Tag: Mayor

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Opinion Viewpoint

Willie and “the Dozens”

One of the first things a would-be opponent of incumbent Memphis mayor Willie Herenton will discover is that he or she is in for a mauling — figurative or maybe even otherwise. As for the latter, just ask retiring councilman Brent Taylor, who was asked outside by the mayor, or ABC-24’s Cameron Harper, who, while persisting in an interview attempt, was warned to get his hands off … or else.

Most of the abuse, though, is verbal — the kind of extreme stuff you might expect from a proud alpha male and former fighter who happens to be undefeated both in the boxing ring and in the political arena. Mayoral opponent Carol Chumney got a whiff of that last week when, without really having said much about the current MLGW mess and Herenton protégé Joseph Lee, she nevertheless got relegated by Herenton to an “array of evil” — right up there, presumably, with North Korea and Iran.

But the real rough stuff is what Herenton aims at fellow black politicians who, whether declared adversaries or not, get on his wrong side. What the mayor is doing has been known historically in Memphis’ black neighborhoods as “doing the dozens.”

That’s the confrontational practice of trading insults which get rougher and rougher (up to the nuclear threshold of 12, hence the name) until somebody either gives up or one of the contestants is, one way or another, acknowledged the winner, or … things get out of control. Out on the street, people have gotten killed. Dozens and dozens of them.

In a political contest, things are unlikely to get that far. But the mayor, who proudly boasts his rough-and-tumble origins, has demonstrated time and again that he is not loath to administer psychic wounds that, in the macho-conscious African-American community especially, can be crippling.

A case in point was his statement last week in a WDIA radio interview aimed at another rival for the mayoralty, former MLGW head Herman Morris, who announced his candidacy last week. Herenton’s response? “I want the world to know, there’s a man up in here in City Hall. If they’re looking for a boy, they identified one in Herman Morris, but he ain’t going to enter this gate.”

The venue, a historic black radio station, was no accident. Nor was the insult. Herenton has aimed that same barb before — at least twice to real or putative mayoral opponents. Back in early 1999, when it appeared likely that then county commissioner Shep Wilbun would be running for mayor, Herenton entertained this reporter in his penthouse office at City Hall and pointed out a vintage photograph from his first election-night celebration in 1991.

Wilbun, the mayor noted, was in a back row of the jammed entourage on stage, straining to get into the picture. “Look at that boy!” said a literally gleeful Herenton, who went on to declare that Wilbun’s chances of getting into the foreground were no better in 1999 than they had been eight years before.

Another Herenton opponent that year was Joe Ford, then a well-liked city councilman and, as a member of the prominent Ford political clan, regarded as the best bet to upset the mayor in a crowded field. In the very first forum involving the two of them, Herenton waited until Joe Ford seemed hesitant on an answer to someone’s question and then called out to the candidate’s brother, former congressman Harold Ford Sr., in the audience: “Harold, you got to do a better job of getting this boy ready!”

Candidate Ford seemed flustered and never quite recovered his aplomb in that race. Both he and Wilbun went down hard, along with the rest of a generally accomplished field whom the mayor, in his election post-mortem with the Flyer, dismissed as “clowns.”

In no sense, literal or metaphorical, is Herman Morris, a former star athlete and a middle-aged man of ample professional experience, a “boy.” But he and Chumney and John Willingham and whoever else ventures to run against Willie Herenton this year can expect that kind of verbal treatment — and worse.

In his exhibition boxing match last year against a gallant but used-up Joe Frazier, Herenton boxed circles around the onetime world champion, but he made sure to pull every punch. His mayoral opponents this year won’t be so lucky.

Jackson Baker is a Flyer senior editor.A longer version of this essay appears in “Political Beat” at www.memphisflyer.com.

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Opinion

This Space For Rent

A few weeks ago, about 60 of Mayor Willie Herenton’s big financial backers joined him for lunch at Folk’s Folly steakhouse. It was the mayor’s way of thanking them for contributing $1,000 to “sponsor” his annual Christmas party last year.

“Herenton’s Hypocrites” is how one attendee described it, suggesting that some of those attending were either ambivalent or secretly opposed to a fifth consecutive four-year term for Herenton.

In politics as in sports, they say money talks and bullshit walks. Not quite. As has been the mayor’s practice in other years, the prospective “sponsors” get a letter from the mayor’s special assistant, Pete Aviotti. If you’re a lawyer, developer, or businessman who has dealings with the city of Memphis, it could well take more nerve to say “sorry, not this time” to a 16-year-incumbent mayor than to write a personal or corporate check. It could be foolish to say no. At any rate, the “host committee” included 82 names, among them Jack Belz, Richard Fields, Dick Hackett, Michael Heisley, Rusty Hyneman, Arnold Perl, Gayle Rose, Fred Smith, and Henry Turley.

Who wouldn’t be fortified by backers like that? On New Year’s Day, Herenton spoke at a prayer breakfast and appealed to the crowd to keep him “on the wall.” Later that morning, he confirmed that he plans to run for mayor again but declined to talk about it, taking questions only about his proposal for a new stadium. When he presented his stadium plans in slightly more detail last week, there was a notable absence of big-business supporters and potential stadium sponsors.

