Trial delay not a worry
Suburban leaders’ school plan on track
After two days as spectators of legal wrangling, objections and challenges, Shelby County’s suburban leaders continued to express confidence in their drive for municipal schools Thursday and said a two-week delay in federal court doesn’t stifle their plans.
“We’re moving forward with a November election in mind,” Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald said, referring to plans by Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington to hold school board elections Nov. 6. “We’ll continue to move that ball down the field ... unless the judge stops us.”
Several of the suburban mayors sat through the proceedings in U. S. Dist. Judge Samuel “Hardy” Mays’ court this week as interested observers in the debate regarding whether legislation allowing t he municipal schools is constitutional. The County Commission and Memphis City Council are challenging the laws passed in the final days of last spring’s legislative session, saying they apply only to Shelby County. Attorneys for the suburbs contend other counties — most notably Gibson and Carroll — could at some point meet the law’s criteria.
By Wednesday afternoon’s federal court proceedings, the attempted presentation of statistics i nvolving Gibson and Carroll counties raised enough questions that Mays put the hearing on hold until Sept. 20.
The suburbs interpreted the challenging of population witness Carolyn Anderson, a geographic i nformation specialist for the Tennessee General Assembly, as a sign of concern for the city and county. Arlington Mayor Mike Wissman said it appeared the County Commission’s attorneys “objected basically to everything regarding Carroll and Gibson counties,” but added he realizes that is part of the legal pro-
cess.
“If this was cut and dry, we wouldn’t be sitting there,” Wissman said after leaving federal court on Wednesday.
The mayors talked about the pace of the proceedings. Several cited what they perceived as an abundance of objections from the attorneys representing Shelby County and Memphis. Some said they believed the objections were an effort to keep Mays from hearing testimony the outlying leaders believe supports their position.
“I almost get the sense that it is the big city and the big county trying to bully their way through this,” said Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner, who was in the courtroom on Tuesday.
Wissman, meanwhile, recognized the reality of the costs for the proceedings.
“It seems like there’s a lot of lawyers getting rich. That’s the first thing I see,” he said, adding: “I’m seeing taxpayers’ money being spent at an astronomical (rate) to sue and defend ourselves on the same matter.”
But there are more barriers ahead, from a Nov. 6 hearing on whether the municipal schools effort is borne from racism to the anticipated appeal by whichever side loses in either of the hearings before Judge Mays.
The mayors were split on their optimism about the two days of testimony. McDonald said he would not “dare try to give a confidence level,” but added that he was “pleased with the evidence and proof presented” by the suburbs’ legal team. Wissman, like others, said he was confident that they have the proof to show other counties could fall under the legislation should the right circumstances occur.