Tag: Shelby County Commission

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Chancellor Rules Against EC in Round One of Voting-Machine Dispute

Chancellor Gadson W. Perry

A Shelby County court has denied the request of the Shelby County Election Commission to force the Shelby County Commission to fund its call for the purchase of ES&S electronic voting machines to replace the county’s existing election machinery.

Both bodies agree that the old voting machines must be replaced, but have disagreed on what should replace them, with the county commission maintaining that, as the entity empowered to pay for and to “adopt” the replacement devices, its twice-expressed official preference for devices employing paper ballots should prevail over the Election Commission’s choice of the $5.4 million ES&S ballot-marking devices, as recommended by Election Administrator Linda Phillips.

After a hearing Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Gadson W. Perry denied the Election Commission’s petition for a writ of mandamus, which would have forced the issue in the EC’s favor. The judge cited contradictions in specific Tennessee statutes, with one of the several laws discussed in the hearing concretely giving the EC the right to select election machinery, while another, just as firmly, supported the county commission’s contention that its control of funding precluded a “duty” to rubber-stamp the EC’s choice.

The bottom line, said Perry in denying the writ of mandamus, is that the warring statutes in effect endowed the differing parties with a “push-pull” relationship on the voting-machine matter, with an implicit imperative to work out some agreement between themselves.

Allan Wade, attorney for the Election Commission, promptly indicated he would appeal the ruling to “higher authority,” presumably to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Since the request for the mandamus writ was but one of several legal remedies being pursued by the EC, Wade followed protocol in asking Chancellor Perry’s permission to appeal, which was promptly granted.

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Politics Politics Feature

“Doing the Same Things Twice”

Reginald Milton (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Where the Shelby County Commission is concerned, some issues would seem to be eternal. Several of them got their latest looking-over Monday, September 27th, at the body’s regular Monday meeting.

There was the issue of city-county governmental consolidation, an issue also being discussed on the City Council these days. Somehow a proposal from Commissioner Reginald Milton to develop potential concrete remedies for historically blighted Memphis neighborhoods had transmogrified into a discussion about the prospect of consolidation — one in which the usual discords and divisiveness associated with that issue came to the fore.

Milton listened patiently to the querulous back-and-forthing, and, as the matter devolved into a question of establishing a powerless ad hoc committee on consolidation, with himself as chair, Milton finally had enough.

As he saw it, the opportunity to come up with hard and practical solutions to an eternally intractable array of socioeconomic problems was being steered into the see-no-evil, do-no-good timidity of a study group.

“To hell with every one of you who let this happen, forget it! I’m out!” Milton said.

And so was the agenda item, never even subjected to a vote.

A vote did occur on another revived matter, this one the question of whether federal monitors should return to Shelby County to re-examine the status of Juvenile Court, which the Department of Justice had investigated and found riddled with bureaucratic and race-based issues. A 2012 Memorandum of Understanding between the county and the DOJ had resulted in specific remedies for improvement spelled out.

Some changes were made in accordance with the MOA, and in 2018, a request that had been initiated by then Mayor Mark Luttrell to remove the monitors was accepted by the DOJ.

A local group, the Shelby County Juvenile Justice Consortium (CJJC), which was dissatisfied with the rate and extent of reform in the court, had urged that the monitors return to re-evaluate court operations “as … relates to protecting the Constitutional Rights of the children of Shelby County, Tennessee,” and that request came to the County Commission for its approval.

After several citizens, including members of the CJJC, testified to continuing abuses at Juvenile Court, including an “appalling” rate of prisoner transfers to Criminal Court, members of the commission took sides on the matter, with the body’s conservatives tending to see the new charges as overstated and based on incomplete information, and others seeing that very lack of complete information to be suspicious in itself.

In the end, the commission voted 8 to 4 in favor of the federal monitors’ return with the four dissenters being Commissioners Brandon Morrison, Mark Billingsley, David Bradford, and Amber Mills, and with Commissioner Mark Wright abstaining.

Another revived issue on Monday was that of the creation of a “blue-ribbon” advisory committee on mayoral appointments to the Shelby County Ethics Commission, a controversial proposal which, in its final form, had been seriously watered down.

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Black County Commissioners Oppose Lee’s Order on Masks in Schools

Members of the Shelby County Commission Black Caucus spoke out Tuesday against Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order allowing parents to opt their children out of school mask mandates.

