Tag: Joe Brown

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Politics Politics Feature

Election Time Again?

Tami Sawyer (Photo: Courtesy Tami Sawyer)

Yep, another election is coming up, and this one, a primary election scheduled for Tuesday, March 5th, involves just two offices — one of them being the presidency of the United States, the other being the clerkship of Shelby County’s General Sessions Court. (Note, early voting has already begun and ends on February 27th.)

Where the presidential primaries are concerned, there is not much suspense. Those voters selecting a Republican ballot will have eight choices, and that old saw about the value of a name being high up on the ballot list can safely be discarded.

Of the eight available GOP alternatives, one Donald J. Trump is last on the list. Those preceding the former president, in alphabetical order, are Ryan Binkley, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and David Stuckenberg.

Of these, only Haley, a former UN ambassador and the ex-governor of South Carolina, is still an active candidate opposing Trump, and she may be the only person in America or anywhere else who believes she has a ghost of a chance.

(It’s not against the law to believe in ghosts, but it’s certainly against the oddsboard.)

On the Democratic primary ballot, there is only one name — that of the incumbent president, Joe Biden.

Of course, voters who don’t cotton to the idea of a Biden-Trump repeat in the November 5th general election are free to fantasize and write in whomever they please on whichever ballot they choose.

Now, for the General Sessions clerk’s race: The two party candidates selected on March 5th will vie for the position in a general election on Thursday, August 8th. The same date holds for various elections in the county’s suburban municipalities and for primaries for state and federal positions on the November ballot.

Lisa Arnold, a former employee with the clerk’s office, is the only Republican on the March 5th GOP ballot, while Democratic voters have four candidates to choose from.

The Democrats are: Rheunte Benson, who is currently serving as criminal administrator with the clerk’s office and is making her second race for the clerk’s position, having run for it four years ago; Shelandra Ford, who served as Shelby County register of deeds from 2018-22 and was defeated in a reelection bid for that office four years ago by current register Willie Brooks; Joe Brown, the incumbent Criminal Court clerk, who previously served several terms as a member of the city council and who won out in a crowded primary for the clerk’s office four years ago.

And there is Tami Sawyer, the former activiste par excellence, county commissioner, and 2019 candidate for mayor. This is not the same Tami Sawyer who could “not wait” to seek the city’s highest office in what seems, in retrospect, to have been a premature move.

This is a new Sawyer, inclusive rather than confrontational, a solid organizer, and backed by an impressive chorus of Establishment Democrats while maintaining her woke base.

Her main obstacle to election might be the ritual name-ID advantages of opponents Ford (not a member of the well-known political clan but possessor of the same surname) and Brown (whose election in the first place was probably due to voters’ familiarity with his TV-judge namesake).

Sawyer is, in any case, widely regarded as the favorite, and she is expected, if elected, to use the new perch not as a sinecure but as the springboard for further political action.

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Politics Politics Feature

In the Picture

Michelle McKissack (Photo: Michelle McKissack | Facebook)

As was teased in this space last week, second-quarter financial disclosures of the Memphis mayoral candidates were expected to come due. And they did, roughly a day after last week’s issue went to print.

The contents of the disclosures have since been bruited about here and there and have been subjected to analysis. In many — perhaps most — ways, the numbers conform to advance expectations. The leaders now, in the vital metric of cash on hand, are the same two who led the field in first-quarter disclosures in January: Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, with $432,434.97 cash on hand, and Sheriff Floyd Bonner, with $404,139.12.

Local NAACP president Van Turner was still very much in the game, with $154,633.46, as was the largely self-funding developer J.W. Gibson, with $254,015.55.

The real surprise was former Memphis-Shelby County Schools board chair Michelle McKissack, who raised $101,712.95 — in less than two months of a declared candidacy, she notes — and has $79,164.95 on hand.

Clearly, McKissack has some catching up to do but justly takes pride in her results, given her relatively late start. She and the other candidates have some time, given that candidate petitions cannot even be drawn until May 22nd. Election day is October 5th, some five months away.

