Although
petitions for city office won’t be available at the Election Commission until
next month, this year’s
Memphis municipal election —
or at least the mayoral component of it — is already fully under way.

To judge by the charges and
countercharges and the quantity of mud that has so far been slung, this contest
promises to be as entertaining and down-and-dirty as any in the past (see also
Viewpoint, page 17).

And the fact is, for all the
complaints levied by abstract theorists at “horse-race” journalism, we are
electing people, not position papers, and all of it — the battle of
personalities, the spin machines, the fund-raising competition, and certainly
the size and effectiveness of the contenders’ cadres — counts toward a bona fide
measure of the candidates and what they might do in office.

But in this election year, more than
in many previous, issues will play a huge role in voters’ minds and none more so
than the issue of Memphis Light, Gas and Water, which — both for those ordinary
citizens whose service is constantly under threat and for those privileged ones
who (we now know) have been allowed to run up huge bills — has alarm bells
ringing throughout the city.

Rarely has the distinction between
haves and have-nots been so starkly drawn as by the disclosures of the last few
weeks concerning the now infamous “third-party notification” lists kept by
current MLGW president, Joseph Lee, a protégé and appointee of incumbent
mayor Willie Herenton.

But at least one major opponent of
Herenton’s, former MLGW president Herman Morris, is also tainted by the
scandal — particularly by a 2002 e-mail, dating from his own tenure as head of
the giant city utility, that arguably might have established the precedent.

Morris’ memo, written in response to
a customer complaint from then Commercial Appeal editor Angus
McEachran, urged staff to“make
sure we handle this matter with sensitivity.” Another key point of the e-mail
was that MLGW should develop a list of customers “that require my special
awareness, attention or staff intervention when they have problems.” He spelled
that out to mean a longish list of elected officials (city, county, and state)
and news media members.

The memo,
conveniently leaked to the media by Herenton allies, was clearly meant to blunt
Morris’ almost simultaneous announcement of his candidacy and to share out an
albatross that was already a burden on the mayor himself. Meanwhile, candidate
Carol Chumney, a frequent critic of Herenton on MLGW’s future and other
issues, could enjoy the serendipity of having become chair of the City Council’s
MLGW committee as of January 31st.

As such, she is
entitled to conduct investigations and to shepherd solutions regarding MLGW and
all the controversies attending it, old and new. In her campaign opening last
month, she made a point of standing in opposition to the sale of MLGW, something
which Herenton proposed a few years back and a project which many of his
detractors believe he still holds in reserve.

The new scandal gives
Chumney ample opportunity to burnish her reformer credentials (it also
presumably gives a boost to the anti-establishment candidate John Willingham),
while at the same time it inevitably tarnishes those of Morris.

When he was asked about the memo at
his opening announcement last week, Morris floundered for some time, managing in
a remarkably unhoned and stammering answer to acknowledge that he had given
access to “family and friends” and to influential members of the community at
large but not making clear distinctions between such a procedure and the
possibility of granting special privileges.

In a curious way, the awkwardness of
Morris’ response was exculpatory. It was as if, instead of indulging in some
ready-made spin, he was trying to reason it all out as he spoke.

In a brief
Flyer interview this week, the newly announced candidate had thought it
through more carefully.


Q&A With Herman Morris:

Flyer: Do you
think it was strange that the text of your memo about access to certain
customers became public just as you got ready to announce for mayor?

Morris:
It was a very curious timing. Someone must have scoured the records of the
utilities.

What’s
the difference between how you handled “special” customers and how Joseph Lee
has handled them?

On my watch,
if you didn’t pay or didn’t make an arrangement to pay, you got a cut-off notice
and services were terminated. It didn’t matter who you were. I wanted elected
officials to be able to get through. They, after all, were representatives of a
constituency. Big industrial users were a somewhat different case with major
issues. But even they, if they got months in arrears, could get cut off.

What
about the well-publicized case of former Commercial Appeal editor Angus
McEachran? It was in reaction to a query from him, about wildly fluctuating
monthly charges, that you wrote the memo that got leaked.

Angus was a
tough issue. We ultimately concluded that he paid his bill every month and that
our meter malfunctioned. He ended up owing more than he thought he did, so we
worked out a payment plan to collect it from him.

The case
that’s aroused most attention has been Councilman Edmund Ford’s. Did you have
the same problem as Joseph Lee, and did you, too, let him go indefinitely
without paying?

I’m not
aware of any time that we had anyone go delinquent for the period of time that
he did later on, except maybe in cases of bankruptcy, when we couldn’t by law
cut them off. My recollection is that Edmund Ford did get cut off, though
he would also come in and make payments to avoid cut-offs.

Can you
shed any light on your departure from MLGW in 2003?

My departure
remains a mystery to me, too. It could have been that I was opposed to the sale
of MLGW. It could have been a more open attitude toward providing services to
outside communities awaiting annexation. It could have been disagreements about
staffing or the way the mayor wanted to handle the “prepaid” issue [an
advance purchase of TVA power via preferred brokers designated by the mayor].
I was never given a specific statement or reason.

Another
issue that has aroused the public is that of too easy and too lucrative pension
arrangements for public employees. Was that an issue with your own golden
parachute?

At the time, the
parachute didn’t seem very golden. I negotiated fairly in terms of my departure.
I wasn’t eligible for a pension, so I had to negotiate. At 52, I wasn’t quite
old enough, and I hadn’t been there 15 years. I was just under the limit both
ways for a pension. In all honesty, the final settlement probably fell short of
being the equivalent of what I would have received through retirement
eligibility.


Special Election(s) Report:

Yard signs
indicate that the two Republican candidates in next Tuesday’s special elections
for state Senate District 30 and state House District 92 — Larry Parrish
and Richard Morton, respectively — are putting forth an effort, but the
two Democratic nominees — state representative Beverly Marrero for the
Senate position and G.A. Hardaway for the House seat — are heavily
favored.

Two-Man Race for
Chair of Shelby Dems?

So it would seem, after Saturday’s
preliminary caucus, in which a record crowd showed up at Airways Junior High to
elect delegates for the party convention on March 31st. Current chairman Matt
Kuhn is not seeking reelection, and things are shaping up for a two-man race
between lawyer Jay Bailey and minister Keith Norman.

Bailey is
supported by David Upton and some, but not all, members of the party’s
old Ford faction, as well as by the activist Grant brothers (Greg
and Alonzo), Del Gill, and blogger Thaddeus Matthews.
Norman
has emerged as the candidate of the Sidney Chism factionand is
likely also to be supported by Desi Franklin of the MidSouth Democrats in
Action reform group.It should be noted that other Democrats — including
longtime activist Jody Patterson, who says she will run — may also launch
candidacies before March 31st.