Tag: wanda halbert

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Politics Politics Feature

Slowdown Coming

Photo: Georgios Kollidas | Dreamstime.com

With pressure building for potential tax increases in Memphis city government, the outlook for additional aid from state government took a hit Monday, as the State Funding Board acknowledged weaker-than-expected revenues and set a deliberately slow growth rate.

The board, composed of the state’s three constitutional officers and the state finance commissioner, set a growth rate in general fund revenue of 1 percent to 2 percent and total tax growth at 1.25 percent to 2.15 percent for fiscal 2025-26. That is on the heels of an estimated total growth rate projection for fiscal 2024-25 of -1.68 percent to -1.34 percent. 

Economic growth has ground down considerably in Tennessee after a double-digit revenue windfall of two years ago. Among other factors, the state is facing a $1.9 billion business tax reduction stemming from legislative approval of Governor Bill Lee’s proposal to eliminate the property portion of the state’s franchise and excise taxes. That move followed additional tax breaks for businesses the previous year. The Department of Revenue has processed nearly $900 million in rebates this year, and more are expected.

On the eve of the oncoming 2025 legislative session, the weak budget outlook could affect lawmakers’ decisions, leaving in the lurch not only localities’ requests for aid but funding requests from state agencies totaling over $4.2 billion. The revenue forecast isn’t expected to come close to matching that figure, even with anticipated federal funds covering some of the costs.

• Two Memphians are finalists to succeed soon-to-be-retiring state Court of Appeals Judge Arnold Goldin of Memphis: Shelby County Circuit Judge Valerie Smith and interim Memphis Chancellor Jim Newsom. A third candidate is Jackson Chancellor Steve Maroney, a former chair of the Madison County Republican Party.

Smith was a member of a three-judge chancery court panel that dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the state’s school voucher program. The decision was later reversed by the Court of Appeals. 

Newsom was named in 2015 to a Chancery Court position by former Governor Bill Haslam but was defeated for re-election in 2016 by current Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins. He was reappointed interim chancellor this past summer by Governor Lee to assume the duties of Chancellor Jim Kyle, who has been disabled by illness.

• The three gun-safety measures approved resoundingly by Memphis voters earlier this month via ballot referenda have predictably come under legal challenge. The Tennessee Firearms Association has filed a lawsuit in Shelby County Circuit Court seeking to block city government from activating the measures. 

In a sense, the gun-lobby group’s suit is pointless, in that backers of the referenda conceded that voter approval of the measures was conditional on the will and pleasure of state government, which had made clear that state policy at this point would disallow the implementation of the three measures.

State House Speaker Cameron Sexton had angrily opposed the referenda as antithetical to state law and threatened to retaliate by cutting Memphis off from various state-shared revenues if the measures were enacted.

The measures, certified for the ballot by the city council, would re-institute a requirement locally for gun-carry permits, ban the sale of assault weapons, and enable the local judiciary to impose red-flag laws allowing confiscation of weapons from individuals certified as risks to public safety.

Mindful of Sexton’s attitude, backed by Governor Lee, the Shelby County Election Commission originally acted to remove the referendum measures from the November ballot, but they were approved for the ballot by Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson.

• It begins to look as though the beleaguered Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert will survive various ouster attempts and will survive in office until the election of 2026, when she will be term-limited.

Her latest reprieve came from Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson, who disallowed an ouster petition from attorney Robert Meyers, ruling that such an action had to be pursued by Shelby County Attorney Marlinee Iverson, who had recused herself.

Judge Corbin-Johnson had previously disallowed an ouster attempt from Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp, who was acting as a special prosecutor. 

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Update: Who Heads the MPD?

Judge Carol Chumney, at the dais, was among the many members of the political community to pay homage to the late Dr. Joe Weinberg, civic activist supreme, at the Great Hall of Germantown Monday night. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

It may be only a semantic issue, but, then again, there could be legal ramifications from the matter of what title interim Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis goes by, should she be approved by the city council in its pending retry of her reappointment.

In January, Davis, originally an appointee of former Mayor Jim Strickland, was rejected by the council when then newly inaugurated Mayor Paul Young submitted her name for reappointment.

Young subsequently designated Davis as interim MPD head and indicated he would ask the council to reconsider. Reportedly he will resubmit her name when the city’s ongoing budget deliberations are concluded.

