown oasis. In 1996, Carrier proved pioneer again when she converted her own home in Victorian Village to pretty, white-tableclothed Cielo. Later, she dumped that concept and made the space into the fashionable Mollie Fontaine Lounge, and then there’s the Beauty Shop, Do, and Bar DKDC. Basically, Carrier is the pied piper of happening restaurants and one of Memphis’ true culinary pioneers.

Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen

The congressman from Memphis’ 9th Congressional District since his first election in 2006, Cohen is still goin,’ running for a fifth term in 2014. Though his first win was via a plurality against a dozen-plus opponents in the predominantly African-American district, Cohen has since won one-on-one contests against name primary challengers with margins ranging from 4-to-1 to 8-to-1.

Cohen’s political durability, first evinced during a 26-year run as a Tennessee state senator, owes much to hard work and tenacity, both in office and on the campaign trail. His most important legacy as a state legislator was his sponsorship of a state lottery and the Hope Scholarship program, which it funds. He’s a vigorous supporter of women’s rights and programs benefiting health care and the arts. Among his contributions in Congress, where he serves on the House Judiciary Committee, are his successful sponsorship of a resolution formally apologizing for the country’s history of slavery.

Margaret Craddock

Margaret Craddock

When Margaret Craddock took the helm of the Metropolitan Inner-Faith Association (MIFA), she not only held the organization on course but also led it into new waters.

Craddock began working at MIFA part-time in 1982 and then full-time in 1988. Spurred by her experiences there, she earned degrees in urban anthropology and law from the University of Memphis. Craddock was entrenched at MIFA and continued to rise to prominence there. 

As associate director, she was instrumental in developing one of MIFA’s most noted programs. The agency decided to build five three-bedroom homes for emergency housing in 1989. Now, that program, implemented in MIFA’s Estival Place communities — gives homeless families a place to live for two years while they take life-skills classes. 

In 1997, Craddock became the first woman to hold MIFA’s top job. At one time, she oversaw an $11 million budget, 160 employees, and more than 4,000 volunteers, and she actively worked to forge outside community partnerships.

Craddock focused MIFA’s mission, built on the agency’s inner-faith heritage by including more clergy on its board of directors, developed more community partners, and improved and modernized MIFA’s inner workings. Craddock retired in 2011.

DJ Paul & Juicy J

DJ Paul and Juicy J

DJ Paul and Juicy J collectively helped globalize the Memphis rap scene when they formed the label Hypnotize Minds in the early 1990s. Under the duo’s leadership, local acts, including Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat, and a magnitude of other artists were introduced to the world. Several Gold and Platinum records have been won by the label, and the first Memphis-based rap movie, Choices, was filmed under their auspices.

In 2006, they became the first hip-hop artists to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” and were showcased on the MTV reality sitcom “Adventures In Hollyhood.”

Although they’ve taken a hiatus as a collective, both artists continue to prosper. Juicy J is enjoying the spoils of a fruitful solo career while DJ Paul has reestablished Three 6 Mafia as Da Mafia 6ix.

John Elkington

John Elkington

To understand the impact John Elkington has had on downtown Memphis, consider Beale Street before he began to manage it in 1983: blocks of abandoned and boarded-up buildings, trash littering otherwise empty streets.

As the developer and manager of modern Beale Street, Elkington transformed it into Memphis’ premier entertainment district and one of the top tourist destinations in the U.S.

The relationship between Elkington and city government ended in 2010. Following the announcement, Memphis mayor A C Wharton said, “Pioneers always get bloodied. [Elkington] went in when others did not go in, and this community owes him a debt of gratitude.” 

Despite the public break-up, Elkington will leave one very important fingerprint on the future of the street he helped create. A 2011 study of Beale Street said thanks to Elkington “the district’s uniqueness and special personality have been largely protected and maintained.”

Harold Ford Sr. / Harold Ford Jr.

Harold Ford Sr. /Harold Ford Jr.

This father/son combination held the Memphis congressional district (first designated Tennessee’s 8th, later the 9th) from 1974 until 2006, beginning when Democrat Ford Sr., then a state representative, won in an upset over the Republican incumbent, becoming the state’s first elected black Congress member.

A member of an upwardly mobile black family invested in the funeral home business, Harold Ford Sr. became the patriarch of an extended-family political dynasty, which has consistently held positions in state and local government ever since. Wielder of the “Ford ballot,” an endorsement list of candidates in each successive election, Ford Sr. became influential in Congress as well but was ensnared in a Reagan-era Department of Justice prosecution for alleged bank fraud that, after one mistrial, would end with Ford’s exoneration in a 1993 retrial.

In 1996, the senior Ford stepped aside, backing his son Harold Ford Jr., who won election that year and four more times. Uninterested in the kind of local political organization overseen by his father, and more conservative politically, Ford Jr. directed his ambitions toward national power instead and was widely considered a prospect to become the nation’s first African-American major-party nominee for president. Beaten to the U.S. Senate by Illinois’ Barack Obama in 2004, Democrat Ford made his own try for the Senate in 2006, narrowly losing to Republican Bob Corker. He subsequently married and moved to New York, where he works on Wall Street. He is still considered to be a political prospect, with a rumored Senate run in the Empire State.

