Tag: Martavious Jones

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News News Blog

City Council Supports Tougher Measures on COVID Restrictions

The Memphis City Council met virtually today to discuss the recent mandates on local business owners. The Shelby County Health Department has been vigilant about making businesses safer through health directives, and has cracked down on those who refuse to comply with the social distancing mandates.

As it stands, all non-essential businesses are strongly encouraged to stay closed from Dec 26th, 2020 – Jan 22nd, 2021. Retail business are to operate at 50 percent, and food businesses should operate at 25 percent capacity.

Council members seriously considered the issue of leaving many of the city’s restaurant and small business owners out of work, versus creating safer business environments through enforcing stricter mandates.

Shelby County Health Director Alisa Haushalter was an integral part of the conversation. “In an ideal world, given the amount of transmission nationwide, a national strategy is what’s needed. If there isn’t a national strategy, we need a state strategy,” said Haushalter. “And unfortunately we don’t have a state strategy and that’s in part because of a fundamental belief that local municipalities should make their own decisions,” she said.

City of Memphis/Facebook

Shelby County Health Department director Dr. Alisa Haushalter at COVID-19 Task Force briefing.


“If we put down a 25 percent on the restaurant, people are going to gather in their homes, and the odds of them not masking and socially distancing increases dramatically,” said Council Chair Frank Colvet. “Why can’t we consider 50 percent, if for no other reason that if people are still going to party, at least they will do it in a fairly safer environment.”

“Honestly, we’ve got people in the community that aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do,” said Councilman Worth Morgan. “They’re not asymptomatic; they’re having symptoms and continuing to go about their normal lives.”

“It’s not just where we are today, it’s where we anticipate being in January and February if we don’t reduce transmission,” continued Haushalter. She recommends sheltering in place for two incubation cycles, with fears that opening businesses where people can continue to socialize with their masks off will further delay the city’s progress. She said that the health department will take a look at the numbers in two weeks to see if the rate of exposure has decreased. If so, they will consider opening restaurants back up at 50 percent capacity.

The council weighed all of the options available, and when it came down to it, Councilmember Martavious Jones reiterated the severity of what could happen if the city doesn’t act. “Based on the information that [infectious disease specialist] Dr. Jain has presented us, we could have 100 percent more deaths. I’m going to ask you: which one of your loved ones do you want to sacrifice? There’s not a damn one that I want to sacrifice,” he said.

CDC

While many businesses have complied with the mandates, Morgan stated that the orders are simply an act of solidarity, and that the Council has no real say in what actually gets enforced.

“We’ve been getting a lot of emails, calls about the issues and because we’re voting on it, I think a lot of the public think we have a direct say in what’s in this directive. Whatever action we take this day is a support measure. It means absolutely nothing, to be perfectly honest in terms of what gets enacted and what doesn’t,” he said.

“As legislators as elected officials, we have to turn our attention to how we can help,” said Councilmember Rhonda Logan. “What can we do? What funds are available? What agencies are in place to help these business owners who may have to close or may have to pivot?”

As a show of solidarity and to support the restaurant industry, The Memphis City Council agreed to forego 75 percent of their council pay for the duration of this mandate, potentially as a gift to charity, or back to the city as grants to the restaurants. Their salary is about $30,000 a year, so one month of that is $2,500. 75 percent of that that would be $1,800, totaling to a little over $24,000 from all 13 members. They are prepared to continue giving for months if they must.



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News News Blog

Councilman Highlights Potential Conflict of Interest Between City and Its Attorney

McMullen

Two days ahead of the municipal election here, a Memphis City Council member raised concerns about a conflict of interest between the city and its Chief Legal Officer (CLO).

Councilman Martavious Jones said Tuesday that because Bruce McMullen, the city’s CLO, is a shareholder at the Baker Donelson law firm, which is contracted by the city, there could be an unfair benefit for McMullen.

Jones said that since McMullen was appointed in 2016 by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, Baker Donelson has received a 427 percent increase in revenue.

Jones said that Baker Donelson’s revenues from the city have been steadily increasing, going from about $330,500 in 2016 to $452,000 so far in 2019. He said the firm earned just under $1 million for its work on the federal police surveillance trial last year.

Jones gave all of these figures during a council committee hearing Tuesday. It was unclear where Jones got the information.  

Jones noted that per city ordinance, an officer of the city is not allowed to receive benefits from increased contracts with the city.

“The transparency required for a public entity is different than the private section,” Jones said.

