Tag: Steve Basar

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Is This an August Surprise?

Image of Trustee Regina Newman

With Election Day coming this Thursday, August 4th, I’m making allowances this week for candidates’ versions of an “August Surprise.” That’s adapted from the well-established term “October Surprise,” having to do with late-breaking revelations that are sometimes (but not always) something sensational that is released, effected, or revealed by one campaign in order to embarrass another campaign with the aim of turning the tide of a race.

Steve Basar, the Republican nominee for the office of Trustee, offers up this mailing as a case in point. What Basar suggests is that his opponent, incumbent Democratic Trustee Regina Newman, is mixing in campaign materials with tax bills she’s sending out.

Asked about the insert, Newman audibly suppressed a chuckle and said the insert explains various standard services offered by the Trustee’s Department to the taxpayer regarding a variety of potential issues. Here is the brochure, folded out:

Newman, meanwhile, sends along a specimen of a similar informational brochure sent out from the office of her predecessor, former Trustee David Lenoir.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

A Race to Watch in County Commission District 13

CREDIT: District 13 Commissioner Basar

District 13 Commissioner Basar

For the third time in his relatively brief political career, Shelby County Commissioner Steve Basar is up against a determined political  woman. His  batting average so far is .500, with 1 win out of 2 tries, but he’s up  against what would appear to be a serious challenge in his reelection effort this year in the Republican primary for District 13.

Basar won his seat in 2012 after defeating the comeback bid of once-influential social conservative Marilyn Loeffel in the GOP primary for a Commission seat vacated by Mike Carpenter. In the general, he would win an expected victory in his preponderantly Republican multi-member district over blogger/high-tech professional Steve Ross, the Democratic nominee.

GOP challenger Brandon Morrison

Once in office, Basar became chair of the Commission’s economic development committee and made a point of opposing some well-backed high-profile developments in the downtown area while cheerleading for others, incurring controversy both ways.

He would become Commission vice chair and began to harbor ambitions for the Commission’s budget-committee chairmanship, a fact which did him no good with a onetime supporter, then committee chair Commissioner Heidi Shafer, also a Republican. For that reason among others, Shafer would devote her considerable influence to blocking what Basar had thought to be his automatic elevation to the chairmanship in 2014. Democrat Justin Ford would become chairman instead.

In the fallout from that defeat, Republican Basar entered into an operative alliance with the Commission’s Democrats on a series of procedural issues, then lost a second bid for the chairmanship in 2015 when fellow Republican Terry Roland pried away the vote of Eddie Jones, one of Basar’s Democratic allies.

Here it is 2018, and Basar assumed he could at least count on a safe reelection in his East Memphis/suburban District 13. There was no sign of anxiety on his part during a well-attended fundraiser of his last week at East Memphis restaurant Owen Brennan’s. Basar seemed unconcerned at the prospect of businessman George Monger and newcomer Charlie Belenky publicly competing for the Democratic nomination.

But it is now obvious that Basar has serious trouble in his own party primary from the previously unheralded Brandon Morrison, a political novice herself but a woman with good standing in social and civic circles, well-steered by seasoned consultant Brian Stephens, and with increasingly visible support from Republicans — and well-heeled ones at that — in District 13. Indeed, as yard signs bearing her name began to sprout, the word was getting out — and fast — that she might actually be the favorite in the GOP primary J B

Monger (l) with supporters at Novel fundraiser

Democrat Monger is a former Election Commissioner and business/political prodigy of sorts who is the clear favorite in his own primary (though Belenky, a newcomer to Memphis, is certainly working hard). As Monger, a fiscal conservative capable of appealing to moderate Republicans, noted to supporters at a Friday fundraiser at the Novel bookstore, “We started out thinking we had a ‘Bye-bye Steve’ campaign to run, but now it looks like he’ll be taken care of before we can get to him.”

Democrat Belenky

Whoever wins out in the Democratic primary may find it necessary to compete hard for crossover votes in the general election. Basar himself is considered a moderate, and, while Morrison is still something of a mystery to the general public, her campaign website makes a point of underscoring the principle of “diversity” and contains this passage:

“…We are a city with soul, offering a wonderful and welcoming vibe that appeals to young people. We must work hard to keep them here.

“We also face serious challenges, such as crime and poverty. It is unthinkable that so many Shelby County School students live in extreme poverty. About 40,000 of our 115,000 Shelby County School students live in a household earning less than $10,000 annually. We must do better….”

Whatever happens, the race for District 13, a swing district of sorts in the narrowly divided Commission, is going to be one worth watching.