Commissioner Tami Sawyer said the group stands with the parents in Shelby County who are concerned with the “distasteful” executive order.

“Parents are reeling from this decision,” Sawyer said. Based on pictures she’s received of school hallways, she said it’s unlikely that students are social distancing between classes. With students able to opt out of wearing masks, Sawyer said there will be an even greater spread of the virus. 

“It gave me the heebie jeebies to think about how that’s going to work without masks,” Sawyer said. “It’s not just the kids and that’s the point that needs to be driven home. When you think about the economic crisis that Shelby County is in, a lot of children are being raised in multigenerational homes. So they are taking this virus to their ailing grandparents, to their mother who is then taking it to work, to their younger siblings taking the virus to middle school or kindergarten.” 

Sawyer also noted that the executive order is another example of the state undermining local government. The local government cannot make decisions for itself without fear of litigation or punitive measures by the state, Sawyer said. 

“That is not the way state and local governments are supposed to work together,” Sawyer said. “Whenever Shelby County makes a decision that’s best for them, we have to be afraid or concerned that the state is going to come back and reverse it or punish us because of our decision, especially when it comes to our children and education.”

Commissioner Mickell Lowery, who has two school-aged children, said protecting children should not be political. 

“It’s hard to tell children to stay separated and social distance when they’re just being kids,” Lowery said. “It affects all of us.”

Lowery added that the group supports any method, “by any means,” to keep children safe. 

Commissioner Reginald Milton said the executive order is using students as “political pawns.” 

“I will not play politics or games with their lives,” Milton said. “I ask all of you to stand with us and say ‘this is wrong and the governor is wrong.’”

With three children in school, Commissioner Van Turner said as a parent, “it’s nerve wracking.” 

“I think parents have rights, but they don’t have rights to endanger the lives of other children in other households,” Turner said. “If that’s the case, why don’t we allow children to smoke at school. Here we are dealing with real life situations where people are passing and the governor is doing something opposite of what’s going to protect our young people.

Turner said the group supports all efforts to pursue legal action against the executive order. 

Shelby County Schools superintendent Joris Ray said Monday that he, along with the SCS board members and its general counsel, are reviewing the legalities of the executive order. In the meantime, he reiterated that masks are still required for all school employees, students, and visitors. 

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Politics Politics Feature

Shelby County Commission Prepares for New Fiscal Year

WIllie Brooks (Photo: shelbycountytn.gov)

In what amounted to their last public meeting of the expiring fiscal year, the 13 members of the Shelby County Commission resolved several pending issues, more or less clearing the boards for the year to come.

The Commission overwhelmingly endorsed County Mayor Lee Harris’ nomination of Dr. Michelle Taylor to be the new director of the Shelby County Health Department. The vote was 13-0, unanimous, and it included even Republican Commissioner Mark Billingsley, who had questioned the appointment in committee last week and raised doubts about it in a widely circulated email.

Billingsley made a point of apologizing to Taylor before casting his vote on Monday, attributing his former concerns to a feeling that he had been “misled” by Harris. He did not elaborate further. Taylor’s persona and credentials had been extolled by several audience members before the vote, and a sizeable number of attendees were on hand to root for her approval. The mayor had made a spirited speech in her favor in the Commission lobby before the vote.

Early in the meeting, county health officer Dr. Bruce Randolph had offered the Commission some new statistics indicating part of the challenges facing Taylor. As Randolph noted, only 35 percent of Memphis residents are vaccinated, and the rate of new cases, almost all involving the Delta variant, has jumped sixfold in the last month.

The Commission followed its ringing endorsement of Taylor by choosing a new General Sessions judge to replace the retiring John Donald. Danielle Mitchell Sims was selected from a group including Carlos Bibbs, James Jones, Cedrick Wooten, and William Larsha Jr.

Later on, the Commissioners elected Willie Brooks Jr. as new chair of the Commission in fiscal 2021-22, with Michael Whaley to serve as vice chair. A tradition of sorts was dispensed with, as both the new leaders are Democrats. With some deviations over the years, the Commission had adhered to a formula of alternating the party affiliation of chairs, with the vice chair being a member of the other party from the chair.

