Bill Dries - The Daily News -

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. went on the road Wednesday with a campaign for the fence between opponents and proponents of a Memphis City Schools system charter surrender.

Wharton’s state of the city speech to the Memphis Kiwanis Club came the day after Wharton and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell called for a four- to five-month period of transition planning if the charter surrender is approved by voters in February.

Wharton told the crowd of 150 at The Peabody hotel that some citizens have told him to “butt out” of the schools standoff.

“The superficially easy answer for me is to say shut it down because I won’t have to pay that $70 million,” Wharton said. “But it is so short sighted. You show me a city whose mayor says, ‘I don’t do schools,’ … and I’ll show you a city that’s on a death trajectory.”

An MCS charter surrender would effectively consolidate Shelby County’s two public school systems.

Wharton and Luttrell want the Tennessee Legislature to approve an 11-member planning team they would appoint. The group would hold its first meeting within 15 days of being appointed and come up with a transition plan within four months to be presented to the Shelby County Commission and the Shelby County Schools board.

Under state law, the county school board assumes control of the new countywide school system as soon as the referendum results are certified by the Shelby County Election Commission.

Shelby County school board chairman David Pickler emphasized that control earlier this week.

Beyond that, however, Wharton said state law does not address how a transition would work in the case of Shelby County.

And he said Wednesday he and Luttrell want the political debate to remain focused on how the school system will operate on a day-to-day basis if the charter surrender is approved by voters and “not look for malicious motives.”

“Dr. Cash will make it,” Wharton said of MCS superintendent Kriner Cash. “He’ll make it regardless of what happens. School board members will make it. David Pickler will make it. They’ll be just fine regardless of what happens. But who is looking out for the children?”

The planning team is borrowed from state law governing other kinds of school system consolidations – ones in which both school systems agree to pursue a merger. But Wharton and Luttrell have been advised by their attorneys the law doesn’t apply to Memphis and Shelby County schools because of the unique nature of the special school district status.

A new state law to cover the unique Memphis circumstances, however, could be a tall order with unintended political side effects, according to Democratic state Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis.

“It won’t be easy,” he said. “How do you get a firm commitment that this piece of legislation would proceed and yet not open the door … for the legislation that the vote is actually trying to beat to the finish line?”

The other legislation is special school district status the Shelby County Schools has sought in the Legislature for the last decade. It was the improved chances of that legislation passing this year that prompted the race to the ballot for the MCS charter surrender questions.

During the first in a series of speeches this month, Wharton also offered a preview of his budget proposal.

He all but ruled out a property tax hike increase and said the city will rely on budget cuts as well as a cap on Capital Improvements Project (CIP) spending that he vowed to hold “to a bare minimum.”