In a video tweet last week, McKissack alleged about some of the media coverage that “there are those in the city who don’t want to acknowledge that it’s actually possible for a woman to be mayor of Memphis.” She focused on an unnamed article “that really touted, just, you know, highlighting the men in this race.”

Both the point of view and even some of the language in McKissack’s tweet were reminiscent of attitudes expressed by former female candidates for mayor — notably Carol Chumney, now a Circuit Court Judge, who ran for Memphis mayor twice, finishing a competitive second place to incumbent Willie Herenton in a three-way race in 2007.

Herenton, out of office now for 14 years, is a candidate again for his former office, where he served for 17 years. He and others — including City Councilman Frank Colvett, state House minority leader Karen Camper, former County Commissioner James Harvey, and former TV judge Joe Brown — will doubtless make some waves, one way or another.

Tami Sawyer (Photo: Tami Sawyer | Facebook)

• Another former mayoral candidate, Tami Sawyer, who had a singularly devoted following for her reform platform in 2019, is back on the scene after a work sojourn for Amazon in both D.C. and California. She tweeted, “Yes, I’m back in Memphis for good … I am not running for office in 2023. But y’all gonna still see me deep in this work.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Mayor Floyd Bonner?

Floyd Bonner electioneering this year (Photo: Jackson Baker)

There is, it would seem, a different Name of the Week in generalized speculation about the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race. Confessedly, there have certainly been different figures to talk about in successive weeks of this column.

Previously mentioned as likely mayoral candidates next year have been: NAACP head Van Turner, who is finishing up his second and final term of the County Commission this week; Paul Young, the president/CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission; Karen Camper, caucus leader of the state House of Representatives Democrats; and Joe Brown, the onetime Criminal Court judge and former TV celebrity judge.

Brown’s intentions, though he has certainly promoted a possible race, may be more fanciful than real. The others are, one way or another, making tangible plans to run. Turner has basically already announced, Young is reportedly lining up some serious financing for a campaign, and Camper is expected to make an announcement any week now.

Other names that are getting some mention are those of the Rev. Keith Norman of First Baptist Church-Broad, a chief lobbyist for Baptist Memorial Hospital and a former Democratic Party chair; Beverly Robertson, president/CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber; Patrice Robinson, City Council member and former Council chair; and Worth Morgan, City Council member and defeated Republican candidate for county mayor this year.

This week’s most mentioned mayoral prospect? Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who in two successive county elections has led all other candidates for office and has a decent-sized campaign account left over to start a mayoral campaign with.

Bonner’s popularity with the voters as a Democratic candidate has been such that Shelby County Republicans did not even bother to nominate an opponent for him this year and themselves endorsed him.

His interest in running for the nonpartisan office of mayor is a very real thing, and he has definitely had preliminary discussions about mounting a campaign next year. Bonner’s status on the eve of the Memphis city election has been likened by more than one observer to that of AC Wharton in the first decade of this century, when Wharton was considered an inevitable candidate for, successively, Shelby County mayor and Memphis mayor, both of which offices he would win.

Jason Martin (Photo: Jackson Baker)

• Jason Martin, the Nashville critical-care physician who emerged as the winner of the Democrats’ three-way gubernatorial primary, was the speaker at last week’s Germantown Democratic Club meeting.

Addressing an audience of 70-odd attendees at the Coletta’s restaurant in East Shelby County, Martin deplored GOP Governor Bill Lee’s policies on several counts, including Lee’s restrictive posture toward abortion rights, his refusal to countenance Medicaid expansion and the annual federal outlays of $1 billion that would come with it, his striking away of gun regulations, and his moves toward privatizing public education.

Said Martin: “The other side is so radical on these issues that most people are like, ‘That’s not me.’ And that’s why we’re getting traction.”

• As first reported last week on memphisflyer.com, outgoing District Attorney General Amy Weirich will be taking a position as assistant DA with the office of Mark Davidson, district attorney for the adjoining 25th Judicial District, which serves the counties of Tipton, Fayette, Lauderdale, McNairy, and Hardeman.

