Paul Young (left) and Van Turner (right). (Photo: Brad Vest for MLK50)
“So, who are you voting for for mayor?”
I’ve gotten asked that question a number of times in recent days. I wish I had a resounding answer, but the truth is, I still don’t know for sure.
It’s not like there’s a shortage of possibilities. There will be no fewer than 17 (!) mayoral candidates on the ballot. In case you don’t have them memorized, they are: Carnita Faye Atwater, Jennings Bernard, Floyd Bonner, Joe Brown, Kendra Calico, Karen Camper, J.W. Gibson, Reggie William Hall, James M. Harvey, Willie W. Herenton, Michelle McKissack, Brandon A. Price, Justina Ragland, Tekeva Shaw, Van Turner, Derek Winn, and Paul A. Young.
Early voting started last week and Election Day is October 5th, so we all need to figure it out soon, obviously. I’m going to run through my thinking process here. You are free to take it or leave it.
By process of elimination, I can get rid of 11 candidates, either because I’ve never heard of them, or I’ve heard of them and can’t imagine voting for them for mayor. Looking at you, Judge Joe Brown.
That leaves six possible candidates for my vote (your mileage may vary): Floyd Bonner, Willie Herenton, Michelle McKissack, Paul Young, J.W. Gibson, and Van Turner.
Though the mayor’s race is technically nonpartisan, Bonner appears to be the candidate supported by the Republican Party. You probably received a flyer from the self-proclaimed nonpartisan group, The 901 Initiative, recently. The “grades” that the (anonymous) group posted for all mayoral and city council candidates make it clear who they’re backing. Their roots are showing. The fact that many candidates didn’t participate in the survey didn’t stop the group from giving out (mostly bad) grades on those candidates’ policies. This is some bogus crap.
Bonner is a cop and probably a decent guy, but 55 people have died in Shelby County Jail on his five-year watch and I don’t trust Republicans these days (or that A- they gave Bonner), so I’m going to pass on ol’ Floyd.
Then there’s Herenton, who was elected the city’s first Black mayor in 1991 and won reelection four times. After winning his fifth term in 2007, he resigned in 2009 to run for Congress. He lost that race and ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2019, losing to current Mayor Jim Strickland. Now 83, he’s back again, with a platform that can be basically summed up as: “I’m Willie Herenton and they’re not.” He’s refused to participate in any forums or debates with other candidates, preferring to sit back and trust that his loyal base will come through for him. Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing: With so many candidates in the race, getting 15 percent of the vote might be enough to win, and some early polling has shown Herenton in that ballpark. I voted for Herenton three times, but he’s not getting my vote this time around.
And speaking of polling … here’s the latest (September 7th) from Hart Research and the nonprofit TN Prospers: Young (20 percent); Bonner (19 percent); Herenton (13 percent); Turner (9 percent).
Gibson (5 percent) and McKissack (3 percent) are long shots. I’ve worked with McKissack and like her, but neither she nor Gibson appear to have gained enough traction to win this thing, so I’m not going to vote for one of them and possibly help swing the election to Herenton or Bonner.
So what about Paul Young? He worked for Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, then headed the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development, and now is CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission. Of the top three in that poll, Young wins my vote, hands down.
But … I’m vacillating because lots of smart progressives I know and respect are supporting Van Turner, including three who endorsed him last weekend: DA Steve Mulroy, County Mayor Lee Harris, and Congressman Steve Cohen. I’ve voted for these guys and I trust their judgment, but as I stated above, I don’t want to vote for someone who can’t win and thereby help swing the election to Bonner or Herenton.
So, as much as I like voting early, this time around I’m going to wait a little longer, hoping to see some more polling before I head over to Mississippi Boulevard Church to cast my vote. At this point, you might say I’m Young and restless.
Fatigue clearly shows on the faces of these mayoral candidates
at a late forum — (l to r) Floyd Bonner, J.W. Gibson, James Harvey,
Michelle McKissack, and Paul Young. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
As would be indicated by the collaborative content shared by the Flyer and MLK50 in this joint issue, public safety has clearly been the predominant topic in the 2023 Memphis mayoral race.
The four leading mayoral candidates have been quoted at length on the matter, but all the candidates have weighed in repeatedly on crime, its consequences, and methods for dealing with it.
Proposals have ranged from the obvious — more community policing and upgrading the MPD — to an ambitious call for a “crime summit” to a somewhat fringey proposal by one candidate to negotiate directly with gangs, presumably so as to cut deals with them.
Uniquely, this is the first mayoral contest in Memphis history in which all of the 17 candidates, including those acknowledged to be serious prospects for winning, are African-American.
That fact — which reflects the demographic nature of Memphis itself — coupled with what several polls have indicated is an extremely close contest, suggests that a revision may be overdue for the judicial settlement of 1991, which prohibited runoff voting in the mayor’s race. At the time, it was feared that a runoff would invite stacked opposition from whites to preclude a Black from winning.
In what amounted that year to a two-man winner-take-all race with a token third opponent, former schools superintendent Willie Herenton won a hairs-breadth victory over incumbent Dick Hackett, inaugurating a new era of Black prominence in city government.
