Tag: Jim Strickland

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Politics Politics Feature

A Mayoral Battle Royale in Memphis?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Now, this is getting interesting!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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News The Fly-By

The Latest on Parking, Permits, and Sidewalks

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Here’s an update on some of the stories that we began covering in 2014 and will continue to follow in the New Year.

• Overflow parking for the Memphis Zoo will continue on the Greensward at Overton Park for a period that could stretch until 2019.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said while his “clear preference” was not to use the space for parking, the experience of this past summer made it clear to him that the Greensward “will be an important relief for zoo parking until such time as a viable alternative is realized.” 

The news came in a letter from Wharton to Tina Sullivan, Overton Park Conservancy executive director, on Wednesday, December 31st. The sentiment is a complete departure from a Wharton letter in May that said the city was committed to eliminating Greensward parking by the end of 2014.

“We were very surprised and disappointed to receive this letter from the city a few hours ago,” read a Facebook post from Get Off Our Lawn, a group organized to fight Greensward parking. “The fight for a car-free Greensward continues.”

Going forward, Wharton wants zoo and park stakeholders to work together to develop a viable plan for parking that does not include the Greensward. 

He called Overton Park a “great treasure” and called the zoo a “tremendous asset.” Wharton wrote, “The city will allow parking on the Greensward, as may be absolutely essential to zoo operations, until a plan is implemented, [or] Jan. 1, 2019, whichever comes first.”

Brandon Dill

Naomi Van Tol and Stacey Greenberg protest Greensward parking.

• Special parking permits will be issued to some residents who live around the Overton Square entertainment district but not as many as originally thought. 

The move to start a special parking permit program there surfaced in April. Residents complained to Memphis City Council Chairman Jim Strickland that Overton Square visitors were blocking their driveways and alleys with their cars and sometimes even parking in their yards. 

The program was approved by the council in August. Petitions were sent to neighbors in the proposed new parking district, an area bound by Cox Street on the east, Morrison Street on the west, Union Avenue on the south, and Jefferson Avenue on the north. A section of Lee Place North was also included. 

If at least 75 percents of residents on the individual streets approve permit parking for their street, they would be placed in the special parking district and permits would be issued to them. 

In all, only 10 permits will be issued to residents on a section of Monroe Avenue between Cooper and Cox. The council approved those permits on an unannounced agenda item during its last meeting of 2014.  

“Basically, [Restaurant] Iris agreed to pay for half of the first-year of permits for 10 permitees who live on the street,” said councilmember Kemp Conrad. “The neighbors … and Iris have agreed to basically split the north side of Monroe in the middle of the street.”

• The moratorium on forcing residents to fix their sidewalks was extended in late December.

City officials began enforcing a long-standing rule last year to make homeowners either fix their sidewalks or be hauled into Environmental Court. 

The council passed a two-month moratorium on the enforcement of the rule in May. Once that expired, a six-month moratorium was approved. 

The council approved its latest moratorium to last either six months or until the Wharton administration officials could propose a viable alternative. City engineer John Cameron said he and his office are working on the project and should present an alternative to the council in the first two months of 2015.

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Politics Politics Feature

Lowery’s Breakfast Boner

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Politics Politics Feature

It Was What It Was

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We shall see what we shall see.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

No Rest for the Weary

CREDIT: Kyle and Norris photos courtesy of Jackson Baker

Shelby Countians have figured in several post-election moves:

The Rev.  Kenneth Whalum Jr., a possible candidate for Memphis mayor next year, isn’t waiting until then to make some waves. Whalum is one of eight plaintiffs from across the state in a suit in federal court designed to invalidate the ‘Yes’ vote seemingly conferred by a majority of voters on Amendment 1, which grants the General Assembly considerable new authority in legislating on abortion matters.

The basis of the suit, which was filed Friday in Nashville, is the language of Article XI, Section 3, of the state Constitution, which states that voters “approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor, voting in their favor.”