The Commission now contains eight Democrats and five Republicans, and outgoing Republican Vice Chair Brandon Morrison’s chances were dimmed for either of next year’s positions when her fellow Republicans cold-shouldered her — payback for her win for vice chair last year with Democratic votes against fellow Republican Amber Mills.

An important bit of old business was cleared out, as the Commission roundly defeated by a vote of 8 to 2 the latest of several requests from the Shelby County Election Commission to purchase $4 million of new ballot-marking voting machines from the ESS Corporation. Election Commission Chair Brent Taylor and Election Administrator Linda Phillips were on hand to plead for the Commission’s support.

The Commission, though, has the responsibility for purchasing new voting machines, and a Commission majority has consistently voted its preference for paper-ballot devices, for reasons of both transparency and expenses. The two bodies have been at an impasse for at least a year on the matter — “Your power versus our power,” said County Commissioner Eddie Jones — and the Commission, by an 8 to 2 vote with one abstention, voted late in the meeting to put out its own RFP (request for proposal) for the paper-ballot devices it favors.

Two more pending issues of more recent vintage were dealt with on Monday. The Commission approved a procedure to process by the target date of September 15th bonuses that it had authorized for county employees in the most recent county budget — $5,000 for full-timers and $1,600 for temporaries. And the body approved a new ethics advisory panel for itself, to be constituted by members of the greater community.

The Commission’s newly formed Black Caucus held a brainstorming session in advance of the regular Commission meeting and emerged, under the guidance of caucus Chair Tami Sawyer, with a commitment to focus on economic and health issues. Caucus members also heard a report on environmental hazards in the city’s underserved neighborhoods and agreed to sponsor a blood drive for victims of sickle cell anemia.

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Politics Politics Feature

Getting Set: Shelby County Commission Sets Tax Rate

Candidate in the ring: County trustee Regina Newman offers a water toast at a fundraiser to helper Allan Creasy, as supporter David Cocke looks on. The event was at the Midtown home of Aubrey Howard. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

On Monday, June 21st, the longest day of the year, starting at 3 p.m., the Shelby County Commission, confronting a meager attendance and an agenda that seemed lean to the point of perfunctory, managed, as if on a dare, to extend its regular meeting to the point of nightfall.

The confounding issue was the matter of a final tax rate for Shelby Countians. Early on, County Mayor Lee Harris put in an appearance to express the well-intentioned wish that the body pass a tax rate of $3.45 — the rate, certified by the state of Tennessee, that would generate the same amount of revenue from the county’s latest real-property appraisal as was previously paid by local taxpayers.

The problem was that the commission had settled on a rate of $3.46 at its June 7th meeting as a result of an equally well-intentioned move to add to the certified rate one cent (equivalent to $2.3 million in tax receipts) to pay for a mental health program for youth and adults. To remain at the revised $3.46 rate would require a final vote in July; if it reverted to the $3.45 rate, the commission could finish its preparations for fiscal 2022 this week.

To accept the $3.45 rate would have one serious disadvantage: It would edge out the aforementioned $2.3 million that had been allocated for mental health, unless some way could be found to replace that much money.

At length, after much discussion, a way was found. Through a process of redistributing fund sources, the burden of the odd $2.3 million for mental health was shifted from the county’s general fund to federal funds allocated under President Joe Biden’s American Recovery Plan (ARP). And the tax rate of $3.45 was duly voted in by all nine members present. Mission accomplished.

• Speculation on the electoral politics of 2022 has started up big-time — especially on the matter of the 9th District congressional seat now held by Democrat Steve Cohen. It is generally assumed that Cohen will seek re-election, for the eighth time since he first won the seat in 2006.

Though Cohen normally has a nominal Republican opponent in the fall, his real race has always been in the Democratic primary, where, as a white man in this predominantly African-American district, he has turned aside one name Black candidate after another, usually by overwhelming margins.

So who will take him on next year? A recent text poll circulated in the district feeds the conjecture. Cohen is polled against four potential opponents — City Councilman JB Smiley, outgoing Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, County Commissioner Tami Sawyer, and County Mayor Harris. It is assumed that one of the four commissioned the poll, whose authorship remains uncertain.

• Harris’ future is a frequent subject of political gossip. One strong rumor has him mentioned as a possible appointment to the seat of Court of Appeals Judge Bernice Donald, who is about to take senior (i.e., semi-retired) status. Until Harris announces his plans for re-election, no Democrat is likely to declare for county mayor, though Strickland aide Ken Moody and County Commissioner Van Turner are possible entries for an open seat. Republicans interested in running include Memphis City Council members Worth Morgan and Frank Colvett, as well as County Commissioner Mark Billingsley.

