by Jackson Baker
he state Supreme
Court's decision last Thursday to conduct hearings next week in
Johnson City on cases relating to the controversial Chapter 98
legislation dominated the annexation-incorporation front.
Other developments:
* Toll booths on the roads into Memphis? That's one possible stratagem for dealing with the crisis floated last week by Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton. "We are researching state law to see if there are prohibitions on toll bridges. We may try to find a way to install them," Herenton told an audience at the Dutch Treat Luncheon on American Way Saturday.
The mayor's remarks followed by a few days his appearance before a joint legislative panel in Nashville that is looking into the annexation-incorporation issue for action in the General Assembly next year. By all accounts, Herenton was well received. "I think we're awestruck," said State Senator Robert Rochelle of Lebanon in the hush that followed the mayor's remarks. (A condensation of what Herenton said appears as this week's "Viewpoint" on page 13.)
* "We may have
gotten a death sentence," said lead Nonconnah (Hickory Hill)
incorporation-petitioner Tom Jeanette gloomily, in
reaction to the Court's decision to hear the Chapter 98 case
after a Fayette County special chancellor had ruled the law
invalid the previous week. Predictions in legal circles as to
what the Court might do ranged across the spectrum.
* Speaking at a fund-raiser for County Commission chairman Tommy Hart last week, Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout declared the county's willingness to deal with whatever result ensued: "We can do business if it's six or 16 cities." And he amplified later: "I don't care if it's 27. We know how to get along and work with people."
* Some snags have turned up in the compromise agreement reached some weeks back between Mayors Herenton and Rout allowing a partial lifting of the city moratorium on suburban sewer connections.
"I'm fed up," says developer Jackie Welch, who contends the city of Memphis is welshing on its promise to let proceed one of his projects on Germantown Parkway. Welch had sued the city in Circuit Court to free up the project, which is one of those -- contracted for prior to July 15th -- supposedly permitted under the compromise.
But Welch says the city is still stalling the project by the technical device of not recording his plat. (A plat is the name used either for the land itself or for the land-use plan which is a necessary preliminary to going ahead with construction). A source in the Land Use Control division of the joint city/county Office of Planning and Development said that evidently Welch's project was one of those which had not yet been cleared by the city Engineer's office.
"We've had releases on some of those. We may not have them all," the source said.
And commission chairman Tommy Hart raised an objection to the temporary agreement from another direction. At last week's meeting he complained that it discriminated against small businesses by creating a loophole in the moratorium on new projects only for large industrial projects that would employ more than 75 people or be valued at $3 million or greater.
At Mayor Rout's request, Hart and Commissioner Linda Rendtorff dropped their motion and second, respectively, to table the provisional agreement. "It's wrong, but we had to start somewhere," Rout said.
* County Commission action on city/county consolidation -- postponed from last week's meeting because of the absence of outgoing Commissioner Pete Sisson, consolidation's chief proponent -- will presumably proceed on Monday when the commission next meets.
County attorney Donnie Wilson indicates, however, that the measure which Sisson will introduce will differ somewhat from the one originally contemplated, which envisioned a confederation of county municipalities, to be established by popular vote after the convening of a charter commission composed of representatives of local governmental units.
Further research by Wilson and staff indicated that the county charter forbids such express efforts at piecemeal consolidation but permits the establishment of a metropolitan or wholly unified city/county government through popular election. Said election would be set up by a charter commission whose members essentially would be selected by the county commission and the Memphis city council. Next Monday's resolution will be accordingly revised.
Interestingly enough, a surprising number of people advocating suburban incorporation at local meetings on the subject profess themselves open-minded about metro government or even volunteer support for the process, should the various current incorporation efforts fail. Their animus seems chiefly reserved for outright annexation by the City of Memphis, not for the idea of an all-county government which -- at least for the next several years -- middle-class whites (read: Republicans) would have a good chance of dominating.
As is well known, Mayor Herenton is a supporter of consolidation efforts, while the administration of Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout is sending out mixed signals. Rout himself, while no advocate of the process, has professed himself open to its consideration, but mayoral aide Tom Jones, a major Rout adviser and frequent spokesperson for his office, is the source of several reasoned analyses opposing consolidation.
* Commission chairman Hart announced last week that the old habit of having county inmates provide free food and drink for commissioners during meetings will be resumed next week as a "one-time-only thing." He said, "I just want them [the commissioners] to see what kind of job we're doing out there."
* 'Tis the season for giving, as more and more political fund-raisers are being held in anticipation of next year's elections.
