Three Shelby County commissioners and a former suburban mayor are vying for the appointment to serve as the next Shelby County Mayor.

The Shelby County Commission is to vote Monday on the appointment to fill out the ten months left in the term of AC Wharton Jr. who became Memphis Mayor after the Oct. 15 special election.

Commission chairwoman Joyce Avery is serving as county mayor for up to 45 days. She is not among the four contenders who filed an application and underwent a background check before today’s interviews during committee sessions.

The four contenders are:
County Commissioner J.W. Gibson
County Commissioner Joe Ford
County Commissioner George Flinn
And former Collierville Mayor Linda Kerley.

Each identified the financial crisis at The Regional Medical Center as a top priority if they are selected. All said they would not be a candidate in the 2010 county elections. Flinn qualified that slightly by saying he would not run in 2010 if he wins the appointment.

There are a few parliamentary wrinkles and considerations going into Monday’s decision.

It will take seven votes to select the interim county mayor. But the three commissioners seeking the job won’t be able to vote even if they are eliminated over several rounds of voting. The ruling by Assistant County Attorney and parliamentarian Christy Kinard means the winner will have to get seven of nine available votes on the commission if all three commissioners stay in the running.

Picking one of the three commissioners would also mean the commission would then have to fill a vacant seat on the body as well.

Look for a preview of the County Commission’s decision in Monday’s edition of The Daily News. We will tweet the commission choice and provide a full account on www.memphisdailynews.com, later in the day Monday.

A C Wharton Jr. is now mayor of Memphis, taking the oath before a packed Hall of Mayors at noon.

Wharton said a new city ethics policy and an open door policy will be his first priorities. And he said he intends to approach his goals in increments of 30 days – 45 days and 90 days.

He also called for an end to rancor and divisiveness “too often found in our politics.”

Wharton Jr. resigned as Shelby County mayor at nine this morning. That’s when Wharton signed his resignation letter. Joyce Avery, the County Commission chairwoman, then took the oath of office as acting county mayor at 10:30am.

This afternoon, the County Commission declared the office of county mayor vacant which is a first step toward filling the vacancy by appointment.  The commission is scheduled to interview candidates for the appointment during committee sessions on Nov. 4 and vote at its regular Nov. 9 meeting.  However,  some commissioners are already talking about a special meeting a week later if no one can get the seven votes to claim the mayoral appointment.

The two leading contenders for the mayoral appointment are County Commissioners Joe Ford and J.W. Gibson.  Gibson was absent today, but sent word that he won’t be able to attend the Nov. 9 meeting.

Under terms of the Shelby County charter, Avery serves for up to 45 days as the commission decides who it wants to appoint. During that time, vice chairman Sidney Chism becomes leader of the 13 member body which will be functioning with 12 members.

Avery is the first woman to serve as Shelby County mayor. She told supporters and well wishers today that her priority is “continuity” and that she will not offer “grand projects” or other major changes in county government.

During the ceremony, County Commissioner Steve Mulroy gave Wharton a broom for his use at City Hall. He gave Avery a large bottle of aspirin.

“It’s my hope that you won’t need it. But it’s my fear that you might,” he told Avery.

Once the mayoral appointment is made, Avery will go back to being chairman which is different than the procedure used at City Hall when Council chairman Myron Lowery became Mayor Pro Tempore. Lowery handed off the chairmanship to vice chairman Harold Collins and Collins remains chairman for the rest of this year even though Lowery returned to his superdistrict council position today.

Shelby County attorney Brian Kuhn told The Daily News the County Charter doesn’t specifically address such a change in power and that his legal opinion is that Avery returns to her post as chairman.

The Memphis mayoral transition began Friday afternoon. It involved pink slips for six City Hall employees who work on the seventh floor, which houses the mayor and his executive staff.

The six people reportedly included administrative assistants and an office manager. Lorene Essex, the city’s human resources director, deferred to Robert White, an aide to Memphis Mayor elect AC Wharton Jr., when asked by The Daily News for details of the employee terminations.

White declined to give Essex the OK to release those names out of what he said was a respect for their privacy. He also added that the action was not extraordinary – that it was a function of space being made for the team Wharton will bring with him from across Main Street.

That team will be unveiled Monday.

Also Monday, Wharton will take the oath of office at noon in the Hall of Mayors at City Hall.

The history of the moment is inescapable. Willie Herenton sat behind the big desk at City Hall for 17 years. A new era clearly is getting started.

