by Phil Campbell
he Commercial
Appeal can't seem to make up its mind about
the threat of violence from gang-initiation rites. The daily paper's editorial
writers have accused the Memphis Police Department of a cover-up at the
same time its metro desk has downplayed the possibility.
But first, a brief history. In 1993, anonymous faxes circulated throughout the city that a weekend slated for gang-initiation rites might prove fatal for innocent motorists. The faxes stated that gang-member wannabes would be driving around Memphis at night with their headlights off, and anyone helpfully flashing their lights at them would be followed home and murdered. At the time, the CA responded to the fax by quoting then Criminal Court Clerk Minerva Johnican, who held a press conference to call the rumors groundless. Memphis police officials would only say that they did not send the fax.
Nothing happened that particular weekend, and Memphis became yet another city to fall victim to the same hoax. The entire idea of the flashing-headlights-equals-death scenario was relegated to urban myth.
Last week, however, the issue was resurrected when Sgt. Richard Parker of MPD's Organized Crime Unit testified to members of the Tennessee General Assembly. During his testimony, Parker stunned legislators by presenting the rumored gang-initiation rite as fact rather than fiction. He did not substantiate his statement with an actual incident, but he did state the rumor as if something had actually happened four years ago, unbeknownst to the media and the general public.
"It was considered easy to kill a rival gang member but it would show `heart' to kill an innocent bystander," he was quoted as saying.
The CA tackled the issue three times. In the first story, CA reporter Richard Locker quoted Parker in a story headlined, "Memphis police jolt lawmakers with report on gang initiations." It also mentioned that police officials at the time would not comment on the accuracy of the rumor, then went into other, unrelated details.
Then came the editorial on Friday. "Now we know," the editorial began. "Memphis gangs did indeed have an initiation rite back in 1993 that involved driving without lights and then following home and shooting motorists who responded by flashing headlights at them." The editorial failed to mention that Parker provided no further details, and went on to attack the department for not publicizing its recent knowledge of a serial rapist around the Defense Depot and Winchester Road.
The next day, the CA published a front-page article reversing the claims made by its editorial writers, saying, "Officers who study gangs in Memphis say murders and assaults motivated by gang initiation or advancement are relatively uncommon." The article supported that statement with testimony from Memphis police officers, who downplayed Parker's testimony in Nashville.
CA deputy managing editor Otis Sanford says the editorial was not out of line. "I don't see where the discrepancy lies," he says. "The editorial just stressed that the public has a right to know these things if the police have information about it."
In a statement to the Flyer, Lt. Chuck Newell, Parker's supervisor with the Organized Crime Unit, also downplayed Parker's statements. "He was giving an overall view of gang initiations, not necessarily in Memphis," says Newell. The real-life examples he gave for initiation were much tamer, including robbery and getting beaten by gang members.
Newell suggested that the CA check its facts when writing editorials.
"When you advertise this, then that gives some credibility to some of these gangs," he says. "We don't know where these rumors come from, but I think that people should report the news responsibly, and Richard Parker was not citing a specific incident that occurred in Memphis."
by Phil Campbell
A TASK
FORCE MADE UP OF CITY AND county officials and private interests has looked
at the trend in private development and come to a conclusion: Maybe the
public sector can do something to fight middle-class flight out of
Memphis.
"The goal is to keep these people from moving out of the city. [They leave] because there's no middle-income housing to buy," says Paul Ryan, former president of the Memphis Home Builders Association and a member of the Middle-Income Housing Task Force.
One way to encourage middle-class home-owners to stay in the city is to provide middle-income housing around popular optional schools, says Dexter Muller, head of the Memphis Office of Planning and Development and chairman of the task force.
The group wants to see growth where the big developers won't go and where most banks won't lend. There's still plenty of vacant land in the city, mostly in Whitehaven, Raleigh, and Frayser. If the city extended basic services such as sewers, road improvements, water, and utilities to these areas, and followed up with additional financial incentives, then developers, builders, and home buyers might move in.
