Tag: C.J. Davis

Year That Was: Cannabis, Schools, and MPD

Post author By Flyer Staff
Post date December 25, 2024

JANUARY

• A state report found “out of control” inmates, drug overdoses, staff shortages, and more in Tennessee state prisons, especially at Tiptonville’s Northwest Correctional Facility.

• Cannabis industry leaders began working against new state rules that would remove smokeable products from their shelves and damage the industry.

• Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis kept her job but on an interim basis.

• SmokeSlam BBQ Festival was introduced.

• We got to the bottom of the “Dicc Dash” car that had been seen all over Memphis.

• Winter Storm Heather left five dead in Shelby County, pushed a record-breaking demand for electricity, and put all residents under a boil-water advisory.

FEBRUARY

• Artis Whitehead was exonerated 21 years after he was convicted of a 2002 robbery at B.B. King’s Blues Club.

• Governor Bill Lee pushed for more school vouchers and big business tax cuts in his State of the State address.

• The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board picked Marie Feagins as its new superintendent.

• Data showed that Black residents got four times as many traffic tickets than whites.

• A bill was filed to mandate gun safety training for every Tennessee school student.

MARCH

• American Queen Voyages closed.

• Eighteen anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced from GOP lawmakers in the state legislature.

• State House members voted to stop the Memphis City Council from a proposed ban on pretextual traffic stops, which came in the wake of the beating death of Tyre Nichols by MPD officers.

• The Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) gave an early look at new trails on land ceded to the park by the Memphis Zoo.

• Protestors cut short Kyle Rittenhouse’s appearance at University of Memphis.

• The Satanic Temple sued the Shelby County Board of Education over discriminatory practices on club meetings.

• A GOP House member wanted to ban lab-grown meat.

APRIL

• State GOP lawmakers wanted users to submit their ID before watching porn online.

• Bartlett’s American Paper Optics produced nearly 3 billion pairs of paper glasses for the solar eclipse.

• A shoot-out left MPD Officer Joseph McKinney and one suspect dead. McKinney was killed by friendly fire.

• State leaders introduced a $787.5 million project to replace the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.

• State GOP lawmakers stopped Memphis leaders from studying Black reparations.

MAY

• The school voucher bill died.

• A Buc-ee’s was promised for Fayette County.

• Lee signed a bill that granted anti-LGBTQ parents the right to adopt LGBTQ children.

• The Biden administration paused a ban on menthol cigarettes.

• We caught up with Renee Parker Sekander, the city’s first LGBTQ liaison.

• Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti sued the federal government over rules on pronoun respect in the workplace.

• The zoo announced a 20-year, $250-million campus plan.

• Memphis Shelby County-Schools ruled against teachers carrying guns, despite a new state law allowing it.

• A mysterious investment firm claimed it owned Graceland and would auction it off.

JUNE

• Mr. Lincoln’s Costume Shoppe closed.

• Memphis ranked as most dangerous city for pedestrian deaths.

• Renting a home in Memphis became more affordable than buying one.

• Elon Musk announced Memphis would be the new home for his supercomputer, Grok.

• New census data said nearly half of Tennesseans could not afford the basic cost of living in their counties.

• Tina Sullivan announced she would step down from the OPC.

• The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) asked the city council for $30.5 million after revealing a $60 million deficit.

• A federal judge blocked some protections of transgender people in Tennessee allowed by new Title IX rules.

JULY

• Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi said more than 10,000 people had left Tennessee for an abortion in the two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

• The U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

• The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s new Memphis Art Museum project was allowed to move ahead after a judge denied a challenge from Friends for Our Riverfront.

• City council members asked for more transparency from MATA after the announcement of its big budget deficit.

• New state laws went into effect including a death sentence for child rapists, one against “abortion trafficking,” a declaration of the Bible as a state book, one against “chemtrails,” and another for singers’ protection from AI.

• A court denied former state Senator Brian Kelsey’s (R-Germantown) request to rescind his guilty plea for campaign finance violations.

• The former leader of Shelby County’s Covid vaccine rollout lost a bid to declare she was wrongly blamed for allowing hundreds of doses to expire.

