Tag: Mayor AC Wharton

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Downtown Memphis: Less is More

An early proposed version of Beale Street Landing.

The one thing Memphis and Shelby County have surely learned from the past decade or so, during which hard times visited and stayed around for a while, is that necessity truly is the mother of invention — and often a single mother at that. 

Even before the Great Crash of 2008-9, there was a general sense that we had let our ambitions on the development front soar a little too much. Take our riverfront: Organized opposition on the part of Friends of the River and other environmentally interested citizens was, along with alarms about the anticipated costs of the project, a major reason why some of the more ambitious iterations proposed by the Riverfront Development Corporation did not come to fruition. 

What was left on the plate was Beale Street Landing (BSL). Beset with delays, cost overruns, design controversies, and intermittent failures to cooperate by a sometimes unruly river, it finally got done within the past year. The public spaces are welcoming, the views are spectacular, and BSL has proved, if nothing else, to be a great place to have a party. The Flyer‘s own annual Best of Memphis celebration was held there to good effect earlier this year. 

It brings to mind the phrase — and the concept of — “less is more,” a term which, we discovered upon doing a little research, was originated not by the minimalist architect Mies van der Rohe, as was long supposed, but by Robert Browning in the British master’s 1855 poem, “Andrea del Sarto (Called ‘The Faultless Painter’).” 

We were stirred into admiration of a sort a few months back at an insight offered by Mayor A C Wharton (whom we had previously taken to desk, along with city planning maven Robert Lipscomb, for the grandiosity embedded in some of the ideas floated out of City Hall): Frustrated  by the scarcity of the times, by the drying up of public and private funding sources, and by overt warnings about fiscal over-reach from the state Comptroller’s office, Wharton offered a new, leaner version of development, which cast downtown Memphis as an open-air arena, with its parts — among them FedExForum, the National Civil Rights Museum, the soon-to-be Bass Pro Pyramid, and, yes, Beale Street Landing — being connected by relatively inexpensive public transportation. 

This was how the mayor saw us responding to tourist and convention competition from, say, Nashville, with its massive (and massively expensive) new Convention Center. 

“Less is more.” Yes, indeed. And even the nascent Main Street to Main Street Big Water Crossing project (aka Hanrahan Bridge project), establishing pedestrian connections between downtown and West Memphis, involves minimal transformation of existing natural surroundings at relatively low cost — the key component being a $14.9 million “Tiger Grant” from the federal government. Greg Maxted, the project’s executive director, made that modest but far-reaching project sing when he described its prospective glories to a luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club of Memphis on Tuesday. 

We have much to look forward to, and much of what is to come is already there, in a landscape that needs only some judicious tweaking, not a massive overhaul.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Harold Collins On Verge of Declaring for 2015 Memphis Mayor’s Race

The 2015 Memphis mayor’s race can be considered underway, at least informally, following the announcement this week that city Councilman Harold Collins has formed an exploratory committee to consider seeking the office.

Collins has made two hard-hitting public appearances in the past week. In the first of these, at the Frayser Exchange Club last Thursday, Collins characterized recent outbreaks of mob violence by youths as “urban terrorism” and called for more direct action against offenders than is currently the practice at a Juvenile Court undergoing reforms at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Participants in “serious crimes,” which Collins defined as including mob actions like those at Poplar Plaza last month and in the vicinity of Crump Stadium last Friday night, should face a prosecutor, a judge, and the prospect of jail “within 24 hours,” the councilman said.

Councilman Harold Collins

In a meet-and-greet at the Evergreen Grill Monday night, Collins repeated that formulation and made an aggressive pitch as well for an enhanced summer jobs program for disadvantaged youth, as well as expanded mental-health programs.

He also charged that Mayor A C Wharton’s 

current administration had done little to acquaint small-businesses owners with the fact that city funding had long been available to help them expand and prosper. “They’ve done a terrible job of getting the word out,” he said.

Collins went on to allege that, following the election of Wharton as mayor in 2009, “Nothing changed except on the seventh floor,” which is where the mayoral offices are.

Others known to be considering races for mayor next year, besides Wharton and Collins, are city councilmember Jim Strickland, former councilmember Carol Chumney, current Shelby County Commissioner Steve Basar, and former Commissioner James Harvey. The names of Councilman Myron Lowery and former Memphis School Board member Kenneth Whalum have also received mention.

  

• Proponents and opponents of the various state amendments have been engaging in a good deal of arithmetical calculation, based on a unique formula called for in the state Constitution.

It works this way: An amendment is deemed to have passed if it nets a number of votes equal to a majority of the votes cast in the governor’s race. Similarly, an amendment fails if the votes for it total less than a majority of the votes in the gubernatorial race.

As it happens, this year’s race for governor is, by universal consent, a shoo-in for Republican incumbent Bill Haslam. The state’s weakened Democratic Party emerged from its virtually unnoticed August 7th primary with a nominee, retired East Tennessee contractor Charlie Brown, whose only claim to fame was the similarity of his name to that of a cartoon character and whose resources for a serious race are essentially nil. And Haslam is otherwise confronted by an array of generally unknown independents.

The situation is hardly a recipe for a massive voter turnout in the gubernatorial race, so that the threshold of success for each of the four proposed constitutional amendments begins at a fairly low level. That fact makes any prediction regarding the outcomes of the amendment votes uncertain.

Amendment 1, which would cut into the blanket protection of abortion rights  provided by a state Supreme Court decision of 2000, declaring the state neutral on abortion, and restricting privileges to those enabled by federal judicial authority, is by all odds the most controversial and the most intensely contested.

Addressing a Vote No on 1 rally held at the Racquet Club last week by the Tennessee Democratic Party, 9th District congressman Steve Cohen held forth on the threshold issue, telling the pro-choice activists in attendance that bypassing the governor’s race would work against their interests and increase the chances of passage for the amendment.

It was urgent, therefore, said Cohen, that they should vote in the governor’s race. Cohen offered his own preferred candidate — John Jay Hooker, an octogenarian Nashville lawyer who, at intervals in the previous century, had been a serious Democratic prospect for governor but who, many fits and starts later, is best known these days as a litigant for direct election of state appellate judges (a matter which, as noted below, is at the heart of another amendment on the November ballot). 

“Do what I’m going to do. Vote for John Jay!” said Cohen.

