Tag: Politics

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Politics Politics Feature

While Giving Them Heck in Iowa, Romney Gives Memphis a Nod.

CREDIT: jb

Numerous observers of the current presidential campaign have noticed what might
politely be called a political evolution on the part of former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney. Known as something of a moderate when he served as that New England state’s chief executive – among other things, he promoted a
universal health-care plan and acquiesced in civil-union status for gay couples
-Romney now runs as a bedrock conservative.

On the eve of the first actual vote in Iowa, whose crucial
caucuses are being held on Thursday evening, Romney has adopted – shades of
Richard Nixon — what might even be called a “Southern strategy.” Undoubtedly
mindful of a serious recent challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike
Huckabee to his once unchallenged lead in this Midwestern state, Romney has been
unloading down-home rhetoric on his audiences with both barrels.

Take this Wednesday night appeal, made to a sizeable crowd
at the Hy-Vee corporate conference center in West Des Moines: “The first time it
mattered where I came from in this political season was in Memphis, Tennessee.
And someone, thankfully, had made up T-shirts for me and for my supporters
there. And they say: ‘Yankee Governor’ – that’s not a good start in Memphis —
and down below it said “Southern Values.’

“And as I asked people what they meant by Southern values,
you know what they mean by Southern values. Again: Love of family , love of God
and love of country, and love of hard work, love of opportunity. And so I said,
yeah, I got Southern values. And then you come out here. Those are heartland
values. That’s what you call them here.”

Although Romney focused somewhat on his managerial
background – he touted his organization of the Utah winter Olympics in 2002 and
had gold-medal skater Dan Jansen on hand for the occasion – he weighed in most
heavily with some serious patriotic fustian.

Disdaining Democrat John Edwards’ refrain of “two
Americas,” Romney scoffed, “We are one America. We are a nation united that
stand behind our fighting men.” And, perhaps looking beyond Iowa to his next
major challenge next week in New Hampshire, where a resurgent John McCain, a
supporter of the war effort in Iraq, is his major worry, Romney laid it on this
way: “We also love our president, who has kept us safe these last six years.”

One of the attendees at the Romney event was longtime
political consultant Mike Murphy, a former McCain aide who also worked in the
unsuccessful 1996 presidential campaign of Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander. “I’m
just a tourist here this time,” said Murphy, citing multiple allegiances to
various candidates in the field. But he pointedly noted McCain’s recent revival
as a serious presidential prospect, saying that the Arizona senator and Vietnam
war hero might even finish third in Iowa, a state he had once written off.

Former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson had a ghost of a
chance, but only if he and not McCain finished third behind Huckabee and Romney.
“Or maybe if he finishes a strong fourth — only, say, 500 votes behind.” But
Murphy acknowledged, “Fred doesn’t seem to have been that strong a candidate.”

Musing further, he noted that the recent skein of
Tennesseans with presidential hopes – “all potentially strong candidates” – that
included on the Republican side former senator Howard Baker, Alexander, and now
Thompson seemed all to have misfired because of “bad timing.”

Thompson was working the state hard on the eve of the vote,
though, conducting a series of Meet and Greet events. He had to compete for
audience attention not only with such heavyweight Republicans as Romney, McCain,
and Huckabee, but with the Big Three Democrats – Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and
Barack Obama, who had well-attended overlapping events in the Des Moines area
Wednesday night

Most of the field – Republicans and Democrats – will be at
it again on Thursday, making their final appeals across the state. The weather
appears to be cooperating. Although forecasts indicate continued cold
temperatures, they also call for sunny skies.

(Flyer political editor Jackson Baker will be
reporting regularly from Iowa and New Hampshire for the next few days.)

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

A Conciliatory Mayor Herenton and His New Council Take the Oath

CREDIT: courtesy WMC-TV

Despite advance forecasts on CNN that Memphis would be in
for severe weather on Monday, such was not the case. They probably should have
checked with our mayor. The weather outside was mild and sunny, as was the
weather inside at the Cannon Center, where Willie Herenton, flanked by his
doting 86-year-old mother, took the oath of office for a fifth time and said, “I
pledge to you to start afresh.”

