Seeing the Blight Only in Memphis: Council races stress the negative aspects of the city's condition. by Jackson Baker o much attention has been paid to this year's melee-filled mayor's race that other offices up for grabs in 1999 have gone relatively unnoticed. These include 11 contested city council seats (out of 13), one of the three city court judgeships, and the position of city court clerk. Since the council controls the purse strings and sets policy for the city in X number of important ways (think only of the ever-raging controversy over what to do with billboards), the handful of truly competitive races merit especial attention -- especially since so many of them appear to revolve around this year's big issue: urban blight. A brief review: City Council, District 1 Although this predominantly working-class area (Frayser, Raleigh) on the city's northern edge is one of several which the euphemism "changing" describes, its demographic transition has been somewhat gradual -- with a racial balance that is still (if barely) majority-white. The incumbent, E.C. Jones, continues in the mold of his predecessors in resisting flamboyant new city projects and holding back on expenditures (other than the pothole-patching public works variety.) Jones, a genial ex-policeman who -- as one his opponents publicly conceded -- "makes people feel good," represents an area whose chief commercial establishments have, one after the other, started to close their doors in recent years and head off for parts east. District 1 has therefore begun seething as residents -- like those, equal parts black and white, who attended a forum in Raleigh back in August -- confront the undeniable economic slowdown in Frayser and Raleigh. Darrell Catron, a county Corrections Department employee and that rarest of political beings, a black Republican (who has the party's endorsement and free advertising on its mail-out ballot), is running the most energetic campaign against Jones, as if holding him personally responsible for the area's being "on life supports" -- insisting at the aforementioned Raleigh forum, for example, that Jones should Do the Right Thing and resign. Jerry Benya, a food services director for Marriott Hosts and a resident of the Wells Station area that used to belong to District 5 incumbent John Vergos (whom Benya was set to oppose before a redistricting which he felt was aimed at him), is hitting some of the same licks as Catron and, as a veteran of Neighborhood Watch and the Memphis Landmarks Commission, talking up neighborhood concerns about safety and blight as well. The other two candidates, Shahid Mohammad, who has devoted considerable time to the issue (or non-issue) of Y2K preparedness, and Riesel Sandridge, who is running a laid-back campaign that his own brother, School Board member Dutch Sandridge, has distanced himself from, are probably not factors -- except to Catron, who has hopes of getting Jones into a runoff. (Runoffs are permitted in district elections but not in citywide or super-district votes.) Benya is a long shot, but, as a white, might draw enough votes away from the incumbent to produce the aforesaid runoff. Prognosis: Jones should pull enough white and Democratic votes to escape a subsequent one-on-one against Catron. If a runoff should ensue, Catron will lose as many black Democratic votes as he gains among white Republicans (not overly numerous in District 1). City Council, District 2 In this heavily white and Republican district -- which includes East Memphis and old (and parts of new) Cordova -- incumbent Brent Taylor, at 31 still the youngest council member, shouldn't have to break a sweat against unknown challenger Yvonne Montague, who hails from the district's newly annexed northern portion of Hickory Hill. Prognosis: No contest: Taylor. City Council, District 3 Basically, this district is Whitehaven (including the tourist mecca of Graceland) plus the southern portion of Hickory Hill, and its racial composition -- 65 percent black, 23 percent white, and 12 percent "other" -- ensures both that a black candidate will represent the district and that white voters will play a significant role in determining the outcome. Vo-tech teacher Ike Griffith and Arkansas State University employee Jerry Mack are no-names and won't figure. The race is between political veterans Jerome Rubin, a Time-Warner executive and insurance man who is the incumbent, and erstwhile Rubin ally Tajuan Stout-Mitchell, a political veteran and outspoken School Board member. Like Raleigh, Whitehaven has seen the exodus of many a business in recent years, and Stout-Mitchell has not been bashful about turning Rubin on the spit over that hot issue, as well as the lesser one of pawnshop proliferation. Rubin counters on the latter score that he devised the ordinance requiring immediate notification to police of newly pawned and sold items. The two have legitimate differences concerning what kind of development is most desirable for the area, Rubin favoring middle-income housing and Stout-Mitchell a more varied menu, including both low-income housing and upscale residential and commercial establishments. The white vote is key. Rubin has the best connections