Tag: Herenton

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Damn the Torpedoes!

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Harold Byrd, suited up to the nines, his mane of gone-white hair crowning his tanned, smiling face, is being hit on by two matrons who recognize him from the Bank of Bartlett commercials which he, the bank’s president, is spokesman for. The three of them are standing in line at Piccadilly cafeteria on Poplar near Highland, waiting to pay their lunch checks.

“Oh, he looks just like he does on television,” coos one of the women, while the other nods with what is either real or mock mournfulness. “And his wife came and took him away from us! Isn’t that a shame?”

At 56, Byrd is unmarried, but he does not correct this misapprehension. He merely keeps the smile on — the characteristically toothy one which, together with his quite evident fitness, a product of daily runs and workouts, makes him look younger than his age — and says, “Thank you.”

Later, as he is leaving the restaurant, Byrd observes, with evident sincerity, “They made my day.” And just in case his companion might have missed it, he notes with a wink the greeting he got from another, younger woman.

All this attention and well-wishing has to be a welcome consolation for Byrd, given the predicament he now finds himself in: Horatio at the Gate against what he sees as Mayor Willie Herenton’s expensive and ill-conceived scheme to develop the Fairgrounds, with a brand-new football stadium as the pièce de résistance.

Justin Fox Burks

Byrd is on a mission to demonstrate that a better solution is at hand, one long overdue — namely, the long-deferred construction of a quality football stadium on campus at the University of Memphis, one which he says would cost no more than $100 million, as against the vaguely calculated sums, ranging from $125 million upwards, associated with the mayor’s plan.

Byrd is more than just another citizen with an opinion. He is a member of the university’s Board of Visitors, he is a former president of its Alumni Association, and he was the first president of the Tiger Scholarship Fund. More than all of that, Byrd — the holder himself of undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Memphis — has been, for decades now, one of the best-known public faces associated with university causes, athletic and otherwise.

His annual bank-sponsored pre-game buffets, held at the Fairgrounds before every Tiger home opener, draw huge crowds, teeming with the high and mighty and hoi polloi alike. He is either the host or the featured speaker at literally scores of university-related occasions each year, and there is no such thing as a fund-raising campaign for the university in which he does not figure largely.

Byrd’s prominence on the University of Memphis booster scene rivals that of athletic director R.C. Johnson or U of M president Shirley Raines and precedes the coming of either.

It must be painful, Byrd’s companion suggests, as they head for an on-campus tour of the site Byrd favors for a new stadium, that he now finds himself somewhat at loggerheads with both of these figures.

He agrees. He expresses what sounds like sincere regret that he doesn’t have the kind of impressively remote bearing that he associates with a variety of other civic figures — cases in point being Michael Rose, the longtime local entrepreneur and new chairman of First Tennessee Bank, and Otis Sanford, editorial director of The Commercial Appeal.

“I wish I could play my cards closer to the vest,” he laments. “I guess I’m too Clintonesque. I tell everybody everything!”

Byrd admits, “I may make people nervous,” but, as he says, by way of reminding both himself and his companion, “I think people are still talking to me, I think people still like me.”

Byrd is doubtless correct in that assumption, though there is no doubting that he does, in fact, “make people nervous” — and will continue to, so long as Athletic Director Johnson maintains his public stance of support for a Fairgrounds stadium (one, however, as Byrd notes, that has undergone some modification of late) and President Raines keeps her cautious distance from any particular proposal.

Harold Byrd’s diagram of his preferred site for an on-campus football stadium at the University of Memphis. All facilities are shown as they currently exist except for the stadium itself, which would occupy an expanse now filled by four dormitories all due for demolition, according to U of M officials.

At a recent meeting of the university Board of Visitors, Byrd laid out his vision for an on-campus arena — specifying no less than five acceptable sites.

Site Number One, which Byrd prefers, is a terrain adjoining Zach Curlin Drive on the eastern fringe of the university’s main campus. It would stretch from an open parkland in the vicinity of the Ned R. McWherter Library on the north down to the area of the old University Fieldhouse on the south. As Byrd notes, four dormitory buildings which now occupy the land are shortly to be razed.

“There’s our Grove!” he says excitedly of the available open expanse near the library — evoking the pre-game gatherings of fans on the campus of the University of Mississippi before games at the school’s on-campus Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Site Number Two, “which I like almost as much,” Byrd says, is a roomy area along Southern Avenue south of the university’s main administration buildings. Adjacent to an existing athletic complex and athletic dorms, the area consists mainly of parking lots right now.

Site Number Three is the large area that stretches from Patterson west to Highland and northward to Central. “The university owns most of the houses in this area,” says Byrd, and a tour of the zone indicates that, just as he says, most of the edifices, some now used as fraternity houses, many rented out to students, have seen their better days.

Site Number Four is the area just north of Central, partially university-owned, partially requiring some eminent-domain clearance. “I think that one would be more complicated,” Byrd says, though he notes that other university figures, who for the moment are keeping their own counsel, are more keen on it.

And Site Number Five, lastly, is the relatively sprawling area of the university’s South Campus, bordered on the north by Park Avenue. “That wouldn’t be as good as one located directly on the main campus, where most of the students are, but even it would be better by far than the Liberty Bowl.”

Byrd’s enthusiasm for the on-campus sites — especially for the Zach Curlin Drive alternative — is somewhat contagious, but when he made two elaborate presentations recently, one to a meeting of the Board of Visitors, another to an alumni group, there were few among his hearers who were willing to put themselves on the line as being in agreement with him.

