Tag: Berlin Boyd

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POLITICS: Decisions, Decisions …

Mayoral candidate J.W. Gibson at last weekend’s Sidney Chism picnic (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Businessman J.W. Gibson is reportedly getting ready to retool his mayoral campaign with help from veteran political consultant Susan Adler Thorp. Polls indicate that Gibson’s campaign has never really gotten off the ground. Nor has his initial slogan suggesting that Memphis needs a “new tune.”

And the professional respect Gibson enjoys as a result of his long-term philanthropic and developmental activities has not been general enough to have earned him much name recognition with the public. Despite a distinguished and vaguely mayoral appearance, he has also struggled to stand out at the many collective forums and meet-and-greets he has been a presence at.

With just under four months left before election day, Gibson, who has abundant private resources, could still make an impact, but only if he finds a viable message and can popularize it. Almost uniquely in the crowded mayoral field, he has expressed openness to the idea of a possible property tax increase.

• Among observers who are closely following the mayoral race, there is a difference of opinion as to whether there are three main contenders so far — Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, and NAACP president and former County Commissioner Van Turner — or four —those three, plus former longtime Mayor Willie Herenton.

Everyone acknowledges that Herenton, who has led at least one unofficial poll, has a dependable voting bloc, based on his long mayoral tenure and, especially, his precedent-establishing 1991 victory as the city’s first elected Black chief executive. Some wonder if his budget, expected to be minimal, will allow for a serious stretch run.

Bonner and Young won’t have such worries. Both have cash-on-hand holdings in the vicinity of half a million dollars. And Turner, whose purse at this point is roughly a third of that amount, has a long-established base of dependable supporters.

• As has long been expected, former City Councilman Berlin Boyd has pulled a petition to run for the open Super District 8, Position 3, seat held for the past two terms by Council Chairman Martavius Jones, who is term-limited.

Boyd’s name had also turned up on the petition list for Super District 8, Position 1 — something the once and possibly future councilman attributes to an error by one of his staff members. Boyd says he never had any intention of running against the 8-1 incumbent, JB Smiley, a friend, and he has done the paperwork to nullify that prospect. (He also denies a previously published report that he might take another crack at District 7, currently occupied by Michalyn Easter-Thomas, who in 2019 ousted then-incumbent Boyd in a runoff.)

Boyd has, however, considered the “back-up” idea of running for Super District 8, Position 2, a seat being eyed by several others, who take seriously a rumor that incumbent Cheyenne Johnson will not end up being a candidate for re-election. But, he says, “I’m 99 percent sure I’ll be running for Position 3.” Eight other people have so far pulled petitions for Position 3.

• The aforementioned Smiley is one of four current holders of super district seats who, as of early this week, did not yet have declared opposition. The other fortunate ones were Chase Carlisle in Super District 9, Position 1, Ford Canale in 9-2, and Jeff Warren in 9-3.

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Politics Politics Feature

Three on a Match

Activist Jerred Price (right) conducted a monster fundraiser at IBIS restaurant last week, and numerous supporters showed up for the event, which was broken up into a meet-and-greet and a concert, in which Price delivered his patented tribute to Elton John. With Price here are Thurston Smith (left) and Regina Morrison Newman (center). (Photo: Courtesy Jerred Price)

Although the Memphis city election of 2023 won’t take place until October, candidates are already fully extended in an effort to get their campaigns (and especially their fundraising needs) established and in order. This has been especially the case regarding the race for mayor, but it is evident in selected council races as well.

One of those races is the one for Super District 8, Position 3, which the term-limited Martavius Jones, currently the council chairman, is scheduled to vacate at year’s end. The District 8 position is one of the six at-large districts permitted by a judicial consent decree dating from the 1990s. In essence, a line was drawn bisecting the city, dividing Super District 8, a majority-Black district, from Super District 9, a majority-white area.

Each of the super districts has three positions, and there are six Super District seats altogether. Unlike the case of the seven smaller regular districts, runoffs are not permitted for the Super District races. They are winner-take-all.

Three candidacies are already fully launched for Super District 8, Position 3. The candidates are shown here.

Business consultant and community activist Brian Harris (center, with tie) hosted a campaign event for fellow Overton High School alumni (classes of 1995-1999) last Sunday at Chef Tam’s Underground Cafe on Union Avenue. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
FedEx executive and former City Councilman Berlin Boyd (here in a vintage photo with erstwhile council colleague Bill Boyd) is seeking a return to the council, where he served as a representative from District 7 from 2011 until his defeat by current Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas in 2019. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
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Memphis 3.0 Gets OK From City Council

The Memphis 3.0 Comprehensive plan was approved by the Memphis City Council Tuesday, after months of delay.

