There was a tree in my backyard that’s looked dead for some time, but I loathe to cut down anything, so until it became obvious that not even one small leaf would appear on it, I was content to leave it alone.
But finally, it seemed like I had no choice, so I cranked up the chain saw which sliced through the dried wood in a matter of seconds. It was those same few seconds that saw a horde of bumblebees swarm around me since they were living in the hollowed out center at the bottom of the tree.
They stung me a few times, but after 15 minutes of combat, after being chased across the back yard, the deed was done. Finally, there were no more bees, and I could get back to productive work in the yard. .
Forgive the Monday metaphor, but I was thinking that maybe this upcoming special city mayor’s election needs to be the equivalent of cutting down the deadwood in our political system and eliminating the buzzing bees that distract this city from its serious problems.
New Politics
They take the form of people who are willing to put their own personal political interests ahead of the overall public good. There is no issue immune from their impulse to divide us on the basis of race, geography and political philosophy if it is to their political benefit.
We saw a naked form of it during the most horrendous legislative session in modern history in Nashville this year, and we fear that we are now on the brink of seeing it take form in the special election for Memphis mayor.
Already, there are calculations being done by candidates whose success is based on dividing us enough that they can win with a small percentage of the vote. There are candidates developing campaign plans aimed at only one race. There are candidates whose primary strategies are vitriol and venom.
We live in an age where the ends justify the means, and nowhere is this more apparently than politics. There’s never been a question that politics is a contact sport, but these days, it’s often as much about destroying as campaigning. It’s more about ad hominem attacks rather than substantive policy debate.
Beekeepers Needed
Before you think we’ve succumbed to a fatal bout of naivete, we believe it is time to demand more of our candidates and to require more of their campaigns. Last week, the incumbent congressman was called an asshole by the outgoing city mayor and questions from a narcissistic talk show host to the county mayor featured the deprecatory word for African-Americans tossed in for shock value. And to think, the real campaigning hasn’t even begun yet.
So often, Memphis politics is like the dead tree in my back yard. It looks like it’s serving a purpose and that things are all right…until you look closer. Then you learn that it’s really not healthy at all and that it mainly attracts folks who sting first and ask questions later.
Memphis politics seems to have more than its share of bumblebees, and in the end, the victim is the kind of civic discourse that is needed about this troubled city. Instead, aided and abetted by the news media’s penchant to focus on personalities and fuel conflict, the buzz is so loud that it drowns out the serious debate that every campaign should pledge itself to contribute to.
Most of all, listening to the degraded public discussion that passes for political debate has become as much of our lives as the Mississippi River. It helps create the reputation of Memphis as a city at war with itself. Unfortunately, it’s the message that we are most effectively sending to the rest of the country at the exact time that we need to be attracting more people.
Finding A Fresh Start
Lunch at Soul Fish revived my spirit today. It wasn’t just the catfish. More to the point, there was the Project Green Fork notice that punctures any notion that Memphis is stuck in time. The program to create “green” restaurants – Soul Fish is proudly one of them – is proof positive that things are changing here and that it’s happening at the grassroots, thanks to its creator Margot McNeely.
In addition, the restaurant was jammed with families – and with lots of kids. Parents talked across tables to each other about children who were visiting and circling. They were black and white families, and it was clear that no one cared.
It’s a scene we see played out all over Memphis. We are inextricably tied to each other in this fascinating place at this challenging moment, and in the end, despite all the political provocateurs, we have much more to join us than to divide us.
That’s why post-Herenton City Hall should be about more than who can win an election. It should be about who can deliver the fresh start we need. It should be about who can open up a progressive era in which we talk candidly about our problem, that we face them together and that we refuse to allow candidates to play to our dysfunction.
Therapeutic Answers
Awhile back, I was talking with a psychiatrist friend about dysfunctional families and the difficulty that its members have in breaking away from the abusiveness and antagonism that are their constant companions. Ironically, in the midst of a destructive relationship, members fight change.
The problems are twofold: one, the family members think all families are like theirs, and two, the dysfunction becomes familiar and comfortable even if it is hostile and painful.
In this environment, communications are raw and attacks are common to the point that family members can no longer interpret each other accurately or react proportionally. Instead, every one is forced to take sides in every disagreement as every issue escalates into a controversy that threatens to burst the family at its seams.