“But you wouldn’t believe how many people came up to me afterward and said they thought I had the right idea,” Byrd says. He provides a list of influential people, both on and off campus. “I have no right to speak in their name,” he says, but they are likely to concur.

The first two contacted are much as advertised. Lawyer Jim Strickland, a member of the university alumni group who has launched a campaign for the City Council, is almost as keen on the Zach Curlin site as Byrd is, and Jim Phillips, president of the biometric firm Luminetx, takes time out from a meeting of his board to extol Byrd’s thinking in general terms.

At a recent gathering, prominent developer Henry Turley and University of Memphis professor David Acey were in conversation and were asked what they thought of Byrd’s proposals. “He’s passionate!” Turley exclaimed appreciatively, but the developer, who has interests of his own in the university, wondered where the money would come from. Acey’s concern had to do with space.

Justin Fox Burks

Apprised of this, Byrd noted that the same objections might apply, to greater or lesser degree, to the Fairgrounds site, and he insisted that better solutions were at hand at the university once people began to join him in thinking in that direction. Only a dearth of leadership has kept that from happening so far, Byrd says.

Byrd expresses admiration for both Herenton and his Shelby County mayoral counterpart, A C Wharton, though he finds the former figure a bit imperious and the latter one inclined to be more a “moderator” than a leader per se. He still hopes that both can be converted to a vision something like his own for a regeneration of the university campus that becomes the springboard for progress in the community at large.

“Every other university in the state has on-campus football and basketball sites,” Byrd notes, and he reels off a list of universities in the nation that have in the last few years constructed such facilities: “Louisville, Connecticut, Missouri, Central Florida, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Minnesota, Gonzaga … Those are just a few. There have to be 20 or more of them. Have we done it right or has everybody else done it wrong?”

It is the experience of the University of Louisville, in particular, that most animates Byrd. As he points out, that school had, until a generation ago, been primarily an urban-based commuter school with an athletic reputation in basketball. As Memphis fans well know, in fact, the Louisville Cardinals were the basketball Tigers’ chief rivals until recently — when they left Conference-USA for richer pickings in the more prestigious Big East conference, where the Cardinals now figure as a power in both basketball and football.

And there, Byrd contends, but for the aforesaid lack of vision on the part of university and civic officials, would have gone the Tigers and their supporters and the larger community served by the university. As Byrd sees it, Louisville launched its Great Leap Forward in 1992 when Howard Schellenberger became football coach and declared that his goal was for Louisville to play for a national championship.

“For $63 million — that’s all — they built a 40,000-seat stadium on campus. It replaced an old one several miles away, kind of like the Liberty Bowl. They’ve just made a quantum leap, and now they do contend for the national championship!”

How much would it cost for the University of Memphis to build a facility that might lead to the same result? Byrd reflects. “As a banker, I contend that we could build a first-rate collegiate stadium seating something like 50,000 people on campus for $100 million.” He contrasts that figure to estimates as high as $150 million for the facility Mayor Herenton envisions for the Fairgrounds.

And how would an on-campus stadium be financed?

Obligingly, Byrd does the arithmetic. There will be so much for naming rights (à la Louisville’s Papa John’s Stadium or, for that matter, FedExForum). So much from student fees. (“They’re building a new $45 million University Center right now on the basis of a modest increase in student tuition,” Byrd says. “Don’t you think students would be totally excited to walk to an on-campus facility? And our fees would still be the lowest in the state.”) So much from signage and from sale of suites and from organized fund-raising campaigns of the sort Byrd is a seasoned veteran of.

The problem, as Byrd sees it, is that the university has historically let itself get sidetracked from the clear and evident duty of completing its on-campus presence, which is what the fact of self-contained athletic facilities would amount to. Memphis’ state-supported university, he notes again, is the only facility in Tennessee so deprived.

With some chagrin, he acknowledges that he himself, both as chairman of the Shelby County delegation during his service as a state representative in the 1970s and later as an active university booster, acceded to the series of athletic structures and arenas built elsewhere — the Liberty Bowl (then known as Memorial Stadium) and the Mid-South Coliseum in the mid-’60s and, more reluctantly, the Pyramid downtown.

“Downtown was always the only other location for putting a first-class facility, where there was an infrastructure in place that could profit from it, but the Pyramid was NBA-unacceptable from the inception, and I told them so.”

Byrd sighs. “The leaders of government at that time were fearful of the taxpayers and more worried about that rather than building the facility like it should have been built. The result was that it ended up costing us more rather than less.”

And the irony, Byrd says, is that the university was then, as it would be now under Herenton’s proposed Fairgrounds development, the prime source of revenue support for all these city facilities — up to as much as 90 percent, and 50 percent even for FedExForum, which is totally under the control of the NBA’s Grizzlies.

“Flying into Memphis, you notice the Pyramid, the Liberty Bowl, and the Coliseum,” says Byrd. “They represent over $500 million in today’s dollars if you had to replace those facilities, and they’re all about to be either mothballed or destroyed. They’re not in imminent danger of encountering footballs or basketballs — they’re in danger of the wrecking ball! They must not have been in the right place to begin with if they need to be torn down now.”

Why, then, repeat that error by rebuilding something else new and shiny and expensive, but doomed to obsolescence, at the Fairgrounds? Byrd recalls city councilman Dedrick Brittenum saying, in a discussion about the proposed new venues, that whatever went in at the Fairgrounds should be built to last 30 or 40 years.

“Thirty or 40 years! That’s no time at all. What we need is to create a traditional site — like Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee. That goes all the way back to the 1920s!”

