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Politics Politics Feature

Meanwhile, Back at the GOP …

Surprise! Republicans, who have generally ended up mounting a pro forma opposition to long-term 9th District Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen (if anything at all), may have a serious contender this year — Brown Dudley, who is associated with Independent Bank and was the entrepreneur behind resale establishment Plato’s Closet.

According to his recently filed financial disclosure, first-time candidate Dudley raised $385,968 in the first quarter of the year and has $292,771.69 on hand. That’s real money at this point. He has two opponents on the GOP primary ballot in August — Charlotte Bergmann, a perennial candidate, and Leo AwGoWhat, a performance artist of sorts, also a perennial. Neither should give Dudley a tussle.

Even with redistricting, which modified the northern or rural/suburban part of the district, the 9th is still heavily Democratic in its demographics, though, and Cohen will not be financially handicapped in the race. He reports first-quarter receipts of $297,528.50 and cash on hand totaling $1,372,863.23. His opponent in the Democratic primary is M. Latroy Alexandria-Williams, another perennial.

Dudley, by the way, professes open-mindedness on the subjects of LGBTQ rights and climate change.

• Another potential surprise confrontation on the August ballot is for the District 31 state Senate seat (Germantown, East Memphis) being vacated by Republican Brian Kelsey. Democrat Ruby Powell-Dennis is unopposed on the Democratic ballot. The surprise is that Brent Taylor, who has had virtually wall-to-wall support from the GOP establishment (as well as from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a nominal Democrat), may be opposed in the Republican primary by a candidate with financial resources close to Taylor’s on-hand total of $442,566.62.

Brandon Toney (Photo: Courtesy Kristina Garner)

The operative term here is “may.” Taylor’s would-be primary opponent, Brandon Toney, will find out this week if the state GOP executive committee permits him to be on the primary ballot.

On his financial disclosure, Toney, a nurse practitioner, lists cash on hand of $404,964.86 — a competitive sum, though almost all of it is money loaned by Toney to himself.

Toney’s problem is that he was one of a handful of potential Republican primary candidates statewide whose bona fides were denied by the state party last week. The ostensible reason, according to Shelby GOP chair Cary Vaughn, who professes neutrality in the matter, is that Toney has failed a requirement that Republican primary candidates must have voted in any one of the last four GOP primaries.

Toney and his local campaign manager, Kristina Garner, are crying foul and calling his exclusion a put-up job on Taylor’s behalf. They maintain that Toney has done solid grunt work for past Republican candidates, including former President Donald Trump, and was not able to vote in recent primaries because he was doing around-the-clock work combatting the Covid-19 pandemic at Mid-South Pulmonary Specialists.

Toney has appealed his original denial and has submitted additional evidence of his party credentials to the state GOP executive committee, which will meet and weigh the matter before week’s end. If he should be certified to run, he would become something relatively rare — a Republican candidate opposed to private-school vouchers (though his three children attend private schools) and in favor of accepting federal Medicaid support. “I’m not a ‘moderate.’ I’m just determined to be sensible,” he says.

• The aforementioned Republican chair Vaughn says that former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who will be the keynote speaker at this weekend’s annual GOP Lincoln Day banquet at the Agricenter, is not meant to be a symbol of the Republican Party but as someone who can aid local GOP fundraising efforts. Meadows is under fire these days for his alleged ties to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Cracks in the Binary Box


If there is a single leitmotif that defines the coming disharmony of a local election in these parts, it is the struggle between members of the two parties — Republican and Democratic — for dominance. The 2022 election in Shelby County is skewed in this way, with all the structural advantages adhering to the Dems. Actually, there is a fairly accurate division of influence — with the demographics of the city (i.e., Memphis) favoring Democratic candidates and those of the suburbs tilting unmistakably and dependably toward Republicans.

Yet beyond the party leaderships there is here and there a breach in this binary circumstance. Take the 13 members of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners — apportioned 8 to 5, as of now, in favor of Democrats, with the 2022 election likely to make that division 9 to 4 in favor of the Democrats — on the strength of reapportionment that’s fetched up another seat, the new District 5 seat in Cordova, expected to go the Democrats’ way.

Up until now, the Republicans have for several sessions been holding their own by the simple device of finding two dependable Democrats who could be coaxed onto their side when need be. Democrats Edmund Ford and Eddie Jones (the most recent two such) have reasonably often opted to make common cause with the Republicans, so long as the right trades were made on other points elsewhere.