A press release from Davidson’s office on Monday confirmed that Weirich will be sworn in as special counsel to his office on September 1st, a day after the swearing-in of Steve Mulroy, who defeated Weirich in the August 4th county election, to replace her as Shelby DA.

• The ever-worsening situation of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert, under fire for mishandling license-plate distribution and her office affairs in general, almost got even bleaker Monday when the Shelby County Commission, in its final meeting as currently composed, failed by one vote to appoint a special counsel to begin ouster proceedings.

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Politics Politics Feature

More to Come

Back in 2009, Joe Brown (right), then the star of a syndicated TV show and now a self-declared mayoral candidate, hobnobbed on a visit home with newly installed Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, state Representative G.A. Hardaway, and the late state Senator Reginald Tate. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

With outgoing County Commissioner Van Turner’s announcement last week of a pending run for Memphis mayor in 2023, another political season is on its way.

Actually, Turner did not announce as such; he told the Flyer, and subsequently the world, that he would be making his formal announcement at month’s end, about the time he leaves his present office.

If advance gossip can be trusted, Turner, whom many observers reckon as the favorite, can expect to be joined in the contest by Downtown Memphis Commission President Paul Young, who has a key speech to the Kiwanis Club scheduled this week, and Karen Camper, minority leader in the state House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, local NAACP head Turner is actually the second declared candidate for the office, which is likely to be the object of spirited competition now that the voters have taken incumbent Mayor Jim Strickland out of the running by voting in the August 4th election not to allow a third term for mayor and council members.

The first declared candidate? None other than Joe Brown — not the General Sessions Court clerk and former councilman but the other Joe Brown, who played a judge on TV for some years after being one for real in Shelby County back in the ’90s. You might have missed it, but Brown’s announcement was made via YouTube last fall, and if he follows through, it will be his second major non-judicial run for office in these parts.

Brown’s last electoral effort, a race for district attorney in 2014, began with abundant ballyhoo and a sense among some local Democrats that his celebrity and presumed healthy bank account would allow the party to achieve a generalized success at the polls. Instead he belly-flopped, badly. Coincidentally or not, so did the party.

Among other things, the bankroll — for whatever reason — didn’t exist, nor did Brown’s actions and public positions during the campaign exactly square with many people’s ideas of political leadership.

As part of his rollout, Brown had been the keynote speaker at an official Democratic Party tribute to former Mayor Willie Herenton. He used the occasion to denounce “promiscuous” women and make homophobic remarks.

One of his next acts was to get himself arrested on a contempt of court charge for insulting a Juvenile Court magistrate in the process of a pro bono child support case Brown was handling. (Brown thereupon posted a Facebook entry in which he likened his ordeal to that of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic confinement in the Birmingham jail.)

All this was just a lead-in to Brown’s culminating campaign act, a speech in which — sans any evidence or pretense of same, or any relevance to anything, for that matter — he accused his opponent, incumbent DA Amy Weirich, of having a lesbian affair with her next-door neighbor. Weirich won with 65 percent of the vote.

• Weirich’s luck ran out this year in another reelection campaign, this time against an opponent, Steve Mulroy, not pre-ordained to fantasize or self-destruct.

The two of them took turns last week in the well of the Shelby County auditorium, arguing this time for the same goal — the creation of a new bail hearing courtroom. A resolution to that end, requiring that bail issues for new county prisoners be hashed out in a hearing before a judge and with representation from both arrestee and victim of an alleged crime, was passed unanimously by the 13 members of the commission. As Mulroy noted, this was the one thing the two erstwhile adversaries had been able to agree on during this campaign year.

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Politics Politics Feature

Signs of Political Life as Election Season Finally Kicks Off

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

At long last, and after months of inaction, it can probably be said that there’s an election season on. On the Republican side, GOP members of all stripes were on hand Sunday at a Germantown Parkway storefront that will serve as the party’s campaign headquarters for the duration of the 2020 election year.