Larry Godwin

Larry Godwin

The former Memphis Police Department (MPD) chief spent 37 years tenured with the MPD. Beginning as an undercover narcotics officer in 1973, Godwin later was a homicide investigator and commander of the crime response/bomb unit before being named police director in 2004.

Godwin helped restructure the department’s method of operation, adding new crime prevention programs, such as Blue CRUSH; established a $3.5 million technology hub, Real Time Crime Center; and increased the number of police on the streets. Under his leadership, the percentage of violent crimes dropped significantly, and numerous undercover investigations targeting narcotics sales were successfully executed.

Following his retirement in 2011, Godwin became the deputy commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Pat Halloran

Pat Halloran

Halloran moved to the city in 1969 and was elected to the Memphis City Council within five years. With the Memphis Development Foundation (MDF), he saved the Orpheum from the wrecking ball. The theater reopened in 1984 and has set records for booking touring Broadway shows. Halloran has earned three Tony Awards, notably for the musical Memphis. In March 2014, the MDF began construction on the The Orpheum Centre for Performing Arts & Education, a 40,000-square-foot facility featuring theater space, classrooms, an audio-visuals arts lab, and event rental space. Without Halloran’s ongoing vision for the Orpheum through the years, Memphis would be an infinitely less interesting city.

Michael Heisley

Michael Heisley

For decades, Memphis had pursued an NFL team, but the city’s hopes were dashed in 1993, when the league opted against awarding Memphis a team. The NFL settled in Nashville, leaving a bitter taste in Memphians’ mouths. It seemed a pro sports team would never move here. That changed in 2001, when Michael Heisley, billionaire owner of the NBA’s Vancouver Grizzlies, decided to relocate his team to Memphis. It was a shocking move at the time and is still shocking in retrospect. Local power players were crucial in making the city attractive to Heisley, securing financing for FedExForum, but it was Heisley’s call. His decision radically affected downtown Memphis, the entertainment industry, sports business, sports talk, and even the city’s psyche.

The outspoken owner had his ups and downs in the public eye over the years, but he did right by Memphis. He eventually sold the team in 2012 and passed away earlier this year. Never forget: Before there was grit and grind, there was Michael Heisley.

Willie Herenton

Willie Herenton

Herenton was born to a single mother on Memphis’ south side. She lived to see her son become the city’s first African-American school superintendent and later witnessed his five separate inaugurations as Memphis’ mayor, after becoming the first black person ever elected to that position, in 1991.

A Booker T. Washington High School graduate, Herenton was an amateur boxing champion as a youth. Pursuing education as a career, he earned a Ph.D. and worked his way up rapidly in the Memphis City Schools system, becoming its superintendent in 1978. An educational innovator with magnet schools and other new options, he resigned reluctantly in the wake of negative publicity about a sexual liaison with a teacher and a modest administrative scandal.

He landed on his feet, becoming almost instantly a consensus black candidate for mayor in 1991. Considered a strong chief executive, he eventually lost interest in the job and resigned in 2009. He made an unsuccessful challenge to incumbent 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen in 2010 and has spent the time since attempting to develop a chain of local charter schools. He now runs a charter school program.

Benjamin L. Hooks

Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks

A native Memphian, Hooks was largely known as a seminal civil rights activist. A Baptist minister and attorney, he was the first African-American Criminal Court judge in the South since the Reconstruction Era, and the first African-American appointee for the Federal Communications Commission.

During the civil rights movement, Hooks helped orchestrate protests and sit-ins, and promoted the importance of education. He led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for 15 years.

Hooks was a strong advocate for racial, social, and economic justice. The civil rights icon died in 2010, but his legacy lives on through the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change, Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, and the Benjamin L. Hooks Job Corps Center.

Carissa Hussong

Carissa Hussong

That cool Greely Myatt piece you have on your wall, the one that looks like nails…that is art with a capital “A.” It does not match your couch. Other than family and friends, about half-a-million Memphians will never see that piece. But all of us can check out Myatt’s Quiltsurround, a metalwork quilt used to cover up City Hall’s air units. That work and nearly every piece of Memphis’ public art created in the past 17 years — from the murals in Soulsville and Binghampton to the menagerie of art at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library — traces its lineage to the UrbanArt Commission and its founding executive director, Carissa Hussong.

Hussong left the commission to become the executive director of the Metal Museum in 2008. Under her lead, the museum has introduced its “Tributaries” series, featuring the work of emerging metal artists.

J.R. “Pitt” Hyde

Hyde grew up watching his grandfather and father turn Malone & Hyde into one of the country’s largest food wholesalers.

“They took risks that many people considered unwise — and succeeded, despite the odds,” Hyde says. “I believe my exposure to this type of ‘pioneering’ mindset gave me the drive to try new, unproven ventures.”