Since then, only a plurality — like the one achieved by white councilman Jim Strickland in a multi-candidate race in 2015 — has been necessary for one to be elected mayor. (Strickland would be reelected with a majority over two opponents in 2019.)
But if racial factors in citywide elections (and countrywide ones, for that matter) have largely become irrelevant, the unspoken barrier to female candidates — the so-called “glass ceiling” — remains unbroken. The 2023 mayoral field includes two well-credentialed women, state House Democratic leader Karen Camper and Memphis-Shelby City Schools board member Michelle McKissack. Both have had their moments, particularly in a pair of televised forums last week, but neither ranks high in the latest mayoral polls.
All the polls anyone has seen so far are unofficial, of course, but all have shown former Mayor Herenton either the leader outright or in the near vicinity of the lead.
Some of Herenton’s potential vote derives from the historical memory of Memphians, especially inner-city ones, but he may also be gaining adherents because of his hard-line position on crime, the theme of the day, and his stated resolve to bring back the data-based policing methods of Blue CRUSH, instituted during his own last couple of terms.
The public-safety issue is paramount also in the mayoral campaign of Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who boasts a 42-year record in law enforcement and his ability to deal with the issue “from Day One” of his inauguration.
Most reckonings by political observers see a hotly contested three-way race between Herenton, Bonner, and Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO, who hasn’t been off the clock, campaign-wise, since he announced his intention to run roughly a year ago. Young has accomplished some impressive fundraising and leads all other candidates in that respect, with Bonner a reasonably close second.
Former County Commissioner Van Turner, a former Democratic chairman who led the local NAACP in recent years and was prominent in the effort to remove Confederate statues from Downtown, had some early stumbles but has come on somewhat of late, especially in the wake of recent endorsements from labor organizations and from County Mayor Lee Harris, DA Steve Mulroy, Congressman Steve Cohen, and the current political star of stars, state Representative Justin Pearson, who received international attention for his prominence in anti-gun protests during the spring legislative session.
Reportedly, Pearson, via independent expenditures licensed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, is about to endow the cause with $100,000 for a last-minute ad blitz aimed at rousing local Democrats.
Like candidates Camper and McKissack, self-funding businessman/philanthropist J.W. Gibson did well in public forums last week, but in his case, as in theirs, it could be a case of too little, too late.
District 5 candidate Meggan Kiel at a meet and greet (Photo: Jackson Baker)
If female candidates are struggling in the mayoral race, they are more than holding their own in city council races. Indeed, it is theoretically possible for the council races to end with a female majority of one serving. And in tight multi-candidate races in districts one through seven, a runoff provision will mandate a majority winner and provide a second chance for some.
In council District One, incumbent Rhonda Logan is heavily favored over opponent Kymberly Kelley.
There are six candidates vying in council District Two, including Jerri Green, a former legislative candidate and current policy advisor to County Mayor Harris; ex-councilman and former Plough Foundation director Scott McCormick; and business consultant Marvin White.
District 2 council candidate Jerri Green campaigning for the legislature in 2021 (Photo: Jackson Baker)Jerri Green (Photo: Kelly Roberts)
There are no fewer than three female candidates in council District Three — longtime activist Pearl Eva Walker, Kawanias “Kaye” McNeary, and Towanna C. Murphy — contending with veteran political figure Ricky Dixon and the Rev. James Kirkwood, a former ranking officer in the Memphis Police Department.
District 3 council candidate Pearl Walker at Sidney Chism’s summer picnic event (Photo: Jackson Baker)
The two candidates in council District Four are not only both women, but both are also veterans of prior service on the council. Teri Dockery served as an interim council member during a vacancy, and Jana Swearengen-Washington is the incumbent.
District Five boasts a trio of candidates, one of whom, Luke Hatler, is still a student at White Station High School. The other two candidates — Meggan Wurzburg Kiel and Philip Spinosa — are locked into a serious and costly mano-a-mano in which each candidate has raised resources of more than $100,000.
Seeking return to council is Scott McCormick (r), here with state Representative Mark White and campaign treasurer Nick Scully. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Kiel, though a novice candidate for office, is no stranger to civic affairs. She was one of the founders of the progressive activist group MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope). Her opponent, Spinosa, is no newcomer, either. Elected to the council in 2015, he served part of a term and resigned to head up the Chairman’s Circle on the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce. He now works in logistics.
In one sense, the contest is a battle of initialized groups: MICAH vs. CAISSA, the latter being a PR group catering to centrist and right-of-center candidacies. There have been no direct encounters between the two candidates, and potentially volatile issues have largely been on the back burner, but Spinosa in a TV ad has accused Kiel of wanting to defund the police, a charge she has vehemently denied.
District Six is currently being served by incumbent Councilman Edmund Ford Sr., who is heavily favored over opponents Keith D. Austin II and Larry Hunter.
Anyone looking at the crowded roster of District Seven candidates might assume it to be an available open seat, but, in fact, incumbent Michalyn Easter-Thomas is in good shape to repeat. The superfluity of challengers owes mainly to what was a lingering prospect that her status as an employee of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, an adjunct of city government, might cause her to be declared ineligible. Among those taking a shot at the seat are Edward Douglas, Jimmy Hassan, Jarrett “JP” Parks, Dee Reed, Austin Rowe, and Larry Springfield.
