Tag: Memphis City Council elections

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Politics Politics Feature

Giving It Another Try

Photo: Juan Moyano | Dreamstime.com

One of the best-known lines in American literature was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who famously opined, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

Well, there are. And one of those lives belongs to former City Councilman Philip Spinosa, who — after a stint with the Chairman’s Circle of the Greater Memphis Chamber and another spell with Prestigious Logistics, a company he founded — intends to run again for the council, presumably in District 5.

As a council member representing District 9-2 from 2015 to 2019, Spinosa concerned himself with issues of economic growth and crime and sponsored such legislation as the Neighborhood Sentinel Program, which established surveillance cameras in various neighborhoods and proved so crucial in the ongoing case involving the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of a police unit.

In addition to his prior service, Spinosa has the kind of economic connections that would ensure more than adequate financing for his campaign — a fact which will not be lost on potential opponents, who at the moment include well-known activist Meggan Wurzburg Kiel and restaurateur Nick Scott. Others known to be considering a race in District 5 include Anna Vergos Blair, daughter of former councilman and restaurateur John Vergos, and activist/entrepreneur John Marek.

Marek, who is also considering a race for Position 1 in Super-District 9, professes exasperation with the city council’s continuing delay in determining district lines for the forthcoming city election. Some of that hesitation apparently has to do with the view of some members that a 1990s judicial consent decree requires a charter amendment for certain outcomes, including one calling for single-member districts exclusively.

(At present, seven council positions are elected by a single district, and another six are elected in Memphis’ two “super districts,” each comprising approximately half the city’s population. Runoffs are permitted in the single districts, but not in the super districts.)

Two other former council members are apparently going to attempt returns to the city’s legislative body. Berlin Boyd, who served in District 7 and lost a runoff in 2019 to current seat-holder Michalyn Easter-Thomas, is considering a run for the Super District 8-3 seat being vacated by the term-limited Martavius Jones. And Scott McCormick, who represented Super District 9-1 in the first decade of this century, contemplates a race for District 2, now represented by mayoral contender Frank Colvett.

• Developer Chance Carlisle, whose brother Chase represents Council District 9-1, had strongly considered a race for mayor before deciding against it, but he still intends to have a major influence on public policy. His instrument for doing so will be via the medium of a soon-to-be-created political action committee (PAC).

Still to be named, the PAC will have a strong pro-business slant, said Carlisle, who recently was at loggerheads with city government over Mayor Jim Strickland’s reluctance to support further public financing for a proposed grand hotel on the riverfront.

The new PAC will support candidates in this year’s city election and will avoid any kind of partisan inflection, said Carlisle, who acknowledged that the recent announcement for mayor by Councilman Colvett, a well-known Republican, was a factor in his own decision not to run for mayor. That, plus another candidacy by former Mayor Willie Herenton, also recently announced, had the effect of creating possible cleavages in the electorate, said Carlisle.

“This election shouldn’t be about either political party or race,” said Carlisle, who stressed that affordable housing and better mass transit were two of the city’s most important unmet needs.

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Politics Politics Feature

City Election’s Final Races Head Into the Stretch

Thursday, November 14th, two weeks from now, will see the final voting for the 2019 Memphis city election. The remaining races to be decided, via runoff, are the Memphis City Council seats in District 1 (Frayser, Raleigh), where incumbent Sherman Greer hopes to do a turnaround on the tally of October 3rd, when challenger Rhonda Logan missed an outright majority win by a hair’s-breadth, and in District 7, where Michalyn Easter-Thomas, runner-up to incumbent Berlin Boyd, is attempting to consolidate a potential anti-Boyd majority with the support of several other former candidates in that race.

Early voting for the runoff elections began on Friday, October 25th, and will end on Saturday, November 9th.

Ordinarily, challengers Logan and Easter-Thomas would seem to own the momentum, in light of the failure of Greer and Boyd to exploit the presumed natural advantage of their incumbency on the first go-around. But no one is making any firm and fast predictions. The notorious reality about runoffs — and one of the compelling arguments in favor of substituting Ranked Choice Voting as an alternative to dependence on them — is the precipitate fallout in general voter turnout that accompanies them.

Photographs by Jackson Baker

Michalyn Easter-Thomas with supporters

Victory in a runoff often depends on which side is more successful in getting their people out to the polls. And one seasoned consultant, asked about prospects for the runoff election, conjectured that the total vote in each of the runoff districts could easily run to no more than 1,600 voters each.

That fact co-exists with another reality, that the incumbents have a second chance to activate the donor sources that, as office-holders, they have presumably been able to develop a working relationship with. But the financial factor may not be weighted as much for the runoff cycle as it was for the general election.