As District Attorney General Bill Gibbons pointed out, his annual fish fry -- held Saturday at the Catholic Club on Helene -- was not designed primarily as a money-maker.
As a show of force, designed to keep Gibbon unopposed, the fish fry was something else. All the usual suspects among Republicans were there, as well as a good many Democrats (union man Roy Turner and education activist Margaret Box were typical) and elected officials of various persuasions.
Altogether, 500 were on hand, adding some $9,000 to a kitty which already includes $75,000 from an October 6th Crescent Club fund-raiser.
Other recent fund-raisers at which bi-partisanship was evident, either in person or in spirit, were those of Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Moore, State Representative Tre Hargett (at the Bartlett home of Dan Byrd); and State Senator John Ford (at the Racquet Club on Sanderlin).
The turnout for Moore, a fairly recent convert to Republicanism, was politically ambidextrous, and, while that for the GOP's Hargett, a former Young Democrat president, was less so, his host, Byrd was, after all, a recent House Democratic Caucus chairman. (Hargett works for a division of the Byrd family's Bank of Bartlett.)
Sen. Ford, whose $1,000-a-head affair drew a limited but economically influential crowd, made a point of emphasizing his sympatico relations with Republican Governor Don Sundquist, who had by and large done "a good job," said the Democratic senator, who has more than once provided Sundquist with a swing vote on an issue.
Fund-raisers for County Commission chairman Tommy Hart, at the Homebuild-ers building on Germantown Parkway, and for Layne Provine, a candidate for county register, drew crowds that were somewhat more partisan and Republican.
* As Congress was getting ready this week to adjourn until 1998, 7th District U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant expressed disappointment that President Clinton, having fallen some 13 or 14 votes short in his final head-count of House members, has had to abandon efforts to pass"fast-track" trade legislation this year.
As Bryant -- in town Monday night to host a fund-raiser at Holiday Inn East for county register candidate Layne Provine -- went on to note, a majority of his Republican party-mates formed a coalition on behalf of fast-track with a minority of Democrats.
In Tennessee, the lineup was based on region, not party, with second-termer Bryant joining in support of fast-track with three Democrats, fellow Memphis-area congressmen John Tanner and Harold Ford Jr. and Nashville-area Rep. Bob Clement. "All of us were quite aware of how important free trade is to agriculture and West Tennessee," said Bryant. The other five Tennessee representatives, all Republicans, opposed the measure.
"President Clinton never was able to add to the total [of Democrats] he started with," said Bryant, who attributed the difficulty to stubborn resistance from labor union lobbyists and from House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri), considered both a protectionist Democrat and a possible opponent to Vice President Al Gore, a free trader, for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.
Bryant saw Gore as the big loser of the current congressional session, both because Gephardt seemed to be gaining points against the vice president on economic issues and because Gore's straight-arrow reputation had suffered from disclosures about his fund-raising efforts.
Expressing some disappointment about Senator Fred Thompson's recent decision to suspend his Senate hearings on fund-raising abuses, Bryant said he thought the Tennessee Republican, another presumed presidential aspirant, may have lost ground with his GOP party-mates.
The 49-year-old Bryant, who is on a diet/exercise regimen and has visibly lost weight, jested, "I'm getting in shape to run for president myself. There are a lot of Tennesseans running, but if I can get [former Governor Lamar] Alexander to drop out, I'll go to the top of the alphabetical list."
Meanwhile, as the 1998 elections approach, Bryant is unopposed for his current day job -- and likely to remain so.
The recent election of Mark Yates, the local chief-of-staff of U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., as Shelby County Democratic chairman was extended last week with the election of other Ford loyalists as party officers.
Voted in by the party's new executive committee were: David Cocke, first vice chair; Linda LaRue, second vice chair; Lois Freeman, third vice chair; Bermetra Liggins, secretary; Valeria Boyd, assistant secretary; John Farris, treasurer; Thomas Long, assistant treasurer; Steven Crain, parliamentarian; and steering committee members Maura Black-Bulick, Coleman Thompson, Eddie Carter Jr., Curtis Wilson, and Tommie Edwards.
* Shelby County Republicans meanwhile started getting ready for 1998 by conducting a candidates' school all day Saturday at the Adam's Mark Hotel. Presenters included Ray Pohlman, Stephanie Chivers, Tre Hargett, Steve Ethridge, Mike Carpenter, Justin Hunter, Brian Kaegi, and Alan Crone.
Hargett, a state representative serving Bartlett, spoke on the theme of "Okay, I Am a Candidate. Now What Do I Do?" and offered as one maxim what he called the "Prince Mongo rule": "Just because there is an election does not mean you have to run."