A person who attended the thank-you luncheon said that the mayor was asked if he “loves” the job and that he replied, in so many words, no, but he will do it for the good of Memphis — a variant of the “on the wall” theme. He told the questioner at the luncheon that he fears that if he does not run then the mayoral field will be wide open, as the 9th District congressional field was when Harold Ford Jr. abandoned his seat to run for Senate. And, he added, in a winner-take-all free-for-all, anything can happen.

There is another side to that, however. Intentionally or not, Herenton, who has $527,328 in his election fund, has made it difficult for credible challengers to muster the supporters and money they need to run or test the waters.

The mayor’s job is too important for all this coyness and mystery. Are the big donors hypocrites or hardcores? There’s at least one way to find out. Get them to put their mouth where their money is. So here’s the deal. Anyone who wrote a $1,000 check to Aviotti for Herenton’s 2006 Christmas party or his 2007 reelection campaign within the last three months can play. You get this space, 700 words, to tell Memphis why Herenton should be mayor — again.

The only condition: You have to write the thing yourself or with the help of others who gave $1,000. And you have to sign it. If you hire a ghostwriter or public-relations firm to help, you have to identify them by name, and then you still have to sign it. Once the piece is done, you can pass it around to everyone who was at Folk’s Folly — you know who you are — and ask them to co-sign.

We’ll run the piece unedited, and if it goes longer than 700 words, I’m sure one of my colleagues will donate extra space.

The offer stands for four weeks. That will give mayoral-race candidates and prospective candidates time to ponder your words.

Nominating petitions can’t be picked up until April 20th. The qualifying deadline is July 19th. The election is October 4th. There is still time for pretenders to reconsider and for undeclared contenders to jump in. Let’s hear the case for four more years.

No other Memphis mayor has served four consecutive terms, much less five. Herenton says journalists are out of touch and don’t appreciate the depth of support he has. Fair enough. Start typing and show us the depth of support the mayor has among his chief financial donors and prospective partners in the private sector.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Ready or Not …

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

To start with the most unexpected: By the time this hits print, former Shelby County mayor Bill Morris may have decided definitively for or against a reprise of his unsuccessful 1967 race (while serving as sheriff) for mayor of Memphis. (For the record, that race was won by the late Henry Loeb, whose ill-starred tenure coincided with the sanitation strike of 1968 and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.)

Morris has told various intimates that he’s thinking about it, others that it’s not a serious possibility. Some bloggers are already positing the notion that he’s a stalking horse for the “establishment” in the event that, for whatever reason, incumbent Mayor Willie Herenton exits from the race.

Others see Morris as a means whereby the selfsame establishment could break up an anti-Herenton vote. Still others see him as the anti-establishment candidate.

Question: In the unlikely event of a Bill Morris candidacy, would the name “Bill Morris Parkway” constitute an unfair advantage requiring a (temporary) name change?

Such as: To Whom It May Concern Boulevard? Road of No Return?

• To nobody’s great surprise, John Willingham, former Shelby County commissioner and all-purpose watchdog of the public weal, announced again Saturday for Memphis mayor — an office he sought once before, in 2003. (He also ran for county mayor last year.)

Making his announcement Saturday in the friendly confines of the Dutch Treat Luncheon group in Southeast Memphis, Willingham noted the participation in his several past campaigns of many of those present — longtime conservatives, for the most part (though some of them, like Willingham himself, have a quirky populist streak that wanders over traditional dividing lines).

He spoke to the question that many no doubt want to ask him: “Why are you getting into this race and Carol Chumney‘s already in it, and that just goes to split the vote, and Willie’s going to win anyway?”

After acknowledging that, indeed, “Willie may win it,” Willingham basically called rank on City Council member Chumney. He reminded his listeners not only of his race against Herenton four years ago but of the fact that, unfazed by a fairly distant second-place finish, “I began this race last year, so I got a jump.”

Willingham’s platform was also familiar: term limits, limits on the city mayor’s contract authority, opposition to the sale of MLGW, to start with.

As Chumney had on Thursday, Willingham cited the $6 million parking-garage scandal at FedExForum (an issue he could legitimately claim to have been an early bird on) and the boondoggle aspects of Networx, a fiber-optic plan (“in the age of, what, wireless”) that MLGW had sunk $25 million into.

Apropos the garage deal, wherein some $6 million in federal funds had been misdirected into the construction of a for-profit parking garage “which you can’t even park in unless you have a season pass,” Willingham was emphatic: Doing that deal was a fraud and a felony and “somebody’s going to go to jail!”

• If there was any remaining suspense about Carol Chumney’s own mayoral intentions, it had been laid to rest at the University of Memphis-area Holiday Inn on Central Avenue Thursday evening.

Before an appreciative crowd of more than 100 well-wishers, the maverick first-term City Council member from Midtown declared loud and clear: “I want to be mayor!” Likening herself to the innovative Wilson, late co-founder of the world-famous hotel chain, Chumney promised to apply original thinking to the problems of Memphis — including crime, out-migration, and an up-and-down economy.

