Tag: MLGW

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

CREDIT: Tonya Smith, WMC-TV Marketing Dept.

Taking Back Our Neighborhoods

Thank you for the coverage of Action News 5’s “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” initiative (Fly on the Wall, April 19th issue). This is an effort to broadcast strategies that help reduce crime in the neighborhoods of Memphis and the Mid-South. We’re also telling stories generated by our viewers, including the report about the tent at Preston and Waldorf where 50 burglaries took place in a one-mile radius in the 30 days before our televised report on April 4th.

Action News 5’s top brass meets weekly with our new general manager Lee Meredith to talk about solution-oriented crime-fighting stories. I personally research and report the stories you see each Wednesday night on the 10 o’clock broadcast. My colleagues report other “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” stories as we learn of them throughout the week. In addition, we presented the first of our quarterly “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” town-hall meetings on April 10th at Rhodes College.

I am also sending a new photo taken last week. I appreciate the circa-1991 photograph you ran in the Flyer, but as you’ll note, I have made it to the barber’s chair since that snapshot. Joe Birch, WMC Channel 5

Memphis

MLGW

We also had a post-dated bill from MLGW (Letters, April 12th issue). We manage a few rental properties in Midtown. Our monthly MLGW water bill is usually less than $120. Last fall, we received a water bill from MLGW for $1,300! We pay our bills every month on time, so how could this have happened? MLGW said they did not bill us enough for the water our tenants used in the past, so here is a new bill, and if we didn’t pay, they would cut off MLGW services to our tenants. MLGW representatives said you don’t get to dispute the bill, just pay up!

MLGW is absolutely the worst run company in Memphis. Period.

Terron Perk

Memphis

Gibbons Responds

I was surprised and disappointed at the Flyer‘s editorial (April 12th issue) on the state criminal case against Dale Mardis for the killing of Mickey Wright. The editorial was filled with false assumptions and misinformation.

We based our decision on 1) the evidence available to us and 2) state law. Based on the evidence and state law, we could not ethically proceed with a trial for first-degree murder because we could not prove Mardis’ act was premeditated. Had we gone to trial, we would have sought conviction for second-degree murder, which was in fact the disposition of the case. Simply put, the case was resolved in accordance with the proof and the applicable law. In return for Mardis’ guilty plea, we avoided any appeals and the possibility at trial of a verdict for a lesser offense such as voluntary manslaughter or even acquittal.

The editorial states that Mardis was a known racist. Key witnesses in the case would have been Mardis’ African-American business partners. The editorial states that Mardis made explicit threats against Wright. There is no clear indication of that. The editorial assumes a certain sequence of events after Wright was killed. There is no evidence to support this assumption. The editorial states that “unquestionably” the prosecution knew “all the unsavory details” regarding the mutilation of Wright’s corpse. This is not correct. We obtained these details in return for Mardis’ guilty plea.

The editorial states that our no-plea-bargaining policy states that we will “never, never ever — so help us, God — entertain a plea bargain in the case of a capital crime.” In fact, the policy states that we will always reduce or dismiss a case covered by the policy when factual and/or ethical circumstances obligate us to do so. That is exactly what occurred in the Mardis case.

The editorial implies that no prior consultation with Wright’s family occurred. That is not correct. The family did not agree with our conclusions as to our obligations. I understand their frustrations. It is frustrating to us as well — admittedly at a different level — when we cannot proceed as we had hoped. We will continue to make our decisions based on the evidence and the law, without regard to whether or not those decisions are popular.

William L. Gibbons

District Attorney General

Editor’s note: See “Victims: Wrights?” for more on this story and a response from Mickey Wright’s family.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

A Marshall Plan

Though Memphians at large have not yet had an opportunity to peruse the contents of the so-called Marshall Report commissioned by City Council chairman Tom Marshall and other city-government officials at the onset of the still-raging MLGW scandal, the chairman promises that its details will shortly be posted on the council’s Web site for all to see.

