Punchlines
Q: How many cops does it take to arrest three naked guys?
A: According to Bill Walker, proprietor of the Spirit, Mind, and Body Community
Center -- site of last week's already legendary "Naked Day" bust
-- 18 of Memphis' finest were on hand to haul in three birthday-suited employees.
He also says that the nudity continued after the bust as naked women appeared
in the windows while police looked on and -- perhaps thinking they were
involved in a costly undercover operation -- took no action.
Lt. Al DeWitt, supervisor of the Cooper-Young mini-precinct, puts the number
of officers around 10, and says he's unaware of any post-bust nakedness.
A Motif Is Born
"We aren't naked, but we are still friendly." -- marquee in front of Las Savell Jewelry at Union and McLean.
City Held Hostage
In a blatant -- and obviously successful -- attempt to be included in this column, the always affable RiverKings put out a press release last week that began, "In light of the recent developments regarding the new AAA Baseball and the Houston Oilers relocating to Tennessee, the CHL Eastern Division Champion Memphis RiverKings, after a long deliberation (of at least ten or fifteen minutes), are requesting the following items prior to the start of our 1997-98 hockey season." Among the list are demands to change the name of Libertyland to "RiverKingsland" and a new Wonders exhibition called, "The Memphis RiverKings: 5 Years Against All Odds!" We particularly look forward to the customary CD of music that will accompany that one. How many versions of "Dr. Who" are there?
Land Down Over?
One of our operatives at the Memphis in May Barbecue Contest brings us the story of a cooking team called the Hogmeisters. Made up of a combination of Memphians and Australians, the local hosts made T-shirts and signs with Aussie flags and slogans to welcome their new teammates from down under. Problem? You guessed it. They turned out to be Austrians.
We Do What We Can
In response to a recent item we ran in which we quoted an Economist article calling Memphis a "low-profile town," we heard from none other than the author, Heather Heilman, a local freelancer. "I certainly did not mean to suggest that Memphis is a backwater. [I] think Memphis is the epitome of cool," Heilman writes. "However, it does say something that I haven't yet seen the issue of the magazine with the article in it. The newsstands here get The Economist two weeks late if they get it at all, and as a poverty-stricken freelance writer I can't afford the subscription price of $54.50 for a mere thirty weeks. But I'm gratified that someone noticed it and read it."
Glad to do it. We would like to clarify, however, that we, unlike Heilman, did mean to suggest that Memphis is a backwater.
Herenton Still Mum About Potential Conflict of Interest
by Phil Campbell
emphis Mayor
W.W. Heren-ton refuses to comment on his relationship with Ohio criminology
professor Robert L. Green and how Green has been awarded city contracts
valued at more than $123,000. The issue raises questions not only about
Herenton's potential conflict of interest, but also about the amount of
power vested in the mayor's office when it comes to awarding city contracts.
City Attorney Monice Hagler Tate has dismissed the issue, saying Herenton's actions, as she has read them in the Flyer, do not constitute a violation of the city charter as it is currently written. Legal or no, efforts to find more information about Green and what he has done for the city have been stonewalled by everyone involved.
The Flyer reported last week that Green introduced Herenton in early 1995 to the chairman of Sungold Gaming Inc., now called Sungold Gaming International, a Canadian organization that hopes to develop casinos on an island off South Korea and on Indian-owned lands in southeast Michigan.
Shortly after that introduction, Sungold named Herenton to its board of directors and provided him with stock options that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. At about the same time, the city's Housing and Community Development division awarded Green a city contract valued up to $74,330. He later received a second contract valued up to $49,500 with the Memphis Police Department.
Green's July 1995 contract with HCD called for him to perform four unrelated duties. He was to work with the Memphis City Schools to assess the system in teaching its 110,000 students the meaning of "respect for human life, property, and the rights of others." Second, he was to work with "various social service agencies to gain their support and expertise in assisting in the effort of crime reduction." Third, he was to work with area business leaders to develop a youth summer-jobs program. Finally, he was also to study high-crime areas, presumably with the Memphis Police Department.
Asked why HCD, which is primarily in charge of distributing federal and local dollars for housing assistance, would branch off into educational and crime issues, Robert Lipscomb, the then-HCD director who signed the contract along with Herenton, replies that HCD was "leading the mayor's urban agenda. We were involved in a wide variety of things at that point."
Such broad contracts were unusual, Lipscomb admits, but he defends Green, saying, "If you look at his credentials, he was eminently qualified to do what the mayor asked." Asked if he knew Green before HCD awarded his contract with him, Lipscomb replied, "I did not know him before then."
Green's second contract with the city was signed with the police department in August 1996. His wide-ranging duties included organizing a strategy meeting for MPD and the school system's "stay in school" program, assessing the incidence of major crime in the city, and refining MPD's anti-gang activities.
Police Director Walter Winfrey, who signed the contract with Herenton, will not comment on Green, says police spokesman Lt. Richard True. "You're going to have to get all your information from city hall," True says. Asked twice who Green was, True's personal reply both times was, "Who's that?"
The status of Green's second contract is unclear. It can optionally be renewed every year for four years after it was first signed. From his home in the Cleveland area, Green told the Flyer that he no longer had any contracts with the city of Memphis. But according to Linzie Thomas, the city's purchasing agent, a contract only expires for three reasons. The contract can be terminated by either party, the contract can naturally expire, or the contract isn't renewed at the end of its natural term. If one of the parties terminates the contract, a formal letter has to be included in the city's records.
Green's contract contains no documents noting its conclusion, and the professor's contract doesn't come up for renewal until this August.
Efforts to retrieve information about how much Green has been paid and what reports he has turned in to the city have also met with difficulties. HCD has only one document from Green, his co-written response to the Guardsmark-sponsored Memphis and Shelby County Crime Report, which was published two months before he was awarded a city contract.
When the Flyer initially requested documentation on Green, Herenton spokeswoman Carey Hoffman said that no such information would be provided. She advised this publication to "get your lawyers." About 15 minutes after that conversation, however, Herenton apparently changed his mind, because Hoffman called back and said that all the information requested would be made available. Instead of handing over the city's files on Green, however, Herenton told Green to send his own files. The city's materials, Hoffman said, would be too difficult to find and were in too many places. She also said that the people who tracked those records no longer worked for the city.
Herenton has said publicly that he has known Green for 25 years, and has known him to be an "able scholar, excellent administrator, and researcher." The short biography that the city has provided on Green indicates that he was a dean at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences from 1974 to 1980. Green says he received his Ph.D. in educational psychology from Michigan State University in 1963.
Green himself was unwilling to say much to the Flyer. "The commitments I made [with the city] were all honored," he says. He deferred all questions to Herenton. Though he was offered the chance to provide the Flyer with an up-to-date resume, which might establish his credentials to justify the broad nature of the two contracts, Green declined.