Speaking to reporters after yet another rally, this one held at the Kroc Center on Monday on behalf of Amendment 2, Governor Haslam addressed the converse possibility — that proponents of this or that amendment might be advocating a de facto boycott of the governor’s race in order to lower the voter threshold for their amendment.

“I obviously don’t like that,” Haslam said. “I think it’s important for people to understand all four of the amendments and to vote for anything on the ballot.”

At the rally, a panel consisting of Haslam and former state Supreme Court Justice George Brown of Memphis, with lawyer Monica Wharton serving as moderator, had made the case for Amendment 2, which the governor said was necessary to provide “clarity and predictability” on the matter of appointing appellate judges.

As Haslam noted, the amendment would make it “clear in the law that what we’re doing now does fit the definition of the Constitution, adding one step, that the legislature can approve or disapprove” an appointment, giving the governor a chance to respond within 60 days. At present, the state employs the so-called “Tennessee Plan,” allowing gubernatorial appointments of appellate judges, who are then subject to yes-or-no retention elections at eight-year intervals. 

Both Brown and Haslam suggested that appellate judges were in the position of impartial referees in athletic contests. Playing to local sensitivities, Haslam said, it wouldn’t do for a referee in a Grizzlies game to have “a Kevin Durant jersey” on under his striped shirt.

Haslam made a bit of fresh news when he told reporters afterward that he supported all four of the amendments on the November ballot, including Amendment 1, which he characterized as allowing the state’s laws on abortion “to match what the federal laws are.”

• The great Charlie Cook, whose widely syndicated “Cook Report” is one of the most respected political tout sheets in the country, made an appearance at Rhodes College, Monday, under the auspices of the school’s political-science and history departments.

Speaking in Barrett Library on the subject of “Why is D.C. Dysfunctional?” Cook outlined the current dismal approval rates of President Obama and congressional Republicans in opinion polls and said, “Nobody’s happy.” He noted that Republicans were progressively losing support with minorities, younger Americans, and women — all categories whose proportion is growing in the electorate — and suggested that the GOP would be well advised to “shut the hell up” about social issues.

Democrats have their problems, too — including a growing public unease concerning the leadership of Obama, particularly in the realm of foreign policy, which has attained an unusual degree of importance with voters, Cook said.

The GOP can expect modest gains in both House and Senate this year, but not enough to affect the enduring state of gridlock, predicted the noted analyst.

He was cautious about predictions concerning 2016 presidential prospects, though he did say there was “a 25 to 30 percent chance” that, despite expectations, Hillary Clinton would not seek the Democratic nomination. 

Cook, whose wife is from Memphis, is a frequent visitor to the city.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Power of Poverty

Memphis is still the nation’s poorest large metro area, and the share of children who live in poverty is climbing. The news, delivered via 2013 Census data released last week, is not a reason to surrender the so-called, half-hearted war against poverty. It is a call to use different weapons and to transform the public policies that conspire to keep people poor.

It is time to take up the mission for which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died in Memphis: economic justice.

“If the society changes its concepts by placing the responsibility on its system, not on the individual, and guarantees secure employment or a minimum income, dignity will come within reach of all,” wrote King in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

As a city, we have been mindful of, if not obedient to, King’s call for racial harmony.

We are fond of the aesthetics of integration — witness our civic pride at the sight of interracial crowds at Grizzlies playoffs games — but blasé about the execution of equality.

The overall poverty rate in the Memphis metro area — which stretches to the nearest parts of Arkansas and Mississippi — is 19.8 percent. The disgrace is in the details: The poverty rate is 29.2 percent for blacks, 38.3 percent for Hispanics, and 8.4 percent for whites. A staggering 52.4 percent of Hispanic children and 43.2 percent of black children live in poverty, compared to 9.8 percent of white kids.

From 2012 to 2013, the child-poverty rate rose by 3 percent. Forty-two percent of Memphis’ poor live in female-headed households.

“To reduce child poverty, we need to reduce mothers’ poverty,” said M. Elena Delavega, assistant professor of social work at the University of Memphis.

To do so requires three things: universal childcare, an increase in the minimum wage, and efficient public transportation.

If we could only do one of those, I asked, which one should it be? Delavega sighed. “It’s like if you asked what’s better — to feed a person or give them something to drink,” she said.

“Well, if you don’t do both, they’ll die anyway. We should do those three things, and we should do them at the same time.”

Memphis is rich with experiments in education reform, many funded by generous benefactors and nonprofit foundations.

“Philanthropy is commendable,” King said, “but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

The circumstances are dire: “Cuba is better than we are in terms of the investment in education,” Delavega said. It’s true, the communist nation spends more of its GDP on education than the United States, the state of Tennessee, or the city of Memphis.

But King’s rhetoric suggests that millions spent to fix classrooms may be misdirected, if well-intentioned. “We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished,” King wrote in 1967.

In 2013, Shelby County’s poverty rate was 21.8 percent — higher than it was in 1970, 20.6 percent.

“It is clear,” states Mayor A C Wharton’s Blueprint for Prosperity, “that Memphis cannot reduce poverty by pursuing the same strategies that have been prevalent for the past 40 years.”

Taken as a whole, Wharton’s anti-poverty initiative claims it can shrink the poverty rate by 1 percent every year for the next 10 years.

Better childcare is one part of Wharton’s plan, but virtually none of it relies on cooperation from other elected bodies.

But Delavega’s road to economic security for all requires significant investment by the state. In a recent report, the Corporation for Enterprise Development identified 67 policies that states can employ to boost financial security and create opportunities for all residents.

Of those, Tennessee has adopted 18, earning it a rank of 43rd for policies adopted and 44th for outcomes for family economic security.

This is not cause to abandon King’s dream.

It’s time for a revolution. “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies,” King said. “A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”

Wendi C. Thomas is a columnist, journalist, and founder of Common Ground: Conversations on Race, Communities in Action. Visit her blog at wendicthomas.com,

and follow her on Twitter @wendi_c_thomas.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Learning From Ferguson

Almost seven years ago, I stood under a clear, blue September sky in Jena, Louisiana, as more than 20,000 African Americans flooded the streets of that rustic community in protest of the conviction of six teenagers for the alleged beating of a white student at the town’s high school. I thought then, in 2007, that that demonstration of unity of purpose might lead to a new awakening of social consciousness in America regarding race relations. It didn’t.