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Editorial Opinion

Should Shelby County Raise Officials’ Salaries?

The old bugaboo of pay raises for public officials rose again at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission, and, perhaps because of the proximity in time to Halloween, enough members of the commission were spooked by the prospect of raising their own salaries and those of several other elected county officials that the proposal — actually, three separate proposals in as many formal ordinances — went nowhere.

Technically, the votes taken Monday were on second reading, and there is one more final reading to come, presumably at the commission’s next meeting, scheduled for November 13th, but nobody needs a crystal ball or consultation with either a pollster or a necromancer to see that the ordinances are doomed to defeat in two weeks’ time, as well.

In point of fact, there is a commission majority in favor of the pay raises, but the county charter prescribes that issues of this kind require a supermajority of the entire commission.

That would be nine votes, and the ordinances fell short Monday by identical votes of seven for, four against, and one abstention. The seven aye votes belonged to six of the seven commission Democrats — Willie Brooks, Walter Bailey, Justin Ford, Reginald Milton, Eddie Jones, and Van Turner — and one Republican, Steve Basar. The four naysayers were Republicans Terry Roland, David Reaves, George Chism, and commission Chair Heidi Shafer. (GOP Commissioner Mark Billingsley would later ask that his vote be added on as a fifth no.) The one abstainer was Democrat Melvin Burgess Jr., who, as a declared candidate for Assessor in 2018, might have been concerned that, as a would-be tax collector for the county, his vote would draw special attention from opponents in next year’s election.

Under the proposed pay hikes, the salary of the county mayor would rise from $142,500 to $172,000; the sheriff salary from $116,995 to $154,890, and those of county clerk, trustee, register (all now pegged at $109,810), and assessor ($110,465) to go to $126,000. The commissioners’ salaries (currently $29,100, with the chair getting $31,100) would go to a uniform $32,000.

The votes essentially fell along predictable lines, with Bailey, speaking for the Democratic contingent of aye voters, pointing out the obvious, that the cost of living was continuing to rise and wondering if the objectors were contending that the pay of officials could never rise accordingly. Roland protested with insistent righteousness that commissioners should serve the public, not themselves, and he and Reaves professed themselves open to a public referendum to change the charter and tie future raises for the affected county officials to pay raises for rank-and-file county employees. As Democrat Turner noted, that was basically a way to put things off for the present.

For the future, such a referendum is not a bad option. Though prospects for passage might be remote, they are no worse, and could be better, than the existing odds for such proposals on the commission itself. We know all the political arguments against pay raises for public officials, and we regard it as unfortunate that the arguments for them cannot be evaluated on their own merits, the same way that pay matters out in the regular marketplace are, or should be.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Formula For Growth

Last week, during our regular committee meetings, I suggested to my colleagues on the Shelby County Commission that we should take another look at the existing Uptown TIF district — one that is generating $4 million per year in economic activity.

Inasmuch as crime is the No. 1 problem facing our community, I have been looking closely at the county budget with an eye toward finding an income stream that could be repurposed toward the crucial issue of public safety. The Uptown TIF may provide just such a stream.

Commissioner Walter Bailey and I have been talking with District Attorney General Amy Weirich, Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham, Memphis Police Department director Mike Rallings, and Operation Safe Community director Bill Gibbons. We know that the city is 300 to 400 police officers short of a full complement, and we have been advocating that we add 100 sheriff’s deputies to help supplement the critical shortage of law enforcement. (After going public with the idea I discuss here, I found out rather quickly that no good deed goes unpunished, but that’s another story.)

The Uptown TIF is a very complicated financial arrangement, and it is important to understand the background and rationale that led to its creation.

First, a word about the workings of a TIF (tax increment financing) project in general: TIFs are generally created to help subsidize a specific private project. They are intended to capture the incremental taxes from the project and use those specific funds to pay for public infrastructure (streets, sewers, parking) that was required as part of the project. The additional property-tax revenue generated by the TIF pays for the specific improvements; when the improvements are paid off, the TIF is ended. The Uptown TIF bears no resemblance to the textbook TIF I just described.

More than 16 years ago, when Jim Rout was the county mayor and Willie Herenton was the city mayor, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was growing, amid legitimate concerns that there were neighboring public housing projects that presented adverse “slum and blight” conditions. The Uptown TIF was created with the specific intent of generating positive redevelopment in these adjacent areas.

The geographical TIF area from which the property tax growth was derived came from the Mud Island/Harbor Town area, and it was used to pay for the activities of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) in the Uptown area. I believe we can get a better return on investment by spending more on public safety and crime prevention.

