Tag: Harold Collins

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News The Fly-By

Council Gets First Look at MATA Trolley Plan

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Changes may be ahead for the Memphis trolley system as city leaders weigh in next week on the plan to bring the trolleys back.

The trolley system was shut down last June after two trolley cars caught fire on the Madison Line in separate events only seven months apart. Trolley 452 caught fire in November 2013. Trolley 553 caught fire on April 7th of last year. Both trolleys were burned beyond repair.

After the shutdown, the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) brought in a team of rail and transportation safety experts to review the system and help get it back on track. MATA leaders have said they would reveal the trolley plan to the public once the consultants finished their work. But the plan hasn’t surfaced yet.

Even though trolleys haven’t rumbled past Memphis City Hall in nearly eight months, they were on the minds of Memphis City Council members last week. 

Justin Fox Burks

MATA President Ron Garrison

MATA President Ron Garrison asked council members to approve the use of $1.1 million in pre-approved capital funds last week for rail facility improvements. But council members asked Garrison to bring his request back to city hall next week, along with his plan for the trolley system.

Councilmembers Harold Collins and Shea Flinn expressed concerns about the system, especially the Madison Line. Flinn said he and Collins were “far from alone” about questions of trolleys on Madison and called the route a “difficult situation.”

Flinn said there have long been problems with trolley utilization overall but especially on the Madison Line. 

“While we’re in repair and rebuild mode, we should be in rethink mode,” Flinn said. “The city has exhausted a lot of resources on this amenity, and I’m not sure we’re getting the bang for the buck from it that we could be. As we have this forced stoppage, we need to try and think of how we can make this a more-utilized asset.”

Collins said he’s seen and heard about problems of dependability on the trolley system. Any continuing trolley service needs to simply work for the citizens of Memphis, tourists, and business owners, he said.

“If we’re thinking about investing an enormous, no … if we’re going to reinvest potentially an enormous amount of money on this project [we should see a plan],” Collins said. “But nobody seems to agree on or like what they’re doing now.”

When asked what potential changes he’d like to see in the trolley system, Collins said he wanted better connectivity across the city. He recalled a former plan to take a trolley or even a bus from the end of the Madison Line all the way to the corner of Madison and Cooper. The move would help better connect downtown and Midtown.

MATA’s work is focused now on the repair and recertification of five trolley cars, all of them the larger cars. MATA says those are in the best condition and can also carry the most people. 

When they are ready for service, the trolleys will bring service first to the Main Street Line. As more trolleys are repaired, they will be launched on the Riverfront Line and the Madison Line. 

Garrison is scheduled to bring MATA’s trolley plan to city hall next Tuesday, February 3rd for a review by the council’s Public Works and Transportation Committee at 8:45 a.m.

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Politics Politics Feature

A Mayoral Battle Royale in Memphis?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Now, this is getting interesting!

Within the past couple of weeks, the roster of candidates for Memphis mayor in 2015 has gotten more complete, more complicated, and maybe more competitive. And there’s obviously room for more in all the above categories.

First, there was the announcement, the week before last, of Jim Strickland, the District 5 city councilman whose support along the Poplar Corridor is generally understood to be deep enough to give incumbent Mayor A C Wharton a run for his money.

Then there was the almost simultaneous announcement from Shelby County Commission Chairman Justin Ford that he, too, is considering a run for mayor. Dropping hints of running such-and-such a race is a standard means of raising one’s name recognition for all kinds of future-tense political possibilities, but there are several reasons why such a declaration from the 20-something Ford, a second-termer on the commission, has to be regarded as more than fanciful ego-tripping.

First of all, he is a Ford, and that political clan still counts for something. Secondly, he demonstrated with his surprise election this year as commission chairman — an outcome that depended on Democrat Ford’s building a bridge to the commission’s Republican minority for support — that he possesses an ability to politick.

Then, too, Ford has nothing to lose by running. As he demonstrated by his strong — if ultimately unsuccessful — lobbying two years ago for the commission to redistrict itself according to the old formula of large, multi-member districts, he is interested in obtaining the maximum possible arena for expanding his name recognition.

To say the least, a mayoral campaign would give him that. Meanwhile, a loss would leave him still in possession of his current bully pulpit on the commission. And who knows? If the mayoral field proliferates as it might, the campaign might take on battle-royale proportions with fair chances for several candidates to win.

Councilman Harold Collins, who appointed an exploratory committee last fall, is likely to throw his hat in, and he will have a fair degree of clout, especially in Whitehaven and South Memphis, where Ford also has strength.

Another who is likely to enter the race is the Rev. Kenneth Whalum, former Memphis School Board member and pastor of New Olivet Baptist Church, whose strong showing in last year’s Democratic primary for Shelby County mayor surprised even him.

And still another is Mike Williams, whose lengthy tenure as president of the Memphis Police Association over the past several stormy years of confrontation with City Hall have made him a figure to reckon with.

Williams addressed a standing-room-only crowd Monday night at a “Campaign for Liberty” event at Jason’s Deli on Poplar. The audience was oriented toward Tea Party concerns about govermental interventions and corporate rip-offs, and seemed receptive to Williams’ free-wheeling populist remarks on themes of chicanery in city government, loss of citizen influence, and predatory actions by moneyed interests.

Throw in former county commission Chairman James Harvey, already declared, and you have the makings of a field that could split unpredictably in numerous ways.

Understand: Incumbent Mayor Wharton may be increasingly under fire, but he has serious financial support. He has dedicated followers and a seasoned political organization. And, most importantly, he has the office, with all its potential for commanding public attention. But he isn’t taking anything for granted. Nor should we.

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Politics Politics Feature

Lowery’s Breakfast Boner

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Regardless of how some current situations come out — Mayor A C Wharton‘s public endorsement of higher salaries for city employees or his “settlement” of the city’s debt to Shelby County Schools (SCS) or, for that matter, his early-bird announcement of IKEA’s coming to Memphis — Wharton’s credibility and his standing with his city council are at serious risk.

Beyond that, while all of the foregoing matters may have constituted an immediate political plus for the mayor as the 2015 city election season gets under way, his political situation could be gravely threatened if any or all of them go south.

The IKEA outcome, for better or for worse, would be shared with other public officials and with the city/county Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) board. And the chief impediments to what would appear to be a done deal are the valid questions of whether a) EDGE decides to engage in its first-ever payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) arrangement with a purely retail enterprise; and b) whether state guidelines permit as much. The odds are that “yes” is the answer to both questions.

Score one for the mayor, especially if the whole IKEA/H&M/Trader Joe’s new-business package pans out.

