Tag: Edmund Ford Jr.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Vote No on All Three November Election Referenda

We have said all this before, but if there is one maxim regarding the process of communication worth trusting, it is that nothing benefits a message like repetition. This is as valid about falsehoods as it is about truths. Witness only the role of rote in the command psychology of ruling entities, whether fictional, as in George Orwell’s classic dystopian epic, 1984, or in reality, as in “Make America Great Again.”

It helps to repeat positive messages, too, and, while the Flyer has, from its beginning, held to a policy of non-endorsement of candidates at election time, we have made no secret of our attitude toward public policies that we deem of crucial importance to our readership.

Ed Ford

We have, for example, deplored the apparently organized reluctance of three Memphis City Council members, elected to other positions in Shelby County government on August 2nd, to resign their council seats so as to permit their constituents, via a call for special election, to have a direct voice in their replacement. The train has left the station on that one — thanks to inaction from the newly installed Probate Court clerk Bill Morrison, Juvenile Court clerk Janis Fullilove, and Shelby County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. — leaving it to the other 10 members of the council, not the electorate, to choose their successors.

Actually, in one case there may be a silver lining of sorts. The chairman of the Shelby County Commission, Van Turner, has hit upon the expedient of asking Commissioner/Councilman Ford to serve as a kind of liaison between the two bodies for the next several weeks, and Ford, whose abilities we do not doubt, has apparently tackled the obligation with some industry and in good faith, helping to arrange agreed-upon solutions to issues of joint city/county jurisdiction. In any case, the matter is beyond our control.

We can be somewhat more pro-active about three issues on the November 6th ballot, advising that, if enacted, they would fill a void somewhere between the mischievous and the venal. We refer to three referenda before city voters — one being a re-vote on the process called Ranked Choice Voting (alternately: Instant Runoff Voting); another eliminating runoff voting altogether; and a third, establishing term limits for the council and mayor at three four-year terms, in lieu of the current two-term limit.

All three, we think, either fail to advance the public interest, refute the public will, or are designed to be incumbent-friendly in a way that discourages free choice by the electorate. Or all of the above. The people have already voted, and by resounding margins, to establish Ranked Choice Voting (which eliminates the need for runoffs but allows for a rational and fair way to designate election winners in such cases), and the County Election Administrator has already set up the machinery for RCV in the 2019 city election. And a previous referendum limiting council members to two terms passed handily; the proposed referendum would actually expand council terms.

A “no” vote on all three referenda is the only way to affirm the freely offered judgment of the electorate, already rendered.

Categories
News News Blog

Transportation Fee Could Yield $60M a Year


A new transportation utility fee could generate up to $60 million a year, an expert told Memphis City Council members Tuesday.

Council member Edmund Ford Jr. introduced the idea of such a fee during a meeting two weeks ago. The fees could generate revenue to be used to fund the underfunded Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) and road infrastructure projects, Ford said.


The transportation fee would be tacked on to utility bills and would be based on the number of trips on Memphis roads generated by individual properties. The rate would differ for commercial and residential properties.

When council members returned to the discussion Tuesday, they heard from Wayne Gaskin, a former city of Memphis engineer. He said there are many different ways to structure the rates, and said different options could produce revenues ranging from $30 to $60 million a year.

[pullquote-1] Based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ national standards, Gaskin said each month a large church could generate up to $6,300 in additional revenue, a sit-down restaurant up to $500, and a fast food restaurant anywhere from $125 to $1,000.

The council could opt to base the rates on types of commercial properties, as well as allow some residents to only pay a portion of the fee based on factors like income.

“There will be a lot of give and take when it comes to setting the rates,” Gaskin said. “I can’t emphasize that enough.”

Gaskin said the council, with community input, will have to hash out the specific details and amounts of the fees implemented in Memphis.

“It has to be something that is developed jointly,” he said.

Councilman Worth Morgan said he still has some “major questions” about the fee, such as how the funds will be dispersed. 

Ford said the council will continue the conversation at its meeting in two weeks.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Memphis City Council Hijinks?

The Memphis City Council is under attack from various disenchanted citizens regarding several alleged pro-incumbent referenda it voted onto the November ballot — one that would counter the council’s current two-term limit for members, another that would negate the Shelby County Election Commission’s plans for ranked choice voting (RCV) in the 2019 city election, and another that would abolish all runoff elections. Now new scrutiny is arising on the question of how and when three council members might be replaced should they win other elected positions they are seeking in the August county general election.

Janis Fullilove

The three members are Janis Fullilove, Democratic nominee for Juvenile Court clerk; Bill Morrison, Democratic nominee for Probate Court clerk; and Edmund Ford, Democratic candidate for the Shelby County Commission’s District 9 position. All are generally favored to win, and all have been urged by a citizens’ group to resign their council positions immediately following the August outcome.

