A Period of Suspense

Shelby County government waits out a pending court decision and an election.

by Jackson Baker

ven as we speak, the state Supreme Court – which met in Johnson City last Wednesday for a hearing on 1997 General Assembly’s controversial Chapter 98 legislation – may issue its ruling on the legality of the challenged new law, which greatly eases restrictions on new municipal incorporations in Tennessee.
Pending that ruling, six communities in suburban Shelby County are scheduled to hold incorporation referenda on December 9th, and virtually every organ of government in Memphis and Shelby County found itself influenced by the suspense.
The normal zoning matters that come before the Shelby County Commission, for example: At its Monday meeting, the commission saw the incorporation issue flare up at several points, notably during what might otherwise have been a routine debate on a proposed residential-commercial development in the proposed New Town of Fisherville.
Various residents of the area showed up to protest the development and to point out that the forthcoming election might give them the official right to influence the zoning issue themselves. The commission voted to postpone action on the matter until the December 8th commission meeting – ironically enough, one day before the scheduled referenda.
Chairman Tommy Hart and Commissioner Mark Norris both expressed discontent with the provisional agreement (finalized Monday between Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout) for a partial lifting of Memphis’ moratorium on sewer connections, so as to permit some 33 development projects to continue.
A resolution to ratify the agreement was passed Monday, however, with Hart voting no and Norris abstaining. (Both commissioners advocate a complete, rather than a partial, lifting of the moratorium.) At one point in the commission’s debate, Commissioner Shep Wilbun pointed out convincingly, “If we do nothing with this today, we would have killed off all the [suspended] projects.”
nThree local political events stood out last week:
• After a $1,000-a-head fund-raiser at the Adam’s Mark Hotel last Tuesday night, Governor Don Sundquist added maybe another $500,000 to his 1998 reelection kitty, which already totaled some $4.5 million.
• Reaping the benefits of what would now look to be a non-partisan environment for local judicial elections, General Sessions Judge Tim Dwyer pulled in some $25,000 at a crowded $25-a-ticket reception/fund-raiser at the Madison Avenue headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Thursday night. The crowd ranged freely across party lines.
• A large crowd of Democrats turned out Saturday at the Sweetbrier home of recently retired Democratic chairman Bill Farris for a reception honoring Farris and new chairman Mark Yates jointly. Several past party chairman and numerous Democratic dignitaries, including state party chairman Houston Gordon of Covington, were on hand for the event.
nAttorney Harold Streibich, discharged from St. Francis Hospital after what he described as “a bout with renal failure,” wants it known that he’s active again in the campaign for county commissioner of businessman Scott McCormick, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the seat currently held by outgoing commissioner Pete Sisson. (McCormick’s opponents so far include sales executive Paul Stanley and conservative activist Marilyn Loeffel.)
The irrepressible Streibich was outfitted with a prosthesis two years ago after losing a leg to the long-term effects of frostbite incurred during his service in the Korean War. An Army reserve general, Streibich is a recognized international authority on intellectual property law and, until his recent illness intervened, headed up the Republican Party’s efforts to challenge the legislature’s anti-judicial-primary law.
nState Senator Steve Cohen can boast an unusual distinction, according to the current issue of The Tennessee Journal. A signicant stockholder in Corrections Corporation of America, one of two organizations now lobbying to operate Tennessee prisons, Cohen is an avowed opponent of state prison privatization – talk about biting the hand that feeds you. n

Bill Tanner: Back on the Boards?