Five years later, I was reporting on the daily demonstrations of outrage in Memphis in reaction to the shooting death in Florida of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. The outpouring of tears, outrage, and disgust at the fact that Martin’s “stereotypical” hoodie served as a catalyst for his being targeted by the overzealous wanna-be cop seemed universal — an appalled response from the majority of the general public. Surely, I thought, this would be the incident that would sustain a national dialogue about race, false perceptions, and tainted justice and result in sweeping positive social upheaval in the name of equality. It didn’t.

So, pardon me if the prospect of people taking to the streets of Memphis this week to demonstrate solidarity with those mourning the loss of 18-year-old Michael Brown in a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, strikes me as a hollow gesture — especially since we’ve got so much work left to do in addressing the plight of African-American youth here in Memphis. It’s blasphemous to focus on a tragedy 300 miles away when we should be concentrating on the atrocities within our own city. It doesn’t take much to know where to begin.

As I reported on television last week, there are an estimated 10,000 students who have not yet enrolled in school in Shelby County. Because of confusion regarding the various municipal, private, charter, and state-run achievement district school systems, clarity about who is going where might be a little muddled, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that thousands of students are apparently not in school anywhere. The SCS superintendent and school board members are only now, two weeks into the educational year, deciding to push parental procrastinators into action to get their children in classrooms through a series of radio and television ads.

Since when did getting a basic education become an option? There are laws on the books about the penalties parents can face because of their children’s truancy. Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich stands ready to enforce them. Let’s take her up on her word to do so. You can’t tell me there’s not a direct correlation between school truants and the youth violence in our streets. In the month between July 13th and August 13th, Memphis police responded to 27 shooting incidents involving juveniles. The youngest victim was 12. Apparently, these incidents have caught the attention of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton who now wants to call a summit to discuss ways to stop the violence.

Though I have my doubts, I hope the mayor isn’t content in this situation to surround himself with “yes men” who are going to give him a false sense that the city is doing all it can to turn around this distressing tide. If the city truly wants to help, it should join the D.A.’s office in cracking down hard on truancy. Join with the schools in reaching out to young girls to teach them that making babies out of wedlock is not a career path. Have MPD hold seminars to stress to young black males the less-than-attractive alternatives of imprisonment or death that could come from living the life of a “gangsta.” If you want to call it “scared straight” or some snappier title, it doesn’t matter. Just do it.

As history has proven, marches and public demonstrations of concern are usually after-the-fact reactions — too little, too late. We shouldn’t have to march in memory of our slain youth, not when we can be proactive in giving our children a fighting chance to succeed through education. You can’t bring Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown back. But we, and the leaders of our community, can do our utmost to work toward making sure their deaths and the temporary unity of purpose their tragedies generated were not in vain, at least not here in Memphis.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Sounds of Silence in Memphis

As the band Pink Floyd once sang, “Hello, is there anybody out there?”

You know who you are. You’re that Memphis Midtown woman diligently working on her flower garden, just so you can make your home and the neighborhood look a little brighter. You’re that father of four children in Orange Mound who doesn’t know anything about a Facebook page and doesn’t want to, because you just like to keep your business and opinions to yourself. You’re that husband and wife who’ve decided to make the decision to forego that much-needed paint job for the house for another year, because your daughter needs those braces for a smile that will one day dazzle a special young man.

You don’t call radio talk shows. You don’t email Memphis city councilmen. You’ve never been to 201 Poplar and don’t even know exactly where City Hall is downtown. When you were younger, you might have marched in protest for equal rights or picketed outside a lunch counter, because you thought it was important then to have your voice heard. But now, because you think it doesn’t matter anymore to other people what you think about the direction our city is taking, you’ve become a member of what former President Richard Nixon deemed the “silent majority.”

Congratulations! As taxpayers, at least those not employed by the city, your silence in the past tumultuous week has reached deafening proportions.

It’s not like you weren’t aware of the crisis that led up to it: The impending need to deal with closing a $1 billion deficit in the city budget and the state’s mandate to fix the shortfall in health-care and retirement benefits for thousands of city employees has been in the news for months. Responsible members of the City Council have been agonizing for weeks over the astounding numbers involved in trying to close the deficit.

On the other hand, the governmental body’s “usual suspects” took the occasion of this crisis to shamelessly grandstand in front of employee unions by accusing Mayor A C Wharton’s administration of putting them in a position of being forced to do the “dirty work” of voting on the lone proposal on the table. As usual, their protests came without any alternative ideas of their own.

I received an email from one such councilperson, who told me I didn’t understand how she was constricted by the constitutional separation between the executive branch and the legislative arm from putting forth her own solutions. Obviously, she’s never listened to Shea Flinn, Jim Strickland, Harold Collins, Edmund Ford Jr., or Lee Harris, who’ve come up with creative proposals for all sorts of issues.

Which brings me to Mayor Wharton, who has taken the brunt of the outrage leveled at him by angry city employees and retirees. First, there is nothing in this man’s track record of public service to this community that warrants the vitriolic attacks against his character and his devotion to trying to carve out a viable future for Memphis, a city with a large impoverished and low-income population. It’s unfair to label or portray Mayor Wharton as a “coward” because he didn’t face down the angry mob mentality that permeated last week’s council meeting. It would have only given the aforementioned usual suspects an opportunity to selfishly divert important debate on a vital issue affecting all Memphians.

This is the same man, who on the night he was elected as the first black Shelby County mayor, had a bottle thrown through an upstairs window at his home; the same man who was the target of a racist doll with a noose around its neck, placed inside a fire station by a disgruntled white city employee. He later met face to face with that man and talked over their differences.

Yes, in my first column in this space, I was critical of the mayor, but it was never personal. And it will never be personal, if and when I do it again. There are so few people of character in government; why do so many want to go after them for making the tough decisions? And why are so many so enduringly tolerant of the miscreants, the liars, and those who think they’re entitled to special treatment because they hold public office?

So, my message to you in the “silent majority” is that, compliments of some courageous and painful actions on the part of the mayor and seven city council members, your city’s problems were realistically addressed. For now. But, unless you opt to speak out, we might not dodge the same bullet again.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Car-Free in Memphis!

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

In a city like Memphis, with its busy interstates, urban sprawl, and somewhat sketchy public transit, going without a car for 30 days might sound a little crazy.