Members of the citizens’ group fear that the three council members, if victorious in their contests, might hold on to their council seats for an additional three months, as is apparently permitted by a literal interpretation of the city charter, thereby overlapping with their new county duties (and double-dipping financially).Most important from the protesters’ point of view, retention of the council seats for that long would stretch the calendar to the point that special elections could not be called for the forthcoming November ballot and would mandate the departing members’ replacement by an appointment process, in which case the replacements named would serve through the city election of 2019.

Edmund Ford Jr.

The challenging citizens fear that a current council majority will contrive to appoint new members of the same stripe, end-running other options that might surface in a special election.

So far, none of the three council members has committed to a course of action on a time for resignation. Berlin Boyd, the current council chair, and Allan Wade, the council’s attorney, insist that the critics have misread the charter and that special elections to replace departing council members can only take place in August — thereby nullifying the prospect of November elections for the three seats and making the protesters’ wishes moot.

The Rev. Earle Fisher and other citizens seeking a commitment for a timely withdrawal by the departing incumbents, should they win, cite charter language specifically authorizing replacement elections in either August or November.

Regardless of who’s right about charter requirements, the protesting citizens’ point is well taken: The appointment process has become wholly predictable, with a dominant council faction choosing replacements who, though they may be admirably skilled and bastions of integrity, have been suggested by well-placed supporters of the current majority and not subjected to any real public vetting via the election process.

The video archives of last week’s council meeting show that, after four speakers had made their case and had been basically blown off by Boyd, Wade apparently engaged the speakers in an exchange of taunts, somewhat off-mic. We think the protesters have a respectable case to make and should be listened to.

Categories
News News Blog

As Tennessee-Led Opioid Investigation Advances, City Could Sue Over Crisis

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

Tennessee District Attorney Herbert Slatery III announced Tuesday that the bipartisan coalition of Attorneys General nationwide participating in a multistate investigation into the national opioid epidemic is making headway. 

As the number of drug-related deaths rises around the country, it’s increasing in Tennessee as well. In 2016, Tennessee had the highest number of drug overdose deaths in the state’s recorded history: 1,631.

Now, 41 Attorneys General will use documents and information obtained from prescription opioid manufacturers and distributors to determine if there are any unlawful practices in the marketing, sale, and distribution of the drugs.

“The opioid crisis impacts all of us, and is a threat to families in every community in Tennessee and across the country,” Slatery said. “We will use all resources available to identify and hold accountable those parties responsible. There is too much at stake not to attack this problem from all sides.”

The coalition has already served subpoenas for documents from several pharmaceutical companies and their related entities, as well as three well-known opioid distributors.

The goal of the investigation is to determine what role the manufacturers and distributors might have in exacerbating the the current opioid crisis and determine a way to prevent it in the future.

Locally, Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford, Jr. told a council committee Tuesday that the opioid crisis is one that needs to be legally addressed in Shelby County. Ford says the city should look to pursue litigation against large pharmaceutical companies.

Suing the companies could offset some of the negative economic impacts of opioid-related incidents in the city.

Ford said he plans to present a joint resolution, between city and county, supporting litigation at the Oct. 3 council meeting.

Categories
News News Blog

Memphis City Council Approves Budget, Raises for City Employees

After two days and nearly 10 hours of debate in the chamber, the Memphis City Council passed a budget for the next fiscal year Tuesday morning.

When debate opened Tuesday morning, the budget stood at $656 million. The council added 2 percent raises for police officers and fire fighters and 1 percent raises for all other city employees. The raises added $3.1 million to the budget for a total of $656 million.

The raises were the first order of business Tuesday. They were proposed by council member Reid Hedgepeth during last week’s regular meeting. Though raises represent less than 1 percent of the overall budget, they consumed most of the debate on the entire $661 million budget.

Reid’s proposal gave raises of 2 percent to police and fire only. It was amended by a proposal from council member Edmund Ford Jr. to include a 1 percent raise to the rest of the city’s employees.

The money to pay for the raises will come from cutting some funded but unfilled positions in the Memphis Police Department.

The council approved the raises but completely circumvented the impasse process. That process, set up after labor struggles of 1978, give city employee unions a vote by three-member council committees if unions can’t get a deal worked out with the city’s mayor and administration.

Impasse committees approved several raises this year and rejected others. However, those decisions weren’t considered by the council Tuesday. On advice from the city council’s attorney Allan Wade, the group ignored the impasse decisions, allowing the budget vote to supersede them.

This drew the ire of many council members, including Harold Collins and Janis Fullilove.

“I’m not sure what we went through the impasse process when it means absolutely nothing, just to make some time during the day to say we’re doing something?” Fullilove asked. “We are making a joke of our political process. I never thought I’d say this in my life but I am so sorry to be on this council with many of you.”

Collins said the council could vote the impasse decision up or down but they should not circumvent the process.

“We are setting the wrong precedent by what we’re doing here today,” Collins said. “Hedgepeth offered what I considered a worthy alternative (to the impasse decisions). But it is not right. We have to do what the ordinance tells us and the law tells us first, then we have to proceed.”

Many proposals for raises were raised, defeated, and even turned down by labor unions in the chaotic budget season that began in April. In the end, it was the chaos that had many council members “baffled.”