To accomplish her goals of civic regeneration, Chumney promised she would build a wide-ranging coalition. She also went out of her way to praise local media for its attentive coverage of her activities over the last few years.

Her announcement displayed the same combative spirit that has earned her something of a following citywide (while incurring a few cold shoulders within the ranks of city government itself). In the course of a single sentence, she condemned both the Forum garage deal and the ill-fated Networx investment initiative — the former mischance attributable to Herenton, the latter to former MLGW head Herman Morris, who himself seemed on the verge of announcing.

• Timing his own announcement for the same day as Chumney’s, lawyer Jim Strickland, the councilwoman’s opponent during her District 5 council race four years ago and a candidate for that seat again this year, held a well-attended fund-raiser a few blocks away at the East Memphis home of current city councilman Jack Sammons.

Strickland, who battled a name-recognition problem back then, starts out the favorite in this year’s race. He made his own semi-official announcement for the council race in a news release earlier Thursday and netted some $41,000 at Thursday night’s affair.

A likely opponent for Strickland is Denise Parkinson, who of late has been active in the campaign to save (or restore) an amusement park at the site of Libertyland.

• Shelby County Democrats, whose biannual reorganizations tend to be donnybrooks reflecting legitimate splits (or diversity) in the party’s local membership, are getting ready for another showdown — with preliminary party caucuses on March 3rd, followed by the decisive party convention on March 31st.

Chairman Matt Kuhn won’t be running again, but lawyer Jay Bailey, who made an abortive off-year attempt to unseat Kuhn last year, will be. Bailey has support ranging from blogger Thaddeus Matthews to longtime activist and pal David Upton to some of last year’s defeated Democratic countywide candidates whom he represented in legal appeals, and he says he’s been courting the party’s labor elements.

Two of the party’s de facto factional leaders, Shelby County commissioner Sidney Chism and Desi Franklin of Mid-South Democrats in Action (herself a possible candidate), are looking elsewhere, though, and some say Chism’s ally and fellow commissioner, Deidre Malone, is considering a run.

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News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Developers want to spruce up the airport area, saying it gives visitors who fly into Memphis a bad first impression of our city. We agree, but let’s face it. There are no good first impressions of our city, unless you approach the city from the east and drive through Collierville and Germantown. Most of North Memphis looks pretty rough, too, and West Memphis … well, ’nuff said.

Several of the Tennessee Waltz defendants have gone on trial for bribery and other charges (with lots more scheduled soon), another trial is under way for a man accused of the stabbing death of Midtowner Emily Fisher, and two men are arrested for the murder of a Tennessee highway patrolman. Sometimes it seems everybody in town is behind bars or headed that way.

Mayor Willie Herenton continues to plead for a brand-new, multimillion-dollar football stadium but says we certainly don’t need a new $240 million jail. Oh, really? Mayor, please read the above item again. Maybe we could combine both facilities into one, and the inmates could play football, like in The Longest Yard, or any number of inmate-football-team movies.

A criminal court jury finds Greg Cravens

the so-called Hacks Cross Creeper guilty on all four counts of home invasion and robbery, with other charges pending. Willie Price had terrorized homeowners in the Hacks Cross area for months before police finally nabbed him. He now faces up to 40 years in prison. He was called the “creeper” because he snuck into homes so quietly, but he’ll always just be a “creep” to us.

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News News Feature

Herenton vs. Frazier

Herenton vs. Frazier

Branston: The headgear (surely), one-minute rounds, the ages, the legal agreements — everything points to an overpriced exhibition of good-humored sparring. Joe Frazier may be old, but he was heavyweight champion of the world, and it’s a big world, buddy. Smokin’ Joe has thrown more leather than Gucci and his hands are still lethal, I don’t care how fit Herenton is. You’ll see harder contact on Dancing With the Stars — and much better footwork.

Baker: Once Herenton savors the experience of fox-trotting around Smokin’ Joe, whose patented powerhouse lunges are going to find naught but thin air, he’ll forget all over again that he’s supposed to be mortal. Which is to say, yes, he’ll “win” the exhibition. In boxing as in politics, he won’t just stand there and take the hit. And he likes dealing it out so much he’ll pick a fight if he doesn’t have one!

Herenton vs. Himself: Will he run again?

Branston: No. This is the last hurrah, the victory lap, the final dance with youth. Herenton holds the record, he’s tired of the game, he’s accomplished what he set out to, his popularity is fading, and he’s not invincible. (Ever heard of Mike Tyson, Joe Paterno, and Bobby Bowden?) He can exit the ring as the undefeated heavyweight champ for 16 years. And when a plausible successor steps forward next year, that’s what he’ll do.

Baker: Yes. One keeps hearing various handicappers opine that the four-time champ has lost a step, taken too many hits due to scandal rumors or problems relating to crime or taxes or the city’s on-again/off-again credit rating. Or that, at 66, he’s just too old to keep on stoking that fire in the belly.

