Tag: Henri Brooks

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Politics Politics Feature

County Commission Report

Election Commission head Mark Luttrell asked for permission to ditch old voting machines. (Photo: Mark H. Luttrell | Facebook)

Each of the major legislative bodies operating in Shelby County presents challenges to its members, to the various publics that wish to influence it, and to the matrices of other governmental bodies that it must coexist with.

Take the Shelby County Commission meeting of Monday, May 15th, a six-and-a-half-hour affair. The commission opened up its Monday session with an agenda of 21 “consent agenda” items and an additional nine “regular” items. In theory, the consent agenda items are matters whose import has been sufficiently chewed over in committee as to be generally acceptable already, whereas the regular items must be tackled anew.

It doesn’t work out that way. On Monday, a clear majority of items on the commission’s consent agenda were singled out for additional discussion by one or more — a fact clearly indicating that consent had not been reached. Most of these items involved the approval of public grants to this or that person or body to achieve some public purpose.

Commissioner Britney Thornton and, to a different degree, Commissioner Henri Brooks have chosen on a weekly basis to focus on the demographic distribution of these grants, wanting to know if a sufficient number of minority firms were invited to participate in the bidding for these projects. Thornton’s summing up of Monday’ results — “a flat zero” of ultimate participation by minorities.

This is one leitmotif of a typical commission meeting. Another is the dependable insistence of Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr.that commissioners — the “electeds” of county government — must be vigilant in preventing the “appointeds” of Mayor Lee Harris’ administration from usurping commission prerogatives.

At one point, Ford asked a yes-or-no question of administration budget director Michael Thompson, insisting, “Do not give an essay answer. I will cut you off and bust you out.” Mick Wright, one of four Republican commissioners on the 13-member body, challenged the decorum of that.

Wright and Ford bumped heads again on Wright’s proposal to route $3.5 million into needed upgrades for Regional One. Ford successfully insisted the money be spread around among the 13 commission districts for members’ preferred projects.

Ford was also instrumental in deferring action on Mayor Harris’ proposal to raise the county wheel tax to finance work on Regional One as well as two new schools.

The bottom line is that work on an ambitious 2024 budget has been remanded into the future with a target date in mind of June 30th, the end of the current fiscal year.

With surprising unanimity, the commission approved a $3.39 tax rate, as well as a desire to establish a county civilian law-enforcement review board like those now operating in Memphis and Nashville city governments. The commission also gave conditional approval to the Election Commission’s wish to dispose of “useless” old voting machines, so long as significant information from them was retained. Commissioners also approved a $2.7 million budget item providing medical backup resources for the county specialty courts dealing with veterans, mental health, and drug issues. And it readies for future voting a matching proposal to provide psychiatric rehabilitation for prisoners deemed incompetent for trial.

Overall, the import of Monday’s commission meeting was that a lot of cans got kicked down the road. More of this anon.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

A Momentous Day for the Commission

Mick Wright: "I hope "God will forgive me if I vote wrong." Photo courtesy Shelby County Government


There are various ways of dividing the efforts of humankind into separate but oddly complementary spheres: sacred vs. profane is one way, ad hoc vs. eternal is another. And who is to say that one sphere exceeds the other in importance?

Maybe not the Shelby County Commission, whose current Democratic-dominated version seems bent on taking direct action wherever it can.

On Wednesday, the Commission spent roughly the same amount of time and energy on two radically differing pending matters — one being how next to try to get the office of the Shelby County Clerk up to snuff (in this case via a “special adviser”), the other being how best to remedy centuries of racial injustice through a system of reparations for the African-American component of local society.
Left pending until the Commission’s next meeting were a series of proposed correctives aimed at preventing another Tyre Nichols situation. 

The matter of County Clerk Wanda Halbert came first on the agenda. Various commissioners made it plain they were fed up with Halbert’s inabilities to deal expeditiously with the duties of her office, which include the processing of auto license tag applications and the distribution of them. Through much of the past  year, during which Halbert twice closed her office so as to do catch-up, long lines of frustrated Shelby Countians turned up daily at the various clerk’s offices in a vain effort to get their plates.

During one of those shut-downs, Halbert conspicuously took time off in Jamaica. She periodically has described herself as a “whistle-blower” and has blamed her office imbroglios on vague insinuations of conspiratorial action on the Commission’s part or on that of County Mayor Lee Harris.

