Method Actors Commissioner Norris and Mayor Rout prepare their parts in the coming county-tax drama. by Jackson Baker n the forthcoming drama of the Shelby County budget — currently destined to have its formal curtain-raising in the last week of April — which politicians see themselves, respectively, as the Lone Ranger and Santa Claus? Give up? The first player is County Commissioner Mark Norris, and the second is Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout. And whatever scenario gets worked out between these two and the 12 other members of the Shelby County Commission will have serious — and potentially dramatic — effects upon the rest of us. At stake are funds for education, health services, crime control, and a myriad of other quality-of-life issues. But make no mistake about it (and giving Norris and Rout and every other official involved in the decision-making process credit for being public-spirited): At stake, too, are the political futures of the decision-makers. How they play this one will go far toward deciding how they make out in elections yet to come. Take Norris, for example: He owns up to being a “Lone Ranger” in the debate over the next fiscal year’s tax rate in the sense that, perhaps uniquely among commissioners, he wants to “reserve judgment” on whether there should be an increase of any kind in the county property-tax rate this year. Norris is a Republican, one of seven GOP members on the 13-member commission, and a fiscal conservative. But several of his party-mates, including a majority of those on the commission, have committed themselves — either publicly or privately — to the need for a major tax increase. A few months back, for example, Commissioner Buck Wellford ventured into a citadel of his East Memphis constituency, the Adam’s Mark Hotel, and told a luncheon of the Shelby County Republican Women that it was only “realistic” to expect an increase of at least 50 cents on the current county property-tax rate of $2.82 per thousand dollars of assessed property. A GOP commission colleague, Morris Fair, said on the same occasion that a 75-cent raise might be necessary, and Democrat Cleo Kirk estimated that the increase could go as high as $1.25. Meanwhile, a blue-ribbon citizens’ panel, including Bartlett banker Harold Byrd and Germantown Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy, also put themselves on the line for a sizeable tax increase, emphasizing pressing needs on the educational front. Now comes Norris to counter this momentum with his own variation on some of the other side’s rhetoric. It is “unrealistic,” says Norris, to proceed if a tax increase were inevitable or to deal with exigencies on a short-term patchwork basis. “We need to take a holistic, long-term approach to the budget question,” says the Memphis lawyer and Collierville-area resident, who spends much of his time in public debate fretting over the debt service costs on a county deficit that he thinks may have risen to the magnitude of $1.5 billion. Norris attempted in vain recently to impose a two-month delay on the budget committee’s consideration of capital-improvement appropriations. His motion failed. “I almost didn’t get a second for it,” laments the commissioner, who is all by himself on enough such fiscal issues that he thinks he has honestly earned the “Lone Ranger” moniker. “I’m not the only one who is fiscally responsible, but I may be the only one who is putting up this much resistance to the idea of something inevitable,” says Norris, who offers this admonition to Byrd, Goldsworthy, and the other members of the ad hoc citizens’ group seeking to raise funding for the county’s schools: “Don’t presume to tell us we have to raise taxes or how much we have to raise them. Say what you think we need, and let us [the commission] decide where we’re going to get the money,” said Norris, who called for all principals to the debate to agree on a long-range plan before raising the tax rate. Perhaps not coincidentally, Norris makes no secret of his interest in running in 2000 for the District 32 State Senate represented at present by Tom Leatherwood. The district, taking in outer Shelby County and portions of Tipton and Lauderdale Counties, is one of the most conservative in the state. The seat will also be sought by current State Rep. Larry Scroggs, also a Republican and a close ally of Governor Don Sundquist. Mayor Rout, meanwhile, chose to respond to a recent statement by a Republican member of the commission who suggested the mayor would try to “lowball” commissioners and force them to take the initiative in deciding on the tax rate. “Everybody knows that at a date and time certain in late April, I will propose in itemized detail a budget for the next fiscal year and the means of paying for it. I’m not going to lowball anybody,” said Rout. The mayor declined, however, to specify any details of his thinking. “It wouldn’t do for Santa Claus to say in advance what he planned to put in the Christmas stockings, now, would it?” asked Rout. “Well, it’s the same way with this.” Just as Norris is thinking at least one political move ahead, so is Rout. The Shelby County Mayor is known to be entertaining the idea of running for governor in 2002 and, given the current controversy over Sundquist’s proposed tax reform plan, will no doubt make every effort