Knock yourself out, wise guys! Or let the mayor do it for you. Freshly intoxicated by the go-round with Smokin’ Joe, he’ll be ready again for all comers in 2007. Don’t forget, here’s a guy who enjoys shadowboxing, and, as he surveys the likely field for next year, that’s all he sees: mere shadows!

The Contenders: Will Harold Ford Jr. run for mayor?

Baker: No. Ask yourself, when was the last time this contender was forced to take a knee to the floor before November 2006? Right — 1999. That was back when the congressman — then still in his 20s — was first mulling over a Senate race against GOP incumbent Bill Frist in 2000. As something of a warm-up, Ford decided to take a hand in the mayor’s race being run by Uncle Joe Ford against Herenton and got caught up in a messy argument over who was stealing whose signs in South Memphis. He ended up with his suit of shining armor too caked from the opposition’s mudballs to do the Senate race then. Lookit, Prince Harold’s vista is altogether national. He won’t get mired down in local ooze again.

Branston: He might, he should, and he would win. He needs to beef up his resume and forge some political convictions before he turns 40. He’ll lose that Don Imus celebrity appeal quickly, now that he’s an ex-congressman. Odds are there won’t be another open Senate seat for a while. As mayor he would be a magnet for talent and federal funds. Plus, he’s the ideal thirtysomething for a city that needs some fresh horses and pizzazz to compete with Nashville, and if the right leaders flattered him, then he would listen.

Can a white candidate win the Memphis mayor’s race in 2007?

Branston: Yes. Look at Steve Cohen. Remember, there is no runoff in the mayor’s race. In a crowded field, a credible white candidate with money, name recognition, and black supporters could win.

Baker: The Cohen example is a wee bit chimerical in that the new U.S. representative-elect presided for a full quarter-century over a state Senate bailiwick at the heart of the 9th Congressional District. And he had an issue — the lottery — that made him famous and touched everybody. No likely white candidate can boast as much in the city mayor’s race, unless you throw in another variable like, er, gender and some damn-the-establishment populist fervor that crosses the lines.

Herenton vs. Carol Chumney

Baker: Case in point: Here’s where the demographic form sheets could be seriously misleading or just plain wrong. First of all, Chumney has to be counting on a multiple-candidate field, with or without Herenton in the ring. A battle royale, with everybody flailing at everybody else (if no WWH) or at His Honor (if Herenton, as I expect, runs again).

Now ask yourself, who else among the officials of this or any other city has experience with multiple opponents, taking everything they can dish out without ever crying uncle? That’s right, Madame Chumney. Been there, done that.

She has gone up against the entire council, one by one as well as all together, and the mayor and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men! Count it foolhardy or count it crazy like a fox, but Chumney can by God take a punch. And she can sucker punch or duke it out straight on.

Branston: Good questioner, too. But winning elections is about building bridges, not burning them. Council members overestimate their appeal as mayoral candidates. And name one woman who has run a close race for city or county mayor. Time’s up.

Herenton vs. Council Wannabes, aka Marshall, Peete, Lowery, Sammons, Vergos

Branston: Yeah, I know, Ali’s camp used to call them Bum-of-the-Month fights and all that. Their best news is some kind of bad news for Herenton — Tennessee Waltz indictments or a financial crisis — but things don’t seem headed in that direction, for now at least.

Baker: Looks like we agree for once. Lots of talent and experience in this combo of present and past council members. But nobody in the bunch is used to running citywide — the Memphis political equivalent of having to go 15 rounds as against putting something together to win a round or two. And let’s have no talk of Herenton being past his prime, when all these guys are pushing it, too.

Herenton vs. Herman Morris

Baker: Are you kidding me? As savvy as the former NAACP main man, MLGW CEO, and blue-chip attorney might be, he’s utterly untested as a crowd-pleaser, and politics is the ultimate test of tangible numbers and real energy. So what if he’ll have some smart money with him? Remember the sad case of Robert Spence? Morris, who’ll plot his fight from the Marquess of Queensberry textbook, won’t be nearly streetwise enough to handle the bare-knuckles stuff that’ll be aimed at him.

Branston: Well, I watched those debates last month and didn’t see anybody who reminded me of Jon Stewart. Maybe Memphis has had enough crowd-pleasers. Morris is savvy, blue-chip, NAACP and MLGW, family man — what’s wrong with that? There’s a grudge match here just waiting to happen. And Herenton may have been 16-2 in the ring, but Morris still holds the 100-yard-dash record at Rhodes College.

Herenton vs. A C Wharton

Baker: Many see a city mayor’s race as a cinch for the likable Wharton, a nonpareil stylist and crowd favorite whose ability to clinch and hide his shortcomings is a decided contrast to Herenton’s bully-boy stuff and, for better or worse, more open style. Before a countywide audience, Wharton easily outclasses Herenton, but this is a city election, remember? Fighting city-side, the elegant county mayor would play Billy Conn to Herenton’s Joe Louis — i.e., he’d be ahead on points before the heavy stuff started coming in the late rounds. Anyhow, A C’s got the job he wants. Why would he seek a contest — and a job — where the risk of serious injury is prohibitive?