As he talked, I thought that he could just as easily been describing Memphis, so we asked: What does someone do to change the dysfunction?
Correcting Course
He said that it’s not easy or quick. The people who use the dysfunction to have power resist change the most. They immediately feel threatened and set up roadblocks and obstacles. We thought immediately of certain politicians.
If people are serious about changing things, he said, there are several things they have to do:
1) They have to realize that one person’s not in charge of another person’s life, and every one has the right to express their opinions free from attack;
2) They have to quit fighting old battles, because there are no winners;every one loses;
3) They have to identify what they want to happen and then change their behavior to make it happen; and
4) They have to refuse to respond to the dysfunction or engage in the same old combative ways of communicating.
Taking The Step
Most of all, for change to happen, it requires constant attention to positive behaviors and improvements in relationships, until the people who try to perpetuate the dysfunction find no reward or power in it.
We assume it’s asking too much that this city mayor’s campaign could be our first steps toward the kind of healthy civic culture that lends itself to productive answers to the challenges that face Memphis.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
This Week On Smart City: Teachers, Travel and Planning
Research has shown that effective teachers are the key to student success. Yet our school systems treat all teachers as interchangeable parts, not professionals.
In this environment, excellence goes unrecognized and poor performance goes unaddressed. This is the problem addressed in a new report from the New Teacher Project called "The Widget Effect." We'll talk with Timothy Daly, President of the New Teacher Project about the report and why teachers are not "one size fits all."
And with the summer months upon us, we'll hear from the creator of a unique travel website that shows you the spots you won't find in any guidebook. Bart Van Poll of the site Spotted By Locals is our guest.
We'll also talk with Joel Mills of the American Institute of Architects about its Sustainable Design Assessment Team that brings cross-disciplinary groups into communities to work with leaders to develop strategies for sustainable planning.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.
In this environment, excellence goes unrecognized and poor performance goes unaddressed. This is the problem addressed in a new report from the New Teacher Project called "The Widget Effect." We'll talk with Timothy Daly, President of the New Teacher Project about the report and why teachers are not "one size fits all."
And with the summer months upon us, we'll hear from the creator of a unique travel website that shows you the spots you won't find in any guidebook. Bart Van Poll of the site Spotted By Locals is our guest.
We'll also talk with Joel Mills of the American Institute of Architects about its Sustainable Design Assessment Team that brings cross-disciplinary groups into communities to work with leaders to develop strategies for sustainable planning.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Electing To Talk About The Things That Matter
Contrary to the opinion of many economic development officials, tax freezes are not an indicator of success for Memphis.
Rather, they are clear indications of our failure to create the more competitive city that we need for a new economic era.
In other words, for 20 years, we have had an over-reliance on tax freezes, AKA payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, while complaining that we had to do it because we don’t have enough arrows in our business incentive quiver. In that entire time, there’s been no significant movement to correct the problem, and instead, we just stay content in giving away taxes to make companies love us.
Rather than selling themselves at a discount -- cheap land and cheap labor and tax give-aways – cities that are succeeding are investing in better workers, high-quality universities, quality of life and efficient public services.
These should be major issues in the upcoming city mayor's election, because our city is in a perilous place right now. We're bleeding people, and more importantly, hemorrhaging income. We've averaged a loss of three 25-34 year-olds every day for the past 18 years.
So, what are some of the issues that should be discussed as part of a comprehensive economic growth plan? Here's some of the issues on our list:
• Investments in Universities. Universities are seedbeds for the Knowledge Economy. Cities with research universities have a head start in this economy, because they create the innovation and the intellectual capital needed today. Meanwhile, we are one of the fortunate few cities with our own College of Art, and it should be leveraged as a hub for the creative culture that attracts talented workers.
• Redevelopment in the Urban Core. Memphis has significant underdeveloped and vacant land. The infrastructure in these older areas has been paid for and their reuse makes the wisest investment of scarce public funds. Memphis is a shrinking city and we need to create a new formula for analyzing annexation (and possibly deannexation) that often distracts our attention for the area that matters most - the urban core.