The Commission has tried numerous incentives to help the clerk out, but, as commissioners noted on Wednesday, none of these bore much fruit. Simultaneously, state Representative Mark White has introduced a bill in the General Assembly in Nashville that would facilitate local efforts to recall the clerk.

On Wednesday, Halbert, along with aides, was present in the Commission chamber, behaving more or less meekly as the Commission tossed around a proposal to appropriate $150,000 to hire a special adviser to her. The clerk welcomed the initiative, claiming she had wanted something like that all along.

Much of a lengthy debate on what was clearly being put forth as a “last chance” solution concerned the issue of where the money to hire the adviser should come from. Various commissioners objected to the proposal’s original formulation that the $150,000 should come from the Commission’s own contingency fund, and it was ultimately decided that the clerk herself possessed enough uncommitted funds to foot the bill for the adviser.

In the end, that’s how things were decided. Halbert’s helper, who will be hired by the Commission, will be paid by available funds from the clerk’s office but will answer to the Commission, not to her. The vote was 12 to 1, with Republican Commissioner Brandon Morrison expressing disapproval of the need to spend more taxpayer money to accomplish duties that are part of the express charge of the elected clerk’s office.

Later in Wednesday’s public meeting, which was specially called by chairman Mickell Lowery, the Commission took up the momentous matter of a proposed $5 million outlay to fund a feasibility study on reparations for the African-American population. The “reparations” were not necessarily financial, although at least one successful amendment to the resolution proposed by Commissioner Henri Brooks seemed to call for make-up pay differentials for African-Americans.

Most of several amendments by Brooks addressed directly, as did the resolution itself, the undeniable fact of overall racial disparities in accessing of advantages of American citizenship.

Sponsoring the reparations measure were eight of the Commission’s Democrats, including all of the body’s Black members, most of whom spoke for the measure with various degrees of passionate intensity. 


Reservations were heard from the body’s four Republicans, who tended to see the resolution as “divisive”  or in conflict somehow with the American system of equality. Aligning with them in harboring doubts about the reparations issue was Democrat Michael Whaley, whose mother is Asian-born and who self-identified Wednesday as a “person of col0r.”

Voting for the resolution were chairman Lowery and fellow Commissioners Shante Avant, Brooks, Charlie Caswell, Miska Clay-Bibbs, Ed Ford, Erika Sugarmon, and Britney Thornton, all Democrats.

“No”  votes came from Republicans Amber Mills, Brandon Morrison, and Mick Wright, and abstaining were Democrat Whaley and Republican Bradford.

In one form or another, the objecting Commissioners wondered where the $5 million to pay for the feasibility study would come from (Ford made the case that such funds were available in the county’s residual share of funds from ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021).

The objectors conceded during debate that disparities existed between the races that needed addressing but expressed disagreement with reparations as such as the remedy. Bradford had originally moved that the matter be postponed until the next public Commission meeting but ultimately withdrew his motion (that clearly would have failed) and expressed hopes that the larger effort to alter disparities succeeded.

His fellow Republican, Mick Wright, expressed similar sentiments, concluding with a blessing for his colleagues and the seemingly heartfelt statement, “I hope God will forgive me if I vote wrong.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Shelby County Commission’s Last Go-Round

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The final meeting of the version of the county commission that was elected four years ago began on Monday with a show of harmony, with mutual compliments, and some last commemorative poetry by limerick-writing Commissioner Steve Mulroy, and expired with a last sputter of disputation. In between, it advanced on two fronts and retreated on another.

Though it might not have appeared so to those unversed in the habits and ways of the county legislative body, this culminating session of the Class of 2010 also offered a symbolic forecast of better times ahead economically. It was during the heyday of the housing boom that went bust in the late aughts — leaving the county, the state, and the nation in financial doldrums — that ace zoning lawyers Ron Harkavy and Homer “Scrappy” Brannan were omnipresent figures in the Vasco Smith County Administration Building.

It seemed like years, and probably was, when the two of them had last appeared at the same commission meeting, each serving as attorneys for clients seeking commissioners’ approval for ambitious building plans. But there they were on Monday, reprising their joint presence at last week’s committee meetings — Harkavy representing the Belz Investment Company on behalf of a new residential development in southeast Shelby County; Brannan representing the Bank of Bartlett in upholding another development further north.