The initial plan, which was approved by the city council earlier this month and will be voted on by the Shelby County Commission April 2nd, would extend $608,000 in credit in city services to Milton Grant for his proposed Elm Springs development in Raleigh and $616,000 in services to David Walker for his proposed Diamond Estates development in Whitehaven.
A committee would look at future proposals from developers seeking to build middle-income homes. Muller says he expects the developers to be able to pay the city back in five or six years.
Many Memphians can recite the problems the city will face with this program -- a perception that crime is too high in the city and the public schools are inadequate, and the reality of higher property taxes within the city limits. Still, the private sector appears to be coming aboard. First Tennessee Bank, which already gave a loan to Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton for his Banneker Estate development in South Memphis, has granted a loan to Walker as well.
Diamond Estates may have found another anchor for its development, though --Mayor W.W. Herenton's own subdivision, Banneker Estates. Walker says one of the reasons he chose the location for his development was that the mayor's subdivision, which seems to be succeeding nicely, is a quarter of a mile away.
The mayor has only five more lots out of his original 30 to sell, and he recently raised prices on three of the lots by $5,000. Herenton's developer, Don Tillilie, says that the cost of the lots was raised because demand has been high and the homes being developed have been pricier than anticipated.
Questions that Herenton might somehow benefit from the city's gift of $600,000 in sewers, utilities, and roads to Walker's development do not appear to have merit, in part because the mayor is already so close to selling all of his lots. If anything, Herenton may stand to lose a little if Walker succeeds, speculates Ryan.
"In my opinion, the upscale [Banneker] housing will help the middle-class [Diamond Estates] housing, more than the other way around," he says. Then again, property values at Banneker may not be affected at all because Diamond Estates is too far from Banneker Estates to have an impact, Ryan says.
by Dennis Freeland
DESPITE SPECULATION IN SOME quarters suggesting problems in financing a downtown baseball stadium, sources close to the Memphis AAA baseball team say plans are progressing on schedule for the 12,000-seat facility. Allie Prescott, president and chief executive officer of the AAA franchise, says his group met with architects last week and will probably award the design and construction job in the next few days.
Prescott says construction should begin on the new stadium this fall or early winter. The team, which was awarded to Memphis in January, will play in 1998 at Tim McCarver Stadium at the fairgrounds, then move into the new ballpark in time for the 1999 season. The ball club currently does not have an affiliation with a major-league team. Prescott says he will be able to begin negotiations with major-league clubs after August 20th.
The Commercial Appeal's front-page story of March 14th quoted a city official saying that First Tennessee Bank president John Kelley had expressed doubts about the financial projections for the downtown stadium. It is NationsBank, however, not First Tennessee, who will be financing the stadium deal, according to several sources close to the negotiations.
Prescott was hesitant to discuss the negotiations in detail, but did say, "We hope we can conclude a bunch of the behind-the-scenes work in the next week or so." Team officials heard pitches from six different architectural teams last Monday and Tuesday.
"We firmly believe this stadium is going to be beautiful -- the most beautiful minor-league stadium in the country," Prescott says. "That's what's consuming our time right now."
The new stadium is expected to be patterned after Camden Yards in Baltimore, a newly built urban ballpark with an "old-fashioned" design, and several new minor-league arenas.
The new stadium site is between Madison and Union avenues downtown, just east of the First Tennessee building. The project is being funded by $8.5 million in grant money from city and county government and tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the Center City Revenue Finance Corporation.
by Debbie Gilbert
A NEW SOURCEBOOK HAS JUST BEEN published that reflects Memphis' increasing ethnic diversity. The 1997 Memphis Multicultural Directory is a product of the Memphis Multicultural Partnership (MMP), a coalition of educational and charitable groups funded by the Assisi Foundation and an Avron B. Fogelman United Way Venture Fund. Three thousand copies of the 62-page spiral-bound book have been printed, and they'll be distributed free through organizations that serve refugees and immigrants. The MMP plans to publish annual updates to keep the book's information current.