That meant dispensing with “old baggage,” Herenton said, after sounding a note
that was both Lincolnian and Biblical: “Somewhere I read, ‘A city – or a house –
divided against itself cannot stand.’ God help us all.”

The reference to the Almighty was anything but perfunctory. It was vintage
turn-of-the-year Herenton. As he had on previous New Year’s occasions, the mayor
left no doubt about the nature of his political sanction. “God always chooses
the individuals to lead His people,” he said, and vowed, “Here am I. Send me,
Lord.”

Tinged as that was with the grandiosity of yesteryear, it was, in context, good
enough for new council chairman Scott McCormick, who, in follow-up remarks, said
a thank-you to God himself, and responded in kind to the moderate portions of
the mayor’s address. “He now has an approachable council,” said McCormick. “The
roots of mistrust are behind us.”

And, who knows, it may be true. After all, as McCormick noted, it was a new
council, with nine new members out of the 13, and, of the four remaining, none
were among those who had made a point of tangling with the mayor.

There were omens of another sort, of course – for those who wanted to look for
them. There were, for example, ambiguous words from Shelby County Mayor A C
Wharton, who was drafted from the audience by moderator Mearl Purvis to formally
introduce Herenton.

Buried in the middle of Wharton’s otherwise friendly and flattering sentiments
(from “your country cousin,” as the county mayor styled himself) was this sentiment addressed both to Herenton and to the audience at large: “The last time I checked, Midtown was in
Shelby County, Boxtown was in Shelby County, Memphis was in Shelby
County….”

Whatever the meta-message of that, it had the sound of simple friendly teasing.

And there was another vaguely suggestive verbal thread. In each of the oaths
taken by Herenton, by the 13 council members, and by city court clerk Thomas
Long was an archaic-sounding passage pledging that the sayer would “faithfully
demean myself” in accordance with the proprieties and “in office will not become
interested, directly or indirectly” in any proposition which could lead to
personal profit.

All well and good, but, applying that first verb in its current lay sense, too
many members of the former council had been charged in court with conduct that
society – and the lawbooks – might regard as “demeaning,” and too many had
developed a personal “interest” in the issues they were asked to vote on.

Still, it is a new council, it’s a new year, and it’s certainly a good
time to “start afresh,” as Mayor Herenton said. So go ahead: Hold your breath.

And, hey, for what it’s worth, the temperature did drop down into the 30’s a scant few hours after the swearing-in.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: Odds and Ends from 2007

Most Unlikely Sanctification Rite: the ceremony of praise heaped by various legal authorities on Darrell Catron, whose felonious behavior while serving as an aide in the Juvenile Court clerk’s office some years back led to a cascade of further criminal activity and to the wreckage of several careers.

Catron, who got his walking papers at year’s end via an 18-month probation, was credited with having helped the feds haul in a passel of other predators on the public purse and, indeed, with making the entire Tennessee Waltz sting possible.

Catron’s prize: a Golden Stool. (Well, okay, it may look like gold, but it doesn’t smell like it.)

Most Unexpected Appellation: the term “maverick” used as a descriptor for county commissioner Steve Mulroy in a December Commercial Appeal profile.

That was something of an eyebrow-raiser, given Mulroy’s undeviating party-line votes on commission issues and the U of M law professor’s eloquent and detailed rationales on behalf of the Democratic majority, statements which often have the ring of Supreme Court majority opinions.

Can “maverick” also mean “team player”?

The CA‘s prize: a dictionary of antonyms.

Most Unsurprising Outcome: the reelection victory of Mayor Willie Herenton over two major opponents, City Council member Carol Chumney and former MLGW president Herman Morris.

It was elementary mathematics that Herenton’s base was large enough, after 16 years’ service, to withstand such a divided challenge — especially given the obvious imperfections in the campaigns of Chumney, who never managed to transcend the role of fault-finder, and Morris, who could not escape his dignified cocoon long enough to bond with any sector of the electorate.