Meanwhile, Young has also announced that he intends to name a public safety director (or public safety advisor). The job’s exact nomenclature, like the timeline for that appointment and the outlines of the public safety official’s intended relationship to the MPD chief, remains somewhat uncertain.

The city charter mandates that the head of police services be referred to by the title “director,” and every supervisor of MPD operations — uniformed or otherwise — since E. Winslow “Buddy” Chapman during the mayoralty of Wyeth Chandler (1972-1982) has borne that title. Except for C.J. Davis, who allegedly indicated a preference for the title “chief’ when she was hired.

No one seems to remember what title was used in the Strickland-era council’s deliberations — nor, for that matter, in the deliberations of the current council earlier this year. But questions arise:

If and when Mayor Young’s appointment of the putative new public safety official comes to pass, will there be a power struggle with the police chief, as there was between Director Chapman and then-Chief Bill Crumby Jr. before Chapman won out?

Unless Davis is resubmitted as police director, does she even need to be approved by the council to continue serving as chief?

Legal briefs

• The ouster trial of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert has been scheduled to begin on August 26th in the court of Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson, who rejected a motion to dismiss the petition filed by special prosecutor Coty Wamp of Hamilton County. Meanwhile, a motion to suspend Halbert while the case is ongoing was set for June 25th.

• A resentencing hearing for former state Senator Katrina Robinson has been scheduled by Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman for September 20th. Robinson had previously been convicted on two wire-fraud charges in connection with her nursing-school operation and sentenced to time served and a year’s probation.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals later restored an additional count she had been convicted of before it was thrown out. Robinson, a Democrat, was expelled from the Republican-dominated Senate after her original conviction on the wire-fraud charges. She is seeking a new trial on one remaining count.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

A Glimmer of Hope

State Comptroller Jason Mumpower (Photo: State Comptroller’s Office)

At a time when legitimate issues of state vs. local authority are proliferating — notably in proposed legislation regarding law enforcement and educational vouchers — the long, sad saga of Wanda Halbert is an embarrassing and parallel spectacle.

It is a case study, however, of the need for good-faith cooperation between state and local governments.

This week may see the beginnings of a resolution, through unavoidable state intervention, of the hot mess that is the Shelby County Clerk’s office.

On Monday, Jim Arnette, lead auditor in the state comptroller’s office and his chief deputy, Nathan Abbott, brought a contingent of six auditors to Memphis at the urgent request of Shelby County Trustee Regina Newman. Their task: to help straighten out the clerk’s fearfully tangled records so that the county can square its own accounts and prepare the way for its annual budget.

The problem, as Newman made clear in public alarms she raised last week, is that Clerk Halbert has failed in several belated tries to submit accurate figures regarding her office’s wheel tax receipts over the last several months — specifically failing to indicate the amount corresponding to a surcharge designated by the county commission last year to help pay for new schools and a multi-purpose center.

Once in town, Arnette, Abbott, and their six-person auditing team made a beeline for the county clerk’s office where they wasted little time combing through Halbert’s scrambled figures. At the end of the day, Arnette and Abbott departed, leaving behind the six other auditors to spend the week. Newman said she had every reason to hope that the team will generate an accurate compilation of the needed wheel tax figures.

If so, a ray of light will at last have penetrated Halbert’s murky corner of local government, one which has badly needed sunshine.

Also this week, Halbert has been summoned for a come-to-Jesus meeting on Wednesday with the county commission — the latest in many such encounters with that body during her tenure, now in a second term. Both the commission and the office of Mayor Lee Harris have been persistently thwarted in good-faith efforts to get the clerk’s office on the right track.

Halbert, a former member of the city council, where financial compensation is minimal, was first elected to her much more lucrative clerkship in 2018 and was re-elected in 2022, a “blue wave” year in which having a “D” (for “Democratic”) by her name on the ballot was helpful.

She was already floundering, however, as was indicated by long lines of desperate people seeking auto-tag renewal at the several county clerk offices. Worse, the number of those offices was shrinking, as Halbert, it developed, had failed either to renew the leases at several of them or had defaulted on the rent, incurring eviction.

Her slipshod auditing procedures had meanwhile attracted negative attention both elsewhere in local government, where concerns arose over the county’s credit rating, and from state Comptroller Jason Mumpower, who has pronounced on Halbert’s “incompetence and willful neglect.” Auto dealers complained that they could not get services, business licenses proved impossible to procure, and so forth and so on.