But that’s exactly what Kyle Wagenschutz, the bike/pedestrian coordinator for the City of Memphis, proposed with the city’s first “30-Day Car-Free Challenge.” During April, participants were to be as car-free as possible — using public transportation, rideshares, bicycles — anything besides driving their own cars alone. Occasional carpooling was allowed.

Justin Fox Burks

Kyle Wagenschutz

Eighteen participants, including the Flyer‘s Bianca Phillips and Alexandra Pusateri, were chosen as the challenge’s “model citizens.” They were asked to write about their experiences on the city’s Car-Free Challenge blog. The challenge was open to anyone, and a number of people signed up and tweeted about their experiences using the hashtag #carfreememphis.

“There’s this idea that it’s impossible to get around by a bicycle in the city or that you can’t use a bus because you’ll never get there,” Wagenschutz says. “We’ve heard a lot of negative stereotypes about how getting around Memphis without a car is not going to happen, that it’s not physically feasible.”

Through the challenge, Wagenschutz hoped to put those stereotypes to rest.

By 2016, the city plans to extend bike lanes by another 130 miles, Wagenschutz says. Since he began his job in 2010, the city has created 71 miles of lanes.

The city now stripes bike lanes as streets are repaved or resurfaced, but that method can create some bike lanes that end abruptly and leave others seemingly unfinished.

“From a network perspective, it can be challenging where you get small segments of new bike lanes or trails that don’t seem to be connected right now,” Wagenschutz says. “Even if you’re building the network a piece at a time, over time, the network will begin to come together.”

The Challenge didn’t come without, well, challenges for participating cyclists. Some reported debris in bike lanes. Another issue was the fact that many Memphis drivers seem unaware of how to share the road with cyclists.

Some Challenge participants who walked for their commutes complained about the state of some sidewalks around the city. But that’ not the city’s fault. Sidewalk maintenance is the responsibility of individual property owners. South Main, as an example, has been redeveloping for years without some sidewalks filled in or improved. Wagenschutz says the city is working with property owners all over Memphis to fix sidewalks.

“It’s not just a South Main problem. It’s a problem all over the city,” he says. “The complication is how the city addresses an issue that is closely linked to property ownership in a way that is fair and equitable.” As for debris, Wagenschutz says cyclists can call the city’s 311 Public Works hotline to report blocked bike lanes or debris.

While the month-long project wasn’t called a challenge for nothing, Wagenschutz believes the benefits of going car-free extend beyond helping the environment, being healthier, and saving money. It also can help change your outlook.

Justin Fox Burks

MATA’s Interim GM Tom Fox

“In a real way, getting out of your car has a great mental benefit of being in the city, experiencing the city at a different pace,” he says. “It really just provides a great sense of civic pride. One of the most independent things you can do is freeing yourself from driving around in your car every day.”

Tom Fox, interim general manager of MATA, agrees. Fox committed to completing 15 days of the Car-Free Challenge, traveling by bike, trolley, and of course, bus.

“I generally hear from people who have bad experiences on the bus, but I took 16 bus rides in the month, and for the most part, my buses were on time,” Fox says. “If they were late, they weren’t really late to the point where I got messed up on a connection.”

But Fox does recognize that MATA lacks service in certain areas of town, which can cause long-lasting trips and long wait times. He says MATA’s $55 million operating budget, which is subject to cuts from city, state, and federal governments, is too tight to expand service into areas with less residential and employment density.

“We have to concentrate our service on the areas where we get the most bang for our buck. We’re always cognizant of serving lower-income areas, where people don’t have alternatives,” Fox says. “With more money, we could serve the transit-dependent population and have a little bit more to track people who do have a choice in those outlying areas. Park ‘n’ Rides, express services — those are the things we could add if we had more money.”

MATA lacks a dedicated funding stream, meaning there is no money coming from a source dedicated to public transportation, such as a sales tax that would earmark money for MATA. A penny gas tax on the local ballot in 2012 would have provided such a dedicated stream for MATA, but it was voted down.

Cities with higher levels of bus service tend to have dedicated funding streams and more advanced trip-planning technology, such as smart phone apps designed to plan bus routes. MATA has the mobile MATA Traveler website, and Fox says a more user-friendly smart phone app is in the works.

One Flyer staffer who participated in the Challenge had a mostly positive MATA experience with one exception — the dirty bathrooms at MATA’s North End Terminal. Fox says he has “experienced the same thing … I’ve been unhappy with those bathrooms.” But change is coming, he says.

“We have some procurements in process to get some of the fixtures replaced in there, and we have manpower assigned to clean those bathrooms throughout the day,” Fox says.

Fox adds that he’s hopeful that the increased exposure from the Car-Free Challenge will convince more people to leave their cars at home and take a bus.

“The more that we can let people know that [public transit] is not just for low-income people and service is relatively convenient, the better,” he says. “And it’s certainly better for the environment.”

Of Blisters and Bicycles:Bianca’s Story

There I was, speed walking down the Main Street Mall in brand-new ballet flats, blisters already forming on my heels as I hustled to make it into the office for the 9:30 a.m. editorial meeting. It was day one of my 30-Day Car-Free Challenge, and I’d already screwed up.

My plan to take trolleys from Midtown to my downtown office started off okay as I boarded the Madison trolley at 8:45 a.m. But I’d failed to check the schedule for the Riverfront Loop, my planned transfer trolley. It doesn’t start running until 9:30 a.m. — when I was supposed to already have my butt in a chair at our meeting. So I hoofed it from Madison to the Flyer offices on Tennessee Street, despite my lack of proper footwear.

“Whew, this is gonna be a rough month,” I thought to myself.

That was one of a few hiccups throughout April, as I attempted to trade my car for buses, trolleys, and my bicycle for 30 days.

I say “attempted” because there were some days when I simply could not be car-free. My line of work often requires me to attend press conferences, public meetings, and interviews all over town, and when one needs to go from downtown to Germantown to Whitehaven in one day, only a car will do.

But my car-free days didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought they’d be. My main transit of choice was my trusty mint-green Electra Ladies’ Cruiser. On nice days, I’d wake up an hour earlier than usual, strap on my helmet, and take the North Parkway bike lanes in Crosstown down to the Main Street Mall, then head south toward my office.