• A court ruled transgender Tennesseans cannot change the gender marker on their birth certificates.

• Memphis International Airport was green-lit for a $653 million modernization of its main terminal.

• The school board settled with the Satan Club for $15,000 and a promise to end its discriminatory practices.

• A court ruling allowed a ban on drag shows in public places.

• Tennessee tourism hit a record spend of more than $30 billion in 2023.

AUGUST

• Environmental groups asked Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) to deny an electricity deal for xAI’s supercomputer.

• The Links at Audubon Park opened.

• Memphis cases of HIV and syphilis spiked 100 percent over the past five years.

• Leaders warned of a tax surge coming after property reappraisals next year.

• Black Lodge closed.

• Serial scammer Lisa Jeanine Findley was arrested in Missouri for her attempt to steal Graceland from the Presley family.

• MATA suspended trolley service.

• Kaci Murley was named OPC’s new executive director.

• The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) raised electricity rates by 5.25 percent.

SEPTEMBER

• Carol Coletta stepped down as CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership.

• A state land deal could protect the Memphis Sand Aquifer.

• Cannabis industry leaders sued the state over new rules that would ban smokeable products.

• Tennessee ranked near the top for arresting people for cannabis.

• For the third year in a row, water levels were down in the Mississippi River after Midwest droughts.

• AG Skrmetti proposed warning labels for social media.

• Social media threats made for a turbulent week at local schools with disruptions and some lockdowns.

OCTOBER

• Lawmakers want to replace the now-fallen statue of racist newspaper editor Edward Carmack at the State Capitol Building with David Crockett.

• A court decision mandated schools offer “reasonable accommodation” for transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice.

• Three MPD officers were convicted in the beating death of Nichols.

• Memphis Mayor Paul Young replaced every member of MATA’s board.

• State Democrats pressed for financial reforms to address the state’s “crumbling transportation infrastructure.”

• Judges blocked discipline for doctors who provide emergency abortions.

NOVEMBER

• Atomic Rose closed.

• A new school voucher bill was filed.

• The Memphis-area crime rate fell.

• Tuition at state schools looked likely to rise again next year.

• TVA approved xAI’s request for power.

• Teachers scoffed at Lee’s $2,000 bonus as a “bribe” to go along with school vouchers.

• 901 FC left Memphis for Santa Barbara.

• University of Tennessee Health Science Center began a plan to demolish the “eyesore” former hotel building on Madison.

• Gun Owners of America sued the city of Memphis to block the gun referenda approved by voters from ever becoming law.

• A new $13 million plan will help redesign the intersection of Lamar, Kimball, and Pendleton.

• Crime fell Downtown in 2024 compared to 2023.

• Cannabis industry leaders filed another suit against the smokeables ban after lawmakers left it in the final rules.

DECEMBER

• Buds and Brews, a restaurant featuring cannabis products, opened on Broad.

• Blended sentence laws could usher hundreds of kids into the adult criminal justice system.

• State revenue projections flagged on big business tax breaks.

• A blistering report from the U.S. Department of Justice found that MPD used excessive force, discriminated against Black people, and used “harsh tactics” against children.

• Houston’s abruptly closed.

• The SCOTUS heard Skrmetti’s case against gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

• The former Velsicol facility in North Memphis could enter into a state-run environmental response trust.

• Feagins narrowly survived the board’s ouster move but the situation will be reviewed in 2025.

Tags 2024, C.J. Davis, cannabis, dicc dash, LGBTQ, marie feagins, Memphis, news, school vouchers

Politics Politics Feature

The Crime Beat, Then and Now

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date May 15, 2024

Emcee Otis Sanford, Buddy Chapman, and David Wayne Brown at Brooks book-reading event (Photo: Jackson Baker)

As the Greater Memphis community continues to try to sort out whether it is in the grip of a crime wave or whether, as a recent Crime Commission report indicates, crime statistics are actually on the wane, the subject continues to dominate local attention.

One matter that has remained more or less on the back burner is that of Mayor Paul Young’s proposed director of public safety, a pending position (sometimes referred to in administrative ranks, somewhat less reassuringly, as “public safety advisor”).