Both were successful, and it was a reminder of old times — say, the early 2000s, when the building boom so dominated commission meetings that worried commissioners actually had to propose a moratorium to slow down the proliferation of sprawl.

The matter of residence was, in yet another way, a major focus of Monday’s meeting, in its overwhelming approval of a resolution on residency requirements for commission members proposed by Mulroy, a Democrat and the body’s leading liberal, and amended by Republican Commissioners Heidi Shafer and Terry Roland. The commission thereby wrote the final chapter of the Henri Brooks saga and set precedents for the future.

The resolution, which provides a checklist of items to satisfy the county charter’s existing residency requirements, was strongly resisted by senior Democrat Walter Bailey, who had been the commission’s major defender of Brooks in her successful effort to stave off legal eviction from the commission after the apparent discovery that she no longer lived in the district she was elected to serve.

Bailey, who has called the Brooks affair a “witch hunt,” has continued to maintain that the commission has no authority to impose or enforce such rules, citing a decision last month by Chancellor Kenny Armstrong upholding Brooks’ appeal of a finding by County Attorney Marcy Ingram that vacated Brooks’ seat in conformity with the county charter. Other commissioners pointed out that Armstrong had actually ruled that it was the commission, rather than the county attorney, that could decide on the matter, thereby affirming the body’s authority.

In any case, Bailey said the commission should operate on the principle of “good faith” and not pursue vendettas. He was backed up in that by Commissioner Sidney Chism, who went so far as to suggest that his colleagues were out to “kill” Brooks.

Most commissioners, though, clearly felt such thinking was over-protective and counter not only to the county charter but to the same traditions of residency enforcement that governs the placement of school children and the right to vote in a given precinct.

Moreover, they had just as clearly soured on Brooks. Commissioner Mark Billingsley said his constituents had concluded that some members of the commission were “not trustworthy.” And according to Mike Ritz, Brooks had “cheated” her constituents by not attending any commission meetings since her attorneys had managed to ensure that she could remain on the body until the end of her term this month. “She’s been cheating them for years,” he added. Shafer said pointedly that the rules up for adoption were meant to prevent efforts “to defraud the voters.”

Jackson Baker

Back on the scene Monday were zoning lawyers Ron Harkavy (top, with Commissioner Heidi Shafer), and “Scrappy” Branan (bottom, left, with Bank of Bartlett president Harold Byrd and Commissioner Terry Roland);

Essentially, the amended resolution provided 10 different items to determine a challenged commissioner’s residency — ranging from utility bills to drivers licenses to documents certifying public assistance or government benefits — and required that only three of them be produced. The resolution passed 8-to-3, though it was understood that it might be met down the line with court challenges.

The commission took another important concrete step in approving a third and final reading of an ordinance proposed by Commissioner Ritz raising the pay of Shelby County Schools board members to $15,000, with the board chairman to receive $16,000. Though that amount was roughly only half the compensation received by county commission members and should be regarded as a “stipend” rather than a salary, it was still a three-fold increase for school board members.

In evident agreement with Ritz that such an increase was overdue, particularly in a “post-controversy” (meaning post-merger) environment, the commission approved the ordinance by the lopsided margin of 10-to-1.

But if comity was to be had in most ways Monday, it fell short on the last item of the day — and of this commission’s tenure. Despite the presence of numerous citizens and clergy members testifying on its behalf, a resolution co-sponsored by Mulroy and Bailey “amending and clarifying the personnel policy of Shelby County regarding nondiscrimination,” fell short by one vote of the seven votes required for passage. 

The same resolution, which specifically added language safeguarding county government employment rights for gay and transgendered persons, had been given preliminary approval by the commission’s general government committee last week. A highlight of the often tempestuous debate on Monday was an angry exchange between Democrat Chism, a supporter of the resolution, and Millington Republican Roland, who opposed it.

The specific language of the resolution was needed in the same way that specific language had been needed in civil rights legislation to end discrimination against blacks, said Chism, an African American. Discrimination, said Chism, “happened to me all of my life. Nobody saw it until the law changed.” Roland shouted back that the resolution was but the vanguard of a homosexual agenda. “It’s an agenda!” he repeated.

In the aftermath of the resolution’s near-miss, a disappointed Mulroy, who had authored the original nondiscrimination resolution of 2009, noted that Brooks, had she been there, would likely have been the necessary seventh vote, and that Chairman James Harvey, who abstained from voting, had proclaimed on multiple occasions, in front of numerous witnesses, that the resolution should be passed but that he, Harvey, who aspires to run for Memphis mayor next year, might have to abstain for “political” reasons.