The list of Halbert’s failings is too numerous to detail in this space but is exhaustively contained in a lengthy document submitted by County Commissioner Mick Wright to Hamilton County DA Coty Wamp, who has been charged with the duty of investigating Halbert’s performance preparatory to possible ouster proceedings.

Whatever the ultimate result of those proceedings, and if Trustee Newman’s optimism over the potential outcome of this week’s state intervention proves to be justified, a degree of trust between local and state governments may have been achieved.

Perhaps, we are entitled to hope that will help to allay the current atmosphere of mutual suspicion prevailing elsewhere between the two spheres. That’s what you call a silver lining.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

A Momentous Day for the Commission

Mick Wright: "I hope "God will forgive me if I vote wrong." Photo courtesy Shelby County Government


There are various ways of dividing the efforts of humankind into separate but oddly complementary spheres: sacred vs. profane is one way, ad hoc vs. eternal is another. And who is to say that one sphere exceeds the other in importance?

Maybe not the Shelby County Commission, whose current Democratic-dominated version seems bent on taking direct action wherever it can.

On Wednesday, the Commission spent roughly the same amount of time and energy on two radically differing pending matters — one being how next to try to get the office of the Shelby County Clerk up to snuff (in this case via a “special adviser”), the other being how best to remedy centuries of racial injustice through a system of reparations for the African-American component of local society.
Left pending until the Commission’s next meeting were a series of proposed correctives aimed at preventing another Tyre Nichols situation. 

The matter of County Clerk Wanda Halbert came first on the agenda. Various commissioners made it plain they were fed up with Halbert’s inabilities to deal expeditiously with the duties of her office, which include the processing of auto license tag applications and the distribution of them. Through much of the past  year, during which Halbert twice closed her office so as to do catch-up, long lines of frustrated Shelby Countians turned up daily at the various clerk’s offices in a vain effort to get their plates.

During one of those shut-downs, Halbert conspicuously took time off in Jamaica. She periodically has described herself as a “whistle-blower” and has blamed her office imbroglios on vague insinuations of conspiratorial action on the Commission’s part or on that of County Mayor Lee Harris.

The Commission has tried numerous incentives to help the clerk out, but, as commissioners noted on Wednesday, none of these bore much fruit. Simultaneously, state Representative Mark White has introduced a bill in the General Assembly in Nashville that would facilitate local efforts to recall the clerk.

On Wednesday, Halbert, along with aides, was present in the Commission chamber, behaving more or less meekly as the Commission tossed around a proposal to appropriate $150,000 to hire a special adviser to her. The clerk welcomed the initiative, claiming she had wanted something like that all along.

Much of a lengthy debate on what was clearly being put forth as a “last chance” solution concerned the issue of where the money to hire the adviser should come from. Various commissioners objected to the proposal’s original formulation that the $150,000 should come from the Commission’s own contingency fund, and it was ultimately decided that the clerk herself possessed enough uncommitted funds to foot the bill for the adviser.

In the end, that’s how things were decided. Halbert’s helper, who will be hired by the Commission, will be paid by available funds from the clerk’s office but will answer to the Commission, not to her. The vote was 12 to 1, with Republican Commissioner Brandon Morrison expressing disapproval of the need to spend more taxpayer money to accomplish duties that are part of the express charge of the elected clerk’s office.

Later in Wednesday’s public meeting, which was specially called by chairman Mickell Lowery, the Commission took up the momentous matter of a proposed $5 million outlay to fund a feasibility study on reparations for the African-American population. The “reparations” were not necessarily financial, although at least one successful amendment to the resolution proposed by Commissioner Henri Brooks seemed to call for make-up pay differentials for African-Americans.

Most of several amendments by Brooks addressed directly, as did the resolution itself, the undeniable fact of overall racial disparities in accessing of advantages of American citizenship.

Sponsoring the reparations measure were eight of the Commission’s Democrats, including all of the body’s Black members, most of whom spoke for the measure with various degrees of passionate intensity. 


Reservations were heard from the body’s four Republicans, who tended to see the resolution as “divisive”  or in conflict somehow with the American system of equality. Aligning with them in harboring doubts about the reparations issue was Democrat Michael Whaley, whose mother is Asian-born and who self-identified Wednesday as a “person of col0r.”

Voting for the resolution were chairman Lowery and fellow Commissioners Shante Avant, Brooks, Charlie Caswell, Miska Clay-Bibbs, Ed Ford, Erika Sugarmon, and Britney Thornton, all Democrats.