Interestingly, the new party headquarters location is on the approximate geographic site — the same lot, it would seem — as the old, sprawling Homebuilders headquarters, razed to the ground some years ago but, in its prime, a complex that contained a generous-sized auditorium/arena area that long served as a meeting place for local GOPers, as well for civic clubs of various kinds.

Local Republican party chairman Chris Tutor, who, because of the resurgent coronavirus, insisted that all attendees wear face masks and do what they could to achieve some measure of social distancing, turned things over to keynote speaker David Kustoff, the 8th District congressman, who pointed out that one final Democrat-vs.-Republican contest loomed on the August 6th county general election ballot: the General Sessions Court clerk race between Republican Paul Boyd and Democrat Joe Brown.

That was something to unite upon, given that others in the crowd were running against each other for positions in the federal/state primary elections to be held on the same day.

In theory, Shelby County Democrats were on the move, too, organizing a series of “forums” involving their candidates for the state and federal primaries, and simultaneously recording for later broadcasting these events, some of them conducted at the old Hickory Ridge Mall.

Jackson Baker

Who was that (un)masked man? At Sunday’s opening of the Shelby County Republcan campaign headquarters on Germantown Parkway, everybody, in accordance with advance instructions, wore a face mask. There was one exception — the unidentified interloper at the very right side of this photo.

Jackson Baker

time for the U.S Senate seat being vacated by Lamar Alexander.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Biden’s Big Night, Joe Brown’s Surprise Win

It was a great night for Joe B. Who’d a’ thunk it?

Former Vice President Joe Biden

That sentiment applies not only to the results of the Democrats’ presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, in which former Vice President Joe Biden exceeded all expectations and took the lead away from Bernie Sanders. It also describes the out-of-nowhere victory of former city councilman Joe Brown in the Democratic Party primary for General Sessions Court clerk.

In both the national and the local case, the winner’s vote totals were out of all proportion to the campaigning done by the candidate. Biden famously won Massachusetts without spending a nickel there or having an office or any kind of gr

former Councilman Joe Brown

ound game. Joe Brown was conspicuously less visible than his major competitors in a highly populated race in which there were several other name candidates.

Meanwhile, former Probate Court clerk Paul Boyd won the four-way Republican primary for General Sessions clerk and will oppose Brown in a general election showdown in August.In his case, as in Brown’s, name identification played a large part in the outcome.

In the case of Biden, who handily won Tennessee (and Shelby County in the process), the astonishing revival of his previously moribund campaign in last weekend’s South Carolina primary, coupled with a wave of major endorsements from former primary opponents, propelled the ex-Veep into the enviable position that, only days ago, Sanders had been expected to achieve.

The final Shelby County totals:

In the Democratic presidential primary:

Michael Bennet 623
Joseph R. Biden 50,273
Michael R. Bloomberg 18,183
Cory Booker 311
Pete Buttigieg 1,747
Julián Castro 50
John K. Delaney 100
Tulsi Gabbard 229
Amy Klobuchar 1,123
Deval Patrick 54
Bernie Sanders 20,482
Tom Steyer 280
Elizabeth Warren 8,461
Marianne Williamson 28
Andrew Yang 127
Uncommitted 108

In the Democratic primary for General Sessions Court Clerk:

Gortria Banks 7,581
Rheunte E. Benson 1,239
Joe Brown 20,602
Tanya L. Cooper 6,139
A. Dailey-Evans 2,623
Deirdre V. Fisher 2,116
R. S. Ford Sr 3,852
Del Gill 940
Eddie Jones 10,627
Wanda Logan-Faulkner 8,568
Thomas Long 11,457
Reginald Milton 13,127
Tavia Tate 1,466
Write-In 45

In the Republican primary for clerk:

Paul C. Boyd 9,514
Michael Finney 2,949
George Summers 1,924
Lisa W. Wimberly 4,841
Write-In 80 MTK

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Politics Politics Feature

Two 2020 Races Generate a Flood of Candidates in Shelby County

Ready? Deirdre V. Fisher, Eddie Jones, Gortria Anderson Banks, John Ford, Paul Boyd, Rheunte E. Benson, Thomas Long, Del Gill, Joe Brown, Tanya L. Cooper, Tavia Tate, Adrienne Dailey-Evans, Michael Finney, Reginald Milton, George D. Summers, Lisa W. Wimberly, Wanda R. Faulkner.