Meanwhile, Marshall took advantage of a speaking opportunity downtown at a Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday to offer not only a sneak preview of that report (one bottom line: utility president Joseph Lee should be ousted for specific transgressions) but a prospectus for revising the way city government is organized. As Marshall made clear on Tuesday, city government is badly in need of some restructuring.

“I believe that morality is standing very low,” Marshall said, by way of assessing the moment. He cited some of the issues: incidences of corruption that have resulted, he says, in “ongoing investigation” by various organs of law enforcement; confusion as to the roles that various officials should be playing; a vague sense of ethical obligations in city government; and a need for redistributing authority.

“We have no authority for policing ourselves,” Marshall said, reminding his audience of a recent vote to suspend or expel two council members after their indictment on corruption charges. That effort was thwarted when the two council members themselves were allowed to vote on the issue — a glaring impropriety for which no legal prohibition seemed to exist.

What is needed, in any case, is an “authority beyond ourselves,” an ethics review board, to be composed of retired judges or some other such impeccable and disinterested group of arbiters.

There needs to be a new “master plan,” the chairman said, to oversee zoning issues. Marshall recalled that after the Gray’s Creek plan for suburban expansion in the greater Cordova area was adopted in the mid-’90s, it was promptly overruled in four consecutive majority votes in cases before the council. A reconstructed master plan should require a two-thirds majority to revise or rescind such a covenant, Marshall said.

Another need was for a redefinition of lines of authority. These, the chairman concluded, were embarrassingly vague as spelled out in the current charter. Marshall noted that when members of the new city Charter Commission asked for guidance in the matter, “we couldn’t even tell them what the current charter said.”

Another recommended change involved altering the “strong mayor” formula that now governs important city issues. In particular, Marshall reminded his listeners of contractual problems both with MLGW and with the “garage-gate” aspect of FedExForum’s construction. Marshall’s proposed remedy? Reassigning all contractual authority from the mayor’s office, where it currently resides, to the City Council.

These are not necessarily the only changes that should be considered by the currently sitting Charter Commission, but they belong on that body’s agenda as matters to be considered. Chairman Marshall is to be commended for having thought through some of these problems in so specific a manner.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Black, White, and Red

Last week, I was surprised to hear Councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware say she was embarrassed by the way the City Council was acting. Actually, I was surprised to hear her say that she was a member of an honorable body, too, but that she was embarrassed about it was the real shocker.

Why? Well, it was her reasoning. Ware wasn’t embarrassed about members of the council being indicted on federal bribery charges or a very public investigation into one council member’s $16,000 delinquent utility bill. She was embarrassed that members of the council were still concerning themselves with the employment of beleaguered Memphis Light, Gas and Water president Joseph Lee.

Naturally. It’s not like MLGW is a city division or anything and that the council might have an interest in how it is operating.

In a heated committee meeting last week that split along racial lines, the council once again talked about what it could, and should, do about Lee. At issue were two proposals: a resolution by Carol Chumney accepting Lee’s March 1st letter of resignation and one put forth by Jack Sammons asking Lee to resign.

But in reality, everything seemed to be at issue.

Brent Taylor told Chumney he might agree with her resolution, but he didn’t like the way she presented it. She responded tartly, “If I’m out of order, so be it.”

Ware reminded council chair Tom Marshall that he asked for the independent investigation into MLGW’s special treatment of Edmund Ford, not the full council.

Dedrick Brittenum told Marshall that the proposals were being handled in the wrong committee.

Joe Brown told Chumney, a popular mayoral candidate, that she was using her council position for political gain.

“You can’t use your elected office to promote yourself. You’re in a gray area, and at times, you do violate that gray area,” he said. “You can’t even have the staff send out faxes about ‘Coffee with Carol.'”

And that was all before things got really ugly.

Ford, looking throughout the meeting like the cat who ate the canary, said to Marshall, “I don’t have a prejudice bone in my body, but I know you do” before making a reference to white sheets and saying he was going to draft a resolution to remove Marshall from his position as chair.