The other two circumstances are different: While there is at least a theoretical prospect of concurrence on the pay-raise matter by some council members, the majority are surely inclined to say no, especially in light of the well-known budget dilemma that caused such agonizing cuts in employee benefits in recent months. Not only does the mayor’s suggestion, made during his remarks at Councilman Myron Lowery‘s New Year’s Day prayer breakfast, not bear logical muster, it also seems to put the council, already bruised and tattered, on the spot one more time.

So, for that matter, has Wharton’s announcement last month of an agreement with SCS Superintendent Dorsey Hopson (and an eagerly compliant SCS board) of a $43 million payout in settlement of the city’s court-ordered liability of $57 million in maintenance-of-effort funding, owed from 2008. But sentiment is building on the council that Wharton did indeed undermine ongoing mediation efforts with SCS, as charged by Councilman Shea Flinn, who was involved in the mediation process.

Flinn and others promptly complained that Wharton’s arbitrary effort sacrificed what many on the council believe is a substantial financial counter-claim. And they pointedly reminded the mayor that, while he had authority over lawsuits involving the city, he would have to come to the council for approval of the financial package.

Even as this state of affairs was settling into focus, an unexpected disruption further jostled the equilibrium of the mayoral race. This one, like the mayor’s pay-raise suggestion, took place at Lowery’s New Year’s Day event at the Airport Hotel.

This was the 24th and latest version of the annual New Year’s Prayer Breakfasts, which Lowery began on January 1, 1992 (coincident with the inauguration of former Mayor Willie Herenton as the first elected black chief executive in Memphis history).

As is his annual wont, Lowery, this year’s council chairman-designate, was closing out the breakfast with some parting words, in the wake of speeches by other political figures — Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell and Wharton, and 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen — interspersed with songs, sermonettes, and prayers by various lay and clerical folks.

Lowery’s prayer breakfasts have often been occasions for collectively thinking out loud and taking stock regarding political directions, and even for the launching of useful initiatives by one or more of those taking part. The breakfasts are, in that sense, traditional events for the larger community, though let us be clear: They are fund-raising events, and there is definitely a self-serving side to them. 

Lowery told his council colleague and chairmanship predecessor Jim Strickland, who was getting ready to take his leave well before the end of the breakfast, not to go, that if he did he would miss some “nice things” Lowery had to say about him.

When the time came for Lowery to conclude the event, he did indeed have some compliments for Strickland, who had dutifully stayed around. In fact, Lowery made a point of asking his colleague, a persistent critic of Wharton whose hopes of running for the city’s premier office himself have been well known (and well underway) for years, to stand. 

“He’s done a great job as chairman during a very difficult year,” said Lowery, amid other words of praise. “I like him. He’s got the potential to be a future mayor of Memphis.” Hmmm, the crowd had to be wondering, what was coming? An endorsement? Even Strickland, who was reasonably sure that Lowery, himself a 2009 loser to Wharton, was committed to supporting the mayor’s reelection, found himself wondering.

After all: He’s got the potential to be a future mayor of Memphis. “But not just yet,” Lowery said, suddenly undercutting the premise he himself had raised. There is no way to describe what came next as anything other than setting his council colleague up for a fall. The mortified Strickland, still standing and the focus of everyone’s gaze, would surely see it that way.

“I have to be honest,” Lowery was saying. “I’m with the mayor. … He’s controversial. He may not do everything right all the time. But his heart’s in the right place, and he’s done a good job.”

Lowery then began, with Strickland still standing there, a full-fledged endorsement of Wharton: “I know a lot of people,” Lowery kept saying, and what else was this meant to be but the boast of a kingmaker?

Strickland, meanwhile, had had enough. Lowery was still going strong when his understandably offended colleague pointedly began to walk. Intercepted midway by a reporter on his passage out, Strickland shook his head and said, in amazement as much as in anger, “He asked me to stick around to hear that!”

Lowery now has an ambivalent status with his fellow council members. A highly chameleon-like figure, emotionally and issue-wise, he is politically ambidextrous enough to have positioned himself on the council as a conciliatory figure, a maker of compromises between factions and, for that matter, across the occasional racial divide. For that, and for his experience, gained from nearly six full council terms, he has been able to maintain a fair degree of confidence from his peers — enough to have earned repeated elections as council chair, most recently for the year to come.

But there is such a thing as, metaphorically, throwing your weight around, and Lowery’s New Year’s Day gaffe seemed to numerous colleagues and other onlookers to be just that. That was especially so at a time when Lowery has made known his hopes of promoting his son, Mickell Lowery, to succeed him on the council, perhaps as early as this year. For the record, the younger Lowery, a management consultant, shared moderating duties with his father at this year’s prayer breakfast and was arguably the abler and certainly the more discreet of the two.

That Lowery, at a time when at least two of his council colleagues, Strickland and Harold Collins, have openly nursed serious ambitions for mayor, publicly proclaimed his endorsement of Wharton’s reelection — at a putatively neutral “prayer breakfast” — was bizarre enough. That he did so while having contender Strickland stand at full attention was widely regarded as outrageous — no matter the praise he had heaped on his colleague (which seemed patronizing in the after-taste) and no matter the sorry-if-I-offended-you non-apology apology he reportedly made to Strickland later.

Though no one on the council has said much publicly, there is definite sentiment among Lowery’s colleagues to call him to account on his fidelity to a mayor who is increasingly in disfavor with the council (and whom, ironically, Lowery himself, then serving as interim mayor, opposed in the 2009 special election that followed Mayor Herenton’s retirement). There has even been an exploratory balloon or two regarding the prospect of reconsidering the chairmanship.

And, whatever his intent, the one definite result of Lowery’s New Year’s Day gaffe has been to make the prospects for contesting Wharton’s reelection more likely.

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Politics Politics Feature

It Was What It Was

The year 2014 began with a call for unity from several of the political principals of Memphis and Shelby County — remarkable circumstances given that just ahead was another one of those knock-down, drawn-out election brawls that characterize a big-ballot election year.

Speaking at an annual prayer breakfast on January 1st, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen called for an end to bipartisan bickering in Congress and touted the achievements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (aka Obamacare). Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell asked for civility in county government, and Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, amid a good deal of wrangling over city pension reform, among other matters, said something similar and declared, “I’m through with whose fault it is!”

Surely no one is surprised that few of these hopes were fully realized in the course of 2014.

Not that some concrete things didn’t get done. The nervy national website Wonkette crowned Tennessee state Representative Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) “S***muffin of the Year,” and, lo and behold, the voters of Knox County would come to a similar conclusion down the line, voting out the incumbent madcap whose most famous bills had come to be known, fairly or otherwise, as “Don’t Say Gay” and “Starve the Children.”

State Senator Brian Kelsey had mixed results, losing again on a renewed effort to force Governor Bill Haslam into a big-time school voucher program and in a quixotic attempt to strip Shelby County of two of its elected judges but getting his props from those — including a majority of Tennessee voters — who supported his constitutional amendment to abolish an income tax in Tennessee for all time.

