Lowery won’t seek council return
‘Right time’ to step away from long term
After winning seven elections over 24 years, Memphis City Council chairman Myron Lowery on Thursday announced he won’t seek re-election, putting the “vacancy” sign on another council seat this year.
Lowery, who has served on the council since 1991 — making him the longestserving African-American in council history, he noted — said now is the “right time” to vacate his Super District 8, Position 3 seat, which will help to naturally stagger the terms of the city’s 13 council seats.
“I do, however, plan to remain involved in this community, to serve it in whatever way that I can,” he said.
Council members Jim Strickland, Harold Collins and Shea Flinn also have announced they will not seek re-election. Strickland has already declared his plan to run for mayor in the Oct. 8 municipal election, and Collins also may join that race.
Lowery made the announcement flanked by his family, saying they’ve been with him “through this journey.” That journey includes a brief stint as interim mayor in 2009, service as chairman of the Memphis Charter Commission, and five terms as chairman of the council. “I don’t know what else I can do in this position,” he said.
His son, Mickell Lowery, said he’s considering a run for his father’s seat, and that he would make a decision “relatively soon.”
“I’m excited about the
opportunity, but today is about my father,” he said.
Myron Lowery said during the announcement that his son, if he runs, is more qualified than he was when first elected.
“This is my day. He’s here,” Lowery said of his son. “The voters in the eighth district will have the right to choose their next leader. Like any father, if my son runs I will be supporting him.”
Lowery said he’s undecided about what he’ll do next, but dismissed the notion that the move amounted to his retirement.
“I do plan, however, to remain involved in our community, serving in any way that I can,” he said.
Lowery said one of his proudest moments on the council came in 1994, when he started “Gifts for Guns” — the city’s first gun buy-back program, he said. After that, he organized five more buy-backs that collected 2,000 guns, and Mayor A C Wharton has continued the tradition with new city programs.
“Guns kill. We don’t need violence. And people bought into that program,” he said.
Lowery also pointed to the donations collected for 200 local charitable organizations through his annual New Year’s Day event — a prayer breakfast and champagne brunch.
During his tenure, Lowery said the council has changed for the better, describing it as “smarter,” “brighter” and not just a “rubber stamp” for the mayor’s administration.
“I have seen a council that is asking more questions, and doing its due diligence, and not accepting everything that comes from (the mayor’s office),” he said.
Wharton said Lowery is “Mr. Reliable,” and has put policy over personality throughout his career. “Once you had his word, that was it,” Wharton said. “He was more than a councilman; he was a statesman.”
Fellow council members praised his public service, including Flinn, who said the city “owes him a debt.”
In 2008, when Flinn was new to the council, he and Lowery attended a public meeting at the Links at Galloway Golf Course about expanding residency requirements for police officers.
Flinn recalled Lowery telling the crowd of 400 to 500 people, almost all of whom supported expanded requirements, that he disagreed with them.
“You would think there was going to be a riot,” Flinn said. “But he spoke honestly instead of politically, and that was a great lesson for a younger councilman to learn.”
Council member Janis Fullilove called Lowery a “person of integrity.”
“I found it very pleasing to work with Myron,” she said. “He listens, and that’s really important for a lawm aker.”
Lowery said he plans to use his remaining time on the council on such issues as settling conflicts between the administration and employee unions.