“It’s a personal issue. It’s a black and white issue,” said Ford. “I don’t know what you’ve been promised, but I want you to leave me alone. I’m not the one.”

And, in a typically long-winded speech, Brown said that the council discussion was setting race relations in Memphis back 50 years. He referenced the recent sentencing of Dale Mardis, the white car-lot owner who pleaded no contest to second-degree manslaughter for killing black code-enforcement officer Mickey Wright. When Mardis was sentenced to 15 years, family and friends of Wright were outraged.

“There’s something coming,” said Brown. “We wouldn’t want a civil disturbance.”

And people wonder why Memphis has a hard time keeping up with its sister cities. This isn’t a time to see black and white; if anything, it’s a time to see red.

The issue is possible malfeasance and a lack of public trust in the utility’s leadership, not race. But by making it a question of color, the council continues to damage its own credibility.

And for what purpose?

To remove Lee, the council would have to draft charges against him and essentially hold court proceedings to establish cause. Even then, however, there is no certainty that it is within the council’s authority to fire Lee.

The council approves the mayor’s appointees; it doesn’t generally remove them.

But in the monthlong brouhaha that surrounded the scandal, there simply wasn’t enough political will to even try to fire Lee, leaving the council in a surreal tug-of-war last week between asking a man who has already resigned to resign or accepting a resignation that isn’t the council’s to accept.

When it came right down to it, neither resolution passed in full council. Lee is still working at MLGW, the council never resolved anything, and the city stuck debating between what’s black and white and what’s right and wrong.

And to me, that’s just downright embarrassing.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Guns and Disasters

Regarding the “Cheat Sheet” (April 5th issue): While I would agree in theory with the premise that law enforcement officers would have better things to do than confiscate the guns of law-abiding citizens during the aftermath of an emergency or natural disaster, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that some in law enforcement thought otherwise.

I’m not sure a Tennessee state law will be any more useful in protecting our rights than the Bill of Rights was for those in New Orleans. However, I’m a proponent of the measure anyway. I’m certainly an advocate of revealing the abuse of power by any level of our government. And, if nothing else, this measure has brought renewed attention to some of those abuses.

Tracy Addison

Memphis

An MLGW Experience

My husband and I received a letter from MLGW saying that over the course of 2005-2006 we weren’t charged properly for gas due to a meter malfunction. It took MLGW over a year to figure out its mistake, and they have now issued us a bill for over $500 for “back charges” and kindly said that payment arrangements can be made.

What is the proof of these charges? They sent us a nice spreadsheet that we could have recreated. Why, after a year of inconsistent billing, are they just now telling us we owe them? Does it really take that long to catch such a critical error? Does the city think we have that kind of money just lying around?

Why do so many get perks while we have to pay for a year of MLGW’s mistakes? I think this is an unfair practice, and I do not think we should owe back charges of any kind. My husband and I plan to contact MLGW and not only dispute these extra charges but demand proof that we even owe them in the first place. I am curious as to how many other Flyer readers have experienced this problem.

Farrar Lindner

Lakeland

Editor’s note: If you have experienced similar problems with MLGW, please let us know.

Food vs. Cigarettes

Is it right that food pantries go bare because Tennessee’s food tax is so high? Absolutely not!

Is it right that while Tennesseans pay 8.35 percent tax on groceries, the tax on cigarettes is only 20 cents per pack? No way!

Tennessee’s current tax system places unfair burdens on the backs of our state’s most vulnerable while giving smokers the benefit of a low tax. This is not just. We must reduce the burden of heavy taxation on food and increase the tax on cigarettes.

Governor Bredesen proposes to raise the cigarette tax in order to increase the budget for education. We suggest that increased spending on education will not improve the success of our state’s children if they are not receiving adequate nutrition at home. Sadly, some families have to make the hard choice of which groceries to buy because high taxation eats away at their critical buying power.

Current bills in both the state Senate and House of Representatives propose a food tax/cigarette tax swap. SB 93 and HB 114 propose to decrease the food tax by 3 percent and increase the cigarette tax by 40 cents per pack. Contact your legislators and tell them you support these bills.

