VOL. 132 | NO. 47 | Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Last Word
Bill Dries
Last Word: Who Needs To Be Watched, Hopdoddy and Fresh Fed Numbers
By Bill Dries
Three Memphis City Council members on Behind The Headlines had quite a bit to say about protesters and lists and police surveillance. Council chairman Berlin Boyd and council members Kemp Conrad and Worth Morgan all say the surveillance question, which is the central issue now that the City Hall list has been pared significantly, is complex because of public postings and protests in public places.
By the way, Tuesday is council day at City Hall and the slate of committee sessions early in the council day are the meat of the matter including what could be some blow back for the Memphis Police Association from its denunciation last week of the Crime Commission grant to the city for police retention bonuses. This is not a new controversy. We’ve been down the road several times with different outcomes.
The YoLo corner at Madison and N. Cooper is getting a Hopdoddy Burger Bar. It’s a burger and beer chain out of Austin where everything is cool… and bigger.
A different kind of real estate… Judy McLellan is a residential real estate institution in Memphis and it turns out it runs in the family.
To no one’s surprise, former Tennessee Economic and Community Development commissioner Randy Boyd is in the 2018 race for Tennessee Governor. He filed his treasurer’s form last week and Monday put out a written statement declaring his intentions.
Expect a fly-around later. Boyd has been spending a lot of time here in the run-up to this. And his campaign leadership includes several players from David Kustoff's successful bid for Congress in 2016.
Fresh Fed numbers on Memphis-area banks whose stronger earnings performance in 2016 was led by First Tennessee. Julie Stackhouse, the executive vice president of the St. Louis Fed, tells us with the housing crisis behind banks in terms of their loan losses, our banks are affected now by the strength of the economy and any fiscal policy changes, like tax reform.
Fantasia is recovering from second-degree burns that forced her to cancel a show at FedExForum Sunday evening. Charlie Wilson, the headliner, as well as Johnny Gill went on as scheduled. Here’s TMZ on the cancellation, which the singer’s reps say she will try to make up. Memphis is a big city for Wilson going back to his days with the Gap Band. Here’s Rolling Stone from last month on Wilson’s appeal and the long arc of his career.
That was Sunday at the Forum. Monday at the Forum it was the Grizz losing to the Nets 122-109.
ESPN on Chandler Parsons and Parsons actually uses the word “grind.”
Veteran state Senator Douglas Henry of Nashville will lie in state Thursday in the state capitol. He was the longest serving lawmaker in the history of the Tennessee Legislature.
The House sponsor of the bathroom bill in Nashville says he will continue to push for its passage even though the Trump White House has reversed course from the Obama administration’s directive that local school districts should make allowances for students based on their sexual identity. Our Nashville correspondent, Sam Stockard, reports Lt. Gov. Randy McNally says the bill is not needed. And Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen says it’s a matter for each local school district to determine.
Elsewhere in the capital this week, honoring the first and only TBI agent to die in the line of duty.
Play Ball. About three weeks before the Redbirds’ season opener at AutoZone Park, the ballpark will be the center of the city’s nonprofit world Tuesday with the second annual Mid-South Nonprofit Forum. The big four of the corporate nonprofit organizations locally are collaborating on the forum. The half-day gathering is expected to draw 200 professionals from 60 nonprofits.
Oxford has a mayor’s race in a few months and only one candidate showed up. So, Robyn Tannehill is the city’s new mayor once the formality of the June 6 election is done.
The new head of the Mississippi Department of Corrections says her priority is to wipe out contraband and extortion rings in the state’s prison system. The Clarion-Ledger on the appointment of Pelicia Hall.
And a new report on “The High Cost of Being Poor in Mississippi” from the Children’s Defense Fund. Mississippi has the highest poverty rate of any of the 50 states and District of Columbia.