Branston: Term limits, for one thing. His number’s up in 2008. I read somewhere that Wharton does 70 pushups every morning, which is eight more than his age. If he avoids a knockout by retirement he can win on style points every time.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Double Stuff

CREDIT: Photo Illustration

When one of my friend’s parents moved to the area, they bought a nice house in Collierville. Their daughter, a tried-and-true Midtown girl, asked them why they would want to live so far from the center of town.

Their answer was simple: For the same amount of money that they would pay for property and
taxes in the city, they got a much larger house in the suburbs.

It’s hard to argue with economics like that. For most Americans, their home is both their greatest asset and largest investment. And when faced with a decision that gives you more house for your money (and probably a better rate of return) or spending that same budget on taxes, it’s a wonder anyone is still living within the city limits.

Of course, the city has a way of keeping its population stable and propping up a slumping tax base: annexation. Because of a state-mandated growth plan, the unincorporated areas of Shelby County have already been divvied up between the municipalities. It’s not a question of if they’ll be annexed, it’s a question of when.

And for some of the Memphis reserve areas, when might be as early as the end of this year.

In mid-October, the City Council began the process of annexing two areas of the Memphis reserve: the Bridgewater area near East Memphis and a piece of southeastern Shelby County. If approved, the areas will become part of Memphis December 31st. A public hearing and the final council vote on the matter are scheduled November 21st.

The annexation proposal came at the request of the Needs Assessment Committee, an all-volunteer body created to review facility needs in both the city and the county school systems. Because of earlier annexations in the Countrywood and Berryhill areas, Memphis City Schools (MCS) officials were looking at an additional 2,500 students next year but not enough schools to handle them.

The proposed Bridgewater annexation would help solve this problem, giving MCS “the Dexters,” an elementary and middle school crucial for serving students in that area. But though the annexation is necessary to solve some of the problems, it doesn’t solve the main one: sprawl.

Shelby County and the city of Memphis are like a pair of conjoined twins, intricately connected and utterly dependent on one another, but the division of resources is not always equal. In part it’s that inequality that pushes people to the east and eventually pushes Memphis east, as well.

Are two heads really better than one?

Some services, such as the health department, are funded equally between the city and the county governments. That means that city residents pay for their share once in their city taxes and once in their county taxes.

And that’s not the only spot where citizens see double: look at the Memphis Police Department and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, schools, mayors. The county and city governments are in discussions to combine fire services, but it looks like it will be a tough sell.

It would be one thing if the city and the county were two land masses, sitting side-by-side instead of overlapping. As it is: Why pay for the same — or similar — services twice?

In the past decade, the population of Shelby County Schools (SCS) has remained fairly stable. In 1995, it had 43,800 students. In 2005, it had 45,000. But the equation should look more like a complex algebraic formula: As citizens migrate to the reserve areas, bumping up the population of the county schools, the city schools lose students. Then Memphis annexes an area and the numbers reverse: SCS loses students while MCS gains them. And because both systems are “growing,” they build new schools.

If you have the same number of students, why would you need to build more schools, you ask? Whether it’s within the Memphis city limits or not, the local population is amassing in the southeast area of the county. SCS may have room for additional students in Millington, but busing them from the crowded southeast schools would cause skyrocketing transportation costs. The same could be said of the city schools. While they have space in their schools near downtown, they have an over-capacity problem in the southeast area, as well.

Wouldn’t it be more efficient to provide services based on geography rather than jurisdiction? We don’t want to get to a point where the only people who live in the city are the rich (because they can afford to) and the poor (because they can’t afford to move).

Someone needs to draw a line on sprawl … as long as it’s not right down the center.

Categories
Opinion

2007: The Tipping Point

By now most everyone is familiar with the term “tipping point” thanks to the bestselling book by Malcolm Gladwell about how little things can make a big difference.

At a time when Memphis is being called the second-most violent urban area in America, when a fire has turned the next big downtown thing into the next bad downtown thing, when the City Council has been asked to raise taxes to hire 650 more cops, and when thousands of people leave the city each year for neighboring counties, it’s reasonable to wonder if Memphis is at a tipping point.

With a year to go until the next city election, the man who will have a lot to say about that is Mayor Willie Herenton. His 16th year in office could be either his greatest or his worst. Even though he sometimes gets booed at public appearances and blasted on the radio and in letters to the editor, a longer and more balanced view of Herenton’s career suggests that he will rise to the occasion and that 2007 will see him at his best, which is better than anyone else in local politics.

Here’s why: Before the tipping point there was the “tilt factor.” In Memphis, that term was coined by former Memphis City Schools administrator O.Z. Stephens, a colleague of Herenton’s when the mayor was a teacher, principal, and superintendent. The tilt factor was the point where white-student enrollment fell off the table and a school went from mostly white or mixed to all black. Stephens put it at about 30 percent. He saw it happen dozens of times in the 1970s and ’80s, after the onset of busing and the Plan Z desegregation plan, which Stephens co-authored.

As a young superintendent, Herenton’s response to the tilt factor was to start and support the optional-schools program. Its purpose, as former Grahamwood Elementary School principal Margaret Taylor recalled last week, was “to keep all the white students from leaving the school system.” This is the same man who is now accused of driving Memphians away to DeSoto County.