All of the candidates in the council district races just discussed, even those who are distinct underdogs, might be nursing hopes of winning in the runoff stage of the election, which does not exist for the mayor’s race nor for the Super District 8 and Super District 9 seats.
These are winner-take-all, and there are no second chances for second-place finishers.
In two of them — 8-1, held by JB Smiley, and 9-3, occupied by Jeff Warren — there are no other candidates besides the incumbent. And in two others, the incumbents — Chase Carlisle in 9-1 and Ford Canale in 9-2 — have opponents, newcomers Benji Smith in 9-1 and Brandon Washington in 9-2, with only remote chances of winning.
Super District 8, Position 2, is actually an open seat, though Marion LaTroy A-Williams is a perennial, and Davin D. Clemons is considered something of a fringe candidate. Janika White, who was runner-up to Steve Mulroy in the 2023 Democratic primary for district attorney general, is virtually a sure winner, having been hand-picked essentially by current incumbent Cheyenne Johnson, who opted out of a reelection effort.
The other Super District seat, for Position 3, is an open seat as well and boasts a genuine contest involving six contenders — the foremost ones being entertainer-activist Jerred Price, former District 7 incumbent Berlin Boyd, and consultant Brian Harris. Also in the race are Lucille Catron, Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, Damon Curry Morris, and Paul Randolph Jr.
MEMPHIS, TN - July 26, 2023: Ten of the nineteen candidates currently running for Memphis Mayor attended the Memphis Mayoral Forum hosted by the City of Memphis Office of Youth Services, Memphis Youth City Council, and Memphis Ambassadors Program at Christian Brothers University. (Photo: Brad Vest for MLK50)
As we approach one of the most momentous mayoral elections in Memphis’ history, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and the Memphis Flyer have partnered on a unique experiment. With public safety on the minds of the voters, we polled our readers to find out what questions they would ask the mayoral candidates, if they had a chance.
We received more than 130 responses, which our editorial teams boiled down into a set of common questions. Then, we chose the four leading candidates, based on a combination of polling and fundraising data.
Below are some highlights from Floyd Bonner, Willie Herenton, Van Turner, and Paul Young’s responses to your questions.
If you would like to see the candidates’ complete answers, the expanded interviews, edited for length and clarity, can be found on both memphisflyer.com and MLK50.com.
The killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers damaged the community’s trust in police. What steps would you take to rebuild that trust?
BONNER: It’s about being out in the community, talking with the public, getting them to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can work collectively to keep it from happening again.
Floyd Bonner (Photo: Andrea Morales for MLK50)
HERENTON: I’m going to bring back Blue CRUSH. … You’ve got to have specialized police units, but they’ve got to be well-trained. They’ve got to be appropriately selected. And you gotta have accountability. … What happened in the Tyre Nichols situation? They had a group of officers that didn’t have extensive tenure as police officers, and they lacked supervision. I would have an organizational structure with a chain of command providing appropriate oversight.
Willie Herenton (Photo: Andrea Morales for MLK50)
TURNER: We will have to make sure that the training and the leadership is appropriately in place to ensure this does not occur again. We need to get back to some of the community policing that we used to have when I was growing up in Whitehaven. … We had a relationship where, if we saw something, we said something, and we were not afraid to contact the authorities or law enforcement.
Van Turner (Photo: Brandon Dill for MLK50)
YOUNG: I think that the ordinances that were passed at City Council were a step in the right direction.
Paul Young (Photo: Brandon Dill for MLK50)
How would you describe Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis’ performance as police chief?
YOUNG: I think she’s done a good job. Obviously the incident with Tyre Nichols and the SCORPION unit and what appears to be a lack of oversight is something that she has to own. I think she has owned the mistakes and tried to do the things necessary to right the course, and that’s what leadership is about. … The visceral hate that we’re seeing in our community between residents and officers is something that only goes away when you build relationships, and the chief has to be the tip of the spear when it comes to making that happen.
BONNER: I’ve been asked many times, would I let her go if I was elected? I don’t think that’s fair. All city directors will be evaluated in my administration, and decisions will be made accordingly.
HERENTON: In all probability, she would not have been my choice. … From what I’ve read in the press and from what I’ve heard, there were some troubling issues in her past that I probably would have had to carefully weigh. If I could have identified an individual that had the competency level that I could trust with that leadership role, I would have selected from within.
TURNER: I thought she was good as far as being transparent on the release of the Tyre Nichols tape, and the reprimand and termination of those five officers. I think perhaps there’s some room for growth and accountability as it relates to the use of this tactical squad being used for just a mere traffic stop and not for something that it was organized to do: to take down maybe a drug operation, to go after the heavily armed bad guys that were going to have AR-15 rifles and shoot back. … To deploy a team like the team that was deployed in the death of Tyre Nichols was a failure of leadership. She should be held accountable for this even occurring.
MPD has about 1,900 officers, but says it needs 2,500. Do you agree 2,500 is the right number? If not, why not? If so, how would you look to help?
HERENTON: It’s going to be very difficult reaching that 2,500 goal because I will implement the highest standards. I think they’ve lowered the standards, which is troubling to me.