• Balanced Transportation Policy. Memphis should lobby federal and state government to revamp its allocation regulations for urban areas. Too often, federal funding has continued traditional patterns of spending on new roads in suburban areas while neglecting the importance of investing in urban redevelopment and mass transit. Local government should adopt a "complete streets" policy for all transportation policies and it should set out to provide a 21st century public transit system for our region.
• Technology Clusters. Wise cities develop an area of specialization within the technology field based upon university research, biomedical assets, etc. Clusters provide a competitive edge and a critical mass that are important to economic growth. That’s why when we want to see the future, we need to look toward the Bioworks Foundation. Also, the Foundation teaches us that our best chances for success in the future is in defining our distinctive niches.
• Local Innovation. The best answers to the future begin on our own Main Street today. Solutions from another city transplanted or replicated are less successful because they are artificial. Our best answers are our own, answers produced organically from a reservoir of innovation and creativity that is embedded throughout Memphis. That doesn't mean that we should not draw inspiration from other cities' successes, but we should resist the temptation to move them wholesale to our city.
• Understanding Our Competitive Context. Memphis starts with a strong dose of honesty, understanding its competitive context, including market and demographic trends in the region and its strengths and liabilities. Most of all, we need to use new measures that matter in the knowledge economy rather than on the indicators from traditional economic development. Memphis can find its distinctive niche to leap frog ahead of other cities, but it must be based on solid research that sparks more imaginative strategies. Most of all, it needs to begin immediately.
• Fixing the Basics. Local government needs to concentrate on fixing the basics, such as safety, taxes, services, land, infrastructure and schools. Governments must look for ways to streamline its structure and improve public services. A foundation of efficient, effective public services is what successful economic growth is built on, and setting aside all the grand projects and big plans, what the public wants most is a city that is safe, clean and attractive.
• Acting (As Well As Talking) Regionally. Memphis talks a good game of regionalism, but we’ve never truly engrained regional thinking into our plans and actions. Too often, we lapse into a “we versus them” mentality and a “if you’re winning, we must be losing” attitude when it comes to our neighboring cities and counties. Economic activity and innovation occur in a regional context, and we ignore this at our peril. It is increasingly clear that Memphis and its suburbs are inextricably linked into a single economic unit, and the war of words serves neither of us.
• Vibrant Culture. To compete, Memphis must be an attractive, dynamic place. Vibrant arts and culture - think Memphis Art Park - are powerful ways of creating the appealing, enjoyable quality of life needed to attract and retain the best and brightest young workers. Too often, we treat our culture - that's with a small "c" as in our history and character - as tourist amenities, but in truth, its value is much broader since quality of life is a chief determinant in workforce growth. That's why arts planning should be as much about creating a culture of creativity as raising money for the anchors of the arts community.
• Thinking and Acting Collaboratively. This requires a shift in leadership styles from traditional authoritarian models to a new environment of inclusion, mutual influence and community building. Opening the door wider to all segments of the community and inviting new voices to engage in decision-making is the mark of a mature and competitive city. It also demands that city government get serious about imbedding technology in all of its operations, opening up government to the people who pay for it.
• A 21st Century Workforce. For Memphis to win in the race for economic prosperity, it needs smart and skilled workers producing goods and services characterized by innovation, knowledge and quality. If we are content to compete in the global economy by offering cheap wages, cheap land and cheap taxes, we are fighting for the bottom rungs of the economy. What’s needed is a team of public and private sector partners dedicated to building the skills needed for quality knowledge-based jobs, providing lifelong learning opportunities, improving the competitiveness of all workers and employers, connecting workforce development to economic needs and building a stronger education pipeline to produce skilled workers in the global economy.
• Competition on a Global Scale. To succeed, Memphis needs to develop cooperative networks and more sophisticated strategies for the global marketplace. Too often, international business is treated as an extension of traditional domestic economic development, and as a result, we often fail. Memphis needs a strategic plan of action tailored for the new world marketplace, and this includes helping business clusters gain access to global markets, finding opportunities for trade, investment and international partnerships and lobbying for federal policies that protect workers at high-risk for dislocation.
• Developing a Powerful Brand. Cities are no different from business. They need an authentic brand that tells the world who they are and what they stand for. Memphis needs a powerful brand, and it is not a slogan or a bumper sticker. A “real” city brand tells the rest of the country what we singularly stand for. That said, it's not about telling our story better; it's about creating a better story to tell.