The morning rides were quiet and, for the most part, uneventful, except for one day when I took a detour on Manassas. I was biking on the far right side of the wide street when a man in a City of Memphis truck honked his horn and motioned for me to get on the sidewalk.

I didn’t budge, since state law gives bicyclists the right to be on the road. Mr. City Employee is supposed to know he has to share the road and give me three feet between his car and my bike.

But that moment was made up for later that day, when I rode home down the Main Street Mall in the beautiful 75-degree afternoon. People were lounging on patios, sipping cocktails. A tourist couple stopped me to ask directions to Beale Street. People nodded and waved, and my quick ride through the water fountains in front of City Hall made me feel like a kid again. You experience the world through different eyes while riding a bike.

I also rode my first city bus last month. My commute by bus takes about an hour, and I can drive to work in 15 minutes. But time aside, my bus experiences were overwhelmingly pleasant. My buses were always on time (or early), and the bus drivers were extremely patient with my newbie questions. Busing may not be a viable option for me to commute on a regular basis, but I can see myself using buses to travel to art walks, festivals, and bars when I know I’ll be having a few drinks and would rather not have to drive.

My only negative MATA experience? The filthy bathrooms in the North End Terminal. On the first day I rode a bus to work, I needed to make a pit stop while I waited for my transfer bus. But much to my horror, every stall in the ladies’ bathroom was, um, well let’s just say, worse than a porta-potty. Meanwhile, a guy was mopping the floor in the terminal’s lobby. Perhaps those bathrooms should have been a janitorial priority.

But potty talk aside, the Car-Free Challenge was an enlightening and empowering experience. I learned to use the city buses, and I burned thousands of calories on bike rides and walks, even if they were done in uncomfortable shoes.

— Bianca Phillips

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Transportation By Any Other Name: Alexandra’s Story

Justin Fox Burks

Alexandra Pusateri rides a trolley

Using public transportation worried me. The idea of independence that comes with driving a car is ingrained within some of us, and I was definitely one of those people.

I grew up in Raleigh and East Memphis, where you can pull into in a parking lot right in front of a building, take care of your business, and leave.

But since moving downtown, where parking is a commodity, I decided I should start to make the best use of public transportation. And hey, maybe I could save some gas money, right?

The city’s 30-Day Car-Free Challenge was right up my alley. I utilized all methods of transport available to me — trolley, bus, bike, and naturally, my two feet. When the challenge began, my favorite mode quickly became the trolley. I particularly enjoyed riding the Madison line. Unfortunately, an early April trolley fire on the Madison line put an end to that, but the bus line that temporarily replaced the trolley might have been the next best thing.

While riding the bus and trolley, I was able to read, catch up on homework, andappreciate my surroundings more than I would have in a car. When I arrived at my destination, I was usually more relaxed and in better spirits.

Commuting by bicycle was another adventure. I learned very quickly which roads were suitable for a newbie’s travels, and I got an instant lesson in topography. The hilly Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue is not to be messed with for an unprepared cyclist. What would have been a 10-minute drive from home to work turned into an hour-long commute by bike due to my lack of conditioning.

As I got around town on a bicycle, the bike lanes made me feel safer. I didn’t feel like I had to move into the center of a shared lane to prevent a driver from overtaking me. I found most drivers stayed out of the bike lanes, but there was still a stubborn person or two who seemed to think the bike lanes didn’t exist, particularly on Madison Avenue.

By mapping routes ahead of time via Google Maps, I was able to figure out quickly and easily where I needed to go on the MATA routes. Gone are the days of memorizing bus maps — although that wouldn’t hurt.

MATA offers a texting service through which you’re supposed to be able to text a number from a bus stop to a MATA email address and receive arrival times for the next three buses at that stop. But the return texts from MATA took far too long to be helpful.

I needed to catch a bus to a class at the University of Memphis, but MATA didn’t text me back to tell me a bus was due in 30 minutes until an hour later, well after I’d already caught the bus to class.

During the last bit of the challenge, I came down with a cold and was no longer able to commute by bike. Also, as though to taunt me, the weather changed for a few days to a nippy cold in the mornings and evenings, leaving me not wanting to stand outside and wait for a bus.

Thankfully, Lyft, a mobile ride-sharing service, launched in the Memphis market in the nick of time. Lyft bills itself as “your friend with a car,” which is just what I needed.

As soon as Lyft launched in late April, I began using it up to three times a day. Lyft is cheaper than a taxi ride, and the drivers arrived at my apartment within 10 minutes. Every driver I encountered was friendly and helpful and, since all the transactions are done with the mobile app, there’s no exchange of cash.

Despite a few hiccups, the Car-Free Challenge went swimmingly. I learned a lot about my city, and I only hope Memphis continues on its path of innovation and improvement to make it even easier to travel by bus, trolley, or bike.

— Alexandra Pusateri

Dawn Vinson
Downtown Memphis Commission’s Director of Marketing & Events

Justin Fox Burks

Dawn Vinson

Dawn Vinson made it for 30 days without a single car cheat, which she credits to her being “stubborn like that.” But she admits it was no easy feat.

She lives in Hickory Hill, an area with limited bus service, so the nearest bus stop to her home is a three-mile walk or bike ride away.

“Buses don’t run out there. The bus I take, the 36, is always packed, and a few stops after I get on, it becomes standing-room only. Obviously, people need it. I wish it ran more often or we had another choice,” Vinson says.

Vinson would strap her bike on the bus’ bike rack and take it downtown. From her stop, she biked the remaining few blocks to her office at Adams and Main. Her evening commute, however, usually involved a two-hour, 20-mile bike ride home, since the earliest evening bus to Hickory Hill doesn’t run until 7:15 p.m.

“There’s a one-mile stretch on Mount Moriah that is so awful that I walked [on the sidewalk] for about one-third of it. There are seven lanes of traffic with interstate on and off ramps,” Vinson says. “The sidewalks are so awful. You could break an ankle trying to walk. That’s the one place where I’ve gotten a flat tire.”

But despite her long (and at-times treacherous) commute, Vinson says she enjoyed the Challenge and hopes to be totally car-free one day.

“I love that I can get anywhere I need to go whether I have a car or not,” Vinson says. “For me, that’s as good as money in the bank.”

