Simultaneously the most feared and most courted man in Memphis government for the last several years has been Doug McGowen, successively, director of innovation for the City of Memphis, head of the Memphis and Shelby County Covid-19 Task Force, and chief operating officer for city government. For the last year he has served as president/CEO of Memphis Light, Gas and Water, the city’s utility.
Unofficially, the onetime combat aviator is generally credited with having been a major force behind the scenes in the late city mayor’s race and, some say, was the inspiration for the erstwhile residency-requirement issue that for a crucial two-month period in midyear, until invalidated, stymied the mayoral campaigns of such major mayoral contenders as Sheriff Floyd Bonner and Van Turner and, whether by design or not, boosted the steady efforts of ultimate winner Paul Young.
The MLGW role is probably destined to be the most controversial of McGowen’s career. Having presumably reaggregated the hierarchy to his satisfaction, he is poised to spearhead two major initiatives — to push a 12 ⅓ percent MLGW rate increase through city council and, allegedly, to arrange the transfer of the utility’s headquarters from its current site in a core Downtown area to a suburban location out east.
The one move already has the city’s ratepayers, exhausted by a series of service dysfunctions, alarmed; the other has reportedly activated an ongoing revolt among Downtown business owners, who fear the immediate economic consequences of losing the 500-strong customer base of MLGW’s employees.
McGowen will need all his acknowledged skill, persuasiveness, and derring-do to achieve these new objectives, which are sure to dominate much of the news of the next few months.
• Another increasingly active mover and shaker on the governmental scene is District 31 state Senator Brent Taylor, a Republican who, since his election last year, has rapidly become a major player in the arenas of both Nashville and Memphis. A veteran of both the Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Commission, Taylor also led the Shelby County Election Commission in recent years.
Having disposed of a far-flung regional funeral-home empire, netting millions in the process, Taylor became an indispensable source of donations and campaign support for the Shelby County Republican Party, which is some years past its heyday in county politics. He has single-handedly endowed major party occasions, and his Eads mansion is a staple stopping point and fundraising site for any significant statewide GOP election campaign.
Even as former state Senator Brian Kelsey’s growing legal issues made his position in the suburban district unstable, Taylor became the obvious party choice for a replacement, and his Senate campaign was ready to go in 2022. He won easily, backed not only by his party establishment but by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a nominal Democrat.
Predictably, Taylor has become a player in state government, acquiring key committee positions and ready access to Governor Bill Lee and other state officials. He is notable lately for his published communications seeking increased state involvement in the crime-control affairs of Shelby County, even suggesting at one point that the National Guard be activated in the county. Whatever Taylor’s long-term personal goals — and a 2026 gubernatorial try could be one of them — he is clearly on the board to pass go.