McMullen said that there are procedures in place to prevent conflicts of interest from occurring. McMullen said that he does not participate in referring cases to Baker Donelson. Instead, that’s done by the city’s deputy attorney Mike Fletcher and approved by the mayor.

McMullen also said that he personally does not receive any financial benefits for the cases the city contracts Baker Donelson to try.

Fletcher added that the earnings Baker Donelson made between 2008 and 2011 for contracting with the city is “comprable, if not more,” than the amounts between 2016 and now.

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Strickland released a statement shortly after the discussion, saying that “there is no conflict of interest or ethical violation on the part of the Chief Legal Officer.”

“In addition, some of our best CLOs in the past have served in a part-time capacity, including Cliff Pierce and Robert Spence,” Strickland said. “Chief McMullen serves us well in his part-time capacity and has represented the city with integrity.”

Strickland continues, saying that Baker Donelson is one of the “most pre-eminent firms in the country,” and it has represented the city for more than 40 years.

“As mayor, I will not deny the city access to this firm simply because our Chief Legal Officer is a member,” Strickland said. “I made that clear when Bruce was appointed, and I stand by that decision.”

To avoid this type of potential conflict of interest in the future, “whether perceived or real” Jones is working on a city ordinance that would require all city officers and directors appointed by the mayor to work full-time. Currently, McMullen works part-time for the city.

Requiring all officers and division directors to be full-time would ensure they are “dedicated primarily to the duties of their office and needs of the city,” a draft of the ordinance reads.

The ordinance also would require officers and directors to be residents of the city. Doug MGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, said the city charter would have to be amended to put that requirement in place. The charter can only be amended by referendum, he said.

Jones plans to bring an amended version of the ordinance back at the council’s next meeting in two weeks for further discussion.

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News News Blog

City Council Considers Backing Legislation on Cannabis

The Memphis City Council will consider a resolution expressing its support for cannabis-related bills introduced in the ongoing Tennessee General Assembly legislative session.

Councilman Martavious Jones, who is sponsoring the resolution, said the bills deal with decriminalization for certain amounts, taxation of cannabis, and medical marijuana.

“The only way the council speaks is through resolution,” Jones said. “We can have our individual opinions as council members, but it doesn’t mean anything unless there’s an affirmative vote taken by this body.”

Here are the bills Jones is asking the council to support:

Introduced by Democrat Sara Kyle of Memphis, SB 0256 would decriminalize possession of less than an ounce of marijuana in Tennessee. The accompanying House bill is HB 0235, introduced by Democrat Gloria Johnson of Knoxville.

The second pair of bills relates to the taxation of marijuana. In the Senate, Kyle introduced SB 0257, which would change the definition of marijuana for purposes of taxation on unauthorized substances to match the definition of marijuana as it applies to criminal offenses. The bill is coupled by HB 1197, sponsored by Larry Miller, a Democrat from Memphis.

The last set of bills would allow medical marijuana cardholders with cards issued in other states to possess and distribute less than one-half ounce of marijuana to other cardholders in Tennessee. The bills, SB 0260 and HB 0234, are sponsored by Kyle and Johnson, respectively.

Jones told his council colleagues that, looking at the national landscape, the stigma associated with cannabis is “being lifted.”

“When you look at the mass incarceration taking place disproportionately in the communities we represent, this is a step toward addressing those issues,” Jones said.

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Cover Feature News

Behind Closed Doors

Introducing the Justice Project:

Injustice is a problem in Memphis — in its housing, its wealth-gap, its food deserts, its justice system, its education system. In 2018, the Flyer is going to take a hard look at these issues in a series of cover stories we’re calling The Justice Project. The stories will focus on reviewing injustice in its many forms here and exploring what, if anything, is being done — or can be done — to remedy the problems. 

– – – – –

Sometimes the Memphis City Council works behind the public’s back. 

For example, the maneuvering behind its most controversial decision last year — removing Confederate statues from public parks — was kept secret from Memphis citizens until after the decision was made. The council created a new rule, written vaguely and broadly, and ushered it through a months-long legislative process, with plenty of debate and public input. Then, at the last second, they erased the whole thing and filled it in with details they did not think the public needed to know until after the fact of its passage. 

Council members say the move was legal and that they’ve used the same ploy in the past. Council member Worth Morgan, for one, said he “certainly won’t apologize” for using the maneuver on the statues vote. What we’re left with — the council and the public — is a legislative sleight of hand that allows local government to make decisions without public knowledge or input. 

Council member Worth Morgan, for one, said he “certainly won’t apologize” for using the maneuver on the statues vote.