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Politics Beat Blog

R.I.P. Leon Gray


Leon Gray, the longtime local media presence and local official and indefatigable D.J. at public entertainment events, was laid to rest this past weekend under the aegis of his cousin, the Rev. La Simba Gray at New Sardis Baptist Church on Holmes Rd.

Previous to that Gray lay in state at Serenity Funeral Home on Sycamore View, where large crowds of well wishers, from influencers to regular folk, came to pay their respects.

Gray’s death, from an apparent heart attack, was unexpected. He was 62, and he was still very much making his presence felt at civic events, where he was a steady and relied-on presence. He had worked extensively as a TV reporter and radio commentator and had filled many a position in local government. Most recently he was working as special assistant to Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael.

Among those present at the Serenity Funeral Home to honor Leon Gray were Sheriff Floyd Bonner (l) and longtime local political figure John Ford.

As a sign of his impact on local government, the Shelby County Commission on Monday designated by unanimous vote a special media area that will be named for Gray in the forthcoming new Juvenile Justice Center, the establishment of which, to serve youthful Memphians at risk, had been a matter of great importance to Gray.

Gray’s public spiritedness extended to what he saw as the careless desecration of his native city’s potential beauty. In a “Vent” article published last year in the Flyer, he lamented the omnipresence of litter and said, “I’m sick of this filth, but I’m also just as sick of watching nobody do anything about it. So, if by chance you read this, join me in this crusade to try and clean up our city and restore the pride in our neighbors. Write your elected officials and tell them this is a priority. Finally, let’s teach our kids to always try and leave our shared spaces better than we found them.”

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Coalition Pushes for “Moral Budget”

Credit: Moral Budget Coalition

A coalition of Memphis nonprofit organizations want city and county leaders to keep current tax rates and spend the excess funds on a raft of community investments in what they call a “moral budget.”

Memphis City Council members delayed the final vote on Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s proposed $716 million budget Tuesday, awaiting word from federal leaders on how they can spend money from the American Rescue Plan (ARP). 

With only one regular council meeting left before the July 1st deadline for a new budget, little is likely to change. This is especially true of large items, like setting the city’s tax rate, which is a cornerstone of all civic budget-making.

However, that’s exactly what the Moral Budget Coalition is still pushing for. The group is comprised of many groups, including Stand for Children Tennessee, Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), Memphis Tenants Union, Memphis Music Initiative, My Sistah’s House, BLDG Memphis, Homeless Organizing For Power & Equality, Memphis Restaurant Workers United, Memphis For All, Decarcerate Memphis, Collective Blueprint, and Whole Child Strategies. 

During budget season this year, the coalition presented a new voice to the money conversation at Memphis City Hall. It requested something new from lawmakers, but something familiar with many in last summer’s Black Lives Matter movement: investment in the community versus the same old thing.  

“As we watched the current budget cycle, there was a growing sense that we are caught in an ill-fated loop that never leads to progress and prosperity for our community,” reads the proposal from the Moral Budget Coalition. “Current budget proposals and discussions only played at the edges of any kind of forward movement. 

“The Coalition for a Moral Budget felt the need to come together and propose a set of budget amendments that would be a bold statement for where we wanted Memphis and Shelby County to head in the future.”

Instead of tax cuts this year, the group wants city and county leaders to keep current rates intact. This would yield $40 million in additional taxes for the city and $100 million for the county, the group said. 

We know that the city council and county commission can get this done for our people and communities before the budget deadline with the same urgency and deliberate speed brought to bear for the business community.

Moral Budget Coalition

With the additional funds, the groups asked leaders to invest in Youth Education Success Fund for education, the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) for transportation, mental health services for youth and adults, the Opportunity Youth Workforce Fund, debt relief for renters, the Memphis Affordable Housing Trust Fund, services for the homeless, housing help for the transgender and gender non-conforming community, weatherization efforts, expansion of broadband, raises for city and county workers, healthcare, art, and more.  

