Herenton Acts, Rout Reacts

e need a new paradigm. The old paradigm won't work." Few observers would disagree with that statement by Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, made at the conclusion of his dramatic remarks Monday to the assembled members of the Shelby County Commission.

Faced with changes in the relationship of Memphis to its suburbs that are both imminent and drastic, most of those gathered in the commission auditorium to hear Herenton (including city council members, judges, and a variety of other local officials ) professed an open mind to the solution he proposed, a so-called "Formula for Fairness."

The mayor's plan ostensibly aims at equalizing the property tax burden throughout Shelby County while putting a freeze on the circumstances -- school districts and annexation plans -- that have been at the root of the city/suburban split.

"It's worth trying," said Republican commissioner Clair VanderSchaaf, who as a developer was undoubtedly gratified, too, by the fourth component of Herenton's formula -- the one that would un-freeze the moratorium on sewer agreements between the city of Memphis and various new suburban developments.

Variations on VanderSchaaf's sentiment were heard from city council members present and from other members of the commission, both Republican and Democratic, although such GOP commissioners as Pete Sisson and Linda Rendtorff also expressed some disgruntlement at what they construed as a two-week "ultimatum" tacked on by Herenton at the end of his remarks.

The Memphis mayor had pointed out that the current move of various suburbs to incorporate under the terms of Chapter 98, the state law passed by legislative stealth this year, left the governmental entities of Shelby County little time to maneuver.

Asking for an answer within the next two weeks from county officials -- presumably including both the commission and his Shelby County mayoral counterpart, Jim Rout -- Herenton said the plan had to be "adopted in its entirety."

Otherwise, he said gravely, "You leave me no choice but to pursue vigorous action to fight these incorporations with every means available to me." (Besides the moratorium on infrastructural aid to the ever-growing number of would-be New Towns, that action, Herenton has previously indicated, would include a variety of legal initiatives, to be pursued by an impressive number of local blue-chip law firms.)

But in at least one quarter, Herenton's plan didn't go down well.

Following Herenton's address to the commission, and while the commissioners began dealing with the substance of their regular agenda, Rout sent word to media representatives that he wanted to respond to Herenton's proposal.

Once reporters got to Rout's eighth-floor conference room, they found the normally placid Shelby County mayor in a barely controlled state of rage. "Un-American," "Knee-jerk," "emperor," "totally inappropriate," "full of holes": these were some of the terms thrown out by Rout, who took exception to Herenton's "ultimatum" and would privately concede that he had been offended by the Memphis mayor's disinclination -- either Friday, when Herenton requested Monday's venue, or Monday morning, when the two mayors met briefly -- to give a prior hint of his plans.

"Parts" of Herenton's proposal might be acceptable, Rout conceded, but the manner of his proposing it was not. It risked "alienating people outside the city," its numbers were suspect, and, worst of all, it betrayed an imperious attitude. "If you don't do exactly what the emperor has said, he won't be a party to it," he said.

Rout said the city/county relationship was "already a bad marriage" and that Herenton might bring it to the edge of rupture.

In essence, the "Formula for Fairness" would extend to Shelby County government the "umbrella" authority to fund education, city/county libraries, health care, and transit services. Property-tax rates -- by a transitional means left unspecified -- would be adjusted so that rates would be lowered in Memphis and raised elsewhere, providing a range of $4.01 per each $100 of assessed valuation in unincorporated portions of the county to one of $5.72 in Memphis. (Current rates range from $3.16 in the county to $6.34 in Memphis.)

Of the county's other existing municipalities, rates would range from $4.01 in Lakeland to $5.90 in Collierville. Any "new towns" created subsequent to an agreement would have rates consistent with their own assessments to residents for municipal services.

Some skeptics allege that the proposed new funding formula might further skew what they contend is a disproportion in educational spending that favors city schools -- not county ones, as Mayor Herenton contends. And several observers wonder whether, to implement the proposed funding formula, the city school board would be forced to, or would be willing to, surrender the city school district's charter. (Former Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris, who once proposed such a step by way of consolidating the schools, was a Herenton well-wisher at a fund-raiser for D.A. Bill Gibbons Monday night; Morris' 1989 initiative prompted a short-lived secessionist movement in outer Shelby County.)

On the larger governmental front, Herenton would later acknowledge that his formula might be construed as a first step toward city/county consolidation. But he pointed out that, unlike a plan he proposed three years ago, this one would not involve the radical step of surrendering his city's charter.

Although the "Formula for Fairness" would evidently function even if all eight of the proposed suburban "new towns" come to pass, Herenton left no doubt that he would continue to resist the process of suburban incorporation through legal means. As noted, his plan would, however, lift the moratorium on completing sewer connections in new communities.

Various developers -- including Rout ally Jackie Welch, who has filed suit to compel completion of a sewer hookup -- had been feeling the strain of the moratorium, and some of them contended that the moratorium strategy was misdirected punishment. "These would-be New Town people, some of them don't care if development comes to a halt," said one developer.