Another example of a council end-around occurred when the public was not informed about a firm the council hired to lobby in Nashville. They spent $120,000 of taxpayer money to urge Tennessee state lawmakers to kill Instant Runoff Voting, a measure approved by Memphis voters in a referendum 10 years ago. When asked about that decision, council attorney Allen Wade was quoted in The Commercial Appeal as saying that the council uses taxpayer dollars “to do a lot of things” people don’t like.

In a third example, council members sometimes introduce last-minute resolutions and ordinances that hinder public involvement.

All of this may be perfectly legal. But is it right? Do Memphis taxpayers and voters deserve more transparency? 

At least one council member said that some council processes may need review. But most members defended the moves, citing complicated legislative procedures, overall council prerogatives, and other rationale.

Taken separately, each legislative maneuver seems like an arcane machination of the democracy machine, movements that take access to local government out of the hands of the people who pay the taxes that run local government. Taken together, they seem like parts of a playbook that’s used to cloud the legislative process and keep citizens out of certain conversations at Memphis City Hall.

The Secret Statues Vote

On Wednesday, December 20th, council members settled in behind their microphones to resume a meeting that it had adjourned from its regular Tuesday session the day before. One major question loomed: What would the council do about the Confederate statues in two city parks?

A final vote on the matter was on the council agenda. That item read, simply, “ordinance relative to the immediate removal of the Forrest Equestrian Statue and the Jefferson Davis Statue and other similar property from city owned property.” 

Intensity built as the council first worked through some routine business. Tension rose further as three members of the public gave the council their parting thoughts on the statues. Then, when the item came up for that final vote, something confusing happened. At least, it was confusing to the anyone outside city government’s inner circle. 

Council member Edmund Ford brought a new rule — a substitute ordinance — to the table that would change everything. The document was not handed out to the public. It was not in the council’s agenda packet, which is public record. The council voted unanimously to accept the new rule. Then, they voted to unanimously approve it, and it was done.

But, as is customary with big votes in the council chamber, not a single member of the audience whooped, cheered, jeered, booed, or hissed. They sat, stunned.

Council chairman Berlin Boyd then said, “for clarity purposes, let me read the substitute ordinance into the record.” Finally, clarity. Nope. Boyd simply read the same old blanket ordinance heading, the one about “the immediate removal of” statues from city-owned property.

Council chairman Berlin Boyd then said, “for clarity purposes, let me read the substitute ordinance into the record.”

During the crucial vote no council member said the word “statue.” No one said “parks.” Certainly no one said “Greenspace Inc.,” a nonprofit that no one but those in the inner circle had ever heard of. No one said anything at all, really. The council moved on to other business. 

But as we now know, that vote sent players in motion all over the city. That vote cemented an agreement Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland had already signed with Greenspace. That vote sent dozens of police and other public safety officials to cordon off the parks, a seamless orchestration that must have taken months to plan. The police moved in to protect crane operators hired by Greenspace to remove statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Jefferson Davis, and James Harvey Mathes. 

The Flyer‘s editorial stance on the removal of the Confederate statues was clear for months. The paper favored their removal, the sooner the better. But concerns remain about the process — a legislative maneuver that shielded the public from a critical government decision, a maneuver that seemingly allows city government to pass legislation without public review or comment.  

Ford said in an interview months after the vote, that the play was used to ensure public safety. He said other votes, such as one regarding residency requirements for city employees, have gone down the same way. The statues vote was scrutinized, he said, because of the public intrigue.

“There’s nothing that we have tried to do in the dark that we wouldn’t do in the light, as far as legislation is concerned,” Ford said, noting that if anyone had questions they could have asked him. “I don’t want people to think that this is something that is sort of a witch hunt or something, done behind the scenes.”

The Atlantic‘s U.S. politics and global news reporter David Graham, called the council play a “novel trick,” a “surprise move,” and a “novel strategy.” But he worried about the precedent.

“The distance between righteous civil disobedience and risky breakdown of rule of law is not as wide as it might seem, however, and it’s easy to imagine ways in which such a procedure could be abused,” Graham wrote. “What if local authorities defied state or federal authorities to erect a pro-Confederate statue?”

Graham also warned the trick play could bring legal challenges. He was right. The Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the city, a case still in mediation. Also, state leaders — Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally and Speaker of the House Beth Harwell — called for a review of the city’s entire statue episode from the State Comptroller’s Office of Open Records Counsel. 

