HALBERT NOW UNCERTAIN ABOUT SPECIAL DISTRICT PLAN

JACKSON BAKER for The Memphis Flyer



SUSPENDED HARMONY? -- The presidents of Shelby County's two school boards -- Wanda Halbert (left) of the city; and David Pickler of Shelby County -- appeared to be singing from the same hymn book before the Dutch Treat Luncheon at the Piccadilly Restaurant Saturday. Each endorsed the concept of special school districts — a bill to provide which was on its way to passage in the Tennessee General Assembly. That bill, by state Sen. Mark Norris of Collierville, would also provide each district with limited taxing power.

Though Halbert had seemed to concur with Pickler in approving both the bill and the concept on Saturday, she said on Monday that she had not been aware at the time that Norris' bill apparently contained a provision freezing the current boundaries of the Memphis and Shelby County districts.

Pickler, reached later for comment, insisted that the bill did no such thing, leaving the boundary lines to be worked out by the two school boards, acting in concert. "She evidently got a misleading impression from the article on Sunday," Pickler said, referring to a Commercial Appeal account of the pending legislation. "I think she's also gotten some flak from members of her board."

Halbert said that neither she nor the Memphis school board would be likely to support special school districts unless the boundary matter was settled to their satisfaction and other provisions favored by the Memphis board were accepted.

"I didn't even know that the bill had already passed the Senate," she said, adding, "Just wait until we meet on Monday night," when asked to forecast her board's reaction to the plan now under consideration in Nashville.

Halbert acknowledged that she had received extensive reaction from her members to the details of the legislative bill.

"I think we're still on track, and she'll realize that we are once she understands what the bill really does," Pickler said.