Byrd recalls that the old University Fieldhouse, adjacent to his preferred site for a stadium on the eastern edge of the U of M campus, once served as an on-site facility for Tiger basketball games during the period in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the university was coming of age as a national power in that sport. “What if they’d kept on going and expanded it and built a state-of-the-art facility there?”

He acknowledges having signed off as a state legislator on construction of both the Mid-South Coliseum as a replacement for the fieldhouse and the Liberty Bowl.

“If we’d put them in the right place, on campus, 20 million people would have visited that campus in the years since 1965. What would be the effect of having 20 million on the University of Memphis campus during that time?”

He ticks off several imagined consequences — increased donations, an enlarged study body, a developed social-fraternity infrastructure, a better-paid and more prestigious faculty. In short, a big-league university instead of the perpetually hand-to-mouth institution that is the University of Memphis today.

“We’ve got wonderful programs there. A speech and hearing center, a new school of music, a beautiful library.” He lists several other glories of the university, all, he contends, hidden more or less under a bushel. “When I talk to my fellow members of the Board of Visitors or the other university groups I belong to, I ask them, how many times have you actually visited the university when it wasn’t in the line of duty? It’s almost always very seldom or never.”

Byrd is realistic. He knows it’s too late to create a basketball arena on campus. FedExForum, which, as he sees it, has its own virtues, will serve that purpose. But football is another matter. Not only would it have enormous impact on the university itself with eight football dates a year, including the annual Southern Heritage Classic and Liberty Bowl events, plus innumerable concerts. “As a state facility, the stadium would be exempt from all those restrictions the Grizzlies put on other facilities,” he says. “Altogether, we should attract a million people the first year alone.”

As for the surrounding community, says Byrd, “The mayor talks about using tax-increment financing to redevelop the area around the Fairgrounds. Why not use it instead to build up the area around the university? The only thing that’s been built around the Fairgrounds in recent years is Will’s Barbecue, and it closed years ago. There are lots of existing businesses in the university area. They’ve paid their dues, and they deserve the support this would give.”

Like someone reluctantly confiding a secret, Byrd says, “Most people think the university is operating on a plan, but they’re not. They don’t have the kind of Teddy Roosevelt, damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead outlook that we had under Sonny Humphreys [university president during its major expansion era in the 1950s and 1960s]. We’ve had a dearth of leadership. R.C. and President Raines are waiting on Herenton. They should have their own vision, to get everybody together … .”

He takes a breath and continues:

“If that were allowed to happen, it would be amazing.”

Harold Byrd makes it clear that he is prepared to damn the torpedoes and go full-speed ahead and to keep on recommending, and seeking, that kind of amazement. And, sooner or later, he fully expects to have some serious company in that endeavor.

Categories
Opinion

This Space For Rent

A few weeks ago, about 60 of Mayor Willie Herenton’s big financial backers joined him for lunch at Folk’s Folly steakhouse. It was the mayor’s way of thanking them for contributing $1,000 to “sponsor” his annual Christmas party last year.

“Herenton’s Hypocrites” is how one attendee described it, suggesting that some of those attending were either ambivalent or secretly opposed to a fifth consecutive four-year term for Herenton.

In politics as in sports, they say money talks and bullshit walks. Not quite. As has been the mayor’s practice in other years, the prospective “sponsors” get a letter from the mayor’s special assistant, Pete Aviotti. If you’re a lawyer, developer, or businessman who has dealings with the city of Memphis, it could well take more nerve to say “sorry, not this time” to a 16-year-incumbent mayor than to write a personal or corporate check. It could be foolish to say no. At any rate, the “host committee” included 82 names, among them Jack Belz, Richard Fields, Dick Hackett, Michael Heisley, Rusty Hyneman, Arnold Perl, Gayle Rose, Fred Smith, and Henry Turley.

Who wouldn’t be fortified by backers like that? On New Year’s Day, Herenton spoke at a prayer breakfast and appealed to the crowd to keep him “on the wall.” Later that morning, he confirmed that he plans to run for mayor again but declined to talk about it, taking questions only about his proposal for a new stadium. When he presented his stadium plans in slightly more detail last week, there was a notable absence of big-business supporters and potential stadium sponsors.

A person who attended the thank-you luncheon said that the mayor was asked if he “loves” the job and that he replied, in so many words, no, but he will do it for the good of Memphis — a variant of the “on the wall” theme. He told the questioner at the luncheon that he fears that if he does not run then the mayoral field will be wide open, as the 9th District congressional field was when Harold Ford Jr. abandoned his seat to run for Senate. And, he added, in a winner-take-all free-for-all, anything can happen.

There is another side to that, however. Intentionally or not, Herenton, who has $527,328 in his election fund, has made it difficult for credible challengers to muster the supporters and money they need to run or test the waters.

The mayor’s job is too important for all this coyness and mystery. Are the big donors hypocrites or hardcores? There’s at least one way to find out. Get them to put their mouth where their money is. So here’s the deal. Anyone who wrote a $1,000 check to Aviotti for Herenton’s 2006 Christmas party or his 2007 reelection campaign within the last three months can play. You get this space, 700 words, to tell Memphis why Herenton should be mayor — again.

The only condition: You have to write the thing yourself or with the help of others who gave $1,000. And you have to sign it. If you hire a ghostwriter or public-relations firm to help, you have to identify them by name, and then you still have to sign it. Once the piece is done, you can pass it around to everyone who was at Folk’s Folly — you know who you are — and ask them to co-sign.

We’ll run the piece unedited, and if it goes longer than 700 words, I’m sure one of my colleagues will donate extra space.