Those ventures include being the founder of auto parts giant AutoZone, chair of biopharmaceutical startup GTx Inc., co-founder of the private equity firm MB Ventures, the impetus (along with his wife, Barbara) behind the $69 million Hyde Family Foundation, and scion of several other highly placed and deep-pocketed endeavors rooted in Memphis — most notably the National Civil Rights Museum and Ballet Memphis.

Hyde was instrumental in the founding of the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, Memphis Tomorrow, and the National Civil Rights Museum. He is a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies and helped bring the NBA team to Memphis.

Robert Lipscomb

Robert Lipscomb

For years, Lipscomb has been significantly involved in the restructuring of public housing in Memphis, as well as the redevelopment of its downtown and inner city communities. In 2009, he was appointed executive director of the Memphis Housing Authority and director of the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development.

Motivated by the desire to improve the city’s underprivileged living conditions, Lipscomb developed Memphis’ first strategic housing plan. Under his guidance, numerous run-down and crime-plagued housing projects have been replaced with modern developments.

Lipscomb is spearheading the $190 million project to redevelop The Pyramid into a Bass Pro Shops retail center. He’s also involved in the planned redevelopment of the Mid-South Fairgrounds.

A native Memphian, Lipscomb created the Down Payment Assistance Program, the Housing Trust Fund, the Housing Resource Center, and other housing initiatives.

Jackie Nichols

Jackie Nichols

Playhouse on the Square’s founding executive producer doesn’t just make theater. He makes community. And he makes sense. Loeb Properties may have ponied up the money to bring back Overton Square, but it was Jackie Nichols who literally set the stage for the area’s incredible turnaround. Nichols was still a teenage tap dancer when he realized that Memphis needed producers more than it needed performers.

In 1969, he launched Circuit Players. In 1975 he expanded, opening Playhouse on the Square on Madison Avenue. In 2010, Nichols, also instrumental in the founding of TheatreWorks, moved his operations from the old Memphian Theatre into a $12.5 million, custom-built performing arts facility at Cooper and Union. When Overton Square developer Robert Loeb asked Nichols what it would take to make Overton Square work as a theater district, Nichols answered, “More theaters,” paving the way for Ekundayo Bandele’s Hattiloo, which opens to the public in July.

The new Playhouse on the Square has allowed for collaborations with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and created a Midtown home for arts institutions like Ballet Memphis and Opera Memphis. But Nichols’ legacy is best represented by Memphis’ thriving independent theater scene, made possible by the space, equipment, and support he’s created. His greatest contribution to the city may be in showing us that the arts really can be a sound investment.

David Pickler

David Pickler

Once considered the “president-for-life” of the old county-only Shelby County Schools (SCS) board, to which he was first elected in 1998 and led until that version of the board ceased to be with the SCS-Memphis City Schools (MCS) merger of 2011-13, Pickler continued to represent Germantown/Collierville on the first post-merger SCS board, pending the creation of new suburban school districts.

Many blame the surrender of the MCS charter and subsequent forced merger on Pickler’s decades-long vow to seek special-school-district status for the original SCS system, which was publicly renewed when a Republican majority — presumed to be suburb-friendly — took over the legislature in 2010. Pickler contends that then-MCS Board Chairman Martavius Jones, a prime mover in the charter surrender, already harbored merger plans.

In any case, Pickler, a lawyer who also operates Pickler Wealth Advisers, an investment/estate-management firm, continues his involvement with education matters as president of the National School Boards Association and is thought to harbor political ambitions.

Beverly Robertson

Beverly Robertson

Robertson has headed up the Civil Rights Museum since 1997, but perhaps her greatest achievement has been overseeing the museum’s recent $27.5 million renovation. The old Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in 1968, and the adjoining building have been remodeled with interactive touch-screen exhibits, a slave ship where visitors can crawl into the tiny space where slaves were held, and the recreated courtroom from Brown vs. Board of Education. Since Robertson took the helm, the museum has been identified as one of the nation’s top 10 attractions by National Geographic’s Young Explorers and as a “national treasure” by USA Today. Though she’s led the museum for 16 of its 22 years, Robertson has announced that she will retire next month.

Gayle Rose

Gayle S. Rose

We’ll bet that no other University of Northern Iowa (UNI) music student has ever been named by Business Tennessee magazine as one of our state’s “100 Most Powerful People.” But then, Gayle Rose isn’t like most people. After earning degrees in music and business from UNI, the accomplished clarinetist graduated from Harvard with a master’s in public administration. Rose spearheaded self-help guru Deepak Chopra’s international publishing and TV ventures.

She co-founded 10,000 Women for Herenton (later 10,000 Women for Change), co-founded the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, founded the Rose Family Foundation, and earned the national “Changing the Face of Philanthropy Award.” She also formed Max’s Team, a volunteer organization that honors the memory of her late son.