All four constitutional amendments on the state ballot would pass — including one to strip away what had been some fairly ironclad protections of a woman’s right to an abortion and another to transform the selection and tenure procedures for state appellate judges. Another little-noticed amendment guaranteeing veterans the right to hold charity raffles also passed.

The battle over the key three amendments all reflected a growing concern that Republican-dominated state authority had begun to enlarge its control over local governments and individual citizens alike, not only in the nature of the constitutional amendments but in the legislature’s effort to override local authority in matters including firearms management, public school oversight, public wage policy, and the ability of localities to establish their own ethical mandates.

Shelby County Democrats, who had been swept by the GOP in 2010, had a spirited primary election, with most attention focusing on the mayor’s race between former County Commissioner Deidre Malone, incumbent Commissioner Steve Mulroy, and former school board member and New Olivet Baptist Church pastor Kenneth Whalum Jr.

When votes were counted on May 6th, Malone emerged to become the head of a Democratic ticket that would challenge several well-established Republican incumbents. Democrats’ hopes were high at first, but two of their expected election-day stalwarts began to suffer self-destructive moments at an alarming rate.

The two were lawyer Joe Brown — the “Judge Joe Brown” of nationally syndicated TV fame; and County Commissioner Henri Brooks, a former legislator who had an abrasive way about her but who had recently won laurels as the watchdog on Juvenile Court who had forced the Department of Justice (DOJ) to mandate a series of reforms.

Both District Attorney General candidate Brown, through his celebrity and what was thought to be his ability to bankroll much of the Democratic ticket’s activity, and Juvenile court Clerk candidate Brooks, riding high on her DOJ desserts, were thought to be boons, but they rapidly became busts.

Brown, it turned out, had virtually no money to pass around, even for his own campaign efforts, and he got himself arrested for contempt in Juvenile Court. When, late in the campaign, he launched a series of lurid and seemingly unfounded attacks upon the private life of his opponent, Republican D.A. Amy Weirich, he was dead in the water.

Brooks engaged in successive misfires — browbeating a Hispanic witness before the commission; assaulting a woman she was competing with for a parking spot; and, finally, turning out not to have a legal residence within the commission district she represented.

The bottom line: Shelby County Democrats — underfunded, under-organized, and riven by internal rivalries — were overwhelmed once again on August 7th, with county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Weirich, and Sheriff Bill Oldham leading a Republican ticket that won everything except the office of county assessor, where conscientious Democratic incumbent Cheyenne Johnson held on against a little-known GOP challenger.

All things considered, the judicial races on August 7th went to the known and familiar, with almost all incumbents winning reelection on a lengthy ballot in which virtually every position in every court —General Sessions, Circuit, Criminal, Chancery, and Probate — was under challenge.

Meanwhile, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who had dispatched a series of Democratic Primary and general election challengers since his first election to Congress in 2006, faced what appeared in advance to be his most formidable primary foe yet in lawyer Ricky Wilkins. Cohen won again — though only by a 2-to-1 ratio, unlike the 4-to-1 victories he was used to.

The final elections of the year, including the referenda for the aforementioned package of constitutional amendments, would take place on November 4th.

But for the amendments, there was no suspense to speak of. Two Democrats running for the U.S. Senate — Gordon Ball and Terry Adams, both Knoxville lawyers — had run a spirited and close race in the primary, but winner Ball ran way behind Republican incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander, despite Alexander’s having barely eked out a primary win over unsung Tea Party favorite Joe Carr.

Haslam, the Republican gubernatorial incumbent, easily put away Charlie Brown, an unknown quantity from East Tennessee who had won the Democratic primary mainly on the strength of his comic-strip name.

Throughout the year, there had been persistent wrangles in City Hall between Wharton and members of the city council over dozens of matters — including pension and health-care changes, development proposals, and failures to communicate — with the result that influential councilmen like 2014 council Chairman Jim Stickland and Harold Collins were possible rivals to Wharton in a 2015 mayoral race that might draw in a generous handful of other serious candidates.

Toward year’s end, though, Wharton pulled off a series of coups — announcing new Target and IKEA facilities and appearing to finesse the pension and school-debt matters — that underscored his status as the candidate to beat.

In Nashville, Haslam seemed to have achieved the high ground, finally, with his espousal of a bona fide Medicaid-expansion plan, “Insure Tennessee,” and a determination to defend the Hall income tax and at least some version of educational standards. But battles over these matters and new attacks on legal abortion loomed.

We shall see what we shall see.

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News The Fly-By

Memphis Gun Down Faces Budget Cut

CREDIT: Dreamstime.com

A budget request for Memphis Gun Down was shot down last week in a Memphis City Council meeting in favor of a smaller budget for the youth violence prevention program.

The city program that has shown success in reducing youth gun violence in certain target areas of Frayser and South Memphis had about a quarter of its budget request slashed.

Representatives from Memphis Gun Down, an initiative established by the city’s 2011 Bloomberg Philanthropies grant funds, approached the Memphis City Council last week to request $250,000 to keep the program going. But the council ended up passing a resolution to cut their budget by $62,000.

“We are very appreciative of what they have given us, and it will still allow us to move forward, but it will cut us short on a program manager,” said Memphis Gun Down Director Bishop Mays. “And we won’t be able to robustly pursue other models and strategies that we were looking at. We may not be able to expand our program to as many other parts of the city as we had planned.”

The cuts were proposed by Councilman Harold Collins, who thought that Memphis Gun Down’s mission sounded too much like that of the mayor’s Memphis Youth Ambassador (MAP) program. But other than working with at-risk youth, the two programs actually don’t have much in common, according to Mays.

MAP is a year-round program that helps more than 400 kids in grades 10 through 12 develop life-building skills and college and career readiness. Memphis Gun Down focuses on youth violence, and they work specifically with gang-involved youth through programs like the 901 Bloc Squad, a team composed of people who were formerly caught up in street life and who now mentor at-risk youth.

Gun Down also offers midnight basketball games for youth who might otherwise be getting into trouble late at night. And they run a hospital violence intervention program, where mentors meet with young adults who end up in the hospital following violent incidents in the hopes of helping to turn those kids around.

“What the Office of Youth Services is doing [with MAP] is needed. They are able to expose kids to positive alternatives for their futures, like going to college. But we’re different,” Mays said. “They don’t have persons who are directly connecting with gang-involved youth. We’re reaching out to that segment, and to compare us just isn’t fair.

There’s also a chance that Collins misunderstood exactly what Memphis Gun Down does.

Dreamstime.com

“I said, ‘You tell me the number of guns that you have taken off the street since your program started.’ And the director [Mays] said, ‘We don’t take guns off the street.’ And I said, ‘Well, how could you have a Gun Down program if you don’t take guns off the street?'” said Collins, explaining an exchange between he and Mays in last week’s council meeting.