All of which is to say, it seems a little surprising to this writer that he’s the only one as of 6:30 p.m. Friday to have confirmed his attendance at Monday’s swearing-in on Wharton’s Facebook page.

Update at midnight: Three more Facebook-ers have confirmed their attendance.

James Davis, the one-time chief financial officer of Stanford Financial Group who worked out of the East Memphis Crescent Center, was scheduled to be sentenced next month.

He’s admitted to prosecutors his role in what is alleged to be a massive Ponzi scheme surrounding Stanford’s operations, which at one time included an office in Memphis that employed dozens of financial advisors.

Davis’ date in front of a judge won’t come for a while longer, however.

His sentencing has been cancelled, and a new date will be set for sometime after the criminal trial against Stanford and several former executives is over.

Former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and County Commissioner Henri Brooks weren’t just in the audience when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan spoke in the city this weekend. They were in the front row behind Farrakhan and on stage with him at the Memphis Cook Convention Center.  Memphis City Council member Joe Brown also welcomed Farrakhan from the stage.

A commemoration of the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March Farrakhan organized on Washington DC, the Memphis appearance was vintage Farrakhan – a lengthy diatribe of over an hour in which Farrakhan praised President Barack Obama but expressed doubts that Obama was strong enough to overcome conspiratorial forces in the government.

In Farrakhan’s view, the H1N1 flu and stimulus programs that help pave roads and repair infrastructure are part of the conspiracy.

“The H1N1 vaccines – they’re telling you there’s a pandemic but they don’t have enough to get an influenza vaccination and many wise people won’t take it,” he said. “You see, years ago (former Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger talked about the work of the new century was culling billions of people from our planet. In the Talmud, the people are called goyem who are useless eaters. They eat but they are useless. … Culling is another word for getting rid of billions of people because they say things are shrinking in terms of what people need, there are too many people for too few resources.”

He also said recent flooding in the Atlanta area was a sign of “how quickly Allah is going to move to destroy the United States of America.”

Later in his speech, he returned to the theme of “the satanic mind at the top.

“We have to develop a science that kills them and make it look as though they died in a pestilence or they died from some disease,” he said speaking for the government conspirators he preached against.

Farrakhan charged America’s inner cities have become “toxic.”

“You tell me, why are the armories now around the major cities filled with armored personnel carriers, 50 caliber machine guns? Why have they fixed the roads around major cities with concrete rather than asphalt so heavy tanks and what not can roll into our communities?” he asked rhetorically. “What you saw in Gaza and Lebanon, you will soon see it in the inner city. You have become toxic waste and the people at the top are planning our destruction as I speak.”

Farrakhan also had criticism for Muslims, who do not consider the Nation of Islam to be real Islam, as well as Christians.

“If you are a Muslim, you are a part of the nation of Islam,” he said as he accused the FBI of terrorizing Muslim communities in America.

In urging Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end the war there, Farrakhan predicted a U.S. defeat similar to Vietnam.

“Many Muslims love death more than people of the west love life,” he said. “It’s not that we’re crazy. We always have believed. You Christians believe the same but you aren’t willing yet. You say you’re going to heaven when you die, but you don’t believe it. I know.”

At one point, he called Obama “poor brother Barack”.
“Don’t let this be on your record, Mr. President,” he said of the war in Afghanistan. “Even if you don’t like the Taliban and their extreme version of Islam, that’s there. That’s not your business.”

Third quarter earnings season is upon us, and in the next week or so a slew of local banks will be reporting how much they made or lost over the last three months.

The bank with the largest share of the Memphis banking market posted strong third quarter numbers Friday.

First Horizon National Corp. – whose First Tennessee Bank held 34.03 percent of all local bank deposits as of June 30, putting it in the top spot on the FDIC’s 2009 market share report also released Friday – beat analyst expectations handily. The bank reported an earnings loss for the quarter of $52.9 million, a major improvement compared to the net loss in Q3 2008 of $118.3 million. The net loss equaled $.24 per diluted share, whereas analysts were expecting a loss above $.30 per share.

Revenue for the quarter topped $494 million.

The bank saw declines in troubled loans and socked away less money to cover potential losses. Its net interest margin grew from 3.05 percent to 3.14 percent, another good sign. That number is a margin that tells how profitably a bank is lending money at rates higher than the rate at which it borrows money.