Over the next 25 years, all but about 10,000 white students would leave anyway. But Herenton’s advocacy was crucial to getting the program started and defending it against opponents. His next big move as superintendent was to close 18 schools. His successors have been unable to close more than a handful of schools even though the combined enrollment (and more important, the number of graduates) of the four smallest city high schools is now less than the enrollment at either of the two largest high schools.

Herenton has said several times that more schools should be closed. He has recommended for at least 10 years full or partial city and county consolidation, with or without separate school systems. He proposed rebalancing city and county property taxes 10 years ago. He explored the sale of MLGW, whose pension obligations could one day outweigh the benefits of public ownership. All of these proposals were dropped, maybe because of Herenton and maybe because Memphis wasn’t at a tipping point.

Herenton’s crime proposals were, in part, a response to meetings with Memphis Tomorrow, an elite group of business leaders. Ken Glass, president of Memphis Tomorrow, said crime has taken on “greater urgency” and Herenton and Police Director Larry Godwin must use “known, proven ways” to fight it. The model will be New York City and the “broken windows” approach outlined in Gladwell’s book.

Herenton kept his own counsel and told the businessmen that crime was going to get worse before it gets better. He’ll need all the help he can get to sell his crime plan. By opposing a payroll tax and recommending efficiency studies but ducking consolidation, business groups have left the mayor and City Council no options besides a tax increase to pay for 650 more cops. Citing a big drop in the number of fire calls due to code improvements, some council members think fire stations can be closed to shift more money to police. But that was before last week’s rash of downtown fires.

At his best, Herenton can lead a New York-style turnaround in Memphis. At his worst, he could lose key supporters and his job.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Takin’ It to the Streets

On July 4, 2005, Frank Melton became mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. In his first year in office, he has become a lightning rod for controversy. The Jackson Free Press, that city’s alternative newspaper, put it this way: “Soon after Melton walked into the mayor’s office, the press was on its toes. A new, brash personality had taken up residence. Melton enjoyed donning police-issue bullet-resistant vests, brandishing weapons, and wearing a gold badge and the distinctive backward cap that became a trademark for early nighttime news footage of him leading “raids” for the cameras.

There was no denying it: Melton wanted to be a cop, and he hired a nice, doe-eyed police chief who allowed him free rein over nightly police activities. Melton spent his first night in office joining police checkpoints and “knock and talks” at hotels along Highway 80. The press treated this as spectacle, with cameras trailing the new mayor as he strutted about like a law enforcement officer. While some individuals grew concerned about separation of powers, many Jackson residents were thrilled with the new attention, and cheered Melton for his hands-on behavior … ”

But the cheering soon turned to concern as more facts became known about the mercurial Melton. He often preferred telling a good story to the truth. As the media began fact-checking Melton’s statements and background, they learned the mayor had a thin skin, as well.

Soon after he was inaugurated, the Jackson Free Press broke the news that Melton had lied in a civil lawsuit against him for actions while he was head of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics (MBN), and the lie has popped up time and again as events in the suit proceed. Former MBN pilots sued Melton for defamation after he leaked a memo to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in 2003 alleging their misconduct. Melton, a former television executive, denied leaking the information then later tried to use the obligation of reporters to protect their sources in defense of his denial without mentioning that he was the source. Melton’s lie infuriated Lauderdale County Circuit Court judge Robert Bailey, who backhanded the new mayor by awarding the plaintiff’s argument to strike Melton’s defense from the record, essentially handing Melton an instant loss. The next phase of the case involves a jury deciding later this year how much Melton will have to pay.

One of Melton’s first acts when he took office was to close the Terry Road Bookstore. Melton told WLBT-TV that police had witnessed illegal sex in the back of the store. WLBT quoted Melton saying, “I came in with two detectives, and there were two men in a sex act.”

Melton’s account differed from that of Sergeant William Gladney of the Jackson Police Department vice crimes unit. “I don’t know what happened before I got there,” Gladney said. “We arrested [cashier] Debra Washington, but I don’t know about the two men.” The mayor’s spokeswoman said later that no arrests for public sex had been made on that date.

The mayor tried to use the same “gotcha” strategy at another adult bookstore in South Jackson in November 2005. Within the week, Melton was proclaiming that he’d caught people in a sex act during his visit. But the store’s owner produced surveillance tape of Melton’s visit that proved that no customers were in the story during his “raid.”

Melton told both the Clarion-Ledger and the Jackson Free Press that he is a certified police officer, though no records in Mississippi back up his claim — and it has no merit, according to state attorney general Jim Hood.

The mayor also regularly told the press that he is certified to carry firearms, which he enjoys wearing to City Hall and countless other places, including locations where guns are prohibited by state law — despite no record indicating that this certification exists.

And so it has gone. Melton makes a statement; the media check it out and find it to be untrue. But he’s continued his one-man battle against crime, even declaring a “state of emergency” for the city on June 23rd after a week of higher than usual criminal activity.