Emily Orten, Erica Thomas,
Sherika Goodman

Memphis

The volunteer state

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 15th-21st, I am writing to urge more people to do as I have done and volunteer at animal shelters. Though it can be dirty cleaning cages and scrubbing runs, it is very rewarding not only to help cash-strapped nonprofit shelters but also to see the animals in their care heal, begin to trust, and blossom.

How much joy I’ve gotten fostering kittens, grooming those whose coats need attention, and socializing the very fearful ones who have less chance of finding a home. Those who love animals are sorely needed no matter your skill level. Come help out!

Cheryl M. Dare

Memphis

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Just before the U of M plays Ohio State for a trip to the Final Four, one of the Tiger players brags to reporters that this will be a David vs. Goliath matchup, and he is Goliath. Unfortunately, Goliath lost that particular battle, and so did Memphis.

Foul trouble and inconsistent shooting led to a final score of 92-76. And what really stings the most: the Tigers losing to a team named after what Webster calls “a large nutlike seed.” That’s just not right.

Police pull over Greg Cravens

a driver because a house door sticking out of his trunk seems mighty suspicious. And sure enough, they discover that a burglar has broken into a nearby house and has stolen the door to the laundry room. Was that really the only thing in the whole house worth stealing? The door thief is also charged with public intoxication, but you saw that coming, didn’t you?

More senseless crimes: Armed robbers hold up a Hamilton High student walking to school and take the $2 he had in his pockets before conking him on the head with their gun. When will this madness stop?

Four firemen get a shock (literally) while fighting a house fire when it turns out the electricity is still on in the house, even though they switched off the meter. A fire department official later says the building “had an unusual wiring system.” And we’re sure the homeowner will enjoy explaining just how unusual when he meets with MLGW about his bill.

Speaking of MLGW, The Commercial Appeal reports that the utility cut off power to one of its own employees, whose wife was being treated for brain cancer. Meanwhile, a city councilman who owes the utility thousands of dollars in delinquent fees keeps his power on. Stories like these make us feel better and better about our “hometown utility” every day.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q&A: Denise Parkinson, City Council candidate

If the core can learn from the edge — as business leader and public intellectual John Seely Brown attests — grassroots activist Denise Parkinson may be just the educator for the Memphis City Council.

One of the founders of the Save Libertyland! and a former mayoral candidate in Little Rock, Arkansas, Parkinson officially launched her campaign for the City Council’s District 5 seat last week against Jim Strickland. Carol Chumney currently holds the District 5 position but will vacate to run for city mayor. — by Preston Lauterbach

Flyer: What influenced your decision to run?

Parkinson: Memphis Light, Gas and Water, the Riverfront Development Corporation, and the Mid-South Fair. If you connect those dots, then you realize that there are shadowy, quasi-governmental non-profits that are systematically looting the system. It’s time for a change in the status quo.

It also has to do with seeing the skyline, the unique architecture of Memphis, being destroyed. I call it “government by demolition.”


What would you change?

For one thing, I would do everything I could to not set the precedent of paving over and bulldozing historic parks. I would do all I could to reopen the historic properties the city has closed. The Magevney House and the Mallory-Neely House have been closed for two, going on three years.

I want to make the city more family friendly, more kid friendly, and beef up our tourism. We’ve lost the way. We can unite the cultural and natural heritage of Memphis and make Memphis a destination again. When I was growing up in Arkansas, if you wanted to see a real city, you came to Memphis. That’s not the case anymore.

Are you running as a Democrat?

[Sighs] I suppose. What choice do I have? I think that when a City Council is abandoning the system of checks and balances and shirking their responsibility and being a rubber stamp for the mayor, [party affiliation] doesn’t matter.

Is there anyone in local politics that you look up to?

[Save Libertyland! member and County Commissioner] Steve Mulroy and Carol Chumney are two people with democratic principles that I would call my role models.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

The MLGW Cover

Getting to the supermarket, DVD store, or Peanut Shoppe to get my copy of the Flyer is a weekly priority. Seeing the cover of the March 8th issue? Priceless!

