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Memphis Mayor-elect A C Wharton Jr. will be appointing a new city attorney once he takes office next week.
Elbert Jefferson, the city attorney Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery tried to fire just minutes after taking the oath of office on July 31, Friday sent a second resignation letter to Lowery. The two met for an hour Sunday evening at City Hall and Lowery accepted Jefferson’s resignation.
Jefferson’s attorney, Ted Hansom, and city Chief Administrative Officer Jack Sammons were also present. Jefferson turned in his key card, the keys to his city car and his laptop.
“The drama is over,” Lowery said Monday. “For my part, I wish it had never happened.”
Dramatis personae
In a resignation letter last week to Wharton, Jefferson had expressed hope that he would be hired for some position in the new administration. Over the weekend, he used the same text in the new letter but addressed it to Lowery instead. He requested the city pay his legal fees as well.
The resignation letter to Lowery made moot an ouster suit filed by Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons. Criminal Court Judge James Lammey, who was to hear the case, reset a final report to Oct. 27, citing Jefferson’s departure.
“A hearing on the issue of suspension would be an inefficient use of judicial resources, of the state of Tennessee and of the resources of the city of Memphis, and considering (Jefferson’s) current health status, would be an unnecessary tax on (Jefferson’s) well-being and a possible threat to his health,” Lammey wrote in the court order.
Jefferson was scheduled to return to City Hall from sick leave Monday. He apparently believed the new mayor would be in office by the time he returned.
An audit of city financial affairs is standard procedure in a change of administrations. Wharton is naming team members to review the offices of the city attorney, human resources and finance and administration. He was also to name members of his transition team Monday.
Time-, battle-tested
Shelby County Commissioner Mike Carpenter and Methodist Healthcare executive Cato Johnson will head the team.
The other members are:
- Herman Morris, attorney and 2007 candidate for Memphis Mayor.
- Tomeka Hart, Memphis Urban League CEO and Memphis school board member.
- Jim Strickland, attorney and Memphis City Council member.
- Rev. Dwight Montgomery, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Memphis chapter President.
- Jose Velasquez, Latino Memphis former executive director.
- Nisha Powers, Powers Hill Design Inc. President.
- Paul Morris, attorney and former chairman Center City Commission.
- Douglas Scarboro, The Leadership Academy vice president.
- Steve Reynolds, Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. CEO.
- Diane Rudner, Plough Foundation chairman.
- Darrell Cobbins, Universal Commercial CEO.
Johnson has more experience serving on such task forces and ad hoc committees than any other leader in the city’s corporate community. Most recently, Johnson was one of two business leaders on the ad hoc committee exploring single-source local funding for education. He also served as a leader of the Mid-South Fairgrounds renovation committee and has been involved in similar capacities with every major construction project for a civic use in the past 15 years.
Carpenter’s appointment is certain to fuel speculation that he might be tapped for some role in the new administration. However, Carpenter has already been holding fundraisers in anticipation of a bid for re-election to his commission seat in the 2010 county elections.
Wharton is tentatively scheduled to take the oath of office Oct. 26.
The Shelby County Commission also meets that same day and could receive Wharton’s resignation and declare a vacancy in the county mayor’s office with a vote to appoint Wharton’s successor-to-come in November. Until that vote, County Commission Chairwoman Joyce Avery will serve as interim mayor.
“It will be a day in which I come to work at one place and leave work from another place,” Wharton told The Daily News.
But the Shelby County Election Commission will meet earlier than expected -- Thursday afternoon -- to certify the Oct. 15 election results. Once the results are certified, Wharton is free to resign as Shelby County mayor and take the oath as Memphis mayor.
Cooperative efforts
Meanwhile, Wharton has asked City Council Chairman Harold Collins to consider delaying a council vote today on the five appointees the city mayor is to make to a metro charter commission. The council set today’s vote with the intention of having whomever won the Oct. 15 special election appoint members of the panel.
“I won’t be there on the 20th. … I’m seeing if they are in a position to put it off until I’m actually over there,” Wharton told The Daily News, as he has had attorneys researching if a council vote in November would meet timelines for such an effort set out in state law.
“I believe that they may be able to meet on Nov. 3,” Wharton said.
Wharton has already named the 10 appointees to be made by the Shelby County mayor to the panel. The County Commission approved all 10 earlier this month.
While it appears he will make the other five, Wharton said he will ask the council, through Collins, to effectively pick the five nominees, whom Wharton would then send to the council as his appointees.
“I chose all 10 over here, which I had to do by law. If I could find some way around it that passed legal muster, then I would do that,” he said. “But we’ve researched it and I know of no way in which the city mayor can say … ‘I’m not going to do that.’ You can’t transfer it.”
Wharton and Lowery were to discuss the matter at a meeting Monday afternoon. Lowery told The Daily News he had received no suggested appointees from council members, but would be willing to submit names the council wants on the charter commission.
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Memphis Mayor-elect A C Wharton Jr. has named eleven more people to his transition team.
Shelby County Commissioner Mike Carpenter and Methodist Healthcare executive Cato Johnson will chair the group. The others include:
- Herman Morris, attorney, former president of Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division and 2007 Memphis mayoral candidate;
- The Rev. Dwight Montgomery, president of the Memphis chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference;
- Nisha Powers, president of Powers Hill Design Inc.;
- Tomeka Hart, Memphis school board member and Memphis Urban League president and CEO;
- Darrell Cobbins, Universal Commercial President and CEO;
- Jim Strickland, attorney and Memphis City Councilmember;
- Jose Velasquez, Latino Memphis’ former executive director.
- Paul Morris, attorney and former chairman Center City Commission.
- Diane Rudner, Poplar Foundation chairman.
- Steve Reynolds, Baptist Memorial Health Care President & CEO.
- Douglas Scarboro, The Leadership Academy vice president.
In other transition developments, the Shelby County Election Commission will meet Thursday afternoon to certify the results of the Oct. 15 special mayoral election.
The meeting is earlier than Wharton had expected. Once the results are certified, Wharton can resign his post as Shelby County mayor at any point and take the oath of office at City Hall. The Shelby County Commission will then declare a vacancy in the county mayor’s office and commission chairwoman Joyce Avery will become acting mayor until the commission appoints someone to serve the year remaining in Wharton’s county term of office.
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