Mays said Memphis Gun Down focuses on preventing youth from picking up guns in the first place.

“Getting guns off the street is more of a function of the police. There are armed individuals out there, and the police are armed. They’re equipped to do that,” Mays said. “We’re not law enforcement officers. We’re trying to change the desire to pick up that gun.”

Earlier this week, Mayor A C Wharton praised Memphis Gun Down’s success in an article he wrote for CNN: “We will always have more work to do, but we are seeing results.”

And according to crime stats, it looks as though Memphis Gun Down is on track to reduce crime among teens and young adults. From 2012 to 2014, murder, aggravated assault, and robbery were down 23 percent for all ages and 21 percent among people under age 24 in their target area in a portion of Frayser. Those same crimes decreased by 25 percent for all ages and 55 percent for people under 24 in their focus area in South Memphis.

“We’re providing them with positive alternatives, like Summer Night Lights [a program that provides youth with recreational activities like art classes, pizza parties, and dancing on summer nights], which we believe has impacted the desire to commit gun crimes in those areas,” Mays said.

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Politics Politics Feature

Election Year 2015 is Upon Us

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Even as time was running out on the elections of 2014, with early voting ending this week in the election process that ends Tuesday, November 4th, the stirrings of Election Year 2015 were at hand. 

Among those in attendance at a Monday morning rally for Democratic candidates at the IBEW building on Madison were Kenneth Whalum and his wife Sheila. And while neither was quite ready to commit to a candidacy for Memphis mayor by the New Olivet Baptist Church pastor and former school board member, both seemed to relish the thought of a follow-up race to the Rev. Whalum’s surprisingly close second-place finish to Deidre Malone in last May’s Democratic primary for Shelby County mayor.

“Maybe it’s time for another tour of India,” joked the reverend, who had been absent on that East Asian sub-continent for a prolonged period just before election day but who finished strong, a fact indicating either that 1) absence made the hearts of voters grow fonder; or that 2) a more vigorous late effort on Shelby County soil might have put him over.

Either scenario, coupled with the fact that his appeal of a 2012 school board race narrowly lost to Kevin Woods had been finally disallowed by the courts, clearly left the irrepressible Whalum available for combat.

Who else is thinking about it? The proper question might be: Who isn’t?

Also present at the IBEW rally was former Shelby County Commission Chairman James Harvey, who is already committed to a race for Memphis mayor to the point of passing out calling cards advertising the fact.

“Changing parties again?” a passer-by jested to Harvey, a nominal Democrat who, in the past year or so on the commission, often made common cause with the body’s Republicans.

“I need ’em now!” responded Harvey, good-naturedly, about his attendance with other Democrats at the IBEW rally, which featured Gordon Ball, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator, at the climax of his statewide “No Show Lamar” bus tour; District 30 state Senate candidate Sara Kyle; and District 96 state House of Representatives candidate Dwayne Thompson.

Not so sunny was another attendee, Memphis City Councilman Myron Lowery, who, when asked if he was considering another mayoral race (he ran unsuccessfully in the special election of 2009 while serving as interim city mayor) answered calmly, “No,” but became non-committal, to the point of truculence, at the follow-up question, “So, are you closing the door?”

Lowery has confided to acquaintances, however, that he is indeed once again measuring the prospect of a mayoral race, while simultaneously contemplating a race by his son, management consultant Mickell Lowery, for his council seat should he choose to vacate it.

Another council member, Harold Collins, has formed an exploratory committee and is contemplating a mayoral race based largely on the theme that the current administration of Mayor A C Wharton is acting insufficiently in a number of spheres, including those of dealing with employee benefits and coping with recent outbreaks of mob violence.

Another councilman considered likely to make a bid for mayor is current council Chairman Jim Strickland, who has built up a decently sized following over the years by dint of his highly public crusades for budgetary reform. He, too, has often been critical of the incumbent mayor.

In accordance with assurances, public and private, he has made over the past year, Wharton himself is still considered to be a candidate for reelection, though there are those who speculate he may have second thoughts, given his advancing years and the increasing gravity of fiscal and social problems confronting the city.

The mayor’s supporters tend to pooh-pooh such speculation and suggest that only Wharton is capable of achieving across-the-boards support from the city’s various demographic components.

Others known or thought to be considering a mayoral race are former state legislator and ex-councilmember Carol Chumney (who has run twice previously); current county Commissioner Steve Basar; and Memphis Police Association President Mike Williams.

The list of potential mayoral candidates is a roster that may grow larger quickly.

• In introducing Ball at the IBEW rally, state Democratic Chairman Roy Herron contended that incumbent Republican Senator Lamar Alexander‘s poll numbers were “going down and down and down and Gordon Ball’s are going up and up and up, and those lines are going to intersect.”

In his own remarks, Ball charged that “my opponent has spent millions of dollars trying to smear and discredit us” and cited that as evidence of how seriously Alexander was taking the threat to his reelection.

The Democratic nominee spent considerable time addressing the recent publicity about a suit brought against him by one Barry Kraselsky, an Alabama resident who recently purchased a Florida condo from Ball and is accusing Ball and his wife, Happy, of having “duped” him by removing items from the property.

Ball said he was being sued for $5,300, even though he had posted an escrow account of $5,000, which was available to Kraselsky, whom he said was a “charlatan” and a major Republican donor. “We’re going to take care of him after November 4th.”

In remarks to reporters after his formal speech, Ball, who opposes the proposed Common Core educational standards, contended that Alexander, who has mainly been opaque on the subject, was a supporter of Common Core, which is opposed by many classroom teachers. Ball noted that Alexander had bragged on well-known teachers’ advocate Diane Ravitch, who is now a Common Core opponent, in Lamar Alexander’s Little Plaid Book, which the senator published years ago.

“He doesn’t mention her anymore,” said Ball. “He and [state Education Commissioner] Kevin Huffman and [educational reformer and Common Core supporter] Michelle Rhee are in this together.”

Also taking part in the IBEW rally were Whalum and Ashley Coffield, CEO of Memphis Planned Parenthood, who passed out to all the candidates T-shirts opposing Constitutional Amendment 1 on the November 4th ballot. Amendment 1 would in effect nullify a 2000 decision by the state Supreme Court that granted more protection to abortion rights than have the federal courts, as well as empower the General Assembly to legislate on a variety of potential new restrictions to abortion.

• The Shelby County Commission, which was unable on Monday to come to a decision on proposed changes in County Mayor Mark Luttrell‘s amended health-care plan for county employees (see this week’s Editorial) also was somewhat riven on another – more explicitly political – issue.

This was a suit filed by seven commissioners in Chancery Court against current Chairman Justin Ford challenging his right to arbitrarily keep items off the body’s agenda.