The plaintiffs, all of whom opposed Amendment 1 and all of whom aver that they cast votes in the governor’s race, say that the constitutional language should be taken literally and that the state has a duty to determine and count only those votes on an amendment question that were cast by persons who also cast votes for governor.

Records compiled by the office of Secretary of State Tre Hargett showed that 32,570 more votes were cast on Amendment 1 than for governor, 1,385,178 as against 1,352,608. The plaintiffs alleged that the disproportion was the direct result of what their attorney Bill Harbison of Nashville, president-elect of the Tennessee Bar Association, said was a strategy by proponents of the amendment of “intentionally abstaining from the governor’s race in an effort to manipulate the numbers in order to pass an amendment” and “a clear violation of [others’] 14th Amendment rights.”

It seems anything but clear to Hargett, a former state representative from Bartlett and a nominal defendant in the suit, along with Governor Bill Haslam, new state Attorney General Herb Slatery, and the seven members of the state Election Commission.

Hargett notes that state election officials have never tried to match votes on amendment questions with ballots cast by the same voters for governor but have measured amendment votes, more abstractly, against a threshold of 50-percent-plus-one of the total votes cast in the governor’s race. “It does not make sense any other way,” he has said.

Also weighing in was Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life and a coordinator for the Yes on 1 campaign. “Even if you wrongly discount those who may have voted for Amendment 1 but not in the governor’s race, there is still a margin of almost 20,000 votes in favor of the amendment,” said Harris.

Aside from legalities, some complicated mathematical reckonings may figure in this case, due for a first hearing in U.S. District Court in Nashville on January 12th. Meanwhile, legislative advocates of new restrictions on abortion are known to be readying bills in time for the new session of the General Assembly, opening up the same month.

• And speaking of enabling legislation, Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville) issued a press release on Monday, the eve of Veterans Day, announcing that he and state Representative Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City) were drafting legislation to allow veterans’ organizations to conduct raffles and games of chance for fund-raising purposes, in accordance with the provisions of Amendment 4, which passed handily in the election.

The amendment expressly grants to 501(c)(19) organizations (veterans’ groups) the same ability to hold such fund-raising affairs as are currently permitted to 501(c)(3) organizations, so long as the veterans’ groups observe the same deadlines for submitting applications to do so — January 31st of a given year for an event scheduled to occur between July 1st  of that year and June 30th of the next. 

A technical point, even a housekeeping matter, but a necessary one. 

Norris, who doubles as chairman of the veterans subcommittee of the Senate State and Local Government Committee, said in the release: “Our legislation will allow this process to move forward and will ensure that the deadline affords these organizations enough time to get their applications in.”

            

• Hargett and Norris, along with state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown, were among Republicans cited this week by The Commercial Appeal‘s veteran Capitol Hill reporter Rick Locker as likely candidates for governor in 2016. Though their ranks have progressively been thinned in recent years by an accelerating statewide shift of political power to the GOP, there are Democratic names involved in gubernatorial speculation as well.

One of them is that of Gordon Ball, who was recently defeated by Republican incumbent Lamar Alexander in this year’s U.S. Senate race.

The wealthy Knoxville lawyer, who made his legal reputation and his fortune suing big-ticket corporations, is meanwhile going through some significant personal changes.

On the plus side, Ball, a graduate of the University of Memphis Law School whose son Tanner is now a student here, told the Flyer last week that he plans to transition at year’s end from his life-long residence in East Tennessee to a residence on Memphis’ Mud Island. 

On the down side, Ball also saw his marriage of less than a year to wife Happy Hayes Ball, who accompanied him on his first several campaign trips to Memphis, come to an apparent end. He filed divorce papers last Friday, listing a variety of complaints, including his wife’s alleged unauthorized use of funds from his business account.

Ball’s estranged wife also figured in another possibly unauthorized action that became a campaign issue. It was her removal of a television set and several other furnishings from the couple’s condo in Destin, Florida, that prompted Alabaman Barry Kraselsky, who had purchased the condo from Ball, to sue for breach of contract over the missing items.

