Eight races on the Shelby County general election ballot will determine who runs the machinery of the most basic yet complex and vital functions of county government outside the county administration.

What are — for lack of a better definition — clerk positions are in the middle of a five-page ballot.

Criminal Court Clerk gets five new full-time employees

The eight offices are administrative departments that keep most but not all of the civil and criminal courts running.

The countywide elected officials leading those operations also oversee the filing and keeping of property deeds and business transactions as well as determine the value of your property for taxation purposes and collect taxes and fees.

Many voters may not know exactly what the offices do, but those offices touch and interact with voters in ways they may not realize.

Politically speaking, if voters are aware of these offices for some reason other than the election, it is probably not a good thing.

All eight of the offices are partisan, meaning Democratic and Republican primaries were held in May to determine who the party nominees would be for these offices on the August ballot.

And there were some surprises in those primaries.

Three Democratic clerks fall to rival Democrats in Tuesday primaries

Three Democratic incumbents were upset in the May primaries by elected officials on the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission with arguably better name recognition but facing term limits on the council and commission.

Democrats swept all these offices four years ago.

County Clerk

The clerk’s office oversees the renewal and issuance of car tags and titles, including new license plates. The office also handles business permits and marriage licenses.

On a long and crowded ballot, the county clerk’s race is getting more attention than similar positions because of a backlog of thousands of car tags, license plates and titles with tags for a new group of vehicle owners running out each month.

Local car dealers have called for the state to take over that part of the clerk’s functions.

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The Shelby County Commission has a “no confidence” resolution targeting incumbent Democratic Clerk Wanda Halbert on hold until after the election to see if her claims of progress in dealing with the backlog are valid.

The candidates are:

Wanda Halbert

The incumbent clerk is seeking her second four-year term. Before that, Halbert was a Memphis City Council member and a Memphis City Schools board member.

Jeff Jacobs

The Republican challenger worked in the clerk’s office for 22 years as a business tax manager and a tax investigator. Jacobs transferred to the Trustee’s office in 2010 as a manager of several departments in that office. He works for Bartlett City Schools in the benefits and finance department.

Harold C. Smith

Running as an independent, Smith ran four years ago in the Democratic primary for Juvenile Court Clerk.

Assessor

The Assessor determines the value of property in Shelby County for taxation purposes with a reappraisal every four years.

The reappraisal triggers changes in the property tax rates for Shelby County and the seven cities and towns within Shelby County.

Shelby County stays with four-year property reappraisal cycle

By state law, with the reappraisal, property tax rates must be adjusted to produce the same amount of revenue for those local governments as the old rate did before the reappraisal — with an allowance for successful appeals of those property values by owners.

Property tax rates for Shelby County and Memphis were dropped this year – the year after the once-every-four-years reappraisal.

The state determined the appeals allowances from a year ago were too high given the amounts of successful appeals.

The candidates are:

Melvin Burgess

The Democratic incumbent pushed to move to a reappraisal of property every other year for Shelby County, arguing it would be more efficient and put the change in property values closer to a real-time basis.

Burgess said he could do it without adding to the budget of the assessor’s office and using present technology.

Shift in Shelby County reappraisals would be first in the state

The Shelby County Commission went along and backed the move by resolution.

But state officials turned it down after the mayors of all seven of the county’s cities and towns came out against it.

Their argument was that it would make every other budget season one in which property tax rates were adjusted.

Burgess is a former Shelby County Commissioner who is seeking his second term as Assessor.

Steve Cross

The Republican challenger worked for 20 years as an information technology director in the Assessor’s office.

Property values jump in reappraisals; tax calculations still to come

Cross has also been a reserve Shelby County Deputy for more than 15 years.

Cross says the technology he oversaw in the office needs to be upgraded to improve being able to search and print maps that are more specific.

He also has called for returning functionality to the Assessor’s website by incorporating DotNet6 into the system. And he wants appraisers to have certification from the International Association of Assessing Officers.

Trustee

The Trustee is the tax collector for Shelby County as well as the banker of Shelby County government. The office’s figures and estimates of revenue streams and different county funds are critical in determining county government’s funding priorities.

The candidates are:

Regina Morrison Newman

The Democratic incumbent is an attorney who was the first woman to hold the Trustee’s office when she was appointed Trustee by the Shelby County Commission following the death of Paul Mattila in 2009.

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When she ran for a full four-year term in 2010, Newman lost to Republican David Lenoir in the Republican sweep of countywide offices that election year. She returned to the ballot and office in the 2018 Democratic sweep of countywide offices.

Newman has worked as assistant city treasurer, assistant to the state revenue commissioner, personnel director for the state youth development department and as a deputy city attorney.

She touts a record 97.6% tax collection rate for all 2021 tax billings as of the end of the most recent fiscal year. And Newman says the amount of delinquent taxes owed for all years is at its lowest point in at least 20 years that records have been kept.