• High-Quality Eco-Assets. Green assets are key to compete successfully for the workers we need for the Knowledge Economy. Preserved and protected open spaces, safe and attractive public spaces, better quality public sphere, greenbelts, clean air and water and outdoor recreation are not just wonderful public assets. More precisely, they are competitive advantages. Sustainable Shelby must be fully implemented, but it is only a start.
• A Reputation for Tolerance. Today, new workers are recruited just as often from India as Indiana. Memphis is competing as much with the country of Georgia as the state of Georgia. In order to compete, Memphis must have a well-founded reputation for tolerance and respect for various cultures, races and religions. Cities known for their low levels of tolerance will also become known for their low levels of economic growth, as we are proving already.
These are a few things that come to mind, but we suspect you have some of your own. If you do, please post them here.
Rather, they are clear indications of our failure to create the more competitive city that we need for a new economic era.
In other words, for 20 years, we have had an over-reliance on tax freezes, AKA payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, while complaining that we had to do it because we don’t have enough arrows in our business incentive quiver. In that entire time, there’s been no significant movement to correct the problem, and instead, we just stay content in giving away taxes to make companies love us.
Rather than selling themselves at a discount -- cheap land and cheap labor and tax give-aways – cities that are succeeding are investing in better workers, high-quality universities, quality of life and efficient public services.
These should be major issues in the upcoming city mayor's election, because our city is in a perilous place right now. We're bleeding people, and more importantly, hemorrhaging income. We've averaged a loss of three 25-34 year-olds every day for the past 18 years.
So, what are some of the issues that should be discussed as part of a comprehensive economic growth plan? Here's some of the issues on our list:
• Investments in Universities. Universities are seedbeds for the Knowledge Economy. Cities with research universities have a head start in this economy, because they create the innovation and the intellectual capital needed today. Meanwhile, we are one of the fortunate few cities with our own College of Art, and it should be leveraged as a hub for the creative culture that attracts talented workers.
• Redevelopment in the Urban Core. Memphis has significant underdeveloped and vacant land. The infrastructure in these older areas has been paid for and their reuse makes the wisest investment of scarce public funds. Memphis is a shrinking city and we need to create a new formula for analyzing annexation (and possibly deannexation) that often distracts our attention for the area that matters most - the urban core.
• Balanced Transportation Policy. Memphis should lobby federal and state government to revamp its allocation regulations for urban areas. Too often, federal funding has continued traditional patterns of spending on new roads in suburban areas while neglecting the importance of investing in urban redevelopment and mass transit. Local government should adopt a "complete streets" policy for all transportation policies and it should set out to provide a 21st century public transit system for our region.
• Technology Clusters. Wise cities develop an area of specialization within the technology field based upon university research, biomedical assets, etc. Clusters provide a competitive edge and a critical mass that are important to economic growth. That’s why when we want to see the future, we need to look toward the Bioworks Foundation. Also, the Foundation teaches us that our best chances for success in the future is in defining our distinctive niches.
• Local Innovation. The best answers to the future begin on our own Main Street today. Solutions from another city transplanted or replicated are less successful because they are artificial. Our best answers are our own, answers produced organically from a reservoir of innovation and creativity that is embedded throughout Memphis. That doesn't mean that we should not draw inspiration from other cities' successes, but we should resist the temptation to move them wholesale to our city.
• Understanding Our Competitive Context. Memphis starts with a strong dose of honesty, understanding its competitive context, including market and demographic trends in the region and its strengths and liabilities. Most of all, we need to use new measures that matter in the knowledge economy rather than on the indicators from traditional economic development. Memphis can find its distinctive niche to leap frog ahead of other cities, but it must be based on solid research that sparks more imaginative strategies. Most of all, it needs to begin immediately.
• Fixing the Basics. Local government needs to concentrate on fixing the basics, such as safety, taxes, services, land, infrastructure and schools. Governments must look for ways to streamline its structure and improve public services. A foundation of efficient, effective public services is what successful economic growth is built on, and setting aside all the grand projects and big plans, what the public wants most is a city that is safe, clean and attractive.