Young suggested the new office back in January after the city council declined to endorse his proffered reappointment of C.J. Davis as police chief, and the new mayor, in response, fell back on the expedient of keeping Davis on as interim chief.

From the beginning, it was uncertain whether the proposed directorship was to be a fundamentally new concept or a retooling of a dormant position. Compounding the confusion was the fact that, at some hard-to-pinpoint period in the administration of former Mayor Jim Strickland, the existing title of police director had somehow morphed back into that of police chief, a development making Davis’ currently impermanent position seem all the more tenuous.

But now the suggestion comes from administration sources that the task of filling the new position — however it is to be titled and whatever its scope — is in the “latter” stages and may be just around the corner, with a narrowing down of prospects by mid-June and a likely appointment by July 1st, in time for the new fiscal year.

Meanwhile, coincidentally and maybe usefully, the individual most identified in Memphis history with the erstwhile rank of police director, E. Winslow “Buddy” Chapman, has published his memoir, under the title of Call Me Director: Memoir of a Police Reformer.

Chapman’s service at the helm of city law enforcement came during the administration of former Mayor Wyeth Chandler (1972-1982), and it coincided with conditions that were not unlike those of our present moment.

Mayor Young’s apparent intention with his new directorship is to establish a wide-ranging civilian control over police authority, and that was the mission also of Chapman, who had to fight a protracted battle with the good-old-boy regime of then-Police Chief Bill Crumby to achieve, finally, a workable dominance over local law-enforcement policy.

As Chapman writes in his book, and as he related to an appreciative audience in a book-signing and reading at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art on Monday night, the issues he had to deal with were very like our own these days.

They included instances of police brutality, racism in the MPD ranks, severe financial shortages and under-staffing, and the imperatives of federal supervision. He also had to face down and survive simultaneous police and fire strikes in the crisis year of 1978.

What he strove to impose as an alternative to established practices was a form of what we would call today community policing. And, as he ended his tenure and resumed civilian status, he founded the local CrimeStoppers organization, which he ran as director until recently when he turned the reins over to David Wayne Brown, the co-author and collaborator of his memoir.

The book grapples with the conundrum of finding the right balance between carrot and stick in law enforcement — same as Mayor Young and his soon-to-be public safety director will shortly face — and is well worth their reading and ours.

Tags C.J. Davis, E. Winslow "Buddy" Chapman, Mayor Paul Young, Memphis Police Department, Shelby County Crime Commission

Cover Feature News

On the Horizon

Post author By Flyer Staff
Post date December 27, 2023

New year 2024 concept, beginning of success. Text 2024 written on asphalt road and male runner preparing for the new year. Concept of challenge or career path and change.

What do you mean it’s almost January? If you’re anything like us, the encroaching new year has really seemed to have come out of left field. The churning news cycle means that we’ve had our heads down covering the arts, a mayoral race, the Tennessee legislature, and everything in between. But despite a packed 2023, there are plenty more stories on the horizon. With 2024 just around the corner, our writers take a look at what we can expect in Memphis news next year.

Breaking News

Paul Young

Paul Young taking the mayor’s seat will be the Memphis news story to watch in 2024.

Memphis hasn’t had a new mayor for eight years; hasn’t done things differently for eight years — for good or bad. So, Memphians can expect new ideas, fresh faces, and new approaches to the city’s same-old problems (but maybe some new opportunities, too).

Paul Young (Photo: Paul Young for Memphis)

Some could argue too much emphasis is put on the mayor’s office, much like the president’s office. But that office is where the city’s business is done daily, from police and fire to trash collection and paving. Yes, these ideas are later shaped by the Memphis City Council and, yes, the mayor is expected to carry out rules formed entirely by the council. But all of that is executed (executive branch, get it?) by the mayor and his team.

Young has already named a few key staffers. Tannera Gibson will be his city attorney and Penelope Huston will be head of communications, according to The Daily Memphian. Young told the Memphian, too, that he’ll keep the controversial Cerelyn Davis as chief of the Memphis Police Department.