The Uptown TIF has generated sufficient tax revenue to pay for the bond debt incurred by the CRA. We are at a crossroads: whether to choose to continue the TIF and spend $4 million of county property taxes in the Uptown area, or return that income stream to the county general fund and use it for public safety. I am suggesting that we have that discussion and allow the Shelby County Commission to come to a consensus.

I have been a vocal supporter of downtown development, and I believe that the job of government is to assist and partner with the private sector. I would also like to state for the record that I fully support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. I believe that we can improve the neighborhoods adjacent to St. Jude without relying on proceeds from the existing TIF.

The areas of the city that are experiencing growth — Sears Crosstown, Overton Square, South Main, etc. — have a few things in common. Primarily, they are anchored by private developers with a vision. The job of government is to get out of their way and let them flourish.

I have held discussions with the Memphis Home Builders Association, and they are ready to develop market-rate housing in the area around St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

At the moment, we have a significant crime issue. Homicides are up. Violent crime is increasing. We need to invest more in crime prevention and crime deterrence, and we need to fully support our law enforcement officers. The current county budget is tight, and I thought it prudent to at least investigate an available $4 million revenue stream that could pay for 50 extra sheriff’s deputies.

Over the past three years, the county commission has focused on improved funding for education, and the result is a financially stable Shelby County Schools District which is improving on all metrics. It is time, now, for us to put additional resources toward fighting crime and supporting law enforcement.
I like to work toward a win-win solution, and I believe strongly that we can help promote the economic development that will improve downtown and the neighborhoods near St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and simultaneously work on solving our crime problem.

Businessman Steve Basar is budget chair of the Shelby County Commission.

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Opinion Viewpoint

NOLA’s Good Example

Last week was Thanksgiving, and more than 200 Memphis citizens were not able to celebrate with their families this year because we, as a community, do not have a handle on homicides. The murder rate in Memphis is up 40 percent from last year. That is totally unacceptable, and we have to do more than get mad about it. There is no silver bullet, but there are three steps that I believe will make a difference and put us on the path to meaningful solutions.

Steve Basar

The first and most important step is defining the problem. In Memphis, crime is epidemic. Of 80 cities across the United States with a population of more than 250,000, Memphis is in the top 10 for murders, robbery, property crime, aggravated assault, and burglary. While all crime is deplorable, I believe that reducing homicides should be the number-one priority of county government, city government, and the law enforcement community. If we can all agree that reducing murder is our number-one objective, then we can get to work on achieving our objective. We need a comprehensive murder-reduction strategy.

The second step is to break the problem down and find root causes. I have been looking at the statistics in Memphis for a few years, and we can identify a small segment of the population that is responsible for a majority of the homicides. The data clearly shows that African-American males between the ages of 19 and 29 represent more than half of both the victims and perpetrators of our homicides, and yet this group constitutes less than 8 percent of our population. When faced with the data, it is difficult to ignore the obvious need to find effective strategies to address this population if we are to stem the rise in murders. In fact, this is exactly what other communities have realized and are now addressing.

The third step is to identify specific strategies to address the root causes. The city of New Orleans has a strategy called “NOLA for Life,” and I believe we need to adopt a similar strategy. The number-one pillar of the New Orleans approach is embedded in the motto “stop the shootings.” If we want to be successful, we need to have a similarly clear message, and all the resources in city and county government should be tasked to finding and implementing solutions. The Health Department, Community Services, Law Enforcement, and Shelby County Schools need to work together in this endeavor. It will require extensive cooperation and coordination, but if we are to be successful, it must be done.

New Orleans has seen sustainable success reducing homicides over the past four years because that city is focusing on its at-risk population of young African-American males. One small example is a midnight basketball league that attracted more than 10,000 participants this spring. The success of New Orleans is being recognized and copied by other cities, such as Gary, Indiana. We can and should move quickly to begin implementing the most successful programs from New Orleans, and we should cast a wide net to see what is working elsewhere.

We also need to direct resources toward crime prevention on the order of the data-driven analysis of Milwaukee’s Homicide Review Commission. We need a comprehensive, systematic approach to be able to identify the most at-risk youth and the areas where additional resources need to be allocated.

We cannot arrest and prosecute our way out of crime. We have a high number of youth not working, who have criminal records, and who feel disconnected from society. We are not the only community facing high crime, but we have been unusually lacking in the resolve to define the problem and put together an effective strategy to address it. That can begin to end this week. I am asking the County Commission to adopt a “Memphis for Life” strategy, and I propose appropriate budget amendments to allocate resources toward the initiative. We can choose to be leading the nation in homicides, or we can do something about it. I choose action.

