Tag Archives: Shelby

Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle to run for judge in Shelby County

News release from Sen. Jim Kyle:
Memphis, Tenn.—State Senator Jim Kyle, a member of the General Assembly for three decades and leader of the Senate Democrats, will pull petition papers today to run for the Chancery Court Part II seat in Shelby County.

Kyle is running for an open seat created by the appointment of Chancellor Arnold Goldin to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Western Section.

“I have practiced law in my hometown for more than 35 years, and have worked with and represented many of our citizens, either in the courtroom or as their state senator,” said Kyle. “I will be a fair judge who will work hard to ensure that our citizens get their day in court. I have a proven track record in the Senate of making the right decision, and that is one of the reasons my colleagues elected me their leader.”

Kyle, a founding partner of the Memphis law firm Domico Kyle, was first elected to the Senate in 1983. He was elected leader of the Senate Democrats in 2005.

“As a senator I have had the opportunity to be truly engaged in the process of making the very laws that I will interpret and apply in the courtroom as chancellor,” said Kyle. “I am looking forward to asking the people of Shelby County for their support in this race.”

FBI reportedly investigating Shelby County Election Commission

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation of alleged irregularities within the purview of the Shelby County Election Commission, according to Jackson Baker.

The FBI has begun interviewing members of the Election Commission and reportedly has scheduled an imminent sit-down with county Election Administrator Rich Holden.

Simultaneously, Memphis City Council member Myron Lowery has informed the news media by email that he intends to seek consideration of a Council vote of No Confidence for Holden “in the appropriate committee in our first meeting next year.”

On Monday of this week the Shelby County Commission voted 9-0 for a No Confidence resolution regarding Holden’s conduct of his office. The resolution was introduced by Commissioner Wyatt Bunker, a Republican like Holden, and had bipartisan support.

Holden has been increasingly under fire for a series of problems that have occurred since his tenure began in 2009, These included a glitch in the August 2010 countywide elections whereby several hundred voters were told erroneously that they had already participated in early voting, as well as a late processing of ballots for elections in the 2012 election cycle that resulted in numerous voters receiving wrong ballots and the judicial nullification of the outcome in a school board race.

Memphis, Shelby mayors present legislative wish list (including Medicaid expansion)

Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell and Memphis Mayor A C Wharton presented a joint wish list for the 2014 session of the General Assembly on Friday to the Shelby County legislative delegation, according to the Commercial Appeal.

Wharton’s and Luttrell’s joint agenda focused on giving local government new tools to fight commercial-scale waste dumping and abandoned property.

The mayors want the legislature to make it a felony offense to dump waste either weighing over 100 pounds or measuring at least 30 cubic feet. Wharton said the crime is now only a misdemeanor and when people are caught, they view paying fines as a cost of business.

They also asked for strengthening state nuisance statutes to make it easier for communities to tackle gang activity at the neighborhood level, through court-ordered injunctions.

Wharton proposed, separately, legislation that would allow courts to “extinguish,” or dismiss, uncollected delinquent tax and other liens on abandoned blighted property, with a goal of making it easier to sell the property to new owners who will clean it up.

Wharton and Luttrell also asked for expansion of state funding for pre-kindergarten classes, for job training programs at Southwest Tennessee Community College and the Tennessee College of Applied Technology at Memphis, for health programs to reduce infant deaths, and for local biomedical research and entrepreneurship efforts.

…Both mayors said they’re concerned that the Regional Medical Center at Memphis will lose millions of dollars in revenue if the state doesn’t participate in some way in Medicaid expansion, which the federal government will fully fund for three years starting Jan. 1, then phase down to 90 percent by 2020.

“Our major concern is the impact on the Regional Medical Center,” Luttrell told legislators. “Four years ago, it was on the brink of major financial issues. Under Dr. Reginald Coopwood (the Med’s CEO), it has turned around. But with the Affordable Care Act, revenue streams the hospital relies on are no longer there. Folks, we in Shelby County cannot afford to lose the Regional Medical Center.”