Among the services and agencies listed in the guide: resettlement programs; English as a Second Language classes; translators and interpreters; legal assistance; health-care providers; counseling; social clubs for various nationalities (everything from the Dutch-Belgian Club of Memphis to the Laotian Association); international programs at local colleges; churches with ethnic congregations; trade organizations and consulates; media outlets that offer foreign-language programming; cultural festivals; and retail stores and catalogs that sell ethnic foods and other specialty products.
To request a copy of the 1997 Memphis Multicultural Directory, call 274-9009.
by Jacqueline Marino
THE MEMPHIS NEWSPAPER GUILD, Local 91, and The Commercial Appeal have been negotiating for 16 months, but CA employees are still working without a contract while the 250-member guild plans which course of action to take next.
During February and March, a federal mediator from Birmingham attended two negotiating sessions. But guild vice president Dan McQuade says little progress has been made.
"We thought we were going somewhere, but then the company backed off," he says.
Last November, guild members went on record saying they couldn't get a fair contract out of the city's only daily newspaper. Sign-carrying members lobbied for public support at busy intersections, near the CA's offices on Union, and even in front of editor Angus McEachran's home on Mud Island.
McQuade did not say what the guild plans to do next. He describes striking as a "no-win situation for both sides," but says it is "always a possibility." He did not comment on other measures the guild is rumored to be discussing, such as editorial guild members withholding their bylines from stories.
Members of the guild have filed more than 20 internal grievances and four charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Since May 1996, the guild has charged the newspaper with threatening and harassing guild members, failing to provide information on grievances, and refusing to bargain with the guild about creating employee action groups.
NLRB regional attorney Ron Hooks says all charges are still pending. The regional NLRB has asked its national office for advice on whether such employee work groups constitute an attempt by management to bypass unions. If the NLRB finds the charges have merit, it will suggest a plan for the company to resolve the dispute.
Warren Funk, the CA's general counsel and personnel director, has not wished to comment on any story the Flyer has written about current contract negotiations.
The guild represents 450 employees in editorial, inside circulation, business office, general mechanics, advertising, maintenance, and transportation at the CA. McQuade says guild members are most concerned with securing better retirement benefits, staving off a company policy that would allow managers to do their employees' jobs, and revising an ethics policy handed down from E.W. Scripps, parent company of Scripps Howard, the Cincinnati-based company that owns the CA.
Recently employees learned they would not receive retroactive pay raises once a contract is settled, says McQuade. Many employees have not received a raise in two years.
by Jacqueline Marino
IN THE LAST FOUR MONTHS, THIEVES have attacked mail trucks in four Memphis neighborhoods and stolen bundles of government checks, says postal inspector Katrina Chalmers.
While the post office investigates these crimes, it has warned residents in ZIP codes 38106, 38107, 38112, and 38108 to report any suspicious activities surrounding mail trucks or boxes. Chalmers says the checks were stolen on the first and third days of the month, when welfare and other government checks are typically delivered. Chalmers says the post office suspects some organized group is responsible.
Since February 28th, when residents in two of the ZIP codes received written notices by the post office, no thefts have been reported.
"We think the letter has paid off," Chalmers says. The public is urged to call 911 and the postal inspectors at 576-2077 to report suspicious activities.
By Debbie Gilbert
TREE-CUTTING WORK ONGOING IN downtown's Court Square is not an attempt to desecrate a Memphis landmark, according to the Center City Commission.
"We refer to it as our `tree preservation and reforestation project,'" says CCC spokesman Lee Warren. "The intent is to prolong the life of the remaining trees."
Bob Jurgens, owner of Jones Brothers Tree and Landscape Company, analyzed 47 trees in the square and targeted 10 to 12 of them for removal. "Many of the trees had become hazardous," he says. "Large limbs had been falling on the bus shelters."
Work crews are pruning the remaining trees and treating disease when possible. Red oaks that were removed will be replaced with young trees of the same species.