The offer stands for four weeks. That will give mayoral-race candidates and prospective candidates time to ponder your words.

Nominating petitions can’t be picked up until April 20th. The qualifying deadline is July 19th. The election is October 4th. There is still time for pretenders to reconsider and for undeclared contenders to jump in. Let’s hear the case for four more years.

No other Memphis mayor has served four consecutive terms, much less five. Herenton says journalists are out of touch and don’t appreciate the depth of support he has. Fair enough. Start typing and show us the depth of support the mayor has among his chief financial donors and prospective partners in the private sector.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Two More for Mayoralty

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

All right, pundits. Get your slide-rules out, and calculate who takes votes from whom. Mayor Willie Herenton and Councilwoman Carol Chumney won’t be alone in this year’s mayor’s race. It appears they are certain to be joined by former Shelby County commissioner John Willingham and former MLGW head Herman Morris.

Willingham, who has been a candidate in both of the last two mayoral contests (one for city mayor in 2003 and another for county mayor last year), recently held an organizational meeting at Pete & Sam’s Restaurant on Park and made it clear to a decent-sized crowd of attendees that he’d be running.

Reportedly, Willingham is forming an exploratory committee. One of his main men, incidentally, is Leon Gray, the former radio talk-show host for the local Air America affiliate.

Morris will be making his first race and, to judge by table talk at last weekend’s Shelby County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner at the University of Memphis-area Holiday Inn, he stands a very good chance of getting the local GOP’s endorsement. (Morris, Willingham, and Chumney were conspicuous among the attendees at the dinner, as was District 5 City Council candidate Jim Strickland. All save Willingham have Democratic personal histories.)

Before taking the MLGW job, attorney Morris had headed up the local NAACP chapter. His multiplicity of insider connections ensures that he will not lack for financing. The question remains: Can he put together a sufficiently large coalition of establishmentarians and voters disillusioned with Herenton (both blacks and whites) to be anything more than a spoiler?

Ancillary question: From whom will Morris take more votes? Herenton or Chumney?

As for Willingham, even some of his closest friends are dubious that the third time could be the charm for him. In both of his prior mayoral races he was a distant second (to Herenton and A C Wharton, respectively), though he sought to challenge the vote count in both instances.

The former commissioner and Renaissance man of sorts (he’s been a barbecue maven, an engineer, and a Nixon administration aide, among other things) is quite literally irrepressible, though, and remains determined to vent several issues having to do with revamping local government and exposing alleged corruption.

Willingham professes not to believe that he and Chumney are competing for the same vote, although the councilwoman, too, has developed something of a following among voters who want to turn the page and start all over.

For that matter, Morris also has potential appeal of the throw-the-rascals-out sort. One task confronting the well-connected lawyer is to prove, à la Kipling, that he can “walk with kings and keep the common touch.” He has certainly walked with kings, but the former star collegiate athlete remains an unknown quantity in terms of street cred and how-to on the hustings.

Who Knew the Secret? Ramsey Confides: One of the reigning celebrities at the GOP’s Lincoln Day celebration Saturday night was newly installed state Senate speaker Ron Ramsey of Blountville, who ousted octogenarian John Wilder, the longtime, nominally Democratic speaker, last month.

Lieutenant Governor Ramsey regaled the crowd with humor (referring to his election as the first Republican Senate speaker since Reconstruction, he cracked: “One hundred forty years! Just think of it, 140 years! John Wilder was just a young man!”) and a choice revelation:

Although the key vote for Ramsey by Rosalind Kurita (D-Clarksville) was a surprise to most people until the moment it happened, Ramsey revealed the five people who knew about it and saw it coming: himself, his wife Cindy, Kurita, his chief of staff Matt King, and state senator Mark Norris of Collierville, who succeeded Ramsey as the Senate’s majority leader.

Kyle vs. Kurita: Kurita, by the way, was the subject of a scathing letter sent out this week to elected Democratic officials throughout the state by state senator Jim Kyle of Memphis, the Senate Democratic leader. Writing in his individual capacity on campaign letterhead, Kyle denounced Kurita for an action he saw as undercutting Democratic prospects in the state and beseeched fellow Democrats to “hold her accountable for her actions.”

Before her vote to unseat Wilder, Kurita had been elected by the Senate Democratic caucus to serve as head of the party’s candidate-recruitment efforts.

(The full text of Kyle’s letter is available here.)

Back to Basics: The major speeches at the annual Lincoln Day banquet — from Ramsey, 7th District congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (who took aim at “the media”), and former Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts, the keynoter — reflected, if anything, a hardening of existing GOP positions on social issues like gay rights and abortion and a qualified — but not absolute — support for President Bush‘s Iraq policy.

Watts, an African American and potential vice-presidential candidate who is sometimes touted as his party’s answer to Democratic senator Barack Obama, did, however, include a conspicuous appeal for “diversity” in a speech that electrified the crowd.

Coming Out Smoking: Governor Phil Bredesen‘s proposal in his Monday-night State of the State address to finance educational improvements by tripling the state’s cigarette tax (to 60 cents a pack) is his first major revenue-enhancement initiative and could turn out to be a controversy on the order of his scraps with former state senator (now congressman) Steve Cohen on lottery issues.

A C’s Mixed Bag: Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, speaking to the downtown Rotary Club on Tuesday, expressed a guarded preference for the idea of elected additional judges in Juvenile Court. Wharton declined, however, to commit himself on two other issues: a preferred location for a proposed Toyota plant (nearby Marion, Arkansas, versus Chattanooga) and the question, after a recent court decision affecting Knox County, of whether several constitutional Shelby County offices should be elected or appointed.