Steve Basar is a member of the Shelby County Commission and chairman of the budget and finance committee.

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News News Blog

Shelby County Commission Wants to Study New Rules for Drilling Wells into Aquifer

TVA is replacing the Allen coal plant (above) with a new gas plant, and they’re looking at drilling wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer to cool that new plant.

The Shelby County Health Department has already issued three permits to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to drill wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer to access cooling water for its new gas-powered Allen Combined Cycle plant.

Two more permits for wells are being considered, but at a Shelby County Commission committee meeting on Wednesday morning, Commissioner Steve Basar asked the Health Department not to issue those permits without coming to the commission first. Basar and Commissioner Heidi Shafer also recommended the formation of a committee that would look at updating the codes for drilling wells into the aquifer — the source of the region’s drinking water.

“What was acceptable 10 to 20 years ago may not be acceptable now. We need to evolve and move on and change the way we’re doing things,” Basar said.

At that meeting, Bob Rogers, manager of the Health Department’s pollution control program, told the commission that current codes say that if a company or resident wants to drill a well and has the proper design and installation plan, the department generally issues a permit. He said there are some restrictions, including a restriction on water use for non-circulating systems, meaning the water is used and discarded.

At issue are the permits TVA has requested to drill into the Memphis Sand aquifer for up to 3.5 million gallons of water per day to cool the new, under-construction gas plant. In 2014, when the TVA approved plans for the Allen Combined Cycle gas plant that will replace the Allen Fossil coal plant in 2018, they said they’d be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for its cooling water system.

But those plans have turned out to be too expensive, according to a report from TVA, since using wastewater would first require treatment due to pollutants in that water. The TVA looked a few alternatives  — either drilling five wells into the aquifer and pulling water directly from the ground, purchasing potable water from Memphis Light, Gas, & Water (MLGW), or some combination of the two. If potable water is purchased from MLGW, that water would come from both the Memphis Sands and the Fort Pillow aquifers, but the TVA environmental assessment report says MLGW cannot sell the TVA enough water to meet peak demand.

The TVA published a supplemental report on those proposals in April, but the entity did not seek public comment. That’s not required by law, but TVA did seek comments for its original report detailing the options for switching from a coal plant to a gas plant.

Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Tennessee Sierra Club, spoke at the county commission meeting, and he said those new codes should include public notice for drilling permits. 

At a Sierra Club-hosted panel discussion on the issue in August, MLGW President Jerry Collins told the crowd that if TVA had to take water from the aquifer, he’d prefer the entity buy potable water from MLGW rather than pump directly. Either way, it comes out of the aquifer, but Collins said a purchase from MLGW would allow for more oversight.

“That would keep your rates low, and we could monitor how much they’re using. Also, we take out the iron and add phosphate, which makes it much less corrosive,” Collins said at that panel meeting. 

At the Shelby County Commission committee on Wednesday, Tyler Zerwekh, administrator of environmental health services for the Health Department, revealed that the department has issued 25 well permits in the past 12 months, and that includes wells for residential and industrial use. In total, there are 841 quasi-public wells (meaning at least some of the water is for public use) in 641 locations. That does not include wells for residential use.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

It Took a Collaborative Effort, but Shelby County Passed a Budget

CREDIT: JB

JB

Administration figures Luttrell, Kennedy, and Swift huddle as the bargaining gets intense.

On Wednesday, the Shelby County Commission met for seven hours —nonstop except for brief “recesses” — and finally voted for a solution to the county’s budget dilemma that could probably have been arrived at within the first several minutes.

But the longer time period was doubtless necessary to iron out wrinkles and wear down some stubbornness and misgivings among the principals, both on the Commission and within the administration. The only given, as the day started, was that the persistent issue of school funding would be resolved via a $3.5 million add-on allocation to Shelby County Schools. (SCS’s total allocation is $22 million, and the county’s municipal-district schools will receive a pro-rated $6.2 millionl.)

The school-funding increase was one matter that Chairman Terry Roland (and most other participants) was insistent about. Every other possible increase was a variable in what turned out to be a $1.4 billion operating budget.

At roughly 3 p.m., the Commission resorted to a procedure that the administration of Mayor Mark Luttrell had persistently warned against and voted resoundingly to tap the county’s fund balance for $5 million to round out a budget deal that included some $13.5 million of add-on expenditures.