Within the 2021-2022 session the Democrats did some bargaining of their own, attracting East Memphis Republican Brandon Morrison, already prone to look for non-partisan solutions, to their side on some key votes — both procedural: she would become vice chair instead of the minority Republicans’ choice of Amber Mills in northern Shelby (District 1), and policy-wise: (she would display an open mind on key votes favored by the Democrats (e.g., county funding of MATA), Morrison even agreed to serve as vice chair of a committee to re-examine the virtues of Metro consolidation, that bane of the suburbanite.

That makes the current contest in District 4 (East Memphis, Germantown) between Morrison and political newcomer Jordan Carpenter simply a matter of arithmetic. Morrison’s current GOP colleagues — Mills, Mick Wright, David Bradford, and the term-limited Mark Billingsley — are backing Carpenter to restore as much of an unbroken Republican orthodoxy as possible. Even a bloc of 4 in what is likely to be a new Commission favoring Democrats by a 9-4 margin,  is, in their minds, worth something.

It remains to be seen if party loyalty or the principle of bi-partisanship will prevail. The Democrats, with their probable 9-vote supermajority, can indulge a certain equanimity on the matter.

* * *

The recent brouhaha over the endorsement of Republican state Senate candidate Brent Taylor, in District 31,  by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a nominal Democrat, indicates another way in which the binary party system is being breached. In their primary Democrats had been grooming Ruby Powell-Dennis, an educator and civil figure, to seek the seat, which up to now has been  held by the indicted and now withdrawn GOP incumbent Brian Kelsey.

The fact is, Memphis mayors, whose own elections are non-partisan, have frequently crossed the party line to espouse candidates of another party. Willie Herenton, a Democrat, did it twice on behalf of the statewide candidacies of Republicans Don Sundquist and Lamar Alexander.

Strickland was in the large crowd that gathered on Taylor’s behalf for a fundraiser last Thursday at the East Memphis home of Craig and Cathy Weiss. Spotting the Mayor, who was a full head taller than most of the attendees, Taylor quoted Strickland as having said the endorsement of Taylor was for the sake of “better outcomes for Memphis.” Addressing the Mayor, he jested, “I would ask you to say a few words but I think you’ve probably said enough. If you say any more, they may try to impeach you.”

That got an animated chuckle from the crowd. Then Taylor proceeded: “I know you took a lot of heat for it. But I love Memphis and I think you know I love Memphis, and that’s one reason he endorsed me.”

Taylor continued: “There’s a second thing. I just came back to Nashville on Monday and Tuesday where I met with Senate leadership and about half of the Senate. They are very excited about having me joining the Senate, primarily because they don’t understand Big Shelby. They don’t understand Memphis and its politics. And they’re excited to have me up there…. I will tell you that [the  Mayor’s endorsement] meant more among those senators than the endorsement of [U.S. Senators] Hagerty and Blackburn because they knew they needed somebody to help them understand Memphis and Shelby County.” 

Binary politics is under threat elsewhere in local politics. Shelby County’s Republicans caved in to the reality that they could not find a GOP candidate to beat Sheriff Floyd Bonner, the Democratic nominee; so they have in effect endorsed Bonner’s campaign as well. It was no accident that the huge crowds that gathered the weekend before last at the Sheriff’s campaign headquarters opening included as many Republicans as Democrats.

And conversations between the two parties — like one between Democratic state Representative Dwayne Thompson and Republican John Gillespie, both representing “purplish” adjoining districts — abounded as well.

It will take some time before the twain truly meet, but it has to be a good sign that they are talking.

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Politics Politics Feature

After Kelsey

One looks for potential shifts in political direction. One case where that is sure to happen is with state Senate District 31, whose seat-holder up to now has been Brian Kelsey, the erstwhile “Stunt Baby of Germantown,” who evolved from a prankster as minority member of the last Democratic-dominated House to a saboteur of the state constitution as a GOP senator in a supermajority Republican General Assembly, sponsoring an endless series of hyper-partisan constitutional amendments.

Though an engaging sort personally, Kelsey has been a take-no-prisoners type as a legislator, and his easy way with the machinations of the GOP’s extremist fringe was no doubt useful to him in a cutting-edge career that now, alas, has left him bleeding on the battlefield — indicted for campaign-finance violations and compelled to drop out of his re-election race while he prepares a legal defense.