One analyst thinks it’s a strong bet First Horizon will pay back its $866 million TARP investment by mid-2010.

Early voting totals seemed to take a jump once the final tally was posted today at the Shelby County Election Commission.

What had seemed like a vote total that would maybe top 45,000 in the race for Memphis mayor has jumped to a total of 49,288.

Here’s why:

The Election Commission has been posting daily totals on its website, www.shelbyvote.com, and had been separating the early vote totals in the Memphis Mayor’s race from those in the pair of primaries for State Senate District 31.

The problem, according to local Election Administrator Richard Holden, is some of the voters in the State Senate district are also city residents eligible to vote in the Memphis Mayor’s race. District 31 takes in parts of Germantown and Cordova. The Cordova precincts include areas within the city of Memphis and areas in unincorporated Shelby County.

Of the approximately 6,500 voters who participated in the two uncontested state Senate primaries, Holden said only 631 voted in the primaries only. The rest also voted in the Memphis mayor’s race.

Keeping in mind that the turnout numbers are unofficial, subtracting the 631 voters leaves 48,655 voters in the mayor’s race. That amounts to 11.5 percent of the 423,049 voters in Memphis.

The Election Commission statistics show everything but who the voters chose from the 25 candidate field. By those statistics, 49.8 percent of the early voters were black and 28.7 percent were white. The remaining 21.5 percent were “other”, a category that includes voters who chose not to reveal their race on voter registration forms. Most of the early voters, 62.7 percent, were women.

The statistics also show which election day precincts the early voters live in. In the precinct breakdown, the highest precinct early voter turnout was in Glenview. 27.9 percent of the 1,500 voters in precinct 31-04 cast early votes. Voters in the precinct vote at Glenview Community Center on election day. The community center was also an early voting site.

The East Memphis precinct, 56-03, which votes at White Station Church of Christ, another early voting site, had a 22.8 percent turnout in early voting.

Precinct 75-05, which votes at Lakeview Elementary School, posted a 22.3 percent turnout.

And 21.2 percent of the voters at the East Memphis 57-00, which votes at Independent Presbyterian Church, voted early.

Our plans for election night include tweets as the vote totals roll in. We expect to have the early vote totals at around 8 pm Thursday evening and we’ll post those results on The Daily News website. We’ll tweet more as the election day totals come in. And look for a recap on the website once all of the unofficial totals are in.

Funeral services are Friday for Vasco Smith.

Much has been written and said about the former Shelby County Commissioner and civil rights leader since he died Monday.

With his wife, Maxine Smith – the long time executive secretary of the Memphis branch of the NAACP and a Memphis school board member – the dentist from South Memphis provided much needed leadership.

That leadership took Memphis from the whitewashed version of Mayberry civic leaders of the 1950s, 60s and early 70s wanted us to believe the city was to the much more complex version of a big but unique city that Memphis has always been.

Vasco Smith brought the truth to our civic discussions and deliberations. Whatever discomfort that caused – and at times it was most uncomfortable – it was done in the spirit of someone who cared deeply about Memphis. He could be a fiery advocate for his point of view. But Smith could also come to terms with those who met his determination with an equally well thought out counter argument. To get there, you had to rise to the occasion and the result usually got all of us closer to some lofty goals. Those goals weren’t easily obtained. We are still working toward some and many will be works in progress for some time.

Relegated to the sidelines of officialdom in the 1950s and 60s, Smith was restless and not content to remain a sideline critic. He wanted political power for the best of reasons – because he wanted a voice and a seat at the table in the community he loved and called home.

The best evidence of his intentions was the life he built as a small business owner and a homeowner. He lived in the city he worked to improve. What Smith saw and experienced in his everyday life informed his actions as a political leader. And when he retired from elected office in the mid 1990s, it was to a life that informed his political identity.

In the late 1960s and into the mid 1970s, the Smiths were the most hated public figures in some parts of this city. They never talked about the full extent of the hatred they experienced on a daily basis in the smallest personal ways as well as what passed for political rhetoric by “leaders” of the day. It had an intensity that others might have felt compelled to return with hatred. Somehow they kept their eyes on the goal. They maintained an unwavering belief that on the other side of the ordeal was a better day. And most important of all, they continued to fight with the belief that the means are just as important as the end result.

They opened their home to one time adversaries as well as allies. They attempted to talk with those who remained adversaries.

