Tag: Jack Sammons.

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News News Blog

Woman Indicted for Stealing $100,000 Worth of Hair Gel

Lisa Marie Dowell is having a bad hair day after she was indicted on Tuesday for allegedly stealing $100,000 worth of hair gel from Ampro Industries, Inc., the company she worked for.

Dowell, 46, faces felony charges of theft over $100,000 for reportedly stealing 24 pallets of gel between July and October 2013. She was one of four employees who worked at the Ampro warehouse and one of two employees with a key and alarm code to the building.

In November 2013, a DeSoto County Sheriff’s detective discovered one of the pallets of gel at a flea market in Olive Branch. A jar of Ampro Pro Style Styling Gel was covertly purchased by investigators, and they were able to link it to the stolen pallets.

City CAO Jack Sammons serves as the president of Ampro Industries.

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Politics Politics Feature

What Strickland Will Do

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Jackson Baker

Mayor-elect Jim Strickland

To the surprise of many observers, Councilman Jim Strickland, an acknowledged underdog when he declared as a candidate for mayor last January, won election last week with a 20-point edge on incumbent Mayor A C Wharton. At 42 percent, Strickland’s share of a larger-than-expected dissenting vote was clearly the predominating one when compared to those of Councilman Harold Collins (18 percent) and Memphis Police Association president Mike Williams (16 percent). 

So does the mayor-elect regard himself as having a mandate?

“Yes, to implement my platform” a relaxed Strickland agreed in the course of an interview in his law office on Monday.

Strickland will take office, along with a newly elected city council, on January 1st. In the meantime, his first task, to be completed this week, is the naming of a transition committee. There will be “two or three” co-chairs of that committee, he said, and they will assist him in naming a staff to help run the city.

As for that aforesaid platform, it was made clear during the campaign, within the winner’s incessantly reiterated triad of bullet points. In every speech, public statement, interview, and ad, Strickland essentially limited himself to promises of remedial action on public safety, blight, and accountability of public officials.

Wharton pitched to millennials and talked up bike lanes and futurist blueprints. Collins advocated a crash program on behalf of high-tech jobs. Even Williams evolved rapidly from his original incarnation as a one-issue candidate (restoration of lost employee benefits) and proposed strategies involving solar panels and transportation reform.

With the regularity of a metronome, Strickland stuck to his triad of safety, blight, and accountability. These are all valid problem areas — or would seem to have been so regarded by the voters, but they are all arguably managerial, even housekeeping, matters.

Strickland thinks otherwise. “I disagree with people who say all that’s not a vision,” he said on Monday. “You have to have an effectively run city government. To create a community that’s more inviting to people and businesses is so meat-and-potatoes that some people don’t consider it a vision. I just disagree. I think it is a vision. When you’re one of the most violent cities in America, number one in unemployment, with a poverty rate of 30 percent, doing the basics is important. If city government were a football team, you’d say it doesn’t block and tackle very well.”

And there was one important component of his legislative persona that Strickland left unsaid during his campaign — his longstanding history as a budget-cutter and apostle of fiscal austerity, as the councilman who in 2010 generated this headline: “Strickland Proposes City Employee Pay Cut.” 

These were inconvenient matters to remind voters of at a time of palpable public resentment of benefit cuts and reduced core services. To be fair, Strickland later rethought the pay-cut idea, but — unlike Collins, who seems to have split that part of his core protest vote with Williams — he signed on to most of the other economies that Wharton would ultimately embrace (and pay the political price).

There is a reason why Strickland, who some 20 years ago served a term as Shelby County Democratic chairman, had virtually wall-to-wall support this year from the city’s Republican voters and other conservatives and why GOP rank-and-filers from the county’s suburban municipalities were always to be found at his fund-raisers and rallies.

To those who might wonder, however, Strickland still considers himself a Democrat — “I’ve always voted in Democratic primaries. I never have voted in a Republican primary” — though he says he is unlikely to be running for any future office as a party nominee of any kind. His ambitions, he contends, are limited. “This is it,” he says of the office he has just won.

“Those who thought crime was not an issue lost.”

Apparently, safety-blight-accountability was a sufficiently nonpartisan platform to work with voters across the board, and the first two points of that triad had figured large in polls commissioned by chief Strickland strategist Steven Reid, resonating strongly even — or perhaps even especially — with inner-city blacks, whose encounters with violence and environmental squalor have been long-standing.

(To give David Upton his due, that veteran Democratic operative — neutral in this campaign — has always maintained that concern over the crime rate has been more significant and politically charged in the inner city than elsewhere.)

Though only a handful of African Americans had been among the white throng at Strickland’s Poplar Plaza headquarters opening in July, and an early Commercial Appeal poll had the District 5 councilman in single digits with blacks, Strickland was, in the late stages of the race, doing significant under-the-radar outreach, and he was privately claiming to have as much as 20 percent of the black vote. (It will be interesting to see how closely a demographic accounting of the final vote totals will come to bearing that out.)

And, to be sure, Strickland did espouse some new wrinkles, mostly incremental in nature. He suggested using private funds to help reformed felons pay for expunging their records, liaising with Boys Clubs and Girls Clubs, and offering financial incentives — residential PILOTs, he called them — in the form of tax breaks for people to buy a home in the inner city, rehab it, and live in it.