• Acting (As Well As Talking) Regionally. Memphis talks a good game of regionalism, but we’ve never truly engrained regional thinking into our plans and actions. Too often, we lapse into a “we versus them” mentality and a “if you’re winning, we must be losing” attitude when it comes to our neighboring cities and counties. Economic activity and innovation occur in a regional context, and we ignore this at our peril. It is increasingly clear that Memphis and its suburbs are inextricably linked into a single economic unit, and the war of words serves neither of us.
• Vibrant Culture. To compete, Memphis must be an attractive, dynamic place. Vibrant arts and culture - think Memphis Art Park - are powerful ways of creating the appealing, enjoyable quality of life needed to attract and retain the best and brightest young workers. Too often, we treat our culture - that's with a small "c" as in our history and character - as tourist amenities, but in truth, its value is much broader since quality of life is a chief determinant in workforce growth. That's why arts planning should be as much about creating a culture of creativity as raising money for the anchors of the arts community.
• Thinking and Acting Collaboratively. This requires a shift in leadership styles from traditional authoritarian models to a new environment of inclusion, mutual influence and community building. Opening the door wider to all segments of the community and inviting new voices to engage in decision-making is the mark of a mature and competitive city. It also demands that city government get serious about imbedding technology in all of its operations, opening up government to the people who pay for it.
• A 21st Century Workforce. For Memphis to win in the race for economic prosperity, it needs smart and skilled workers producing goods and services characterized by innovation, knowledge and quality. If we are content to compete in the global economy by offering cheap wages, cheap land and cheap taxes, we are fighting for the bottom rungs of the economy. What’s needed is a team of public and private sector partners dedicated to building the skills needed for quality knowledge-based jobs, providing lifelong learning opportunities, improving the competitiveness of all workers and employers, connecting workforce development to economic needs and building a stronger education pipeline to produce skilled workers in the global economy.
• Competition on a Global Scale. To succeed, Memphis needs to develop cooperative networks and more sophisticated strategies for the global marketplace. Too often, international business is treated as an extension of traditional domestic economic development, and as a result, we often fail. Memphis needs a strategic plan of action tailored for the new world marketplace, and this includes helping business clusters gain access to global markets, finding opportunities for trade, investment and international partnerships and lobbying for federal policies that protect workers at high-risk for dislocation.
• Developing a Powerful Brand. Cities are no different from business. They need an authentic brand that tells the world who they are and what they stand for. Memphis needs a powerful brand, and it is not a slogan or a bumper sticker. A “real” city brand tells the rest of the country what we singularly stand for. That said, it's not about telling our story better; it's about creating a better story to tell.
• High-Quality Eco-Assets. Green assets are key to compete successfully for the workers we need for the Knowledge Economy. Preserved and protected open spaces, safe and attractive public spaces, better quality public sphere, greenbelts, clean air and water and outdoor recreation are not just wonderful public assets. More precisely, they are competitive advantages. Sustainable Shelby must be fully implemented, but it is only a start.
• A Reputation for Tolerance. Today, new workers are recruited just as often from India as Indiana. Memphis is competing as much with the country of Georgia as the state of Georgia. In order to compete, Memphis must have a well-founded reputation for tolerance and respect for various cultures, races and religions. Cities known for their low levels of tolerance will also become known for their low levels of economic growth, as we are proving already.
These are a few things that come to mind, but we suspect you have some of your own. If you do, please post them here.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Stimulus Money Short Changes Memphis
Memphis got screwed again, and the culprit was a familiar one – state government.
Back when the promises were made that the economic stimulus spigots would be turned on in Washington, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton joined the chorus of mayors who were concerned that cities would be short-changed. He was right: highway funding funneled through state government was spent mostly in rural areas.
In other words, the Bredesen Administration, in the appropriation of funds for roads and transportation, shafted Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. Road funding is only one part of the stimulus package, but Memphis and Shelby County Governments should take it as a warning shot for stepped up lobbying and action.
No Stimulus For Efficiency
Unfortunately, the management of the economic stimulus program here appears to have little structure and even less accountability. While other cities have set up websites tracking every dollar that comes into them, it seems that here there’s no central tracking process or anyone who can tell us how much money has come into our community.
Unless something changes, we run the risk of national embarrassment for an abject failure in meeting the key principles of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – transparency and accountability.
Some public agencies treat ARRA as “found” money, but they do it at their peril. While this is a historic level of funding, it will be accompanied by a historic level of investigation.