In any case, all four candidates seem to be trying hard — each according to their fashion. 

Councilman Sherman Greer campaigning in district coin-op laundry

Logan is busy on social media and working with her political allies in the district. Greer is pressing the flesh in locations like the coin-op on Highway 64, in the Countrywood sector of his district. Boyd is being touted by at least one large billboard on a major thoroughfare. And Easter-Thomas is networking big-time with organization Democrats and fellow District 7 candidates from the first round.

Further points: Boyd’s wheeler-dealer image is both a help and a hindrance. He may enjoy some credit for his efforts, say, in landing a dog park on Mud Island and arranging a FedEx presence in the vacated Gibson’s building Downtown, but he incurred conflict-of-interest allegations for his previously undisclosed contractual relationship with FedEx.

Easter-Thomas’ opportunity is the high-water mark for the 2019 version of the People’s Convention, and it was buttressed by her well-attended support rally last week from former District 7 candidates, political veterans (like the Rev. Bill Adkins), activists (e.g., AFL-CIO representative Jeffrey Lichtenstein), along with a huge turnout from the media on a rainy day.

Though Greer finished well behind Logan in the regular general election, his previous service with Congressmen Harold Ford Jr. and Steve Cohen makes for both a helpful and a practical association, and he has crossover support from the likes of GOP icon John Ryder.

Logan, president of the Raleigh Community Development Corporation, is a bona fide grassroots product, heavily boosted now as before by influential indigenous political figures, notably state Representative Antonio Parkinson.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Termite Inspection

When you’re scanning the sky for incoming artillery, you don’t always notice the termites chewing away at the beams in your basement.

That’s another way of saying, when you’re obsessed with the latest episodes of King Don Un’s reality show up in D.C., you sometimes forget to pay attention to what’s happening in your old home town. Specifically, what’s going on with the Memphis City Council and with certain members who are running for other offices to be decided in the upcoming August 2nd election.

I’m generally in favor of term limits, as are most local voters, judging from the fact that they’ve voted in two-term limits for most county offices and for the Shelby County Commission and, in 2008, voted by a three-to-one margin to limit the Memphis City Council to two terms. In that same election, Memphians voted by a similar margin to institute Instant Runoff Voting, which allows voters to rank their choices and by so doing, eliminate expensive runoff elections.

One perhaps unforseen result of term limits has been the ongoing recycling of various office-holders from one county job to another. Term-limited out of the county clerk’s office? Just run for county assessor or Juvenile Court clerk or trustee or register of deeds. Anyone can register a deed, right? The roles change, but the cast of characters remains the same. It’s a hassle to have to find a new public office to run for every eight years. Such a drag.

This year, three city council members — Edmund Ford, Bill Morrison, and Janis Fullilove — are candidates for the county commission, Probate Court clerk, and Juvenile Court clerk, respectively. If any or all of the three wins their prospective new offices, a pivotal question arises: How long will they will hold on to their council seats before resigning them? By law, they can wait 90 days. If they do, it complicates an already complicated matter.

Memphis City Ordinance #1852 reads, “on any vacancy occurring in the Council … a successor shall be elected to fill out the remainder of the term. … That special municipal election shall be held on the date of the next August or November election.” If any these council members are elected to another office on August 2nd and hold onto their council seat for 90 days, a November election for those seats becomes nearly impossible.

Further muddying the water is the fact that city council Chairman Berlin Boyd and council Attorney Allan Wade have cited an as-yet-unseen (and perhaps nonexistent?) legal memo that states that the next council election can’t be held until next August. If that decision prevails, then any vacant council seats would be filled via appointment by the current council, thereby depriving those represented by said councilmembers the right to decide who represents them.

The sad fact is, this city council seems quite willing to ignore the will of Memphis voters. In January, council members voted to put a referendum on the November ballot to allow voters to give them three terms instead of two. They have also managed to avoid implementing the Instant Runoff System approved by city voters in 2008 and have put a couple of confusing IRV referendums on the November ballot to thwart or reverse that decision.

Bottom line, if the council gets its way: Citizens in the three possibly affected districts won’t get to vote on who represents them for more than a year. But, as a consolation prize, this November, we will all get a chance to give them three terms instead of two. Tough call.

Frankly, I think it’s time we go to the basement and check the beams. Something’s chewing away down there.

Editor’s note: The house pictured on last week’s cover was not the house being objected to by the Cooper-Young couple quoted in the cover story. Thanks to gracious home-owner Monica Braun, who pointed out the possibly misleading image.