Shelby’s Suburban Voters Approve Special School Districts (again)

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Among celebration parties in Bartlett, Germantown and elsewhere, suburban school supporters sipped soft drinks and toasted their success Tuesday night after voters again approved the formation of municipal school districts, reports The Commercial Appeal.
Back at the polls because a federal judge threw out last year’s vote approving the districts, voters turned out in smaller numbers in Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington but approved the districts by an overwhelming margin.
Approval numbers ranged from a high of 94 percent in Collierville to a low of almost 74 percent in Millington. About 20 percent of the 143,000 registered voters cast ballots with about half voting early.
“It’s higher than a typical special election,” said election administrator Richard Holden.
If the districts ultimately pass legal muster, Bartlett would be the largest suburban school district with 9,000-plus students in a dozen schools. Lakeland would be the smallest with roughly 2,500-plus students in one elementary school.
At Garibaldi’s Pizza in Germantown, supporters in YES shirts supporters smiled as they took pictures, cheered and applauded as precinct totals came in.

AG says state can run vehicle testing program in Shelby County

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An attorney general’s opinion says the state has authority to set up a vehicle emissions testing program in Shelby County and charge motorists a fee to pay for it, reports the Commercial Appeal.
But the opinion says the state probably could not impose a countywide fee to pay for vehicle testing only in the City of Memphis, as it suggests was being considered by state officials.
Atty. Gen. Robert E. Cooper’s advisory opinion comes after Memphis ended its vehicle inspection program Friday.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is “looking at all options” for a new inspection program in the Memphis area to keep the state in compliance with federal air pollution laws, TDEC spokeswoman Meg Lockhart said after the opinion’s public release Tuesday.
“But we are hopeful that the local air program will meet its obligation to have a vehicle inspection program as previously committed to both the state and to EPA that they would do.”
Memphis was the only one of Tennessee’s major urban areas with vehicle emissions testing where the inspections were limited only to residents of the central city. The testing programs are countywide in Davidson, Hamilton, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson and Wilson counties.

Haslam: No State Aid in Memphis Vehicle Emissions Squabble

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Gov. Bill Haslam has decided that state government will not take over the Memphis/Shelby County vehicle inspection program or provide any money to help run it, according to the Commercial Appeal. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton notified City Council members of the governor’s decision in a memo.
That message, Wharton wrote in the memo, came from Mark Cate, Haslam’s gubernatorial chief of staff, in a conference call that also included Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Robert Martineau and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell.
Memphis has voted to stop funding vehicle emissions and inspections programs in a push to force countywide if not region-wide testing to meet air quality standards mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Ever since emissions testing began some 30 years ago, only Memphis motorists have been required to undergo the process — even though the entire county is now classified by the EPA as violating federal standards for ozone pollution.
…The city has been spending some $2.7 million a year on testing, and that funding ends on July 1. Wharton said he and Luttrell will work on a solution, and it appears they may have an 18-month window to do show a “good-faith effort” toward compliance.
…In Wharton’s memo, he spells out the loss of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the city, the county and to suburban municipalities as well.
Council member Lee Harris said Thursday the decision is part of a political “soap opera” in which the governor was caught in the crosscurrents between Memphis, which has historically required auto inspections, and state legislators representing parts of Shelby County outside of Memphis, which have not required auto inspections.
“The reason the governor reached that decision is clearly political,” said Harris, who led the efforts to drop auto inspections in the city on grounds that city residents are having to carry the entire burden of meeting EPA pollution standards even though the suburbs contribute to the same pollution.
“Instead of the governor showing some leadership, he said, ‘Look, I’m just going to punt the ball.’ It’s really a soap opera now. It’s hard to believe that somebody elected to office would just cave. It’s really discouraging,” Harris said