“I am shocked today,” said council member Wanda Halbert. “I’m like some of you (in the audience), I’m baffled by all of this. … This budget seasons had been very different form the rest in the last seven years.”

Halbert then, called for the question, meaning she wished to stop all debate on the budget and take a final vote.

Council members Berlin Boyd, Alan Crone, Kemp Conrad, Ford, Halbert, Hedgepeth, Myron Lowery, Bill Morrison, and Jim Strickland voted for the budget.

Council members Bill Boyd, Joe Brown, Collins, and Fullilove voted against it. 

Categories
Opinion

The City Budget Explained in Ten Points, Sort Of

CREDIT: John Branston

conv_center.jpg

Talk to City Council members, go to meetings, read the handouts, put a pencil to it, and here’s what I think about the budget, with one more meeting scheduled for June 25th.

1. This is complicated stuff. No wonder the council met for seven hours Tuesday. And no wonder that last-minute decisions are the new normal, as they are in Congress. On the 4.6 pay increase for city employees, the council split 6-6, with one member (Lee Harris) absent. Every member is a potentially crucial seventh vote on every big issue.

2. The once-and-for-all fix is an illusion. Shea Flinn challenged his colleagues to come out for a cover-everything-with-no-layoffs tax rate of $3.91, an increase of 80 cents over the current city tax rate. “We can all go home,” he said. No takers, even with the Heat and Spurs in Game Six. Several years ago, former Mayor Willie Herenton came to the council with a long-range fix that would have raised the tax rate a lot less than 80 cents. The council declined. But even if it hadn’t we would probably be about where we are now.

3. Putting a pencil to the 80 cent non-starter (using the property tax calculator on the Shelby County Assessor’s website), if you own a house worth $100,000 it would cost you an additional $200 a year in city property taxes. A $200,000 house would be about $400, and so on. You have to add county taxes to that. The Commission is looking at a 9 percent increase. On the $100,000 house, that’s an additional $90, or $180 on a $200,000 house, and so on. Added together, the 80-center and the 9 percenter would be about $290 for the $100,000 house and $580 for the $200,000 house.

4. To put that another way, at $580 a year, we’re talking low-end season tickets for the Grizzlies or a new washing machine every year. More than a dollar a day. Less than full-service cable television or most cell phone charges. Not saying that is a lot or a little. Just comparing.

5. Some will say the house valuations I used are too rich. You can find sources that put the “median” home below $100,000 depending on whether that is “value” or “sales price” during a particular time frame and this may or may not include foreclosure sales. According to a Kiplinger survey, Memphis is one of the ten least expensive places to live in the U.S. Kiplinger uses “median home value” whatever that is, and pegs it at $99,000. I don’t think many if any elected officials live in houses worth less than $100,000, but I know several who live in houses worth a lot more than that.

6. On the 6-6 vote on the 4.6 percent raise, Council chairman Ed Ford voted against it, along with five white council members, as he told me he would. White councilman Bill Boyd joined five black colleagues in voting for it.

7. If property taxes are a big factor in where people live then why isn’t Lakeland, which has no city property taxes yet, growing faster than Collierville, Germantown, and Arlington (where Lakeland high-schoolers go to school)? Obviously, schools and other factors come into play.

8. The biggest mistake the council can make, or one of the biggest anyway, would be cutting back on trash pickup. It’s a cliche to say that legendary big city mayors and bosses like E. H. Crump and Richard Daley, whatever their faults, got the trash picked up. Cities that work pave the streets and pick up the garbage at a minimum; broken cities don’t.

9. Tourism Development Zones (TDZs) like the one at the fairgrounds are toast, if not this year then next year or the year after. Bottom line: The tax money they funnel into big underused public buildings and capital improvements in places where people don’t live is needed more for general operating expenses in places where people do live.

10. The Riverfront Development Corporation didn’t use $317,000 in federal funds for a walkway behind the Pyramid so the feds are taking it back. The grant was issued 13 years ago. It would have built 4,350 feet of walkway from the existing walkway over the cobblestones to the bridge to Mud Island. Any marketer with a minimum of imagination could have dubbed this stretch and the adjoining Greenbelt walkway and Tom Lee Park walkway going up the hill to the lovely overlook at Martyr’s Park “The Great Mississippi Bike and Pedestrian Path.” It could have been open 10 or 11 years by now, hosting annual events ala Joe Royer’s canoe and bike races, but for the uncertainty of Bass Pro Shops in the Pyramid and the RDC being the RDC. Instead we have, in various stages of planning and construction, a boat dock for more than $40 million, a Bass Pro superstore for about $200 million, and a Main Street to Main Street Connector for more than $30 million. Probably $300 million in all, if and when it is finished. Think of all the things that could be done for $3 million, or one percent of that. Swinging for home runs has a price.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Council Karaoke: “Myron’s Girl”

In this week’s Flyer, Bianca Phillips recounts the highs and lows of last week’s downtown karoake contest. Our favorite number featured councilmen Edmund Ford Jr. and Myron Lowery.