After much debate, the council passed the 3.0 ordinance 7-6 on the third and final reading at the body’s next-to-last meeting of 2019.

Council members Joe Brown, Cheyenne Johnson, Jamita Swearengen, Worth Morgan, Martavious Jones, and Berlin Boyd voted against the plan.

Voting in favor were J. Ford Canale, Frank Colvett Jr., Gerre Currie, Kemp Conrad, Reid Hedgepeth, Patrice Robinson, and Sherman Greer.

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Before the vote, Boyd moved to delay the issue for two weeks, but that motion failed. Boyd called for the delay to seek legal counsel from council attorney Allan Wade, who was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.

Boyd said based on the Tennessee Code Annotated, the council is not required to adopt the plan in order for it to move forward since the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board has already approved it.

Doug McGowen, chief operating officer for the city, confirmed that the council isn’t statutorily required to approve the plan.

Boyd, along with Jones, who also wanted to delay the vote, wanted clarity about the measure from Wade. Jones raised concerns about the way the Memphis 3.0 plan was presented to the council: “The way it [Memphis 3.0] has been presented to us, I felt — and I don’t know how many of my colleagues share this — that we had to approve this.” Before last week, Jones said the council was under the impression that “we had to vote it up or down.”

McGowen responded, saying “there was no intent to make anybody believe they had to do anything.”

“The administration has presented this plan in full transparency that we would like the council to approve it,” McGowen said. “We have never said you were under statutory obligation to do so.”

Greer, who leaves his District 1 post at the end of the year, urged the council to move forward with the vote, opposing any more delays.

“We can ask questions for the next 30 years,” Greer said. “It’s time to vote. This doesn’t have one dollar that’s tied to it that has to be spent in one area or another. It’s a plan. Plans change. We’ve said many times that seven votes can move anything.”

The council first delayed the plan in March after a group of residents from the New Chicago area voiced opposition.

In May, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland signed an executive order implementing Memphis 3.0 on the administrative side.


The council has delayed the vote on Memphis 3.0 several times since March. The council first delayed the vote on the city’s comprehensive plan after a group of residents from the New Chicago area voiced opposition to the plan, citing a lack of inclusion.

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Since then, delays have been attributed to the council needing more information about the plan and its implications. The council took the first of three votes on the ordinance at its July 2nd meeting.

The plan drew little opposition on Tuesday from members of the public. Lynette Williams, president of the Aklena Lakeview Garden Community Development Corporation, was the sole voice of opposition. Williams said that she and other residents in the Lakeview Garden community, located in the southeastern corner of the city, do not support the plan because “it doesn’t include us or District 6.”

“We want the residents to be respected and represented in the outer parts of Memphis, Tennessee, where you have a lot of homeowners and taxpayers,” Williams said. “We want unique improvements in our neighborhoods, we want community investments.”

Councilwoman Patrice Robinson, who voted in favor of Memphis 3.0, said even if amended down the road, the plan gives the city a “road map and a start” to move forward. Robinson also said that once in place, the plan can be further developed to include specific communities.

“We do a disservice to our city as a body if we don’t have a road map to where we’re going,” Robinson said. “Now a plan is not going to include everybody’s street, every community, and this particular plan only talked about the anchors in our community. We can expand upon that. Plans can be changed. Budgets can be created. We control the process right here”

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Boyd said he agrees “a plan is definitely needed,” but certain core issues in communities, such as blight, should also be addressed.

“When you look at certain streets in North Memphis where there are about 15 blighted properties on one street and we can’t even demo those houses, but yet we’re going through and trying to develop a plan for the community,” Boyd said. “We have to figure out how to get back to the basics in figuring out how to stabilize some communities.”


Councilman Worth Morgan wanted to know what would actually change if the plan is approved. In short, John Zennah, director of the city’s division of planning and development said moving forward all land-use decisions made by the city council would have to be consistent with the criteria of the 3.0 plan and that that finding should be reflected in land-use resolutions that the council approves.

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Challengers Logan, Easter-Thomas Win Council Runoffs

Logan; Easter-Thomas

The 2019 Memphis city election finally concluded Thursday with the ouster of the incumbents in two runoff elections. In District 1  (Frayser,  Raleigh) challenger Rhonda Logan, president of the Raleigh Community Development Corporation, edged interim incumbent Sherman Greer. And, in District 7 (North Memphis, Downtown, riverfront) newcomer Michalyn Easter-Thomas handily defeated longtime incumbent Berlin Boyd.