“Another thing is that it can take a city or county three or four years to foreclose on a piece of property with a tax debt. That’s too long,” Strickland contended. “We need a shorter time than that.” The legislature has to be talked into making both of those ideas possible.

“Then I’d like to expand a program I created enabling citizens to serve as reserve code-enforcement officers. That’s not being implemented very enthusiastically at present. I’d also like to talk with county government about better cooperation on simplifying code enforcement. We’ve got a city fire code, a city residential code, and a county commercial code. Maybe we could consolidate them.”

Strickland sees law enforcement as his most pressing matter, as well as the key part of what he sees as his vision.

“Last November, we did a poll to see if Mayor Wharton could be beaten. And we polled the issues that were near and dear to my heart, including crime. We found that being tough on crime was a popular stand, to both races. Harold Collins was as tough on crime as I was. He used the term ‘terrorism.’ There’s a small minority in Memphis who don’t think crime is an issue, and they lost.

“We lost a little less than 400 people. In 2014, the Wharton administration told me we lost 158 police officers. We normally lose 100 a year in natural attrition. We lost 58 more than normal, which is concerning, but it’s not 400.

“But, aside from quibbling about numbers, we do have a serious problem hiring and retaining police officers. I propose a series of steps. Number one, we’re going to be honest and open with the unions. We’ll open up the books and let them look at them. The Wharton team has told us for a year and a half that we could not afford the lifetime health insurance. The employees have a suspicion that money is there for lifetime health insurance and has been used elsewhere. The only way to counter that argument is to open up the books and let everyone see what we can afford and what we can’t afford. I want to learn the answer myself.

“Two, we need to do a better job of recruiting new police officers. When I got on the council eight years ago, one of the first things we did was try to hire more police officers. We went then from 2,100 to 2,400 police officers by changing the area in which they could live — Memphis to Shelby County — and we went through a big recruiting period, with TV ads.

“We’ve got to come up with funds in the city budget to increase the pay of police officers.”

Strickland reserves the right to impose rigid curfews on youth in cases of flash-mob flare-ups like the violent outbreaks that plagued the city in late 2014. “[Former Councilman] Rickey Peete passed a curfew law 10 or 15 years ago, but it’s not enforced. It’s a stair-step program, pegged to age. If you’re 14 years old, you need to be home at 10 o’clock.”

Reinstituting a full-fledged program of civilian reserve (PST) officers to handle traffic investigations and other nonviolent matters is another step Strickland intends to take. “That’s an additional expense, but it gives you more police officers on the street. And I want to bring the animal control officers from the city shelter into the police department, for two reasons: One, I think you get better oversight from the police department than the shelter; and two, I think you’d get more efficiency, because, right now, a wild dog call can go to either the police department or the shelter. Put them under one roof, and there’s more efficiency, and you can send out animal control officers, which frankly are less expensive, and the police officers can patrol the streets.

“We need a new director of Animal Services, by the way. I want to hire one of these national, certified animal-advocate groups to come in and do an evaluation of the shelter and also help us hire a director.”

There is the matter, too, of who will serve as police director. During the campaign, the three other major mayoral candidates — Wharton, Collins, and Williams — all indicated they would continue the employment of Toney Armstrong, who has a year to go before exiting the department via the early-retirement (or “drop”) program. Strickland was the only candidate who avoided committing himself.

“I think Toney’s a good man,” Strickland said. “It’s too early to say what I’ll do. That’s one of the things I want to talk to him about. If I wanted to go outside the city and recruit a police director, would that person want a full four years to institute their program? Or would three years be acceptable? And I think Director Armstrong would know that.”

“We will restructure government.”

As he sets about naming a staff (which he promises will be “impressive and diverse”), Strickland says he will employ the same “less is more” philosophy that he employed in picking a campaign staff. “We had lots of volunteers, but we had just two paid staffers, Kim Perry and Melissa Wray,” he said. He also had the services of campaign consultant Reid, to whom he gives significant credit in planning a strategy that led to victory. 

As noted above, the one major fact of his council experience that came in for minimal expression during that campaign was Strickland’s reputation as a budget-cutter and advocate of economic austerity. “I think people already knew that about me,” Strickland says by way of explaining his downplaying of the issue. “As a whole, people cared about the other issues more. I think you’ll see more serious cuts, by the way. We’ll have fewer employees, especially in upper management.” Having often decried what he described as over-billeting and cronyism in Wharton’s administration, Strickland will do some judicious pruning and consolidation of the city roles.

“We will restructure government,” he promises.  

Holdovers? There could be some, he acknowledged. Gone from his conversation on Monday was the sharp polemics of his mayoral campaign. He paid tribute to outgoing Mayor Wharton and the incumbent’s CAO,  Jack Sammons. “They’ve both been very gracious and forthcoming in the conversations I’ve had with them.”

Strickland made clear he intends to take seriously the third point in his triad of campaign issues — that of employee accountability. Were there already check-points to measure performance in office? Strickland was asked.

“I would argue they are spotty,” he said. “I’ll be meeting with Doug McGowen, who runs the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team, to go over what work he’s already created. We ought to have measurements on how long it takes to process 911 calls, for example, and we should hold people accountable to a definite set of standards.”