Herenton’s prize: Well … you know what the prize is.

Most Promising Outcome: the sea change in the composition of the Memphis City Council, via an election which saw nine newbies chosen to serve along with four veterans at a time when almost everybody foresees a necessary change of course — maybe even in the long-deferred direction of consolidation.

Their prize: celebrity, in exchange for the irreversible surrender of their privacy.

Most Unexpected (and Most Overlooked) Passing of the Baton: the withdrawal from the presidential race of Republican congressman Tom Tancredo (whose candidacy almost no one had noticed) and the subsequent claim by Memphis presidential candidate David F. Diamond (whose candidacy even fewer people had noticed) that Coloradan Tancredo’s downfall had begun with his failure at a nationally televised debate to understand a call-in question from Diamond.

The Memphian had asked: “Do you have a plan to solve the shortage of organs donated for transplant?” Tancredo drew a blank, accusing the questioner of being a mad cloner.

Diamond’s prize: the Tancredo body part of his choice.

Second Most Unexpected Passing of the Baton: the failure thus far of University of Memphis grad/ex-Senator/ex-actor Fred Thompson to make a dent in the presidential race despite the biggest advance ballyhoo of any candidate in recent memory, followed by the rapid rise of ex-Arkansas governor/ex-Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee.

As a sort of consolation prize, sometime abortion-rights lawyer Thompson picked up some key endorsements, of the kind longtime pro-lifer Huckabee might have expected, from various right-to-life organizations. Go figure.

Huckabee’s prize: an Academy Award nomination for his current ability to upstage the rigid fundamentalism of his preacherly past.

Most Unanticipated Reversal of Fortune: the decline of former media cynosure Harold Ford Jr. into relative anonymity, despite ex-Senate candidate Ford’s acquisition during the year of the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Council, a post at Merrill Lynch, and various other perches and perks that should have kept him front and center.

Possible reasons for his back-benching: the absence from the airwaves of disgraced radio/TV host Don Imus, a longtime Ford cheerleader; the advent of 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, whose nonstop media presence has put that of predecessor Ford in the shade.

Ford’s consolation prize: Guess what? Imus is back.

Till we meet again, holiday happily!

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Will Our Long National Nightmare End?

Let the crystal ball drop in Times Square. It’s time to
ring in 2008, the year when the seeds of change are finally in the air. Hang
up your Bush-Out-of-Office Countdown calendars and let the optimism swell! Oh
sure, it’s not a new dawn, a new day, or a new life just yet — we’ve got to
put up with The Decider’s war and destruction for another year, but just
visualizing his farewell smirk as Air Force One, headed for Crawford, waits on
the tarmac makes me want to guzzle the bubbly in anticipation of ringing out
the surrealistic experience of living in America during the reign of Dubya.

Although only seven years, it seems a lifetime has passed
since the Bush coronation of 2001. A foreboding, hard rain fell on that cold,
dark January day. Hundreds, maybe thousands, came to protest, but were
cordoned off, never to be seen. The nation was witnessing the consummate
inside job performed by masterful minions and lackeys of a crafty and corrupt
political family. President Poppy Bush had appointed the Supreme Court
justices to do the selecting. Governor Brother Jebby had made sure the votes
in Florida were certified without being totally counted. And media consultant
cousin Johnny (Ellis), who was responsible for projecting state results for
FOX News on election night, had made sure, after challenging the other
networks to follow suit, that FOX was the first to call Florida a win for his
cuz. The fix was in and the American people had been denied a true and
legitimate leader.

On that fateful Inaugural day, a place called “Murrika”
was born — a landscape where cowboy dictators on a mission from God ride
roughshod over the Constitution on their way to The Apocalypse. Murrika
(alternatively, Ah-Murrika) — a land where might is right and
peacemakers inherit not the earth, but a world of war and poverty. The new
Murrican millennium actually had it origins in Orwell’s 1984, where war
is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

The last seven years of governance have been more
despotic than democratic. Bush, who promised to be a compassionate uniter, has
presided over one of the meanest, most contemptible, and divisive
administrations in history. Among scores of hilariously idiotic massacres of
the English language now known as Bushisms, the President accused Americans of
“misunderestimating” him.