Final vote totals were: Logan, 1034; Greer, 802; in District 1, and Easter-Thomas, 2036; Boyd, 665 in District 7.

For Logan, who was backed by state Representative Antonio Parkinson, former City Councilman Rickey Peete, and other northside figures, the outcome amounted to delayed gratification, in that she had failed by a single vote to garner enough votes of then-Council incumbents to fill the vacancy left by departing incumbent Bill Morrison in 2018.

Ironically, Boyd was one of the holdouts in that fill-in election, which was ultimately won by Greer, a longtime aide for two 9th District Congressmen, Harold Ford Jr. and Steve Cohen.

Boyd’s own case for retention by the voters was undermined by an imperious personal attitude and by publicity regarding his own apparent involvement in projects he was advancing, several of which seemed commendable in their own right. Beginning with her endorsement last summer by the resurgent People’s Convention, Easter-Thomas successfully knit together a supportive network of several civic groups.

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Democrats Gear Up for Suburban Races in 2020

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Now that the “nonpartisan” city election is over and done with — as presumably it will be after two runoff elections for Memphis City Council seats, in District 1 (incumbent Sherman Greer vs. Rhonda Logan) and District 7 (incumbent Berlin Boyd vs. Michalyn Easter-Thomas), are completed this week — it is high time for local Republicans and Democrats to resume their more or less nonstop competition for influence in public affairs.

Jackson Baker

Michalyn Easter-Thomas

Not that this rivalry really ceased for the city election. Although no candidate in the city general election was listed on the ballot under a party label, there were numerous races that were understood to be cases in which the two parties vied against each other.

One such was the race for Position 1 in Super District 9, between public school teacher Erika Sugarmon, a Democrat supported by Democrats, and developer Chase Carlisle, whose Republican sponsorship was equally obvious. There is a certain overlap between the white/black dichotomy and the partisan one, inasmuch as Shelby County’s whites, by and large, gravitate to the GOP, while African Americans constitute the vital core of the Democratic Party.

That fact makes the neck-and-neck race between Sugarmon and ultimate winner Carlisle all the more revealing. That contest was decided by a mere 531 votes out of 46,311 cast. Given the fact that Super District 9, roughly the eastern half of Memphis, is predominantly white, the obvious message is that of a potential racial and political parity there.

Underscoring the point is the legal matter of the bogus ballots — sample ballots in which endorsement space is sold to candidates on a pay-to-play basis. Carlisle and several other candidates who bore the official endorsement of the Shelby County Republican Party got themselves listed as well on two pay-to-play ballots put out under the auspices, respectively, of the Greater Memphis Democratic Club and the Shelby County Democratic Club, two shell enterprises which had no relationship to the actual Shelby County Democratic Party. Both ballots got heavy distribution, right up to the end of voting on Election Day itself, when, before the polls closed, a judge issued a restraining order on their further circulation.

It takes no great leap of logic to see that in an ostensibly nonpartisan race, the two sample ballots could have confused Democratic voters and accounted for the difference in the Sugarmon-Carlisle contest. (Interestingly, Special Judge William B. Acree of Jackson, who issued the restraining order on October 3rd, has scheduled a hearing in Memphis on Wednesday of this week — one day before the runoffs in District 1 and District 7 — to determine the future legality of pay-to-play ballots.)

In any case, next year, local voters will see overtly partisan contests — for legislative seats, one U.S. Senate seat, and presidential preference primaries. The last time the two parties took on each other directly, there was a much-vaunted “blue wave” nationally that favored Democrats. It didn’t help the party’s statewide candidates: Democrats Phil Bredesen and Karl Dean lost to Republicans Marsha Blackburn and Bill Lee for U.S. senator and governor, respectively. And while Democrats held their own in Memphis and came unexpectedly close in several suburban legislative contests, they failed to unseat Republican incumbents. 

One exception was Democratic State Representative Dwayne Thompson, who was an upset winner in 2016 of the suburban District 96 seat and was re-elected in 2018. Party cadres expect Thompson to prevail again, as they made clear in a strategy session held on Tuesday night of last week in the Great Hall of Germantown and billed under the title, “How Liberal Are You? Winning in 2020 by Unifying the Left, the Far Left, and the Radical Left.”