“While this may be viewed as late in the budget process, we have seen our local mayors and legislative bodies move mountains to offer tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives to projects within a couple of weeks because time (and the business community) demanded,” reads the proposal. “Since our proposed moral budget does not affect the current budget and supports new revenue to fund the proposed investments, we know that the city council and county commission can get this done for our people and communities before the budget deadline with the same urgency and deliberate speed brought to bear for the business community.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Pinching the Penny: County Commission Considers the Tax Rate

Montylawton | Dreamstime.com

How well would most of us be doing if, say, we were lucky enough to have an annual salary of $229,000? Pretty dang well, right? And the fact is, there are lots of people, even in our proverbially poor county, who are doing that well or better.

But for most of us? Nah, we wish!

I cite that particular figure — almost a quarter of a million dollars, note — because it’s the hypothetical amount of revenue brought into the county coffers by the final digit of the state-certified tax rate for Shelby County. One five-hundredth of a nickel. Let’s put that in numerals. $0.001.

The Shelby County Commission is about to adopt a tax rate, and the number the county commission has been conjuring with, to equate to the demands of its budget projected so far, is $3.451. The tax rate is calibrated as a portion of the assessed value of real property. Take a house whose appraised value is $100,000. The assessed value is reckoned at 25 percent of that — so that, for the hypothetical $100,000 home in question, a tax rate of, say, $3.45 would be multiplied by $25,000 (which is one-fourth of $100,000, right?), and that sum would be divided by 100. The property in question would command a tax payment of $862.50.

Now, that’s for a tax rate of $3.45. If the tax rate were $3.46, the tax owed would be $865. Not much difference there for the individual taxpayer owning such a modest place.

But the difference for the county overall between a rate of $3.45 and one of $3.46 is — make sure you’re sitting down — no less than $2,292,999 — two and a quarter million. A nice piece of change, that is, and, as the county commission’s budget chair Edmund Ford Jr. pointed out to his colleagues on Monday at the advice of county trustee Regina Newman, the county cannot bill or collect on the extra millennial digit in the figure of $3.451, the hypothetical rate projected so far. It must go up to a figure rounding off at $3.46 or go down to $3.45.

Going up to a rate of $3.46 would generate for the county the previously mentioned additional amount of $2,229,999. But it would mean (shhhhhh!) raising taxes, technically. The alternative would be to go down by a millennial digit to $3.45, which might mean sacrificing a proposed roster position or two or three. That’s the pending choice for county commission members that Ford presented to them at Monday’s meeting, as the commission contemplated the choices it will have to make by its projected budget deadline of Monday, June 7th.

Either way, taxpayers will note that anti-“windfall” provisions of the state-certified rate, based on the most recent countywide property appraisal, call for a reduction in the current tax rate, which is $4.05. You can call that progress.

• The Shelby County Commission completed action begun in committee sessions last Wednesday, formalizing by a vote of 11-0 its request that Governor Bill Lee repudiate recently passed legislation prohibiting the teaching of “critical race theory” in public schools. The body also adopted amendments from Commissioner Mick Wright noting a “lack of clarity” in the bill in distinguishing between rejecting racism and ignoring the fact of it, as the bill seems to call for.

Monday was the last commission meeting attended by Carolyn Watkins as administrator of Shelby County Government’s equal opportunity compliance program. Watkins was recently appointed by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to fill the city judgeship left vacant by the death of Teresa Jones. She is being succeeded in her county position by Shep Wilbun. Both Watkins and Wilbun were formally honored by the commission on Monday, as was Sheriff Floyd Bonner, by joint proclamation of the commission and Mayor Lee Harris.

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Politics Politics Feature

The Battle of Byhalia: County Commission Debates Pipeline Risks and Benefits, Blocks Land Sale

(Photo: Kodym | Dreamstime.com)

As the saying goes, you can win a battle and lose a war. That adage also works in reverse. Opponents of the proposed Byhalia Connection pipeline ultimately triumphed at Monday’s meeting of the Shelby County Commission, but only after an early defeat.

The first vote took on the pipeline matter broadly, via a resolution requesting “that the Federal Government review the Byhalia Connection Pipeline permit.” At this point, the would-be partners in the pipeline, Valero Energy Corporation and Plains All American Pipeline, still possess a go-ahead from the U.S. Corps of Engineers.

