Foote Homes Renovation Runs Late A $30 million project to modernize and de-densify the Foote Homes housing project is months behind schedule. The renovation of the large apartment complex near the corner of Vance and Lauderdale was to be completed by October 1999, but now officials estimate a June 2000 completion date. Diane Mosby, manager of capital improvement for the Memphis Housing Authority, says that the contractors have been given additional time to complete tasks not provided for in the original contract, including the installation of air conditioning. "It's normal to have delays on a project this size," says John Sloan, executive vice president of Hardaway Construction, the general contractor for the project. Many buildings in the development were razed, reducing the number of units from about 920 to about 450, Sloan says. The remaining units are being gutted and remodeled. Only 60 units have been completed so far, Mosby says, though officials at Hardaway say that eight more buildings will be turned over to MHA in a few weeks. Some 750 families were relocated to other housing projects or to subsidized Section 8 housing before work began on the project in August 1997. One year later, the first 25 families moved back to Foote Homes, and more than 170 former residents who expressed a desire to return to Foote Homes are being moved back in order of seniority, Mosby says. "People had no idea we were going to be gone for two years," says one relocated resident, who asked not to be named. She said that some of her friends had never unpacked their belongings. -- Daniel Connolly Officer Investigated For Assault The Memphis Police Department is investigating the late-July arrest of a sergeant in the robbery division who was charged with physically assaulting his wife. On 2:12 a.m. on July 25th, police responded to a 911 call at 2002 Higbee, where they found Sgt. Michael Jeff Clark and his wife Dianna. According to the arrest report, the responding officers "observed dried blood on victim's shirt, a cut on the right side of her head, and marks on her neck." Dianna Clark told officers that she had tried to leave the house through the bathroom window, which had been smashed. "Victim [Dianna] advised that she and her husband were arguing and at which time suspect grabbed her by the throat and they both lost their balance." Clark was arrested for simple assault, but these charges were dropped Monday. According to Terry Harris, chief prosecutor in general sessions court, there was not enough evidence to prosecute the case. "The victim was not interested in further prosecuting the matter." Sgt. Clark has been taken out of the robbery division and placed on non-enforcement status until an internal investigation is complete, according to department officials. -- Phil Campbell It May Not Look It, But It's On Schedule Memphians driving past the new Central Library site on Poplar Avenue during the past few months may have noticed something conspicuously missing from the multimillion-dollar project. Construction workers. Groundbreaking began last November at the site, and construction company Huber, Hunt and Nichols won the bid to build the five-story structure. The company is also responsible for other rather prominent structures around town, such as The Pyramid and Baptist Memorial Hospital East. Little progress seemed to be made on the new library, however, except for a large hole dug several months ago. Crews are now working more steadily, and there's a reason you won't see many of them during the afternoon rush hour: They're starting their work at dawn to avoid the mid-day heat. Despite an apparently slow pace, library spokesperson Bobby King says that construction is still on schedule, and the new Central Library will open to the public in the spring of 2001. So it's going to take three years to construct a five-story building? "It's going to take awhile," library marketing director Brier Turner says. "This is a major project, and it's going to take us at least [until] the fall of 2000 to move materials to the new building." -- Ashley Fantz Business Battles Snakes, Vermin From Property Next Door You mAY think THAT your co-workers are a bunch of rats, but you probably don't have to contend with real rodents and reptiles in your workplace. That isn't true for the employees of Memphis Presort Inc., who have been trying for weeks to get someone to clean up the vacant lot next to their business at 574 South Main, which they say is home to a variety of vermin. The lot is choked with weeds, some of which have grown to the size of small trees. In June, two snakes slithered into the building, and workers killed one with a shovel. Regina Keister, who works in accounting there, says that a snake expert pronounced the dead snake venomous based on a phoned-in description of its mangled corpse. She says that since then they've seen a large rat outside and have had mice in the building. Keister says that she has called the Mayor's Citizens Service Center and the sanitation department to get the lot cleaned up. After the snakes appeared she called the health department and wrote to the owner of the vacant property, who has not responded. Since then, Keister says city maintenance crews have come to the property twice, both times without equipment for clearing away the undergrowth. -- Daniel Connolly Another Employee Charges Gilless With Harassment More than a sex scandal, the latest harassment charge against Shelby County Sheriff A.C. Gilless reveals the sordid side of personal politics inside his department. Diane Darden Plunk filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission two weeks ago, alleging that the sheriff has made sporadic, unwanted advances toward her since she was a 19-year-old cadet. Although the EEOC complaint can only focus on recent harassment charges, Plunk says her problems with the sheriff started in the mid-1970s. Gilless won't comment, but the county attorney's office has already attempted some damage control. In mid-June, attorney Jay Robinson approached Plunk for the county and asked