The last Memphis mayor to veto a City Council action was Willie Herenton, who took exception to a council resolution giving the body control of hiring and firing its own staff.

It was so long ago that council attorney Allan Wade, who looked it up Tuesday, Aug. 18, reminded council member Edmund Ford Sr. that it was during his first tenure on the council. Ford, who voted with the majority to override that earlier veto, had an eight-year gap between his exit from the council and his return in the 2019 elections.

City Council Scorecard: The canceled residency referendum and the door prize

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, a former two-term council member, let it be known he didn’t agree with the council’s Aug. 4 vote calling off a November referendum that would have allowed police and firefighters to live outside Shelby County. He timed the veto message as the council was meeting Tuesday.

With word from Wade that it takes seven votes to override a veto — the same number it took to rescind the referendum ordinance — council member J.B. Smiley Jr. quickly called for an override vote then and there.

This council scorecard chronicles that vote and two others — one opposing the arrival of federal agents via Operation LeGend earlier this month and Graceland’s plan for a manufacturing facility and vocational school in a Whitehaven neighborhood.

Here are bios of the 13 council members.

The Override

Aug. 18 vote on overriding Mayor Jim Strickland’s veto of the council decision to rescind the November police and firefighter residency referendum: The council approved the veto override on a 7-6 vote.

Voting yes: Easter-Thomas, Johnson, Jones, Logan, Robinson, Smiley, Swearengen

Voting no: Canale, Carlisle, Colvett, Ford, Morgan, Warren

Observations: This is the same vote count as the final approval of rescinding the referendum two weeks earlier. And the same council members on opposite sides of the question. Rescinding the referendum is part and parcel of the council’s larger discussion of police reform, ongoing since June. But this hasn’t solidified yet into a voting block — at least not one that is going to have seven votes down the checklist of ordinances and resolutions making their way through the council and waiting in the wings.

By the way, Ford remembered the last veto and its override. By his recollection, it took a nine-vote, two-thirds majority to override the veto then. Wade cites chapter and verse in the city charter that says it takes seven votes — a simple majority.

Mayor vetoes, council overrides on residency question

Operation LeGend

Aug. 18 vote on a resolution critical of the use of federal law enforcement agents in the city as part of Operation LeGend: The council voted down the resolution on an 5-7-1 decision.

Voting yes: Easter-Thomas, Jones, Logan, Smiley, Swearengen

Voting no: Canale, Carlisle, Colvett, Ford, Morgan, Robinson, Warren

Abstaining: Johnson

Observations: The resolution by Michalyn Easter-Thomas wasn’t binding. It expressed opposition to the presence of the federal agents that come with the Justice Department decision to send agents who work with local law enforcement. The vote followed a morning committee meeting with U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant, who took a hard line on the federal presence while emphasizing, “This is not Portland.”

He also repeated the Strickland administration mantra of more cops means less crime.

Despite the hard sell on getting arrest numbers and prosecutions up, the resolution and its wording was a bridge too far for Cheyenne Johnson and Chairwoman Patrice Robinson.

Some council members thought Dunavant’s message and emphasis were on point and the kind of aggressive push needed to bring down a homicide count that is on pace to break the 2016 record in Memphis.

Others tied it to the push for a larger police force and questioned the violent crime spike as the city has added about 200 more police officers since Jim Strickland became mayor in 2016.

Neither Robinson nor Johnson ruled out possibly returning to the resolution should the federal presence morph. And some council members expressed a palpable distrust of Justice Department decisions in the Trump administration.

But Johnson and Robinson were able to overcome that and were open to the idea that the federal officers can help the city combat violent crime on an immediate basis.

City Council rejects Graceland plan for Graves Elementary

Graves Elementary

Aug. 18 vote on a planned light industrial/vocational school development at the old Graves Elementary School: The council voted down the planned development on an 0-13 vote

Observations: A previous council has been here before and in the same general area. The Waste Connections expansion project the council voted down 1-12 in July 2019 is near the old elementary school that closed in 2014.

Most council members commenting before Tuesday’s vote said the Graceland-backed project amounted to a choice between keeping a blighted school building standing in a residential neighborhood or introducing light industrial in the midst of single-family homes.

Waste Connections pursues Plan B for expanding Whitehaven operation

There are warehouses and similar land uses nearby but this was within the subdivision.

There was neighborhood opposition and it was vocal. But there were also some supporters of the development from the neighborhood and the general area. There was also some backlash from neighbors closer to Graceland and, specifically, those close to the expanded area of the campus that includes a hotel-resort and entertainment complex that borders subdivisions.

In some cases, homeowners — most notably Ford — were still upset about how that worked out.

Smiley said some homeowners he talked with described it as amounting to a choice between something that could be good for the city as a whole or something not good for the homeowners in the immediate area.