Rose is the principal owner and CEO of Electronic Vaulting Services (EVS) Corporation, a data protection company, headquartered in Memphis. Prior to joining EVS, Rose served as managing director of Heritage Capital Advisors, LLC, a private equity, corporate advisory, and asset firm with offices in Atlanta and Memphis.

Rose is perhaps best-known for leading the NBA “Pursuit Team,” which eventually attracted the Vancouver Grizzlies to Memphis in 2000.

Maxine Smith

Maxine Smith

In 1957, Memphis State University refused to admit Maxine Smith because she was black, and that inspired her to take on the South’s racist attitudes and fight for civil rights. Smith headed up the local NAACP and became one of few women leaders in the male-dominated local civil rights movement. She and her husband, Vasco Smith, protested segregation at the Memphis Zoo and the Memphis Public Library, and she fought to reorganize the city school board to allow black candidates a chance at winning city elections. Smith was elected to one of those school board seats in 1971, and afterward, she became a huge proponent for court-ordered busing, which she saw as a way to overcome city leaders’ attempts at only integrating a few schools for show. Smith sat on the board of the National Civil Rights Museum and received the museum’s National Freedom Award, along with former President Bill Clinton, in 2003.

Pat Kerr Tigrett

Pat Kerr Tigrett

This Memphis-based fashion designer got her start designing Vogue-worthy gowns for her paper dolls when she was just a kid living in Savannah, Tennessee. She later moved to Memphis for college, won Miss Tennessee Universe, and then bought the Tennessee Miss Universe franchise.

As a beauty queen, Kerr Tigrett got a taste of philanthropy with fashion charity shows. She went on to launch the Memphis Charitable Foundation, host of the annual Blues Ball, which, since 1994, has raised loads of money for Porter-Leath Children’s Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, Madonna Learning Center, and other local nonprofits. Kerr Tigrett is the widow of entrepreneur John Tigrett.

Henry Turley

Henry Turley

Some developers leave behind a footprint on their community. Behind Henry Turley will be an entire Memphis landscape. Turley’s brilliance was in recognizing — and acting upon — what now seems obvious: The most valuable real estate in the world is next to water. With downtown Memphis perched alongside the mightiest stream in North America, a breathtaking neighborhood (or more) awaited birth.

With Jack Belz, Turley, developed the upscale Harbor Town residential and commercial center on Mud Island, the low-income and middle-income Uptown residential development north of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and South Bluffs, where he lives.

Stroll through Harbor Town or South Bluffs today, and you’d think the mighty homes and river views have been there a century when, in fact, most are barely 20 years old, the realization of Turley’s vision for making downtown more than a business center.

Turley is a board member of Contemporary Media, the parent company of Memphis magazine and the Memphis Flyer. A native of Memphis and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Turley is known for his plainspoken good humor, creativity, and unfailing belief in downtown and the restoration of public spaces in older neighborhoods.

AC Wharton

A C Wharton

A native of Middle Tennessee who grew up on country music and both graduated from and taught at the Ole Miss Law School, Wharton is the epitome of crossover and conciliation, and either of those “c” words could be his non-existent middle name. (“A” doesn’t stand for a name either.)

Wharton’s major contribution was to restore calm and a sense of unified purpose to the city after the contentious last years of his mayoral predecessor Willie Herenton’s lengthy tenure. Hard-working, eloquent, and good-natured, Wharton was Shelby County’s Public Defender for many years, then easily won two four-year terms as county mayor before winning a special election to succeed Herenton, who had resigned, in 2009. Reelected in 2011, he has had to grapple with dwindling revenue, a never-ending budget crisis, and attendant crises in public services.

Sherman Willmott

Sherman Willmott

The irascible Willmott has worked like a Tahiti-shirted puppet-master, shaping a lot of cool and important Memphis stuff over the past 25 years. In 1988, he and Eric Freidl opened Shangri-La Records on Madison Avenue, which became a center for the burgeoning alt-music scene. Soon they were mixed up in independent record distribution and releasing records by the Grifters that earned national accolades and a big record deal. Willmott kept the Stax flame lit during the dark ages and was instrumental in curating the Stax Museum. His work with master archivist Ron Hall formed the basis for the acclaimed wrestling movie, Memphis Heat, which is a great film and a better document of how hilariously weird Memphis really is.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Money, Muscle, and Mind

The ceremonial grand opening last week of the expansive new Electrolux plant on President’s Island drew a distinguished group of celebrants, including company CEO Jack Truong, Mayors A C Wharton and Mark Luttrell, state Senate majority leader Mark Norris, and Governor Bill Haslam. They toasted the ghost of Christmas Future and predicted great things from the plant, which has been in operation already for four months, producing an array of state-of-the-art appliances.

Luttrell had another opportunity during the week to reference the plant. Delivering a version of his annual state-of-the-county message to Memphis Kiwanians at the University Club, Luttrell turned the coin and delivered a cautionary word from the underside.