Those 17 names represent just the first wave of applicants at the Shelby County Election Commission for the right to seek the post of General Sessions Court clerk, a post that has been held since 2011 by Ed Stanton Jr. (not to be confused with his son, lawyer Ed Stanton III, who received appointments from President Barack Obama both as U.S. attorney and later as a U.S. district judge, though his nomination for the judgeship was bottled up and kept from confirmation by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell).

The senior Stanton, a Democrat, was a longtime employee of county service before his selection by the General Sessions judges to fill a vacancy as clerk and his subsequent two re-elections in 2012 and 2016. Stanton, a solid sort, attracted few challengers as an incumbent clerk, but there are obvious reasons — foremost among them, perhaps, being the $134,986 annual salary — why the job, now open, has generated the current flood of office-seekers.

Jackson Baker

District 97 Candidate Gabby Salinas (r)shmoozes with voter Sherry Compton; Another District 97 hopeful, Allan Creasy, chats up Norma Lester

Some of the candidates are neophytes. Others have names that are, how to put it — well-worn: Del Gill, Joe Brown, John Ford? Ford may not ultimately be eligible, inasmuch as his rights seem not clearly to have been restored since a felony conviction from the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz sting. Two current county commissioners are on the list of hopefuls — Jones and Milton. Long and Boyd have previously held clerkships. Of this early list of 17, all are Democrats except for Boyd, Finney, Summers, and Wimberly, who are Republicans. 

So far, only seven of the petition-pullers have filed, but expect that number to grow, as will the number of new applicants asking for petitions.

• Meanwhile, the candidate field for state House District 97 is doing some multiplying as well. This is the seat in Bartlett/Eads that has been the bailiwick of longtime Republican incumbent Jim Coley, who decided to take his leave after a final term in which various ailments were incapacitating him. Two fellow Republicans have declared their candidacies for the job — John Gillespie, who works as a grant coordinator for Trezevant Episcopal Home, and Brandon Weise, an employee of the Shelby County Register’s office.

Gillespie made the first splash and has attached himself to Coley’s coattails, as well as to the Republican establishment in general, and lines up with a somewhat modified version of the education savings account bill (aka: voucher program) steamrollered into passage last year when then House Speaker Glen Casada, acting on Governor Bill Lee‘s behalf, kept the voting rolls open in the House long enough to to turn one legislator’s crucial nay note into an aye.

Weise stands in opposition to the voucher program, which would affect only Shelby County and Davidson County schools and would be likely to fall in behind new GOP Speaker Cameron Sexton of Crossville, who opposed the bill relentlessly last year and has indicated he would like to at least delay its immediate implementation. Weise, however, does observe Republican orthodoxy on matters such as opposition for federally funded Medicaid expansion and support for block grants to deal with health-care issues.

Democrats have their own contest pending in House District 97, with Allan Creasy, a narrow loser to Coley last year, making a renewed try for the seat. And another Democratic near-success story from 2018, Gabby Salinas, is also looking for another way into the General Assembly, after giving GOP state Senator Brian Kelsey a serious scare in his re-election race last year.

Both candidates see themselves as still having hot hands and ready-to-go constituencies. Before taking on Kelsey, Salinas had been able to turn on a head of steam to defeat David Witherspoon, a well-supported candidate and an early favorite in the Democratic primary. Salinas has the benefit of an affecting backstory regarding her childhood pilgrimage to the United States from Bolivia with her family in order to seek treatment for her at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A personal endorsement by Marlo Thomas of St. Jude, daughter of the institution’s founder, Danny Thomas, proved helpful to Salinas’ candidacy.