(See memphisflyer.com for more on these stories.)

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Willie for President?

Almost despite himself, Mayor Herenton has occasioned some useful discourse about the matter of civic priorities. We say “despite himself” because we’re not sure the latest Big Idea floated by the mayor — a new football stadium to be financed by a $60 million bond issue — was ever meant to be taken seriously. It is characteristic of Hizzoner to advance sweeping proposals, let them simmer for a while on the front burner, then allow both them and his own appetite for pursuing them to cool off while the same-old same-old civic problems — urban blight, crime, neighborhood redevelopment — and some worsening new ones — corruption in local government prominent among them — continue to languish with inattention.

The stadium proposal, announced by Herenton on the occasion of his annual New Year’s Day prayer breakfast, already seems like a leftover item from last year, or the year before that, another in a long list of forgotten or neglected issues, like the mayor’s perennial call for city/county consolidation, a long-shot issue that gets ever longer as real needs go unaddressed and public confidence wanes among those both inside and outside the city line.

Herenton is no fool, to be sure. He was canny enough to go beyond a mere welcoming address at last weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform and to align a blast or two at his local critics with the issue of media bias, one of the forum’s dominant concerns. For his pains, he was accorded the status of an unfairly maligned executive by one of the event’s organizers, who went so far as to suggest that, but for the aforesaid bias, Herenton might have become a perfectly legitimate presidential contender. (No, we’re not making this up.)

Well, good for him. We’ve always respected Mayor Herenton for the large and even inspiring figure he cuts when he chooses to — just as we’ve always discounted his disingenuous claim that he is “not a politician.” The last time we looked, successful politicians are the ones who know how to get the numbers at election time, and that category certainly includes Willie Herenton.

As we stand on the precipice of yet another city election, one that will evidently see Herenton’s attempt at winning a fifth four-year mayoral term, we indulge the hope that, this time around, the mayor is challenged to go beyond bromides, bait-and-switch proposals, and election-year rhetoric. One more-than-likely opponent is City Council member Carol Chumney, who if nothing else knows how to find the sore that’s festering and pick it. There are plenty sores around on our urban and governmental landscape for her to choose from. Another possible entrant is former MLGW president Herman Morris, a longtime insider who is no doubt capable of great revelations concerning possible back-burner (and back-room) issues.

We look forward to a real and meaningful contest this year between Herenton, Chumney, Morris, and whomever else, and whoever wins may well get our own nomination for president if they go on to do something about the real problems and — who knows? — maybe even fix them.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Developers want to spruce up the airport area, saying it gives visitors who fly into Memphis a bad first impression of our city. We agree, but let’s face it. There are no good first impressions of our city, unless you approach the city from the east and drive through Collierville and Germantown. Most of North Memphis looks pretty rough, too, and West Memphis … well, ’nuff said.

Several of the Tennessee Waltz defendants have gone on trial for bribery and other charges (with lots more scheduled soon), another trial is under way for a man accused of the stabbing death of Midtowner Emily Fisher, and two men are arrested for the murder of a Tennessee highway patrolman. Sometimes it seems everybody in town is behind bars or headed that way.

Mayor Willie Herenton continues to plead for a brand-new, multimillion-dollar football stadium but says we certainly don’t need a new $240 million jail. Oh, really? Mayor, please read the above item again. Maybe we could combine both facilities into one, and the inmates could play football, like in The Longest Yard, or any number of inmate-football-team movies.

A criminal court jury finds Greg Cravens

the so-called Hacks Cross Creeper guilty on all four counts of home invasion and robbery, with other charges pending. Willie Price had terrorized homeowners in the Hacks Cross area for months before police finally nabbed him. He now faces up to 40 years in prison. He was called the “creeper” because he snuck into homes so quietly, but he’ll always just be a “creep” to us.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Royal Flush?

On December 28th, just three days before Memphis mayor Willie Herenton announced his plans for a new football stadium, a work crew began renovations on the old one. After a 2004 facilities analysis of the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, the mayor and the City Council committed to $15 million in upgrades to the aging facility, including improvements to the sound system and restrooms and making it more Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant. The City Council appropriated $3.6 million last fall to pay for the first phase of those upgrades — a renovation and expansion of restroom facilities — and work began late December.

“Some of the facilities that are there now are 40 years old,” says city architect Mel Scheuerman. “The new restrooms were going to provide an additional 84 fixtures for women. We wanted to get the fixture count up to a more appropriate level.”

Unfortunately, the 84 toilets weren’t the only bowls in question.

During a New Year’s Day prayer breakfast, Herenton proposed building a brand-new stadium to replace the Liberty Bowl as the home the University of Memphis Tigers. The mayor said he would present financing details and the economic impact of such a stadium to the City Council in 45 days. The next day, the Liberty Bowl renovation project, in which supplies and equipment had already been ordered and contractors hired, was postponed while the administration decided what to do. Ultimately, however, the city couldn’t afford the time-out.

“I can’t stop the project for 45 or 60 days and get it done before football season,” says Scheuerman. “In a perfect world, we would stop and say, what are we going to do? But we have a timing issue. We need to have it ready by next fall.”

By the end of last week, work resumed at the Liberty Bowl. Because of the possibility for a new stadium, the administration eliminated the project’s 84 new toilets, deciding to only renovate the existing restrooms in the lower concourse.

“The restrooms haven’t had any true upgrades in many years. The money invested in them will make them more ADA compliant,” says Scheuerman. “It may take five or six years for a new stadium to be built, so it’s not a bad investment.”