There are more details to be worked through but, consistent with the bare bones of Strickland’s campaign appeal, the syllabary of the new mayor’s agenda will be a lean one, limited by the relative scarcity of available resources and focused on a few carefully chosen target areas.

The real change is the fact of Strickland himself, a bluff, hearty, good-natured but competent and calculating man whose mayoral ambitions had been of long standing but whose pathway to power and margin of victory both remain something of an astonishment — with the latter fact allowing him whatever mandate he can make of the means at hand.

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Cover Feature News

The Robert Lipscomb Affair

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Robert Lipscomb has been called the most powerful man in Memphis. Power player. Power broker. Dealmaker. Deal breaker. Planning czar. Point man. Puppet master. Shadow operator. Rapist. Motherfucker.

He earned the first set of names from the powerful friends and opponents he made in a nearly 20-year career in two roles, the director of the Memphis division of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and as director of the Memphis Housing Authority (MHA). With those jobs, he directed the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars of government funding to the biggest and highest-profile projects in Memphis. This is how he — an unelected official, a behind-the-scenes operative known largely only to those in government and business — became so powerful.

The last two names in the first paragraph are from a man whose accusations have burned that power to the ground. The man, now 26 and living in Washington State, told Memphis Police Department (MPD) investigators that Lipscomb raped him. The accuser said that Lipscomb lured him into his SUV and then forced him to perform oral sex on him.

This was in 2003, according to a police report, while the accuser said he was a homeless teenager walking the streets of Memphis. The accuser said Lipscomb made him perform oral sex on him more than a dozen times after that, giving him money and promises of a better life to keep him quiet. Since the accuser’s first allegations surfaced two weeks ago, more accusers have called Memphis City Hall with similar stories about Lipscomb, city officials said. Nine by the end of last week, according to their count, though no further details have been forthcoming, either from City Hall or the MPD.

Indeed, they have gone seriously mum on what is presumably an ongoing investigation.

At this point, the allegations are just that, and Lipscomb hasn’t been charged or arrested for anything. But the stories about him have packed a powerful punch. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, called the allegations “disturbing.” Jack Sammons, the city’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), called them “sickening.” MHA Chairman Ian Randolph called them “horrendous.” Lipscomb quit his job at HCD. He was suspended with pay from the MHA. Investigations have been launched into the criminal aspects of the case, of course, but financial investigators are also shining their lights on the books of every agency Lipscomb directed.

Meanwhile, the ousted Lipscomb maintains his innocence. Although he quit talking to the press under orders of his attorney, Ricky Wilkins, he was telling reporters who showed up at his front door two weeks ago that the allegations are false.

From certain points of view, it hardly matters; the damage is done.

It’s likely that, since the allegations surfaced, anyone who ever had contact with Lipscomb has completely reassessed the man who seemed to have all the puzzle pieces and knew how they fit together. Even as the allegations against Lipscomb remain to be investigated and very probably adjudicated, a new and unflattering light has begun to shine upon Lipscomb.

To many in the public, he is now like a comic-book villain walking half in the bright light of polite society and half in a private darkness with the demons that may lie there. And for all these years, if the accusations against him are true, he would have been carrying a disturbingly divided self around, one with unfettered access both to the city’s most innocent as well as to its most powerful — and with only a thin veil separating his competent and somewhat wonky public personality from an alleged private self that was both violent and profane.

Jackson Baker

Lipscomb overseeing slide presentation of Fairgrounds TDZ project for County Commission earlier this year; with him are architect Tom Marshall and Convention & Visitors Bureau head Kevin Kane

The Rundown

Nearly two weeks have passed since the original allegation surfaced about Lipscomb. Here’s what we know so far. First, the publicly known chronology:

Sunday, Aug. 30 — A late-night memo was sent to the press noting that a man had accused Lipscomb of rape and that Lipscomb had been relieved of duty at HCD.

Monday, Aug. 31 — Lipscomb resigns as HCD director. More Lipscomb accusers reportedly call City Hall. The MPD searches Lipscomb’s house and takes computers, folders, and a camcorder as evidence.

Tuesday, Sept. 1 — Wharton taps HCD Deputy Director Debbie Singleton to run that agency in the interim. He recommends Maura Black Sullivan, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer, to temporarily lead MHA. Even more Lipscomb accusers are said to come forward.

Wednesday, Sept. 2 — MHA suspends Lipscomb with pay, appoints Sullivan as temporary director. Sammons tells the press that Wharton’s office is going quiet on the investigation to let the MPD do its job.

Thursday, Sept. 3 — Lipscomb’s initial accuser talks with several media, including the Flyer, adding a detail here or subtracting one there, but always insisting that Lipscomb promised him a job and a house in return for sexual favors, with the relationship souring, as the accuser put it to the Flyer, after he realized “the motherfucker” was “pulling my leg.”

Tuesday, Sept. 8 — Still no charges filed against Lipscomb.

Toby Sells

Jack Sammons during last week’s MHA meeting

Conversations with Wharton and Sammons, among others, have subsequently filled out these bare-boned details somewhat. The first warning signal had come into City Hall on Thursday, August 20th, with an explicit phone call to the mayor’s office from the Seattle man, who, as was later learned, was a Memphis native with a fairly lengthy police record locally.

