Leave MLGW Pension Funds Alone
To the Editor:
On behalf of the 2,600 employees and 2,900 retirees of Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division, I am compelled to respond to the October 23, 1997 article which appeared in The Memphis Flyer.
Like you, we recognize that MLGW is a tremendous community asset. Over the past 60 years, as a result of its operational excellence and innovation, MLGW has maintained for its customers the highest quality services at the lowest cost of anywhere in America. It has been consistently ranked by industry and other benchmarking agencies as excellent in operation and reliability. Moreover, for the past 10 years, it has managed to maintain the distinction of having on average the lowest multiple-service combined utility bill of any of the large metropolitan areas in America.
Throughout the history of MLGW, 32 employees have given their lives in service to our customers. I give voice to the concern of their families as well.
The suggestion that MLGW or the pension benefits paid and earned by these loyal employees over the course of their career are being viewed as a bargaining chip in the incorporation/annexation debate causes us extreme concern. MLGW employees, unlike everyone else, do not pay Social Security taxes, and therefore, will not receive Social Security benefits for their time at MLGW. Their pension is the only retirement fund available to support them and their families in their twilight years. It is a trust fund which pledges to be the sole source of support for its retirees at their time of need. Because of this, the MLGW Pension Board has exercised good judgment, conservative principles, and due diligence to ensure that those funds be available for those who earned them. While I recognize that there are many difficult issues facing our community, I must voice my vigorous disagreement with your suggestion.
I suggest that we all work extremely hard to resolve the differences and issues that seem to perpetually divide our community. We should do it responsibly and with an eye toward coming to a mutually beneficial resolution. However, we should not sacrifice the hard-earned retirement of MLGW employees, their widows or children, or the institution they built as a quick fix to a more systemic concern.
Herman Morris
President and CEO
Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division
[Editor's Note: The story, "MLGW Is a Hidden Asset For Memphis" by John Branston, said, in part: "No one has flatly suggested putting MLGW on the bargaining table or, as investment brokers say, `in play' in the annexation/incorporation controversy, but the future of the utility has been alluded to by both mayors ." The story went on to detail MLGW's assets, including its $800 million pension fund. The story did not suggest using the pension money for other purposes.]
Thanks From Denver Fan
To the Editor:
I want to sincerely thank you for printing Debbie Gilbert's article about John Denver (October 23rd issue). I want to say thank you to Debbie for expressing sentiments that I felt personally and I felt needed to be said publicly.
When I saw the newscast that morning about Denver's death, it was my unfortunate luck to be tuned to the Today show. Cute Katie Couric announced to my early-morning brain that "John Denver's body was fished from the bay this morning." My soul recoiled from the harsh and insensitive treatment of this man's passing in stark contrast to another passing we mourned worldwide recently.
For me, Denver's music was soft, gentle, reverent, uplifting, and thoughtful. He brought back to me a slice of America I really don't want to forget. I believe he had a true naturalist's heart and he never stopped believing in the beauty and necessity of our natural treasures. I will remember a lot about Denver through his music, but most of all, just one year ago I saw him singing a song on an early-morning TV show. His face had a look of total honesty and faith as his voice lifted to high, sweet tones in words sung straight from his heart. Yes, Debbie, I believe we have suffered a great loss. May God bless and keep him always in the natural beauty he so dearly loved.
Jean Sullivan
Memphis
Don't Forget Public Schools
To the Editor:
The discussion engendered by Mayor Herenton's "Formula for Fairness" provides the perfect opportunity to proceed with the much-needed consolidation of city and county governments. But even this sizeable and momentous undertaking must not be allowed to shift the focus from the issue that started this discussion -- the inadequate funding of our local public schools.
We must do a better job of supporting our local schools, even if this means increasing our taxes. There is no excuse for our failure to spend the money needed to maintain and update the physical plants of our schools -- surely we should be ashamed that several Memphis schools still do not have air conditioning. And we need to spend more money, not less, recruiting and keeping top-quality teachers and principals throughout the school system.
It may be fashionable to argue that spending money on our schools is "throwing money at the problem," but it isn't true. Our children are worth the investment.
B. Keith English
Memphis
Blues Miscues
To the Editor:
Since I was also at the Blues Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award dinner for B.B. King, I thought I might point out a few inaccuracies in the article [October 30th issue]:
Mark Jordan said that the previous honorees were Willie Dixon and John Lee Hooker. The first Lifetime Achievement Award went to Jerry Wexler. Mr. Dixon died in 1992 and has not been accorded this honor.