Memphis in May

This next year could be make or break for the Memphis in May International Festival (MIM).

It ended 2023 with a whimper. The nonprofit organization posted a record loss of $3.4 million and record-low attendance for Beale Street Music Festival. Also, its longtime leader Jim Holt announced his retirement.

MIM leaders put Music Fest on hiatus for 2024. It also moved the Championship Barbecue Cooking Competition to Liberty Park.

Meanwhile Forward Momentum and the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) announced a new three-day music festival at Tom Lee Park (called River Beat) and a new barbecue contest, both in May.

It’s unknown if these new events could supplant MIM. Speculation, though, has the future of the nonprofit in question. It’ll be worth watching.

Tennessee General Assembly

State lawmakers are hard to predict.

Last year, for example, one GOP member spent countless hours persuading his colleagues to add firing squads to the list of options for the state’s death row inmates. Another wanted to add “hanging by a tree” to that list.

However, one can easily predict Republicans will seek to make life harder for the LGBTQ community. One bill paused last year, for example, would allow county clerks to deny marriage rites to anyone they choose (wink, wink).

The little-known but hard-working Tennessee Medical Marijuana Commission may approach lawmakers next year with a plan to get a state system off the ground. Dead medical cannabis bills have become too many to count over the years. But the hope is that the group’s expertise after years of study may help tip the scales.

Easy bets are also on bills that mention “abortion” or “trans.” — Toby Sells

Politics

Oddly enough, the city’s incoming chief executive, Paul Young, remains something of an unknown despite his extensive exposure (and his consistently adept campaigning) during the long and trying mayoral race that concluded in October. Nor will the aggressive ballyhoo of his preliminary activities — parade, concert, and inaugural ball, no less! — have shed much light on his intentions in office, though his inaugural address will be highly anticipated in that regard.

Major changes may be in the offing, though so far the shape of them is not obvious. Young’s announced reappointment of police director C.J. Davis at year’s end may be an indication that, in the personnel sense, anyhow, there may well be a continuum of sorts with the administration of outgoing Mayor Strickland.

C.J. Davis (Photo: Memphis Police Department)

The newly elected council, meanwhile, is expected to be measurably more progressive-minded on various issues as a result of the election than was its predecessor.

A city task force already launched — GVIP (Group Violence Intervention Program), which involves an active interchange of sorts between governmental players and gang members (“intervenors,” as they are designated) in an effort to curb violence on the streets. It will be picking up steam as the year begins.

And follow-up readings will still be required in 2024 on an initiative sponsored by outgoing Councilman Martavius Jones and passed by the council conferring lifelong healthcare benefits on council members elected since 2015, upon their having completed two terms.

(News of that move prompted an astounded Facebook post from former Councilman Shea Flinn, who served back when first responders’ benefits had to be cut and a controversial pension for city employees with 12 years’ or more service was rescinded. Said Flinn: “Do I have this correct? Because I don’t want to be gassing up a flamethrower for nothing!”)

The Shelby County Commission, having worked in tandem with Mayor Lee Harris in the past year to secure serious funding for a new Regional One Health hospital, continues to be ambitious, hoping to acquire subpoena power from the state for the county’s recently created Civilian Law Enforcement Review Committee and to proceed with the construction of a long-contemplated Mental Health, Safety, and Justice Center.

The commission is also seeking guidance from the DA’s office on the long-festering matter of removing County Clerk Wanda Halbert from office.

At the state level, almost all attention during the early legislative session will be fixed on Republican Governor Bill Lee’s decision to push for statewide application of the school-voucher program that barely squeaked through the General Assembly in 2019 as a “pilot” program for Shelby and Davidson counties. (Hamilton County was later added.) The program was finally allowed by the state Supreme Court after being nixed at lower levels on constitutional grounds. Democrats are universally opposed to its expansion, as, for the record, are the school boards in Shelby County’s seven school districts. Prospects for passage may depend on how many GOP legislators (a seriously divided group in 2019) are inclined this time to let the governor have his way.