Wharton was out campaigning, and the first to learn about the call was CAO Sammons, who had just returned from official business in Nashville. The most riveting aspect of the call, that which convinced Sammons — and later Wharton and Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong — that the matter had to be taken seriously was the caller’s insistence that he had Western Union receipts of blackmail payments from Lipscomb.

The caller had also spoken of a police complaint he had filed against Lipscomb in 2010, one that was virtually identical to his renewed complaint in 2015. The 2010 complaint was dismissed — on the basis, police records showed, that the complainant, who was homeless at the time, could not be located.

The similarity of the two accounts, five years apart, was a convincing fact to Sammons, who explained further that the complainant chose to repeat his charges again as a form of release recommended by a therapist in Seattle.

Acquainted with the basic facts upon his return to his office, Wharton called in Director Armstrong, on Friday, August 21st, and the two of them contacted the Seattle man, who repeated his tale and also forwarded photostats of the Western Union receipts.

Jackson Baker

Mayor Wharton faces a press scrum about Lipscomb matter

As the mayor would explain to the Flyer, he deferred to the judgment of his seasoned police director, who decided the matter was serious enough to merit a personal visit to Seattle to meet with the accuser. Armstrong would arrange for such a visit, by himself and a group of investigators, for the middle of the next week.

Between that weekend and the Armstrong party’s return from Seattle on Sunday, August 30th, there were meetings about various pending projects in City Hall involving Lipscomb, Wharton, and Sammons. They were conducted in a business-as-usual manner, with nothing said to Lipscomb about the caller from Seattle.

But on Sunday, Armstrong and his assisting officers were back in town, and they met with Wharton and Sammons at City Hall with a full briefing on what had been two full days of investigation in Seattle. The convened group then learned that the accuser from Seattle had contacted Fox-13 news with his accusations, and a reporter from that station had called, wanting details.

That fact sped up an itinerary that otherwise might have taken days or even weeks to develop. Lipscomb was called and asked to come to the mayor’s office for a meeting, which, he apparently presumed, had to do with some hitch in one of his ongoing projects.

When he arrived, however, he found out otherwise, and arrangements were made in the tense atmosphere of that meeting for him to begin the process of separating himself from city service.

The Upshot

Heading into its third week, the Lipscomb affair has seemingly settled into an incubation mode, with dormant legal and political implications that could either simmer quietly or explode into an ever-expanding crisis.

On the legal front, the deposed planning czar’s attorney, Wilkins, an able veteran who is as familiar both with Lipscomb and with the way city government operates as anybody around, was keeping his cards — such as have been dealt — close to his chest, with the full expectation that more surprises might be yet to come.

Wilkins has made it clear, though, that he felt his client’s rights had been put in jeopardy and that he will have much to say about several aspects of what has so far transpired at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, the implications of the affair for city business and the mayoral race that was just entering its stretch drive are still being assessed.

Politically, it is too early to tell. Wharton was receiving credit in some quarters for acting quickly and decisively in dealing with the problem, once it came up. Others were prepared to fault the mayor for not seeing the situation develop under his nose or for even looking the other way from potential trouble.

Further development in the Lipscomb saga could determine which view would prevail, at a time when polls show the mayor with only a slight lead over his closest opponent, Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland.

On the governmental front, it has long been a fact of life in City Hall that Lipscomb was calling the shots on city planning ventures, which included numerous neighborhood developments, the just-completed Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid attraction, and a $200 million pending TDZ (Tourism Development Zone) project involving the Fairgrounds.

John Branston

Lipscomb’s projects include the Pyramid,

John Branston

Heritage Trail,

Bianca Phillips

and Foote Homes.

Under two mayors, former city chief executive Willie Herenton and now Wharton, Lipscomb has been influential to the point that a common jest was to suggest that Herenton and Wharton had worked for Lipscomb rather than the other way around.

It was no joke, however, that under both his titles, Lipscomb had extraordinary power and bargaining ability, which left most members of the city council, even some who were privately critical of him, unable to say no to Lipscomb when pressed for a vote. Among other things, he had the ability to route developmental funding into their districts, or not, as he saw fit.

The Projects

No matter what was going on in his personal life, Lipscomb’s professional life as the director of the HCD and as the director of the MHA made him the point man on a number of massive city projects.

What will become of those projects — ranging from Foote Homes to the Fairgrounds redevelopment — remains to be seen, but the new MHA interim director, Sullivan, said she will be working with the new HCD interim director, Singleton, to evaluate each one in the coming months.

“Ms. Singleton and I have years of a good working relationship already and will work in concert to ensure the progress of the projects, but more importantly, the success of the city’s residents,” Sullivan said. “These projects are all multi-faceted and involve various divisions of city government. We are both currently evaluating the businesses, and the forward progress of each of these projects is a part of that evaluation.”

Here’s a rundown of a few of the projects Lipscomb’s departure leaves unfinished:

Foote Homes: Through the Memphis Heritage Trail project, Lipscomb had a vision to raze the city’s public housing projects and replace them with multi-income housing. And he saw through the eradication of five of the city’s six housing projects (and the displacement of their residents via housing vouchers) between 2001, when LeMoyne Gardens were razed and redeveloped as College Park, to 2014 when Cleaborn Homes were torn down and rebuilt as Cleaborn Pointe at Heritage Landing.