At various times in the proceedings, which began with committee meetings at 8 a.m. and continued with a special full-commission meeting that started at 11 a.m., Luttrell and two aides — CAO Harvey Kennedy and CFO Mike Swift — had seemingly convinced the Commission to pare down or eliminate some of the add-ons, which were earmarked for a variety of county departments, but in the end only a pair of add-on allocations were modestly trimmed.

The beneficiaries of the Commission’s largesse were Shelby County Schools ($3.5 million); the Sheriff’s Department ($3.1 million, with another $1.3 million possible down the road); Juvenile Court ($1 million); Shelby County Department of Corrections ($1 million); Regional One Health ($1 million) the District Attorney General’s office ($1,300,000); the Shelby County Election Commission ($8,216); General Sessions Criminal Court ($228,238); General Sessions Enviro
JB

Commissioner Eddie Jones

nmental Court ($8,233); $169,000 for JIFF (Juvenile Intervention & Faith-based Fellowship); and $64,590 for the Commission’s own budget.

To offset these increases, the Commission availed itself of several cost-cutting remedies, some suggested by Kennedy for the administration, some of its own devising.

Among the former were a cap on life insurance payouts for county retirees, for a savings of $2 million; the inclusion of an estimated $1 million windfall addition to the county wheel tax, which will be routed exclusively to the schools for fiscal 2016-17; and a pledge from Kennedy to “find” another $1.2 million in random funds. Among the latter were a re-allocation to the fiscal 2016-17 budget of surplus Sheriff’s Department budget funds from fiscal 2015-16, and the aforementioned $5 million transfer from the fund balance.
Before the final budget formula was reached, various other alternatives were considered and discarded, including a proposal by David Reaves to eliminate blight-reduction funding so as to shift funds elsewhere; and a comprehensive amendment by Steve Basar that would have freed up several millions by re-classifying a number of pay-as-you-go capital-construction projects as debt-incurring cases.
Acceptance of Basar’s amendment, which was rejected after a recess, would have funded all the intended projects but would have left the county budget out of balance, with a need for the Commission to make later revisions in either the budget, which had to be passed by July 1, or the county tax rate, which got the second of three readings Wednesday, remaining at $4.37 per $100 of assessed value. The tax rate, which as of now balances with the budget, will get its third and final reading on July 27.

Although several of the votes along the way of Wednesday’s elongated bargaining sessions were contested, the margins of acceptance seemed to grow as the day wore on, with several commissioners accepting procedures they had earlier balked at (e.g., David Reaves on several expenditure increases he eventually accepted, or at least tolerated; and Reginald Milton on the retirees’ insurance caps).

The administration’s acceptance of the Commission’s tapping the county balance was passive and grudging, at best, with Kennedy acknowledging, “We didn’t like it, but we couldn’t stop it, and at least we managed to mitigate it.” As Heidi Shafer noted, the delving into the fund balance may have reduced the intensiveness of the county’s debt-retirement policy somewhat, but it still left it in acceptable order.

Implicit in Wednesday’s bargaining was the continuation of a power struggle
JB

Commissioners Walter Bailey and David Reaves

 between the Commission and the administration on matters of governance. Shafer voiced the issue during the day’s deliberations as a matter of whether the Commission’s responsibility was limited to approving a tax rate to cover the administration’s budget allocations or involved a more active license to collaborate on determining those allocations.

By definition, Wednesday’s negotiations, as well as the final outcome, resolved the issue in favor of a broader interpretation of the Commission’s mission.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Poll shows large Luttrell lead over other Shelby Countians in 8th District race.

A po

Luttrell

ll completed by the Remington Research Group of Kansas City shows Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell to have a commanding lead over other Shelby County candidates in the 8th Congressional District Republican primary.

The poll, conducted on February 29 and March 1 involved “686 likely Republican primary voters,” with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent, according to Remington director Titus Bond.

Below is the tabulated response to the question, “ If the candidates in the Republican primary election for United States Congress were Brian Kelsey, David Kustoff, Mark Luttrell, George Flinn, Tom Leatherwood and Steve Basar, for whom would you vote?.”

Mark Luttrell: 26%
George Flinn: 11%
Brian Kelsey: 9%
David Kustoff: 8%
Tom Leatherwood: 7%
Steve Basar: 1%
Undecided: 38%

The press release announcing these results said further:

“In addition to his ballot strength, Luttrell possesses the strongest image rating of all the potential Republican candidates. 43% of likely Republican primary voters view him favorably with only 5% viewing him unfavorably. This is by far the strongest image rating of the field by more than double his nearest competitor.
“Luttrell enjoys massive support in the Memphis media market where he receives 33% support. The Memphis media marketanchors the district, comprising more than 71% of Republican primary voters.