Invited to make the case for the pipeline, Katie Martin, a spokesperson for Plains, attempted to defuse criticism about environmental hazards and potential dislocations of the low-income area of southwest Memphis the proposed pipeline would pass through. She said the project had experienced  “unconscionable bullying” by an unfriendly and biased media. 

Justin Pearson, the youthful leader of anti-pipeline activists and founder of MCAP (Memphis Community Against the Pipeline), responded with warnings about the very matters Martin had attempted to debunk.

Commissioner Michael Whaley, co-sponsor of the measure with fellow Democrat Tami Sawyer, focused on “risks that exist with this pipeline” — alluding to one of pipeline opponents’ main fears, the threat of potential pollution of the Memphis sand aquifer, source of Memphis drinking water.

“I have yet to really hear a truly compelling reason why we need it,” said Whaley, who argued “that it would be more beneficial, for the sake of the community, to build climate-friendly infrastructure instead of additional fossil-fuel infrastructure.” And, he said, “Quite frankly, climate-friendly infrastructures could also be drivers of the economy, drivers to create jobs — but not at the expense of quality of life for people in the field.” 

Mick Wright, a Republican commissioner, described himself as “torn” by the issue, seeing both sides of it, but said he wasn’t totally convinced by opponents’ arguments. “I’m just not ready on it. We obviously still rely on oil-based transportation, and oil-based transportation has provided a huge benefit. I certainly have benefited from being able to have a vehicle and have traveled throughout the county and throughout the country. I definitely agree that we want to get to a place where we have fuel sources that are there possibly cleaner. So I struggle with this. But I’m just not there yet.”

Nor, on the general case at hand, was the commission. The resolution seeking federal scrutiny needed seven votes to pass but went down by a vote of five to six, with all five GOP members of the commission voting no. They were joined by Democrat Van Turner, who made it clear that he was joining the prevailing side in a tactical maneuver that would enable him to call for a parliamentary reconsideration of the matter at the next meeting.

Things went differently on the more concrete matter that was actually key to the resolution of things on Monday. This was a vote on whether to sell two properties, owned by the county as the result of tax defaults, which the pipeline proprietors need to pursue construction. That vote failed by the overwhelming vote of nine votes against and only two votes for, those of Republicans David Bradford and Amber Mills, and that was the ball game, though the pipeline companies have not yet formally surrendered. (Yet another resolution to remove a small portion of the 38109 ZIP-code area from a moratorium on property sale had lost much of its relevance and passed easily, eight to two, Commissioners Sawyer and Whaley voting no.) 

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Objection on Commission Forces Monday Vote on Pipeline-Area Sale

An attempt by the administration of Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris to withdraw the the sale of two tax-defaulted properties from a committee agenda having been foiled by a commissioner’s protest on Wednesday, the Shelby County Commission is set for an up-or-down vote on the item at its public meeting on Monday. 

The import of the vote is that the two properties, both now technically owned by the county, lie squarely within the South Memphis area targeted for construction of the proposed Byhalia Connection oil pipeline.

Volatility is expected from both opponents and proponents of the pipeline at Monday’s meeting.

A moratorium on a sale of the two properties was imposed by the Commission in October at the request of Commissioner Reginald Milton, who now chairs the Commission’s Delinquent Tax committee, the only Commission committee whose votes by state law are not open to all members of Commission as a committee of the whole.

The committee’s four members are Milton, Amber Mills, Willie Brooks, and Mick Wright. Milton and Brooks are Democrats, and Mills and Wright are Republicans. On Wednesday, only Milton and Mills were present, and Mills — on behalf, she said, of fellow Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr., whose district overlaps with the area of the two properties in question —  objected to withdrawing the item from the agenda.

The votes of Milton and Mills regarding her objection canceled each other out, resulting in a resolution to sell the two properties moving, without a recommendation for or against, onto the Commission’s Monday agenda for a vote by the full Commission body.

As of now, the sale price of the properties is expected to be $11,363.00, the amount of the unpaid tax liability. 

A companion item on Monday’s agenda, also to be voted on by the full Commission, would eliminate the moratorium on sale of the properties.

Such a sale, presumably to Valero Energy Corporation and Plains All American Pipeline, who intend to build the Byhalia Connection pipeline, is sure to be stoutly resisted by pipeline opponents, who see the proposed structure as detrimental to low-income Blacks in the affected area and as an environmental hazard to the underlying Memphis sand aquifer, source of the Memphis area’s drinking water.