But the last housing project left in the city — Foote Homes — remains as MHA awaits a decision on the federal department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods grant. Winners of the grant are expected to be announced this month.

Kenneth Reardon, the former University of Memphis urban planning professor who led the Vance Avenue Collaborative (the group opposing the demolition of Foote Homes), believes Lipscomb’s sudden departure could put that grant at risk.

“What does Robert’s departure mean? He has been viewed as one of the most effective public housing directors in the country. So his departure, as the major planner/architect/public manager/guy who put the financing together, at this late stage, could have a serious negative effect on the city’s ability to get this [grant]. It’s hard to really know,” said Reardon, who recently moved to Boston to take a job as director of the graduate program for urban planning and development at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

At least Reardon is hoping the city doesn’t get the grant to tear down Foote Homes, which he believes is a colossally bad idea.

“We still think the city’s approach to Foote Homes is ill-conceived and certainly not the most creative and transformative proposal they could put forward, given that the number of low-income people needing deeply subsidized housing and the proportion of those who need to be downtown for employment and medical, educational reasons,” Reardon said. “Foote Homes remains a vital asset.”

Jordan Danelz, Mike McCarthy, and Marvin Stockwell of the Coliseum Coalition

The Fairgrounds: With Singleton named as the new interim director at HCD, Marvin Stockwell, the spokesman for the Coliseum Coalition, said the organization is prepared to continue talks with the city. Lipscomb was a proponent for the redevelopment of the Fairgrounds, possibly as a multi-purpose youth sports complex, and he was planning to go to the state after the October 8th election to push for TDZ status for the Fairgrounds, a move that was opposed by many. The Coliseum Coalition aims to save the long-vacant Mid-South Coliseum.

“We at the Coliseum Coalition stand ready to work with anyone and everyone to reopen and reuse the Mid-South Coliseum,” Stockwell said. “I think part of the reason that public opinion has continued to move in the direction of reopening the Coliseum is because we’ve been able to have a respectful dialogue with the city. We had that type of back-and-forth with Lipscomb, and we have every confidence that will carry forward. We’re going to pick up where we left off.”

Whitehaven: Whitehaven’s revitalization is dependent upon the area in its entirety, rather than only focusing on Southbrook Mall, which was a point of contention within the administration — and Lipscomb, who was secretly recorded earlier this year saying that some city leaders were “throwing darts” at a proposal to revamp the aging mall. Mayor A C Wharton will be heading a committee to enact the Whitehaven plan.

The Pinch District: Lipscomb’s involvement in the Pinch District development — the pressure on which has been mounting since far before Bass Pro Shops’ opening earlier this year — were first focused on making sure the hunting and fishing mega-store got up and running smoothly. During the rezoning of the Pinch District in 2013, Lipscomb was quoted as saying that the Pinch was “second priority” to Bass Pro Shops. With that complete, there’s been talk of a new hotel coming into the area. Tanja Mitchell, community development coordinator for Uptown Memphis, is hopeful that Lipscomb’s departure won’t affect the area’s redevelopment.

Toby Sells

a marquee board at the Memphis Housing Authority

“We’re happy to work with any agency to get the Pinch redeveloped, because that’s something that needs to happen. The Pinch needs to come to life again,” Mitchell said.

All these, and a pending $30 million federal development grant, are potentially hostages to fortune in the uncertain atmosphere of the moment, but Wharton and other city officials have expressed optimism that all can still proceed as before.

Categories
News News Blog

Sammons: Lipscomb Allegations ‘Sickening,’ City to Offer Free Counseling

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Toby Sells

Memphis Chief Administrative Officer Jack Sammons talks to the media Wednesday morning.

Memphis officials will soon offer counseling and free assistance for any victims that come forward alleging any sexual misconduct by former city employee Robert Lipscomb.

Lipscomb resigned his post as director of the Memphis office of Housing and Community Development on Monday following an allegation of statutory rape from a minor male beginning in 2003. Lipscomb was suspended with pay from his post as director of the Memphis Housing Authority by its board Wednesday morning.

Since the original allegation surfaced Sunday night, eight more victims have come forward, according to the latest figures from Memphis Chief Administrative Officer, Jack Sammons. He said Wednesday morning that the city would announce later this week that it would provide free therapy and counseling “for victims that have been in any activity as alleged by” the original complainant.

After Sunday’s revelation regarding the sexual allegations against Lipscomb, Sammons said other possible victims have been calling the mayor’s office directly.

“I don’t care how many times you listen to one of those, it is…I mean it sends chills down you,” Sammons said.
“Listen, I’m a dad of a young male. The first call I had like that absolutely unnerved me.”

He said many of the callers’ stories are consistent with the original complaint against Lipscomb. But, he said, many of the callers get angry and hang up before they can be transferred to CrimeStoppers. Sammons said the mayor’s office is trying the best they can to remove itself from that part of the investigation and pushing all similar calls to CrimeStoppers.

“I’m not an investigator; I’m not the police director but we’re trying to be sensitive to these victims,” Sammons said, noting one reason the mayor’s office will offer free help to possible victims.

That the MPD investigated the original complaint in 2010 made headlines Tuesday. The male accusing Lipscomb told The Commercial Appeal that the MPD swept his complaint under the rug. When asked about that Wednesday, Sammons said, “I don’t think so at all.”