But without vandalism or abuse, the fixtures have a lifespan of 10 to 20 years.

“We’re not going to get the full life out of the renovation, but there’s a lot of uncertainty with the new stadium,” says Scheuerman. “Since we had already started [the project], this was a good fall-back position.”

I don’t know if the city should build a new stadium or not. The 2004 study said the Liberty Bowl could use between $115 million and $148 million in upgrades. Though some work has already been done, it might make more sense to build something akin to the Papa John’s Stadium in Louisville, which cost $63 million. If we’re saving money by doing new construction, maybe we could even afford something a little nicer.

But I’m confused about how and when the mayor decided a stadium was what the city needs. In other goals for 2007, the mayor mentioned a cleaner city, a safer city, and a better-educated city. I think we can all agree that those would be beneficial, but somehow I can’t see a $100 million stadium having a positive impact on crime, sanitation, or education.

If the mayor wanted to present a solid case for a new stadium, shouldn’t the administration have done its 45 days of study before the mayor told everyone it was a good idea? How does Herenton know it’s a good idea if he doesn’t have the data to back it up?

And if Herenton knew that he was serious about building a new stadium a year ago — even if he knew it a month ago — why let the city go forward with building brand-new bathrooms in an old stadium?

It might be worth it to build a new stadium. It might be worth it to have renovated restrooms at the Liberty Bowl. But with Herenton pursuing an agenda counter to that of his staff, city money is being flushed down the toilets.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: A Staggering Weird Mayor

I was sitting at home on New Year’s Day, watching the evening news. Earlier that day, I’d posted John Branston’s dispatch from Mayor Herenton’s New Year’s Day prayer breakfast on the Flyer Web site. His story had left me dazed.

According to Branston, the mayor had built his speech around a biblical theme, “Nehemiah on the Wall.” Herenton repeatedly used the phrase “I’m on the wall” as a metaphor for his being on the job. He proposed plans to fight urban blight and add police officers, then dropped his bombshell: He wanted to build a new football stadium to replace the Liberty Bowl — a staggeringly weird idea.

At the end of his speech, the mayor asked the audience to stand up and chant: “Mayor, stay on the wall!” Apparently, most of those in attendance did just that.

The spectacle of a roomful of supposedly sentient adults standing up and shouting “Mayor, stay on the wall!” still boggles my mind. Sure, the guy fed them breakfast, but did they really listen to what he said? Or were the pancakes and sausage just that good?

Anyway, back to the evening news. The station was showing the mayor saying something about “all the haters out there.” Then he went on to disparage those who had a problem with his saying he was “called by God” to serve as mayor.

I can understand how a devout person might feel as though whatever they did in life was a result of being called by God. The thing is, you never hear, say, a plumber announcing proudly as he sticks his head under your sink, “I’ve been called by God to fix your leaks!” They couldn’t get away with it. You’d call another plumber next time just to keep that nutjob out of your house. No, it’s always those who’ve achieved some sort of notoriety — Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, George Bush — who publicly blather on about they’ve been called to serve. The problem is these folks usually manage to convince themselves that as a result of being “called,” anything they do is divinely ordained. And since God doesn’t make mistakes, whatever they want to do is right, whether it’s a new football stadium or an ill-considered war.

This megalomania is what makes “leaders” ask their supporters to chant, “Stay on the wall!” Which, come to think of it, is probably what Humpty Dumpty’s friends were saying.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News News Feature

Herenton vs. Frazier

Herenton vs. Frazier

Branston: The headgear (surely), one-minute rounds, the ages, the legal agreements — everything points to an overpriced exhibition of good-humored sparring. Joe Frazier may be old, but he was heavyweight champion of the world, and it’s a big world, buddy. Smokin’ Joe has thrown more leather than Gucci and his hands are still lethal, I don’t care how fit Herenton is. You’ll see harder contact on Dancing With the Stars — and much better footwork.

Baker: Once Herenton savors the experience of fox-trotting around Smokin’ Joe, whose patented powerhouse lunges are going to find naught but thin air, he’ll forget all over again that he’s supposed to be mortal. Which is to say, yes, he’ll “win” the exhibition. In boxing as in politics, he won’t just stand there and take the hit. And he likes dealing it out so much he’ll pick a fight if he doesn’t have one!

Herenton vs. Himself: Will he run again?

Branston: No. This is the last hurrah, the victory lap, the final dance with youth. Herenton holds the record, he’s tired of the game, he’s accomplished what he set out to, his popularity is fading, and he’s not invincible. (Ever heard of Mike Tyson, Joe Paterno, and Bobby Bowden?) He can exit the ring as the undefeated heavyweight champ for 16 years. And when a plausible successor steps forward next year, that’s what he’ll do.

Baker: Yes. One keeps hearing various handicappers opine that the four-time champ has lost a step, taken too many hits due to scandal rumors or problems relating to crime or taxes or the city’s on-again/off-again credit rating. Or that, at 66, he’s just too old to keep on stoking that fire in the belly.

Knock yourself out, wise guys! Or let the mayor do it for you. Freshly intoxicated by the go-round with Smokin’ Joe, he’ll be ready again for all comers in 2007. Don’t forget, here’s a guy who enjoys shadowboxing, and, as he surveys the likely field for next year, that’s all he sees: mere shadows!

The Contenders: Will Harold Ford Jr. run for mayor?