Haslam Signs Shelby Suburban Schools Bill

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Gov. Bill Haslam on Wednesday signed the main bill paving the way for creation of new municipal school districts in the six Shelby County suburban cities, reports the Commercial Appeal.
House Bill 1288 repeals a 15-year-old prohibition in state law on the establishment of new municipal school systems beyond the 28 that existed in 1998 when it was enacted. Tennessee has 137 school districts — most of which are county systems and 15 special school districts that have broader taxing authority than city and county systems.
The mayors of Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington agreed Monday to ask the Shelby County Election Commission to schedule new referendums for July 16 in each of their cities on whether to establish the new school districts. If voters approve as expected — and as they did last year before the results were thrown out by a federal court ruling — elections for school board members would follow in early November, with a goal of opening schools for the 2014-15 school year.
The separate Senate Bill 1354, which the governor will also sign soon, repeals a statute that limits to six the number of school districts per county. It’s needed because the six new systems added to the unified Memphis-Shelby system would exceed the cap.
The governor said earlier that he expected to sign the two measures, both of which won legislative approval by large margins last week. HB 1288 by Rep. Curry Todd and Sen. Mark Norris, both R-Collierville, passed the House 70-24 and the Senate 24-5. SB 1354, by Norris and Rep. Ron Lollar, R-Bartlett, won 75-3 in the House and 22-5 in the Senate.
Norris said, “Governor Haslam’s timely signature on this important legislation demonstrates that he shares our commitment to neighborhood schools and parental choice. We appreciate his decisive action, and I appreciate the support of so many who have worked hard to help us remove these artificial barriers to education improvement.”
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Lawmakers Approve Letting Cities Start New School Systems

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By Lucas Johnson, Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Legislation that would clear the way for cities to begin forming municipal school systems is needed to continue education reform in Tennessee, proponents of the measure said Monday.
The proposal was overwhelmingly approved 70-24 in the House before passing the Senate 24-5. The measure is headed to the governor for his consideration.
The legislation would lift a 1998 ban that forbids municipalities from starting their own school systems.
The measure would benefit six Memphis suburbs seeking to bypass a merger of the Shelby County and Memphis school districts and run their own schools.
The suburbs voted in August to create their own districts after the Legislature passed a narrowly crafted bill that allowed it.

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Kyle Seeks Shelby County Judge Position

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State Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis filed an application Friday to fill the Probate Court vacancy created by the upcoming retirement of Judge Robert Benham, reports Richard Locker.
If he wins the interim appointment by the Shelby County Commission, Kyle said he would resign from the state Senate seat he has held since 1983.
“I believe that if I become judge, I can no longer serve in the legislature but I would leave anyway because I can’t be a judge and be in Nashville,” Kyle said. “This is an unexpected opportunity and I feel this is a job I can do and do well and continue my service to the community.”
Kyle, 62, has served in the legislature for 30 years — by far the longest-tenured Senate member of the Shelby County legislative delegation and second only to veteran House member Rep. Lois DeBerry, D-Memphis, in tenure among the entire delegation. DeBerry was elected in 1972.
The County Commission on April 1 plans to appoint an interim successor to Judge Benham, the day after his retirement is effective. The commission will interview applicants on March 27.

Shelby Suburban School Bills Filed

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Shelby County’s suburban Republican state legislators filed new bills Thursday that they hope will remove court barriers to the creation of new municipal school districts in Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington, reports Richard Locker.
The main bill would repeal the 1998 statewide ban on new municipal school districts. The suburban lawmakers said they believe that and three other bills will win legislative approval, including in the House of Representatives where reluctance to allow new school districts outside of Shelby County last year led to passage of a Shelby-only law that was later struck down as unconstitutional.
A federal court ruling last November halted the movement toward the creation of six new municipal districts in the suburbs, even after they were approved by voters in local referendums in August. Suburban voters also elected their first school board members in November, before the court ruling, and the boards would have worked to open the new municipal schools late this summer when the merger of the old Memphis City and Shelby County school systems will be complete.
“I expect the House to pass it,” said Rep. Curry Todd, R-Collierville, who is sponsoring the main bill with Senate Majority Leader Mark Morris, R-Collierville. All five suburban Republican House members from Shelby are co-sponsoring all four bills.
Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis, said that from his conversations with lawmakers from elsewhere, “the rest of the state would really like for Shelby County to get its school situation settled.” White chairs the House Education Subcommittee, the bill’s first stop in the House.