Kelsey’s would-be successors in the Republican primary are wholly different types — all Republican regulars but all more at home in a bipartisan environment. That is certainly the case with Brent Taylor, who recently resigned as chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission and seeks state service as a way of crowning a career that has included significant stints on the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission.

Taylor, who once had an uncanny resemblance to the TV character Pee-wee Herman, has matured into a statesmanlike presence who had stabilizing roles as an elective politician and on the Election Commission. So far, Taylor, who recently sold off an extensive funeral-home business, is the only Republican who has actually filed for the Senate position. And he is said to have the support of U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty.

Paul Boyd, who served two terms as Probate Court clerk after winning election to that office in the Republican sweep year of 2010, has toiled dependably in the GOP’s ranks for decades and, as an African American, brings a bit of outreach to a party that, to mince no words, needs it.

Naser Fazlullah, an engaging and near-omnipresent figure among local Republicans, is a native of Bangladesh who has been in charge of the party’s outreach efforts overall. Well-liked and uncontroversial, he is likely to end up instead on the ballot for GOP state committeeman.

And there is Brandon Toney, a political newcomer without much of an established pedigree in GOP ranks.

Four years ago, Democrat Gabby Salinas came close to ousting Kelsey in a much-watched race. During her successful run for the Shelby County Democratic chairmanship last year, Salinas more or less committed to not being a candidate for elective office this year. But Ruby Powell-Dennis, who was a strong runner-up to Salinas in the 2020 Democratic primary for the House District 97 seat, has basically been running hard for the District 31 Senate seat for some time and must be reckoned with in a district with purplish tendencies.

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Politics Politics Feature

‘Just a Park’

In the wake of a previous circumstance of tenseness and hostility at Health Sciences Park involving the disinterment of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, a press conference at the park on Friday, June 11th, was at least partly designed to clear the air, and to a large extent it may have.

The three principal speakers at last Friday’s press conference were County Commissioner and NAACP leader Van Turner of Greenspace, the nonprofit which now controls the large tract formerly known as Forrest Park; Lee Millar, president of the Memphis branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans; and Brent Taylor, a longtime public official and the local funeral director who satisfied the state requirement for a technical advisor regarding the disinterment of the Forrests, destined now for a new gravesite at a Middle Tennessee site honoring Confederate history.

As Turner expressed it, “Hopefully, all sides were satisfied” — meaning the Black Memphians for whom the removal of the graves and monument meant a “full circle” expungement of former injustice and disregard as well as those whites who equated Confederate General Forrest with glory and their heritage. “I think the Forrest family wanted their ancestor to lie in peace, and there was never going to be any peace here,” Turner said.

Millar attested to the friendly cooperation and a general meeting-of-the-minds between himself and Turner, and Taylor, who saw himself as situated “in the middle” between communities, agreed that “all sides are happy with where we are. Both communities believe that we did this right.”

Asked what the future disposition of the park might be, Turner said he’d received “many recommendations,” but “Right now, we just want this to be a park, not to have any more symbolism here for a little while. We’d like people to just enjoy the park”

Ellen Hobbs Lyle, the Nashville chancellor who ruled in favor of expanding mail-in voting last year at the height of the pandemic and subsequently incurred the wrath of the state Republican establishment, said last week that she wouldn’t seek another eight-year term in 2022. The suit that she ruled on was pressed by the ACLU and by a group of Memphis petitioners, and Lyle’s ruling was stoutly resisted by the state’s election authorities, who managed to get its scope reduced somewhat in an appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Subsequently, measures to punish Lyle were pushed by GOP legislators in the general assembly but were rejected.

Governor Bill Lee announced last week that his administration would go ahead with a 37-mile wastewater pipeline connecting the still dormant Haywood County industrial megasite to the Mississippi River. Construction of the $52 million project could begin in the first quarter of 2022.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Hagerty, Bradshaw Round Out Shelby Campaigns

As Election 2020 was coming finally to an end, the candidates for U.S. Senate, among others, were making their final pitches in Shelby County. Republican Bill Hagerty (right) turned up last week at the Eads home of Brent Taylor to address local Republicans.

Meanwhile (bottom pic), Democrat Marquita Bradshaw had a Monday night rally at her Lamar Avenue headquarters. Inside, Brandon Dahlberg (seated), Bradshaw’s deputy director of field operations, was conducting a training session for campaign volunteers.

