Myron Lowery stunned by council move to take clerk’s office off October ballot
“We always had the courtesy and the courage to invite somebody from the administration if we were considering something that affected their areas,” City Court Clerk Myron Lowery said. “No one on this body had the courtesy or courage to give me a call about it.” (The Daily Memphian file)
City Court Clerk Myron Lowery says no one told him his office was coming off this year’s Memphis election ballot.
The Memphis City Council approved the change in the office on the first of three votes Tuesday, May 16, after a lot of discussion and a complex backstory.
Twelve of the 13 council members voted for the ordinance.
Council member Cheyenne Johnson abstained.
Lowery is the longest-serving council member in the 55-year history of the mayor-council form of government, before being elected clerk in 2019.
“I sat up here for 24 years,” he told the council Tuesday. “We always had the courtesy and the courage to invite somebody from the administration if we were considering something that affected their areas. No one on this body had the courtesy or courage to give me a call about it.”
A problem in the city charter and municipal code that prompted the Memphis City Council to move to make the City Court Clerk an appointed office rather than an elected one was brought up a year ago in a private attorney-client session with the council.
The move by ordinance to remove the clerk’s race from the October Memphis election ballot surfaced Monday evening when the item was added to the council agenda.
Council Chairman Martavius Jones apologized for the last-minute nature of the change.
“I wasn’t aware of what the repercussions were,” Jones said. “I am always concerned when we take an opportunity away from the people to vote.
If approved on a third and final reading next month, Lowery will serve through the end of this year, which is the end of his four-year term of office.
Three city court judges will then appoint the city court clerk to run the day-to-day business of the court. The Traffic Violations Bureau would move out of the clerk’s office and become part of the city’s finance division.
Jones and Johnson said they intend to move to restore the clerk’s office as an elected position with a charter amendment referendum next year.
That would include a call for a special election in November 2024 if voters approve the charter amendment in August 2024.
The current council could put the charter amendment on the ballot for 2024 before it leaves office at the end of this year.
Council attorney Allan Wade said he and city chief legal officer Jennifer Sink found the problem in an ongoing review of the city’s municipal code designed to weed out obsolete passages.
It’s the first review of the code since the 1980s.
The clerk’s office became an elected office with a 1975 charter amendment that was approved as part of city elections that same year.
But the Tennessee Constitution requires that such charter amendments go on the ballot in even-numbered years when county general elections are held.
“It does not have the force of a charter amendment,” Wade said. “It cannot be in conflict with a pre-existing charter amendment adopted in 1971 by which the city judges appointed the clerk.”
Some on the council put the item on the Tuesday agenda to serve notice to candidates who might want to run for the office.
Candidates in the October city elections can begin pulling and filing qualifying petitions Monday to get on the ballot.
The council approved the ordinance in the first of three votes on a 12-0-1 vote, with Johnson abstaining.
“I definitely cannot support it as it stands,” she said before the vote.
Council member Jeff Warren was initially of the same mind.
“I was sort of shocked and wanted to make sure someone wasn’t out after my friend Myron Lowery,” he said. “It’s obvious that is not what the case is here.”
Wade said there were also talks with Mayor Jim Strickland about the transition and move of Traffic Violations to within the administration.
The attorney-client meeting closed to the public may have also included details of Lowery’s 2021 Chancery Court lawsuit against the city.
In the lawsuit, which is still pending, Lowery is seeking to have his pay raised by the city.
He claims Strickland is refusing to enforce a section of the city charter that requires the salary of the clerk to be $2,000 less than the salary of the city court judges.
The lawsuit claims the clerk makes $40,000 less than the standard city court judge’s salary.
“By failing to honor the requirements of the city charter, defendants have not only caused economic harm to plaintiff but have damaged and harmed the office of the city clerk in failing to recognize the office’s significance and importance to the functions of city government,” the lawsuit reads.
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Memphis City Council City Court Clerk Myron Lowery Allan WadeBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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