“No”  votes came from Republicans Amber Mills, Brandon Morrison, and Mick Wright, and abstaining were Democrat Whaley and Republican Bradford.

In one form or another, the objecting Commissioners wondered where the $5 million to pay for the feasibility study would come from (Ford made the case that such funds were available in the county’s residual share of funds from ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021).

The objectors conceded during debate that disparities existed between the races that needed addressing but expressed disagreement with reparations as such as the remedy. Bradford had originally moved that the matter be postponed until the next public Commission meeting but ultimately withdrew his motion (that clearly would have failed) and expressed hopes that the larger effort to alter disparities succeeded.

His fellow Republican, Mick Wright, expressed similar sentiments, concluding with a blessing for his colleagues and the seemingly heartfelt statement, “I hope God will forgive me if I vote wrong.”

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News The Fly-By

Year That Was: Violence, Environment, and Health

Photo: Rowan Gratz

January

2021 was twice as deadly as 2020 for Covid-19 in Shelby County. In 2020, 903 died of Covid here. In 2021, 1,807 passed from the virus.

A consent decree forced Horn Lake leaders to approve the construction of a new mosque.

Family members wanted $20 million from the city of Memphis; Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW); and the Memphis Police Department (MPD) for the 2020 beating death of a man by an MLGW employee.

New DNA testing was requested in the West Memphis Three case for recently rediscovered evidence once claimed to be lost or burned. 

February

An ice storm knocked out power to nearly 140,000 MLGW customers.

The new concourse — in the works since 2014 — opened at Memphis International Airport.

Paving on Peabody Avenue began after the project was approved in 2018.

Protect Our Aquifer teamed up with NASA for aquifer research.

A prosecutor moved to block DNA testing in the West Memphis Three case.

March

A bill before the Tennessee General Assembly would have banned the sale of hemp-derived products, like Delta-8 gummies, in the state. It ultimately provided regulation for the industry.

The project to fix the interchange at Crump Ave. and I-55 resurfaced. Bids on the project, which could cost up to $184.9 million, were returned. Work did not begin in 2022 but when it does, it could close the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge (the Old Bridge) for two weeks.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee temporarily cut sales taxes on groceries.

April

The Mississippi River ranked as one of the most endangered rivers in America in a report from the American Rivers group.

Critics lambasted decisions by Memphis in May and Africa in April to honor Ghana and Malawi, both of which outlaw basic LGBTQ+ rights.

The federal government announced a plan to possibly ban menthol cigarettes.

Lawmakers approved Gov. Lee’s plan to update the state’s 30-year-old education funding plan.

Tom Lee Park (Photo: Memphis River Parks Partnership)

May

Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi prepared for the likely overturn of the Roe v. Wade decision, ending legal abortions in the state.

The Greater Memphis Chamber pressed for a third bridge to be built here over the Mississippi River.

Cooper-Young landlords sued to evict the owners of Heaux House for “specializing in pornographic images.” 

The Memphis City Council wanted another review of Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) plan to remove coal ash from the shuttered Allen Fossil Plant.

June

New research showed Memphis-area women earned 83 percent of their male counterparts income in the workplace from 2000-2019.

Gov. Lee ordered schools to double down on existing security measures in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

MPD arrested four drivers in an operation it called Infiniti War Car Take-Over.

A key piece of the Tom Lee Park renovation project won a $3.7 million federal grant, which was expected to trigger nearly $9 million in additional funds.

Tennessee Republican attorney general fought to keep gender identity discrimination in government food programs.

Jim Dean stepped down as president and CEO of the Memphis Zoo and was replaced by Matt Thompson, then the zoo’s executive director and vice president.

Locals reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

July

Memphian Brett Healey took the stage at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Eating Contest.

One Beale developers returned to Memphis City Hall for the fourth time asking for financial support of its luxury hotel plans.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) board placed Superintendent Joris Ray on paid leave as they investigated whether he violated district policies with relationships with co-workers and abused his power. 

The project to forever eliminate parking on the Overton Park Greensward got $3 million in federal funding.

Tennessee’s attorney general celebrated a win after a federal judge blocked a move that would have allowed trans kids to play sports on a team of their gender.

Tennessee’s top Pornhub search was “interracial” in 2021, according to the site.

August

A panel of Tennessee judges did not give a new trial to Barry Jamal Martin, a Black man convicted in a Pulaski jury room decked out in Confederate portraits, flags, and memorabilia.

Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert caught flak from the Tennessee Comptroller after traveling to Jamaica while her offices were closed to catch up on the controversial backlog of license plate requests from citizens.

MSCS superintendent Joris Ray resigned with a severance package worth about $480,000. Finance chief Toni Williams was named interim superintendent.

Officials said the Memphis tourism sector had made a “full recovery” from the pandemic.

A new bail system unveiled here was touted by advocates to be “one of the fairest in the nation.”

Eliza Fletcher (Photo: Memphis Police Department)

September

Memphis kindergarten teacher Eliza Fletcher was abducted and murdered while on an early-morning run. Cleotha Abston, out of jail early on previous abduction charges, was arrested for the crimes.

MLGW’s board continues to mull the years-long decision to, possibly, find a new power provider.

Ezekiel Kelly, 19, was arrested on charges stemming from an alleged, hours-long shooting rampage across Memphis that ended with four dead and three injured.

A Drag March was planned for the “horrible mishandling” of a drag event at MoSH. Event organizers canceled the show there after a group of Proud Boys arrived armed to protest the event.

October

Workers at four Memphis restaurants, including Earnestine & Hazel’s, sued the owners to recover alleged unpaid minimum wage and overtime. 

Shelby County was largely unfazed by an outbreak of monkeypox with only about 70 infected here as of October.

Animal welfare advocates called a University of Memphis research lab “the worst in America” after a site visit revealed it violated numerous federal protocols concerning the care of test animals.

While other states have outlawed the practice, Tennessee allows medical professionals and medical students to — without any kind of permission — stick their fingers and instruments inside a woman’s vagina and rectum while she is under anesthesia.

Joshua Smith, a co-defendant in the election finance case against former state Sen. Brian Kelsey, pleaded guilty in court.

The Environmental Protection Agency told South Memphis residents little could be done to protect them from toxic emissions from the nearby Sterilization Services facility.

West Tennessee farmers struggled to get crops to market because of the record-low level of the Mississippi River.

November

Groups asked state officials for a special investigator to review the “very real failures that led to [Eliza] Fletcher’s tragic murder.”

A group wanted state officials to change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park.

The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional.

A plan to forever end parking on the Overton Park Greensward was finalized by city leaders, the Memphis Zoo, and the Overton Park Conservancy.

December

The Commercial Appeal dodged layoffs in the latest round of news staff reductions by Gannett.

Federal clean-energy investments will further ingrain Tennessee in the Battery Belt and help develop a Southeast Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (H2Hubs).

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee criticized Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH) for canceling gender affirmation surgery for a 19-year-old patient.

State and local officials investigated an alleged milk spill into Lick Creek.

MLGW rejected Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) 20-year rolling contract but will continue to be a TVA customer “for the foreseeable future.” 

Former state Senator Brian Kelsey’s law license was suspended after he pled guilty to two felonies related to campaign finance laws last month.

Visit the News Blog at memphisflyer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet Best of 2022: The River, Eliza, “Saucy Situation,” and Back From Vacation

Posted to Twitter by Charles Peek

Memphis on the internet.

BEST OF 2022

The river

Posts poured in from up and down the Mississippi River, showing incredible images of the Big Muddy’s record-low levels. The image above shows boats moored in the mud at Mud Island Marina.

Eliza

Posted to Facebook by Tom Bailey

Posts of love, sadness, and support poured in from all over the country in honor of Eliza Fletcher.

“Saucy Situation”

Posted to Facebook by WMCTV

The MEMernet was briefly (but deeply) obsessed with a truck accident that spilled enough Bertolli Alfredo sauce to temporarily close I-55.

Back from Vacation

Posted to Reddit by u/anotheronegoesby

Wanda went to Jamaica and we all got this amazing meme.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Alfredo Spill, Blinker Fluid, and Wanda’s Vacation

Memphis on the internet.

“Saucy Situation”

The MEMernet was obsessed last week with the truck accident that spilled enough Bertolli alfredo sauce to temporarily close I-55. Coverage quotes from FOX13’s Kate Bieri went viral, including a tweet from The New York Times that read: “Unfortunately this is Memphis, and we had some pretty intense sun beating down on that alfredo sauce, and also humidity. It was just not a great recipe for a highway full of alfredo sauce.”