S.G. Long

Memphis

Edmund Ford

City councilman Edmund Ford, awaiting trial on numerous charges brought forth by the FBI — not to mention his MLGW problems — berated every city councilperson and the media in a committee meeting two weeks ago (“Power Play,” March 8th issue). He pointed fingers and threatened some by name. And like a kennel of whipped puppies, they were laid to rest by the “undertaker.”

Ford says the MLGW charges are false and the bills are not entirely his. So what is the connection between Willie Herenton, Joe Lee, and Edmund Ford? Try this on for size: When Herenton nominated Lee to be president of MLGW, Ford praised him for his choice. And why shouldn’t he? According to his own statements, Ford is the one who married Joe Lee to his wife Mona!

Joe Mercer

Memphis

Let Them Eat a Stadium?

In 1789, a crowd of poor women marched into the Palace of Versailles and tried to petition their king for a fairer form of government. They were shouting that they had no bread and were hungry. To this, Marie Antoinette famously replied: “Let them eat cake.”

This is similar to the issue of a new football stadium raised by Mayor Herenton. Instead of educating our children or hiring enough probation officers to monitor sex offenders or dealing with our many other problems, we are told to “eat cake,” in the form of a new football stadium.

Frank M. Boone

Memphis

General Pace

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Peter Pace recently offered his opinion that homosexuality was “immoral.” I would first like to thank him for at least being honest and clear about his beliefs. However, I am one of the millions of “immoral” individuals he has insulted. I will not try to explain the natural connections and the human emotions involved. It is said best in biblical terms: After God created the earth and looked at what he had done, he saw that it was good. He said nothing about perfect.

So let us no longer pass judgment on one another but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. You are okay; I am okay — which means we’re both okay.

Gregory Vassar

Memphis

Agrees With Blackburn

I have finally found something about which I agree with my congresswoman. Representative Marsha Blackburn is right on when she targets banks that issue credit cards to those who are in our country illegally. This is a serious example of American business interests being put above our national security.

I encourage Congress to adopt Blackburn’s idea and make it the law of the land. I also encourage Blackburn to review her support for all those bank and credit-card fees and the sky-high interest rates banks have been allowed to charge. 

Only the payday loan companies are allowed to charge higher rates, and they have been like sharks in targeting our stressed military families. The last Congress passed some relief but not enough to provide help to those who are sacrificing the most.

Jack Bishop

Cordova

Playhouse Kudos

I’m a young actor, and I made my first trip to Memphis for the Southeast Theatre Conference auditions. Playhouse on the Square was the host, and I had the chance to see its production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Whatever that theater is doing, it is doing right! The actors were top-notch, and the production values exquisite. Who needs to pay the prices of Broadway, when great theater is happening right there in Memphis!

Charles Milton

Watertown, Massachusetts

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: dreamstime.com | Alexandr Labetskiy

Okay, it is the first Monday morning of this thing called Daylight Savings Time, which means I just lost an hour