Also on tap will be a series of bills aimed at stiffening crime/control procedures, some of which may also try to roll back recent changes in Shelby County’s bail/bond practices.

Oh, and there will be both a presidential primary vote and an election for General Sessions Court clerk in March. — Jackson Baker

Music

No sooner does yuletide appear than it’s gone again in a wink, as we turn to face a new notch on life’s yardstick. Yet even before 2024 dawns, Memphis has great music brewing on this year’s penultimate day, December 30th, from the solo seasoned jug band repertoire of David Evans (Lamplighter Lounge) to the revved-up R&B-surf-crime jazz-rock of Impala (Bar DKDC) to Louder Than Bombs’ take on The Smiths (B-Side).

Ironically, DJ Devin Steele’s Kickback show at the Hi-Tone is keeping live music on the menu with a six-piece band alongside the wheels of Steele. Down on Beale Street, bass giant Leroy “Flic” Hodges and band will be at B.B. King’s, and the Blues City Café will feature solid blues from Earl “The Pearl” Banks and Blind Mississippi Morris.

While New Year’s Eve seems particularly DJ-heavy this December 31st, there are still some places to ring in the new year with a live band. Perhaps the most remarkable will be when three of the city’s most moving women in music — Susan Marshall, Cyrena Wages, and Marcella Simien ringing in midnight — converge at the freshly re-energized Mollie Fontaine Lounge. A more up-close, swinging time will be found at the Beauty Shop’s meal extravaganza set to the music of Joyce Cobb. Orion Hill’s Mardi Gras Masquerade will feature Cooper Union (with Brennan Villines and Alexis Grace), and Blind Mississippi Morris will hold court again at Blues City as a gigantic disco ball rises up a 50-foot tower outside on Beale. For that Midtown live vibe, Lafayette’s Music Room’s elaborate festivities will feature the band Aquanet.

For many Memphians, the new year will begin with a look backward as a smorgasbord of bands — from Nancy Apple to Michael Graber to Oakwalker and beyond — gather at B-Side to honor the late Townes van Zandt on January 1st. The revival of the 1970 musical Company, opening at the Orpheum the next day, also honors an earlier era’s muse, but its five Tony Awards suggest that even today it “strikes like a lightning bolt” (Variety). And the historical appreciations continue: On January 14th, Crosstown Arts’ MLK Freedom Celebration will feature the Mahogany Chamber Music Series, curated by Dr. Artina McCain and spotlighting Black and other underrepresented composers and performers; and on January 20th GPAC will host jazz trumpeter, vocalist, and composer Jumaane Smith’s Louis! Louis! Louis!, blending his own compositions with those of Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, and Louis Jordan — three giants of the last century.

Who knows, maybe reflecting on all this past greatness will teach 2024 a thing or two? — Alex Greene

Coming Attractions in 2024

2023’s dual WGA and SAG strikes disrupted production, so 2024 should be an unpredictable year at the multiplex. Studios are currently engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken with the release calendar, so don’t take any of these dates as gospel. In January, an all-star apostle team led by LaKeith Stanfield and David Oyelowo tries to horn in on the messiah game in The Book of Clarence.

February has the endlessly promoted spy caper Argylle, a Charlie Kaufman-penned animated film Orion and the Dark, the intriguing-looking Lisa Frankenstein, and Bob Marley: One Love left over from 2023, as well as Ethan Coen’s lesbian road comedy Drive-Away Dolls.

March is stacked with Denis Villeneuve’s return to Arrakis, Dune: Part Two; Jack Black voicing Kung Fu Panda 4; Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire; and Focus Features’ satire The American Society of Magical Negroes.

Monsters will collide in *Godzilla x Kong*.

April starts with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Alex Garland’s social sci-fi epic Civil War.

May features Ryan Gosling as The Fall Guy and Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black. On April 24th, we have a three-flick pile-up with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Garfield Movie (animated, thank God), and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. ALL HAIL IMPERATOR FURIOSA!

Anya Taylor-Joy in *Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga*

June brings us Inside Out 2, which adds Maya Hawke as Anxiety to the Pixar classic’s cast of emotions. There’s another Bad Boys film on the schedule that nobody has bothered to title yet. Meanwhile, Kevin Costner goes too hard with punctuation with Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter One. (Chapter Two drops in August.)