TURNER: I think 2,500 first responders is the right answer. I don’t know if they necessarily all have to be rank-and-file police officers. … We need a full complement of first responders, but I would suggest that perhaps 200 to 250 of those first responders should be comprised of specialty units and of specialty officers who can emphasize de-escalation, address mental health issues, address nonviolent, nonthreatening traffic stops, and address some of the domestic [violence] issues that we see. We really have to look at a comprehensive strategy to resolve crime more effectively in the community.
YOUNG: I agree. I don’t know that many people would disagree. … Just like we have training programs in high schools for the trades, we could introduce them to public safety careers. I think we obviously should continue to recruit from other cities. I want our officers to be the highest paid officers in the region. I want them to feel like the big dog: When you work in Memphis, you’re on the premier force. You’re going to have the most resources, you’re going to have the best equipment, and you’re going to have all the support that you need.
BONNER: It’s going to take two to three years to get to where the staffing levels need to be right now. We can’t wait that long. … How would I go about doing our desk-to-duty plan? It’s taking some officers out of precincts, out of the public information office, and getting those officers back out on the streets. We have officers doing tasks that civilians could be doing — for instance, fixing the SkyCop cameras.
Currently, nearly 40 percent of the city of Memphis’ budget goes to police. Should residents expect that, under your administration, that share would go up, down, or stay the same?
TURNER: My budget would likely be the same if you look at the whole spectrum of public safety. But I would like to increase the budget as it relates to prevention and investments in disinvested communities, disinvested youth, disinvested community centers. I think that’s where we really have to pour a robust allocation of our investments into because what we’re doing now is not working.
BONNER: Right now, even with the budget the way it is, our police need more cars. … So there’s some things in the police department that we need to fix. … I can’t say that the budget would increase, but it’s certainly nice to stay where it’s at.
YOUNG: You would see incremental increases as a result of increasing the number of staff, but I don’t see it going up significantly or going down significantly. In order to truly make our community safe, we have to find ways to make additional investments in public safety that’s not necessarily MPD.
MPD is currently under a civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice. How do you plan to ensure that the Memphis Police Department treats all citizens fairly?
HERENTON: It is clear to me that we need to fix the culture of MPD. I’m committed to doing that. I know exactly how to get the culture straightened out and to make sure that we have transparency. We’ll have accountability, and we’ll have constitutional policing.
TURNER: We go to each community — and I mean each and every community — and we listen. … We focus on training and we make sure that our most senior officers are being utilized more than what they’re being utilized now. There were no senior officers [there] the night of the murder of Tyre Nichols, that was a misstep and a problem. … Third, we have to focus on recruiting the right individuals with the correct temperament, the right mind to serve and protect.
What public safety solutions have you seen work in other cities that you would seek to implement here?
YOUNG: Pittsburgh re-trained their officers on how to engage on police stops. They talk about the weather and make small talk to disarm. They do that to reduce the likelihood of a negative encounter. In Omaha, they put together a coalition of people from different agencies focused on holistic public safety. They’re using data to identify the young people that need other interventions, and they have a host of programs that are able to engage those young people when they’ve been identified.
Some cities have tried to respond to mental health crises with first responders who aren’t police officers. Is that a solution you’re interested in exploring for Memphis?
HERENTON: A lot of individuals out here have all kinds of mental disabilities that the policemen, if they’re not well trained, don’t know how to recognize. You have to broaden the training because they are running into some mental health issues that need to be addressed.
TURNER: I think that there’s a role for individuals who have that type of expertise to be used by law enforcement and by fire. Oftentimes, EMTs are first on the scene and there are issues that they have to address which concern mental illness. And they’re not equipped to do so. … We need a unit that will do it, that will travel with fire and police and make sure that mental health issues don’t result in death.
YOUNG: I’ve talked to people that have done it. The challenge you find is that when you have individuals responding to an intense scene or somebody’s having a mental health episode, with the proliferation of guns in our community, you still need a trained officer. Can we send mental health workers out with officers? Yes. Sending them out alone? No, I don’t think that’s wise.
How do you plan to engage with young people, to help them avoid gangs and criminal activity?
BONNER: It’s all about intervention and prevention. At the sheriff’s office, we have a Crime Prevention Unit that offers over 40 different programs for our youth. … We can’t sit in the office and let parents or kids come to us. We’ve got to get out in the neighborhoods to find out what we can do to help these kids be successful.
TURNER: A kid that joins a gang is looking for love, looking for acceptance, looking for protection, looking for a community. They find that in the gang because it’s not at home, it’s not at church, it’s not on the football team. You really have to disrupt that pattern of the gangs preying on these vulnerable youth because once they get ahold of them, it’s hard for them to let go, and it’s hard for that young person to get out of it. So we have to step in before the gangs get to them and provide that positive community for them. That’s why [I like] the Boys & Girls Club; it’s a positive community.
Memphis always ranks poorly in the number of roadway deaths. How would you help make our streets safer without relying solely on increased MPD enforcement?
YOUNG: We need drivers to be informed that the public right of way isn’t just for cars. It’s for people. People walk, they bike, and they drive cars. We need public service announcements that remind people that they have to share the roads. We also should be exploring design solutions.