“’Mark Luttrell holds a strong advantage in the early stages of this race. In a winner take all primary, other candidates will have to spend significant sums just to match Luttrell’s current ballot position and favorability,’ said Titus Bond, Director of Remington Research Group. ‘Mark Luttrell is the heavy early favorite in this Republican primary.’”

Asked the obvious question about the poll — whether he or his campaign had commissioned it — Luttrell said no.

There was no explanation as to why several declared candidates from outside the Shelby County area were not included in the questionnaire.

[pdf-1]

[pdf-2]

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Matters of Tenure on the Shelby County Commission

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Jackson Baker

Walter Bailey

No suggestion at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission could have been treated with more courtesy than the request by long-serving Democratic member Walter Bailey for an ordinance to amend the County Charter so as to eliminate all reference to term limits for county officials.

And no suggestion had so little chance of passage as Bailey’s ordinance, which, on the first of three readings, gained the votes of only three members — Bailey and fellow Democrats Justin Ford and Van Turner — on the 13-member body. 

The ordinance allows for a public referendum of county voters, and that provision allowed several members to abstain from voting on the premise that they would meanwhile consult their constituents, but this was largely a face-saving mechanism for Bailey and perhaps for themselves.

The fact is, as a number of commissioners say privately, and as David Reaves said out loud on Monday, most members of the current commission would not have been able to run successfully for their seats on the body if term limits had not been imposed.

In arguing for the ordinance, Bailey noted for the record that members of Congress and the state legislature are not bound by term limits and that the imposition of them on the commission arbitrarily deprives the public of needed experience on the part of members. Bailey himself, a member of a distinguished political family that included his late brother, author/civil rights icon D’Army Bailey, is the longest-serving member of the commission and, as he put it last week in committee, where his ordinance was first vetted, maybe the longest-serving public official in the state. He won office first in 1971, has served as chairman twice, and has served continuously, with the exception of four years, from 2006 to 2010, when the charter’s then-new term-limit requirement caused him to step down temporarily.

He is now serving his second term since being returned to the commission in 2010 and faces another mandatory withdrawal from service. • More local backdrop for the 8th District congressional race: As indicated last week, a victory by Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell in the crowded Republican primary field would occasion some frenetic maneuvering on the part of the county commissioners, inasmuch as Luttrell would thereby vacate his county position, opening it up to a reappointment process.

Luttrell, if  victorious in the congressional race, would presumably resign his mayoralty sometime between the general election in November and his January swearing-in in Washington. Meanwhile, the commission would have selected a new chair in September, according to its normal schedule. And whoever is chair when Luttrell ceases to be mayor automatically becomes interim Shelby County mayor for a maximum of 45 days, after which the commission will select a new one by majority vote.

As Commissioner Mark Billingsley of Germantown reminded his colleagues with copies of a handout he distributed Monday, the county charter makes no provision for an election to fill a vacancy in the mayor’s office “until a successor is elected and qualified at the next countywide election allowed by the state election laws.” Hence, whoever is selected by the commission upon the completion of the interim mayor’s service will serve as a fully pledged county mayor until the county general election of 2018.

There is no doubt that current commission chairman Terry Roland, a Millington Republican, wants to be the next county mayor. His intentions of running for the position in 2018 have been clear for months, and, in case anyone should forget the fact, he announces it periodically during meetings of the commission. (Roland pointedly did so at last Wednesday’s committee sessions and did so again at Monday’s regular commission meeting.)

It now appears, however, that Roland sees no need to seek reappointment to a second consecutive term as commission chairman in September (as numerous commission chairs have done in the last several years, with former member Sidney Chism, a Democrat, having brought off the trick). Roland is content to allow things to take their natural course in September, with Democratic member Turner the favorite to become the next chairman.

But Roland is certain to be front and center as a candidate for appointment as mayor when the commission convenes, sometime early in 2017, to serve as a successor to Luttrell through the election of 2018. And word has it that he believes he already has most of the votes in hand to overcome other candidates, including possible opponent David Lenoir, the county trustee, who intends to run for the office in the regular 2018 election cycle. Another possible contender for the commission’s mayoralty selection would be GOP Commissioner Steve Basar, whom Roland bested for the chairmanship last year in a hastily called revote after Basar had held the position for roughly an hour.