in Hickory Hill (with former "toy-town" advocates Tom and Denise Jeanette on his side), but Stout-Mitchell has the always useful endorsement of The Commercial Appeal. Prognosis: Rubin may still have an edge on the basis of his incumbency and Stout-Mitchell's relatively late start. But the challenger has an important ally in the influential Rev. Bill Adkins, who was personally offended by Rubin's defense of zero-lot housing in his neighborhood. City Council, District 4 The wonder is that so many challengers (four) have taken on incumbent Janet P. Hooks in this mid-Memphis district which includes both some genteel portions of Midtown (Cooper-Young, for example) and the black-inhabited South Parkway manses that are the Hooks family's bailiwick. W.L. Bates, Tony E. Jones, Ira L. King, and Eddie Neal all have one thing in common: no chance. Prognosis: Hooks, easily. City Council, District 5 Restaurateur John Vergos, the incumbent in this Midtown district and a leader on behalf of several issues, including the citywide crusade against billboards (which are regarded as a species of blight by many Midtowners) should be sailing easy, and probably is. Perennial candidate Kerry White and Texas transplant Manning Pletz shouldn't trouble him much, but insurance consultant Allan Fisher, who has the Republican Party's endorsement, is running a surprisingly energetic race -- at least with his well-distributed campaign signs -- smaller than billboards but probably just as vexing to Vergos. Prognosis: Even so, Vergos should probably win without a runoff. City Council, District 6 This is the South Memphis district, vacated by mayor candidate Joe Ford and a Ford family fiefdom for decades, that Edmund Ford (see separate story by Heather Heilman) should win easily. The names Perry Bond and Michael Tharps are familiar at election time, but always as losers. Cherry Davis has no great hope, either. Prognosis: It's Ed's hand-me-down seat. City Council, District 7 In old North Memphis, there's a plotline similar to the storyboard for Districts 1 and 3. An energetic challenger -- in this case, veteran political activist and government employee Jerry Hall -- charges an entrenched incumbent -- in this instance, Barbara Swearengen Holt -- with neglect or haplessness in the face of (you guessed it) blight. Weeds and potholes, broken windows and graffiti, and the crime that goes with it: You name it, and Hall has enumerated it as beyond the control or concern of Holt, whom he accuses of trying to run on the Swearengen family's name recognition in the Douglass community. Hall got a considerable boost of late from The Commercial Appeal's endorsement, and his experience as a political handler of other people's campaigns is serving him well on the stump and on handshaking tours. But Holt plans some aggressive last-minute advertising, and word is she intends to raise questions about which of two residences -- one inside the district, one outside -- Hall actually inhabits. Prognosis: Too close to call. No fence-sitting? Oh, okay; let's say Hall, by a hair, if he succeeds in adding to the CA endorsement a place on the Ford ballot. Holt is much too tight with His Honor to suit the Fords, but not too long ago Hall was making a career of baiting them, as well. (And he still professes pride in belonging to no "establishment.") City Council, Super-District 8, Position 1 Incumbent Joe Brown, owner of a (sometimes controversial) janitorial service, stands to clean up in this race (in which no runoff is permitted) against three opponents, including Maryum Muhammad, the widow of the seat's previous tenant, the late Dr Talib-Karim Muhammad. Maryum Muhammad was Brown's opponent in a special election last year, when he got three-fourths of the vote. He will probably repeat something on that order, since neither publisher Jimmy D. Williams nor newcomer Mondell B. Williams has gathered much steam. Prognosis: Brown downtown again. City Council, Super-District 8, Position 2 The would-be impresario of Super-District 8, which comprises the southern and western half of Memphis and is majority-black, is Position 2 incumbent Rickey Peete, who suffered an unexpected loss in a 1994 special election in District 7 to Barbara Holt. That defeat indicated the gap between Peete's ambition, which is quite large, and his actual influence, which is problematic -- even, at times, in his home province of North Memphis, where, in a coterie of fellow office-holders (legislators Ulysses Jones and Larry Miller, Commissioner Shep Wilbun, councilman Brown) he likes to conduct himself as first among equals.. Peete has largely outgrown the tarnish of his 1989 conviction for attempted extortion of a developer (which interrupted his first council tour) but still doesn't command the citywide power he boasts of. Even so, he is influential in downtown affairs, having headed a merchants' association on Beale St., and has enough clout to have organized Brown (his council protege, in a sense) and colleague Myron Lowery in a triad for the election season. The three have pooled expenses and are featured on billboards together. If restaurateur/eccentric Robert "Prince Mongo" Hodges was still relevant (as he hasn't