That report cleared the council, saying it “provided sufficient notice of its meetings and agendas to allow interested citizens the opportunity to attend.”

The council met the Tennessee Open Records Act, the report said, because it posted its meeting dates on its website, along with agendas, documents, and more. Though, it should be noted here, again, that the final statues ordinance was never posted online before the final vote meeting and wasn’t in agenda packets the day of the vote.

Tami Sawyer, who led the #TakeEmDown901 movement, said she was told the morning of the vote “what was supposed to happen.”

“When the ordinance wasn’t read, all I could think was … get to the park,” Sawyer said. “I was more focused on, ‘Was it going happen for real’ than anything else.”  

Council member Morgan said the vote was “done in public” and that “you can’t do a complete substitute ordinance that wouldn’t fit into the subject of the heading.” That is, the ordinance you approve has to, at least, in some way, relate to the one it’s replacing.

In this case, doing something “relative to the removal” of the statues was close enough to “the sale and/or conveyance, at reduced or no cost, of such portions of the city’s easement in” Memphis Park, Health Sciences Park, and the Forrest Monument to Greenspace.

Morgan said the media was mad at the council’s handling of the vote “because they missed the story,” adding, “the reason you don’t announce that the statues are coming down … is because of the violence that we’ve seen,” citing protests and counter protests. It was done legally, he said, and pointed to the comptroller’s report as proof. 

“So, I don’t regret how it was done,” Morgan said. “I do regret a lot of the discussion that happened beforehand and after. The protests have suffered from a lack of leadership and a lack of direction, but I can only control and participate in things that are inside [the council’s purview].

“We did it legally and safely so there’s not much more to say, and I certainly won’t apologize for it.”

Council member Patrice Robinson said she was “almost positive” that the council shared documents about the sale to Greenspace with the public. But she deferred to city council attorney Wade “because he was guiding us in the process of making sure that we handled everything in a proper and legal manner.”

Council member Patrice Robinson said she was “almost positive” that the council shared documents about the sale to Greenspace with the public.

When told the information was not shared, Robinson said, “I can only think we maybe need to look at our rules and how we handle that because it’s not just that particular situation. That’s the way it’s been handled in the whole two years I have been on the city council.”    

Before responding to questions, Wade noted in a letter that this reporter “likes” the Facebook pages of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Confederate 901. Wade said those likes “revealed an affinity for the views” of the groups and that “we will assume that your apparent bias will color your opinions” in this story, the purpose of which, he alleged, is “to denigrate the removal of the statues.”

[Note: I “like” those pages in the same way I “like” and follow a variety of groups that make news in Memphis. For example, I “like” the Memphis Zoo and Citizens to Protect Overton Park. — Toby Sells]

Wade noted that while the Tennessee Open Meetings Act requires some meetings to be public, “it does not guarantee all citizens the right to participate in the meetings.” The city charter, he said, allows the council to “amend any ordinance ‘at any time’ before final passage” and does it routinely. For evidence, he pointed to the annual budget ordinance, which the council “routinely amends” from the floor before a final vote.

As for directing the council through the statues vote, Wade said, “I do not direct anyone to do anything. I give advice, which the client is free to accept or reject.”

Council member Martavius Jones pointed also to the vote on residency requirements as an example of the council using the substitute-ordinance play. It’s legal, he said. But he was then asked if the method is good for open government.

Council member Martavius Jones pointed also to the vote on residency requirements as an example of the council using the substitute-ordinance play. It’s legal, he said.

“One of the things that I did after [the statues vote] meeting was to go back and make copies [of the substitute ordinance] to give to the media after we voted on it,” Jones said. “Because I believe in transparency in the way we operate as a Memphis City Council.”    

It all seemed above-board to Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG). Notice was given. The purpose of the ordinance was clear, even if the details weren’t. Past that, it’d be up to a judge to decide if the council broke the law, she said, noting that her group has no open opinion on the statues issue.

“If nobody but the members of the governing body knew what they were voting on, it’s completely understandable why the members of the public would be upset about that,” Fisher said. “It’s really not how a governing body should work.”

Lobbying Against the Public

Hardly an eyebrow was raised last year when council chairman Berlin Boyd asked for money in the city budget to hire a lobbyist. They wanted to help set the city’s legislative agenda in Nashville.

But a fury erupted when the public found out what that agenda included. 

On December 5, 2017, all but three council members voted to send the idea of instant run-off voting (IRV) back to Memphians on a referendum. Trouble was, Memphians had already approved IRV by 71 percent in a referendum back in 2008, and it was scheduled to be first utilized in the 2018 elections.