of precious sleeping time, and I can’t help but think this has corporate greed writ-ten all over it. I’m not sure exactly how, but I know it must. Why on earth else would it be happening? Somehow,
I get the feeling that people in Texas are responsible for this, and that makes it even worse. To think that my life is being controlled by Texas sends shivers up my spine. Or worse yet, it could be Florida. Well, I am revolting (save it, save it). Or at least I would like to revolt. Whatever happened to the spirit of people revolting? Isn’t that how this country was formed, despite the way it has turned out? Wasn’t that what the American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party were all about? What has happened to everyone? I’m not talking about rioting or burning buildings or any other kind of violence, but why should we sit back and take marching orders from people just because they issue them? I was going to stay out of the Memphis Light, Gas and Water fray, just because it seems like such a mundane thing to complain about at this point and just writing or saying something would do no good, but now it is to the point of either paying my house note or having hot water and lights. Yep, I live on the “edge” of a very nice neighborhood, so, of course, I am being totally screwed like so many other people. So my question is, what would happen if everyone who owes MLGW money just simply didn’t pay it for a couple of months? Would they cut off the power of everyone in the city, save for the chosen few on their list of people not to cut off? Do they have the manpower to cancel the utilities of 800,000 people or thereabouts at one time? At least if they did, we would all be in the dark together and they might rethink their billing process. Oh, and speaking of which, have you noticed how they change the monthly billing date at their leisure? For years, mine was during the third week of the month, after the 15th of the month paycheck. Now it comes before that so they can collect a late fee if it’s not paid until after the 15th. I assume this is the case for some of the rest of you. I, for one, would be willing to join in a citywide revolt and not pay and just let them see what happens. Short of that, I want MLGW to call me and let me know when the meter reader will be on site so I can be there to witness it. I want to know how a 1,500-square-foot house with no dishwasher, one resident who is home only at night, and a thermostat that has never once been set over 62 degrees all winter could possibly generate $500 in power in one month. Are my cats turning on the lights during the daytime while I’m at work? (Well, that wouldn’t really surprise me, since they managed to open a window and tear the screen off of it just to sit three feet away from it wondering how to get back in.) I want an explanation, and I want it now. And while we are at it, the ol’ income tax filing time is right around the corner again. I have never been one of those people who thinks taxes are evil in every way, but if the government is going to take money out of my hard-earned income, why shouldn’t I have some say in how it is spent, like when a donor specifies to which charity his or her money goes and how it is allocated. Is one penny of my income tax going to pay the salary of Dick Cheney? Is it helping pay for all of the FEMA trailers to sit unused while people are still living on the Gulf Coast in tents? Does my income tax help make it possible for Condoleezza Rice to have her helmet hair styled? Does it help fund the debate about whether or not our soldiers must be trained and provided with necessary equipment before being sent into battle in a dangerous war that no one evens knows why we’re in? (I almost fell off of the sofa when I heard that there was actual argument about the proper training and equipment.) Because if the portion of my income Uncle Sam is taking from me is actually helping pay for any of that, then I am going to sue someone. I might just be the first person in the United States to hire a lawyer and sue George Bush and Dick Cheney on the grounds of causing me undue emotional stress for being forced against my will to fund the murder of people. Not to mention Condi’s hair. Talk about a crime against humanity.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

A bird’s nest in a Memphis Light, Gas & Water substation somehow causes a short circuit that not only cuts power to several thousand homes in Midtown but turns off traffic signals, too. Any day now, we expect to hear that our power has been cut off because the hamsters stopped running around in their little wheels.

We suppose this could only happen Greg Cravens

in Memphis. A man arrested for armed robbery is allowed to attend his trial while wearing an Eddie Bauer shopping bag over his head. His attorney, as we understand it, thought this would give his client a better chance in court, since the victim of the crime could not identify him. Look, we know all about that “innocent until proven guilty” thing, but if the guy were truly innocent, why would he put a bag over his head? And how do the folks at Eddie Bauer feel about the whole thing? Flattered?

Someone slings paint across a billboard on Madison for Black Snake Moan. It seems everybody is a critic these days. But what kind of vandal uses beige paint? Did they just have some left over after painting their den? The billboard, by the way, was quickly replaced.

The University of Memphis Tigers win the Conference USA tournament with convincing victories over their opponents. Congratulations to Coach Cal and his team. Now, maybe some of that luck will rub off on that other basketball team in town. Maybe.

Categories
Cover Feature News

From Rotan Lee to Joseph Lee

By John Branston

January 1997: Willie Herenton appoints Herman Morris, who is then MLGW general counsel, to be interim president of MLGW.

June-August 1997: Rotan Lee, a utility consultant from Philadelphia (and no relation to Joseph Lee), introduces himself to Morris and Herenton. His brief contact with Morris doesn’t lead to anything. Lee goes to Herenton and signs a $150,000 contract as a consultant. Morris gets the president’s job officially.