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Politics Politics Feature

No Rubber Stamp: County Commission Flexes Against Election Commission, Harris

One bottom-line message emerged from Monday’s public meeting of the Shelby County Commission: The commission does not intend to function as a rubber stamp — not for the Election Commission and not for County Mayor Lee Harris.

In a much-anticipated vote on a request for a $5,815,405 purchase of voting machinery from the ES&S Company, the momentum of a tense, drama-filled debate tilted against the buy when county commission Chairman Eddie Jones pointedly reminded Election Commissioner Brent Taylor, who was making the pitch, that the county commission had put itself on record, not for ballot-marking machines of the sort marketed by ES&S but for hand-marked voting devices.

Jones was immediately backed up by Commissioner Tami Sawyer, and the commission’s vote, in short order, was 6 ayes, 5 nays, and 2 abstentions — leaving the measure one vote short of the necessary seven. During the debate, Commissioner Willie Brooks had reminded Taylor of his intriguing statement he had made to the Flyer last March: “The process is backwards,” Taylor said then. “The Election Commission should not have initiated the RFP and passed the decision about funding on to the county commission. What we [the Election Commission members] should have done is come to some broad general decision about the kind of machines we wanted and then let the county commission issue an RFP [request for proposal], make the choice, and then vote on the funding.”

Soon came another demonstration point, led by Edmund Ford, who wanted to establish commission authority over what he deemed a mayoral overreach: a $1 million expenditure to two local PR agencies to produce an ad promoting face masks as a prophylactic against COVID-19. The ad was commissioned by Harris in August under statutory emergency powers assumed to be his under the federal Cares Act. But Ford insisted that the statute did not give the county mayor authority without commission consent to contract for a sum larger than $50,000. Commissioner Van Turner, who had wanted to withdraw the resolution, said unhappily after a vote of 7 nays and 3 abstentions against it, that the matter had been a “political show,” a case of “wanting to stick it to the mayor.”

Early voting for the November 3rd election begins October 14th and runs through October 29th at the following 26 locations; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday.

• Abundant Grace Fellowship Church, 1574 E. Shelby Dr., Memphis, 38116

• Agricenter International, 7777 Walnut Grove Rd., Memphis, 38120

• Mississippi Blvd. Church Family Life Center, 70 N. Bellevue Blvd., Memphis, 38104

• New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, 7786 Poplar Pike, Germantown, 38138 

• Arlington Safe Room, 11842 Otto Ln.,  Arlington, 38002

• Anointed Temple of Praise, 3939 Riverdale Rd., Memphis, 38115

• Baker Community Center, 7942 Church Rd., Millington, 38053

• Berclair Church of Christ, 4536 Summer Ave., Memphis, 38122

• Briarwood Church, 1900 N. Germantown Pkwy., Memphis, 38016

• Collierville Church of Christ, 575 Shelton Dr., Collierville, 38017

• Compassion Church, 3505 S. Houston Levee Rd., Germantown, 38139

• Dave Wells Community Center, 915 Chelsea Ave., Memphis, 38107

• Glenview Community Center, 1141 S. Barksdale St., Memphis, 38114

• Greater Lewis Street Baptist Church, SE Corner of Poplar and E. Parkway N., Memphis, 38104

• Greater Middle Baptist Church, 4982 Knight Arnold Rd., Memphis, 38118

• Harmony Church, 6740 St. Elmo Rd.,  Bartlett, 38135

• Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, 1234 Pisgah Rd., Cordova, 38016

• Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 60 S. Parkway E., Memphis, 38106

• Raleigh United Methodist Church, 3295 Powers Rd., Memphis, 38128

• Riverside Missionary Baptist Church, 3560 S. Third St., Memphis, 38109

• Shelby County Election Commission, James Meredith Bldg., 157 Poplar Ave., Memphis, 38103

• Second Baptist Church, 4680 Walnut Grove Blvd., Memphis, 38117

• Solomon Temple MB Church, 1460 Winchester Rd., Memphis, 38116

• The Pursuit of God Church (Bellevue Frayser,) 3759 N. Watkins, Memphis, 38127

• White Station Church of Christ, 1106 Colonial Road, Memphis, 38117

• The Refuge Church, 9817 Huff N Puff Rd., Lakeland, 38002

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Election Commission Hears from Public, Will Delay Vote on New Voting Machines

The outlook for proposed new voting machines looks more muddled than ever after a virtual telemeeting of the Shelby County Election Commission (SCEC) Wednesday that was marred by the frequently indistinct audio transmission.