That dispute is yet to be adjudicated. Meanwhile, Ball, who has resumed his law practice, says he intends to play golf and take a post-election vacation in Naples.

• An uneasy truce that settled over the Shelby County Commission following a hearing on the body’s rules last week by Chancellor Jim Kyle was in danger of erupting into discord again in this week’s committee sessions.

In a hearing on Thursday, Kyle opted not to rule in the matter of a suit brought against commission Chairman Justin Ford by a group of commission plaintiffs — six Democratic members plus Republican Steve Basar — who allege that Ford violated the body’s rules in arbitrarily keeping a proposed rules change off the commission agenda.

The chancellor told both sides that the commission, in essence, had no rules to break, inasmuch as each elected version of the commission is obliged to set its own rules, and the body elected in August has not yet done so.

Both sides to the dispute had assumed that the commission was bound by rules inherited from previous commissions. The rules change sought by the plaintiffs would have lowered the threshold necessary to enact further rules changes from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority. 

Democratic Commissioner Van Turner, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and chairman of the body’s general government committee, which was scheduled to meet on Wednesday, said he intended to bring up the whole matter of commission rules. Meanwhile, said Turner, Kyle’s ruling apparently left the county charter, which calls for a simple majority to decide such matters, as the commission’s sole authority.

Behind all the legal complications is a simple power struggle, pitting the commission’s Democrats and Basar, who was vice-chair in the commission’s last session but lost his bid to become chairman in the current session, versus the other five Republicans plus Ford, a Democrat who gained the chairmanship with GOP support.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Election Year 2015 is Upon Us

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Cover Feature News

Memphis’ Battle Over Employee Benefits

Wanda Halbert was confused.

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

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

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

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

Here are the biggest changes: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Stops the 24 percent premium increases

• Stops the other cuts to retirees

• Allows spouses to stay on the plan

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

Fran Triplett

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

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

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

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

Donna Kirk

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

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

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

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

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

Tough Times & Tough Choices

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

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

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

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

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

The Cuts Hit Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dewayne Lufcy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Promises and the Law

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

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

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

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

    

Turning the Battleship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

The Heat’s Still On in Shelby County Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Flyer Flashback News

Texting While Driving Remains a Problem Despite Law

CREDIT: Forestpath | Dreamstime.com

In July 2009, a law prohibiting texting while driving went into effect in Tennessee. The law’s passage was profiled in the July 2009 Flyer article, “Driving While Intexticated,” by Bianca Phillips.

Although the state law was in effect, a local ordinance hadn’t been passed by Memphis City Council at the time the story was published. It did, however, pass a couple months later. Sponsored by City Councilman Jim Strickland, the ordinance went into effect September 2009.

Under the law, a person is prohibited from texting while operating a motor vehicle. And anyone who is caught in violation of the law can receive a maximum fine of $50. The violation is a Class C misdemeanor and doesn’t appear on a person’s driving record.

Sgt. Michael Pope of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department’s Reduce Impaired and Distracted Driving Unit said texting while driving is “a growing problem.”

Forestpath | Dreamstime.com

“The trends in Memphis statistics have shown that DUI fatalities have gone down and a great increase of people who are actually killed texting and driving,” Pope said.

Distracted driving is the number-one killer of teenagers in the nation. According to the Tennessee Department of Safety, in 2013, there were more than 5,000 accidents involving distracted drivers and only about 730 accidents involving drunken drivers in Shelby County.

Similar to drunken drivers, law enforcement looks for signs like swerving, constant acceleration and braking, and other moving violations to help determine if a person is texting while driving. An officer normally follows the driver for a couple minutes to see if the erratic behavior continues and scopes the activity inside of their vehicle.