Another term-limited commissioner, Ritz, may be a principal in the city election, as well. The former commission chairman, who has moved from Germantown into Memphis, said he is eying a possible Memphis City Council race. There is, it would seem, life after county commission service.

Categories
Opinion The BruceV Blog

Election Results Give Reason for Optimism

It’s been a long time since I woke on the day after an election in Shelby County feeling as optimistic and grateful as I do today. Let me count the ways:

First, my state senator, the mentally and physically impaired embarrassment, Ophelia Ford, was soundly defeated in the Democratic primary by Lee Harris, a smart, young law school professor with, I suspect, a bright political future hereabouts. This was the result I wanted most from this election cycle. Win.

Across the state in Knoxville, GOP primary voters turned out in droves to demolish the re-election bid of lunatic state senator Stacey Campfield, aka “Mr. Don’t Say Gay.” Thanks, Knoxville. Love ya. For grins, check out Campfield’s reaction to his defeat on his blog.

Perhaps the result that surprised me most was the defeat, statewide, of Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey’s attempted purge of three Tennessee Supreme Court justices. The upshot: Ron spent a few hundred thousand dollars to let Tennesseans know the names of three Supreme Court justices. Epic fail. Couldn’t happen to a sleazier jackass. This vote, and Lamar Alexander’s victory over anti-immigration nut Joe Carr, gave me some real hope that the Tea Party tide may have finally turned in Tennessee. I hope so, anyway.

Joe Brown and Henri Brooks were resoundingly trounced in their races for attorney general and Juvenile Court clerk, respectively. I’ve had my issues with Brown’s opponent, Amy Weirich, but Brown, like Brooks, simply self-destructed, making Weirich the winner by default, and by a landslide.

To recount, Memphis purged itself of Ophelia Ford, and along with other Shelby County voters, soundly rejected two potential lightning rods/potential embarrassments for public office.

On the other hand, Germantown and Collierville re-elected self-promoting loon Brian Kelsay and public drunk Curry Todd to the state legislature — without opposition. Shades of Ophelia Ford. The next time you hear some suburbanite snarking on Memphis politicians, remind them to check their own backyard.

And I was glad to see Steve Cohen retain his 9th District Congressional seat. Some advice: If local Democrats want to win county-wide races, they would do well to figure out how to organize behind Cohen and his presidential support and national clout, instead of lobbing a futile and divisive primary challenge at him every two years. The muddle-headedness of the SCDP is self-defeating.

There also needs to be serious state legislation passed to crack down on the illicit fake “official ballot” business hereabouts. It’s scandalous. But, all in all, not bad results to wake up to, IMO.

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News The Fly-By

What Henri Brooks Was Doing in 1993

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

To be sure, it was 21 years ago — the spring of 1993 — and much has altered in the political sphere, in Memphis and also in Nashville, where the picture that accompanies this article was shot with the trusty 35 mm. camera I was using at the time.

Yes, those of you who thought the person on the left looked more than usually familiar are correct. That is indeed one Henri Brooks, the Shelby County Commissioner of today but a generation younger then, in the middle of her very first year as a state representative in Nashville. And she is doing a very credible and animated version of the Memphis bop.

Jackson Baker

Henri Brooks and Tim Joyce in 1993

Rep. Brooks’ dancing partner was another state rep from Memphis, Tim Joyce.

Joyce had some rhythm, too. He and Brooks constituted one of several fun couples who took advantage of a break in proceedings to shake a little after-hours booty, midway in the spring 1993 legislative session. It was an affair put together— live band and all — by the Legislative Plaza lobbying corps.

Others who took part included the late House Speaker Pro Tem Lois DeBerry, more than able on the dance floor as on the dais, and state Rep. Bret Thompson, a first-termer like Brooks, who not only danced, but sang from the stage in an R&B style that owed something to the erstwhile “Philosopher of Soul,” Johnnie Taylor.

Probably none of the several score of people who juked at that rare event are still on the scene in the legislature. DeBerry, as beloved a figure across party lines as there was in the General Assembly, died only last year, after a multi-year battle with cancer. Joyce was beaten, as I recall, in the next election by a fellow Republican.