BONNER: You increase traffic enforcement, attention to red lights, and things like that. We’re gonna have to take a long hard look at traffic patterns.
HERENTON: I’ve never seen the level of reckless driving, inappropriate driving behavior, as I’m seeing on the expressway and streets. I’m so happy to see the increased level of Highway Patrol in our city. I will support that 100 percent — to increase the presence of highway patrolmen. They do it right.
As mayor, what is a measure you would take to reduce car break-ins and theft?
TURNER: Part of addressing the issues is to not only require a permit to have a gun on your person, but require permits to have guns in your cars. Many times, they’re looking for guns and other valuables. … The uptick occurred when we allowed guns in cars without a permit, and every law enforcement person in the state was against what the assembly was doing. … You disrupt how they make money off of what they’re doing. You use good detective work, good policing to break up the chop shops.
BONNER: My wife and I’ve raised two sons in this community. We were responsible for their actions and where they were, but these young people that are out there that are breaking in cars, we’ve got to get down to the root problem of that. That could be a food issue; it could be a homeless issue. We’ve got to find out what those issues are, and then change the trajectory of those kids.
YOUNG: I had an opportunity to sit on a town hall panel with NLE Choppa a few months ago, and there was a young person who said he liked stealing cars. I asked why. He said, “I’m bored and I need some money.” Those are things we should be solving for! We have to find ways to engage youth, have them earn money, and have fun.
HERENTON: There’s some brands of cars that are [more] susceptible to car thieves than others. In fact, I think I read that our current mayor was joining with some other mayors who’re talking about suing automakers who make cars so easy to be stolen.
As mayor, what is a measure you would take to help get guns off the street?
BONNER: Aggressive policing, first of all. We’ve got to hold people accountable. But also, we’ve got to change the mindset whereby we don’t have conflict resolution anymore in the schools or anywhere. I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen with the churches and pastors, community organizations that are willing to step up now and really get the message out as to how serious this is in our city. Because a lot of time our youth don’t understand the consequences of pulling the trigger on a weapon. So when you talk about trying to get those guns out of their hands, we’ve got to find a way to talk to them and get them to understand that violence is never the answer to anything, but also holding them, again, responsible and accountable for their actions.
HERENTON: I think that the legislative body in Tennessee is going to have to exercise more accountability and responsibility as we look at gun violence and gun control. So I’m for a lot of the reform measures, but within the powers of the executive branch, which the mayor is in. We just have to operate within the confines of the Constitution and state legislature.
TURNER: Obviously, talking to the Tennessee General Assembly won’t work. When the states have failed us in the past, we’ve turned to the federal government. As a civil rights attorney, that’s what I’ll do. I will support litigation to make sure that we at least put all the issues on the table. … I will seek an injunction in federal court, and I know what would likely happen. But the important thing is that we will create a record. We will have experts who will have testimony. We’ll get all those folks on the stand who’ve been ill-affected by gun violence. And then we’ll take that record to the U.S. Congress and we’ll ask for the United States Congress and for the president to give us relief. We’ve had a ban on assault weapons before. It can happen again. We should not give up on this issue.
YOUNG: Gun buyback programs — making sure people are turning those things in. And making sure we address illegal guns. When people commit crimes with those types of weapons, we should make sure there’s a higher penalty.
Some months after the first major organized debates made it obvious which of the 17 declared mayoral candidates should be taken seriously, the six people who best answer that description were dueling again last Monday night at the studios of ABC24.
Those were Sheriff Floyd Bonner, former NAACP president Van Turner, businessman J.W. Gibson, state House Democratic Leader Karen Camper, school board member Michelle McKissack, and Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young.
The same lineup, more or less, was due to be involved in two more high-profile TV forums later in the week, at channels WREG-TV and WMC-TV. Missing in those engagements will be former Mayor Willie Herenton, who leads such polls as have been conducted but has stayed clear of all forums so far, including the one last Monday night.
Some of the brickbats previously thrown by one candidate against another were thrown again and doubtless will be again later in the week.
Bonner took barbs from opponents Turner, McKissack, and Young on issues ranging from excessive jail deaths to his reasons for wanting to leave his current job for that of mayor. McKissack was questioned about why the board of MSCS had not yet been able to put its recently tarnished past behind it. Gibson and Young got into a back-and-forth about whether the Downtown chief had been feckless about following through on projects the city was “on the hook” for.
And even the absent Herenton was taken to task, by moderator Richard Ransom, for the former mayor’s refusal to make himself publicly accountable, and by McKissack for affecting an air of old-fashioned paternalism.
• Meanwhile, the early voting schedule starts this Friday, September 15th, and will continue through Saturday, September 30th. Venues are listed below.
