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Who Wants to Save the West Memphis Three?When you open the Web site, the word “Rumor” appears and then fades into “Fear,” which turns into “Rush to Judgment,” and finally, “Injustice.” These are the points that the folks behind the Free the West Memphis Three Support Fund want to make – and this is what they believe led to the unfair conviction of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. for the 1993 murders of 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore in West Memphis. If you’ve read about Echols’ recent efforts to get a new trial, you might have also noticed mentions of a group of people, numbering as many as 30, advertising their hope to “Free the West Memphis Three” on black T-shirts, appearing on Court TV and placing a full-page ad in The Arkansas Times. But who are they and what exactly do they want? First of all, says Burk Sauls, who helped create the Free the
West Sauls, who lives in Los Angeles and writes scripts for TV and movies, says he first became interested in the West Memphis case after seeing the documentary about the trials, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills. “It’s something I’ve always been interested in – Satanic panic,” says Sauls. “I’ve always been fascinated with it because a similar thing happened to my nephew.” While Sauls won’t give details about that, he says he, along with Pashley and Bakken, saw an opportunity in the West Memphis trial to make a public statement about the phenomenon of Satanic panic. While researching the case through court records, videotapes of the trials, and countless interviews, they decided that in taking away the Satanic element there was no evidence pointing to the convicted teenagers. “In fact,” says Sauls, “you have just as much [evidence] pointing toward me or you.” Echols’ hearing for a new trial has been continued until September
2nd. – Susan Ellis
Two New Ventures Headed for BealeAnyone who remembers the proposed Beale Street hotel, the Bo Diddley and Aretha Franklin clubs, or who has been breathlessly anticipating the opening of a Pat O’Brien’s or Buddy Guy’s Legends bar may want to view the latest development news coming off the street with a squint of skepticism. But according to the historic district’s developer, John Elkington, Beale Street may be preparing to enter a new era, with two ventures involving national cable networks currently in negotiations. Details of the two proposed deals were revealed last week. One involves the Black Entertainment Television network. Officials with BET Holdings, Inc. – which owns the African-American-oriented BET network, a pay-per-view service, an online service, and a trio of national magazines – are reportedly studying Beale as a possible location for its third SoundStages restaurant/nightclub. BET presently owns and operates two SoundStages, one in Largo, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C., and another in Orlando, Florida, in Disney’s Pleasure Island resort. Though the Largo club is more dining-oriented and the one in Orlando more music-centered, each is based around-hip hop and modern R&B music and incorporates videos and live deejays. The other project involves a prospective music series to be taped
on Beale Street and broadcast nationally on The Nashville Network.
Tentatively titled Beale Street Sessions, the program would be
a joint venture between Elkington’s Performa Real Estate, TNN,
the William Morris talent agency, and Tupelo Honey Productions
of New York. The deal calls for an initial run of 13 episodes,
each featuring big-name entertainment playing live in different
Beale Street venues. – Mark Jordan
District Attorney Assumes More Police PowersImpatient with apparent problems the Memphis Police Department has had with his Drug Dealer Eviction Program, District Attorney Bill Gibbons has assumed even greater control over its implementation. Before, when Crime Stoppers received a tip on a potential drug dealer operating out of a rental unit, the DA’s office would forward the information to MPD’s Organized Crime Unit, then monitor the case from afar. Now, Gibbons has an assistant prosecutor sending the tips to the appropriate police precinct. “We were getting into a backlog problem with Organized Crime,” Gibbons says. “They were overloaded and understaffed, I guess.” In a letter, the DA’s office has asked that patrol officers conduct two “knocks and talks – the first one to investigate allegations of drug dealing & to inform occupants that their residence is being watched for suspicious activity, 2) and a second one, about five days later, to see if the drug dealer has moved and to check for continuing signs of drug activity.” The DA’s office has evicted 162 drug dealers since the program began in 1977. If drug dealing persists, then the DA’s office would take the case from the precincts to the undercover vice squad. “Basically, what it means is that we’re trying to have a lot of these cases solved at the precinct level,” Gibbons says. “It’s a matter of trying to distribute the workload a little bit.” The DA, then, assumes responsibility for lobbying specific cases the police should investigate, a different approach from when prosecutors took cases after police make an arrest. Does this constitute a shift in who’s in charge of allocating police powers? “It’s a traditionally [different role] as we’ve seen it here,
but we adopted this program from New York City,” Gibbons says.