Both Creasy, a popular manager and bartender at Celtic Crossing restaurant in Cooper-Young, and Salinas are opposed to the governor’s voucher legislation, and both also favor acceptance of federal Medicaid expansion funds under the Affordable Care Act. Both were much in evidence pressing the flesh at Sunday’s annual Democratic Women’s Christmas party at the IBEW headquarters building on Madison.

After several years in which Democrats figured only as sacrificial lambs in suburban legislative districts, the fact of having competitive primaries in such districts has the party faithful both nervous and excited.

• At its regular monthly meeting on Monday, the Shelby County Commission: 1) approved with near unanimity the use of PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-tax) rents in the Pinch District TIF area by the Center City Revenue Finance Corporation, contingent upon the developer’s complying with CRFC requirements that not less than 28 percent of spending on construction will go to minority vendors; with the same requirement being imposed on the ongoing Union Row project; 2) voted to resolve a work-overload issue in the Register of Deeds office by approving two new full-tme positions and three temporary positions; 3) approved an add-on funding formula to enable additionl capital improvement projects at municipal schools; 4) agreed to hear in committee a proposal by Commissioner Van Turner for a MATA Capital Funding Ordinance to codify Shelby County’s commitment to transportation needs.

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1436

Verbatim

“If you are buying ALCOHOLE [sic] please have a picture ID ready. You will not be able to purchase any alcohol products if you don’t have a valid ID to show. You have to show your ID every time your [sic] buying alcohol even if you come here 20 times a day you will be asked to show an ID.” — Excerpt from a note posted at a convenience store on Winchester near Perkins. For being such a short message, there’s an awful lot to unpack here. But the big takeaways are, it’s conceivable somebody might attempt to buy booze 20 times in 24 hours. Also, “alcohole” is probably the greatest misspelling in the history of spelling. We’ve all known an alcohole at some point in our lives. Many of us have even been one.

REEFER MADNESS!!!

“Why give someone the opportunity to sell drugs from their automobiles, because that’s what they’re going to do? This resolution is dealing with the devil.” — Memphis’ always succinct, always on point City Councilman Joe Brown objects to decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, because to do so would open a terrifying floodgate of car-based pot peddling and, even worse, — dope trucks! Or something like that. Also, the devil is scary.

Memphis Too

Whenever you’re feeling down about the Bluff City, think of this and take comfort in knowing that, for all of our many problems, we’re not that Memphis. According to a newspaper report “Dollar General Opens to Much Fanfare in Memphis, [Michigan].”

“It’s beautiful,” an actual townsperson was quoted as saying.

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News News Blog

Council Axes Private Guards at City Hall, MPD

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland wants to use armed guards from a private company to secure Memphis City Hall and the new Memphis Police Department (MPD) headquarters but Memphis City Council members axed the plan.

Strickland’s 2017 budget included $650,000 for the new guards, instead of using officers from MPD. Antonio Adams, director of the city’s general services division, said the plan would put those police officers back on the street.

He said the plan was vetted and approved by former MPD director Toney Armstrong and by current interim director Michael Rallings.

But council members beat back at the plan, noting that the mayor has police protection and that they (council members) deserved the same, not “rent-a-cops or flashlight cops,” said council member Berlin Boyd.

The armed guards would have guns, Adams said. Also, the move would not remove the mayor’s detail nor would it remove the council’s officer. It is only the officers at the entrances to the buildings.

“So, everybody’s dead,” said council member Joe Brown. “Am I correct?”

The council defeated a similar move in A C Wharton’s budget last year.

Adams said he’d at least like to keep $400,000 in the budget this year for armed guards at the new MPD headquarters at the former state building at 170 North Main. He said MPD officials have “emphatically stated that they (MPD) will not be armed security at” that building.

The MPD headquarters, Adams said, needed 24-hour security as a whole host of of different people – suspects, victims, and family members – would enter the building at all hours.

Boyd countered that MPD headquarters is also filled with trained, armed police officers.