Also on Monday, the Shelby County Election Commission postponed ruling on a referendum date for suburban incorporation elections but indicated that it might do before the end of the current week. (December 2nd has been suggested by Election Commission members as the most likely election date.)

* Almost lost in the shuffle of events Monday was another political act of consequence: the commission's final rejection of partisan judicial primaries for 1998.

Formally, the 9-to-4 vote against primaries was one to reconsider the commission's earlier 8-to-5 vote in July. That vote had fallen one short of the two-thirds majority required under a 1997 General Assembly measure that gave the commission authority to abort judicial primary requests from either of the two main political parties.

A vote change by GOP commissioner Sisson, who has announced that he won't run for reelection next year, provided the two-thirds margin Monday. Sisson thereby joined the commission's six Democrats and two other Republican opponents of judicial primaries, Morris Fair and Buck Wellford.

Via letter to commission chairman Tommy Hart, Shelby County Democratic chairman Bill Farris had given his party's advance endorsement of a commission compromise that would have limited judicial primaries to those seats where there was no previously elected judge seeking reelection.

The local Republican steering committee rejected the compromise only last week, however, and that fact forced the commission's hand.

GOP chairman David Kustoff quickly announced that his party would file suit, either locally or in Davidson County, against the legislative measure, successfully introduced this year by State Rep. Kathryn Bowers, which enabled the commission's action Monday.

* At irregular intervals over the last decade or so, Memphis mega-capitalist Bill Tanner has made a point, for a night or two, of turning over his house and grounds at 4330 Chickasaw to assorted guests from the worlds of local politics, business, and society.

Two weeks ago, he held -- on consecutive nights -- what may be the last such soirees ever at his old address. Some 1,400 people answered Tanner's call and got some nicely done seafood for their pains.

Last week Tanner, who bought the property at 674 Shady Grove from Dr. Dwight Clark, began the process of moving house. First step is the physical removal of Clark's house -- all 8,000 square feet of it! -- to a lot across the street.

Tanner proposes to start anew and to build another house, in the "Italian Colonial" style, which will be twice as large as the house it replaces.

Partygoers may have to wait for a year or two to see it.

Rout vs. Herenton in '98?

"HE'S INSECURE, and he lacks courage."

"He's trying to be an emperor. No-body's going to put an ultimatum on this county as far as I'm concerned."

The first comment was Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton's about his Shelby County counterpart Jim Rout.

The second comment was Rout's about Herenton.

Both remarks were made this week, in the heat of disagreement over Herenton's proposed "Formula for Fairness" answer to the annexation/incorporation problem.

In the past, the two mayors have exchanged such vituperative remarks only to kiss and make up later on and accuse the "media" of trying to invent a feud between them. The pattern probably won't be repeated this time, however. Because Herenton, it develops, is seriously considering trying to take away Rout's job.

And his contempt for Rout's customary caution was as obvious as Rout's disdain for what he sees as Herenton's grandstanding. Politically as well as administratively, the two executives are certainly different animals.

The Memphis mayor is catlike, meditating in apparent silence for long periods, then springing with suddenness and snaring this or that new vision, which he may set upon in earnest or merely toy with and discard. Rout is more one-step-at-a-time, lead dog in the pack, a hard-working by-the-numbers type. And he's virtually never out of harness.

The occasional growls and hisses of their relationship are inevitable, especially inasmuch as they may soon be pawing away at the same turf.

Herenton, who sent up several trial balloons last week, mused upon the job of Shelby County mayor Monday night while attending a fund-raising reception for District Attorney General Bill Gibbons at the Crescent Club.

He recalled that, back in the '80s, when he was superintendent of Memphis schools, he turned down an offer from then-Gover-nor Ned McWherter to be state Education Commissioner, as he had earlier rejected an offer from McWher-ter's predecessor, Lamar Alexander, to be president of Tennessee State University.

"I was head of a large, important urban school system. Why would I want to leave that for something lesser?" said Herenton.

Similarly, there was no good reason to leave the mayoralty of "a major urban city" for a job as a mere "county executive," Herenton suggested. "Unless --"

Unless, he went on, the process of city/county consolidation -- a concept dear to his heart -- could be simultaneously advanced. "That would be the idea. That would be the platform," Herenton affirmed.

His current proposal -- for an equalization of tax rates throughout Shelby County, coupled with Shelby County government's assumption of an "umbrella" role in dispensing most public monies and services -- might be taken as the first logical step toward accomplishing the goal of consolidation, Herenton said.

"And that would make the job of county mayor quite desirable," he added.

Could he use for the purpose of a run for county mayor the roughly half million dollars he came by two months ago at a Peabody fund-raiser for his city mayor's race? "I don't see why not," Herenton answered.

And never mind that some of those who ponied up on that occasion -- nay, many -- were also staunch supporters of Mayor Rout. Politics cannot be compartmentalized with absolute neatness. That's why allegiances and alliances are constantly shifting.

That's why today's boon companion is tomorrow's adversary. And that's why Willie Herenton and Jim Rout may conceivably be on a collision course for 1998.