In a co-written guest column in The Commercial Appeal, former Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy and former city council chairman Myron Lowery — both IRV proponents — said “the county election commission dragged its feet on implementation, inaccurately claiming that the county’s voting equipment couldn’t handle it.”

While some were scratching their heads about the council’s move to bring it back to a vote in December, the council had been hard at work on the issue — behind closed doors — since November. That’s when the council hired the well-known, Nashville-based Ingram Group to find a sponsor to introduce an ordinance to prohibit IRV. According to a Ryan Poe story in the CA last month, the council had been working “quietly” and “behind the scenes” to find a Senate sponsor for the bill. 

While Wade told Poe the bill was moving “full steam ahead” in Nashville, the news of the council’s maneuver wasn’t playing well back home. 

Theryn C. Bond excoriated the council at the podium back in December, reading from the council rules of procedure on a ranked-choice system by which the council itself uses to fill vacancies on the council. 

“Now, what does that sound like to you?” Bond asked. “Sounds to me a lot like IRV. And what is good for the goose, should be good for the gander.”

Lemichael Wilson said of the council’s work to use taxpayer money to fight against something the public had approved, “to call this hypocritical would be a compliment.” Wilson said last autumn’s calls by council members to “give the choice back to the people,” now rang “hollow upon our ears.”  

“Many believe this council — if nothing else — didn’t want Nashville telling it what to do,” Wilson said. “They believed it with such fervor that they supported the council in this late-night sale and removal of Confederate statuary.

“How we can now believe this council is ardently striving against legislative preemption when it is funding that very practice behind the citizens’ backs?” 

Surprise!

The council’s committee agenda is usually posted on Thursday around noon. With a regularity that borders on routine, a new agenda is posted on following days with new items added in different committees. 

What’s the issue? Well, for one, it goes against the council’s own rules. 

“All proposed ordinances, resolutions, motions, and other matters submitted by council members shall be submitted in writing to the Council Office by 10 a.m. Thursday,” reads a section from the council’s rules of procedure. 

Any council member can bring a new ordinance or resolution after that, but only if they present it in writing. Even then, “only items involving extreme emergencies may be added to the agenda,” after the Thursday deadline, according to council rules.

Those rules are often stretched or ignored.

In March 2016, council member Reid Hedgepeth filed a last-minute resolution on a Tuesday morning — as council committee meetings were already underway — that proposed giving the majority of Overton Park’s Greensward to the Memphis Zoo. 

Hedgepeth’s surprise resolution said the zoo “has the greatest usage by citizens and visitors of any of the other various activities in the park.” It would have allowed the zoo to use the green space as a parking lot, add permanent buildings to it, or, really, do whatever they wanted with it.  

The resolution was brought by Hedgepeth but its sponsors included Robinson, Bill Morrison, Phillip Spinosa, Jones, Janis Fullilove, Ford, Boyd, and Joe Brown. So, it seems there had been plenty of discussion about the resolution, though none of it was public. And it caught park advocates completely off guard.

“This outrageous and undemocratic power grab is a massive insult to the thousands of citizens who’ve participated in the ongoing public planning process, to the Overton Park Conservancy, which is engaged in mediation and litigation with the zoo, and to Mayor Jim Strickland,” read a Facebook post at the time from Citizens to Protect Overton Park.

Had the resolution been posted on Thursday, per council rules, it would have given proponents and opponents plenty of time to show up at city hall and express their views. Hedgepeth’s last-minute ploy only gave interested citizens about four hours to change their daily schedules; many showed up at city hall anyway.

The Commercial Appeal once sued the city over this very issue. The 1974 Supreme Court opinion put the law on the city’s side when it came to adding agenda items at the last minute. “Adequate public notice,” to the court was based on “the totality of the circumstances as would fairly inform the public.” 

But a 2012 opinion from the Open Records Counsel to the Tennessee Municipal Technical Assistance Service (MTAS) said the office would not recommend last-minute agenda changes.

“From a best practice perspective, this office would not suggest that a governing body amend an agenda during a regularly scheduled meeting to include an issue in which the governing body knows that there is significant public interest,” read the opinion from Elisha D. Hodge, “and (the governing body) knows that if the item had been on the agenda that was originally published for the meeting, there would have been increased public interest and attendance at the meeting.” All of these issues — silent votes on important ordinances, behind-the-scenes lobbying in Nashville, and last-minute agenda items — are business as usual at city hall. Some of it has been going on for a long time. Legal experts may say (and have said) it’s all above board. But for Memphians, we ask, “Is it justice?” Let’s let Theryn Bond have the final word:

“The last time I checked, you guys work for us,” Bond said to council members last month. “So, come up from behind those closed doors, and roll up those sleeves, and dig into your districts. Because, trust me, it is nothing to get 25 signatures. Do I make myself clear?”