August 1997: The Flyer, which broke the story about the possible sale of MLGW, reports details of the proposal from interviews with Herenton, Lee, and Allen Morgan Jr. of Morgan Keegan. They suggest a sale could fetch $800 million and make the city debt-free while lowering property taxes.

December 1997: The Flyer reports that MLGW sends out 3,000 cut-off notices per day and that there are about 400 cut-offs each day. Over one-fifth of MLGW customers are more than 30 days past due on their bills. The 1,900-member IBEW union and MLGW management oppose privatization.

Summer 1998: After meetings draw scant interest, Rotan Lee and Herenton drop plans for privatizing MLGW.

October 1999: Herenton is reelected for a third term, defeating several opponents, including city councilman Joe Ford. Ford’s brother Edmund is elected to the City Council, setting the stage for a seven-year saga of cut-off notices and careful treatment of Edmund Ford’s chronically overdue MLGW bills.

January 2001: MLGW’s board adopts, without discussion or publicity, a severance policy for Morris and other executives that collectively could pay them over $1 million if they “voluntarily” retire.

March 2002: A letter to Morris from CA editor Angus McEachran triggers the creation of a VIP list of influential Memphians and Morris relatives “who require my personal awareness, attention, or staff intervention when they have problems.” In an e-mail, Morris says the McEachran matter “could set editorial policy toward MLGW for years and must be handled with touch.” Apparently unknown to them, four CA editors and executives make the VIP list, which does not become public for five more years.

May 2002: Herenton, who makes $140,000, recommends a $231,000 salary for Morris after MLGW officials say that is what chief executives at 16 comparable utilities make. Morris gets a raise to $184,000 instead. His five-year term expires, but he continues to serve.

July 2003: A powerful windstorm roars through Memphis and does more than $100 million in damage. Herenton goes to Little Rock for a fund-raiser two days later. Morris and MLGW are criticized for their storm response and unwillingness to accept help from certain utilities.

August 2003: In a memo, Herenton suggests Morris give more business to local and minority firms on a $1.5 billion TVA bond deal.

October 2003: Herenton easily defeats Shelby County commissioner John Willingham and wins a fourth consecutive term as mayor.

November 2003: The Flyer reports that after the City Council balked at its rate-increase request, MLGW and Morris ignored Herenton and took their case directly to the public in full-page ads and opinion columns in the CA.

December 2003: Herenton calls MLGW “an island unto itself” and says it is wasteful and inaccessible. The utility’s souvenir bobblehead doll of Morris, the mayor says, is “self-aggrandizing advertising.” Board member James Netters, who is Herenton’s pastor, tells the Flyer that Herenton does not communicate what he wants to the board. Herenton proposes that city finance director Joseph Lee replace Morris, whose term has expired, but the council asks for a national search instead.

January 2004: Morris is succeeded by Netters, who serves as interim president for six months, earning approximately $95,000.

January 2004: The City Council and the CA call for an investigation of Herenton and the TVA bond deal. Eleven months later, although the council has done nothing, the CA publishes an editorial headlined “Council Probe Has Potential.”

January 2004: The Flyer reports details of Morris’ proposed severance package which, by Herenton’s calculations, totals $1,171,286 in severance, accumulated pension contributions, vacation, sick leave, and “storm restoration pay.” Herenton balks at the “vulgar” proposal. The CA ignores the Morris proposal and reports that “Morris bows out with $205,000.” By the Flyer‘s calculations, the actual final figure is closer to $500,000.

June 2004: Lee is renominated by Herenton and approved this time by the City Council. A new five-member board is also installed, chaired by Herenton’s former CAO Rick Masson.

2006-07: Lee orders subordinates not to cut off power to Edmund Ford. In February 2007, a federal grand jury orders Lee to appear to answer questions about the matter.

February 2007: A day after other media report the VIP memo, the CA publishes a story in which McEachran says he did nothing improper in contacting Morris, worked out a seven-year repayment plan for $10,000 owed to MLGW because of the utility’s meter and billing errors, and got no special treatment.