Not all of the battles came with a clear victory. Some will point to court ordered busing as a failure that has resulted in a defacto racial segregation between the two public school systems as opposed to schools within one school system. To pin the failure on any one person is much too simple. To believe the issue is over is naïve. Already there is a heavy undercurrent in the discussions about single source education funding and consolidation that suggests it isn’t realistic to talk about either issue without dealing with the question of why Shelby County needs two public school systems.

In the life of Vasco Smith is the guide for how we should approach that civic discussion – honestly, passionately and openly.

It is common for political leaders to make a big deal out of how they are just like you and me. In too many cases, there is nothing there beyond the practice of politics. They might as well be a cardboard cut out. And aside from the personal tragedy of a life that thin, it is also dangerous. Those whose existence and identity depends entirely on winning elected or appointed office lack a necessary reality that brings a value and vitality to the practice of politics.

Vasco Smith never forgot that politics must have a larger purpose than living to practice politics for another day or another term.

The latest from City Hall on this very busy City Council day is that the council will take up the fate of City Attorney Elbert Jefferson at its full session at 3:30 pm. Jefferson made a brief appearance at morning committee sessions. But the council quickly decided to put off a committee discussion and do all of this “downstairs” as the council says in describing items that will go to the full body without committee discussion. Jefferson has indicated he will need an hour to tell his side of the story which includes an accounting of $55,000 in legal fees he ordered paid to the attorney representing former Mayor Willie Herenton in a federal investigation of Herenton’s private finances.
This morning, Mayor Pro Tempore Myron Lowery sent a memo to the council that reads:
“I have previously indicated my desire to terminate the services of Elbert Jefferson. Recent developments simply underscore my previous request. I also wish to reiterate that I am not asking that Mrs. (Veronica) Coleman-Davis be confirmed as City Attorney, but that the council simply accepts my recommendation to terminate Elbert Jefferson.”
The memo has caused a slight but important change in the wording of the council resolution, proposed by Bill Morrison, that would fire Jefferson. Instead of simply firing Jefferson, the resolution now makes it clear that the resolution “approves (Lowery’s) termination of Elbert Jefferson from the office of City Attorney.”
There is lots going on with several other political fronts.
Watch the Wednesday edition of The Daily News for the latest of the city mayor’s race. Several of the contenders are now focusing some of their rhetorical fire on not only rival and Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton Jr. but the idea of consolidation as well.
And just in the old e-mail bag within the last few minutes, a statement and link to a video in which Harold Byrd declares he is running for Shelby County Mayor in 2010. This comes the same week that outgoing Shelby County Commission Deidre Malone is expected to kick off her bid in the 2010 Democratic primary for County Mayor as well.

For anyone counting votes in advance of Tuesday’s Memphis City Council meeting – during which the council is scheduled to take action on whether to boot City Attorney Elbert Jefferson from office – here’s one forecast on how it could shake out.

There’s a strong possibility the vote on Councilman Bill Morrison’s resolution authorizing Memphis Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery to cut Jefferson loose could result in a tie vote.

For council resolutions to pass, they have to have support from a majority of councilmen present for the vote. Ordinances, on the other hand, need a majority of the body – seven votes – regardless of how many are in the room at the moment a vote is taken.

A tie vote on the Jefferson resolution Tuesday would mean it dies, and the City Attorney lives to fight another day.

There are 13 City Council members. Lowery is not voting while serving as the city’s temporary mayor. Councilman Jim Strickland regularly abstains from votes relating to the city’s legal division because of case work he has involving the city.

That’s two down, leaving 11 council members in play. For the Jefferson resolution to succeed, six of those members would have to support it.

Morrison, the sponsor of the resolution, will no doubt support it. Councilmen Kemp Conrad, Bill Boyd, Shea Flinn and Reid Hedgepeth also can be expected to line up in support.

Council members Barbara Swearengen-Ware, Joe Brown, Janis Fullilove, Wanda Halbert and Ed Ford Jr. are either definite or likely candidates to oppose the resolution.

That’s a lineup of five to five.

At this point, it seems like the deciding factor is City Council chairman Harold Collins.

Collins has made comments to reporters over the last few days that can be interpreted as critical of Jefferson’s recent actions. But Collins also is a special assistant to Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons, whose office has opened an investigation into Jefferson’s recent actions – meaning Collins could decide to recuse himself.

That would leave things at 5-5, killing the measure.

We’ll see what happens Tuesday.