Times of accessibility are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. One exception: the Downtown Election Commission HQ will be accessible from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Abundant Grace Fellowship Church, 1574 E. Shelby Dr., Memphis 38116
Anointed Temple of Praise, 3939 Riverdale Rd., Memphis 38115
Briarwood Community Church, 1900 N. Germantown Pkwy., Cordova 38016
Dave Wells Community Center, 915 Chelsea Ave., Memphis 38107
Glenview Community Center, 1141 S. Barksdale St., Memphis 38114
Greater Lewis Street Baptist Church, 152 E. Parkway N., Memphis 38104
Greater Middle Baptist Church, 4982 Knight Arnold Rd., Memphis 38118
White Station Church of Christ, 1106 Colonial Rd., Memphis 38117
• Mayoral and council races will be reviewed in a special section of next week’s Flyer, in partnership with MLK50, and will largely focus on the issue of public safety.
Reverend Earle Fisher with mayoral candidates Van Turner and Paul Young at the People’s Convention (Photo: Facebook | People’s Convention)
As the recent nonstop turbulent weather subsided somewhat, last weekend saw the culmination of candidate endorsements by the People’s Convention, a citizens movement of some years’ standing, with roots in the inner city and among progressives. That turned out to be a mano a mano between NAACP president Van Turner, the early favorite of Democrats and progressives, and Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO who has undeniable momentum (and cash reserves) feeding his goal of across-the-board support.
Despite a stem-winding address to the 300 or so attendees by Turner in which the candidate recounted his many services in his NAACP work, as a county commissioner, as a Democrat, and as a prime mover in the removal of Confederate memorabilia Downtown, the win went to Young, the election season’s most unstinting mayoral aspirant, who focused his remarks on his past services as a workhorse in city and county government, which, he said, had garnered support for such community additives as the Memphis Sports and Events Center at Liberty Park itself, where the People’s Convention was being held this year under the direction of the Reverend Earle Fisher.
Fisher has in recent years revived the convention, which had first been held in 1991 and had been a force that year in the election of Willie Herenton as the city’s first Black mayor. Ironically, Fisher on last Saturday would chastise both Herenton, a mayoral candidate again, and Sheriff Floyd Bonner, another aspirant, for their no-shows this year at the People’s Convention.
Bonner had opted instead for a well-attended forum on women’s issues, being held simultaneously at the IBEW building on Madison under the auspices of the Democratic Women of Shelby County. Eight other mayoral contenders also participated in that event.
The mayoral-preference vote at the People’s Convention last Saturday was 224 for Young and 116 for Turner, and owed much to the disproportionate sizes of the supportive claque each brought with him.
Other Convention preferences were for Jerri Green in council District 2; Pearl Walker in District 3; Meggan Kiel in District 5; Michalyn Easter-Thomas in District 7; JB Smiley Jr. in Super District 8, Position 1; Janika White in Super District 8, Position 2; Jerred Price in Super District 8, Position 3; and Benji Smith in Super District 9, Position 1.
• Later last Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning), a massive and unruly crowd materialized in Downtown Memphis, resulting in shots being fired. Eight victims were injured, and an MPD officer was roughed up by out-of-control youths.
The event illuminated the issue of crime as a dominant motif in this year’s election. Mayoral candidates Bonner and Herenton especially have emphasized the importance of the issue and their determination to deal with it.
Fisher would also weigh in on the matter, condemning the violence but calling for long-term community-based alternatives to repressive-suppressive techniques for crime control. (Of note to Flyer readers: This week’s cover story by Chris McCoy also considers such alternatives.)
As a kind of footnote to things, the Shelby County Commission last Monday considered, but deferred for two weeks, action on proposals for restrictions on preemptive traffic stops and use of specialized units by the Sheriff’s Department.
Similar curbs were recently imposed on the MPD by the city council.
Floyd Bonner, here receiving Sheriff of the Year award last week from Tennessee Sheriffs’
Association, is one of several mayoral candidates hopeful of getting GOP votes in October. (Photo: Courtesy Floyd Bonner)
UPDATED: As is generally known, Memphis city elections are not subject to partisan voting. There are no primaries allowing our local Republicans and Democrats to nominate a candidate to carry the party banner.
Nor, in the case of citywide office (mayor or council super districts 8 and 9), does there exist machinery for a runoff election when no candidate for those offices commands a majority of the general election vote.
There are runoff circumstances for districts 1 through 7, each of them a single district contributing to the pastiche of city government, by electing, in effect, a council member to serve a smaller geographical area or neighborhood.
The aforementioned super districts encompass the entire city. Each of them, in theory, represents a half of the city’s population — the western half being predominantly Black, as of 1991, when the first super-district lines were drawn, the eastern half being largely white. (Though population has meanwhile shifted, those distinctions are still more or less accurate.)
Runoffs are prohibited in the super districts as well as in mayoral elections in the city at large because, in the Solomonic judgment of the late U.S. District Judge Jerome Turner, who devised this electoral system in response to citizen litigation, that’s how things should be divided in order to recognize demographic realities while at the same time discouraging efforts to exploit them.
Each citizen of Memphis gets to vote for four council members, one representing the single district of their residence, the other three representing the half of the city in which their race is predominant. Runoffs are permitted in the smaller single districts, where racial factors do not loom either divisive or decisive, while they are prohibited in the larger areas, where, in theory, voters of one race could rather easily league together to elect one of their own (as whites commonly did in the historic past).
Mayoral elections are winner-takes-all, and Willie Herenton’s victory in 1991 as the first elected Black mayor is regarded as having been a vindication of the system.
