Bill Dries - The Daily News -

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell are working with two assumptions – that there will be a Memphis referendum on surrendering the Memphis City Schools system charter and that it will pass.

The assumptions aren’t predictions or opinions.

The mayors say they want to be able to have a transition plan before the votes are counted.

A February election date, to be set at Wednesday’s Shelby County Election Commission meeting, could mean early voting would start in two weeks.

“I have no idea whether it will come to a vote or not, but I can’t wait,” Wharton said. “I’ve got to be ready either way.”

Luttrell said the uncertainty, which seems to be giving way to acceptance that there will be a vote, is “a political situation” that neither he nor Wharton have control over.

“What I’m most concerned about right now is first of all bringing some clarity to what is the process leading up to the election, getting the information out,” Luttrell said. “This has been talked about for years and there’s no more clarity for it now than there was 10 years ago.”

Shelby County Schools board chairman David Pickler urged MCS board members Monday to reconsider or rescind their Dec. 20 vote to surrender the charter and send the matter to Memphis voters.

But hours later, new MCS board member Sara Lewis took the oath of office and said that although she disagreed with the board’s timing, she has no plans to move to rescind the decision.

With five of the six other county school board members standing behind him, Pickler outlined a long list of “consequences” and questions about the consolidation of the county’s two public school systems that would be the result of voters approving an MCS charter surrender.

“We will take on the responsibility,” Pickler said. “But it will come with a cost.”

He also said the county school board and administration would be in charge of a countywide school system at least through 2012 and possibly through 2014 when the staggered terms of all of the current county school board members run out.

But the important political question of who runs the transition is in dispute.

Shelby County Commission chairman Sidney Chism has said he wants the commission to move quickly to redraw boundaries for a new countywide elected school board that would include the city of Memphis. The commission is to redraw its own district boundaries as well as those of the county school board sometime this year anyway because of the once a decade census results.

It’s one of several areas Luttrell said is not clearly spelled out in state law, which offers several ways of surrendering a school system charter or consolidating school systems within a county.

“There’s really not a clear transition process in place,” Luttrell said. “There are transition plans that address a variation of charter changes and school consolidations. But there’s nothing that addresses specifically our situation here in Shelby County.”

Pickler said there is no transition or transition school board provided for in state law. But he and county schools superintendent John Aitken said they are willing to work with MCS officials on such a transition with the understanding county school leaders are in charge.

“We are now requesting information,” Aitken said of talks between the two school systems headquarters that are in the same building near the Mid-South Fairgrounds. “We are setting up teams. Those are starting.”

Pickler emphasized that the county school board is leaving all of its “legal and legislative” options on the table to contest or undo an approval by voters of an MCS charter surrender.

He would not be specific about those options but said he believes county residents outside Memphis should have a right to vote in the referendum. He also said pursuing special school district status for what are now county schools after the referendum is still an option in the Tennessee Legislature.