Baker: No. Ask yourself, when was the last time this contender was forced to take a knee to the floor before November 2006? Right — 1999. That was back when the congressman — then still in his 20s — was first mulling over a Senate race against GOP incumbent Bill Frist in 2000. As something of a warm-up, Ford decided to take a hand in the mayor’s race being run by Uncle Joe Ford against Herenton and got caught up in a messy argument over who was stealing whose signs in South Memphis. He ended up with his suit of shining armor too caked from the opposition’s mudballs to do the Senate race then. Lookit, Prince Harold’s vista is altogether national. He won’t get mired down in local ooze again.

Branston: He might, he should, and he would win. He needs to beef up his resume and forge some political convictions before he turns 40. He’ll lose that Don Imus celebrity appeal quickly, now that he’s an ex-congressman. Odds are there won’t be another open Senate seat for a while. As mayor he would be a magnet for talent and federal funds. Plus, he’s the ideal thirtysomething for a city that needs some fresh horses and pizzazz to compete with Nashville, and if the right leaders flattered him, then he would listen.

Can a white candidate win the Memphis mayor’s race in 2007?

Branston: Yes. Look at Steve Cohen. Remember, there is no runoff in the mayor’s race. In a crowded field, a credible white candidate with money, name recognition, and black supporters could win.

Baker: The Cohen example is a wee bit chimerical in that the new U.S. representative-elect presided for a full quarter-century over a state Senate bailiwick at the heart of the 9th Congressional District. And he had an issue — the lottery — that made him famous and touched everybody. No likely white candidate can boast as much in the city mayor’s race, unless you throw in another variable like, er, gender and some damn-the-establishment populist fervor that crosses the lines.

Herenton vs. Carol Chumney

Baker: Case in point: Here’s where the demographic form sheets could be seriously misleading or just plain wrong. First of all, Chumney has to be counting on a multiple-candidate field, with or without Herenton in the ring. A battle royale, with everybody flailing at everybody else (if no WWH) or at His Honor (if Herenton, as I expect, runs again).

Now ask yourself, who else among the officials of this or any other city has experience with multiple opponents, taking everything they can dish out without ever crying uncle? That’s right, Madame Chumney. Been there, done that.

She has gone up against the entire council, one by one as well as all together, and the mayor and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men! Count it foolhardy or count it crazy like a fox, but Chumney can by God take a punch. And she can sucker punch or duke it out straight on.

Branston: Good questioner, too. But winning elections is about building bridges, not burning them. Council members overestimate their appeal as mayoral candidates. And name one woman who has run a close race for city or county mayor. Time’s up.

Herenton vs. Council Wannabes, aka Marshall, Peete, Lowery, Sammons, Vergos

Branston: Yeah, I know, Ali’s camp used to call them Bum-of-the-Month fights and all that. Their best news is some kind of bad news for Herenton — Tennessee Waltz indictments or a financial crisis — but things don’t seem headed in that direction, for now at least.

Baker: Looks like we agree for once. Lots of talent and experience in this combo of present and past council members. But nobody in the bunch is used to running citywide — the Memphis political equivalent of having to go 15 rounds as against putting something together to win a round or two. And let’s have no talk of Herenton being past his prime, when all these guys are pushing it, too.

Herenton vs. Herman Morris

Baker: Are you kidding me? As savvy as the former NAACP main man, MLGW CEO, and blue-chip attorney might be, he’s utterly untested as a crowd-pleaser, and politics is the ultimate test of tangible numbers and real energy. So what if he’ll have some smart money with him? Remember the sad case of Robert Spence? Morris, who’ll plot his fight from the Marquess of Queensberry textbook, won’t be nearly streetwise enough to handle the bare-knuckles stuff that’ll be aimed at him.

Branston: Well, I watched those debates last month and didn’t see anybody who reminded me of Jon Stewart. Maybe Memphis has had enough crowd-pleasers. Morris is savvy, blue-chip, NAACP and MLGW, family man — what’s wrong with that? There’s a grudge match here just waiting to happen. And Herenton may have been 16-2 in the ring, but Morris still holds the 100-yard-dash record at Rhodes College.

Herenton vs. A C Wharton

Baker: Many see a city mayor’s race as a cinch for the likable Wharton, a nonpareil stylist and crowd favorite whose ability to clinch and hide his shortcomings is a decided contrast to Herenton’s bully-boy stuff and, for better or worse, more open style. Before a countywide audience, Wharton easily outclasses Herenton, but this is a city election, remember? Fighting city-side, the elegant county mayor would play Billy Conn to Herenton’s Joe Louis — i.e., he’d be ahead on points before the heavy stuff started coming in the late rounds. Anyhow, A C’s got the job he wants. Why would he seek a contest — and a job — where the risk of serious injury is prohibitive?

Branston: Term limits, for one thing. His number’s up in 2008. I read somewhere that Wharton does 70 pushups every morning, which is eight more than his age. If he avoids a knockout by retirement he can win on style points every time.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Prize Fighter

CREDIT: AP | Mike Brown

Sometimes a city needs a strong mayor — especially if he’s planning to take on the former heavyweight champion of the world.

In recent months, Memphis mayor Willie Herenton has been in training to fight 62-year-old Smokin’ Joe Frazier this week at The Peabody. The duo is expected to duke it out in three one-minute rounds to raise money for the Shelby County Drug Court, a program that treats non-violent drug offenders and has a 77 percent non-recidivism rate.

Vegas odds are on Frazier, but it’s not as if Herenton is a stranger to the ring — and he’s certainly not afraid of a fight. An amateur boxing champion in his teens, Herenton once asked Councilman Brent Taylor if he wanted to step outside during a particularly heated committee meeting. (Sure, Taylor’s no Muhammad Ali, but still.)