Justin Fox Burks

Tiffany Futch

Tiffany Futch
Instructional Designer at ServiceMaster

On the days Tiffany Futch tried busing from her Midtown home to her Bartlett office, she had “a two-mile walk and a two-hour bus excursion.” She quickly learned that busing to work would be “too much of a hassle.”

Lucky for Futch, her friends were happy to carpool.

“My friends really jumped in to make sure this was a success for me,” Futch says. “I could call or text someone at 6 a.m. and they would say, ‘Yeah, I’ll get you to work.'”

Biking was Futch’s transit option of choice for flexible weekend days, when she had the time to bike to Shelby Farms. And she relied on her own two feet whenever she could. But being a pedestrian didn’t come without some challenges

“The worst sidewalks I encountered on a regular basis are on Madison, right in front of the Center for Independent Living,” Furtch says. “Every time, I stub my toe or I trip.”

Shahin Samiei
Research Associate for the University of Memphis

Justin Fox Burks

Shahin Samiei

Shahin Samiei already lives without a car in Memphis, but he signed up for the Car-Free Challenge anyway.

The Memphis Bus Riders Union secretary says he’s “pretty savvy” about the MATA bus system, and he has a direct bus line from his East Memphis home to his job in Midtown.

Samiei said the challenge gave him the chance to reflect on his years of riding the bus and to think about how some routes he used to frequent no longer exist thanks to budget cuts that have forced MATA to trim service.

“MATA can not do a better job than it does without the proper funding,” Samiei says. “They have been facing year after year of budget cuts from all three levels — city, state, and federal. Without those dollars, they simply can’t serve the people of Memphis.”

Justin Fox Burks

Darrell Cobbins

Darrell Cobbins
President/CEO of Universal Commercial Real Estate

Darrell Cobbins lives about a mile away from the Midtown real estate business he owns, so biking seemed the most viable option for commuting to work during the Challenge. But there was just one problem.

“I haven’t ridden a bike since I was 13 or 14 years old. I’m 41 now,” Cobbins says.

But Cobbins dusted off his cycling skills and put foot to pedal for the month of April. He quickly learned from cyclist friends that he needed to wear a helmet, something people just didn’t do when he was kid. And he said his former football coach’s wisdom helped him play it safe on city streets.

“My coaches always said, ‘Keep your head on a swivel, so you don’t get knocked out.’ I find myself just continuously looking around at every angle [while cycling],” says Cobbins, who thinks drivers could use more education on how to share the road with cyclists.

Cobbins says he appreciated the extra workout he got by biking, and he’s beginning to see the city through fresh eyes.

“When you’re in a vehicle, you don’t really take in your immediate surroundings,” he says. “But [cycling] makes you more aware of things that you didn’t realize were right there in walking distance of your house.”

​Patrick Jones
Legal Assistant at Miles Mason Family Law Group

Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones’ first trip on a bus ended when the bus broke down. It did not deter Jones, however, who continued to ride the bus (and his bicycle) throughout April. His subsequent bus experiences weren’t nearly as dramatic.

“I took the bus down Poplar to Clark Tower, and the bus was actually going so fast that he had to pull over and stop for three minutes because they were ahead of schedule,” he said.

On one commute, he had an issue finding the bus stop.

“I looked down the street and there was a bus stop across the street with a shed and a bench,” he said. “But that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. I looked to the right and didn’t see any green signs or poles. I realized that all the green signs look the other way. Every time I saw a sign on a pole, I had to turn around and see it’s a ‘No Parking’ sign [instead of a bus stop].”

Bicycle events

* On May 16th, the Downtown Memphis Commission will host its fifth annual Bike To Work Day, when downtown workers are encouraged to commute by bicycle. The three companies with the most participants will win a trophy at the lunch-time Bike Expo in Court Square. The Expo, featuring food trucks and live music, begins at 11:30 a.m. To register, go to www.biketoworkmemphis.com.

* On May 17th, the annual Bikesploitation festival kicks off at the National Ornamental Metal Museum. The day-long event will feature a bike parade and slow-ride jam, a bicycle painting garden, a mobile music machine (a 15-foot bicycle carrying live musicians), mini-bike races, film screenings, a group bike ride, and more. For a full schedule, go to www.bikesploitation.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Vetting the Wharton Plan

Last week, Mayor AC Wharton opened the possibility that Peabody Place might be a good opportunity for increasing Memphis’ convention space on the cheap.

Peabody Place officially closed in 2011, though it was a ghost of itself near the end. Since its closing, there have been reports that the building would be redeveloped by Belz Enterprises into a combination of suites and convention space.

There’s no question the site should be developed into something. The question is what? Mayor Wharton thinks the answer is a convention center. Is that a good idea? Let’s start from what the city needs and work backward.

What the city wants/needs: Here are several schools of thought as to what the city’s convention business needs. Spend a little time in the Cook Convention Center and your first instinct will be — a modern convention center.

That modern space doesn’t have to equal the $650-million Music City Center in Nashville. The harsh reality is, we don’t have the hotel rooms downtown to justify a space that big. Increasing the number of rooms downtown should be the main goal, and it will take time. Occupancy downtown is a little below the national average, and the Average Daily Rate (ADR) is low. Until this changes, developers aren’t exactly going to flock to downtown Memphis.

Any of the three options under discussion — revamping the Cook Center, building a new convention center, or turning Peabody Place into a convention space — could bring more space and hotel rooms, but if the goal is increasing hotel capacity, the Peabody Place proposal has some competitive disadvantages.

Stacking the deck, public-private partnership style: The convention business makes money on two things: room rentals and catering. The space is just the means to an end.

If the idea of expanding the amount of convention space is part of a long-term plan to also increase tourism and the hotel room count in the city, then you may not want to build your space on land that is controlled by a large hotel operator. It creates a competitive advantage for the host hotel. It can bundle services (catering and rooms), which means other hotels are left in the lurch.

Another area of concern is the space itself. The ceiling is mostly glass, and there’s a huge atrium area that’s uneven and concrete, which means it will have to be leveled.

These aren’t deal breakers, but there are structural concerns that have to be dealt with for a convention space that an atrium-centered mall doesn’t have to worry about.

The 300: the myth of many small meetings: In an interview, Mayor Wharton spoke of a “niche market” of 300- to 500-person conventions that the city could seek out. It’s true, the 10,000-person convention market is small and very competitive. It’s also true that most conferences include fewer than 1,000 people. But there are some problems with Wharton’s premise.