to be certain of his ground in proposing a tax increase. Commissioner Wellford, who is already in the thick of the debate over the county tax rate, has also intervened in the statewide controversy over Governor Sundquist’s tax plan. In a letter published this week in the online periodical Tennessee Politics, Wellford argues on the nay side of the equation. “I don’t have a problem with paying my fair share, and I don’t have a problem with being considered a ‘rich lawyer,’ although I’m certainly not,” says the Memphis attorney. “I do have a problem paying what is in effect an income tax and a payroll tax when many of my friends who make a lot more money, but do not own a business, pay nothing. If anyone’s ‘profits’ (for service providers read income) are taxed, why not just enact an income tax that kicks in at a level that the governor considers ‘fair,’ so we all pay based on income level?” Wellford’s advice comes on the eve of a 30-day special session convened by the governor and set to begin on Monday. The ground rules of the session are that all alternatives to the state’s existing tax structure, including an income tax, can be considered. And the outlook for such a tax may not be hopeless, even though former Governor Ned Ray McWherter’s proposal for one was stoutly resisted by legislators when he proposed it early in the current decade. As it happens, House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh of Somerville met privately this week with a group of legislators from both parties, and there was a surprising amount of sentiment for consideration of a pure income tax. “The idea is not dead by any means,” said one Shelby Countian who was involved in the meeting. Sundquist has proposed an across-the-board tax on business profits and payrolls that would effectively end exemptions normally claimed by law partnerships and various other businesses and corporations. The governor has met with considerable resistance to the plan — especially from proprietors of small businesses and from organizations which lobby for business. Former State Representative Ed Williams, who heads up a fund-raising organization for State Technical Institute at Memphis, has apparently succeeded in mitigating ever so slightly the proposed bill to merge State Tech with Shelby State Community College. Williams had objected to language in the bill calling for a merger “immediately, the public welfare requiring it.” He asked for a one-year transition, and State Rep. Joe Kent, chief House sponsor, agreed to incorporate new language establishing July 1st as the effective merger date. But Kent said he saw little point in trying to put off the inevitable any further. “They [the two institutions] are going to abolish themselves if we don’t abolish their separateness,” said Kent, referring to declining enrollment at both schools. The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Roscoe Dixon, would consolidate the two facilities under the name “Southwest Tennessee Community College.” “I don’t have to decide anything until July, when the filing deadline is, so I’m not going to decide anything until then.” That is Shelby County Commission chairman Shep Wilbun on the possibility that he might still decide to run for the Memphis mayoralty against two-term incumbent Willie Herenton. “Every now and then somebody asks me, ‘How could you run against Mayor Herenton considering everything he’s done for you?’ Well, I do remember everything he’s done for me. I remember what happened in 1996, for example.” As he elaborated on it, Wilbun’s reference was to the mayor’s proposed appointment of Wilbun to the job of city director of Housing and Community Development, followed by Herenton’s abrupt and public withdrawal of the offer when controversy arose over outstanding loans owed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by Wilbun, a developer. Herenton had not consulted with Wilbun before retracting his offer, and the commissioner made no secret at the time of his feeling he’d been burned. Various Shelby County Democrats are raising their eyebrows over lawyer Kevin Snider’s recent decision to come out publicly as a Republican, three months after he had vied for the local Democratic chairmanship. Snider said that the “last straw” forcing his departure from Democratic ranks was the party executive committee’s decision to oust members who had contributed financially to Republican candidates or had otherwise supported them. But as one local Democrat pointed out, “That doesn’t differ an iota from his new party’s rules.” And, in fact, the bylaws of the Shelby County Republican Steering Committee (the equivalent of the Democrats’ executive committee) provide for “removal from office” for two causes: “conviction of a crime” or “open and notorious support of the Democratic Party or any nominee of the Democratic Party for office.” “It looked like a political convention — of both parties.” That was the description of one mourner among the throngs who attended Monday evening’s wake at Memphis Funeral Home for the late Patricia Lanier, wife of Bobby Lanier, chief administrative aide to Mayor Rout and to former Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris before him. Both Laniers have for decades enjoyed an unusual degree of affection and popularity across the usual party and partisan lines.