In July, there’s the horror of Despicable Me 4 and Twisters, a sequel to the ’90s tornado thriller that lacked the guts to call itself Twister$. Ryan Reynolds returns as the Merc with a Mouth in Deadpool 3, the first Marvel offering of the year.

In August, Eli Roth adapts the hit game Borderlands, which, if you think about it, could actually work. James McAvoy stars in the Blumhouse screamer Speak No Evil. Don’t Breathe director Fede Álvarez directs Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus.

September is looking spare, but Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, and Winona Ryder are getting the band back together for Beetlejuice 2, so that could be fun.

October looks a tad more promising with Joker: Folie à Deux, a psychosexual (emphasis on the “psycho”) thriller with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. There’s also the cheerful Smile 2, evil clown porn Terrifier 3, and a Blumhouse production of Wolf Man.

November sees a remake of The Amateur, Barry Levinson’s mob thriller Alto Knights, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 with Denzel Washington, and Wicked: Part One, led by Tony Award-winner Cynthia Erivo.

Then, the year goes out strong with Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim, an anime Tolkien adaptation from Kenji Kamiyama.

This time next year, we’ll be gushing over Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion King, Robert Eggers’ boundary-pushing Nosferatu remake, and an ultra-secret Jordan Peele joint. — Chris McCoy

Memphis Sports

Here’s a one-item wish list for Memphis sports in 2024: Ja Morant videos that are exclusively basketball highlights. The city’s preeminent athlete stole headlines this year with off-the-court drama that ultimately cost him the first 25 games of the Grizzlies’ 2023-24 season. Morant’s absence was more than the roster could take, particularly with center Steven Adams sidelined for the season with a knee injury. More than 10 games under .500 in mid-December, the Grizzlies must hope the star’s return can simply get them back to break-even basketball. If that happens — and with the rim-rattling displays that have made Ja a superstar — the new year will have brought new life to the Bluff City’s flagship sports franchise.

And how about a first regular-season American Athletic Conference championship for Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers? The AAC is a watered-down version of the league we knew a year ago (no more Houston, no more Cincinnati), with Florida Atlantic now the Tigers’ primary obstacle for a league crown. A controversial loss to FAU in the opening round of the NCAA tournament last March created an instant rivalry, one that will take the floor at FedExForum on February 25th. David Jones is an early candidate for AAC Player of the Year and sidekick Jahvon Quinerly gives Hardaway the best collection of new-blood talent since “transfer portal” became a thing.

With Seth Henigan returning to quarterback the Tigers for a fourth season, Memphis football should also compete for an AAC title and an 11th consecutive bowl campaign. AutoZone Park will hum with Redbirds baseball and 901 FC soccer throughout the warm-weather months, and the PGA Tour will make Memphis home when the FedEx St. Jude Championship tees off on August 15th.

But let’s hope 2024, somehow, becomes the Year of Ja in this town. The heart of Memphis sports echoes the sound of a basketball dribble. And one player speeds that heartbeat like no other. — Frank Murtaugh

Oscar Jimenez will suit up for 901 FC next season. (Photo: Courtesy USL/Louisville City FC)

Meanwhile, 901 FC can look forward to welcoming some unfamiliar opponents to the confines of AutoZone Park next season. A restructured United Soccer League means Memphis will bid adieu to the Eastern Conference and kick off its 2024 season as part of the Western Conference. That means that 22 of 901 FC’s 34-match schedule will be against Western Conference opponents, starting with a March 9th home season opener against Las Vegas Lights FC. There’s a new COO in Jay Mims, while we can expect plenty of new players to suit up before Stephen Glass leads the team out for its first game.