The mayor emphasized the importance of education at large to issues like public safety and job creation, and said further economic development of the sort represented by Electrolux and Mitsubishi, the appliance behemoth’s near neighbor on President’s Island, depend on a constant upgrading of the community’s work force, particularly in the technological fields. As Luttrell noted, it is no secret that such development has been hindered by the inability of various interested industries to find people to step into the jobs that they already have — not to mention those that they might choose to offer to an appropriately skilled workforce. Luttrell hailed the willingness of Shelby County Schools superintendent Dorsey Hopson to “partner” with businesses in trying to upgrade basic skills.

Such educational bootstrapping is further dictated by the fact that PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes) and other such discounting industrial incentives resorted to by local government are inherently subject to a law of diminishing returns. The general public infrastructure, which is or ought to be part of the bait for new industry, is increasingly in need of rehab — in large part because the public money to keep it in good repair is in scarce supply. To appropriate an old chestnut from the lay world, it takes money to make money.

More promisingly, large-scale development projects such as the recent completion of state Highway 385, linking Northwest Shelby County to Collierville and other points southeast, cannot help but spur economic activity. Further good news was the Tennessee Department of Transportation recently awarding a $109.3 million contract to finally finish the I-40/240 interchange in East Memphis. This project, which has a projected completion date four years hence, is a complement to TDOT’s ongoing widening project on the leg of I-240 stretching from Poplar to Walnut Grove.

Things are happening in our neck of the woods, but much remains to be done. It takes money, and muscle, and mind. All of that is where the commitment to educational partnering spoken of by Luttrell comes in.

Categories
Cover Feature News

How Do We Change Memphis?

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

If given the opportunity to permanently change some of the things that negatively impact Memphis, what would you do and why?

We asked 10 influential Memphians to share their thoughts with the Flyer on that subject. Each highlighted problems they believed took away from Memphis’ prosperity and prospects for the future and what they would do to help rectify them.

The Memphis City Schools system, Delta flight fares, limited facilities and opportunities for youth, poverty, and the perception that the city is an undesirable place to live were among the issues pinpointed.

Some responses were similar, but all centered on making the city better for current residents and building opportunities for those who will live here in the future.

Memphis mayor A C Wharton Jr.

One thing I would change centers around a subject that essentially influences and impacts the issues of schools, crime, and economic development. This issue is early childhood education. My wish would be that every child receives a quality pre-K education. Over and over again, studies have confirmed how truly invaluable an investment it is in the short term and long term.

I would also add resources that allow us to more fully provide training to citizens for the jobs and career opportunities of today and tomorrow. This training can be as innovative as preparing workers to operate new technology at local businesses or as traditional as giving teachers the tools they need in the classroom. I am definitely of the mindset that if we build it, they will come. By this, I mean if we build a better, more educated, more technologically savvy workforce, then the jobs will come.

Lastly, Memphis is a great city with an amazing legacy. The world has been made brighter through the gifts of our music, our innovation, our compassion, and our soul. I have heard any number of compliments from visitors to our city who are amazed by our world-class attractions and the richness of our story.

What pains me, however, is to hear those who overlook the totality of our history, our progress, and our people and define Memphis solely based on the challenges that we face. We are no less great a city because of our challenges. In fact, part of what makes us great are the legions of individuals and organizations united in the purpose of working to improve the conditions of our community.

Ninth District congressman Steve Cohen

I think consolidation of government would be an important tool for planning and attracting industry — to have one voice. It would also provide simplicity for businesses dealing with local government.

I think making the city more friendly to young African-Americans is very important. There should be some office in the city — maybe a part of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau — that focuses on, improves, and publicizes opportunities for people — particularly African-Americans — to have an outlet for entertainment and culture. I think we’ve done some of that through the Brooks [Museum of Art] and Hattiloo Theatre, but we need more of it, so people will feel good about Memphis, rather than Atlanta [or other areas], as a place to live.

It’s important that the University of Memphis gets its own regency or some self-rule without losing funding from Nashville. Its funding has been tied up in rules and a lot of decision-making by the board of regents statewide. The university should have its own local board in charge of hiring, employment decisions, and planning. This would improve the university’s ability to raise funds.

It would be great if we could have another domestic carrier come in and give some lower airfares to Memphis, so local residents wouldn’t have to go to Little Rock or Nashville to get cheaper fares. Delta’s fares are outrageously high. [Through doing this], businesses and conventions would more likely be attracted to the city.

Superintendent of Memphis City Schools Kriner Cash

Although Memphis consistently ranks as one of the most generous cities in the United States, thousands of people in Memphis seem unconcerned that we have neighbors living in poverty, without educational opportunities, or really much hope for a future that is different from their current situation. One of my actionable leadership mantras is that “Teamwork makes the dream work.” The only way a dream of justice in our community can work is for all of us to work as a team to provide all children the very best educational opportunities.

Reversing the path to corrections: Like many jurisdictions, Memphis is quick to condemn juvenile offenders to a life of criminal behavior with a hair-trigger approach toward what I call “arrest and suppress.” Working together with Judge [Curtis] Person, we have made great strides to change the corrections culture, but much more work remains to be done before jail cells are rejected as an appropriate place for young people, especially young African-American males.