been since ancient times in Zambodia, even as a focus of satire), his race against Peete could be taken as a protest vote against the incumbent (talk about "politics-as-usual"!) or against the political system as such. But -- zzzzzzzz Huh, what were we saying.? Prognosis: A Peete repeat. City Council, Super-District 8, Position 3 Despite criticism for his frequent junketeering and some friction with colleagues while council chairman last year, Lowery is home free against newcomer Lorenzo Coleman. Able enough to have once aspired to be mayor, Lowery, a FedEx communications manager and former TV anchor, will probably settle for being a long-term fixture on the council. Prognosis: Lowery again. City Council, Super-District 9, Position 3 Pat VanderSchaaf (Super-District 9, position 1) and Tom Marshall (position 2) are unopposed, but there is an interesting race for the folks in Super-District 9, a sprawling area which takes in most of Midtown and East Memphis, along with generous hunks of the northern and southeastern suburban rims. (White folks, in short.) Is there a second life in politics for onetime councilman and Golden Boy Jack Sammons, a political moderate who burned himself with local Republicans by opposing Republican nominee Jim Rout for county mayor in 1994 but has earned his way back into the hearts of the GOP establishment? Conversely, is there a seventh, eighth, or ninth life in politics (we've lost count) for political veteran Joe Cooper, who has run often in recent years -- almost winning the city court clerkship in 1995? The indefatigable Cooper is more substantial than many of his critics admit, but his slogan this year ("No New Taxes -- I Guarantee It!") strikes most observers as problematic at a time when a revenue crisis in local and state government is largely taken for granted. Sammons' boosters include the outgoing holder of the seat, John Bobango (the instrument of Republican revenge against Sammons in 1995), friend and former colleague Marshall, and VanderSchaaf. He also has the support, as he put it in a recent e-mail communication to supporters, of "Uncle Fred" (i.e., FedEx founder Fred Smith, uncle of Sammons' wife Jennifer). Cooper, who is supported by several colleagues for his two decades' worth of experience in county government, has a biggie on his side, too: controversial mega-businessman Bill Tanner, whom Cooper serves as CAO. Cooper's giant billboards all over town are a constant reminder of his connection to Tanner (who cornered the local billboard market before selling out two years ago) and of his bucking the tide of presumed anti-billboard sentiment among white voters. Accountant Charles Lewis, Crime Talk entrepreneur Stephen Wolf, and FedEx systems analyst Larry Henson are in the race, too, but the best hope for each is to build name recognition for a future electoral effort. Not this time, boys. Prognosis: The smart money is on Sammons, but Cooper is the tortoise of the fable and could surprise people. City Court Clerk A surprising amount of issue-consciousness has accrued to what is normally not a very controversial position. Incumbent Thomas Long has been omnipresent as a campaigner (raising eyebrows as a result of the city-paid ads for his "drive while you pay" installment program for traffic offenders). Veteran government worker and political activist Greg Grant, making his first bid for office in his own right, advocates making license renewals contingent on payment of outstanding parking tickets. And clerk's office employee Betty Boyette, who has attacked Long for the taxpayer-paid portion of his advertising, promises to keep citizens informed of their rights vis-a-vis the system. Boyette (who at one event made a moving defense of her right, as a single parent, to be an adoptive mother) has the Republican Party's endorsement and, as the only white in the race, could profit from a split of black voters between Long and Grant. Normally, this would be unlikely to happen, but Long, rightly or wrongly, has seen his name linked to that of Mayor Willie Herenton -- a fact which gained a place for Grant on this year's version of the "Ford ballot," copies of which will circulate freely in all of the city's inner-city precinct. Prognosis: Long still has the edge, but either Grant or Boyette could ride a last-minute voter mood swing into office. City Judges Incumbents Earnestine Hunt-Dorse (Position 1) and Tarik B. Sugarmon (Position 2) are in again, by virtue of nolo contenderes from non-existent opponents. There is, however, a case to be tried -- that of incumbent Jayne R. Chandler vs. challenger Karen D. Webster-Wiseman for position 3. Chandler, a veteran, like Webster-Wiseman of the city prosecutor's office, upset the long-serving Nancy Sorak four years ago, as much from the power of a last name evocative of (unrelated) past Memphis officeholders as from her under-appreciated stealth campaigning. Webster-Wiseman, who wanted to run in 1995 but deferred to Chandler because of a pregnancy, is gambling that voter fickleness will intrude again, this time on her behalf. As with all judicial races, there are virtually no issue controversies to speak of. Prognosis: Chandler. The name still works.