Blinker Fluid

“We had a driver that didn’t immediately stop yesterday because they said that they didn’t see our blue lights,” Bartlett Police Department said on Facebook last week. “This morning we topped off all the blue light blinker fluid to make us easier to see.”

Back from Vacation

Complaining of long wait times, calling her the “Ted Cruz of Memphis,” and laughing at her defensive “don’t be disrespectful” news conference, Memphis Redditors piled on Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert last week.

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At Large Opinion

License to Ill

Wanda Halbert (Photo: shelbycountytn.gov)

Someone I’m close to inadvertently let their Tennessee vehicle tags expire. Since I have more time on my hands to deal with such situations these days, I decided to help out by tackling the project of getting them one of those snazzy new blue license plates. I didn’t expect to have much trouble, even given the recently well-publicized problems of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert’s bureaucracy. My optimism was based solely on the fact that in early August I ordered a new plate online and it arrived within a week. Maybe, I told my friend, things are improving. Ha. Ha. Polly? Meet Anna.

Let me review the situation for those of you who haven’t been paying attention — and that includes all of you grossly uninformed Shelby Countians who just voted to reelect Halbert despite well-publicized reports on her many problems in executing the duties of her office. To enumerate: There’s an enormous backlog of ordered license plates that has resulted in thousands of people being at risk for being pulled over for expired tags; the local Auto Dealers Association has complained (and complained) that they aren’t getting temporary (or new) plates for their vehicles; the state comptroller has criticized Halbert’s performance, which opened the possibility of a state takeover; Halbert announced that the clerk’s office would close for two (non-consecutive) weeks to “catch up”; and finally the state comptroller confirmed that in the midst of all this chaos and public uproar, Halbert decided it was a perfect time to take a vacation trip to Jamaica.

Still, since I’d had no issues getting my own plate and tags, I was hopeful I could handle all of this online and be done with it. So I went to the county clerk website and typed in my friend’s address and the plate number. Oops. “No such plate number exists,” it said. What? After a little reading, I figured out the issue. The person in question had allowed their tags to expire more than 90 days ago, meaning I had to “contact the county clerk’s office.” Ugh.

So I called. The voicemail, which helpfully let me know that Wanda Halbert is the county clerk a couple of times, explained that “wait times may be longer than usual” and suggested that I write an email to explain the situation. Dutifully, I shot off an email explaining the situation, giving the address and vehicle license number, and hoped for the best, even though It felt a bit like tossing a sacrificial pineapple into an erupting volcano. Then, in the interest of science (and maybe getting a column out of it), I decided to try to get through by telephone. What’s the worst that could happen? At 9:17 a.m., I plugged my phone into a charger, put it on speaker, and dialed back into Wanda World.

I got the opening voicemail, clicked through to make a call, then soothing music began, kind of like what you’d hear if Kenny G played guitar through a Jell-O tube amp. (What, no reggae?) Anyway, every 30 seconds I heard: “Your call is very important to us and will be answered in the order it was received. Please continue to hold.” After the voicemail recording told me this 290 times, I heard a click and someone answered. THANK JESUS, a human! I explained the situation to the person on the phone and she said the issue could not be resolved without the license holder coming into the county clerk’s office in person.

“How long is the wait for people when they come into the office?” I asked.

“Sir, I’m at a call center,” the person responded. “I have no idea.”

A call center. Perfect.

I decided to drive to the county clerk satellite office at Poplar Plaza. The line to get into the office snaked around the corner, maybe 100 people deep.

Friends, Shelby Countians deserve better. Halbert needs to own this, but she won’t. Her response to all of these issues has been that it’s someone else’s fault. She claimed any criticism of her ill-timed vacation is a “personal attack.” No, it is not, Ms. Halbert. You don’t leave your troops — or your constituency — in the middle of a crisis. You were elected to do a job and you’ve failed. All of this is on your plate.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Mayor Floyd Bonner?

Floyd Bonner electioneering this year (Photo: Jackson Baker)

There is, it would seem, a different Name of the Week in generalized speculation about the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race. Confessedly, there have certainly been different figures to talk about in successive weeks of this column.

Previously mentioned as likely mayoral candidates next year have been: NAACP head Van Turner, who is finishing up his second and final term of the County Commission this week; Paul Young, the president/CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission; Karen Camper, caucus leader of the state House of Representatives Democrats; and Joe Brown, the onetime Criminal Court judge and former TV celebrity judge.

