Last weekend was the occasion for an official celebration of the forthcoming new bridge due to span the Mississippi River as a replacement for the 75-year-old Memphis-Arkansas bridge.
The bridge will be called Kings’ Crossing in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., blues icon B.B. King, and Elvis Presley, the King of Rock-and-Roll. The Three Kings, get it? Construction on the project is slated to begin early in 2026.
Officials from both Tennessee and Arkansas were present for the ceremony, which took place at Beale Street Landing on Friday.
Among those in attendance at the affair were not kings but personages Congressman Steve Cohen and state Representative Justin J. Pearson, opponents for the 9th District congressional seat which is up again next year.
And the fact of their mutual attendance may have provided fodder for campaign controversy.
As noted at the event by both Ted Townsend, president of the Greater Memphis Chamber, and Memphis Mayor Paul Young, Cohen, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is generally credited with substantial responsibility for acquiring a federal grant of $400 million to fund the bridge-building project.
Subsequent state grants of $200 to $250 million each were voted for the project by the legislatures of Arkansas and Tennessee.
Representative Pearson may have gotten a tad ahead of his skis in his desire to associate himself with the state effort on behalf of the new bridge — both at last Friday’s ceremony itself and in subsequent communications with his constituency.
The relevant state legislation was the Transportation Modernization Act of 2023, which passed the state House by a largely bipartisan vote of 78 ayes, 12 noes, and 3 “present and not voting.”
Pearson was one of the 12 no votes — perhaps because he may have been, like a handful of other Democrats who responded to a Flyer inquiry, turned off by a provision of the bill authorizing toll lanes on state thoroughfares. He could not be reached for clarification.
But at last Friday’s TDOT ceremony, Pearson made sure he was front and center, seating himself onstage for the affair on a chair he borrowed from the audience. And he later presented as fact his having supported the measure, both in an online video and in a distributed text in which he proclaimed himself a “leading member” (as a freshman circa 2023, mind you) of the state House Transportation Committee.
No doubt Pearson does favor the Kings’ Crossing bridge and quite sincerely at that, but there does not seem to be any extant record of his having voted for or carried state legislation authorizing it.
Of course, even the most well-meaning of candidates can sometimes overreach themselves in the heat of a campaign.
• On the spot and acknowledging it in his remarks, county commissioner and mayoral candidate Mickell Lowery, absent for the commission’s September 22nd vote calling for all school board seats to be scheduled for election next year, on Monday became the eighth and decisive vote to override Mayor Lee Harris’ veto of the measure.
A clearly nervous but resolute Lowery attributed his vote to collegial support for his fellow commissioners and said that controversy over the rescheduling matter would ensure greater public attention to school issues henceforth.
In addition to overriding the Harris veto, the commission also voted on Monday to allow a referendum amending the county charter to permit recall votes of members.