True enough, in 2001 most could not have estimated the
level of arrogance, hypocrisy, and bullheaded certitude that would become the
hallmark of his persona. Certainly, we could not have imagined a President who
would repeatedly display nothing more than utter contempt for the will of the
people. It would have been a challenge to envision the magnitude of miserable
failings both foreign and domestic, which would lead to the ruinous
consequences of an endless war, record numbers dead at home and abroad, a
weakened Constitution, a faltering economy with a devalued currency and
massive, unprecedented debt, and a very ugly reputation as the world’s bully.

But a year from now, an election will have taken place
and the Murrikan alternate universe will be fading away. Although it will be a
monumental task to restore peace and prosperity, there will be no more Shock
and Awe, Axis of Evil, and Gathering Threats. There will be no more Evil
Doers, Cake Walks and Slam Dunks. No more Missions Accomplished, Big
Times and Turdblossoms. And finally — finally! — no more War on Turr and
Nucular presence in the world! America will once again become the nation, not
the homeland. At last, the shameful and embarrassing “I’ll Pretend to Tell
the Truth While You Pretend to Believe Me” regime of George W. Bush will end.

In the immortal words of President Gerald R. Ford, at the
close of another calamitous Republican Presidency, “My fellow Americans, our
long national nightmare is over.” Give or take another 365 days, we can
celebrate the same. Join a campaign, make a difference, and have a Happy New
Year!

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

It’s Secular

The office of the president is a secular office in a secular government. There is not a word in the Constitution that authorizes the president or anyone else in the federal government to make a religious decision.

Why then are both voters and candidates wasting their time talking about religion? The personal religious beliefs of the candidates should be considered irrelevant. Furthermore, people should not forget that there are a lot more professors of religion than practitioners. What a person claims to believe and how that person leads his or her life are often quite different.

Laws are, in the final analysis, words on paper. They cannot and do not control human behavior. If they could, there would be no crimes. Americans, especially politicians, have developed the bad habit of thinking that there ought to be a law to cover every conceivable human action. Consequently, there are so many laws today that no human being can possibly know what they all are. This defeats one of the useful purposes of laws, which is to educate the public.

As for religion, people should recognize that all the world’s religions have failed to eliminate sin, and therefore no one should expect the government to do that. Christianity in particular is based on the twin concepts of sin and forgiveness. Governments are better at finding sin than at forgiving.

Religion has a legitimate role in our society. George Washington said religion is the best way known to instill virtue in masses of people. That is job enough for religion, and religion should stay out of politics as an organization. Religious individuals, of course, have the same rights and duties as any other citizen.

Religion itself has enough problems to solve. Christian Zionists, for example, are a heretical cult without any biblical foundation and with a political agenda. Other Christians have perverted the religion into a weekly course on how to be rich and happy. Christianity, in fact, teaches that it is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Militant Christianity is a contradiction in terms.

If you are trying to find someone actually practicing Christianity, whom would you choose — a preacher with a six-figure salary, a limousine, and a private jet or, say, an actor like Brad Pitt, who has committed $5 million of his own money to build homes for people in New Orleans’ 9th Ward?

In judging human affairs, always look for actions, not words. What a person says tells you nothing reliable; what a person does gives you a better clue as to what kind of a person he or she is. At the same time, don’t forget the dual nature of human beings.

One can find faults with all religions. One should not forget, however, that the same can be said of all secular philosophies, ideologies, and institutions. Nothing human is or ever will be perfect.

As for the presidential candidates, people should be asking not what these people claim to believe about God, but what have they actually done? How do their lives measure up to their speeches? Do they demonstrate a belief in and a concern for the Constitution? Do they have a wide knowledge of the world as it truly is? Are they catering to special interests? Are they independent thinkers or followers?