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Getting the Vote Right in Shelby County

Another Shelby County election, another election controversy. This time, it’s the County Commission race between Reginald Milton and Martavius Jones, where a thin 26-vote margin separates unofficial winner Milton from recount-demander Jones.  

The time’s ripe to finally move to “paper trail” voting machines. In fact, this may be our last chance.

Welcome to the credibility gap: Shelby County’s record of election mishaps is too long to recount here. Highlights include thousands of voters being incorrectly turned away on Election Day (2010) to thousands of voters being given the wrong ballots (2012) to an overturned local election (litigation still pending). A state government audit of our county’s election office concluded that it had “an inability to conduct elections without significant inaccuracies.”

Other than that, though, it’s fine.

The public has a similar lack of confidence in the integrity of our elections, and both the County Commission and Memphis City Council recently passed resolutions saying they had no confidence in the election administrator.

This week, candidate Jones told the Democratic Party’s Primary Board that the election machine “tapes” posted at each polling place tell a different story from the electronic voting machine-generated unofficial count, making the Jones-Milton race a literal tie. The Primary Board then demanded the raw election return data from the Election Commission in an attempt to discover whether Milton really won over Jones. And there’s legal uncertainty over the kind of recount — manual or automatic — that Jones can demand, and when. 

None of this would be an issue if we replaced our purely electronic touch-screen Diebold voting machine system with an “optical scan” voting system that creates a voter-verified hard copy “paper trail.” 

The “optiscan” system would be familiar to anyone who’s ever taken the SAT, the ACT, the TCAP, or any other standardized test. Using a No. 2 pencil, voters fill in bubbles on a “scantron” sheet to mark their candidate preference, and insert the sheet into a machine that electronically scans and records the votes while locking the hard copy sheets away for safekeeping. In the event of a Jones/Milton-like squeaker election, a charge of fraud, or a computer glitch, the hard copies can be compared to the electronic record.

Optiscan is the national trend. In 32 states, it’s either used statewide or for a majority of voters. Nationally, only 1 in 4 voters uses a purely paperless touch-screen system like ours. Here in Tennessee, optiscan has been used successfully for more than a decade in Pickett and Hamilton (Chattanooga) counties.

Not only would optiscan machines keep elections honest and accurate, they would cut waiting time at the polls. At your polling place right now, only three voters at a time can vote, on three different touch-screen machines. With optiscan, 10 voters could take their time at 10 privacy carrels filling out their ballots. When they’re ready, they can then feed their ballot into the machine. Think about that this August, as you wait in line for the voters in front of you to slog their way through the “long ballot,” filled with judicial candidates who come up once every 8 years. 

If we buy now, we can get new machines at half price. Our current voting machines are about 10 years old, and will need to be replaced in the next few years anyway. And right now, millions of dollars of federal funds are sitting in a bank account in Nashville, available for us to help pay for the new machines. These “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA) funds can only be used for election reform. 

But if we don’t ask for them this year, they could be given away to other Tennessee counties. That’s why the Election Commission recently asked an internal county budget committee for $1.5 million in capital funds for optiscan machines, expecting a state HAVA grant match of $2.7 million or so. The Election Commission later withdrew that request in deference to another capital budget project, but it was right the first time. 

Optiscan will require us to pay ongoing paper costs, which can be expensive. But we’ll likely save money in the long run, because you need about one-third fewer optiscan machines than touch-screen machines, with resulting savings in machine maintenance, storage, and transport. 

We need voting-machine reform now more than ever, and this may be our last chance. Tell the County Commission and Election Commission to budget for optiscan this year. The next time there’s a close election, we’ll all be thanking them for it.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

The Aftermath

On Monday, in the wake of a final dismissal of Shelby County’s long-running school litigation, there were cries of satisfaction from most of the parties who had taken part in the legal struggle. “Hallelujah!” Bartlett Mayor

Keith McDonald was quoted as saying — and perhaps he was entitled to such exultation. It was McDonald, after all, who had, early and often, carried the fight for municipal school independence on behalf of his and the five other suburbs — Germantown, Collierville, Arlington, Lakeland, and Millington.