Brown’s intentions, though he has certainly promoted a possible race, may be more fanciful than real. The others are, one way or another, making tangible plans to run. Turner has basically already announced, Young is reportedly lining up some serious financing for a campaign, and Camper is expected to make an announcement any week now.

Other names that are getting some mention are those of the Rev. Keith Norman of First Baptist Church-Broad, a chief lobbyist for Baptist Memorial Hospital and a former Democratic Party chair; Beverly Robertson, president/CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber; Patrice Robinson, City Council member and former Council chair; and Worth Morgan, City Council member and defeated Republican candidate for county mayor this year.

This week’s most mentioned mayoral prospect? Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who in two successive county elections has led all other candidates for office and has a decent-sized campaign account left over to start a mayoral campaign with.

Bonner’s popularity with the voters as a Democratic candidate has been such that Shelby County Republicans did not even bother to nominate an opponent for him this year and themselves endorsed him.

His interest in running for the nonpartisan office of mayor is a very real thing, and he has definitely had preliminary discussions about mounting a campaign next year. Bonner’s status on the eve of the Memphis city election has been likened by more than one observer to that of AC Wharton in the first decade of this century, when Wharton was considered an inevitable candidate for, successively, Shelby County mayor and Memphis mayor, both of which offices he would win.

Jason Martin (Photo: Jackson Baker)

• Jason Martin, the Nashville critical-care physician who emerged as the winner of the Democrats’ three-way gubernatorial primary, was the speaker at last week’s Germantown Democratic Club meeting.

Addressing an audience of 70-odd attendees at the Coletta’s restaurant in East Shelby County, Martin deplored GOP Governor Bill Lee’s policies on several counts, including Lee’s restrictive posture toward abortion rights, his refusal to countenance Medicaid expansion and the annual federal outlays of $1 billion that would come with it, his striking away of gun regulations, and his moves toward privatizing public education.

Said Martin: “The other side is so radical on these issues that most people are like, ‘That’s not me.’ And that’s why we’re getting traction.”

• As first reported last week on memphisflyer.com, outgoing District Attorney General Amy Weirich will be taking a position as assistant DA with the office of Mark Davidson, district attorney for the adjoining 25th Judicial District, which serves the counties of Tipton, Fayette, Lauderdale, McNairy, and Hardeman.

A press release from Davidson’s office on Monday confirmed that Weirich will be sworn in as special counsel to his office on September 1st, a day after the swearing-in of Steve Mulroy, who defeated Weirich in the August 4th county election, to replace her as Shelby DA.

• The ever-worsening situation of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert, under fire for mishandling license-plate distribution and her office affairs in general, almost got even bleaker Monday when the Shelby County Commission, in its final meeting as currently composed, failed by one vote to appoint a special counsel to begin ouster proceedings.

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News News Blog News Feature

With Clerk’s Offices Closed to “Clean Up the Mess,” Wanda Halbert Goes to Jamaica

(Credit: Wanda Halbert Shelby County Clerk/Facebook)

Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert is in Jamaica this week, her offices are closed to catch up on the controversial backlog of license plate requests from citizens, and the Tennessee Comptroller is having none of it. 

Halbert has been under fire for weeks as requests for Tennessee’s new plates have gone unfulfilled and lines stretch down the sidewalks at her offices. Halbert has given numerous excuses for the backlog, winning her a vote of no confidence by the Shelby County Commission. 

However, she was re-elected in August and vowed to clear the backlog. To get there, she made the move to close her offices for two separate weeks. That move was called “unusual” by Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower recently. 

On the first day of the closure, Mumpower’s office confirmed that Halbert was out of the country, in Jamaica, while her staffers were left to “clean up the mess.” 

Here’s the statement Mumpower’s office tweeted this afternoon:       

“The Comptroller’s office has confirmed that Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert is currently out of the country in Jamaica.

“This comes as the Shelby County Clerk’s Office has closed its offices this week to “catch up” on a backlog of work. 

“The clerk’s trip shows a lack of leadership and concern for her staff who are left to address the backlog without her presence in the office. It also shows a lack of respect for the citizens of Shelby County who are forgoing many of the clerk’s services this week in hopes that she is addressing her office’s deficiencies during the closure.” 

“The clerk’s decision to travel to Jamaica this week shows that her apologies were meaningless,” said Comptroller Jason Mumpower. “Her decision to take a trip damages her credibility and shows a complete lack of awareness. The clerk is [absent without leave] while her staff is left behind trying to clean up the mess.”