The plaintiffs are the commission’s six Democrats and one Republican, former vice Chairman Steve Basar, who previously voted with the Democrats to stall the committee appointments by Ford, who was elected in this fall’s first organizational session by a combination of his own vote with that of the commission’s five Republicans. As the GOP’s Heidi Shafer explained at the time, the outnumbered Republicans had a choice between Ford, who has fairly consistently voted their way in previous years, and Bailey, who rarely has.

Basar was aggrieved by having been denied votes for the chairmanship, which he believed himself to be in line for, by most of his Republican colleagues.

Subsequent attempts to place items on the commission agenda proposing rules changes that would threaten Ford’s authority have been arbitrarily removed by the chairman.

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Politics Politics Feature

Harold Collins On Verge of Declaring for 2015 Memphis Mayor’s Race

The 2015 Memphis mayor’s race can be considered underway, at least informally, following the announcement this week that city Councilman Harold Collins has formed an exploratory committee to consider seeking the office.

Collins has made two hard-hitting public appearances in the past week. In the first of these, at the Frayser Exchange Club last Thursday, Collins characterized recent outbreaks of mob violence by youths as “urban terrorism” and called for more direct action against offenders than is currently the practice at a Juvenile Court undergoing reforms at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Participants in “serious crimes,” which Collins defined as including mob actions like those at Poplar Plaza last month and in the vicinity of Crump Stadium last Friday night, should face a prosecutor, a judge, and the prospect of jail “within 24 hours,” the councilman said.

Councilman Harold Collins

In a meet-and-greet at the Evergreen Grill Monday night, Collins repeated that formulation and made an aggressive pitch as well for an enhanced summer jobs program for disadvantaged youth, as well as expanded mental-health programs.

He also charged that Mayor A C Wharton’s 

current administration had done little to acquaint small-businesses owners with the fact that city funding had long been available to help them expand and prosper. “They’ve done a terrible job of getting the word out,” he said.

Collins went on to allege that, following the election of Wharton as mayor in 2009, “Nothing changed except on the seventh floor,” which is where the mayoral offices are.

Others known to be considering races for mayor next year, besides Wharton and Collins, are city councilmember Jim Strickland, former councilmember Carol Chumney, current Shelby County Commissioner Steve Basar, and former Commissioner James Harvey. The names of Councilman Myron Lowery and former Memphis School Board member Kenneth Whalum have also received mention.

  

• Proponents and opponents of the various state amendments have been engaging in a good deal of arithmetical calculation, based on a unique formula called for in the state Constitution.

It works this way: An amendment is deemed to have passed if it nets a number of votes equal to a majority of the votes cast in the governor’s race. Similarly, an amendment fails if the votes for it total less than a majority of the votes in the gubernatorial race.

As it happens, this year’s race for governor is, by universal consent, a shoo-in for Republican incumbent Bill Haslam. The state’s weakened Democratic Party emerged from its virtually unnoticed August 7th primary with a nominee, retired East Tennessee contractor Charlie Brown, whose only claim to fame was the similarity of his name to that of a cartoon character and whose resources for a serious race are essentially nil. And Haslam is otherwise confronted by an array of generally unknown independents.

The situation is hardly a recipe for a massive voter turnout in the gubernatorial race, so that the threshold of success for each of the four proposed constitutional amendments begins at a fairly low level. That fact makes any prediction regarding the outcomes of the amendment votes uncertain.

Amendment 1, which would cut into the blanket protection of abortion rights  provided by a state Supreme Court decision of 2000, declaring the state neutral on abortion, and restricting privileges to those enabled by federal judicial authority, is by all odds the most controversial and the most intensely contested.

Addressing a Vote No on 1 rally held at the Racquet Club last week by the Tennessee Democratic Party, 9th District congressman Steve Cohen held forth on the threshold issue, telling the pro-choice activists in attendance that bypassing the governor’s race would work against their interests and increase the chances of passage for the amendment.

It was urgent, therefore, said Cohen, that they should vote in the governor’s race. Cohen offered his own preferred candidate — John Jay Hooker, an octogenarian Nashville lawyer who, at intervals in the previous century, had been a serious Democratic prospect for governor but who, many fits and starts later, is best known these days as a litigant for direct election of state appellate judges (a matter which, as noted below, is at the heart of another amendment on the November ballot). 

“Do what I’m going to do. Vote for John Jay!” said Cohen.

Speaking to reporters after yet another rally, this one held at the Kroc Center on Monday on behalf of Amendment 2, Governor Haslam addressed the converse possibility — that proponents of this or that amendment might be advocating a de facto boycott of the governor’s race in order to lower the voter threshold for their amendment.

“I obviously don’t like that,” Haslam said. “I think it’s important for people to understand all four of the amendments and to vote for anything on the ballot.”

At the rally, a panel consisting of Haslam and former state Supreme Court Justice George Brown of Memphis, with lawyer Monica Wharton serving as moderator, had made the case for Amendment 2, which the governor said was necessary to provide “clarity and predictability” on the matter of appointing appellate judges.

As Haslam noted, the amendment would make it “clear in the law that what we’re doing now does fit the definition of the Constitution, adding one step, that the legislature can approve or disapprove” an appointment, giving the governor a chance to respond within 60 days. At present, the state employs the so-called “Tennessee Plan,” allowing gubernatorial appointments of appellate judges, who are then subject to yes-or-no retention elections at eight-year intervals. 

Both Brown and Haslam suggested that appellate judges were in the position of impartial referees in athletic contests. Playing to local sensitivities, Haslam said, it wouldn’t do for a referee in a Grizzlies game to have “a Kevin Durant jersey” on under his striped shirt.

Haslam made a bit of fresh news when he told reporters afterward that he supported all four of the amendments on the November ballot, including Amendment 1, which he characterized as allowing the state’s laws on abortion “to match what the federal laws are.”

• The great Charlie Cook, whose widely syndicated “Cook Report” is one of the most respected political tout sheets in the country, made an appearance at Rhodes College, Monday, under the auspices of the school’s political-science and history departments.

Speaking in Barrett Library on the subject of “Why is D.C. Dysfunctional?” Cook outlined the current dismal approval rates of President Obama and congressional Republicans in opinion polls and said, “Nobody’s happy.” He noted that Republicans were progressively losing support with minorities, younger Americans, and women — all categories whose proportion is growing in the electorate — and suggested that the GOP would be well advised to “shut the hell up” about social issues.

Democrats have their problems, too — including a growing public unease concerning the leadership of Obama, particularly in the realm of foreign policy, which has attained an unusual degree of importance with voters, Cook said.

The GOP can expect modest gains in both House and Senate this year, but not enough to affect the enduring state of gridlock, predicted the noted analyst.