Got all that?
Yes, it’s a hodgepodge, but it’s what we’ve still got, even though Blacks, a minority then, are a majority now. And, in fact, race is irrelevant in the 2023 mayor’s race, there being no white candidate still participating with even a ghost of a chance of winning.
Political party is the major remaining “it” factor, and the failure of either party to call for primary voting in city elections has more or less nullified it as a direct determinant of the outcome.
But, with the withdrawal last week from the mayoral race of white Republican candidates Frank Colvett and George Flinn, speculation has become rampant as to who, among the nominal Democrats still in the race, might inherit the vote of the city’s Republicans.
Sheriff Floyd Bonner, whose law-and-order posture is expected to appeal to the city’s conservatives?
Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, who has several prior Republican primary votes on his record in non-city elections?
Businessman J.W. Gibson, who once was a member of the local Republican steering committee?
Only NAACP president Van Turner and former Mayor Herenton, among serious candidates, are exempt from such speculation, both regarded as being dyed-in-the-wool Democrats.
In a close election, the disposition of the Republican vote, estimated to be 24 percent of the total, could be crucial.
Several polls of varying reliability have been circulated so far on the subject of the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race. The latest one surfaced last week in the form of an online video released by ex-Memphian Josh Thomas, now a Nashville consultant working on behalf of the mayoral race of Memphis City Councilman Frank Colvett Jr.
The results of that poll, available for examination on Colvett’s Facebook page, are somewhat startling and out of sync with several other surveys conducted earlier by avowedly neutral sources.
The new poll shows former Mayor Willie Herenton leading with 17 percent approval from those polled and Colvett, along with Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, tied for second with 14 percent, with no other results indicated for any other candidates.
In previously circulated polls, Colvett had been buried in the single digits along with several other also-rans. To be sure, candidate Young, generally acknowledged these days to have a strong and possibly surging campaign, had also been in the lower digits in those early polls. And Herenton’s numbers are consistent with those reported for him elsewhere.
On the street, Colvett’s reported numbers were greeted with a fair amount of skepticism. Can they be taken seriously? No ancillary information (number surveyed, breakdown of sample, etc.) was released with the poll, which, says Thomas in the video, was taken on July 6th and 7th. The poll was administered by Cygnal, a company described by Thomas as “the most accurate private pollster in the country.”
How private? The company says of itself: “Cygnal serves GOP campaigns, committees, caucuses, and center-right public affairs issue efforts with forward-thinking polling, analytics & targeting.” That would tie in with Colvett’s known prominence in local Republican circles. Indeed, it is generally acknowledged that his starter base is heavily Republican, and the questions have been: Can he hold that base, which is a distinct minority of the whole? And can he, as a political moderate, expand on it?
According to Thomas, those surveyed were asked, quite simply: “If the election were held today, who would you vote for?”
But a key acknowledgement by Thomas is that the question was asked after those surveyed were given “biographies” of the various candidates.
Anyone familiar with political polling would be inclined to associate that procedure with what is called a “push poll” — one which builds a desired outcome into the very form of the questioning. The idea is simple: The better the “biography,” the better the poll numbers. And the skimpier or less positive the bio, the lower would be the numbers.
If the poll is to be taken seriously, its meta-message is obvious. Just as former Mayor Herenton has an impressively locked-in base of support, there also is known to be a significant number of voters who, for fair reasons or foul, have a built-in resistance to the prospect of Herenton’s returning to power.
The Cygnal poll results imply rather directly that, if it’s Herenton you fear, Frank Colvett could be your man. Colvett himself, known to be fair-minded, and, as previously indicated, moderate, would never venture a sentiment like that directly.
Nashville versus Memphis? (Photo: Rod Gimenez | Dreamstime)
There are eight candidates recognized as viable in the city’s race for mayor this year. Some are well-known to the public, with records of achievement in governmental and other public spheres. Others, not so well-known, have money to pour into their races to rectify that problem.
The field ranges across metrics of gender, race, and political party. Individually and collectively, the candidates exude a sense of optimism about the city and its future, though their evident pride at its impressive recent successes is balanced by a concern about maintaining various kinds of equilibrium, including fiscal, going forward.
These candidates are nothing if not transparent. Most of them have been appearing regularly at a series of televised and in-person events, and …
At this point it may have become obvious to sentient readers that the city whose mayoral race we are describing is not Memphis. It is Nashville, the sister city and state capital a three-hour drive from here up I-40.
Pride? Optimism? Transparency? Not so much in the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race, where the modest number of public forums has been spottily attended, both by candidates and by audiences, and focused on the doldrums of public life — poverty, economic stagnation, educational failure, inequities and fallings-short of various kinds, and crime, crime, crime.
Nashville has its problems, also, including aspects of those just mentioned, which rage in the Bluff City like out-of-control dumpster fires. But, with their August 3rd city election looming, the essential problem that Nashville’s mayoral candidates are vexed by can be summed up in such conundrum as: “What else can we afford to pay for out of our tourist bounty?”
Dig it: The Nashville City Council has already agreed to spring for the city’s share of a fancy new enclosed $2.1 billion football stadium to house the NFL’s Titans. Now, the city is also meditating on developing an in-city state-of-the-art driving track suitable for prime events on the NASCAR circuit.