Three seats in the state House of Representatives received special attention — Thompson’s in District 96 and those in two adjoining districts now held by Republicans. At least one Democrat, Jerri Green, has declared herself as an opponent of GOP incumbent Mark White in District 83. And Allan Creasy, who got 45 percent of the vote in District 97 last year, will try again for that seat, which is being vacated by Republican incumbent Jim Coley. Another possible Democratic contender for the District 97 seat is rumored to be Gabby Salinas, who gave Republican State Senator Brian Kelsey a close race in his 2018 re-election bid.

It would surprise no one to see tight races again.

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Is Berlin Boyd Using a 2015 Robocall?

With a week left in the runoff elections for the two remaining undecided Memphis City Council seats, the incumbent in the District 1 race, Berlin Boyd, who is opposed by Michalyn Easter-Thomas, is pursuing an unusual and all-out advertising campaign.

One deviation from the norm is the fact that the Boyd campaign has purchased some large billboards on major thoroughfares in the city’s far eastern precincts. Billboards are an uncommon medium for a district race, and these are many miles away from Boyd’s District 7 bailiwick. Perhaps Boyd, one of the financially better endowed council candidates, figures he can afford it, and he — or his advisers at Caissa Public Strategies — believe in using all the means at one’s disposal. Another Caissa runoff candidate, District 1 incumbent Sherman Greer, who is opposed by Rhonda Logan, is also using large billboard signs.

But what’s the idea behind another, odder advertising stratagem that’s been linked to Boyd? Here’s how it was described in a Facebook post on last Friday by Jeffrey Lichtenstein of the AFL-CIO:

I was just got a really concerning automated phone call.

It first seemed like a live poll, but eventually it was clear I was talking to a sophisticated recording. This is the number that called: (901) 245-4604.

It said “Hi this is Becky Spray, calling from Memphis Brighter Future Political Action Committee. Can I ask you about the city council election? This will take 90 seconds.
Do you plan on voting in the upcoming city council election?

If the election was today, would you vote for Anthony Anderson, Berlin Boyd, or unsure?
Do you need a ride to the polls?”

This is push polling. It seems clearly designed to confuse people and discourage us from voting for Michalyn Easter-Thomas. This kind of shady political game is shocking.
When I called back, it said “extension 370 is not available. Leave a message.”

Moments later, the same number called my friend Thomas Wayne Walker, and it was the same call. We were able to record it. I’ll try and figure out how to post that….

As a reminder, Anthony Anderson was Boyd’s runoff opponent in the 2015 City Council race, but was not a candidate for the District 7 position this year. Lichtenstein seems convinced that the robocall is intended to “confuse” and “discourage” potential voters for Michalyn Easter-Thomas, the runoff opponent to incumbent Councilman Berlin Boyd in District 7.

The robocall is obviously confusing and it definitely does Easter-Thomas no favor by leaving her out of the question.

But, on the discouragement front, the robocall — and publicity given it — could have a boomerang effect. Anderson, for example, has responded to the robocall and its use of his name by posting an online endorsement of Easter-Thomas.

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Politics Politics Feature

City Election’s Final Races Head Into the Stretch

Thursday, November 14th, two weeks from now, will see the final voting for the 2019 Memphis city election. The remaining races to be decided, via runoff, are the Memphis City Council seats in District 1 (Frayser, Raleigh), where incumbent Sherman Greer hopes to do a turnaround on the tally of October 3rd, when challenger Rhonda Logan missed an outright majority win by a hair’s-breadth, and in District 7, where Michalyn Easter-Thomas, runner-up to incumbent Berlin Boyd, is attempting to consolidate a potential anti-Boyd majority with the support of several other former candidates in that race.

Early voting for the runoff elections began on Friday, October 25th, and will end on Saturday, November 9th.

Ordinarily, challengers Logan and Easter-Thomas would seem to own the momentum, in light of the failure of Greer and Boyd to exploit the presumed natural advantage of their incumbency on the first go-around. But no one is making any firm and fast predictions. The notorious reality about runoffs — and one of the compelling arguments in favor of substituting Ranked Choice Voting as an alternative to dependence on them — is the precipitate fallout in general voter turnout that accompanies them.

Photographs by Jackson Baker

Michalyn Easter-Thomas with supporters

Victory in a runoff often depends on which side is more successful in getting their people out to the polls. And one seasoned consultant, asked about prospects for the runoff election, conjectured that the total vote in each of the runoff districts could easily run to no more than 1,600 voters each.