With the national media taking notice of the story, I’m reminded that a city can be made or mangled by its mayors. They are the public face of the city.

A few weeks ago, late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was scheduled to interview Justin Timberlake. One of his staffers called me wanting to know if I had any pictures from Justin’s Good Morning America appearance on Beale Street. Specifically, they wanted photos of Herenton getting booed.

I didn’t have any but admitted that some Memphians weren’t huge fans. Personally, I’ve always had mixed feelings about Herenton. I respect his vision for the city, but I’ve found his arrogance off-putting.

I have mixed feelings about this boxing situation, as well. Do we really want our mayor participating in the “real world” equivalent of Fear Factor?

What’s next? The City Council takes on the County Commission, WWE tag-team-style, to pay for vector control? County trustee Bob Patterson designs a line of hats to benefit tax freezes for senior citizens?

However crazy the idea seems, the fight is representative of everything Herenton is and could be. The best mayors are visionaries, natural leaders, and larger than life. Herenton is those things. He’s willing to risk damage to his pride and ego (and, in this very literal case, his body) to do his share.

Scarlett Crews, president of the Shelby County Drug Court Foundation, says a board member brought up the idea of getting Frazier involved. “He knew Frazier did charity events. He wouldn’t get in the ring but would show up and sign autographs,” says Crews. “Memphis is a boxing town. We thought Joe was great, but we weren’t sure that would be enough of a draw.”

Then they thought about having Herenton box him — only the mayor thought they were joking. “After he realized we were serious, he said something like, ‘If Joe Frazier will do it, I’ll do it.’ He had to then,” says Crews. She expects the fight to raise $100,000, about a fifth of the program’s yearly budget.

More often than people give him credit for, Herenton is willing to take one (or even more than one) for the team. In past years, he’s been the first one to talk openly about Shelby County’s migration problem and has pushed for controversial changes, such as restructuring the local school systems, all the while knowing it would affect his popularity. Maybe that’s ego or a messiah complex, but he doesn’t pull punches when it comes to what he believes is in the city’s best interest.

Herenton might go down Thursday, but he’ll go down swinging.

Categories
Opinion

Individual Retirement Plan

So you think retirement means a gold watch, fond farewells, penny-pinching, and spending time with the grandchildren? Not if you’re a public official in Memphis.

Mayor Willie Herenton, who will step into the boxing ring with Joe Frazier this month, gave a city job to the school board bully, Sara Lewis, on the eve of her retirement.

It was Lewis, remember, who prompted former superintendent Johnnie B. Watson, the most gentlemanly of public officials, to file a harassment complaint against her in 2002. And it was Lewis who pitched a memorable televised fit at a board meeting last year that caused Superintendent Carol Johnson to suggest that maybe the board should hire another superintendent. Her new job is “special assistant to the mayor responsible for the office of Youth Services and Community Affairs.” In a prepared statement Monday, Herenton said, “We will seek to use the city’s 28 community centers for various after-school programs. Also, this office will be a major part of the crime abatement strategy in the areas of prevention and partnership building.”

The sudden need for these revolutionary programs comes as the mayor completes his 15th year in office and prepares for a 2007 reelection campaign. Lewis, who is 70, will earn a salary of $75,000. It is not clear what impact the appointed job, which does not require City Council approval, will have on her pension benefits. Herenton spokeswoman Gale Jones Carson said the position is not new but has been vacant for a couple of years.

Lewis was elected to the school board in 1991. She is a former Memphis teacher and school principal who was promoted to assistant superintendent for curriculum in 1983 when Herenton was school superintendent. From 1990 to 1998, she ran the Shelby County Free the Children program, and from 1998 to 2000, she was director of Shelby County Head Start. She resigned following a critical federal audit.

As a school board member, Lewis has been a champion of rebuilding Manassas High School, her alma mater. With 391 students, Manassas is the smallest high school in Memphis. Herenton has said several times that underused schools should be closed, as several of them were when he was superintendent.

Pensions and padding the city payroll with appointed jobs are a hot issue with City Council members and watchdog groups. They were the impetus for the Memphis Charter Commission, although the main proponent of rewriting the rules, John Malmo, was not elected to the panel, which is just now gearing up.

In his fourth term, Herenton has warned many times that the city has to closely watch its pension obligations and employment numbers to insure a balanced budget and strong bond rating. He was critical of MLGW’s severance agreement with former president Herman Morris, whom Herenton replaced with Joseph Lee.

Herenton himself “retired” from the Memphis City Schools under controversial circumstances in 1990-1991. As Flyer reporter Jackson Baker, who broke the story, wrote back in 1992, Herenton’s retirement package stretched his 28 years of service to 30 years, a milestone for higher benefits for public employees who retire before age 55. Herenton was 51 at the time. In addition to a payout package worth $227,000, Herenton remained on the school system payroll as an active employee for six months while he was mayor.

Cronyism, of course, is business as usual. One of the beauties of city-county government is the political arms race between the two mayors. Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton hired his buddy and campaign manager Roscoe Dixon before the former state senator was indicted. Wharton also hired Shelby County Commissioner Linda Rendtorff as director of community services. Herenton hired City Council member Janet Hooks last year as manager of the office of multicultural and religious affairs.

Key city and county officials who “leave” government typically don’t retire or stray very far. Former city mayor Dick Hackett is the new head of the Children’s Museum of Memphis, former county mayor Jim Rout heads the Mid-South Fair, and former police director Walter Crews was Wharton’s choice to fix the Homeland Security office. With several City Council and school board members facing reelection this year and next, Lewis may not be the last beneficiary of a public retirement party.