Thompson took a shot at an open state Senate seat but was beaten by fellow state Rep. Roscoe Dixon. Both would run into some trouble with the fates — or their own inner demons (Dixon via the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz sting). Thompson, a lawyer, took a fall for misconduct with a client’s funds and was disbarred. These days, he’s a behind-the-scenes figure in Democratic politics in Shelby County.

And Brooks — we know what she’s been doing, don’t we? Simultaneously running for Juvenile Court Clerk and hoping to escape the consequences of three separate public controversies. These had to do with brow-beating an Hispanic witness before the commission; picking up an assault charge for brawling over a parking space with another woman; and apparently not residing in the district that elected her, which could result in criminal prosecution.

She would have issues in the legislature, too — notably her refusal to rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Both there and later on the commission, Brooks developed a reputation for — well, dancing to her own tune as a largely self-appointed spokesperson for the African-American community.

Back in 1993, however, in a legislative environment that was unusually open-minded by race and by party and by gender, Henri Brooks could follow the music. She’s changed a good bit since then, but so has the General Assembly, ruled these days according to the rigid orthodoxies of the Far Right and as disinclined toward compromise in its way as Henri Brooks is in hers.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Beach Ball of Death

We’ve all had those moments — the little beach ball starts spinning on your laptop, or your iPad screen freezes or, as happened to me yesterday, Siri wouldn’t respond to my request to text a friend. I knew the little minx was in there, but she stayed mum, no matter how hard I pressed the button to summon her.

When these things happen, I always remember the loving mantra of our company IT guy, who, when you ask about a computer malfunction, inevitably snarls: “It probably just needs to reboot. Did you restart it?” And rebooting works, almost every time. It even brought Siri back.

Which brings me to this: Here in Memphis and Shelby County, it’s time to reboot. Far too many of our political offices are held by spinning beach balls. Far too many of our candidates have no business running for public office.

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of strong political reporting hereabouts — by the Flyer‘s Jackson Baker (you should take his cover story from last week with you into the voting booth), and by reporters at the Commercial Appeal. If you’ve been paying attention to the reportage, you have learned that there are judges who don’t come to work on a regular basis; there are judges and judicial candidates with personal issues that should preclude them from any public office, much less that of a judgeship; there are candidates using extremely misleading political advertising, including a white judicial candidate whose ad includes a picture of a black endorsee next to his name. There are candidates and office-holders who don’t pay their taxes, who abuse women, who are racists, who shoot themselves in the foot every time they open their mouth, who are drunks and pill-heads and financial miscreants. Reboot!

The Ophelia Ford Show needs to be cancelled. The Henri Brooks Show is a bad rerun. Judge Joe Brown has fallen and can’t get up. Reboot. Reboot. Reboot. And it’s not just Democrats. Republicans also have their fair share of clowns and buffoons. Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey’s tawdry campaign to unseat three Tennessee Supreme Court judges is beyond shameful, filled with lies and bald-faced distortions.

This has nothing to do with race or party. There are dedicated public servants and qualified candidates of all political stripes and ethnicities. Keep and elect the good ones. Dump and defeat the self-entitled, self-important, and stupid ones.

I know taking the time to learn about all the candidates involves effort. I know it’s a long ballot and that voting can be inconvenient. But surely all sentient Shelby Countians can agree that a little inconvenience is well worth the pay-off: more honest and competent public servants; fewer fools, egomaniacs, and spinning beach balls.

Reboot.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Henri Brooks and Joe Brown: Beyond the Storm

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

If, for partisans of the Shelby County Democratic Party, the period just before the current month got under way was the calm before the storm, what has happened since has been the storm.

Believe it or not, there are several Democratic candidates on the county general election ballot — including Deidre Malone, the party’s candidate for Shelby county mayor, who is running an intelligent, well-conceived campaign involving several ad hoc support groups; and Cheyenne Johnson, the incumbent Shelby County assessor, who is widely regarded as having served effectively, and who proved her appeal to a general public with an impressive reelection win just two years ago.

But two other Democrats on the ballot have monopolized all the attention of late, effectively drawing it away from Malone, Johnson, and other Democratic nominees. Worse, most of the publicity attracted by those candidates — Henri Brooks, candidate for Juvenile Court clerk, and Joe Brown, candidate for district attorney general — has been negative.