Will Bill Tanner get back into the billboard business? Let’s see, the possibilities are: (a) No; (b) Yes; (c) Maybe; (d) He already is; (e) All of the above.
The question came up at Monday’s meeting of the Shelby County Commission, when the commission was asked to ratify the sale to the controversial mega-entrepreneur of some 1.44 acres of North Memphis wasteland, hard by the northern leg of Interstate 240, along North Bellevue at Cypress Creek Reservoir. Chairman Tommy Hart and fellow commissioners Mark Norris and Pete Sisson wanted to approve the sale of the property – owned jointly by the city and county – on condition that no billboards be permitted on it, but were overruled by their colleagues.
“Why are we pursuing the billboard angle?” wondered Walter Bailey, while Michael Hooks pointed out that the land had been unused for decades and therefore off the public tax rolls and said, “What better place could you have for a billboard? Maybe billboards are the right idea for it.” The final commission tally of 10-3 was considerably more comfortable for Tanner than the 7-5 squeaker he got in city council some weeks back.
Tanner has let it be known that billboards are just one of three ideas he may have for the property, which (as the solitary bidder) he offered some $11,000 for some six months back. The land, said Tanner’s chief administrative aide Joe Cooper, might also be used as a site for storage units or for a vehicular depot.
Now, back to that question of whether Tanner might get back into the billboard business which he left some two years back when he sold his Tanner-Peck operation – at the time a virtual monopoly locally –to Universal Outdoor Advertising of Chicago. The correct answer is (e) All of the above.
Tanner has (a) no current plans for new billboards, Cooper says, but (b) yes, will probably put some in somewhere, (c) maybe at the newly acquired site. In any case, (d) Tanner already owns several billboards at sites in the Memphis area which were not part of the Universal deal and which Tanner retained.
Where are they? Cooper wouldn’t say, but indicated that they might number 20 or more.
nCooper, one of the founders of the Thanksgiving Dinner for the Homeless, now in its 13th year, took time out from monitoring the commission debate Monday to put out a plea on behalf of the annual event. Organizers – who, with the help of some 500 volunteers, intend to feed some 5,000 people this year – were still looking for donated coats, sweaters, scarves, and other such clothing articles to make over to the homeless. These items could be brought to the first floor of the Convention Center, site of the event, or to any Fleming Fine Furniture store, Cooper said, adding, “We could still use some electric can-openers, too.” Event chairperson this year is Carey Brown of Cargill, Inc. Would-be contributors should call 533-2090. n

Out Through the In Door, and Vice Versa

Politics is a revolving door, and sometimes the goings-out and comings-in are hard to predict. Both friends and family were astonished by the recent withdrawal from public life of Bartlett alderman Louis (Bubba) Ricci, shown here – with, l to r, father Norman Ricci, and Memphis city councilman E.C. Jones – at his well-attended retirement ceremony last month at Bartlett City Hall. An extraordinary roster of people influential in Shelby County politics, across party lines, turned up for the occasion.
If the elder Ricci seems a mite uncertain in the photograph, it’s not without reason? “Why is he doing this?” he asked one attendee. Many on hand for the City Hall ceremony wondered the same thing.
Why indeed? Young Ricci – a realtor, mortgage officer, and past recipient of the Jaycees’ “Outstanding Young Men of America” award – was the youngest alderman in Bartlett history when, at the age of 22, he first won election in 1982. Just last year, he received the largest number of votes ever cast for a single candidate in his city’s history. For years he was regarded as the hand-picked successor to Mayor Bobby Flaherty – perhaps during the 1998 election year. As political comers go, especially in Bartlett, he was regarded as capital-C. All he had to do was keep putting one step after the other. So what’s up?
“There’s no great mystery to it,” Ricci says of his retirement. “I just needed to devote more time to my work. And I decided it was important to have a private life. It’s hard to have that in politics.” Ricci, a bachelor, says he’s been too busy to get married and have children and says he’d like to remedy that state of affairs.
n“The last couple of weeks have been full of a lot of handshakes, a lot of phone calls, and, well, of more handshakes and phone calls. . . .I guess that’s how politics works.” Those were the sentiments expressed to the Shelby County Commission Monday by Aaron Baum, a Collierville High School senior, upon receiving the commission’s commendations for his recent appointment by Governor Don Sundquist to serve as student representative on the state Board of Education.
Aaron already seems to know the score.
nWhy is this woman smiling? Because she’s got a new job (public relations coordinator for Gilliam Communications, Inc., and WLOK Radio)? Because (as she says, in her first formal press release) she likes “interacting with people”? Because she’s got several brothers (and one nephew) who’ve been elected to public office? Or because (as she also says) she “may someday become a candidate for public office” herself?
Maybe it’s all of the above for Ophelia Ford, the political clan’s newest potential entry in public life and a veteran of prior service with the Memphis Board of Education, Memphis Area Legal Services, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Memphis – as well as the family business, N.J. Ford Funeral Parlor. n

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