if she would be willing to mediate the dispute before Plunk even filed her complaint. On the advice of her attorney, Plunk declined. "I have yet to see any EEOC complaint," says department legal advisor Don Strother, although he says he's aware of an in-house complaint that she has filed. Strother calls Plunk a disgruntled employee. "All you have to do is look at her work record. It's pretty obvious she was on the edge of no longer being employed by us. They are not things that were created by the Sheriff's office." Plunk's charges are similar to those of Louise Charlene Taylor, a former dispatcher who, late last year, received an out-of-court settlement of $50,000 from the county and $78,000 from Gilless himself. Like Taylor, Plunk ties her professional decline in the department not only to the sexual harassment, but also to a general falling-out she had with what she calls the "family," the Gilless clique that essentially runs the department. Plunk says she was estranged from the "family" in the early 1990s, when she separated and later divorced her first husband, Joseph Gurley, a chief inspector with strong ties to the sheriff. After that, Gilless made a systematic effort to get rid of her, Plunk claims. Unlike Taylor, Plunk isn't keeping quiet. She's granted interviews to reporters who have wanted to talk to her. She's taken TV reporters to places where she meditates, near her home in Lepanto, Arkansas. "I like to say that I get by with prayer, Prissy [her dachshund], and Prozac," she says. She granted me an interview last Sunday, taking me to a shaded, wooden bridge on some Arkansas farmland, letting Prissy play with a tennis ball while she talked about Gilless. Plunk says that she is holding back some of her claims against the sheriff until the trial, if one occurs. She claims that she has a "bombshell" that she plans to use against him. Plunk, 43, started at the department as a cadet in 1974. She says she got her job because her mother, Mary Jo Darden, a secretary at the Shelby County Correctional Center, lobbied for her, and introduced Plunk to Gilless, who was in charge of hiring cadets at the time. After a brief meeting, Gilless hired Plunk. The next year, Gilless was made the assistant chief of civil courts. Coincidentally, Plunk was assigned to work in his division. The sexual harassment started almost right away, Plunk claims. "There was fondling for two or three months," she says, "which led to intercourse." Plunk says that she had been molested as a youth, and that she was not equipped to deal with a supervisor's advances. "This was 1975," she stresses. "Who was I going to tell? I was scared. I was ready to go on to be a deputy sheriff. Women couldn't make money like that back then." She points out that Shelby County only adopted a comprehensive sexual harassment policy this year. Plunk says Gilless stopped harassing her at that time after he requested and got from her a key to her Midtown apartment. Plunk says Gilless frequently used that Jefferson Avenue apartment for his own purposes when she wasn't home. In 1976, Gene Barksdale was elected sheriff, and Plunk was the first female that he hired as a fully commissioned officer. Things were going well for Plunk at the time. She married Joseph Gurley in 1979. Gurley was a lieutenant, but he was rising in the department and had political ties to Gilless. Plunk was also rising, making sergeant in 1983. Her personnel record during this period is virtually spotless. During these years, Plunk says Gilless did not sexually harass her. She attributes this to the fact that he was assigned to a different area of the department. Like any ambitious deputy, Plunk was an active fund-raiser for her sheriff. She knew how the system worked. Barksdale did not forget about her, even after he was defeated in 1986. Just before leaving office, Barksdale made an 11th-hour set of promotions, among which was Plunk's elevation to lieutenant. Plunk says Barksdale made it clear to her that he was rewarding her personal loyalty. After Sheriff Jack Owens took office, Plunk says she and a few other last-minute promotion recipients were transferred to jail duty for a couple of years -- punishment, she says, for their loyalty to Barksdale. Plunk wanted out of the jail assignment, and she did what she could to get transferred to a better department position. This included approaching Gilless for help. He obliged, putting her in the detective bureau. But, in return, she says, he also asked for favors. "He would take care of all that stuff before he would approach you with anything, like, sexual," she says. If she didn't oblige Gilless, she says, "I'd probably still be there [working in the jail]." Gilless' requests for sexual favors occurred on and off for the next two years, Plunk says, a time-frame that overlaps with the similar sexual harassment claims Charlene Taylor made against the sheriff. According to Plunk, the last incident occurred in October 1992. Plunk remembers that date because Gennifer Flowers had just posed nude in Penthouse, and Plunk was carrying a copy of the magazine as she got onto an elevator at the Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar. Gilless got on the elevator too. "'What have you got?" Plunk says Gilless asked. He then asked her to visit his office and to bring the magazine with her. "I took it over there, and needless to say what happened [in his office]." Plunk says Gilless wanted sexual favors, and she gave them to him. She says she submitted because she was still afraid of retribution. Over the course of the next six years, Plunk was disciplined numerous times, starting in 1994, after she was arrested in Hardeman County for public intoxication. Shortly after that, she overdosed on muscle relaxants that she combined with alcohol. These two incidents contributed to her demotion to sergeant. She has been fired twice, once in 1995 after an incident of public intoxication in Crittenden County, and again last year after allowing members of a jury to drink beer. She was ultimately rehired, but was demoted once again, this