Tag: Berlin Boyd

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Councilman Berlin Boyd Wants to Decriminalize Weed

Memphis City Councilman Berlin Boyd is planning to introduce a city ordinance that would institute a civil penalty for possessing or selling small amounts of marijuana within the city limits.

The ordinance, which will be introduced in the council’s public safety committee on Tuesday, August 23rd, would effectively decriminalize possession or “casual exchange of less than one-half ounce of marijuana in the City of Memphis,” according to a news release issued by Boyd’s council staff on Wednesday. Those caught with a small amount of weed would face a $50 civil penalty and possible community service rather than facing criminal charges. 

“Councilman Boyd believes that it is time to recognize, as has been done in many other municipalities across the country, that bringing individuals into the burdensome and expensive criminal justice system is not commensurate with the crime of possessing a small amount of marijuana,” reads the release.

A similar ordinance is also being considered in Nashville.

Currently, those convicted of less than an ounce of pot in Tennessee face a misdemeanor charge and the possibility of up to a year in jail and a maximum $2,500 fine. Anything above a half-ounce is a felony.

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News News Blog

Council Axes Private Guards at City Hall, MPD

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland wants to use armed guards from a private company to secure Memphis City Hall and the new Memphis Police Department (MPD) headquarters but Memphis City Council members axed the plan.

Strickland’s 2017 budget included $650,000 for the new guards, instead of using officers from MPD. Antonio Adams, director of the city’s general services division, said the plan would put those police officers back on the street.

He said the plan was vetted and approved by former MPD director Toney Armstrong and by current interim director Michael Rallings.

But council members beat back at the plan, noting that the mayor has police protection and that they (council members) deserved the same, not “rent-a-cops or flashlight cops,” said council member Berlin Boyd.

The armed guards would have guns, Adams said. Also, the move would not remove the mayor’s detail nor would it remove the council’s officer. It is only the officers at the entrances to the buildings.

“So, everybody’s dead,” said council member Joe Brown. “Am I correct?”

The council defeated a similar move in A C Wharton’s budget last year.

Adams said he’d at least like to keep $400,000 in the budget this year for armed guards at the new MPD headquarters at the former state building at 170 North Main. He said MPD officials have “emphatically stated that they (MPD) will not be armed security at” that building.

The MPD headquarters, Adams said, needed 24-hour security as a whole host of of different people – suspects, victims, and family members – would enter the building at all hours.

Boyd countered that MPD headquarters is also filled with trained, armed police officers.

“They all have guns on their hips,” Boyd said. “I don’t have a gun on my hip. They can have all the security they want.”

Adams repeated the move was approved by MPD officials but Brown said “I don’t buy that,” noting that Armstrong was likely under pressure from Wharton at the time.

In a sprawling statement to help defeat the move, Brown described a new American tension, in which people are angry at government and “are not afraid to shoot guns now” and reminded that a man broke windows at Memphis City Hall recently.

“Around the country, I’ve seen officers shot up at precincts,” Brown said. “I’ve seen elected officials shot in St. Louis. For a few pennies, we’re not going to drop our guard [at City Hall].

“We’re in trouble. The average citizen is angry at anything that happens at City Hall.”

Brown ended his statements by noting that “in reality [MPD] can’t even secure Orange Mound” and that the city council “is going to stay protected, I don’t care what you [Adams], or the mayor or what anybody says.”

While Adams pleaded his case for the funds, council members eventually removed the money from the budget. Councilman Worth Morgan voted against taking the money out of the budget.

The amendment could be changed, however. All of the budget amendments made during the council’s budget review aren’t final until the council approves a final budget, which will probably come some time later in June.

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Politics Politics Feature

Showdowns in Shelby County

CREDIT: JB

JB

Council runoff candidates at Hooks forum were (l to r) Jamita Swearengen (District 4); Worth Morgan and Dan Springer (District 5); and Anthony Anderson and Berlin Boyd (District 7)

As early voting ends this Friday and the final runoff election date of November 19th, next Thursday, beckons, most attention has been focused on two of the five district city council runoffs: District 5 (Midtown, East Memphis) between newcomer Worth Morgan and youthful activist Dan Springer, and the District 7 race (North Memphis, Frayser) between interim incumbent Berlin Boyd and challenger Anthony Anderson.

District 5 lies astride the Poplar corridor power nexus and is also the bailiwick of current Councilman and Mayor-elect Jim Strickland. Both Morgan and Springer are Republicans, though Springer, who has worked for both Senator Bob Corker and County Mayor Mark Luttrell, won the formal endorsement of the Shelby County Republican Party during the regular election process, in which seven candidates overall vied for the seat.

Morgan, who led by far in fund-raising, with receipts of more than $200,000 to Springer’s $60,000 or so, had the support of the city’s business elite. Now, both he and Springer have solicited support from the camps of losing candidates. 

A meet-and-greet for Morgan last week hosted by fifth-place finisher Charles “Chooch” Pickard, drew a diverse group including avowed Democrats, African Americans, and members of the city’s gay community. Springer, for his part, has actively pitched across party lines as well and has won the formal support of Democrat Mary Wilder, among others. 