All of this would be moot, of course, should someone other than Luttrell win the congressional race. There are five other Shelby County Republicans in the field — Basar; radiologist/broadcast executive George Flinn; state Senator Brian Kelsey; County Register of Deeds Tom Leatherwood; and former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff.

And Jackson businessman Brad Greer must be delighted at the prospect that so many Shelby Countians in the race, dividing up the local vote, creates the real mathematical possibility of his winning. (Something like that happened in the 7th District congressional race of 2002, when Kustoff, then city council member Brent Taylor, and then County Commissioner Mark Norris split the Shelby County vote, allowing for an easy victory by Marsha Blackburn of Williamson County, who still represents the 7th District.)

Outlook on Convention Delegates

Some 400 Democrats betook themselves to First Baptist Church Broad last Saturday to make themselves eligible for formal Shelby County conventions on Saturday, March 19th, that will select from this pool of eligible members the delegates to the Democratic National Convention at Philadelphia this summer.

Yes, there will be two conventions on March 19th — one to be held at First Baptist Broad that will determine the identity of the delegates and alternates who will go to Philadelphia to represent the 9th Congressional District; and another, to be held the same day in Jackson, that will determine who goes to the national convention to represent the 8th Congressional District, which takes in a generous hunk of eastern Shelby County.

At both locations, the delegates to be selected will conform to the pattern of the two districts’ voting in last week’s “Super Tuesday” presidential primary in Tennessee, with the lion’s share of delegates and alternates going to Hillary Clinton, who won the primary vote handily, and a handful going to Bernie Sanders. 

In the case of the 9th District, that would be six delegates and one alternate for Clinton, with one delegate apportioned to Sanders. In the case of the 8th, it’s four delegates for Clinton and one for Sanders. Insofar as the math permits, the delegates are apportioned, half and half, by gender.

For the record, Clinton beat Sanders statewide by a two-to-one ratio. The ratio in Shelby County, whose African-American demographic (generally very supportive of Hillary Clinton) is higher, was four to one: Clinton, 66,465; Sanders, 15,985. 

The Democratic Party’s ex post facto process for selecting delegates differs from that of the Republicans, which required would-be delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to file for election on the Super Tuesday ballot on behalf of the specific presidential candidate they chose to represent. The chief vote-getters on each list became convention delegates in a ratio proportionate to how well their candidates did in head-to-head voting.

For the record, Donald Trump won 39 percent of the statewide Republican primary vote; Ted Cruz won 25 percent; Marco Rubio, 21 percent, Ben Carson, 8 percent; John Kasich, 5 percent. (Results rounded off.)

The preliminary delegate list released last week by the state Republican Party did not include the apportionment for Shelby County, but the county’s GOP primary results went as follows: Trump, 30 percent; Cruz, 29 percent; Rubio, 26 percent, Kasich, 8 percent, Carson, 6 percent, and “others,” 2 percent. (Again, results rounded off.)

If all of this appears to be a mite complicated, that’s because it is. Updates will be provided by the Flyer as they are received.

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Politics Politics Feature

Two More for Tennessee’s 8th District

The race for the 8th Congressional District, due to be vacated following incumbent Republican Stephen Fincher‘s surprise announcement of non-candidacy this year, has turned into a free-for-all on the Republican side, with controversial Republican state Representative Andy Holt joining the already full ranks of GOP hopefuls.

At least one Democrat, Shelby County assistant District Attorney Michael McCusker of Germantown, has announced his interest in running for the seat, thereby serving notice that there may well be a general election contest in the district, once counted safe for Democrats but considered Republican property following the easy victory of Fincher over veteran Democrat Roy Herron in 2010, a GOP sweep year almost everywhere in Tennessee.

A flood of Shelby County Republicans responded almost immediately to Fincher’s withdrawal statement, made two weeks ago. Within an hour of hearing the news, five local GOP hopefuls had their hats in the ring.

In order of their announcement, these were: George Flinn, the wealthy radiologist, broadcast executive, and former Shelby County commissioner; former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff; Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood; state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown; and County Commissioner Steve Basar.

Of those five, three had made previous races for Congress — Flinn in both the 8th and 9th Districts and Kustoff and Leatherwood in the 7th, when that district lapped into the eastern portions of Shelby County the way the 8th does now after reapportionment. The new lines drawn after the 2010 census resulted in 55 percent of the 8th District’s population residing within Shelby County.

Holt is a decided contrast to the more urbanized aspirants from Big Shelby. A pig farmer who hails from Dresden, in Northwest Tennessee, Holt has been under investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency for polluting the fields and streams adjacent to his property with massive amounts of waste, nearly a million gallons of it, produced by his animals. He was also the sponsor of legislation aimed at penalizing whistleblowers who reported instances of animal cruelty.