To be sure, there are Nashvillians (and mayoral candidates) who wonder if the city is overextending itself. An ad hoc group called CARE (Citizens Against Racetrack Expansion) says via a public petition — “We respectfully ask: How does spending millions of dollars to bring in bigger, louder NASCAR races solve the most pressing concerns of Nashville? Doubling down on turning Nashville into a Las Vegas-style destination for tourists ignores the desires and needs of a vast majority of our city residents.”
CARE goes so far as to say that “pressing issues like increasing affordable housing, fixing decaying infrastructure and public transit, and approaching the problems of homelessness and crime need our attention and funding urgently.”
Now we’re talking. So, in some ways Nashville, for all its plethora of building cranes and new skyscrapers and ongoing city projects and point-of-origin TV spectaculars, may still have some major issues in common with the struggling city to the west on the banks of the Mississippi?
We know that it does. Both cities inhabit home-rule counties and, as such, have another concern in common: that of maintaining local options in education, health, social policy, what-have-you in the face of an ever-encroaching state government. More on this anon.
In a formally nonpartisan mayoral race that has so far not summoned up much overt political ideology, one candidate has opted to make a direct appeal to a partisan segment of the electorate.
Van Turner, head of the local NAACP and a former chairman of the Shelby County Commission, made a bare-bones tweet on Wednesday: “It is a nonpartisan election, but I will never run from being a Progressive or a Democrat. I might be a little to the left, but I’m on the right side of the issues.”
Turner’s political predilections have never been a secret, but his timing is significant.
The candidate’s tweet was dispatched at a point in the mayor’s race that is picking up steam and sees a multitude of candidates hoping to get a lion’s share of the turnout from specific voter groups.
As last year’s Shelby County general election indicated, the local electorate is heavily Democratic, and Democrats essentially swept all contested positions last August.
Democrats are even more clearly a majority of the city vote, though the percentage of those voters who would specifically call themselves “progressive” is more limited — probably ranging only slightly upward of 10 percent. But in an election in which multiple candidates are making appeals to a variety of demographic groups, the voting of specific blocs is likely to be highly fragmented.
Turner has done well in such polling as been done so far, sharing the lead with Sheriff Floyd Bonner and former Mayor Willie Herenton. Other candidates hope to do well with those voters who lean Democratic, including fundraising leader Paul Young, the CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission, School Board member Michelle McKissack, and businessman J.W. Gibson.
By making a direct pitch to the city’s Democrats and to the highly activist sub-group of declared progressives, whom he can target with fundraising appeals, Turner clearly hopes to edge ahead by setting himself apart from candidates whose focus is to a more generalized constituency.
Paul Young at his HQ opening (Photo: Jackson Baker)
As of last week, when the Shelby County Election Commission began making candidate petitions available for would-be office-seekers, the 2023 Memphis city election can be said to have officially started.
In reality, numerous campaigns, both for mayor and for city council, have been proceeding for some time. The mayoral field would seem to be all but set, and council hopefuls, many of whom have been lying back, waiting to be sure about the council’s still unofficial district lines, have begun filling in the blanks as well.
Two candidates for mayor — both destined, one way or another, to have a major impact on the election results — chose last week to enact rollouts of a sort. One was 83-year-old former Mayor Willie Herenton, who had a campaign kickoff event last Thursday at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn on Central. The other, some 40 years his junior, was Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, who formally opened his campaign headquarters last Saturday at Poplar Plaza.
Herenton is the senior eminence of this race (or, in some quarters, where his tenure wore too long, the éminence grise). He was elected mayor in five previous elections, the first being his 1991 epochal victory as the city’s first elected African-American chief executive. For better or for worse, his name is known to virtually all Memphians who pay attention to their social or civic circumstances.
Young is, by contrast, a newcomer to most Memphians, despite having held numerous positions of importance in city and county government. Though he has significant backing among the city elite and is the leading fundraiser among all mayoral candidates, with cash on hand of roughly half a million dollars, Young acknowledges being a relative unknown to the public at large. In an effort to build up his name recognition, he has dutifully attended almost all the preliminary events, both large and small, that have been held so far for mayoral candidates.
In his own words last Saturday, “We can’t just play this as politics as usual … just to [select] whatever name you know. … We’ve got to do it differently this time. … History is made when people step up to the plate, to do the thing that needs to be done to elevate our community.
“I’ll say it again. It’s not about the name, you know. It’s about what results those individuals created. As a result of the work that they’ve done in their present or previous role. I could care less about politics. I want to do the work. … For the past 20 years, I’ve been doing the work. I’ve been the person behind the scenes doing the work. It’s time to step up. I represent the next generation.”
Herenton, too, spoke of a “New Path” for the city and promised to unveil this week a package of proposals, including one for a “multi-million dollar restorative justice campus.” He pledged a “tough love” approach to public safety and advocated that the council repeal several recent actions restricting police actions.
As a token of his “strong-mayor” attitude, Herenton reminded his listeners that he had as mayor resisted calls for a public referendum on the financial deal that brought the NBA Grizzlies, “a great team,” to Memphis.