No doubt he was entitled to celebrate. McDonald was, after all, a “winner” in the sense that his efforts had paid off and Bartlett had finally gotten its legal divorce from the school system of Memphis, after a merger of Memphis City Schools (MCS) with Shelby County Schools that the suburbs clearly regarded as unwelcome. Perhaps it should also be counted as a plus for Bartlett, as for the other suburbs, that each of them gets to chart its own course educationally, though the jury will stay out on that one for some years. Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz, a Germantown resident and a sometime banker, has warned that the long-term tax burdens on the suburban municipalities are likely to be overwhelming. Time will tell.

It is unlikely that Sharon Goldsworthy, the outgoing mayor of Germantown, felt quite as exhilarated as McDonald. The terms of the final settlement stripped her city of three flagship schools — Germantown High School, Germantown Middle, and Germantown Elementary — though that outcome owed a great deal to her own reluctance to offer long-term guarantees for servicing the student majority — residents of unincorporated Shelby County — at those schools.

Others who might not be so delighted about how things turned out might — or should — include Martavius Jones and Tomeka Hart, the Memphis school board members who took the lead in forcing the surrender of the MCS charter, thereby bringing about a “merger” that could not last — as well as the reemergence of separate city and county school blocs that are more unwieldy than the ones they replaced. Even if Jones and Hart won’t say as much, any number of other well-intentioned citizens who supported the charter surrender in December 2010 have been heard to lament the impossibility of putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

What about the 21 blue-ribbon citizens, members of the ad hoc Transition Planning Commission, who labored so diligently back in 2011-12 to bring forth a model merger document that was as roundly ignored and as impractical in the long run as a Constitution for the Republic of Atlantis? They surely can’t be celebrating.

A case can be made that the city of Memphis, by climbing out of a $58 million annual maintenance-of-effort obligation to the now defunct MCS, has come out a winner — as if any monetary gain could make much of a dent in the somewhat dire circumstances of city finances. And Memphis taxpayers, as citizens of Shelby County, will still have to shoulder the burden of that MOE.

Still, it’s over, and maybe in the long run it will all work out — though at the moment that seems to be a pretty hard sell.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

The Memphis School-Merger Tangle: Cont’d.

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The good news: One way or another, the complicated tangle of the city/county school merger process may get untangled this year. Federal, state, and local officials are working on it, though they seem to be working in different directions. That’s all part of the tangle, which could become even more snarled than it already is. And that’s the bad news.

After regular business had finished at Monday’s public meeting of the Shelby County Commission, Chairman Mike Ritz made this add-on announcement concerning a status conference held earlier that morning between U.S. district judge Hardy Mays and attorneys in the still ongoing litigation relating to city/county school merger and the prospect of independent municipal school districts:

“I did visit with the attorneys in the courthouse this morning, and the circumstances were these: A new party to the lawsuit was asked to attend the meeting. The county school board was not a party to the lawsuit, but they were asked to be there.

“And what happened was that the judge said he was going to postpone his decision on the two remaining issues and asked for a special master to be appointed, with names to be submitted no later than Wednesday to overlook the activities of the school board, because he is not happy with the failure of the school board to appoint a superintendent, to take budget actions, and otherwise respond to the recommendations of the TPC [Transition Planning Commission] — which he feels in toto is a failure to conform according to his order of 2011.”

Ritz added, “There is nothing for us to do or not do. We don’t have to like it or not like it, but there we are.”

Earlier, Tom Cates and Allan Wade, attorneys for the suburban municipalities and the Memphis City Council, respectively, had, in separate meetings with reporters, said essentially the same thing and with the same matter-of-factness as would Ritz.

“We all knew” that the municipalities would be in the Unified District for at least a year, said Cates, in what may have been his frankest acknowledgment yet of that particular reality mandated by Mays in separate orders of 2011 and 2012. And that, both he and Wade said, was all that was discussed.

Mays’ announcement of his imminent intent to appoint a special master resolves a matter that has been hanging since his original order of 2011, which mentioned such an office, and its most obvious intent is to dispose of the remaining financial and organizational obstacles to school consolidation in the face of an approaching July 1st merger deadline.

But, while it is generally being treated as a de facto delay in ruling on remaining legal issues, pending whatever the Tennessee General Assembly does on school matters in the current session, it takes those issues, including the final provision of the 2011 Norris-Todd Act and the very feasibility of independent municipal schools, to the brink of final judgment.

Hence a largely rhetorical discussion in Monday’s commission meeting on a resolution by Wyatt Bunker, Terry Roland, and Chris Thomas, proponents of municipal schools, to remove the commission as a litigating party and, in effect, terminate the lawsuit.

