Good morning, Memphis, and welcome back to The Early Word. Today is Monday, Aug. 30, and the entire area is under a flash flood watch, beginning this morning at 7 a.m. and continuing through late Tuesday night. 

The Shelby County Commission also plans to host a special meeting today. It was ostensibly scheduled to kick off the county’s redistricting process, needed after last year’s U.S. Census. Buuuut now that seems to be off the table and on it instead is one-time bonuses for county employees. 

And the Area Agency on Aging and Disability will be at the Lucius E. and Elsie C. Burch Jr. Library in Collierville to talk about the A, B, C’s and D’s of Medicare.

THE NEED TO KNOW

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris spoke during a June 2020 press conference announcing the City's Mask Up Memphis campaign. (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian file)

Masks and wrestling over local control: The Shelby County Health Department issued its newest Health Directive late last week, renewing the area’s current mask mandate. The order, which officially goes into effect tomorrow, also speaks to who is eligible for a COVID-19 booster shot right now and who will be eligible come late September. And, in related news, The Daily Memphian’s Ian Round reminded us recently that Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee’s response to our local mask mandate — his executive order allowing school children to opt out — continued a trend in which the state government has preempted local measures about education, housing, transit and law enforcement, often aimed directly at Memphis and Nashville.

Break through data on breakthroughs: The anecdotal evidence, coupled with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to only track the most severe of breakthrough COVID-19 cases, makes it seem like breakthrough cases are more common than we “officially” know. And that is probably true. About one in five Shelby County coronavirus cases during the last month has been a breakthrough case. Local doctors say about half of the vaccinated patients (or breakthrough cases) they are seeing in the hospital are people who have compromised immune systems.

The Schwaigerts are the lead plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Gov. Bill Lee. (Courtesy Brittany Schwaigert)

Second suit against opt outs: After Shelby County sued Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee over that opt-out executive order (see above), a Collierville family is following suit. Brittany and Ryan Schwaigert are the lead plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit that alleges Lee’s executive order violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Schwaigert’s 13-year-old son has a rare genetic condition that is treated with a kind of ongoing chemotherapy and, in addition to him being severely immunocompromised, they say his disabilities make virtual learning near impossible for him. “I would like for Bill Lee to rescind his executive order and understand that he’s taking away the rights of parents across the board — not just parents of special needs students — because if you are not masking correctly in a classroom with my child, you are taking away my rights to keep my child safe,” Brittany Schwaigert said.

QUOTED

“My office Downtown was about a mile away from the Emmanuel [Episcopal] Center, but my life and world were thousands of miles away from what was going on there. Colenzo opened my eyes and my heart.”

— Lee Giovannetti
Giovannetti, a financial consultant, became friends with Rev. Colenzo Hubbard about 25 years ago. Recently, he decided to help his friend by donating one of his kidneys through a paired kidney exchange. The donation created a five-patient chain and allowed Hubbard to get a kidney from another living donor. 

THE NICE TO KNOW

No, that’s not the governor’s mansion. Election Commission chairman Brent Taylor hosted a fundraiser at his Eads home Thursday, Aug. 26, for Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. (Bill Dries/The Daily Memphian)

A replica mansion and faith’s impact on COVID: I think it’s safe to say Brent Taylor is sort of a character. The former Memphis City Councilman is now the Shelby County Election Commission chair but he’s also trying to revolutionize the no-frills funeral service industry. Taylor had larger political aspirations in the past, which — and this is what really caught my attention — led him to building a replica of the Mississippi governor’s mansion in Eads. (“I don’t have to worry about giving it up in four years to somebody else,” he said.) Recently, Taylor hosted a fundraiser for the real Mississippi governor at his replica; it was during that event that Miss. Gov. Tate Reeves said people in the Mid-South may be a little less scared of contracting COVID-19 because of their belief in eternal life.

Tony and Angela Sarwar sit in the living room of their Collierville home Aug. 26, 2021. (Patrick Lantrip/Daiy Memphian)

Trip takes a terrible turn: A Collierville couple recently booked a trip to St. Lucia, thinking it would be a dream vacation. But almost as soon as they arrived in the Caribbean island, four negative COVID-19 tests in hand, Tony Sarwar began feeling pain in his legs. The owner of a popular restaurant, Tony’s Trophy Room, Sarwar was diagnosed with dehydration. Then, the day they were supposed to come home, Sarwar and his wife Angela tested positive for the coronavirus. As Tony Sarwar’s condition continued to deteriorate and they were given little in the way of medical supplies or care, Angela Sarwar was finally able to arrange to pay a medevac company more than $50,000 to get them back to a hospital in the United States. 

Marie! La Baguette! Hurry up! Chickasaw Oaks’ La Baguette will reopen Sept. 7, after a sizable renovation by the bakery’s new owners. Cousins Judd and David Tashie bought La Baguette in March and planned to do a small kitchen expansion, but it ended up being “a full bakery overhaul, too,” according to Judd Tashie. The dining room won’t be quite finished when the bakery reopens, but the plan is to start serving dinner some time in the future, if they can find the staff to work it. 

Co-owner Shane Soefker looks out the window of Clark Tower's rooftop dining room. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)

Scaling Clark Tower? The new owners of Clark Tower want it to rise above, metaphorically speaking. The roughly 50-year-old skyscraper is about to get a $12 million facelift, with $4 million going to common areas and another $4 million going to improve the building’s parking garage. Occupancy in Clark Tower dropped to 56% under the previous owner and, as Tom Bailey writes, “The investments are intended to reposition the tower as a serious competitor to newer, more luxurious office buildings, including the Class A cluster two miles farther east, beyond Poplar and Interstate 240.” 

THIS WEEK’S WEATHER

Rainy with a chance of friends and family from the South, as the entire city of New Orleans lost power yesterday due to “catastrophic transmission damage” brought on by Hurricane Ida. According to the National Weather Service, Memphis will be under a wind advisory (in addition to the flash flood watch) from 1 p.m. today until 7 a.m. tomorrow. Northeast winds tonight are expected to be around 15 mph but some gusts could get up to 30 mph.

Here’s my “mom” advice for today: If you see standing water on the road, don’t drive through it. And take an umbrella.

Stay safe and we’ll see you back here tomorrow. 

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