To be sure, both Brooks and Brown have seen a closing of the ranks behind them of core supporters — backers of Brooks, especially, have been active, filling the County Commission’s interim meeting room on Monday, making it S.R.O. for yet another showdown on her residential status — but general elections in Shelby County are not won solely on the basis of partisan support.

And both Brooks and Brown seem to have burned more bridges than they have built to swing voters, despite what had initially seemed good prospects for expanding their bases.

Brooks, a term-limited county commissioner, began the election year on a wave of relative acclaim, having almost single-handedly forced the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate conditions at Juvenile Court and subsequently to mandate reforms in the court’s procedure. Really, all Brooks had to do to sustain good election chances was to make nice in the way of most candidates, doing at least minimal outreach beyond her African-American inner-city constituency.

Instead, she managed to alienate considerable numbers of white and Hispanic voters in the course of a stormy commission debate about minority contracting on county construction projects (one in which her rhetoric undercut the tenable logic of her case); incurred a misdemeanor assault charge in a needless wrangle over a parking-lot space; and, finally, was discovered not to be inhabiting her listed residence, leading to serious efforts by fellow commissioners to declare her ineligible to serve and to vacate her seat.

Brooks has so far come out ahead in a series of skirmishes on the residential matter. She won a declaratory judgment last week from Chancellor Kenny Armstrong invalidating County Attorney Marcy Ingram’s finding that Brooks’ seat should be vacated. Armstrong ruled that only the commission could make such a finding.

And when the commission took up the matter on Monday, in the aforementioned jam-packed meeting room, no agreement on going forward could be reached by Brooks’ 12 colleagues. After a lengthy and contentious session, the commission concurred on a resolution to meet again on a still undefined date later this month, but there was a general consensus, at least privately, that Brooks would be able to run out the clock — on the basis of her attorneys’ appeals, if by no other means — and will be able to finish her term of office.

But that tactical victory, and the ongoing fuss about Brooks, could turn out to be Pyrrhic for her election chances.

As for Judge Joe Brown (as the former Criminal Court judge was billed during the 15 years of his nationally syndicated TV arbitration show), the aura of de facto ticket booster that his celebrity had initially gained him had already sagged due to an extended period of inactivity during May and June.

Brown had let it be known that, as of July 1st, things would be different. And he was right about that, if wildly wrong about which direction the difference would take. Speaking to a group of supporters last week, he responded grumpily to a TV station’s prodding him about the deleterious effect of an ongoing divorce on his surprisingly scanty campaign finances.

A supporter filmed and posted online Brown’s angry, rambling suggestion that the media should turn its attention instead to the matter of what he called the “down low” sexuality of his opponent, incumbent District Attorney General Amy Weirich, whose lifestyle is regarded as that of a conventional wife and mother. 

Brown’s unsubstantiated remarks generated a predictable and virtually universal outrage, but he declined to disavow them, calling himself an “entertainer” running for office.

Doubtful as it is that swing voters will be amused, they were “summoned” by the newly visible Brown to a meet-and-greet this Wednesday night at the Central Train Station on Main.

• Interestingly enough, County Commissioner Justin Ford was scheduled to be the host for another meet-and-greet on Wednesday — this one for aunt Ophelia Ford‘s reelection campaign in state Senate District 29. 

It will be remembered that Commissioner Ford won his primary race in the new Commission District 9 in something of a stealth manner against two highly active opponents, former school board member Patrice Robinson and Memphis Education Association President Keith Williams. During most of the spring primary campaign, there was talk in both of those two campaigns that the race was between the two of them, that Ford had been redistricted away from his main source of support in the South Memphis environs of N. J. Ford Funeral Home, and so forth.

When votes were counted on the evening of May 6th, however, it was Justin Ford who came out ahead, having put on something of a late rush and, perhaps as importantly, riding the residual cachet that belongs to the Ford name.

Reports of a decline in the Ford political dynasty have been somewhat exaggerated. Take a look: There is a Ford on the County Commission, another (Edmund Ford) on the City Council, and, however battered by bad publicity, adverse revelations about her attendance (more of which is likely to come) and doubts about her competence, Ophelia has so far managed to remain in the state Senate.

There is no doubt that City Councilman Lee Harris, is running a smart, vigorous, and apparently well-supported and financed campaign to unseat Senator Ford, and he has the further advantage of the free media that comes from being in the public eye as a highly active member of the council.