But numerous testimonies from participating citizens were noted, most of them being read into the record from written statements supplied to the SCEC. The great majority of comments were in favor of equipment allowing hand-marked paper ballots, with arguments ranging from cost savings to transparency to an alleged greater safety factor relative to touch-screen alternatives during the coronavirus pandemic.

The roster of citizens calling in or contributing statements ranged far and wide and included sitting public officials and a bevy of well-known activists.

Originally, the five election commissioners were scheduled to vote Wednesday on a recommendation by Election Administrator Linda Phillips of a specific machine vendor, but a vote was postponed to allow the meeting to substitute for a previously promised public comment meeting that had been sidetracked by the onset of the epidemic.

It is taken for granted that Administrator Phillips favors machine-marked voting instruments outfitted so as to allow for a paper trail, but no details on her preference were presented Wednesday.

At the end of the meeting, Commissioner Brent Taylor, one of the three Republican representatives on the five-member commission, moved to postpone any voting until whatever turns out to be the Phillips/staff recommendation can be presented to County Mayor Lee Harris, who can then certify it and call for a vote by the County Commission, which has the responsibility of funding the new machines.

That strategy, which was adopted by the Election Commission, would not directly alter Phillips’ choice, regarded as likely to be endorsed by the SCEC, but it would enable the results of the SCEC-ordered RFP (request for proposal) to be made public, and it would give the County Commission, which had previously voted in favor of hand-marked paper ballots, some means of expressing its collective mind — and possibly its will — on the matter.

As it happened, the County Commission, which was meeting in committee simultaneously with the Election Commission, had on its agenda yet another resolution endorsing hand-cast paper ballots but agreed to send the issue down to its Monday public meeting without a recommendation after hearing of the Election Commission’s action.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

More Voting Machines Controversy

Among the potential local casualties of the coronavirus, there is an unexpected one — the democratic process itself. At this week’s scheduled virtual meeting of the Shelby County Election Commission, the five Commissioners —three Republicans and two Democrats, in conformity with state regulations regarding majority party/minority party ratios — are primed to vote on Election Administrator Linda Phillips’ recommendations for new voting machines.

Phillips has declared that the members of the Election Commission must take a definitive up-or-down vote on the vendor, whom she will recommend from among those manufacturers who responded to an RFP (request for proposal) issued earlier by the SCEC. She has declared that the decision must come now so that the machines can be in use for August voting in the county.

For years, and for the last several months in particular, controversy has raged between activists who insist on voting machines that permit voter-marked ballots and advocates of machine-marked ballots. Phillips herself has expressed a preference for the latter type, equipped with paper-trail capability. By a narrow, party-line vote, the majority-Democratic Shelby County Commission, which must approve funding for the purchase, has expressed its own preference for hand-marked ballots.

Given the fact that Phillips’ choice of machine type is more or less predictable, and that the cost factor will be built into the selection of vendor, that will put the County Commissioners in an awkward position of having to rubber-stamp whatever choice the SCEC passes on to them.

“The process is backwards,” says GOP Election Commissioner Brent Taylor, who say,. “The Election Commission should not have initiated the RFP and passed the decision about funding on to the County Commission. What we [the Election Commission members] should have done is come to some broad general decision ab out the kind of machines we wanted and then let the County commission issue an RFP, make the choice, and then vote on the funding.”

In that regard he agrees with law professor and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy, an exponent of voter-marked paper ballots who points out further that what got skipped in the process was a promised public meeting of the Election Commission at which the public could offer input on the desirability of various types of voting machines.

Such a meeting was to have taken place in the last month or so, or in any case before a vote on the vendor was taken by the Election Commission. Or so it was announced at a February meeting of the SCEC. What intervened — and ended up scotching the meeting — was the coronavirus epidemic.

So there will be not opportunity for direct public input concerning the specifics of Phillips’ recommended purchase, a fact further complicated by the awkwardness of the virtual telemeeting process, which, in conformity with cautionary official rules against public assemblies, precludes an actual gathering with the attendant opportunity of easy back and forth interaction between Election Commissioners and the public.

GOP Election Commissioner Brent Taylor

And it seemingly assures that something of a contentious showdown will ensue at the subsequent County Commission meeting, itself convened as a telemeeting, at which funding for the ultimately selected voting machines will be on the agenda. Back when the Commission voted a preference for hand-marked paper ballots, County Commissioner Van Turner made a point of telling Phillips, who was in attendance, that the Commission had ways of exercising its disapproval of a choice.