A permanent change that would totally transform Memphis into a city of choice would be to instill the love of reading into every member of the community. It simultaneously broke and warmed my heart to see juvenile offenders locked up as a direct result of their illiteracy, imploring me to do more to help them learn how to read. Literacy excellence breaks down barriers and opens unlimited worlds of opportunities.

Finally, I would permanently change our community’s approach to health and wellness. The health-care claims we see in Memphis City Schools for employees dealing with the resulting impacts of diabetes and high blood pressure boggle the mind and strain our budgets. Memphis food is delicious, but it is a recipe for the health problems that choke our hospitals and clinics. For each minute we spend on the cell phone each day, we should commit equal time to walking, riding bicycles, exercising, and spending quality face time with our children, family, and friends.

University of Memphis president Shirley Raines

First, I would permanently change the opportunities for Memphis students to attend college. College and other educational opportunities exist when there are resources from families, communities, or employers providing sufficient scholarships for every capable person desiring to go to college, whether beginning freshmen, transfers from Southwest Tennessee Community College, nontraditional or mid-career individuals. In addition, the students would have the educational backgrounds, motivation, and persistence to achieve a college degree. [By doing this], we could change the future of thousands of families, our economy, and our society. 

Second, I would permanently change people’s perceptions of the abilities of Memphis students, including those at the University of Memphis. While we have the largest honors program in the state of Tennessee, the city and the university are not perceived as having this caliber of student, yet the perceptions of us from outside of Memphis, and even globally, are very strong. 

Third, I would permanently change people’s knowledge and attitudes about Memphis as a place to live and enjoy life. From the wide variety of music to the athletics, from the best barbecue to the finest dining, from the local theaters to the next touring troupe of Broadway plays, from the local artists’ festivals to the world-class art exhibits in our museums, there is much to enjoy about Memphis.

Tom Jones of Smart City Consulting, a firm that focuses on public policy and communications

Pay now rather than pay later. There’s always the political will to pay more for jails and cells. There is no resistance to spending $24,000 a year to keep an inmate in prison, but there’s never been the political coalition willing to spend one-fourth of that for the interventions that give at-risk children fair starts in life and better options for their futures.

Balanced budgets: It’s not about balancing revenues and expenditures but about taking a balanced approach to Memphis services. Collecting every dollar of property taxes and sales taxes still leaves the city about $8 million short when it comes to funding the budgets of police and fire. The same attention given to public safety is needed when it comes to the conditions and quality of libraries, community centers, and parks and to quality-of-life investments that create neighborhoods of choice.

If I could, I would wage an all-out war on Memphis’ most malignant problem: poverty. Memphis has more people living in poverty than the population of Knoxville, and 65,000 of them are children. Poverty erodes our competitiveness, takes money out of our cash registers, and reduces the most important capital a city can have in today’s economy — human capital.

I would also fix the crisis at Memphis International Airport. At a time when cities’ success comes from easy connectivity to the global economy, our businesses have to clear the hurdle of the nation’s highest airfares, draining about $1 billion a year out of our community, when compared to our peer cities.

Memphis city councilman Lee Harris

If I had omnipotent powers, I would transport every Memphian to another big city, where they can witness the potholes, persistent crime, high fees, bad traffic, and political bickering. They would come back changed, and we might put an end to some of the bad-mouthing that goes on. They would know that Memphis is a great city, our streets are fine, taxes are coming down, and our politicians are (in most cases) good folks trying to move the city forward.

 I’d like to see city government get serious about Memphians. We need to figure out a way to spend our tax dollars and our time on things that make a difference in the lives of Memphians. Our community centers, senior centers, parks, and pools should be open and ready for business. These are things that people will notice, but sometimes these issues barely rate in the government and media.

Finally, the in-fighting between Memphis and its sister cities is short-sighted. Right now, we’re trying to out-maneuver some of the suburban municipalities on the sales tax, and we’re suing them to try to stop the inevitable formation of suburban school districts. The litigation between the Memphis City Council (a body that, mind you, has no formal role in schools whatsoever), the Shelby County Commission, and the suburban municipalities involves more than 20 lawyers and will easily cost more than $2 million. If I had my druthers, I’d put a stop to that.

Richard Thompson, founder of the online media publication Mediaverse.com

If I could change anything, I would change our worldview on poverty. It is a significant and sizable issue here, considering that 25.7 percent [of residents] live at or below the poverty level. However, we tend to forget that we enabled the degradation of some communities when we didn’t fill the gaps left by businesses and other institutions that abandoned these markets over time. We wrongly assume that the impoverished are inherent criminals and have no morals. We tend to argue that the impoverished exist because of their own desire to live on government entitlements and so forth. We also tend to assign blame to them when we inanely refer to ourselves as the “poorest city in America.” In many instances, the poor work. They just don’t earn enough. They fall prey to the criminal justice system and don’t have the resources to break its cycle.