One thing that soccer fans will not be looking forward to, however, is a new stadium, with plans for a soccer-specific Liberty Park arena scuppered after $350 million in state dollars earmarked for sporting renovations did not include any provisions for 901 FC. — Samuel X. Cicci

Tags 2024, 901 FC, C.J. Davis, film, Grizzlies, Ja Morant, Memphis, Memphis In May, Memphis Music, Memphis Tigers, Paul Young, Politics, Redbirds, Sports, Tennessee General Assembly

Politics Politics Feature

Ladies First

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date November 22, 2023

The victories in last week’s city council runoff elections of three women over their male opponents further dramatizes an ever-increasing trend toward female dominance in the elective positions of both city and county governments.

To recap the results:

In District 2 (East Memphis), Jerri Green defeated Scott McCormick by a total of 1,752 votes to McCormick’s 1,696. In District 3 (Whitehaven), Pearl Walker won out over Rev. James Kirkwood with 781 votes to Kirkwood’s 767. And, in District 7, incumbent
Michalyn Easter-Thomas defeated Jimmy Hassan by 966 votes to 504.

Besides reflecting the trend, the razor-thin victory margins of Green and Walker suggest a slight — but potentially crucial — prevalence of progressivism over conservatism in the council’s showdown votes to come.

Green is a Democrat who has been serving as chief policy advisor to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, while McCormick had significant support among Republican activists; Walker, a community organizer, is an avowed progressive whose opponent was a former ranking MPD officer.

Arguably, the wins of Green and Walker somewhat offset the earlier general election victory of conservative former Councilman Philip Spinosa over progressive Meggan Wurzburg Kiel in District 5 (Midtown/East Memphis). That race had figured as a bona fide ideological showdown of sorts.

Whatever the ultimate political bent of the newly elected council, it will have a female majority of seven women and six men. That will put it in alignment of sorts with the Shelby County Commission, which has the same ratio, with a woman, Miska Clay Bibbs, serving currently as chair. And there is no doubting that the other women on the commission, activists all, are making their influence felt as well.

• Perhaps the most important official position held by a woman at the moment is that of police director, and one of the most frequently vented questions during the recent mayoral contest concerned whether C.J. Davis, who holds the job, could expect to be reappointed by the new mayor.

During the campaign, the mayoral contenders reflected a variety of opinions on the matter, most of them leaning to noncommittal statements of one kind or another.

The victor, Mayor-elect Paul Young, held to a position that he would commit himself neither to hires nor fires of major personnel.

Be that the case or not, Davis, who addressed a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Memphis last week, sounded confident in laying out an agenda for the new year — one that among other things, envisions a significant increase in the MPD’s hands-on corps of sergeants — that she would actually be the person to execute it.

Asked after her remarks about the likelihood of her continuing in office, Davis went the neither-confirm-nor-deny route but made a point of saying that she had enjoyed good relations with Young in their frequent contacts over the years.

• Davis’ speech to the Rotarians followed one to the same group last month by Greater Memphis Chamber president/CEO Ted Townsend, who made a point of downplaying the effect of recent crime outbreaks on the city’s economic development picture.

On a recent recruitment tour, looking for new business, Townsend said, “I didn’t get one question about crime. Not one. I was bracing for it. I prepared for it. I expected it.”

He acknowledged that one national headquarters company located here may have been influenced by “the C-word” and “were thinking about leaving, or wanting to go to Dallas. We fought hard. We set the value proposition, we said work with us, things will be improved. We have not given up on it. You don’t give up on it. … We should fight for Memphis and never give up.”

Tags C.J. Davis, Crime, Jerri Green, Memphis, Michalyn Easter-Thomas, Pearl Walker, Politics, Ted Townsend

Politics Politics Beat Blog

2023 Sidney Chism Picnic

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date June 10, 2023

Host Sidney Chism, here with Police Director C.J. Davis, presided at his annual political picnic on Saturday. (Photos: Jackson Baker)

Saturday saw the latest installation of longtime political figure Sidney Chism’s annual picnic, a fixture on the election landscape for a generation. The event, held at park grounds off Horn Lake Road, draws candidates, observers, political junkies, and kids of all ages. It’s a can’t-miss.

Here are some of the scenes from this year’s picnic, captured before the rains came in early afternoon. Several late arrivals, including a majority of the candidates running for mayor, came, were seen, and hoped to conquer, but are not pictured.