Overall, Springer leads in formal endorsements of various kinds. Morgan finished ahead on October 8th, however, with 32 percent of the vote to Springer’s 23 percent.

At a forum last week at the Hooks Central Library for candidates in Districts 4, 5, and 7, Morgan and Springer differed only moderately on issues, though Morgan, who has seemed more at ease in debate formats, gave answers that were both more glib and more expansive. He spoke of having transcended several difficult illnesses as evidence of his resolve, while Springer emphasized his experience.

At the same forum, Boyd, too, stressed his existing connections and boasted of having brought $3.6 million into District 7. Anderson, a clergyman who is the entrepreneur behind the Memphis Business Academy charter-school network, countered with a figure of $8 million allegedly invested in MBA and with references to his numerous community involvements.

Both advocated revenue solutions involving assessments of nonresidents who work in Memphis, in the form of sticker fees (Boyd) or payroll taxes (Anderson). Both approaches would seem to require approval by the Tennessee General Assembly. The two differed most obviously on crime, which Boyd saw as a looming danger and Anderson saw as having diminished.

In the regular general election, Boyd had 26 percent of the total vote, and Anderson had 24 percent.

(Go to Politics Beat Blog at memphisflyer.com for more on these races and the three other Council runoffs: Frank Colvett Jr. vs. Rachel Knox in District 3; Patrice Robinson vs. Keith Williams in District 3; and Jamita Swearengen vs. Doris DeBerry-Bradshaw in District 4.)

The power struggle between the Shelby County Commission and the administration of county Mayor Mark Luttrell moved toward another showdown on Monday with the mayor’s veto of a recent commission resolution appointing former Commissioner Julian Bolton as its independent counsel.

Commission chair Terry Roland‘s public response was in a memo to his fellow commissioners, in which he wrote that he had in mind to call a special commission meeting for Thursday. “We must act as a body to protect our legislative duty to the people of Shelby County, Tennessee,” the memo concluded.

Roland had previously indicated privately that County Attorney Ross Dyer, who has resisted the independent-counsel idea on grounds that the County Charter does not allow it, might be confronted with a choice between altering his view and facing a possible ouster move from the commission. That could come with a vote to reconsider his hiring.

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News The Fly-By

New Handheld Speed Guns for MPD Proposed to City Council

In the midst of Tennessee legislators’ attempt to ban red-light and speeding cameras, a company wants to provide Memphis Police officers with handheld speed guns to help suppress accidents and fatalities.

Last Tuesday, St. Louis-based firm Automated Transportation Enforcement Solutions (ATES): Traffic Solutions presented a proposal to city council’s Public Safety Committee regarding its LIDAR speed guns.

The devices would allow Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers to use a speed detector boasting a laser, camera, and automated ticketing device. Officers would be able to shoot the license plates of speeding drivers — even in areas with heavily congested traffic — and store their information. This would lower the amount of drivers that officers have to pursue and manually issue a citation.

“I don’t see this as anything other than a public safety enhancement of the MPD,” said John Baine, vice president of marketing for ATES: Traffic Solutions. “It’s not impersonal, like a pole in the ground that says a metal mass is speeding. It gives the officers discretion and opportunity.”

If approved, the LIDAR guns would possibly be targeted for use in areas with high pedestrian activity, such as school zones, construction zones, and parks.

Before moving forward on the proposal, the city council plans on getting feedback from the MPD, specifically, whether they think the devices could help their public safety efforts.

Baine said the city would not be charged for the speed guns. Around 60 percent of proceeds from the speeding tickets would go to the city. The exact amount is uncertain.

The indeterminate split is something that didn’t sit well with Councilman Berlin Boyd.

“[We would be] depending on this company to pay the city a certain dollar amount that’s unknown,” Boyd said. “In business, there are certain things that you should come prepared for. If you’re making a presentation, people want to know cost, if there will be any ultimate gains or benefits, and how much money we will receive from the actual ticket.”

According to City Court Clerk Thomas Long’s office, since November 2009, red-light camera citations have produced more than $10.8 million in revenue. Of that amount, the city of Memphis received 40 percent.

Tennessee is one of several states where legislators have proposed bills to outlaw traffic cameras. A compromise version of the Tennessee Freedom From Traffic Cameras Act passed out of the Senate Transportation Committee last Wednesday. It’s tentatively slated for vote by the full Senate Thursday.

The bill would extend yellow signal times to six seconds at intersections with cameras. Speeding tickets would only be issued for driving 15 miles or more over the posted speed limit.

Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris, who is a co-sponsor of the bill, said red-light cameras cause more safety problems than they reduce.

Harris said he’s not opposed to city law enforcement receiving new handheld speed guns but thinks deploying more officers in the community is a better way to deal with public safety issues.

“If you want to promote more public safety on your street, hire more police officers,” Harris said. “I don’t have any problem with making sure our officers have all the tools available, including cameras, to do their job. The point is, let’s put it in the hands of police officers and not an out-of-state company whose legal duty is to make as much money as possible.”

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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.