The dominant media narratives are crime, government, sports, and education. Yes, each is important, but their dominance skews what’s real about Memphis. If I could change anything, it would be allocation of resources to provide more in-depth and nuanced coverage of the daily lives of Memphians. 

Lastly, there are a number of programs that exist to incorporate youths into the lifeblood of the city. If I could change anything, I would give these groups more exposure so we can take a greater communal responsibility in the development of [our] future generation of leaders.

Mike Conley, starting point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies

One thing I would like to change is crime, because I know it’s heavy in this city.

I also think trying to get better education throughout the city of Memphis and all of the schools and ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity [is important].

Homelessness would be the third thing I would change. People not having jobs, people not having the opportunity to support their families and support themselves, however we can do that, I would like to see that changed.

Skewby, a Memphis-based hip-hop artist and producer

One thing I would like to see change in Memphis is the amount of segregation. Growing up as a mixed kid, it was very clear to me that invisible lines were drawn in the city. No matter your race, you can still walk into sections of Memphis and feel uncomfortable based on the color of your skin. You can walk into churches, schools, malls, and events and literally see the divide.

I want to see more things for young people to do in Memphis. Places like Liberty Land, Celebration Station, and Discovery Zone are long gone. Guns, gangs, sex, and violence are already a reality for most kids. Throw mass boredom into the equation and it definitely doesn’t help.

The school system: I served my 12 years in the prison also known as Memphis City Schools. Okay, maybe I’m going overboard, but it was definitely not a pleasant experience. I mention prisons because of the amount of security, the fear that the administration had of us, and the lack of care that was shown. I can count on one hand every teacher that cared about my future, had patience with me, and were sincerely concerned about my education. I know that the school system’s troubles are deeper than bad teachers, financial woes, and bad programs. I’m just speaking from a student’s standpoint and also as a person who wants to raise a child in Memphis.

When someone hears the word “Memphis,” they automatically think of good food and good music. I would love to see more of a music industry in Memphis. There aren’t many record labels, blogs, or magazines covering what’s happening in our music scene. There’s so much talent here, and it amazes me that there still isn’t anything that connects it all. You have people who play instruments, singers, rappers, engineers, promoters, and it’s all just scattered around. People have always complained about the amount of talent that leaves. It’s up to us to keep it here.

Brad Watkins, organizing director for the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center

I would really like to see some serious reforms of our local criminal justice system. This would start with ending our morally dubious practice of allowing bank-hired process servers to perform home evictions due to foreclosure. Currently, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department only performs about one-third of the home evictions in our community. Bank-hired security agents arrive at people’s homes, dressed in garb that can be confused for law enforcement uniforms, and remove people and their property from their homes with little accountability or community oversight for their behavior or conduct during these proceedings.

We also need to establish local minimum standards of staff training, professional ethics, and living conditions, including a timetable for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act in our homeless shelters, and stricter standards of professional conduct of the many private nonprofit residential detention centers for juvenile offenders. Neither of these industries has anything in the way of real community oversight or accountability in instances of abuse and sexual harassment of residents.

Creating a jobs-growth fund and mandating that a set percentage of all publicly funded construction and demolition contracts have set-aside jobs for those experiencing homelessness, graduates of the Shelby County Drug Court, and ex-offenders. This would be paired with counseling and life-skill training to help these individuals set up bank accounts, find housing, and reconnect them with their families to handle contentious child-support issues in a process of mediation.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

It’s a State Issue Now!

As of this week, the volcanic local issue involving the school systems of Memphis and Shelby County has spilled over into the corridors of state government. Big time. Not only will the General Assembly begin this week to consider in earnest bills dealing with the issue, but Governor Bill Haslam stepped in on Tuesday morning with a full-dress press conference at the state Capitol to consider the matter.

What Haslam had to say might possibly give aid and comfort to both sides in the controversy. Essentially, the governor acknowledged that the issue was a local one for Memphis and Shelby County and specifically said the forthcoming March 8th citywide referendum on the transfer of authority for Memphis City Schools to Shelby County Schools would go on as scheduled. “Nothing we are doing here will impact that vote,” Haslam said.

But he declared that the state had a “legal responsibility and a moral responsibility” as well as a “common-sense responsibility” to see that any transition preserved the rights of the teachers and the 150,000 students currently enrolled in the two systems.

Haslam said the state education commissioner, Patrick Smith, “has to approve any plan as it relates to teachers” and noted that Smith had dispatched a detailed letter on the subject to both MCS superintendent Kriner Cash and SCS superintendent John Aitken.

In the letter, Smith cites “a legal requirement placed upon the commissioner of education by Tennessee Code Ann. §49-5-203(d) in the context of a change in any governmental structure or organization.” The statute, he says, provides that “[t]he commissioner must make a determination that the rights and privileges afforded to teachers by Section 49-5-203 are not impaired, interrupted, or diminished by organizational changes like the one proposed by the referendum.