But there is a rule of thumb about incumbents having the edge in three-way races, and the fact is that the Democratic primary race in state Senate District 29 is a three-way — a four-way, really, inasmuch as Ricky Dixon and Herman Sawyer are on the ballot along with Ford and Harris.

Either Dixon or Sawyer could siphon anti-incumbent votes away from challenger Harris, but Dixon is a threat in his own right. Brother of former state Senator Roscoe Dixon, also a Tennessee Waltz figure, candidate Dixon has run before, most recently as the Democratic nominee in 2010 for Circuit Court clerk, netting 44 percent of the votes in that race.

What happens in the remaining month or so before election day on August 7th will be crucial. If Harris can translate his endorsements and campaign appearances into visible evidence of support during early voting, which begins on Friday, July 18th, he could be on his way to a new political venue.

If so, Harris will have accomplished something not yet done by anybody — defeating a Ford for reelection. Even with someone so visibly tarnished as Ophelia Ford, that might not be so easy.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Les Smith’s column, “Sounds of Silence” …

Les Smith seems to hate those who have served the city and keeps telling them what wonderful benefits they have. Why don’t you try to actually report on the issue instead of quoting the mayor’s talking points? If you take away the health-care benefits, the city’s benefits are not nearly as good as private industry, even though the pay is much less and the risk is much higher. How many mayors and city councilmen are in a wheelchair or on a breathing machine or have a hip that doesn’t work that they hurt while serving their fellow citizens? 

Let’s compare private sector businesses versus fire department employees: A firefighter’s retirement benefits are about $3,000 a month for life, no current plans for cost of living increases, ever. There is no employee matched 401k and no Social Security benefits. Health-care costs $1,650 per month for a married couple (premier plan). Continuing work-related injuries are very common and not covered.

A typical private employer may not offer a company-funded pension, but employee-matched 401k plans are common at almost every private business. They almost all pay Social Security benefits and health care.

Continuing work-related injuries are covered by Social Security Disability.

Put us on the same benefits as private industry, and you can start by making the city pay Social Security, just like everyone else.

Jim Wilson

About Jackson Baker’s column, “‘Fair Game’ or Smoking Guns in Shelby County Judicial Races” …

A judge is as a judge does. This judicial race should not be about who is a Republican or who is a Democrat. It’s supposed to be a “nonpartisan” race. If members of the executive committee of either party choose to reject the grotesque, self-serving, and corruptive special-interest influences currently being exerted upon all courts in general and the Probate Court in particular, I welcome their endorsement and much-needed support because this judicial election should not be about political parties or individuals running to be officious; it’s about whether or not the candidate will be judicious after he or she is elected.

Lawparks

You have to remember that the official Democratic Party has absolutely no influence and, as long as they act like this, they never will.

Memphis Democrat

About Frank Murtaugh’s column, “USA! USA! Futbol Time in America” …

My opinion is that the drama in the flops has changed from the last World Cup. Still seeing lots of guys who are incredibly clumsy in the box, but the refs seem to ignore most of it.

My favorite is the magic spray. What is it, and how does it cure these guys who get tripped, banged in the shin, etc.? They scream, grab the leg, and writhe on the ground, and the trainer gets out the spray and they are magically all better.

homersimpson

About Greg Akers’ post “Bad Movie Double Feature” …

Gotta check these out; never seen either one. In the meantime, 1970’s Myra Breckinridge gets my vote for worst movie ever. The cast was bizarro: Raquel Welch, Mae West, John Huston, Farrah Fawcett, Jim Backus, Tom Selleck, and even Rex Reed. I’m guessing the casting director was out of his skull on mescaline.

Dave Clancy

On Jackson Baker’s post, “Brooks Ousted But Declines to Go Gentle Into That Good Night” …

My guess is, rules is rules, except for them that make the rules. Long sad tale of Memphis ‘leadership’, no matter what their stripe. The old ones need to go, either side of the bickering.

OakTree

So she’s lived all these places without owning any of them or paying any property taxes to Shelby County? And she votes on property tax rates? Interesting. And no wonder it’s difficult to establish residency.

Brunetto Latini

[Brooks’ opponent] Joy Touliatos needs to buy a Powerball ticket because she has the most amazing good fortune of anyone in Shelby County right now. Autoegocrat

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About a letter to the editor on gun control …

“Was that a gun?” My girlfriend asked, shortly after midnight one Friday evening. “No. Probably not,” I said. It could have been a gun, but it could have been firecrackers. It could have been a dumpster slamming against a garbage truck. The three staccato reports following the first, however, confirmed her suspicions. 