“So it wasn’t an original idea with us.” – Phil Campbell
Minority Contracts Policies Mired Down in Courtby Phil Campbell Any emotional energy spent over the minority contracting policies (call it affirmative action, set-asides, or quotas, depending on your politics) of local government is being worn thin by the slow and arduous process of the judicial system. Essentially, Memphis, Shelby County, and the Memphis City Schools system have sought to award African Americans and women a certain percentage of government business. The policies are strictly for black and female entrepreneurs; they do not regulate how many minorities or women these business owners have to employ to receive government favoritism. White contractors and subcontractors, particularly in the construction industry, are protesting these policies in the courts as being discriminatory. Due to judicial lethargy, the current news is that there is no news. Here’s the latest on these prolonged controversies: • Litigation against Shelby County over its minority contracting policy – which has been suspended by a federal judge – will enter its 10th year in a few months. Negotiations having failed on the merits of the county’s second proposed minority contracting plan since 1988, the county and the Association of General Contractors have agreed on a November 16th date to begin trial proceedings in U.S. District Court. • For the Memphis City Schools Board of Education, it’s beginning to appear that litigation will be equally expensive and time-consuming. Last month, school-board attorneys filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit from the Association of Builders and Contractors. The association, which has no black members, responded to the board’s assertions last week. Association president Reid Farmer says his organization is digging in its heels for what may be a long fight; motions of dismissal are routine in such lawsuits, but getting them approved by a judge is another story. The board announced in the spring that it had given out more than $41 million in contracts to blacks and females, about 45 percent of the total contract dollars awarded. The board wasn’t challenged until February of this year, after the builders and contractors association gathered what it considers to be three clear examples of discrimination. • The city of Memphis’ minority contracting policy hasn’t been challenged in court yet, but that has less to do with the policy itself than the fact that the two groups that would challenge it are already spending their energies suing the county and the city school board. The city has awarded more than $3.2 million in contracts through the program, which began in July 1996. Ultimately, it will be the constitutionality of these policies that will be reviewed by a federal judge (or judges, if appeals are subsequently made). The cases hinge on a 1989 Supreme Court decision in which contractors contested the minority policies of the city of Richmond, Virginia. A narrowly interpretive court struck down Richmond’s policies, saying that the city leaders hadn’t done enough to show that specific minorities have historically been subjected to discrimination. “That case was the precedent-setting case,” says County Attorney Donnie Wilson. To bolster their rights to a minority contracting policy, city schools, county, and city governments each paid for separate disparity studies, which showed a history of discrimination against blacks and females in receiving contracts from local government. The disparity study may not be foolproof protection against discrimination
lawsuits, however. For one, such studies have to be updated regularly
(the county recently agreed to spend $63,000 to have its disparity
study updated). For another, how they’re worded can be crucial.
For example, the Association of Builders and Contractors contends
that the city schools’ minority policy is unconstitutional because
it uses the phrase “ready, willing and available” instead of “ready,
willing and able,” a phrase the Supreme Court had used in the
Richmond case.
Business “Incubator” to Nurture Hight-Tech Downtownby Jacqueline Marino
For business consultant Bryan Eagle, who is the driving force behind Memphis Incubator System, Inc. (MISI), the building could serve as a symbol of rebirth for the Memphis business community as a whole. The old Orgill Bros. warehouse represents the thriving distribution sector, the former focus of business development in Memphis. Eagle’s vision for the building is its future. As an incubator for new businesses, primarily technology businesses, the warehouse could become a first step for those who want to turn Memphis into a high-tech haven. “Memphis may have one of those historic chances to create a whole new sector of its economy,” says Tom Jones, spokesman for county Mayor Jim Rout. “We really have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to create Memphis as a technology center. …It [the incubator] is a great idea whose time has come.” Eagle, chairman of MISI’s board of advisors, has a history of growing telecommunications and new media companies, including The Discovery Channel and Skywire Communications Corp., which provides wireless remote monitoring products and software. As co-founder of the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce’s technology council, Eagle is well aware of efforts by the city and county to attract high-tech businesses to Memphis. He just isn’t sold on them. There’s only one way to get high-tech companies in Memphis, he says. Grow them. “You’re not going to get them unless you can give them what they want,” he says. “Good barbecue and being able to get a FedEx package out by midnight is not going to do it. “You need to stop thinking about how to get them to move and start thinking about how to get them started here.” That’s where the incubator comes in. In Memphis, the plan calls for two incubators to operate out of the building on Calhoun, one for general-purpose businesses and one for high-tech. The incubators will offer low rents, administrative support, and business development consulting to start-up businesses. Eagle says Memphis is the largest city in the United States not to have one. Yet the incubator concept is not new to Memphis. Marc Jordan, Chamber of Commerce president, remembers an incubator started several years ago but had many problems, including finding entrepreneurs. Already, Eagle has identified several candidates, including several start-up software companies and a video production company. To get up and running, Eagle expects the project to cost about $4 million, much of which will go into buying and renovating the building. If the funding comes through, the incubator could be functioning in the next six to nine months. MISI, a not-for-profit organization, will ask for funding from the Economic Development Administration in Washington, D.C., the Tennessee Valley Authority, the city and county governments, and the private sector. Being downtown opens up more avenues to charitable funding. Also, the incubator’s supporters expect the downtown location to appeal to entrepreneurs. Once their businesses take off and they graduate from the incubator, downtown supporters hope the entrepreneurs won’t stray too far from the nest. Given the nature of many entrepreneurs, that might not be a pie-in-the-sky
kind of dream. “I think entrepreneurs think differently than established
companies,” Eagle says. “Once you start to grow downtown, people
accept that and it stops being a scary, weird thing.” |
Memphis Three Support Fund, they are only a group of three –
Sauls, Grove Pashley, and Kathy Bakken. Second, despite what has
been reported, Sauls and company are entirely separate from the
defense. Funds raised through the sale of “Free the West Memphis
Three” T-shirts go directly into maintaining their Web page (www.wm3.org),
their newsletters, and their discussion groups. None of the money
goes to the defense and Sauls says they are operating on a $10,000
deficit. Finally, the goal as stated by Sauls is to “get as much
factual information as we can out into the public and let the
Arkansas justice system know that people are watching them and
they can’t operate as though they are in a vacuum.”
Where the trolley hugs the corner of Calhoun Avenue and Tennessee
Street, a deserted, red brick warehouse stands as testimony to
downtown’s once-vibrant distribution center. The broken windows
and littered environs suggest the building has outlived its prime.
But a group of business advocates are determined to resuscitate
the structure by turning it into an “incubator” for budding high-tech
firms.