Bunker rolled it all into a single ball, beginning with a conclusion he said he reached as a member of the old Shelby County Schools board a decade ago. “We knew back then that city schools were top-heavy. There’s a lot of waste, a lot of waste in that administration,” and bringing things to the present, which included last weekend’s retreat attended by commission members, Unified School Board members, and other county officials. A major point of concern at the retreat had been the board’s request for extra funding.

“We get to that retreat this weekend, they hand us a 145 million-dollar bill. … That made me quite angry, because it appeared to me that they were trying to avoid making the tough decisions that they need to make and instead just hand us a bill. … That’s why the municipalities don’t want to have anything to do with it. … That begs the question, Why are we tying them up in a lawsuit? They need to seat their board. They need to hire a superintendent. They need to obtain the capital improvements to support their school system, put in place everything that’s necessary. … Why don’t we get out of the way and let them get on about the business of educating children?

“And for those of you who believe this is a race issue? By definition, Shelby County Schools is more diverse than Memphis City Schools is. It’s not a race issue. It’s a very diverse school system. It’s a high-achieving school system. … You ought to vote with us, get out of the way, and let them make progress.”

Jackson Baker

Roland: Nashville will act.

That was answered this way by Commissioner Walter Bailey:

“It takes two people to do a fox-trot. … If you don’t have an adversary, you don’t have a lawsuit. We’re asking them to concede the remaining issues, and the lawsuit will vanish. [We could] ask the court to enter the appropriate order. That would terminate the lawsuit. That would save hundreds of thousands of dollars. … That’s a quick remedy to end this lawsuit.”

And Commissioner Steve Mulroy segued from that into a reminder of the recently terminated mediation talks between the contending parties: “They’re saying it’s unreasonable to ask for a unilateral disarmament for their side. By the same token, it’s unreasonable to ask for a unilateral disarmament for our side. … The question is, Why won’t we talk and work out a settlement? … A mere three or four weeks ago, we were 90 percent of the way toward a complete local and comprehensive settlement.

“Abruptly, at the 11th hour, they walked away from the negotiations. And why? Because they had some sort of inkling that our Nashville overlords would meddle once again in our local affairs and give them everything they want.

“But,” Mulroy said, “there is a chance they won’t get every single thing they want out of Nashville. If we settle the lawsuit now, they won’t have to go to Nashville.”

The reported terms of what Mulroy referred to as an aborted agreement were essentially these: 10-year agreements between the suburbs and the commission permitting chartered school districts in six suburban municipalities; guarantees of racial diversity in the suburban schools; paid-lease agreements between the suburbs and the Unified School Board for existing school properties; and, in what seems to have been the sticking point, an agreement by the suburbs to equalize per-pupil spending with that of the unified system and to commit municipal sales tax revenues to that end.

In debate Monday, Roland responded, “Don’t say you ran away when you pushed [us] away.” He predicted that the General Assembly could make the local dispute moot by enacting legislation that would enable municipal schools and allow direct state funding of them, bypassing the county commission’s approval process.

Indeed, there are several measures tumbling around in Nashville at the moment, one or two that would legalize new municipal school districts, this time on a statewide basis, and others that would enlarge the state’s charter-school apparatus and create the kind of state control Roland spoke of. Last week, those measures drew opposition from representatives of the state’s Big Four school districts — Shelby, Davidson, Knox, and Hamilton counties — and reaction to them appears not to be predictably partisan.

Things remain to be seen up there, as, in fact, they do in Shelby County.

• Also on Monday: Inner-city Democratic commissioners Sidney Chism and Bailey joined with the suburban Republican bloc of Bunker, Roland, Thomas, Heidi Shafer, and Steve Basar to uphold the county’s existing residency requirements for Shelby County employees, a category that will now include those employees of Memphis City Schools, whose employer of record will be Shelby County after school merger becomes effective on July 1st.

The opposition of Chism and Bailey to an amendment that would have exempted the erstwhile MCS teachers was based on what Bailey referred to as a “freeloader” mentality on the part of people who work inside Shelby County but who pay their residence taxes elsewhere, a traditional inner-city view. Republican Shafer expressed similar views.

The ordinance, as passed, will give the affected teachers a five-year period to establish residence in Shelby County. However, the commission, by another bipartisan vote, this one going 9-4, passed a follow-up ordinance authorizing a 2014 ballot referendum abolishing the residency requirement for all county employees.