That memorable and perhaps prophetic exchange went this way: “We can deny the funding,” said Turner. “We can sue you,” Phillips said in response.

The progress toward a new voting system has encountered other obstacles. One was a bombshell ruling by the County Commission legal staff in mid-February that state law — to wit, TCA 29-111 — forbade any purchase of new voting technology without a prior voter referendum. As County Commissioner Mick Wright noted at the time: “It’s disappointing that the state has this rule in place, that the voters would have to vote using the system we want to replace in order to have the system that we want to replace be replaced.”

The aforesaid Mulroy, however, spurred further research that eventually led the County Commission to create a capital source from existing contingency funds that could bypass the need for a referendum (and incidentally buttress the County Commission’s proprietary sense of the matter).

Another late snag, with partisan overtones, developed from a letter sent to the three GOP Election Commissioners from state Senator Byron Kesey and other Republican legislators calling for the new voting machines to involve machine-marked ballots.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Touliatos Announces for Shelby County Mayor

JB

Joy Touliatos announces for County Mayor as prominent backers John Bobango and Brent Taylor look on.

As of Thursday, there’s a race on for the Republican nomination for Shelby County Mayor. With conspicuous backing from some GOP luminaries of the past and present, two-term Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos, stressing the issues of public safety, taxes, and education,  announced for Mayor at a press conference at Waterford Plaza.

Among the family and well-wishers looking on were former Memphis City councilman and Shelby County Commissioner Brent Taylor and former Councilman John Bobango, both of whom will have major roles in the Touliatos campaign (as treasurer and co-chair, respectively), her political consultant Steven Reid, and Shelby County Clerk Wayne Washburn.

In her announcement statement, Touliatos had this to say about her major  campaign priorities: “First and foremost crime and public safety will be the most important priority of my administration. Second, we need to lower property taxes by making Shelby County Government smaller and more efficient. Third, we must attract new business and create new jobs. And that requires an education system that prepares our kids for college but also recognizes the need to prepare young adults for the workforce. “

Acknowledging the head start, campaign-wise, of Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, who announced for mayor more than a year ago and maintains a high public profile, Touliatos expressed confidence in her ability to bridge the name-recognition gap.

It has long been assumed that County Trustee David Lenoir will also be a candidate for County Mayor, though Lenoir has not yet announced and is rumored also to be looking at the state Senate seat currently held by Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, who has been nominated for a federal judgeship by President Trump.

It is probably not coincidental that, during the course of budget negotiations on the County Commission this year, Roland found occasion to fault the spending priorities of both the Trustee’s office and the Juvenile Court Clerk’s office.

In a three-way contest with Roland and Lenoir, both high-powered political figures with presumed support in influential Republican Party circles, Touliatos, who can make claims of her own on GOP loyalists, would conceivably have an advantage with female Republican voters.

Meanwhile, as the blanks are being filled in on the Republican side, the picture among potential Democratic aspirants is more opaque, Former County Commissioner and erstwhile political broker Sidney Chism has advertised his likely candidacy, and outgoing Commission chairman Melvin Burgess has also expressed an interest in running.

Two other possible Democratic candidates, University of Memphis law professor and former County Commissioner Steve Mulroy and state Senator Lee Harris, are apparently both deliberating on an entry into th e mayoral race. Whichever one makes the plunge can count on the support of the other.

And there could be a Democratic wild card — former City Councilman and current Chamber of Commerce vice president Shea Flinn, whose name was prominent among those of candidates being asked about in a recently run telephone robo-poll.

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Brent Taylor Donates Papers to Library for “Future Generations”

Outgoing City Council member Brent Taylor will donate documents he’s accumulated while serving on the council over the past 12 years to the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.

Taylor retires from the council at the end of his term on January 1st. Elected at 27 years old in 1995, Taylor was the youngest member ever elected to the Memphis City Council.

Taylor’s papers will be stored on the library’s fourth floor, along with document collections from Mayor E.H. Crump, school board member Maxine Smith, and state representative A.W. Willis.

“It is my hope that future generations of library visitors will view my documents and benefit from inspecting the body of work that I contributed to and compiled while serving on the legislative body,” said Taylor.

Dang. We were kind of hoping for a Brent Taylor Presidential Library kind of thing. Oh well.

In other news, retiring councilman Edmund Ford announced that he is leaving his extensive watch and automobile collection to the federal government.