He said he read much of the email traffic from that time period about the case. MPD made several attempts to locate the male but could not. They located his aunt, who pointed them to the Union Mission, where the male was known to stay.

“The young man was homeless,” Sammons said. “We have a lot of homeless people in this community and it’s not like there’s a directory of them that we can contact.”

With that, Sammons said the investigation hit a roadblock, even though MPD made a “diligent effort to find him.” That is, until about two weeks ago.

“He called in; it was like a cold call into (Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s) office,” Sammons said. “We take these kinds of things very seriously.”

Sammons said the male now has a job in Seattle and has been getting counseling, which is one of the reasons he came forward with the allegations against Lipscomb.

Wharton and MPD director Toney Armstrong talked to the male by phone on Friday, Aug. 21. He was unavailable by phone for the next three days so Wharton sent Armstrong and two sex crimes investigators to Seattle. They interviewed the male on Wednesday, Aug 26.

Late Sunday evening, Wharton sent a statement to the media that he had relived Lipscomb of his duties without pay. Late Monday evening, Lipscomb resigned from the post.

“As a government official and as a father, this is sickening to me,” Sammons said of the allegations against Lipscomb. “The thought of having someone who engages in this type of behavior against young, defenseless people is abhorrent to my core. I’m going to work night and day to make sure the youth in this community are protected against predators like this.”

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News News Blog

Pace Cooper Named Chair of Airport Board

Pace Cooper

Hotel management executive Pace Cooper will succeed Jack Sammons as chairman of the Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority.

Cooper, president and CEO of Cooper Hotels, won the seat over fellow board member J.W. Gibson by a vote of five to one.

Sammons lefts the board in April to assume a position as city chief administrative officer under Mayor A C Wharton.

Cooper is a third-generation leader in his family’s’ hotel company. He’s a graduate of Columbia College in New York City and holds an master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School. Cooper Hotels manages 21 hotels in seven states, including the DoubleTree by Hilton on Sanderlin in Memphis.

“I am humbled to be elected chairman and I care deeply about this airport. I appreciate all the support and encouragement I’ve received from community leaders, fellow board members and airport staff,” said Cooper in a media release. “We will work hard every day on growing our air service in small steps, but if we achieve enough baby steps, the result will be a monumental leap forward. We have a great leadership team and I’m confident that goods days are ahead for the Memphis Airport.”

Jim Keras, president of Jim Keras Automotive Group in Memphis, will succeed Cooper as vice chairman, and Pamela Z. Cleary, executive vice president and partner for Community Capital LLC, will serve as secretary.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said (April 16, 2015)

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Bianca Phillips’ post, “Tennessee Senate, House Committees Approve Bill to Make Bible Official State Book” …

I hope this is but the first step. Next we should have the State Bible Verse, the State Hymn, the State Church, the State Tongue in Which to Speak, and, finally, the State Serpent for Handling.

Jeff

I clicked on this headline fully expecting to see “Parody” tucked somewhere discreetly on the page. Seriously, is this real life?

NavyBlue

No, it’s not parody. Parody died in this Tennessee Legislature shortly after the right-wing clown car drove into Nashville. This is about pandering to the large segment of this state who couldn’t care less about such arcane concepts as, say, the First Amendment. They think the “establishment” clause is a liberal plot — if they’ve ever heard of it in the first place.

Kilgore Trout

I’m so glad that I live in a state with amazing education, no poverty, no unemployment, infrastructure in excellent condition, and a fully insured populace. It makes me feel better about paying our legislators to pass laws that do absolutely nothing.

csh

Bible today, Koran tomorrow. Thanks, rubes.

Crackoamerican

About Chris Davis’ cover story, “Godless in Memphis” …

Of all the headlines that were out there, all you could come up with was the “catchy” headline: “Godless in Memphis”?

With all the negative perceptions people from around the country might have of our city, here’s yet another one to add to their list: Memphis is Godless. Nice job keeping the Memphis reputation down.

What’s next on your headline list? “Hail to ISIS”?

Phil Grey

I want to publically thank the American Atheists for holding their national convention in Memphis. After recently reading with disgust Duck Dynasty‘s Phil Robertson fantasize about butchering an atheist family, I was a bit leery about the consequences for the many atheists left behind in Memphis. Would the convention manifest hostility and hatred toward atheists? 

The convention, however, went over without generating much controversy. And there were even a few positive articles about atheists, including the cover story, “Godless in Memphis,” in the Memphis Flyer. Thank you!

Jason Grosser

About the Flyer’s editorial “No to Vouchers” …

If vouchers are fair and good for Christian schools, why would atheist and/or Islamic schools not get vouchers paid for by public money?

Who will complain loudest when their tax dollars are vouchered away to the First Islamic High School? Or to the Midtown Free Thinkers Institute?

Claude Barnhart

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor, “NRA Foreplay in Nashville …

Public parks are not private property. If I have the right to carry a gun on the sidewalk, obviously I have the right to carry it in a park.

Jason

Thank you, Jason! It’s about time we did away with the unconstitutional tyranny of the Tennessee driving laws. If I want to do donuts in a playground in my SL550, then it is my right!

