Thursday, March 18, 2010
On the First Mayoral Forum: Part Two
Posted by Jackson Baker on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 3:03 PM
(Continuing the Flyer's coverage of Monday night's League of Women Voters-sponsored forum involved four candidates for Shelby County mayor. Part One can be accessed here.)
- Del Gill
Almost as soon as the meeting at the Hooks Main Library broke up, even as candidates were leaving their seats and members of the Standing-Room-Only crowd began discussing the event in separate conversations, Gill marched up to the panelists’ table and began loudly denouncing a format which had included a Republican candidate, Sheriff Mark Luttrell, along with the three participating Democrats — interim mayor Joe Ford, General Sessions Court clerk Otis Jackson, and Shelby County Commissioner Deidre Malone.
Gill has taken the lead in recent years on the county’s Democratic executive committee in demanding strict interpretation of exclusivist aspects of party by-laws — most recently in denying space on the May 4 Democratic Party ballot to Mike McCusker and Derek Bennett, prospective candidates for Criminal Court Clerk and Trustee, respectively.
But Gill did not explain how -- or why -- the League of Women Voters should be required to enforce some rigid political dividing line in pursuing the League’s well-known non-partisan mission of expanding public awareness.
As Gill held forth, at his elbow, at least briefly, was local Democratic Party chairman Van Turner. It was hard to tell whether Turner was there to restrain Gill or to indicate solidarity with him or whether Gill had merely approached Turner on his own.
But Turner is almost certainly going to be sounded out in days to come about Gill’s performance and/or his philosophical position. So might candidate Jackson, who employs Gill. (Reportedly Gill was a major force behind the General Sessions clerk’s surprise last-minute entry into the mayor’s race.)
* If future forums for the mayoral candidates draw as well as the first one, larger venues are going to be needed to accommodate audiences. Monday night’s affair completely filled up one of the library’s major meeting rooms, which was separated by an accordion curtain from another meeting in the next room.
That room was hosting an oratorical contest involving area youth, and from time to time the sounds of it bled significantly into the room where the mayoral forum was going on. At times this made things difficult to hear, and LWV officers cautioned the candidates to speak directly into their microphones.
Once in a while applause from the oratorical contest coincided with reaction to a mayoral candidate’s statement, sometimes to ironic effect.
* One of the topics brought up in the mayoral debate was one that was new to such occasions, though it concerned a problem that has been long ongoing in the Memphis area.
This was “wage theft,” a term describing the practice of fly-by-night employers — often construction companies — of hiring laborers to complete a project and then finding ways of avoiding their promise to pay, either by filing to show up on appointed payroll dates or by handing out checks that turn out to be worthless.
(More general applications of the term “wage theft” have been employed for a variety of litigations of late.)
Needless to say, all the candidates expressed concern about the issue and promised to do what they could to suppress instances of wage theft.
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
The League of Women Voters have done a great service for the community by bringing the mayoral candidates together, and should be commended.
Mr. Gill should realize the league is non-partisan. If Mr. Gill had a problem with the seating arrangement, he should just stay home next time, as it's irrelevant.
Please keep in mind Mr. Gill was hand-picked by Mr.Otis Jackson to be a key staff member in his organization. If elected mayor, Mr. Jackson will probably behave the same way, choosing new county appointees of similar quality and character.
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The League of Women Voters did an outstanding job! They are all volunteers who approach each project whether it is voter registration, voter education or legislation monitoring, with the highest level of standards, ethics and professionalism. Thank you League members for your service to the community.
What about CITY EMPLOYEE TIME THEFT???
Seems like a bigger problem there since MLGW and MCS are both city services and are the biggest employers of unsupervised employees.
Is it just me or does Del Gill look a little like J.K. Simmons in his role as the newspaper editor in the Spiderman movies?
Del's right about Bennett and McCusker. Bennett's an egotistical snake that tried to BS his way onto the ticket.McCusker, MITT ROMNEY, enough said.
Since this was posted on Thursday and the debate was Monday, it would seem that Jackson could have taken the time to "sound out" SCDP Chairman Turner himself rather than posting speculation. Sometimes its hard to tell whether Jackson is actually reporting on something that happened or acting as a happenstance bystander with no responsibility for providing actual facts. You can tell Jackson loves the drama of politics, but sometimes it seems he likes to play his own role by adding to the drama with insufficient reporting.
You got it all wrong, "memphis" (and I love the presumption of that. What? You can speak for the whole city?). It was to limit unnecessary drama that I didn't immediately quote Van Turner. In fact, I discussed the incident with him in the presence of a third party, and he clearly preferred at that point to be somewhere between non-committal and off the record while he collected his thoughts. (Or maybe he couldn't speak freely in the presence of the third party.)
In any case, he will be asked again for the record. As was candidate Jackson, whose forthright reaction you will shortly be seeing posted here. And it should give you all the drama that you (and not I) seem to be lusting for.
No presumption here, simply one voice in the wilderness.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like better reporting to let the public know you tried to get a comment (even if you didn't get one) rather than just making it seem like you were just observing with no actual interaction with the players. Also, thanks for letting us know that you will actually be following up rather than some amorphous, "Turner is almost certainly going to be sounded out in days to come [by somebody]".
I suppose I should be grateful when someone sets out to instruct me -- or any of my colleagues -- on the art of reporting, but we do OK somehow. I don't know it is in your bizness, "memphis," but the fact is, there are nuances in ours that have to be observed.
In the case at hand, I had no wish to do quick "ambush" interviews with relevant principals, demanding now-or-never unreflective answers on what was clearly going to be a sensitive subject and frankly would require some bona fide real thinking, not just sound-bite stuff or flash emoting. "Better reporting," in short, was the whole idea.
The "sounding out" line you quote refers not only to myself but to the certainty that not only I but other interested parties would be expecting considered answers from those principals, putting them on notice that answers would have to be provided, in fact. And, sure enough, b'golly, we got 'em. (See new post in "Political Beat.") If the wait proved excruciating for you, well... just remember what Mama must have said about those difficult times when you gotta go and don't think you can hold on.
Er, you can take a joke, can't you? That's a form of instruction, too.
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