If the federal government’s inspector generals are serious now about the spending of grant funds, they are going to be absolutely obsessive about stimulus money. That means that the absence of a clearinghouse in local government where every dollar is reported, where compliance is ensured and where every dollar is accounted for is a serious risk for us.
More Of The Same
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the stimulus funding has not been the stimulus for new thinking and strategic investments that it could have been. In so many places, including our own, the exercise has been to spend quickly, not spend wisely, and because of it, the potential impact of ARRA has been blunted.
Most are heavy on public works projects and light on public sense. It should be little surprise, because when the federal government uses terms like “shovel-ready projects,” you’re really asking for the usual suspects to ask for money for the usual projects – more and more public works projects.
At a time when the federal funds should be incentives for investing in the new economy, it’s likely that much of it will be spent chasing the old oil-dependent economy and rewarding growth patterns that have hollowed out our cities.
In other words, this would be the perfect time to invest in a green infrastructure, bike lanes and a technological grid that speaks to the realities of the future. After all, it shouldn’t be enough that the federal is aimed at putting people to work. More to the point, it needs to be about creating the platform for the essential infrastructure for cities competing in a knowledge-based economy of the future.
Getting The Question Right
In other words, most governments have treated the stimulus funding as a way to transfer the cost of projects already in the pipeline from their government to the federal government, so the emphasis is on spending money as fast as possible.
Rather than ask, “How do we spend money as quickly as possible,” cities should be asking, “How do we reinvent the American infrastructure because this one is too expensive, too unsustainable and too uncompetitive?”
Of course, we’ve compounded these problems here by our obsession with paying people to love us in the form of tax freezes, by our lack of vision about workforce improvement and by our missed opportunities to build an economy on quality rather than cheapness.
Bad Math
But back to our main topic.
According to an analysis by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, cities have received a disproportionately smaller piece of the highway improvements funds. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels charged that in its haste to jump start the economy, the federal government relied on an old formula that left behind our metro areas.
In analyzing the $18.3 billion set aside for transportation, the mayors’ report said that the 85 largest cities in the U.S. received 48% of the money although they hold 73% of the nation’s GNP and 63% of its people.
This is especially troubling to Memphis because of our place as a national logistics leader, and with our luck, the stimulus money will probably be used to complete I-269 with its disastrous effects on our city.
Nashville Wins…Again
The U.S. Conference on Mayors’ report tracked the spending of the Federal Highway Administration’s share of the stimulus package and found that in the about $450 million spent in Tennessee, Memphis has received $19.4 million in approved projects. Knoxville got $12.7 million in projects.
That compares to the $57.8 million spent by the administration of Governor Phil Bredesen for projects in the city he once served as mayor. In other words, Nashville got almost three times more money invested in it than Memphis.
But that’s not the worst of it. The rest of the state, largely rural areas, received $376.5 million in projects.
Or put another way, Memphis got 4.2%, Knoxville got 2.7% and Nashville/Murfreesboro got 12.4%. Unbelievably, the rest of the state got 80.7% of the total project funds.
Getting Serious
By the way, Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville produce 66.9% of the GSP (gross state product). And the rest of the state? While getting 80.7% of the total project money, they produce 33% of the state’s economy.
White House spokesmen said that the fairness of ARRA should not be based on the road and transportation share of its program. That is of course true, but after the hosing we have taken from the state, we think we can be forgiven for our reluctance to accept that assurance at face value.
The truth is that we should be used to this sort of treatment from state government, but with so much at stake with this stimulus funding, all of our elected officials need to set aside race, political parties and geography to send a strong message to Nashville that we will not accept any repetition of this unfair disbursement of crucial funding.
Back when the promises were made that the economic stimulus spigots would be turned on in Washington, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton joined the chorus of mayors who were concerned that cities would be short-changed. He was right: highway funding funneled through state government was spent mostly in rural areas.
In other words, the Bredesen Administration, in the appropriation of funds for roads and transportation, shafted Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. Road funding is only one part of the stimulus package, but Memphis and Shelby County Governments should take it as a warning shot for stepped up lobbying and action.
No Stimulus For Efficiency
Unfortunately, the management of the economic stimulus program here appears to have little structure and even less accountability. While other cities have set up websites tracking every dollar that comes into them, it seems that here there’s no central tracking process or anyone who can tell us how much money has come into our community.