Ern

About Toby Sells’ post, “Sammons Approved as CAO” …

Wharton needed Sammons’ capabilities, which apparently far exceeded Little’s, and yet Little is so important to the administration that he will be working on what many consider to be the most challenging undertakings in the city. So what’s the real deal here?

Smitty1961

Categories
News News Blog

Tony Allen Named Memphis Airport Spokesmodel; Sammons Says Goodbye

Tony Allen

Memphis Grizzlies fans are about to be inundated with advertising for Memphis International Airport, thanks to a $176,000 three-year advertising deal approved by the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority at their board meeting Thursday morning.

Memphis Grizzly Tony Allen will be the airport’s new spokesmodel, and he’ll be shooting some advertising materials soon. Airport ads will be placed all around FedExForum, and the airport authority will table in the lobby at home games. The authority will hold giveaways in which fans can win tickets and free airfare to away games. Memphis International Airport will even get a mention on a Grizzlies growl towel.

“We want to have all that grit and grind come to the airport as we grind our way into the future,” said Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority President Scott Brockman.

Board member J.W. Gibson was the only dissenting vote on the board. He said he didn’t disapprove of the partnership but that he wanted a clearer picture of what exactly the $176,000 price tag would include.

Out-going board chair Jack Sammons argued that the marketing deal was important to restore faith in the airport after years of high fares and diminished service. He said the airport’s reputation was improving though, and he thought this deal could help.

“In the past few years, I’ve given more speeches about this airport than Billy Graham has about his Lord and Savior,” Sammons said.

Speaking of Sammons, this was his last meeting as chair of the airport authority. In May, he’ll be starting his new position as chief administrative officer for the city of Memphis. As the meeting wrapped up, Sammons shared a few last words.

“It’s no secret that I’m passionate about this job. It was a difficult decision for me to decide where my energy could best be used,” Sammons said. “But you’re not completely getting rid of me. I won’t be sitting around the table, but I will be a supportive utensil for you folks. The mayor has appointed me as a special envoy to the airport authority.”

Sammons thanked his fellow board members and gave a special shout-out to Brockman.

“When you’re going to an airport meeting with Scott, it’s like going to Vegas with Frank Sinatra. He is cherished by the industry and highly respected,” Sammons said. 

Sammons ended the meeting with these words: “I salute you all, and as General McArthur said, ‘Like that old soldier, it never dies. It’ll just fade away.’ So perhaps I’ll just fade away.”

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said (March 26, 2015) …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s editor’s note, “Sammons ‘R Us” …

I read Bruce VanWyngarden’s editorial for the March 12th issue with stunned disbelief. We’re all supposed to be happy not only that this “connected” character, Jack Sammons, has lots of power but also will now “run” a newspaper? Never mind how irrelevant your paper is now. Surely one doesn’t have to go all the way back to the great muckraker days to find journalists who would be troubled by a chief officer of anything running their own paper? And I guess your new position on “pesky laws” that prevent conflict of interest is that they are unnecessary relics of the past? But congratulations on thoroughly brown-nosing your new boss on his way through the door.

John E. Cox

Editor’s note: Mr. Cox, I read your letter in stunned disbelief, as well.

About Bianca Phillips’ cover story, “Getting Schooled” …

Sounds like a lot of territorial bickering between two entities, “This is my school yard and I don’t care if you want to put down green grass for the children to play on; our dirt yard is just fine, so go away.” Our local school system has failed for years in educating our children and it sounds like the schools that have been taken over by the ASD are making a lot of positive gains and turn-arounds. The priority here is educating our children and we should be willing to do whatever it takes to get this done.

Pamela Cates

About Wendi C. Thomas’ column, “The Long Shadow” …

If the family structure is a primary predictor of an individual’s life chances, and if family disintegration is the principal cause of the transmission of poverty and despair in the black community over the past 50 years, then family integration will stabilize the institution and offer children hope.

For once and for all, we must reach out and “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Walking on eggshells out of fear or guilt, being angry at the sins of the past, or throwing money at a problem that only the heart can solve must end.

MempHis1

It’s a puzzle: “middle and upper class parents who hoard opportunity for their kids” are the same people who oppress by riding in bike lanes.

Brunetto Latini

About Jackson Baker’s post, “Flinn: Change of Venue Not the Reason for Leaving Council” …

Personally, I’m glad Shea is leaving. His lack of lunacy and apparent common sense really took away from the overall character of the council. Ditto for that other stick in the mud Jim Strickland. We need more dancing and redacted credit card invoices!

Smitty1961

About Tim Sampson’s Rant …

It was interesting to discover that three of the seven Republicans who did not sign Senator Tom Cotton’s letter to the leaders of Iran were Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, and Thad Cochran.

For these three men, it would have been in their best political interests to go along with the rest of their Republican colleagues. But they put their country above their own political interests and refused to sign a letter that was so wrong and dangerous in so many ways and one that may guarantee that a deal in the best interests of the U. S. and the entire world is not reached.

These Senators should be praised for showing real leadership and real political courage.

Philip Williams

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s editor’s note, “The Heart and Soul of Memphis” …

I was born and raised in Memphis but now call Nashville home. I live in the middle of one of the hottest neighborhoods in the country’s “It City,” but still miss the soul of Memphis. It’s something that all the new money, popularity, real estate prices, and relocated hipsters will never understand … and certainly can’t replicate.