The presidential race is, after all, a search for a secular leader, not for a pope or ayatollah. The United States is in deep trouble politically, financially, and economically. It will take a smart, sane, and courageous person to get us out. Opportunists and people who sell their souls for campaign contributions may well preside over our national collapse.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

The Same Old Challenge

Don’t look now — on second thought, it’s time for year-end reflections and speculation, so go ahead and look — but the specter of city/county consolidation is back with us. We say “specter” not in any pejorative sense. If anything, the idea of combining some of our

wastefully duplicated governmental functions is more like Casper the Friendly Ghost than it is the Amityville Horror. It’s just that the concept keeps coming and going and getting buried or vaporized, only to rematerialize unexpectedly — a fact that makes us wonder if its latest incarnation is the same old phantasm or something more solid.

Maybe this time the idea will take on real substance. It’s not only that a freshly reelected Mayor Willie Herenton has once again promoted metro government to the head of his agenda. Another reality is that an intergovernmental task force, co-chaired by county commissioner Mike Carpenter and outgoing city councilman Jack Sammons, recently climaxed several months of hearings and investigations by approving, via an eight to five vote, the goal of merging the functions of the Memphis Police Department and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.

This limited or (in the argot of the day) “functional” form of consolidation won’t happen overnight, if at all. Sheriff Mark Luttrell, among other interested parties, is opposed. That’s more than understandable, given that the sheriff has, thanks to a legal ruling by a state court last year, seen the presumed constitutional nature of his position unexpectedly put up for grabs. And the suburban mayors, long jealous of their independence (and yet dependent for both financial and administrative reasons on some larger umbrella authority) are also reluctant. Contrariwise, Memphis police director Larry Godwin, like his boss the mayor, is avid for the idea. For that matter, the issue of reconfiguring a metro drug unit got some traction during last year’s city election campaign. So there is momentum.

Then there is the constant example of Nashville, regarded by residents of the Memphis area either as a sister city or as an archrival or as both. Whichever way it is seen, the city of Nashville has been formally yoked to the rest of Davidson County for decades now in a metropolitan form of government, and it may not be accidental that, during that same period, it has progressed from a backwater state capital roughly half the size of Memphis to a condition of parity and beyond. In terms of economic growth, new business, per capita income, commercial construction, and the like, Nashville is soaring ahead. That hasn’t happened solely as a consequence of consolidation, but it owes something to the simplicity of central planning, the cohesiveness of governmental structures, and the property-tax reductions.

When former Nashville mayor Bill Purcell addressed the Memphis Rotary Club earlier this year, he teasingly affected the persona of an urban rival and said, in effect, keep on doing what you’re doing in Memphis and Shelby County. Stay separate and spare Nashville the competition. Was he joking? Yes. Was he serious? Also yes.

The issue of consolidation will confront us again in 2008. And it will haunt us thereafter until we deal with it.

Categories
Opinion

Best, Worst Ideas of 2007

I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to serve five straight terms as mayor, but 42 percent of the people who voted in October thought otherwise. Underestimating Mayor Willie Herenton’s political base was not a good idea, and neither was relying on polls to tell you to run against him in a three-way.

It was a good idea for seven City Council incumbents to decide not to run again. (Rickey Peete and Edmund Ford had little choice.) Fresh horses and all that, plus the next four years won’t be any picnic if Memphis slides into a recession.

Going to trial against federal prosecutors in public corruption cases was not a good idea. They’re unbeaten. John Ford put up a good fight, but the tapes were devastating and a jury convicted him on one count to get him a 66-month prison sentence, slightly more than the 63 months given to Roscoe Dixon, who also went to trial.

Cooperating with federal prosecutors was a good idea. Second-offender Rickey Peete got 51 months, and Michael Hooks, who held three elected positions in his career, is serving 26 months. Darrell Catron, who kicked off Tennessee Waltz, got probation plus a new house and spending money without, so far, even having to testify in a trial. Ralph Lunati pleaded guilty and got 18 months for running what investigators called the wildest and most wide-open, drug-infested strip clubs in the country.