In a press release issued Friday, Holt made an effort to set himself apart from the Shelby County candidates, saying that “to me, the idea of deciding (within mere moments of hearing Congressman Fincher isn’t running for reelection) to run for Congress without truly taking the time to fall on my knees and pray to God for his guidance with family and friends seems self-entitled and reckless. I simply am not that person.”

McCusker is a wholly different kind of outlier. An assistant D.A. for the past several years, he is a retired Army major whose military career was prompted by the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He served in Afghanistan as combat advisor to the Afghan National Army and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service and the Army Commendation Medal.

Upon resuming civilian status after 2006 and joining the D.A.’s staff, McCusker attempted to file for D.A. himself as a Democrat in the election of 2010 but was denied the opportunity to do so by a faction on the Shelby County Democratic executive committee that questioned his party bona fides because he had supported Republican Mitt Romney during the 2008 GOP presidential-primary process and had pulled a petition to serve as a Romney delegate at that year’s Republican National Convention.

McCusker, who grew up in a Roman Catholic Democratic family in East Tennessee, would explain his flirtation with the GOP as a consequence both of his wartime service under a Republican commander-in-chief and his sympathy with Mormon Romney as a member of a religious minority. He accepted his temporary banishment from the Democratic ticket in good grace and was rewarded with a position on the party’s ballot in 2014, when he ran unsuccessfully for Criminal Court clerk.
Here he is again, considering both a personal comeback try and one for his party, which has been diminished to the point of near-extinction in Tennessee, except in Memphis and Nashville. As McCusker put it in a statement released over the weekend, “At this time, I am exploring whether or not we can conduct a campaign that meets the needs of the hardworking people of the 8th Congressional District. Ultimately, my decision will be to do what is in the best interests of the constituents and my family.” 

• As noted in this week’s cover story (“Making a President,” p. 16), Tennessee is preparing to have its say in determining the presidential nominees for both political parties, as of Tuesday, March 1st — dubbed “Super Tuesday” because of the number of states holding primaries or caucuses that day.

A harbinger of what is expected to be a flurry of local activity on behalf of several campaigns was the visit to Whitehaven High School last Thursday of former president Bill Clinton, who, on behalf of the candidacy of his wife, Hillary Clinton, addressed an overflow rally of several hundred in the school’s gymnasium. On the same night that former first lady, senator, and secretary of state Clinton was tangling in a TV debate in Milwaukee with her Democratic rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, her husband was making her case in Memphis, a potential hotbed of Democratic primary votes on account of the city’s large black population.

Memphis congressman Steve Cohen introduced the former President variously as “the greatest president this area has ever seen” and (reprising a onetime honorary title) as “the first black president” and (in a more accurate variation on that trope, considering Barack Obama’s later election) as “a stand-in for the first black president.”

The point was that both Clintons had developed important connections with black voters over the years, and a large part of Bill Clinton’s mission in Memphis was to demonstrate that, even on populist issues where Sanders’ campaign might have obvious appeal to African Americans, Hillary Clinton’s positions were equally compelling, if not superior.

The former president argued that his wife’s means-based plan for reducing tuition costs in college was more realistic than Sanders’ call for universal free tuition, and contended further that her proposals to build upon the already existing Affordable Care Act was economically feasible, while the Vermonter’s espousal of “Medicare for all” was not.

He cited Hillary Clinton’s jobs proposals, coupled with stout raises in the minimum wage, as common-sense solutions to a stagnant consumer economy in which “somebody’s got to earn something to buy something.” He quoted Lyndon Johnson on the notion that anyone spurning “half a loaf” solutions is someone “who’s never been hungry.”

Clinton spent considerable time demonstrating his wife’s commitments to criminal justice reform and her intercessions, going as far back as her time in Arkansas, against federal funding for white-only schools. 

He touted her as able to “stand her ground” on principle and “seek common ground” on issues, noting that she was able to team up with former Republican House leader Tom DeLay on legislation facilitating post-infant adoptions.

As Hillary Clinton herself has done of late, the former president made efforts to endorse the actions of the Obama presidency and to associate her with the president’s accomplishments, which are “far greater than he’s been given credit for.”

Her goal was to make “the American dream” available to everybody, to people of all races, classes, and stations in life — “Yes, we can,” he said, invoking a well-known Obama phrase — and the course of her life, he proclaimed, had been one of “always making something good happen.”