Unless something changes, we run the risk of national embarrassment for an abject failure in meeting the key principles of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – transparency and accountability.
Some public agencies treat ARRA as “found” money, but they do it at their peril. While this is a historic level of funding, it will be accompanied by a historic level of investigation.
If the federal government’s inspector generals are serious now about the spending of grant funds, they are going to be absolutely obsessive about stimulus money. That means that the absence of a clearinghouse in local government where every dollar is reported, where compliance is ensured and where every dollar is accounted for is a serious risk for us.
More Of The Same
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the stimulus funding has not been the stimulus for new thinking and strategic investments that it could have been. In so many places, including our own, the exercise has been to spend quickly, not spend wisely, and because of it, the potential impact of ARRA has been blunted.
Most are heavy on public works projects and light on public sense. It should be little surprise, because when the federal government uses terms like “shovel-ready projects,” you’re really asking for the usual suspects to ask for money for the usual projects – more and more public works projects.
At a time when the federal funds should be incentives for investing in the new economy, it’s likely that much of it will be spent chasing the old oil-dependent economy and rewarding growth patterns that have hollowed out our cities.
In other words, this would be the perfect time to invest in a green infrastructure, bike lanes and a technological grid that speaks to the realities of the future. After all, it shouldn’t be enough that the federal is aimed at putting people to work. More to the point, it needs to be about creating the platform for the essential infrastructure for cities competing in a knowledge-based economy of the future.
Getting The Question Right
In other words, most governments have treated the stimulus funding as a way to transfer the cost of projects already in the pipeline from their government to the federal government, so the emphasis is on spending money as fast as possible.
Rather than ask, “How do we spend money as quickly as possible,” cities should be asking, “How do we reinvent the American infrastructure because this one is too expensive, too unsustainable and too uncompetitive?”
Of course, we’ve compounded these problems here by our obsession with paying people to love us in the form of tax freezes, by our lack of vision about workforce improvement and by our missed opportunities to build an economy on quality rather than cheapness.
Bad Math
But back to our main topic.
According to an analysis by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, cities have received a disproportionately smaller piece of the highway improvements funds. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels charged that in its haste to jump start the economy, the federal government relied on an old formula that left behind our metro areas.
In analyzing the $18.3 billion set aside for transportation, the mayors’ report said that the 85 largest cities in the U.S. received 48% of the money although they hold 73% of the nation’s GNP and 63% of its people.
This is especially troubling to Memphis because of our place as a national logistics leader, and with our luck, the stimulus money will probably be used to complete I-269 with its disastrous effects on our city.
Nashville Wins…Again
The U.S. Conference on Mayors’ report tracked the spending of the Federal Highway Administration’s share of the stimulus package and found that in the about $450 million spent in Tennessee, Memphis has received $19.4 million in approved projects. Knoxville got $12.7 million in projects.
That compares to the $57.8 million spent by the administration of Governor Phil Bredesen for projects in the city he once served as mayor. In other words, Nashville got almost three times more money invested in it than Memphis.
But that’s not the worst of it. The rest of the state, largely rural areas, received $376.5 million in projects.
Or put another way, Memphis got 4.2%, Knoxville got 2.7% and Nashville/Murfreesboro got 12.4%. Unbelievably, the rest of the state got 80.7% of the total project funds.
Getting Serious
By the way, Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville produce 66.9% of the GSP (gross state product). And the rest of the state? While getting 80.7% of the total project money, they produce 33% of the state’s economy.
White House spokesmen said that the fairness of ARRA should not be based on the road and transportation share of its program. That is of course true, but after the hosing we have taken from the state, we think we can be forgiven for our reluctance to accept that assurance at face value.
The truth is that we should be used to this sort of treatment from state government, but with so much at stake with this stimulus funding, all of our elected officials need to set aside race, political parties and geography to send a strong message to Nashville that we will not accept any repetition of this unfair disbursement of crucial funding.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Denver Brewpub Advice For The Next Memphis Mayor
To continue the theme that we began yesterday on what it will take for Memphis to recruit the kind of candidate that can become a great mayor, here's the abbreviated advice from one of our favorites, Denver's John Hickenlooper:
LESSONS FROM A BREWPUB:
The John Hickenlooper Guide To Civic Success
We started our Profiles in Leadership: America’s Great Mayors series to answer a simple question: what does a great mayor look like?