First, no one builds with an eye toward the small market. They make large spaces that can be tailored to smaller meetings when necessary.

Second, any space should represent growth from the current convention center. Peabody Place is 300,000 square feet. The Cook Center is 350,000 square feet. There’s no question that adding Peabody would add much-needed space, but it doesn’t build on what we lack. It adds to what we’re already not utilizing.

Finally, Peabody Place is land-locked. There’s no room to grow in the future to accommodate new meetings, and the growing size of meetings that we currently host.

If we did build a new building, even half the size of Music City Center, we should make sure we have the space to expand — just in case.

Our ultimate goal should be bringing more hotel rooms to Memphis so we can compete for other things like an NBA All-Star game, a political convention, or whatever the next opportunity holds.

As for Peabody Place, if Belz Enterprises wants to redevelop it into something like Wharton’s vision, they should go for it. It’s not like they weren’t thinking about it already.

But there’s a reason Belz Enterprises hasn’t already turned Peabody Place into the very thing Mayor Wharton is proposing, and that’s because it’s just not feasible for them at this time. And that doesn’t make it look any more attractive as a public project either.

Steve Ross is a video director and event-production coordinator. He writes about local public policy at vibinc.com and state government at speaktopower.org.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Where Are the Strong?

Maybe the impasse between Mayor A C Wharton and the Memphis City Council will have begun to heal by the time this gets read, and maybe it won’t have. The issue of whether the city should buy AutoZone Park may have been resolved one way or the other, too, but — how to say it? — as crucial as that issue has seemed to become in recent weeks, that issue is not the issue.

Yes, there’s no disputing that whether or not Memphis will ultimately succeed in keeping its Triple-A Redbirds, its affiliation with the St. Louis Cardinals, or its use of that dandy little AutoZone Park are all significant matters. And playing chicken with the issue, as at times contending players in the drama seem to have done, is nerve-wracking at best, and reckless at worst.

Elvis Costello

But the divide that has opened up between mayor and council (and between factions on the council) speaks to something more than personal ambitions, undesirable negotiating tactics, willful attitudes, or even the matter of what we can or can’t afford. And, again, the ball park is not the issue. Memphis survived the horrific loss by fire of Russwood Park in 1960 — an event that took place only hours after an exciting major-league exhibition game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox that surely had whetted the appetite of local fans for more baseball. In the aftermath of that disaster, the city would try to hold on to but would ultimately lose — at least for a space of many years — its Double-A Memphis Chicks. But the city survived.

Memphis will survive the outcome of the ballpark issue, whichever way the ball eventually bounces, just as it will survive the eventual resolution of the now raging debates over pension reform or this or that TDZ or TIF or the question of whether the city can bootstrap itself into a new convention center.

What it won’t survive, at least in any kind of healthy condition, is the continuation of the current aversion to compromise, without which agreement on issues and the very sense of holding a community in common are impossible.

It was encouraging to hear so many of our key political figures concur on the need for “unity” and “civility” on the occasion of the annual New Year’s Day prayer breakfast, hosted by city councilman Myron Lowery. “I’m through with whose fault it is,” was the apt phrase used by Wharton to indicate a willingness to back away from recriminations and fault-finding. The task, though, is not merely to enunciate such sentiments or to employ them like nostrums but to commit to them as real and effective mantra for a unified and forward-looking community.

As Elvis Costello, the British musician whose stage name paid homage to our city’s favorite son, once asked in song: “What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?” But the follow-up questions posed by Costello in that song are still the real ones: “So where are the strong? And who are the trusted? And where is the harmony?”

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Time To Step Up

We like Mayor A C Wharton. We appreciate his unmatchably reassuring presence as the head of city government. We are grateful for the sigh of relief he allowed us to take after the several stormy years we experienced under the latter phase of the Willie Herenton administration. But, increasingly, we find ourselves wondering: Can he govern our city as well as he represents it?

The question has acquired some currency of late, both among citizens at large and in local civic and governmental circles. One city hall denizen surprised a Flyer reporter recently by saying: “If [former Mayor Willie] Herenton announced for mayor tomorrow, I’d go door to door for him.”

There is no likelihood of that happening, of course; the former mayor is wholly invested these days in a charter-school enterprise, which he’s struggling to make work, and he seems to be burned out on electoral politics. Moreover, our confidant was and is no Herenton partisan: His point was that the current mayor, for all his initial promise, seems unable to govern effectively.

To preside over ceremonies, yes. To announce exciting-sounding initiatives, clearly. To churn out resonant and quotable sound-bites, sure. (TV reporters, especially, love him for that.) But to get results? Let’s look at the recent record. There was the extravagant signing ceremony last August, on the eve of the 50th anniversary commemorations of the Martin Luther King-led March on Washington, in which the mayor met the media in the company of AFSCME union representatives and the honorably grizzled veterans of the sanitation strike of 1968. His purpose was to announce, at long last, a pension arrangement for the city’s long-term sanitation workers. The only problem was that he hadn’t disclosed any of this to members of the Memphis City Council, who weren’t on hand for the ceremony, didn’t know the details of the proposed arrangement, and were faced with having to unravel them from scratch. Just last week, the council finally brought the pension matter to a vote but found itself unable to approve the increased user fees involved. And without them there would be no new equipment and none of the savings needed to pay for the pensions that were dependent on them and were actually voted on, and … you get the idea.

Add to this fiasco the several recent development projects brainstormed by city housing chief Robert Lipscomb and ballyhooed by the administration but, once again, without the full revelation to the council of the details, some of them debatable, that could make these projects work. Further, there were few responses to the council’s requests for more information.

Now there’s the matter of a proposed purchase by the city of AutoZone Park. From the administration was heard the usual cry of “Act now! There’s no time to waste!” But the council has been there and done that so many times by now that, once again deprived of all the advance details needed to make a decision, it has wisely chosen to postpone the decision.

Mr. Wharton, we like you, but in the wake of these events, it is now incumbent upon you to demonstrate — especially since you intend to run again — that you know how to work with the council to get things done in a collegial, timely, and fully transparent manner.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Parties Party and Pols Plan

Memphis mayor A C Wharton has been at the forefront of numerous initiatives of late, including the recently failed referendum for a half-cent sales-tax increase to provide for a citywide pre-K program, this week’s showdown on a prospective purchase by the city of AutoZone Park, and a couple of long-term development projects proposed by housing director Robert Lipscomb that are still hanging fire.

