Shelby County Commissioners consider Monday, July 27, whether to get involved in the city’s plan to move a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest out of the city park once named for the Confederate general, slave trader and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard.

Commissioners consider Monday whether to get involved in the city’s plan to move this statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

(Daily News File/Andrew J. Breig)

And they also will consider a resolution that would rename the Shelby County Courthouse in honor of the late civil rights activist and Circuit Court Judge D’Army Bailey.

The commission meets at 3 p.m. at the Vasco Smith Administration Building, 160 N. Main St. Follow the meeting @tdnpols, www.twitter.com/tdnpols, for live coverage.

The resolution on the Forrest statue is sponsored by six of the 13 commissioners. It urges the Memphis City Council to approve a city ordinance that is part of the process of moving the statue out of what is now Health Sciences Park.

The council approved the ordinance on the first of three readings last week. And two weeks before that, the council unanimously approved a resolution that set in motion the research on the process for moving the statue as well as disinterring the remains of Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann, which are in the base of the statue.

Commissioners Terry Roland, Justin Ford and Eddie Jones are sponsors of the resolution to honor Bailey, which comes two weeks after the judge’s death from cancer.

In zoning and development matters, the commission considers a special-use permit to allow the rental, sale and repair of agricultural equipment at 4708 Benjestown Road.

The 4.78-acre lot on the east side of Benjestown, north of Circle Road in Northaven, is currently part of a conservation agriculture district.

The owners, Sheila G. and Ralph Templeman, already run a rigging business on the land. S&R Rigging rents heavy equipment that is loaded onto trailers and pulled to work sites along two-lane, rural roads.

The business was cited in 2012 by the local construction code enforcement office for operating in an area not zoned for that kind of use. The owners sought to have it grandfathered in with a “use variance request” that was rejected by the Memphis and Shelby County Board of Adjustment.

“It appears the applicant has continued operating the business at this location after the board’s rejection,” reads the Office of Planning and Development staff report on the current application for a special-use permit.

The OPD staff recommended changing its designation to “contractor’s storage” to permit the use to continue. But the Land Use Control Board is recommending the county commission reject the special-use permit.