In discussing B.B. King's namesake club in Los Angeles, Mr. Jordan writes that Mr. King "in fact has never set foot in it." This is not true, since he was a major participant in last year's dinner for John Lee Hooker, which took place in that venue.
He twice mentions Junior Wells appearing there, but Junior has been in a coma in a Chicago hospital for several months. The only harmonica player who participated in the show was Charlie Musselwhite, and if Mr. Jordan is confusing Junior Wells with Charlie Musselwhite, he needs more help that I could give him.
Dick Waterman
e-mail
[Editor's Note: Wexler was indeed the first recipient of the lifetime achievement award. King's appearance at last year's awards, held at B.B.'s-L.A., was his first and, to date, only appearance at the club, despite his contractual obligation to four annual appearances there. Joe Louis Walker was incorrectly identified as Junior Wells. ]
The Journalist As Role Model
To the Editor:
As photographer and keeper of the pictorial archives for the Beale Street Blues Society, I was anxious to get home and dive into your issue covering the Blues Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Awards honoring B.B. King in Los Angeles. However, "Four Days in the Valley" by your reporter Mark Jordan was, in my opinion, much too personal to be published.
I've no doubt young Kenny Wayne Shepherd, pictured in what looks to be an official photograph of top blues artists and industry personnel present at the event, will acquire a copy of the story, will read every word (probably more than once), and keep it forever in his scrapbook. (I will also file a copy permanently for the Beale Street Blues Society's archives.)
Kenny is only one of thousands of young people that will read this story. Why, then, did the editor of your paper not edit Mr. Jordan's story? Did we have to know that he and his buddies included getting drunk and driving around L.A. visiting strip joints and tourists sights while in town "on business"? I reread his account of their activities three times just to be sure I didn't miss his naming the designated driver. Anyone reading the story would know that Memphians were driving around Southern California with open beers and a drunk person behind the wheel.
I do not claim to be a saint of any kind -- I'm far from it! However, I think stories which include a seal of approval of sorts of illegal, morally irresponsible behavior by adults is wrong. Does your reporter even care that young people reading the events of his social life (after all, what did strip joints have to do with the Blues Foundation news?) might think he was a cool guy with a cool job? Mark Jordan is, in my opinion, a very poor role model for young people interested in journalism. He's actually a poor role model for millions of young people whose goal in life is to stay alive.
As for Mr. "My Woman Don't Love Me" Jordan, associating blues music with his illegal, irresponsible antics as though the two go together, I am angered. My work with our local blues society has enabled me to meet and get to know some of the finest, most decent human beings on this Earth. (Does anyone out there remember Luther Allison? Now there's a role model for all people.)
I am a proud Memphian and very proud of the blues and music industry that our city is famous for. I'm not proud of The Memphis Flyer this week or my fellow Memphian, Mark Jordan. What in the world was he thinking?
Lindy Wilson
e-mail (Memphis)
While Memphis Burns
To the Editor:
I commend the Flyer for its position on the incorporation brouhaha. As you point out, our politicians (with the notable exception of Mayor Herenton) continue to emulate Nero, fiddling while Memphis burns. The "Commission on Alternative Futures" is surely some kind of joke, since the only "alternatives" I am aware of is that Memphis either lives (by preserving its ability to annex) or it dies (by losing that ability). Does that really require a "commission" to decide?
The incorporation bill was a sneak attack by a legislature with a historic antipathy toward Memphis. Unquestionably, the people who should have been protecting Memphis from this attack were caught napping, but the point really is that the law was passed without input or participation from the public the legislature purports to represent.
The judicial process provides no such avenue for public participation. If the issue is cast purely as one of whether the law is constitutional, the war has already been lost. The fact is, we as citizens were deprived of our constitutional right to participate in the legislative process by the manner in which the incorporation bill was foisted over on us. To say, as some of our politicians have, that the issue is now for the courts to decide is the worst kind of abdication of their responsibility.
It's time for those politicians to belly up to the bar and stand up for this community. Otherwise, when the next election comes around there are going to be a lot of voters asking, "Where were you when they killed Memphis?"
Martin H. Aussenberg
e-mail (Memphis)
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