On June 28th, Jackson Free Press reporter Brian Johnson accompanied Melton on one of his nightly patrols. His remarkable story follows. — Bruce VanWyngarden

Punks and Heavy Artillery

Mayor Frank Melton, clad in a brilliant-white bullet-resistant vest and wearing a sidearm, invited members of the media to join him in the hunt for Vidal Sullivan, who has become the object of an intense manhunt on two charges of kidnapping and one of aggravated assault. Sullivan is also suspected in a shooting on June 9th.

Jackson Free Press reporter Brian Johnson on patrol with Mayor Melton

A cameraman from WAPT-TV, Richard Fausset of The Los Angeles Times, and I boarded the Mobile Command Center (MCC), and then we thundered out of the compound with four police cruisers and three media cars in tow. The cruisers swept in from the left and right, their blue strobes flashing, as we penetrated to the Kroger on I-55 for water and soda.

Our next stop was a public park, where we met members of a lawn crew Melton has created to provide disadvantaged youths with jobs. Earlier that day, Melton acknowledged that two members of the lawn crew were arrested for missing a court appearance on armed robbery charges. Melton asked the teenagers how many lawns they had mowed that day. “Twenty-seven,” one of them replied. All 12 youngsters boarded the MCC and crowded into the back to watch movies on a large plasma screen. Melton said he has 230 young men working for the city.

From there, we rolled to Wood Street, hot on the trail of Vidal Sullivan. In February, Melton said he was considering a leave of absence to apprehend Sullivan, who had just been acquitted of murder in the February 2003 death of Carey Bias. Melton said he would bring new charges in a separate case against Sullivan. When Sullivan turned himself in to Melton on March 2nd, Melton took him into “protective custody.”

“He’s back on cocaine,” Melton told us, as the MCC pitched and heaved over every bump in the road. “We have kept a close eye on him. Either [Police Chief] Shirlene [Anderson] or me calls him every day, making sure he takes care of himself.”

Melton earlier told the Free Press that he had given Sullivan money in May to buy school clothes for his 10-year-old son; thus, the reason Sullivan was spotted in City Hall.

The mayor met with a small group of young men and walked 40 feet down the road with one of them, Maurice Warner, who Melton says he helped raise and who was also acquitted in the Bias murder. The two men embraced. I wasn’t close enough to hear everything, but as Warner wiped tears, he begged loudly, “Just give me an hour!” Melton held Warner loosely throughout their conversation.

Back in the MCC, Melton said Warner was going to try to convince Sullivan to surrender. He said we would be there when he took Sullivan into custody — as he often helps “bring in” wanted men to law enforcement.

We stopped at a housing project in West Jackson. Melton was familiar with the residents and the state of the property. He noted with approval that trash had been removed, but he was irritated that basketball goals had not been mounted as he had instructed. He questioned residents in detail on the algae-clogged concrete creek running through the center of the complex. “Mosquitoes are going to breed in that, and there’s a lot of children out here,” Melton admonished.

An elderly African-American woman in a loose summer dress complained about a white police officer who she claimed was rude and failed to take their calls seriously. Melton told the woman to contact Chief Anderson with complaints about the police.

When we pulled up in front of a group of African-American teenagers and young adults standing in an open stairwell, some of them disappeared behind apartment doors, though most stayed out to greet the mayor, many of them young children. The walls were covered in graffiti, including several tags from the Vice Lords gang. The mayor asked the children to hug him, and most did so in delight. Melton then pulled aside a young man who I will call “Anthony” and escorted him away from the crowd. Fausset and I followed, facing Melton and Anthony, observing their conversation. Anthony, who said he was 18, stared at the ground and hung his head.

“Have you been smoking marijuana tonight?” Melton asked.

“Yes sir,” Anthony mumbled. “About an hour ago.”

“Was it a joint or a blunt?”

“A blunt,” Anthony replied.

Melton then asked Anthony how long he had been smoking (two months) and whether he needed treatment (no). When Melton heard that Anthony had dropped out of high school in his junior year, he was indignant. “You mean to tell me no one from the school, no teacher, no counselor, no one came to ask why you weren’t in school?”

“No sir,” Anthony muttered. Melton then gave the boy his home number and urged him to call for a job. Anthony was clearly uncomfortable, staring at the ground and mumbling in a faint monotone, like a child before a stern father. If either Melton or Anthony had asked for privacy, I would have stepped away, but one reason why I am concealing Anthony’s identity is that he really had no way to say no to anything.

We walked back through the stairwell, and Melton chided, by name, some of the people who had since emerged from behind closed doors. “This is true community policing,” Melton declared. “Get out there and see the people yourself.”

Soon, we stopped in the middle of the street in a neighborhood in West Jackson. The police blocked off traffic and then let cars through in a single lane. They checked the IDs of most drivers and then waved them through. I could not see the use of this spot roadblock, as no police officer seemed to be running license numbers or names on the radio. Many cars turned onto side streets as they approached the roadblock, probably just to avoid the hassle. Most of the drivers who did approach the roadblock were apparently returning home from work.