He was cautious about predictions concerning 2016 presidential prospects, though he did say there was “a 25 to 30 percent chance” that, despite expectations, Hillary Clinton would not seek the Democratic nomination. 

Cook, whose wife is from Memphis, is a frequent visitor to the city.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Memphis’ Battle Over Employee Benefits

Wanda Halbert was confused.

“This thing is so all over the place,” the Memphis City Councilmember said during a committee meeting last week. There was an exhausted frustration in her voice. 

Courtesy Facebook group “I Have Been Negatively Affected by The City of Memphis Council Vote!!”

“I mean, we’re still talking about budget issues. Normally, we vote on the budget and we move on. We just heard (city Human Resources Director Quintin Robinson) say about a hundred times in two seconds that the council has already approved this, but, at the end of the day, here we are still talking about this. Why are we still talking about this?”

“This” is a slate of cuts made to the health insurance benefits for city employees and some retirees. The council made the changes when they passed the 2015 fiscal year budget back in June. Those changes will hit city employees and retirees right in their paychecks. And to say they were not pleased is something of an understatement. 

Here are the biggest changes: 

Courtesy Facebook group “I Have Been Negatively Affected by The City of Memphis Council Vote!!”

• Current employees and retirees will have to pay 24 percent more for their health insurance every month.

• Some retirees will lose a 70 percent (taxpayer-funded) subsidy to help pay their monthly health insurance costs.

• Employee spouses eligible for health insurance through their employer will be cut from the city plan.

• A surcharge for smokers increased from $50 per month per family to $120 per month per family. 

• A $2 million safety net plan is now in place to help those in dire financial straits.

•  Officials are working to open a no-cost health clinic for employees and retirees. 

The backlash to the changes pushed the cuts back into the spotlight, where they’ve remained now, going on three months. That backlash has included public protests at Memphis City Hall and the Greater Memphis Chamber, and work actions — called Blue Flu and Red Rash — that saw hundreds of police officers and fire fighters call in sick around Independence Day.

Courtesy Facebook group “I Have Been Negatively Affected by The City of Memphis Council Vote!!”

Angry employees (or their spouses) have filled the council chambers every other week. Many have heckled city leaders anonymously from their seats, but some have taken to the public podium microphone to spill venom directly at council members. There’s also been plenty of wrath for Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and his administration in committee meetings, on Facebook, on bumper stickers, and in television interviews.

In addition to rallying, raving, and protesting, the unions that represent city employees and retirees were at work crafting their own health insurance plan. All of the protest noise was enough to keep the door cracked open on the benefits issue with the city council.

Through that crack, the Memphis Fire Fighters Association slipped in a proposed alternative health-care plan, one they hope will supplant the current plan and avoid some of the major cuts to employees. On August 21st, the union formally presented it to the city’s health-care oversight committee.

Here are the major components of the Memphis fire Fighters’ Association plan:

 • A high-deductible plan that shifts much of the cost of insurance from the city to the employee (lower monthly premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs)

• Stops the 24 percent premium increases

• Stops the other cuts to retirees

• Allows spouses to stay on the plan

• Purports to save more than $24 million for the city

Fran Triplett

The fire fighters’ plan got traction with some city council members last week. They agreed to hear all of the details of the plan in a special meeting this week. 

But council members also want to hear some final numbers before they make a decision. Number crunchers from Mercer, the city’s benefits consultant, and Cigna, the city’s insurance payor, disagreed on some major figures last week. A Mercer representative told council members the fire union’s plan would only save about $12 million in 12 months. A Cigna representative said the plan could save around $17 million.

But getting to either of those numbers could be tough. It would mean getting more than half of the city’s employees to voluntarily move to the high-deductible plan, and that’s no small feat when other options are available. 

Either way, the savings are below those provided by the currently budgeted insurance plan, which is about $23 million.

Donna Kirk

But if the experts could clear up these issues and prove that the savings are real, and if council members were so inclined, a new health insurance plan could be up for a vote on the council agenda next week.

“Obviously, we want to do as right as we fiscally can by our employees and the more ideas we have the better,” councilmember Shea Flinn said to reporters last Tuesday. “As of right now, the vote on [June] 17th is what stands. But in politics, there’s always another vote.” 

But for some that’s not enough. Many in Memphis want to know the answer to Halbert’s question: Why? If a vote has been taken on the changes, why is this still an issue? 

George Little, the city’s chief administrative officer and Wharton’s second-in-command, offered this plain-spoken explanation to Halbert:

“The fire fighters made a [health insurance] proposal after the budget process,” Little said. “It’s certainly a proposal that’s worthy of consideration, but since it was not presented in the run-up prior to the budget preparations, there was no way that we could have presented that or have had a discussion on it before the adoption of the budget. Since this has been proposed after the budget adoption and in response to the adoption of the budget, we’re at the table today having these discussions.”  

Tough Times & Tough Choices

Making higher payments to the city’s pension fund was a cornerstone of Wharton’s budget and the council’s budget for the next 12 months. The cuts to the employee benefits this year will save $23 million in the next 12 months, and all of that money is supposed to go toward paying down the gap in the pension fund.   

In fact, Wharton’s cut to benefits was deeper than 24 percent. He brought the council a 57-percent cut in benefits that would have saved even more money. But the figure was slashed nearly in half by council members looking for a compromise that got the budget passed back in June. 

Brian Collins, the city’s finance director in Wharton’s administration, says the cuts were not “the path of least resistance.” Instead, he says, doing them was possibly the “toughest” and “most unpopular way to go.” But he adds that they were necessary. And he’s afraid that the need for such drastic measures has gotten lost in the recent noise down at city hall.

“We all kind of collectively woke up one day and realized the world had changed in very substantial ways,” Collins says. “What we woke up to was nearly $2 billion in collective unfunded liabilities, which is a massive amount of money for any city, but particularly for Memphis. We had to do something.

“And there was nothing less than a dramatic change that was going to make a difference when we were looking at liabilities that large. We had a huge underfunding problem with our pension plan and a huge underfunding problem with our medical plan.”      

The Cuts Hit Home

So, what does the 24 percent premium increase look like on the ground?

City employees will see less in their paychecks. Active single employees will see their health-care rates go up $98 to $124 a month, depending on variables, resulting in new total monthly payments that will range from $506 to $642. Active employees with families will see rates go up $224 to $286 a month, resulting in monthly payments that will range from $1,155 to $1,476. The rates are the same or slightly higher for retirees.

But the cuts hit home in a lot of different ways. For some, it erodes their trust. They now see the city as an employer that broke a promise. For others, it disrespects the memory of a fallen loved one who was promised benefits for his family after his death. It makes others just plain mad at leaders who they see as having put the entire financial burden of the city’s budget woes on the backs of those in the trenches who are protecting and taking care of the city.

