CITY REPORTER continued
MIFA will form different focus groups, such as quilting, sharing personal experiences, and book clubs, that people can join to work together on MIFA projects.
Bringing people together is also the focus of the NCCJ's Conversations program, in which the public is invited to attend discussions on a variety of topics relating to race and diversity. Jim Foreman, director of the regional office, says that while the NCCJ, in partnership with the Baha'i community, has hosted these conversations in the past, the forum will be held monthly starting in October.
"It's sometimes difficult for people of different backgrounds to talk about these issues without feeling attacked," Foreman says, "but an honest exchange of dialogue is one of the things we need for people to start understanding each other."
Foreman says that Memphis is unique. "Racism, sexism, and ageism take place everywhere," he says. "But what makes Memphis different is that it is all on the surface because we are always talking about it. This is not a bad thing. Talking about our problems is a good first step."
Johnnie Turner, executive secretary of the Memphis branch of the NAACP, says she too is happy with Clinton's call for a national dialogue.
"I am glad the president chose a topic that he could have very well evaded," she says.
On a national level, the NAACP has already held a Multi-Ethnic Think Tank for people to exchange ideas on improving race relations. And Turner says the Memphis branch is making plans to hold similar open-discussion events in the city.
"From the dialogue will come changes in attitude," she says. "And from there we can begin to heal race relations."
Leslie Saunders, director and CEO of the Memphis Race-Relations and Diversity Institute agrees, saying that people who were disappointed that Clinton's speech did not offer solutions to this country's race-related problems do not understand that there must first be dialogue to set a foundation for future programs and policies.
"You can't fix a problem if you don't know what you are fixing," she says.
The Institute, which was begun in 1993, conducts diversity training for managers and shows companies how to become more profitable by embracing a diverse workforce.
"Many people think that when Martin Luther King died here, so did his dream," Saunders says, "but I think it is just getting started in Memphis. And if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere."
by Phil Campbell
THE SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEpartment is challenging unemployment benefits for a former deputy jailer who was arrested in late January for allegedly buying pot from an undercover agent.
Earley Story was fired on February 11th. He was being paid $33,072 a year as a deputy jailer, making him eligible for an unemployment check worth $220 a week. Story's appeal of the termination was rejected because he filed a protest one day too late. He has filed a lawsuit in federal court charging racial discrimination.
"He was discharged for committing a criminal offense," says Don Strouther, legal adviser to the Sheriff's Department. "We don't feel that he's entitled to unemployment benefits."
While Story has been arrested and fired, he has yet to be indicted or convicted. The Sheriff's Department recently adopted a policy allowing it to fire an employee for criminal offenses that have not been proven in court.
General Court Sessions Judge Ann Pugh threw out the case during a preliminary hearing because the Sheriff's Department did not produce any witnesses. Pugh chastised prosecutors from the District Attorney General's office for not being prepared, according to an audio tape of the hearing provided by Story's attorney.
Strouther says the department never presents undercover officers at preliminary hearings. He also defends the department's contesting of Story's unemployment benefits. The DA's office still has the option to seek a grand jury indictment against Story.
by Tanuja Surpuriya
THIS
MONTH THE SUNSHINE PAGES telephone directory made its debut in Memphis,
offering competition for BellSouth, which previously held a monopoly over
Memphis' phone number lists with its White Pages and Yellow Pages.
The SunShine Pages is based in Metairie, Louisiana, and is not affiliated with any utility company. However, it has formed a partnership with Scripps Howard (which owns The Commercial Appeal). Scripps Howard is helping to fund the directory and its expansion from Louisiana into Tennessee and Florida.
"It's a financial partnership," explains Jack Koehne, SunShine Pages regional sales manager. "Scripps Howard had a desire to get into the telephone-directory business and we hope that The Commercial Appeal's strong presence in Memphis shows that we are not a here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of company." Koehne would not divulge the amount of Scripps Howard's investment.
The SunShine Pages includes residential listings for the greater Memphis area, including Desoto and Tunica counties, a separate section for business listings, and its own version of the Yellow Pages in one book. The SunShine Pages bought numbers from BellSouth and other Mid-South phone companies. Advertising in the first local issue of The SunShine Pages was given away. More than 7,000 local businesses and professionals took advantage of the offer, according to the company.
Koehne says almost 325,000 copies of the turquoise 2,240-page book will be delivered this week by the company. Repeated attempts to reach BellSouth for comment on this story were unsuccessful.
by Olivia Ralston
AH, TO LIVE IN NASHUA, NEW HAMPshire....
According to Money's latest ranking of the 300 largest U.S. communities in its July issue, titled "The Best Places to Live," Nashua's the closest you can get to utopia in America -- until next year's ranking, anyway.
Money polls its readers annually on what qualities are most important to them in deciding where to live. Figures are gathered from such disparate sources as the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association (from which the reporters got cost-of-living data) and the Mobil Guide (from which they garnered restaurant ratings). The magazine looks at nine broad categories: crime, economy, health, housing, education, weather, leisure, arts and culture, and transportation.
This year Memphis suffered an embarrassing 19-point drop in the ranking, from 183rd last year to 202nd this year. What hurt the city's standing was the predicted job growth till 2000 (+3.7 percent compared to a national average of 4.5 percent); the number of library books per capita (2.0 versus 2.4 nationally); the high-school graduation rate (233rd out of the 300 cities); and Tennessee's fiscal health (223rd). Memphis' steepest downfall was due to crime: Memphis has a property crime rate of 6,906 per 100,000 people (the national average is 4,832), and a violent crime rate of 1,253 per 100,000 (as opposed to 614 nationally).
On the positive side, the Memphis cost-of-living index is 95.4 percent of the national average; the median price of a four-bedroom home is $137,800 ($169,400 nationally); the unemployment rate, at 4.2 percent, is 1.1 percentage points below the national average; and Memphis has good eats -- two 4- or 5-star restaurants, compared to the 0.9 average.
One of the questions that lurks beneath the hoopla of an annual rankings of cities is the usefulness of such a survey. Does it extend at all beyond some sort of metropolitan pageantry -- patriotism at a local level? The defensiveness of the residents of Rockford, Illinois, illustrates the seeming banality of the ranking: Despite their second-to-last position, according to the magazine, "locals insist their area get a bum rap from Money most residents approve of everything from their health care to the economy."
The Money Website can be reached through www.pathfinder.com.
* Rodney Herenton, son of Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton, is working at Morgan Keegan downtown. Herenton, whose title is vice-president, started at the brokerage firm June 2nd after working for Bear Stearns in Los Angeles.
"We've been talking to him for two or three years," says Morgan Keegan chairman and CEO Allen Morgan. "We've been trying to get him back to Memphis for some time."
Herenton has an MBA from Harvard University and was a Phi Beta Kappa at Morehouse College, according to Randolph C. Coley, Morgan Keegan's managing director and head of investment banking. "We hired him because he's an extremely qualified candidate. This business has a lot of turnover," Coley says.
* On May 29th, the board of Memphis Heritage elected Judith Johnson as its new executive director, replacing Chris Fales.
Johnson, who started her new position on June 16th, had acted as a surveyor, survey coordinator, and assistant executive director for the Memphis Heritage Cultural Resources Survey from 1989 through 1994, when the city hired her as a historic-preservation analyst.