MT Blake

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s cover story on Mike Matthews, “It Only Hurts When He Laughs” …

I commend Jackson Baker for this article. Mike is a compelling enough personality by himself, but he becomes even more larger-than-life thanks to the excellent writing in this piece. Very nice work, Jackson, and welcome back, Mike. You can’t keep a good Watchdog down.

Ken Jobe

Wonderful story about a real reporter with a heart and courage. As a photographer and videographer in Memphis for over 40 years, I have often found myself at news events, back in the line of cameramen and reporters. The people we all know from TV sometimes are very different off-camera. Some are not very nice. Over the years, I have seen some offensive behavior from reporters who magically transformed when they picked up a mic and stood in front of a camera. Most are not like this, but Mike Matthews is even better off camera.

He is exactly what we need on the air — and in our city: depth, truth, humility, humor, and most of all, love.

Peter Ceren

About Toby Sells’ post, “MATA Hopes for May Return of Trolleys” …

So MATA’s short-term solution is returning some trolleys to service 11 months after they were supposed to be down for only three or four months? As the late Don Poier used to say, “Only in the movies, and in Memphis.”

Midtown Mark

About Les Smith’s column, “The Natural” …

Right on point. I agree about Lee Harris and Berlin Boyd, too. We have too much talent in Memphis just sitting around on their hands, waiting for a chance at the plate. We shouldn’t settle for another retread, no matter how great a guy he is. There is, quite simply, too much at stake. It’s time for fresh people and fresh ideas.

OakTree

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Sammons ’R Us” …

I’m available to take over the airport authority. I’m totally unqualified, so I can give it my full, unqualified attention.

Jeff

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “The Museum of Terrible Ideas” …

Surely there was a typo in the statement that the Riverfront Development Corporation put up $200,000 and got $800,000 more from the Feds to study that goofy water taxis on the river idea. If it was not a typo, what in the world are they spending the money on? Is the contractor one of the decision-maker’s brother-in-law?

Harry Freeman

About Chris Davis’ Viewpoint, “The 75 Percent Rule” … I am writing on behalf of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to request a correction to the op-ed “The 75 Percent Rule,” which appeared on the Memphis Flyer website on March 5th.

Specifically, the piece states: “The proposed legislation, in the long run, benefits nobody but Todd’s fellow ALEC member, the Corrections Corporation of America, a private company that operates three of Tennessee’s 14 prisons.” This is false. CCA’s non-voting membership with ALEC ended in 2010. As such, CCA is not a current member of ALEC.

Jonathan Burns

Senior Manager, Public Affairs, CCA

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Sammons ‘R Us

I have some big news. Really big news. After lots of cajoling and arm-twisting, I’ve managed to convince Jack Sammons (yes!) to become the Flyer‘s new executive editor. Sure, I know he’s a busy man, being the CEO of the hair-product company that makes Shine ‘n Jam and running the Airport Authority and helping run the FedEx St. Jude golf tournament. And I know Mayor Wharton has tapped him as the man to take over as the new city chief administrative officer (CAO), but really, who else is there in town? Sammons, as we all know, is “Mr. Fixit,” and we need him here at the Flyer, just like everybody else does.

And, as everyone knows, Sammons’ resume is second to none. He’s already been city CAO once. He’s a four-term city councilman, a former council chairman, a restaurateur, a bartender, and a man with connections. And, according to several folks quoted in Wayne Risher’s recent Commercial Appeal profile, Sammons is a “master salesman, communicator, and executor … innovative, creative, and bold.”

Whew! Sammons, as is now obvious, not only can do it all, he eventually will do it all. The mayor has now dispatched an emissary to Nashville to convince the GOP-led legislature to overturn a pesky law that prohibits a person who’s running an airport authority from working for that airport’s city administration. But surely that’s just a formality. Sammons, as I may have mentioned, has connections in high places. And it’s just that important that he become Memphis’ CAO.

Sure, there are some nay-sayers, like county Mayor Mark Luttrell, who was quoted in Risher’s story as saying: “I just think that’s too much for one person. I think the airport needs someone who can give their unqualified attention to that situation and the city needs a CAO who can do that as well.”

Pish posh.

Sure, in other cities, there may be lots of qualified folks out there ready to step up and take things in a fresh new direction. But in Memphis, not so much. Around here, it’s pretty much Jack Sammons or nothing. We’re lucky to have him. Otherwise, we’d be screwed.

And that’s why I’m so happy he’s also going to begin running the Flyer. Sure, I could have looked around and found some perky, young forward-thinker. Heck, there are some deserving folks on my own staff, some of them even female, but if you get a chance to get Jack Sammons, you go for it, my friends. That’s just the way it is.

And yes, I’ve heard the rumblings out there — that Sammons is also going to begin running Memphis In May, MIFA, the CVB, the Memphis Grizzlies, Archer-Malmo, The Chris Vernon Show, Muddy’s Bake Shop, and Bass Pro, but he can handle it. He’s Jack Sammons, dammit. If you doubt him, you don’t know Jack.

And frankly (according to what a little birdie just told me), if I were Josh Pastner, I’d be a little nervous right now. Just sayin’.