time back to patrolwoman. Plunk does not deny the basic substance of the charges that led to her various punishments in the mid- to late-'90s, but she asserts that the punishments have been far harsher because of her political situation in the department. Plunk also claims administrators have been unusually cruel, considering that she has been seeking therapy through the department since 1990 for depression. Among other things, her immediate supervisor has been ordered to smell her breath three times a day -- "every morning, noon, and night" --for alcohol. Plunk believes her sexual harassment issues have been intertwined with dispatcher Taylor's. The only thing that saved her job last time, Plunk believes, was Taylor's allegations. At the time, Taylor was putting pressure on Gilless, both financially and under the threat of public humiliation. "I don't think he would have hired me back [this last time] if it weren't for Charlene Taylor," Plunk says. "Me and her have not talked, but I would like to after this is over with." -- Phil Campbell Making A Difference in Millennial Memphis 9 It’s so crazy it just might work. The Germantown Performing Arts Centre has proposed to counteract the mind-numbing effects of parking lots and urban sprawl by displaying a unique art project out in the open air. Gardens of colorful flowers on the GPAC property will be cleverly juxtaposed with enormous paintbrushes, paint rollers, and paint cans to create the illusion that some giant hand was responsible for such beauty. Similar projects have been done in Switzerland, Canada, and Colorado. The goal is to “carry the artistic message of GPAC outside of its doors by breaking through the restrictive barrier of our building.” For this project, GPAC will receive the 10th Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis grant. As part of its 10th-anniversary celebration, The Memphis Flyer is giving away $50,000 in grants of $1,000 each. The money is provided by an anonymous Memphian who hopes to encourage what might be called “good works” -- little things that improve the quality of life in Memphis. The grants are disbursed by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Grants are available to any nonprofit in the Memphis area. To apply, send a proposal on the organization’s stationery to: Making A Difference The Memphis Flyer P.O. Box 687 Memphis, TN 38101

			Fly on the Wall It's Not Funny To Mock The Lactose Intolerant. MTV personality Tom Green was in town last month to wreak his particular form of havoc. As seen on last week's episode of The Tom Green Show, an unusually in-your-face show, Green visited a recent Drink Milk! promotional event here. After being foiled in his attempt to steal a microphone from a WREG-TV cameraman, Green discovered WHBQ-TV health reporter Maria Black, whose live remote from the event was highlighted by the gangly Green jumping around in the background, yelling, "Channel 3 sucks. Channel 3 is lactose intolerant." Later that night, Green visited Harpo's Lounge on Highway 51 in Frayser, "the redneck capital of the world." When contacted, officials at the Frayser Chamber of Commerce couldn't confirm that this was in fact their new slogan "cuz' they was out back scraping a possum off the grill." The CA Curse First Whitney, now Tony. In case you haven't heard, jazz singer Tony Bennett has had to cancel his scheduled Thursday performance at the Mud Island Amphitheatre (due to excessive heat, though on Monday the swelter finally broke). Fortunately, the Flyer got news of the cancellation just in time to pull our planned coverage. Our friends at The Commercial Appeal, however, weren't as lucky. For the second week in a row an artist has graced the cover of the CA's Friday Playbook, only to then cancel the show. Man, if Tom Petty is on the cover of Playbook this week, we're going to be pissed. The Future Is Dick? In a considerable step down from its previous digs, this weekend's Fifth Annual International Conference on Elvis Presley will be held at a coffeehouse. The Map Room, to be precise. But though more modest in scale, Ole Miss professor Vernon Chadwick's symposium is still tackling the vital issues of our time as far as they relate to Elvis, of course. One of the topics to be explored will be the historic 1970 meeting between Elvis and President Richard Nixon. "The meeting that ensued between the most powerful leader of the free world and the King of Rock-and-Roll is one of the strangest and most compelling in the annals of American popular history," says the conference program. The image of Elvis and Nixon in the Oval Office remains the most frequently requested photograph from the National Archives of the Library of Congress. Could it be that Elvis + Nixon = The Future?" Home Security Salesmen are getting way too aggressive. As if telemarketers weren't bad enough, one enterprising Memphis salesman has taken the hard sell to new lows. John Eldred, a salesman for Security Alert home protection services, had until recently taken to charging potential customers $1 for his business card. Eldred allegedly approached the elderly parents of Jean Dodds two weeks ago, tried to sell them a security system, and then sold Dodds' mother his business card. According to Dodds, Eldred scared her parents with a barrage of crime statistics. When Dodds' mother said she wanted to think about purchasing a burglar-alarm system later and asked for Eldred's business card, he wouldn't give it to her without receiving a dollar first. "It was out of frustratio-- they were shaken by the way he talked to them -- that they gave him a dollar for his card," Dodds says. Jean Dodds called Eldred and his superiors. Security Alert has since reprimanded Eldred and ordered him to stop selling his business cards. Security Alert president Frank Benson also called Dodds to apologize personally. "I made very little money trying to sell the cards," Eldred says in his defense. "I just feel like it's kind of an insurance. If someone is willing to buy my card for a dollar, they're more likely to buy a [security] system."