Fran Triplett’s husband has been a motorcycle cop for the Memphis Police Department for 21 years. She wears a small police badge charm on her necklace. Tattooed on her foot is a motorcycle wheel with wings. Even her email address identifies her as the wife of a motorcycle cop.

Her husband was injured in a crash while on the job more than four years ago, she said. He almost lost a leg and could have taken medical retirement, she said, but didn’t “because he loved his job.” 

She doesn’t hesitate when told that health-care costs are going up for employees across the country:

“Everybody else isn’t stepping into a burning building, answering a call where a child is being molested or killed, or stepping in front of a bullet. So, I don’t really give a damn that everybody else’s [insurance] is going up.

“I challenge anybody that wants to look at us and say that premiums are going up, to strap on 80 pounds [of fire gear] in 110-degree heat, or put on a gun belt and a bullet-proof vest, or climb in a nasty sewer. 

“You do all that for a 24-hour shift for $50,000 a year and then look me in the face and tell me, ‘Hey, everybody’s premiums are going up.’ Because they wouldn’t last one minute, one hour, one day.

“They took the job because they were basing it on what they were going to receive. Nobody — I don’t care who you are — is going to take a job making $50,000 and put their life on the line and put their spouse at risk and leave their children with nobody there at the end of the day.”

Donna Kirk’s husband, Lieutenant Trent Kirk, was killed on Father’s Day 2003. He and another Memphis fire fighter, Charles Zachary, died battling a blaze at a Family Dollar store in Frayser. The store’s manager later pleaded guilty to setting the fire.

Dewayne Lufcy

“My husband and I were at our financial advisor’s office the Tuesday before he got killed. We laid everything out and looked at every one of our benefits. That’s how our life was managed. If we had known at that time (that he’d be killed), I would have gotten another life insurance policy.

“But this city promised us these benefits and he gave his life. Now, they’re trying to take everything. They may not be taking it right this moment from me, but a 24-percent increase over a period of time is my entire pension.  

“Once they get this health care thing passed, they’re going to come after our pensions. So, this is something we were promised. Our husbands took these jobs based on that. You or I can’t go in after the fact and say, ‘Oh, well, I should have taken a bigger life insurance policy out on my husband.’ I was told I would get his pension until I died.”

Dewayne Lufcy works in the city’s sewer department and says it’s dangerous work in sometimes dangerous places. 

He says he’s been trying to get financial information related to the health-care plan from the city but has not been successful. He’s fed up and says when the time limit runs out on his Freedom of Information Act request, he’s going to sue the city.

“It’s asinine. Here I am, a $50,000-a-year sewer worker, and I can look at a piece of paper and see wrongs in numbers, when you’ve got educated people up here on the fourth floor (of city hall) who can’t do it.

“I work on stuff they wouldn’t even dare think about getting in the same room with. We are subjected to 54 different communicable diseases every day of our life. I’m on call 24/7. I go to South Memphis and I’m not allowed to tote a weapon by city ordinance. I go into back alleys in South Memphis, subdivisions where the police don’t like to go. I can’t carry a gun. I can’t wear a bulletproof vest. That’s me.”

Promises and the Law

Were promises on health-care benefits broken? Does any city employee have the promise of health-care benefits written into their contract?

“No, as a matter of fact, it’s not anywhere,” Collins says. “In fact, the same Tennessee Supreme Court that tells us that the pension is a commitment that we have to keep, is the same court that has said retiree health care is not, in fact, in that same category. 

“It is a plan that we offer. But it is only a commitment we offer right now. It is always subject to change and over the years, the health-care plan changes. This is another change.”

Memphis police officers and fire fighters do get incentives for having dangerous jobs: They get college incentive pay, longevity pay, holiday paychecks, and they’re able to retire about 10 years sooner than general city employees, the city’s HR director, Quintin Robinson, said. 

    

Turning the Battleship

Robinson and the city’s human resources team began implementing the changes to the health-care plan as soon as the council passed it back in June. 

Since then, they’ve had 15 town hall meetings with employees and retirees to explain the changes and printed thousands of plan-specific enrollment booklets set to go out “any day,” he said. 

Open enrollment begins in October. Plan changes take effect at the beginning of next year. Enrollment in the federal health insurance exchange begins in November as does enrollment in some Medicare plans.    

“To the extent that we’re talking about making some changes, we will not meet the [January 1st] implementation date,” Robinson told councilmembers last week. “I want to make sure we’re all aware of that and that for any further changes we make that are pushed out past that date, there are going to be budget impacts.” 

But that’s not reason enough to stop the benefits discussion for some city council members. Janis Fullilove has repeated many times that making the cuts is “playing with people’s lives.” Harold Collins (who was absent for the budget vote) made it plain in a meeting last week that he, too, thinks the issue needs more attention.

“We all recognize that we already made a decision,” Collins said. “Let me make this very clear to us. We owe it to the 650,000 [Memphis] citizens, and to the employees who work for us that everything can change — down to the last minute if we have to — to ensure that we come up with a plan that everybody can be satisfied with, regardless of what we did on June 17th or will do on January 1, 2015.”

Finance Director Collins has no problem with the council listening to new suggestions.

“But we’re not hearing anything that solves the problems that we face,” Collins says. “It is my belief that this process that they are going through will not be able to change the fundamental facts and issues that we face. So, I don’t expect a majority of council members to come back and reverse itself, because to do so would put us back, not where we were, but in a worse place than where we were. A proponent of [a new plan that passed] would then have to turn around and say, ‘Okay, now what do we do?'”

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

The Heat’s Still On in Shelby County Politics

As August turned to September, the political junkies among us found that very little had changed in their world. 

The heat of campaigning was over, to be succeeded by a late summer heat wave. Political advertising was conspicuously less frequent on radio and TV (which didn’t mean, of course, that deceit and misrepresentation were absent from the usual programming and commercials still available on the airwaves). In any case, more politics was just ahead.

Among the decisions still to be made were the four constitutional amendments that will appear on the November 4th statewide ballot. And the adherents and opponents of those amendments were already getting busy. More of that anon.

Meanwhile, the winners of the Shelby County general election were sworn in and girding for contests of other kinds. One of the most obvious of those was the matter of who would be chairman of the new Shelby County Commission. In particular, two of the five holdovers on a commission freshly elected from 13 single-member districts were girding for a fresh battle.

The two are Terry Roland, the Millington firebrand who, toward the end of his just-concluded first term, began trying to reinvent himself as an elder statesman of sorts; and Steve Basar, another second-termer whose constituency is based in East Memphis and the Poplar corridor. 

Both are Republicans and are counting on the resumption of the gentlemen’s agreement that has, more often than not since the advent of political primary elections in the early 1990s, called for the rotating of the commission chairmanship between Republicans and Democrats. 