“They all have guns on their hips,” Boyd said. “I don’t have a gun on my hip. They can have all the security they want.”

Adams repeated the move was approved by MPD officials but Brown said “I don’t buy that,” noting that Armstrong was likely under pressure from Wharton at the time.

In a sprawling statement to help defeat the move, Brown described a new American tension, in which people are angry at government and “are not afraid to shoot guns now” and reminded that a man broke windows at Memphis City Hall recently.

“Around the country, I’ve seen officers shot up at precincts,” Brown said. “I’ve seen elected officials shot in St. Louis. For a few pennies, we’re not going to drop our guard [at City Hall].

“We’re in trouble. The average citizen is angry at anything that happens at City Hall.”

Brown ended his statements by noting that “in reality [MPD] can’t even secure Orange Mound” and that the city council “is going to stay protected, I don’t care what you [Adams], or the mayor or what anybody says.”

While Adams pleaded his case for the funds, council members eventually removed the money from the budget. Councilman Worth Morgan voted against taking the money out of the budget.

The amendment could be changed, however. All of the budget amendments made during the council’s budget review aren’t final until the council approves a final budget, which will probably come some time later in June.

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News The Fly-By

Smart Meters Receive More Love Than Hate From MLGW Customers

When Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) announced last year that it would be installing new digital smart meters to track electricity, gas, and water usage, a vocal group of opponents warned that the meters would lead to higher utility bills and an increased fire risk.

Memphis City Councilman Joe Brown even called the smart meters, which identify energy consumption in a more detailed manner than conventional meters, “a new form of communism.”

However, only 3.6 percent of customers in the 25,000 homes that have been offered smart meters in Shelby County have opted out, according to MLGW.

Smart meter

Ian Randolph is one of 1,000 MLGW customers who participated in the Smart Grid Demonstration Project, a pilot project that allowed participants to test electric smart meters from 2010 to 2012. The citywide smart meter rollout began in 2013.

Randolph has been hooked on the electrical device ever since.

“My bill has gone down over the couple of years that I’ve had it, because I’m able to track my electricity use better,” Randolph said. “Being able to keep up with my electricity use and have an update every so often has been a big help.”

In August 2013, the Memphis City Council approved a $10 million contract for MLGW to install 60,000 smart meters (individual ones for electricity, gas, and water) between December and June 2014.

Different from conventional analog meters, smart meters boast a communications component that enables MLGW to monitor a customer’s energy use remotely without having to physically read their meter.

The smart meters also allow the utility company to detect water leaks and power outages without a customer’s notification.

Smart Grid participants are the only MLGW customers currently able to track their energy use online through a personalized website. But all MLGW customers who received smart meters in late-2013 and mid-2014 will be able to view their consumption online by February 2015.

MLGW President Jerry Collins said the company has yet to receive complaints of higher bills from customers who have switched to smart meters.

“Smart meters give our customers more opportunities for saving energy and reducing their utility bills. At the end of the day, that’s one of the most important considerations, because we want to do things that directly benefit [them],” Collins said. “One of the big advantages of smart meters is that meter readers will never have to come to your home. You can leave your gates locked and dogs out, and that will give you a greater level of home security.”

Although 60,000 smart meters have been installed at residences throughout the county, there are more than one million that remain on the list. Collins said MLGW anticipates installing meters at all residences and businesses by 2020.

Approximately $27 million of MLGW’s 2015 budget will be dedicated to fully implementing smart meters countywide. The city council is slated to vote on MLGW’s budget request, which is more than $1.9 billion overall, on November 18th.

Anthony Durden also participated in MLGW’s Smart Grid Demonstration Project. He said switching to a smart meter helped him save money and increased his awareness of energy conservation.

“Prior to the smart meters, I was more reactionary versus being proactive,” Durden said. “I was focused on reducing my consumption after I received a $500 utility bill. I would definitely recommend these meters to other Memphians because I think it’s important for all of us to participate in any type of method to save energy. And I’m sure that they’ll appreciate lower utility bills.”