Building a team for the future was not a good idea. The Grizzlies will be eliminated from playoff contention about the time March Madness begins.

Building a team for the present was a good idea. You can complain about college basketball stars leaving school early for the pros or you can accept the fact and go get them, as Coach John Calipari has done. No one has done a better job than Calipari of making the best of a bad situation — competition, Beale Street clubs, a weak Conference USA schedule, early departures, a resurgent University of Tennessee. Memphis against UT will be the hottest ticket of 2008.

Hanging around until the shit hits the fan was not a good idea. Joseph Lee, a nice guy who got terrible press, would be in a lot less trouble today if he had not stayed so long at MLGW or had never gone over there from City Hall in the first place.

Resigning before the shit hits the fan was a good idea. Andy Dolich, a nice guy who got great press, couldn’t sell out FedExForum for the Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he landed on his feet as chief operating officer for the San Francisco 49ers. And has anyone seen Jerry West or remember why he was the toast of the town? And why didn’t Carol Johnson tell us any of this stuff was going on at the Memphis City Schools before she left for Boston to be superintendent?

More fun downtown, in the form of roller coasters at The Pyramid, is not a good idea. Look at it this way: Nashville has state government and office buildings and corporate headquarters of insurance companies and telecoms, Knoxville has the University of Tennessee, Little Rock has the Capitol and the Clinton library, and the front door of Memphis might be an amusement park in an abandoned landmark?

Less fun and more work downtown is a good idea. If Mud Island is going to be closed more than half the year, then why not let a private developer have a go at it? Closing streets and turning St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and ALSAC into a true campus was another good idea. So was signing a deal to bring the University of Memphis law school downtown to the old Customs House and post office on Front Street.

Monetizing content by selling sponsorships for stories in The Commercial Appeal was not a good idea, unless you’re in the public relations business.

But monetizing content somehow in the Internet age is a good idea, unless you think reporters and editors should work for nothing. And so was the CA‘s decision to admit a mistake and back off before any more damage was done.

Building a new football stadium at the Fairgrounds was a bad idea. The problem is the teams on the field, Conference USA, and the stadium’s shabby surroundings.

Flat screens, high def, and the new no-smoking regs in bars were good ideas. The best seat in the house is at a sports bar or on your couch.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Rethinking Power

On January 1st, nine rookies (including me) and four veterans will be sworn in as Memphis City Council members. It is the largest number of first-termers since the original council in 1968.

Since the November election, the nine of us have been undergoing an extensive educational process on the substance of city government and the procedure of the council. Fulfilling our campaign promises will be more difficult than making them. How well we do depends on our relationships with other council members and the administration and the merits of our positions.

The most interesting area of my education has been the opportunity to review the city charter. Among the things we have learned: The 1966 Home Rule Amendment (HRA) changed much of the 1930s-era charter, but many of the articles of the older charter are still in effect because the newer charter did not revoke them.

Enter Stephen Wirls, a Rhodes College professor who has studied the charters exhaustively and led our review of them. Wirls disputed the widespread public understanding that the charters provide for a “strong mayor” form of government. On the contrary, he opined that, in some ways, the HRA gives more power to the council than the U.S. Constitution gives to Congress.

The HRA provides that the mayor “shall be responsible to the council for the administration of all units of the city government under his jurisdiction and for carrying out policies adopted by the council.” The council “shall have full power [my italics], as now provided, to pass, for the government of the city, any ordinance not in conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States, or the State of Tennessee, within the specific limitations set forth herein below.”

Further, the council has approval power of the appointment and removal of division directors, the president of MLGW, and members of all boards and commissions. The council has the right “to approve and adopt all budgets.”

Of special interest: “[T]he council shall be vested with all other powers of the city not specifically vested in some other officer or officers of the city.” This catch-all provision appears to give the council a great deal of unexpected authority. (One problem: No one on hand for the orientation could identify any “powers of the city not specifically vested” in some other office.)