That fact co-exists with another reality, that the incumbents have a second chance to activate the donor sources that, as office-holders, they have presumably been able to develop a working relationship with. But the financial factor may not be weighted as much for the runoff cycle as it was for the general election.

In any case, all four candidates seem to be trying hard — each according to their fashion. 

Councilman Sherman Greer campaigning in district coin-op laundry

Logan is busy on social media and working with her political allies in the district. Greer is pressing the flesh in locations like the coin-op on Highway 64, in the Countrywood sector of his district. Boyd is being touted by at least one large billboard on a major thoroughfare. And Easter-Thomas is networking big-time with organization Democrats and fellow District 7 candidates from the first round.

Further points: Boyd’s wheeler-dealer image is both a help and a hindrance. He may enjoy some credit for his efforts, say, in landing a dog park on Mud Island and arranging a FedEx presence in the vacated Gibson’s building Downtown, but he incurred conflict-of-interest allegations for his previously undisclosed contractual relationship with FedEx.

Easter-Thomas’ opportunity is the high-water mark for the 2019 version of the People’s Convention, and it was buttressed by her well-attended support rally last week from former District 7 candidates, political veterans (like the Rev. Bill Adkins), activists (e.g., AFL-CIO representative Jeffrey Lichtenstein), along with a huge turnout from the media on a rainy day.

Though Greer finished well behind Logan in the regular general election, his previous service with Congressmen Harold Ford Jr. and Steve Cohen makes for both a helpful and a practical association, and he has crossover support from the likes of GOP icon John Ryder.

Logan, president of the Raleigh Community Development Corporation, is a bona fide grassroots product, heavily boosted now as before by influential indigenous political figures, notably state Representative Antonio Parkinson.

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Citing New State Law, Councilman Wary of Plastic Bag Ban


One Memphis City Council member is hesitant to move forward with a plastic bag ban here after a state law passed in April prohibiting cities from regulating the use of them.

Councilman Worth Morgan said the “merits of the discussion are an interesting topic,” but the conversation should be had with state legislators: “We’re having it in the wrong place in a city council committee room and not in Nashville.”

Morgan said the newly-passed state law that bans local governments from regulating the “use, disposition, or sale of an auxiliary container” prohibits all local regulation of plastic bags and that a “ban constitutes a regulation.”

“It would be my preference that if we want to have this conversation, we drive to Nashville,” Morgan said. “I think right now this ordinance doesn’t have a place in Memphis City Council.”

Councilman Berlin Boyd, a co-sponsor of the ordinance along with Chairman Kemp Conrad, told Morgan he “begs to differ” and that the council has an “obligation to do what you can as local legislators to try and circumvent what happens in Nashville.”

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“If we weren’t creative in our thinking about removing the Confederate statues, Nathan and his comrades would still be in our parks,” Boyd said. “We took the risk and did something and guess what? Those monuments are gone.

“We owe it to everyone. It’s our job to take risks. Give this a chance to try to make Memphis a green and clean city.”

The ban in question would prohibit the distribution of single-use plastic bags at checkouts in retail establishments with 2,000 square feet or more. Each violation of the ordinance would result in a $50 fine.

Boyd, who first brought forth the idea of plastic bag regulation in November, said the goal of the ban is to protect the environment and reduce overall waste, citing plastic-bag-riddled streets, waterways, and trees.

“Waterway protection is extremely important,” he said. “No matter what media outlet you’re looking at, our sea animals are basically inhaling and eating plastic bags.”

Boyd also said taxpayers pay between $2.5 and $3.5 million a year for plastic bag removal.

Dennis Lynch, chair of the Sierra Club in Memphis told the council he supports the ban, saying that plastic bags “encourage the throw-away society instead of getting people to recycle.”

He also noted environmental concerns similar to Boyd’s.

Councilwoman Robinson raised practical questions about the ban, like the effect it would have on elderly shoppers. She said for them plastic bags are easier to carry than large paper or reusable bags.

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“I don’t want us to make an environmental decision that has a negative impact on the people that actually live here,” Robinson said. “How are we going to make sure they have what they need?”

Robinson said the council should be “very thoughtful we don’t have any unintended consequences.”

Boyd said that is a conversation the council should be having anyway, as Kroger, which has more than a dozen stores here, plans to completely phase out plastic bags by 2025.

But, ultimately, Boyd said shoppers will have to make behavior changes. “People will have to adjust to it.”