“The first indicator is when we see someone holding their cell phone up,” Pope said. “We can see through the side view mirrors or rearview mirrors [or we] can see the electronic device being illuminated. Once we see a person with the actual device, it gives us the probable cause to stop their vehicle.”

Seth Abrutyn is a Memphis driver who supports the ban on texting while driving. He thinks by prohibiting the activity, streets will become safer.

“Banning it reduces the number of people doing it and makes people more wary. And it increases revenue for the police department and city,” said Abrutyn, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Memphis. “Let’s face it: Memphians are terrible drivers. Everyone has witnessed the guy or girl in the far left lane make a right turn across three lanes without any warning and very rapidly. So, anything that helps the rest of us is a good thing.”

Pope agrees with Abrutyn. By penalizing people for texting while driving, he thinks accidents will be lessened and more lives will be saved.

“A lot of people know that we’re out looking now, so they’re starting to obey the laws and put their phones away,” Pope said. “We do a lot of campaigns in schools for teenagers and tell them not to text and drive. If somebody is texting you while driving, just put the phone away, because your response is not that important. You can call that person when you get to a place where you can park your car. And be mindful that your texting and driving not only puts your life in danger, but the lives of other citizens in danger. It’s a crucial thing that we all need to be mindful of. Just don’t text and drive.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Bridge Project Fights For Funding

A bicycle and pedestrian project that would connect Tennessee and Arkansas has hit a speed bump.

The Downtown Memphis Commission is asking the city to invest $2 million toward the Harahan Bridge Project, which if fully funded, would connect downtown Memphis to downtown West Memphis over the Harahan Bridge. But Memphis City Council Chairman Jim Strickland wants that money to be used for basic city services, such as street repaving, instead.

Right now, the cost for the Harahan Bridge Project, also known as the Main to Main Multi Modal Connector Project, is still undetermined while the organizations wait for bids, which are supposed to come in during the summer. While project leaders are waiting for a more cost-effective design, the current estimate of the project sits around $30 million.

Harahan Bridge Project

Almost $15 million has been approved from federal funds with the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (or TIGER IV) program. The project also has $2 million funded from the private sector, while $3.8 million has been dedicated from Arkansas and Tennessee government agencies for their respective sides of the project. Shelby County has committed $1 million to the project, and the city of Memphis contributed $500,000 early on. But the Memphis City Council is still debating whether the city will fund the additional $2 million.

“If we don’t get the funding for the project, we won’t start the project,” said Paul Morris, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission. “The mayor made that very clear. No loans, cash secured.”

The one-mile bridge currently only runs freight along its tracks, but a multi-purpose path would be placed next to it, utilizing the existing “wagonway” structure that was used in the early 20th century.

Morris said the project is about recycling, not starting anew, and maintaining what the city already has.

“We’ve been searching as an organization for years for funding to do basic things like fix the sidewalks, curbs, and gutters,” Morris said. “Right now, if you walk along the Main Street Mall, you have boards covering drainage ditches that don’t work. It’s embarrassing. For years, the city has never been able to prioritize that because of the lack of funding and all the budget problems we have.”

Strickland said because the city is in a “budget crisis,” Memphis needs to make tough decisions.

“A lot of good things, in my opinion, should not get funded. We need fewer big projects because we can’t afford them,” Strickland said. “A couple of years ago, when we appropriated [around] $500,000 for the Harahan Bridge, we were told that’s all that we would need, and then they come with a request for $2 million.”

According to Strickland, the money being requested for the project could go instead toward other city services.

“It would be a wonderful amenity to have, but we have some real budget problems,” Strickland said. “When you don’t have enough money to do everything, you have to prioritize. To me, repaving is an absolute need. In our operating budget, we’re $15 million per year in debt on our pensions. We can’t pay for testing all the rape kits. Both of which are needs.”

Strickland made a motion in last week’s council meeting to divert the $2 million funding for the Harahan Bridge Project and put it toward street repaving, but Mayor A C Wharton asked to give a presentation about the project during the next city council session.