The formula has been flouted in recent times — notably in 2011, when most of the commission’s Republicans joined with the political opposition to give Democrat Sidney Chism a second term, more or less to spite then-vice chair Mike Carpenter, a fellow Republican whose bipartisan ways had caused them to regard him as a “RINO” (Republican in name only).    

And there has been some isolated muttering among the Democratic newbies on the commission about banding together to elect one of their own as chairman for the 2014-15 term, but such an action would surely roil the waters, and there is no consensus among them for a candidate, in any case.

As vice chair, Basar would seem to have the advantage, especially since, unlike Carpenter, he has managed, despite a moderate, open-minded demeanor, to stay reasonably close to the GOP party line on major issues. Roland, however, is openly campaigning for the chairmanship, and it remains to be seen if he can put aside the politically divisive aspects of a persona which saw him, for most of the previous four years, functioning as the Democratic majority’s chief adversary.

For what it’s worth, during the commission’s swearing-in ceremony at the Cannon Center last Thursday, Roland sat on one end of the stage, next to four other Republican members, while Basar sat on the opposite end, next to several Democrats.

The new version of the commission will meet for the first time next Monday to resolve the chairmanship issue, among other matters, and what they decide will go far toward setting a tone for the new term.

• Meanwhile, there are already some political stirrings city-side, where the Memphis municipal election of 2015 is just a hop, skip, and jump away.

A year or so ago, before the vexing benefits issue and other budgetary conundra hit the fan so spectacularly, incumbent Mayor A C Wharton let it be known, at first through surrogates and finally via his own statement, that he would indeed be a candidate for reelection. Whether that remains the case, however, may depend on how easily and quickly the thorny issues that currently dominate the city-government agenda can be resolved, if at all.

The current Memphis City Council includes at least two mayoral wannabes — Jim Strickland, whose ambitions are long standing, and Harold Collins. There may, indeed, be others. It would be strange if council veteran Myron Lowery, who served  a brief but credible term as interim mayor in 2009 and who was defeated by Wharton in the special election held later that year, isn’t thinking of running.

In any case, Strickland can be counted on as a sure thing if Wharton ceases to be a candidate. Ditto with Collins, the subject of a persistent rumor that he already has been assured that the seat is likely to be open.

If Strickland should vacate his seat to run for mayor, a would-be successor is former Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz, who espoused the cause of the newly Memphis-based Shelby County Schools system during his term as commission chair in 2012-13 and who has moved his residence from Germantown into the city proper.

• Definitive word finally came down last week as to how the party nominations for state Senate District 30, to succeed Chancellor-elect Jim Kyle, must be conducted. Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper delivered an opinion that would:

1) Require nominations to be made by the two major parties’ local governing bodies — the Shelby County Democratic Executive Committee and the Shelby County Republican Steering Committee;

2) Limit the number of eligible voters to those committee members who represent precincts that lie within Senate District 30.

In the case of Democrats, who elect most of their executive committee members by House District, this effectively franchises all members representing House Districts that contain such precincts. 

Republicans also elect many of their steering committee members from House Districts, but a majority of their committee members are at-large and will also be enabled to vote.

3) Require House members seeking the Senate nomination to withdraw from the November ballot before attempting to win their party’s nomination for the Senate.

This requirement placed a clear burden upon rumored candidates like Democratic state Representatives Antonio Parkinson and G.A. Hardaway, inasmuch as the withdrawal of either from the November ballot would necessitate a write-in campaign to fill the ballot void for their party’s House race.

All candidacies, whether by party nomination or by independents, must be certified by a date 45 days from the date of the November 4th election. That would seem to make September 20th the effective deadline for application to the Election Commission.

Shelby County Democratic Party Chairman Bryan Carson promptly set up a meeting of the party executive committee for 7 p.m. next Monday night at the IBEW meeting hall on Madison. Inasmuch as District 30 is heavily Democratic, this meeting is likely to resolve not only who the party nominee is but who the next senator will be.

Among the known candidates are former state Senator Beverly Marrero, former Tennessee Regulatory Authority member Sara Kyle (wife of the outgoing senator), and Parkinson, who confirmed his continuing interest this week. Hardaway would seem to have decided against seeking the seat, and among other Democrats whose names have figured in speculation is that of Carol Chumney, a former state representative, city councilmember, and mayoral candidate.

At least one prominent Republican has expressed interest in the Senate seat. That would be physician/businessman George Flinn, a former county commissioner and frequent candidate for other offices — most recently the U.S. Senate, which he unsuccessfully sought in the recent Republican senatorial primary, losing out to incumbent Lamar Alexander and the primary runner-up, state Representative Joe Carr of Lascassas.

Flinn informed attendees of last week’s meeting of the East Shelby Republican Club of his interest. The Shelby County Republican Steering Committee is likely to consider the matter Thursday.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Elvis Presley Enterprises Presents Plans for Upscale Hotel

Whitehaven is getting all shook up with news that a hotel will be built next to Graceland if everything goes according to plan.

According to a presentation by Elvis Presley Enterprises last week, the 450-room hotel would be built next to Graceland at the corner of Elvis Presley Boulevard and Old Hickory Road. The Guest House at Graceland, as it will be called, would create 75 to 100 new jobs.

The $70 million hotel plans are the first major development since the organization was acquired by Authentic Brands Group in New York City in November of last year. If everything goes as planned, construction could begin in August.

At the public meeting detailing the plans for the hotel last week, City Councilman Harold Collins said building the Guest House at Graceland would help attract more higher-end businesses to the Whitehaven area. He was responding to a question from a young woman suggesting there are too many fast food chains along Elvis Presley.

“When the Guest House goes up, when the lounge goes up, we will be able to recruit businesses that you all have been wanting,” he said.

Homer Branan, the attorney representing Elvis Presley Enterprises, said the organization is eager to begin building the Guest House. Demolition has already started at the site.

Plans for The Guest House at Graceland, a 450-room upscale hotel, are in the works for Whitehaven.

“The biggest challenge right now is time. They want to be under construction now,” Branan said. “We’ve got to get this through the Land Use Control Board and the City Council as quickly as possible. The engineers are already doing the plans — the drainage plans, the grating plans. The architects are doing the plans to get a building permit. We’ve got to get a building permit as quickly as possible.”

When it is ready, the hotel won’t just be for Elvis fans.

“We’re not far from the airport,” Branan said. “They think they will get a lot of people coming to the Guest House from the airport area.”

He said the Whitehaven community’s needs have been a focus since they began designing the hotel.

“[The hotel] is important to the city of Memphis, and especially Whitehaven, because it shows a real investment in the community,” Branan said. “Whitehaven needs a really nice hotel — there are none out here. We’re always very concerned about the neighborhood to be sure that what we do, they appreciate. That’s the reason that [Elvis Presley Enterprises] has spent all this time and money in designing this thing. It’s going to be absolutely fabulous.”