Swearengen, echoing Robinson, voiced concerns from her constituents in Orange Mound who shop at the Midtown Kroger on Union. She said many don’t have cars and as a result, bike or use public transit to get there. It’s easier for them to carry plastic bags than paper bags when doing so, she said.

Swearengen noted that plastic bags can hang on the handlebars of a bike and that paper bags deteriorate in the rain.

To that, Councilwoman Gerre Currie said local organizations could provide cloth and other types of reusable bags.

“If this is something we are trying to do, the onus is on us to reach outside where we are sitting here and partner with organizations to provide free bags.”

The council is scheduled to take the second of three votes on the plastic bag ordinance Tuesday (today).

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Memphis Could Outright Ban Plastic Bags

Plastic bags at retail stores could soon be a thing of the past here, as the Memphis City Council is looking to ban retail stores’ distribution of plastic bags to customers at checkouts.

The ban would prohibit the distribution of single-use plastic bags at checkouts in retail establishments with 2,000 square feet or more. Back in November, councilman Berlin Boyd first proposed a seven-cent fee on plastic bags that shoppers take from retail stores. He then reduced the proposed fee to five cents earlier this year.

Votes on the ordinance were held several times after a new Tennessee law was signed by Gov. Bill Lee in April. The law bans local governments from regulating the “use, disposition, or sale of an auxiliary container.”

Now, the council is waiting for a legal opinion from the Tennessee Attorney General’s office on whether or not Memphis’ amended ordinance would violate the law.

The council will return to the issue at its July 2nd meeting.

If passed, each violation of the ordinance would result in a $50 fine.

According to the draft of the ordinance, sponsored by Boyd and Chairman Kemp Conrad, plastic bags place a cost burden on municipal trash and recycling operations, citing that only 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled.

The ordinance also states that the measure is meant to ensure “sustainable stewardship of the city’s environmental treasures, and a responsibility to prevent plastic bags from polluting and clogging our waterways and endangering wildlife and the broader ecosystem.”

If the council passes the measure, exceptions to the ban would include newspaper bags, dry cleaning and garment bags, bags provided by pharmacists, and take-out bags from restaurants.

The ban would also not include bags used to package loose items such as produce or candy.

If approved, the ban would take effect in January 2021.


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City Council Revives Public Art Discussion, Considers Set of Guidelines

CREDIT: Facebook- Paint Memphis

Facebook- Paint Memphis

A Paint Memphis mural

The Memphis City Council is looking to streamline the public art process here, ending what one councilman calls a “public art debacle.”

Tuesday, a council committee recommended approval of a set of guidelines that would place regulations on the art projects that go up in the city on public property.

The effort, spearheaded by Councilman Berlin Boyd, city officials, and the UrbanArts Commission (UAC), has been in the works for about a year.

There has been a moratorium on public art projects since March of last year. The city council voted then to place a 120-day moratorium on art projects going up on public right-of-ways, and then re-approved that measure again late last year.

The moratorium exempted projects funded by the city’s Percent-for-Art program, as well as certain ongoing projects by the Downtown Memphis Commission and the Memphis Medical District Collaborative.

Paint Memphis

Controversial Elvis Presley mural by a Paint Memphis-commissioned artist

It was first put in place after the council publicly criticized one organization’s murals. The council deemed a handful of murals sanctioned by the nonprofit Paint Memphis as offensive and, in some cases, “satanic.”

Some of the less popular murals featured Elvis Presley with a snake coming from his orifices, a cow skull, a dancing skeleton, and a zombie.

Tuesday, the council discussed extending that moratorium for another 120 days until the council is able to finalize and approve the new guidelines.

The draft of the new rules includes guidelines such as no political or religious images, as well as no profanity, obscenity, sexual imagery, nudity, or violence.

“One-of-a-kind artwork” with themes that promote community, civic pride, or other “general positive messages are preferred.”

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Additionally, notifications about projects must be posted at the proposed sites, as well as given to adjacent property owners and churches or schools within 500 feet or a 250-foot radius of the site.

Proposed artwork will be evaluated based on its context, structural soundness, public safety, diversity, feasibility, and community support.

A five-member review committee, consisting of a representative from the city’s legal, Public Works, engineering, and parks divisions, as well as a legislative representative, will make the final decision on all new projects.

The committee will hold monthly meetings at which applicants can present project proposals and members of the public can give feedback.

Lauren Kennedy, director of the UAC, said she supports the council’s efforts to get the public more involved in the public art process.