But, whatever his cumulative batting average on these might turn out to be, Wharton has another initiative he has already committed to — that of reelection to the office of mayor in 2015.

The Flyer asked Wharton about his electoral plans during the recent “Strut” fund-raiser held to benefit the Community Legal Center, at which the mayor did a turn as an honorary bartender. Is he, as is generally expected, a candidate for reelection?

“Yes,” he answered, unequivocally.

No surprise, and many were already taking the fact for granted, but it occurred to us that we ought to take formal note of the fact, lest Christmas spirits get the best of some of the hopefuls, several on the current city council, who have visions, down the line, of political plums to go with their sugared ones.

• The Shelby County Commission met in a special called meeting on Monday to vote an end to its litigation against Collierville, Bartlett, and Millington, the three latest suburbs to reach agreement with the Shelby County Schools board on terms for the transfer of school properties to the soon-to-be municipal school districts.

Arlington and Lakeland had previously settled with the board and seen the commission dissolve its lawsuits against them. The only suburb with remaining issues is Germantown, where — despite some indications last week that the new Germantown school board might be willing to settle — enough disagreement has remained in the suburb’s civic and political circles to keep an immediate resolution at bay.

The sticking point is the plan, proposed by SCS superintendent Dorsey Hopson and adopted by his board, to retain three Germantown school properties — Germantown High School, Germantown Middle School, and Germantown Elementary — within the SCS system.

• County commissioner Wyatt Bunker‘s official notice of resignation on Monday, tendered formally in a letter to commission chair James Harvey, ensured that the commission will have at least one vacancy to fill, and, if Bunker has his druthers, it may have another.

The second potential commission vacancy is that of Chris Thomas, who has been asked by Bunker, now serving as mayor of Lakeland, to apply for the job of Lakeland city manager.

But Lakeland’s board of commissioners, which met Monday night, has delayed immediate action on replacing former city manager Robert “Bob” Wherry, who was fired last week. The vacancy has been publicly advertised, with a deadline for applications of December 13th. The board will meet again on December 17th to decide on a hire.

Bunker’s letter to Harvey specified that his resignation would take effect on January 3rd. The commission will be tasked with naming an interim replacement for Bunker — and for Thomas, too, if need be.

Thomas, however, is reportedly thinking about remaining on the commission, at least to the end of his current term, if he ends up with the managerial position at Lakeland — a prospect that might call for a certain amount of recusals on his part.

In any case, the former Probate Court clerk seems to relish his place on the commission — a post he decided to run for in 2010, on the evidence of several prior election years, that the demographic tide had finally created an invincible Democratic majority for countywide elective offices.

Famously, though, things didn’t turn out that way in 2010. Whether it was the fact of hotly contested Republican primary races at the statewide level that year or shortcomings of the local Democratic slate or the impact of what turned out to be a major political shift toward the Republican Party in Tennessee at large, or, as some Democrats still maintain, electoral hanky-panky, Republicans pulled off a sweep of countywide offices.

Thomas saw his probate job go to GOP activist Paul Boyd, and he himself was faced with finding another full-time job. He ended up with a series of stop-gap positions, and, as is well known, he finally had to file a bankruptcy petition.

As is not so well known, Thomas had been eyed by a number of Republicans as a potential replacement for an embattled Rich Holden as administrator of the Shelby County Election Commission, which in recent years has been the subject of virtually nonstop negative publicity concerning this or that glitch.                  

In any case, Bunker is due to depart the commission, and candidates are beginning to line up to fill his District 4 seat on an interim basis. Names being mentioned are those of former Shelby County Schools board member Diane George, banker Kevin Hardin, retired sheriff’s deputy Ron Fittes, mortgage banker George Chism, and Mark Billingsley, a fund-raising specialist for the Methodist Hospital system.

Chism and Fittes have indicated they are active candidates for reconfigured single-district commission positions in the regular 2014 election cycle.

• Yes, it was an informal occasion — one without overt political significance, but the 49th birthday celebration of longtime behind-the-scenes pol David Upton, hastily improvised by his longtime pal John Freeman, drew a fair share of public figures to the party room of Mulan’s in Cooper-Young on Saturday night.

Among those present were former Memphis City Schools (and provisional Shelby County Schools) board members Freda Williams and Sara Lewis; legislators like state representatives Larry Miller and Joe Towns, former state representative Mike Kernell, and former state senator Beverly Marrero; city council members Lee Harris and Harold Collins; county commission chairman James Harvey, county commissioner Justin Ford, and former commissioner J.W. Gibson.

Several of them vented their vocal skills during an extended karaoke session, but most were outdone by celebrated opera singer Kallen Esperian, whose highlight was probably her duet with Upton on “Fly Me to the Moon.”

• Speaking of karaoke, it seems to be the fashion these days, at least among Democrats. The Shelby County Democratic Party will hold its annual Christmas Party this Friday, December 6th, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Ice Bar and Grill on Hacks Cross Road, and, as was the case last year, karaoke will be the party motif.

Official “hosts” for that event will be city councilman Myron Lowery and county commissioner Steve Mulroy, both inveterate karaokans.

Another annual Democratic event is the party sponsored by the Democratic Women of Shelby County, to be held this year on Saturday, December 14th, from 4 to 7 p.m. at its usual venue, the home of Bob and Myra Stiles on South McLean Boulevard.

Republicans, too, have abundant celebrations in mind. Their Yule season kicks off on Wednesday of this week with a Christmas buffet under the auspices of the Republican Women of Purpose at TPC Southwind ($25 a head, and reservations required).

The other main holiday event by a GOP women’s organization will be the Christmas tea held by the Shelby County Republican Women at Windyke Country Club on Tuesday, December 10th, at 11 a.m.

Shelby County Young Republicans have a “Holiday Happy Hour” scheduled for 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Monday at the Tower Room on Poplar; the East Shelby Republican Club will hold its annual Christmas Potluck supper on Tuesday night at the Pickering Center in Germantown; and, on Sunday, December 15th, the Shelby County Republican Party is having a “Holiday Open House” at the Clubhouse at Devonshire Gardens in Germantown.