Smith writes elsewhere in the letter: “In order to make a favorable determination that no impairment, interruption or diminution has occurred, the department must review a comprehensive plan addressing in detail all of the pertinent aspects related to the transition of teachers.” And the letter sets forth a deadline of February 15th for receipt of “a personnel plan for teachers” and a second deadline of March 1st for receipt of “a comprehensive transition plan developed by both school districts.”

An appendage to the letter lists a lengthy variety of subjects to be addressed in the comprehensive transition plan, including student services, facilities and equipment, charter schools, and debt.

Smith also took part in Wednesday’s press conference and pointedly said the commissioner’s office had “moral authority … to withhold funds in any district anytime there’s noncompliance with a rule or a state stature.”

Haslam said he had been in touch with various parties to the issues involved, including Memphis mayor A C Wharton, Shelby County mayor Mark Luttrell, state Senate speaker Ron Ramsey of Blountville, state House speaker Beth Harwell of Nashville, and “some members of the Shelby County [legislative] delegation.” He said he had talked as recently as Monday night to Wharton and Luttrell and declared he had “great faith and confidence in their leadership.”

In answer to a follow-up question on the March 8th referendum, Haslam repeated his assurances that the vote should go on as scheduled: “I don’t think it’s our place to decide who votes or when the vote happens.” But, in answer to another question about several bills pending in the General Assembly, he said the legislature “has a role,” which it would likely define for itself.

• As the action prepared to shift to the General Assembly, yet another local summit meeting was scheduled for City Hall on Tuesday afternoon, involving legislators, city council members, county commissioners, and other interested parties. It would be missing some of the major players, though. State senator Beverly Marrero, a Midtown Democrat serving as this year’s chair of the Shelby delegation, said that she had experienced difficulty talking local Republican members into attending.

With the legislature firmly in Republican hands for the first time since Reconstruction, GOP members, who chair all the committees in the Senate and House and can totally control the flow of legislation, are spending much of their time in Nashville, where the General Assembly will reconvene on Monday, after a three-week recess following the inauguration of Governor Haslam on January 15th.

“I understand they’re getting their program ready, but I still had hoped that some of them could take time off to attend the meeting. We’ve got to try to reach some understanding,” said Marrero. She was fatalistic, however, about attempting to block Republican-sponsored bills designed to obstruct the forthcoming citywide referendum on MCS charter-surrender or to impede the possible merger of MCS-SCS.

“They’ve got the votes and the power, and all we can do is try to make our case and persuade them to look at the big picture,” Marrero said.

Lieutenant Governor Ramsey created something of a sensation last week when he announced — as his Republican counterpart, House speaker Harwell, had previously — that he intended to fast-track bills by two GOP senators from Shelby County.

One, by Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, would basically call for a delay in a referendum on MCS charter surrender as well as require a dual vote by city and county. Another, by state senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown, would in effect mandate a state takeover of Memphis City Schools as “non-performing schools” if MCS should end up surrendering its charter.

Both bills were due for consideration by the Senate education committee on Wednesday, but only Norris’ bill was also on the finance committee calendar for later Wednesday afternoon — an indication that the Norris bill would be moved to quick passage while Kelsey’s legislation might be given only a fair hearing.

What might happen in the event of the passage of legislation contradicting the verdict of Memphis voters on March 8th remained unclear, even in the wake of the Haslam press conference, and will almost certainly be resolved in the course of subsequent litigation.

• “I’ll be long gone.” That was Kriner Cash’s half-serious jest in a conversation Friday night about when the end-point might finally be reached in the ongoing wrangle between MCS and SCS. Cash has no immediate plans to ship out or to give up the commitment to long-term educational reform of the city’s schools. The quip was just his acknowledgment of what everybody suspects: that whatever the results of the referendum on MCS charter surrender, a morass of litigation and cross-purposes lies ahead. Cash was asked whether he envisions a further role with a newly consolidated city/county school system if the referendum should pass, making Shelby County Schools — or Shelby County government or mayhap some newly created county entity — the overseer of the new system.

“There’s no guarantee I would continue on,” he said. And “there’s no guarantee that I would want to continue on.”

• So gripping has the issue of possible consolidation of the two local school systems become that the action that purportedly precipitated the crisis has begun to seem somewhat secondary. That was SCS board chairman David Pickler‘s statement the day after last November’s state elections that the big Republican margins provided in legislative races made it a propitious time to seek special-school-district status for SCS.

But all may not have been what it seemed. MCS board member Martavius Jones, who, along with board colleague Tomeka Hart, began the move toward a December 20th vote by the board to authorize a charter-surrender referendum, acknowledged to the Flyer that on Election Night, he, too, had read the election results as being favorable to an SSD move for the county schools and made plans accordingly.

While viewing televised returns at the headquarters of Rebuild Government, Jones confided that now might be the right time to surrender the MCS charter and force consolidation of the two districts. “But if Pickler had not said what he said, I’m not sure I would have proceeded right away,” Jones said.