Fullilove feeds rumor mill as real issues fester
I suppose it’s customary for every local elected body to have at least one flamethrower to make sure everyone is awake during meetings and keep the controversy pot stirred.
Terry Roland performs that role splendidly on the Shelby County Commission with his frequent offthe-wall comments.
Kenneth Whalum Jr. used to be the chief flamethrower on the old Memphis City Schools board. Now that our public schools are being guided by a 23-member unified board, Whalum has often been a voice of reason compared to a few others. I still can’t get over board member Joe Clayton’s ridiculous reference to some schools as combat zones, while arguing recently to maintain corporal punishment.
Flame throwing also is alive and well in the Tennessee legislature with the likes of state Sens. Ophelia Ford of Memphis and Stacey Campfield of Knoxville.
But the latest volatile lob came from Memphis City Council member Janis Fullilove — and at a most inopportune time. It was during a council committee meeting last Tuesday, when the focus should have been on solving the city’s gargantuan budget crisis.
Yet, there was Fullilove letting loose with an alleged rumor about a secret plot to have Memphis surrender its charter.
For a moment, I thought I was back in high school. Because what I heard was that someone told someone else who told Fullilove that other council members and a powerful state senator didn’t like Memphis anymore.
According to Fullilove, the rumor was, “there were certain council members that met with (state Sen.) Mark Norris in Collierville.”
And the purpose, pray tell?
“To go against our mayor, to go against this city and sit up and be in collusion with somebody who sits up in Nashville and refers to us as ‘Little Nigeria’ and who thinks that we’re going to give up our charter. “I’m saying it’s alleged.” With the 2011 city schools charter surrender vote fresh in everyone’s mind, nothing would get this community talking more than a move to do the same thing with city government. Only this time, according to Fullilove’s rumor, the surrender plan is being hatched by antiMemphian Norris — aided by, perhaps, council members Shea Flinn, Jim Strickland and Bill Morrison.
For what reason? Who knows? Everyone involved says it’s not true. The meeting never happened. And of course it didn’t.
Memphis may have its differences with state government. But a state
takeover — despite recent comments from Tennessee Comptroller Justin Wilson — is not in the cards. And surrendering the charter is out of the question, unless this community is willing to have another serious debate over government consolidation.
As I said, it’s out of the question.
Plus, it’s illogical to think that Norris, a Collierville Republican who has fought tooth and nail in the past against city and county consolidation, would now be scheming to make it happen.
But that didn’t stop Fullilove from making the accusation — and even tossing in a gratuitous racial slur to boot — without checking the facts.
But isn’t that what political flamethrowers do? Isn’t the whole idea based on getting attention? Sure it is.
So in the spirit of more rumor mongering, here is how I heard this whole conspiracy plot got started.
The word is that state Rep. G.A. Hardaway was on the radio with Fullilove recently saying he’d heard that Flinn, Strickland and Morrison had indeed met with Norris. Their aim was to get Wilson, the state comptroller, to write a letter raising serious concerns about the city’s financial picture to make the city and its leaders look bad.
We know, of course, that Wilson did send letters to
It’s sad that Janis Fullilove is talking about wild rumors while, figuratively speaking, Rome is burning.”
Mayor A C Wharton raising strong concerns about the city’s budget process and how it was planning to restructure its debt.
But by Tuesday morning, the rumor had morphed into a meeting between the council members and Norris to plot a surrender of the city’s charter. And that is what Fullilove decided to toss out at a budget com- mittee meeting.
“It’s just bizarre,” Strickland said later in the week. “None of it is true. But the sad thing is, there will be a certain amount of people who will believe it.”
It’s also sad that Fullilove is talking about wild rumors while, figuratively speak- ing, Rome is burning. Priority one should be getting a budget passed for fiscal year 2014 and figuring how to keep vital city services, such as trash collection and police and fire protection, from deteriorating.
Besides, Fullilove has been one of Wharton’s harshest critics. What’s it to her if someone else is going “against our mayor”?
Let’s hope that when the council meets again Tuesday to finalize the budget, this nonsense about a plot to surrender the city charter will have been forgotten. Or maybe it will morph into another rumored conspiracy to sell Memphis to Mississippi for a few dollars and a bale of cotton.
With political f lamethrowers, anything’s possible. Columnist Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism at the University of Memphis. Contact him at 901-6783669 or at o.sanford@memphis. edu. Watch his commentaries on WREG-TV Channel 3 at 4:30 p.m. weekdays.