Newman also introduced the ability to pay past due and current taxes by phone through an automated system.

She is a former member of the local Democratic Party’s executive committee.

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Steve Basar

The Republican nominee is a former Shelby County Commissioner, winning a special election to the body in 2012 and winning a four-year term in 2014. During that time, he was chairman of the commission’s budget committee. He lost a re-election bid in the 2018 primaries to Brandon Morrison.

Basar has worked as supply chain planning director at Smith & Nephew and his resume includes similar positions at General Electric, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Merck and Bayer.

He has called for more public outreach by the Trustee’s office.

Circuit Court Clerk

The Circuit Court Clerk is the keeper of records for the nine divisions of the civil court.

Incumbent Democratic clerk Temiika Gipson was upset in the May party primaries, meaning she did not advance to the August county general election ballot.

The candidates are:

Soheila Kail

The Republican nominee is the business manager for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, a position she has held since 1998.

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Before that, Kail was program administrative specialist in the General Sessions Court Clerk’s office.

She ran unsuccessfully in the 2018 Republican primary for Shelby County Clerk.

Jamita Swearengen

The Democratic nominee is a family and community engagement specialist with Memphis-Shelby County Schools who also has worked as a classroom teacher.

Swearengen is the City Council chairwoman. She was first elected to the council in 2015 and re-elected in 2019.

Swearengen, the daughter of the late Judge James Swearengen and niece of the late council member Barbara Swearengen Ware, ran for the Tennessee General Assembly in 1998 and has served on the local Democratic Party’s executive committee.

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Criminal Court Clerk 

The Criminal Court Clerk is the keeper of the records for the 10 divisions of Shelby County Criminal Court.

The candidates are:

Heidi Kuhn

The Democratic nominee won the office in the 2018 county elections and is seeking a second term. Before becoming clerk, Kuhn held several roles in Shelby County government, including being a special assistant and lead strategist in the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, a director of training and workforce development and a deputy director of the Community Services division.

Paul Houston

The Republican nominee is a 30-year employee of the Shelby County Corrections Center. Houston works in rehabilitation programs for inmates at the county prison, including substance abuse, mental health and reentry services. He is also on the local Republican party’s executive committee.

Probate Court Clerk

The Probate Court Clerk is the keeper of records for the two divisions of Probate Court.

Incumbent clerk Bill Morrison lost his bid for reelection in the May county primaries.

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The candidates are:

Dewayne Jackson

The Republican nominee is chief investment officer of Ruth Investments LLC and, as a child, was a ward of the court following the death of his father.

Eddie Jones

The Democratic nominee is a Shelby County Commissioner who completes his second term on the commission at the end of August, during which he has served as chairman of the body and chairman of the budget committee.

Jones is a former Memphis Police officer working as a city code enforcement supervisor.

Register of Deeds

The Register files and maintains legal documents that, in most cases, involve real estate transactions. That includes the county archives, which house the county’s permanent historical records.

Democratic incumbent Shelandra Ford lost her re-election in the May county primaries.

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Willie Brooks

The Democratic nominee is the chairman of the Shelby County Commission and is nearing the end of his second four-year term on the body.

Brooks is human resources program management for FedEx Corp. who administers corporate compensation programs for U.S. operations of the company. He also leads the African-American Network at FedEx, recruiting employees of the company to serve as mentors to youth.

Bryan Edmiston

The Republican nominee is a financial representative of the insurance firm Woodmen Life. He is a retired Memphis-Shelby County Schools system teacher of history and American government.

George “Dempsy” Summers

Running as an independent, Summers is making his latest bid for county office. A county government employee since 2012, he often refers to himself as the county’s locksmith.

He supervises the movement of county employees into and out of office space. Summers is a certified registered locksmith. He has also worked as a band instrument repair technician for Memphis City Schools.

No photo available.

District Attorney candidates debate during Rotary Club lunch

Juvenile Court Clerk 

The clerk is the keeper of court records for Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court and oversees the collection of and accounting for child support payments and similar financial arrangements.

Democratic incumbent Clerk Janis Fullilove did not seek reelection to another four-year term this year, setting off a political scramble.

The result was a crowded and contentious field in the Democratic primary.

Fullilove’s daughter and television personality, Janeen Gordon, won the primary despite a controversy over her billing on the ballot as Janeen Fullilove Gordon.

Gordon has the same billing on the August ballot and is unopposed.

Juvenile Court Clerk candidate arrested for theft of campaign signs

That didn’t stop her from having a rival from the Democratic primary, Stephanie Gatewood, arrested recently for removing one of Gordon’s campaign signs.

Republican primary winner Rob White was removed from the August ballot by the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance for failing to file campaign finance reports in a 2020 run for the state House as well as not paying $50,000 in civil penalties connected to that.