Just think of the implications of the first proviso quoted above: “The mayor shall be responsible for carrying out policies adopted by the council.” On the face of things, it would appear that the council could adopt “policies,” and the mayor would have to follow them.

Ay, but there’s a rub. “The council shall not, however, exercise executive or administrative powers nor interfere in the operation of the administrative divisions.” On one hand, the HRA gives the City Council the power to set “policies,” but on the other hand, the charter prohibits intrusion into “executive or administrative powers.”

The HRA also gives the mayor the power to contract and prohibits council members from “suggesting or promoting the making of particular … contracts with any specific organization.”

It is not hard to imagine a council’s definition of a “policy” interfering with a mayor’s definition of an “administrative power.” At the orientation, we discussed a scenario whereby the council might pass an ordinance mandating that every public school have a police officer assigned to it full-time. Wirls said he thought that the council had such power but warned that a mayor could dispute it as an intrusion on administrative decision-making.

Many issues may fit into this gray area, and both sides would appear to have a good faith basis for their respective positions. As one of our facilitators suggested, conflict is not so bad if it involves a serious and respectful disagreement as to public policy.

However, such conflict, and the resulting court battle, should be avoided if possible, with the council and the administration working together. The mayor and each member of his administration with whom I have met has expressed the desire to work with the new council.

At this early stage, I do not have an opinion as to the correct interpretation of the charter, but I am optimistic that we can avoid the conflict and come together for the betterment of our city.

Jim Strickland, a lawyer and former Democratic chairman, will represent the city’s 5th District.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Bank Shots

At some point during Monday’s regular public meeting of the Shelby County Commission, one of several petitioners for this or that largesse suggested that what the commission could do for the greater community would be to serve as a bridge over the existing gap between haves and have-nots.

That set off Commissioner Wyatt Bunker, who several weeks back warned of creeping “Marxism” and this time saw yet another leveling mechanism at work. “That’s not what we do,” he said.

Whether Bunker liked it or not, that’s what the commission did on Monday. Indeed, the body functioned like nothing so much as the board of directors of a taxpayer-funded bank, ruling thumbs up here (as in funding the bond issue for a University of Memphis-area commercial development) and thumbs down there (in declining to reconsider a black-owned firm’s proposal for a school-construction contract), while hedging its judgments on two other contested matters involving public money.

On those latter two matters: The commission forgave a $1 million loan to the Memphis Rock ‘N Soul Museum after forcing its director to make concessions on limited free admissions for students and Shelby Countians at large; it also tentatively released the first component of a community development grant in the LeMoyne-Owen College area, hinging the deal on what looked to be a pro forma follow-up by the office of county mayor A C Wharton.

(The commission’s decision to defer to Wharton to ensure that the LeMoyne-Owen project’s finances turned out to be in order made an interesting contrast to the cityside situation, where an ambitious new council is unlikely to cede any additional authority to an already impressively powered Mayor Willie Herenton. (See this week’s Viewpoint)

Undeniably, political considerations crept into the essentially financial decisions made by the commission on Monday. As an example: Pressure for the Highland Street TIF (tax-increment financing) proposal from the University of Memphis and its boosters has been formidable indeed, and Commissioner Mike Ritz, who for weeks has been the major holdout on that particular TIF, pleaded in vain that, in the strict sense of the term, no “blight” (obligatory under the terms of the grant) really existed on the strip.

Later, when Jeffrey Higgs, executive director of the LeMoyne-Owen College Community Development Corporation, was making the case for his own project, he made a point of looking Ritz’s way and insisting that “real blight” was to be seen in his territory. A smiling Ritz pointed back, signaling his agreement.