“Time to go inside,” she said. I reluctantly followed suit, a little frustrated that our pleasant evening on the porch was abruptly ended. We turned on the house alarm, turned off the lights, and went to bed, like we always do — with a loaded handgun in the bedside table and a loaded shotgun in our bedroom. 

After reading the last issue of the Flyer, I can’t help but wonder who would be considered the bad guy in this situation: the person who presumably shot a gun in the middle of the night or the couple who went to bed early in a home full of (legal) guns? Judging by a highly opinionated letter to the editor, I wonder if there’s even a distinction.

We’re new residents of Midtown, part of the growing number of DINKs who are migrating from the suburbs back to the city’s center to enjoy the great bars, restaurants, music, and architecture that makes Midtown a fine place to live. Crime and safety played a role in where we decided to land, and, we came to the conclusion that the danger of burglary or personal harm are at worst, no worse than what we already experienced in Cordova. From what I have seen of my peers and neighbors, we’re all pretty similar — khaki shorts and flip flops, collegiate apparel, professional jobs. Ten years ago, we’d all be suburbanites. Several of my Midtown friends and new neighbors are gun owners and possess Tennessee handgun carry permits. We carry concealed handguns when we walk our dogs. Poop bags in one pocket, pistol in the other. We have loaded guns in our homes. They are tools for self defense as well as hunting and sport shooting.

We’re part of the neighborhood for the long haul. So, when the Flyer sneers at political “gun suckers” or prints letters to the editor that suggest NRA members should be put on reservations, is it a cheap shot at the old, fat, white guy with a gun? I guess it doesn’t matter, because legal guns are coming back to Midtown. Many are already here.

Seminolehuntfish

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Editor’s Letter on Henri Brooks …

I’d like to know how it is possible that a family that includes a former county mayor and a campaign manager among its three attorneys did not know Commissioner Brooks was residing outside her district. I have never worked for any politician when I did not know where they lived and slept. I have never heard of an attorney outside of certain pro bono cases who did not have a billing address for their client. I have never heard of a mayor who did not know where the district lines were drawn. Something really stinks here.Autoegocrat

The Henri I know and love was a gentle soul. I remember on lazy autumn afternoons, after screening old Fellini movies and cooking Italian meals in my kitchen on Crump Boulevard, I’d take her in my arms and softly sing my favorite Manilow tune in her ear:

“Time in New England

Took me away

To long rocky beaches

And you by the bay …”

Then she’d dump an entire bottle of vintage Latour on my head, call me a Mick, and drive back to Cordova. Special times, man. Special times.

Dave Clancy

About Toby Sells’ story “Memphis City Council Cuts Employee Benefits” …

The city lowered the amount they were contributing to the retirement fund years ago. That is part of the problem with the pension being short. That was a Herenton change. It is hardly good business to take away insurance when these employees are not able to pay into Social Security. That is one of the reasons the city offered insurance coverage for retirees: the employees could not get Medicare unless they paid SSI for the right number of quarters. Many have not had enough hours under SSI to qualify, as they were possibly in the military and then on to the police dept.

Don’t Be Sad

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1322

Great Location!

There’s nothing quite like that moment when you open up a little red Apartment Guide box to discover that, instead of being full of housing opportunities, it’s actually full of somebody’s pants. And somebody’s shirt. And the rest of somebody’s outfit. Is this where superheroes ditch their secret identities now that phone booths are scarce?

Animal Crackers?

Your Pesky Fly would be remiss should he fail to mention that an unidentified woman was permanently ejected from the Memphis Zoo this week for getting a little too close to the animals. On Monday, June 23rd, a woman wearing brown scrubs crossed a barrier in Cat Country in order to serenade the lions and feed them cookies. Nobody seems to have recorded what types of cookies she thought a 250-pound carnivore might enjoy. Lady Fingers, perhaps?

Cover Girl

With Judge Joe Brown being a clear exception to the rule, there has been a trend toward smiling in mug shots since Just Busted became a convenience-store staple. Even embattled Shelby County Commissioner Henri Brooks smiled for her close-up. Brooks, who was arrested for assault, is pictured next to Krystal “texting while driving” Sharp and Katerina “domestic violence” Walthall.