While the police checked IDs, Melton joined a group of young African Americans. “This one’s a dope dealer,” Melton said, grinning as he clapped one young man on the shoulder before pointing at another, “and this one’s a dope smoker.” I later asked the mayor if he was joking, and he said he was not.

“If I ever got in trouble, in a real tight spot, this is where I would go,” he said. “I know what these boys are capable of, and I trust them with my life.”

Then one of the teenagers showed the mayor the latest issue of the Jackson Free Press, with an illustration of Melton on the cover bursting out of a birthday cake and the headline “Sex, Lies and Videotape.”

“What is this trash?” Melton thundered. He tore up the paper and threw it on the ground. “How can you let children see this sort of trash?” Melton shouted at me.

“I don’t see what’s trashy about it,” I replied. “It’s just the title of a movie.”

“Well at least you’re honest,” the mayor replied. “But I’m going to tell you this. You are cut off. I have tried and tried to work with you people, but after tonight, it’s over. Y’all are going to be out of business in six months.”

Melton berated me about the cover for a full minute, with the crowd from the neighborhood and media from television and print gathered around. A cluster of quizzical police officers listened from the periphery. The mayor seemed to take our cover as a personal betrayal. Finally, he stormed away, and I straggled back to the MCC, careful to keep my distance.

Mayor Melton on Patrol

Mayor Melton on Patrol

“Hey,” an officer in body armor with a pistol strapped to his leg said, “you’re pretty tough.”

I laughed, not entirely convinced. “Thanks.”

I stayed in the back of the bus with the teenagers for a while, to avoid the mayor’s wrath. We stopped to meet with another informant in the hunt for Sullivan, but something was wrong. Melton said loudly, “This is about the fourth time I’ve had to pick [Sullivan] up. I don’t want to have to kill this boy.”

We pulled onto the interstate, police cruisers darting in front of us to clear traffic. In the back of the MCC, the teenagers were watching Black Hawk Down on the plasma screen. Blue strobes from the cruisers danced around the walls while the teenagers watched Army Rangers in Mogadishu fire rockets into buildings and rifles into crowds of gun-toting Africans.

“More skinnies!” the soldiers shouted.

“You really don’t have to use the foot straps on those helicopters,” the police officer told the teenagers. They all stared at him enrapt. He told them what it was like to fire heavy weaponry.

The only thing that excited the teenagers more came much later in the evening, when Melton conversed with a transvestite in a tank top, a miniskirt, and an ill-fitting wig of platinum curls. When I got back aboard, the teens could hardly contain their excitement. “Did you see that?” one of them asked. “That was a punk!”

We stopped near Union Station, downtown, and approached a group of homeless African-American men who were talking out in an empty lot, sitting on the edge of a ruined concrete foundation. At every stop, the other media hung back and talked among themselves while Fausset and I followed Melton.

The mayor sat among the men, who seemed pleased to welcome him. Melton asked the men their names and how long they had been homeless. He asked them if there was anything he could do to help and wrote down numbers for them to contact. Then Melton’s voice took on passion. “I need you men to help me figure out how we can help you. I am determined to help you.”

The men told Melton what they needed, which was shelter, rehab and job training, and Melton listened carefully.

“Hey,” one of the police officers said, patting me on the arm, “y’all are popular.” He pointed at a man in a torn jacket who was reading the new issue. “Even the homeless read you.”

“You know,” Melton said to the men, “sometimes I think I would love to trade places with you. Not to have any worries.”

The men laughed kindly. “You don’t know what it’s like out here, Frank,” one of the homeless men said.

“I mean you don’t have to worry about nonsense like the IRS or the media,” Melton said, looking at me.

“You gotta spend a night out here, Frank. I don’t think you could do it.”

“Oh yes, I could. Hey, Recio,” Melton called to one of the men. Recio approached warily. “These men say I should stay out here with them some night.”

Recio made a face like he had just bitten down on a lemon.

“All right, gentlemen,” Melton said. “I want you to take care of yourselves.” He then signed autographs for several of the men.

As we walked back through the overgrown lot, the wreck of the King Edward Hotel prominent on the skyline, Melton took me aside. “I want to apologize for before,” he said. “You seem like a respectful young man, and I know it wasn’t you who did the cover.”

“I’m sorry it upset you,” I said. “You should talk to Donna [Ladd, publisher of the Jackson Free Press] about it.”

“It won’t do any good,” he said, shaking his head.

I was already exhausted, with hours of raids still ahead. We stopped and questioned many youths who were out past the “emergency” curfew but who all claimed to be 18. We approached porches that smelled of marijuana, and the police searched the ground for evidence while Melton chatted amiably with residents, urging them to find steady work and to take care of themselves. The only arrest of the night was one African-American male with one rock of crack. Sullivan was arrested three days later — but by U.S. Marshals, not the JPD.

For now, though, there was a moment of peace while Melton talked on his cell phone. Fausset leaned against the MCC while we waited. “Is it always like this?” he asked in amazement.

“Welcome to Jackson,” I replied with weary bravado. “‘Circus’ doesn’t quite do it justice, does it?”

photos By William Patrick Butler