Ultimately, the only holdout on the LeMoyne-Owen project was Bunker, who, apropos several of the commission’s judgments — past, present, and, presumably, future — lamented that the body seemed to have become a charitable institution: “We save colleges, we save museums, we save roller coasters … ”

In protest, Bunker attempted to halt deliberations on the LeMoyne-Owen project by invoking the dread Rule 33, whereby any member can ask for an automatic two-week deferral on an agenda item. For a variety of reasons having to do with federal deadlines, that would probably kill the project, responded county financial officer Jim Huntzicker. Presumably in order to keep peace with his commission mates (Deidre Malone had been heard to remark, concerning the future of Rule 33, “I’m going to get rid of that!”), Bunker ultimately relented.

A purely political judgment of sorts is finally what thwarted the hopes of the black-owned Salton-Fox Construction Company for restoration of its contracting role in a $50 million school-construction project. Henri Brooks, usual champion of African-American causes, withheld what would have been her decisive “yes” vote on grounds that to give it would be to provide cover for the company’s role as a mere “front” for a white-owned enterprise. “I’m going to call it out,” she said.

(Salton-Fox, apparently now exonerated of complicity, had first found itself in the crosshairs when it was identified as the donor of campaign contributions to public officials in connection with the case of former commissioner Bruce Thompson, now under federal indictment for extortion and scheduled to be tried in March.)

The commission’s last act on Monday was both political and financial. By an 8-3 vote (dissenters were Herenton allies Malone, Brooks, and Sidney Chism), the commission approved Commissioner Steve Mulroy‘s resolution insisting on January 31st as an absolute deadline for Bass Pro Shop to put up or shut up on its bid for The Pyramid. (See “In the Bluff,” p. 10.)

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Give Us Liberty!

Believe it or not, it’s been 50 years since the inception of the Liberty Bowl. This year’s game on December 29th — featuring C-USA champ University of Central Florida versus the SEC’s Mississippi State Bulldogs (appearing for the first time since 1991) — promises to be one of the most stellar in the bowl’s history. It’s a sellout, by the way, its advance sales of 61,000-plus having already edged out the famous 1992 Alabama-Illinois game that was the swan song of immortal ‘Bama coach Bear Bryant.

The game, as Liberty Bowl president Steve Ehrhart and Ray Pohlmann, a vice president of sponsoring AutoZone, pointed out to Memphian Rotarians on Tuesday, has a direct annual impact on our community of $23 million. It gives unmatched publicity to such Memphis institutions as Graceland, The Peabody, and — most importantly — to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

AutoZone, which presented St. Jude with a check for some $300,000 at last year’s game, is prepared to hand over one this year in the amount of — are you sitting down? — $2 million.

In every way, the late Bud Dudley’s brainchild has grown into an institution of which Memphis can be proud. And guess what? This year, for those who can’t get to the site itself, the Liberty Bowl faces no competing games in its TV time slot! This year, more than ever, give us Liberty!

Dodd’s Truth

On Monday, December 17th, while most Democratic presidential candidates were speechifying their way across Iowa in search of last-minute votes, Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, a candidate whose chances of claiming his party’s nomination have long been projected at slim and none, was back in D.C. preparing for a different kind of fight. Well, at least one candidate was actually listening to the American people, instead of talking at them.

If not for Dodd’s threat of a filibuster, it is very likely that the Senate would have passed the FISA renewal bill, a contentious piece of legislation that modernizes U.S. laws governing electronic surveillance while granting retroactive immunity to the telephone companies that willingly participated in the Bush administration’s warrant-less wiretapping program. Call it a full legislative pardon. But thanks to Dodd’s decision to leave the campaign trail, the debate has been postponed until January. It’s a temporary victory for Dodd and for American citizens who believe that corporations should be held responsible for any laws they may have broken.

A month ago, while searching for a compromise on the FISA bill, Senator Arlen Spector said, “I think the telephone companies were good citizens and should not suffer from what they did.” And therein lies a problem. Corporations aren’t citizens, even if some legal finding from the antediluvian past entitled them to sue and be sued as “persons.” Citizens are citizens. And, as embarrassing as it is to say something so obvious, when corporations infringe upon a real citizen’s rights, those corporations should be held accountable.

Even if he can’t be president, at least Senator Dodd knows this and cared enough to do something about it. More like this, please.