We weren’t expecting to find out that, sometimes, a great mayor looks like a brewpub manager. But John Hickenlooper is used to surprising people.
He surprised his friends and family in Narberth by morphing from an awkward, unambitious kid into a dynamic, successful businessman. He surprised his bankers by turning a risky brewpub venture into a catalyst for a neighborhood’s development. He surprised everyone in Denver by beating the pants off of a field of well-established politicians and becoming mayor.
And he surprised our audience by explaining that restaurants and city halls aren’t that different. “I think that any candidate is greatly improved by having spent a few years running a big, popular restaurant,” he said. “Whether it’s the restaurant or a big city, you never have enough money. You have a diverse group of people you’ve got to weld into a team. And the public is always ticked off about something.”
In 2003, Hickenlooper rode a wave of ticked-off voters to victory. Public frustration with Denver’s political establishment had opened the door to an outsider candidate like him. Hickenlooper seized the opportunity not by railing against his opponents but by presenting a positive vision for the city. He emphasized the need for teamwork. He vowed to improve city services and balance the budget. He promised to end the old-school game of political insider-ism and put the best possible person in every city job.
So far, he has delivered enough that his re-election is virtually assured. He balanced the budget despite declining revenues. He passed key civil service reforms. He reached far beyond his circle of friends and supporters to find qualified, diverse appointees. He helped end years of city-suburb political warfare, paving the way for a groundbreaking regional transportation initiative. TIME Magazine has called him one of America’s top big city mayors, and he faces no significant competition for his second term.
How did he do it? He turned to the lessons he learned on the brewpub floor.
Lesson One: Listen
As a candidate, Hickenlooper listened to local businesspeople and found out that tax revenues were more likely to shrink than to grow. That allowed him to craft a smart budget that helped him win early endorsements from the local papers. He listened to leaders in the towns and suburbs surrounding Denver. That helped him end years of animosity and start money-saving, region-growing regional projects. He listened to average Janes and Joes all around Denver, and that helped him grasp the importance of improving city services and restoring faith in government.
And from the minute he launched his campaign, he listened to his own gut instincts. “At that first meeting, we’re sitting there with a bunch of political consultants,” he recalled. “There’s six other candidates- it’s almost like a made-for-TV movie – there’s the Greek former police chief, the Latino former city auditor, the African American state senator – all the way down the list. And one of the people said, ‘You’re at 3 percent in the polls. If you’re going to distinguish yourself, you’ve got to pull down one of these frontrunners.’ And my wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well that’s exactly the direction we’re not running.’
“We never did opposition research. We never did a negative ad. We never attacked. We tried to run a campaign where we said, ‘We’re going to hire the best person for the job for every single job in the city.’ We were going to focus on being transparent, inclusive, and collaborative in a way that no one in the city has seen.” The message worked: Hickenlooper won 65 percent of the final vote.
Lesson Two: Know Your Real Budget
One of the first things that candidate Hickenlooper did was make the rounds of local businesses. Based on what he heard, along with other research, he decided that instead of tax growth, Denver was about to see a significant decrease in tax revenue; so he made up a budget, took it to the newspapers, and won early endorsements.
The next thing he knew, he had jumped to 33 percent in the polls, with his nearest competition at 15. “I still remember my wife reading the details,” he said, “and she was not terribly happy about this. She lowered the newspaper so just her eyes were above it and said, ‘You never told me you were going to win.’”
But he did win, and his projections proved correct. But he arrived armed with the mandate he needed to make tough budget cuts.
Lesson Three: Know your Real Competition
When Hickenlooper opened his brewpub in a half-forgotten downtown neighborhood, his employees thought he was crazy when he put ads for other local restaurants in his restrooms. “The other restaurants couldn’t believe it. Our staff came up to me and said, what are you doing?” he recalled. “I said, they’re not our competitors. You’ve got to look at our self-interest in broader way. They’re really our allies. Our competitor is the TV set. We’ve got to work together to get people off the couch and out to enjoy life.”
That attitude helped revitalize what’s now known as LoDo – for Lower Downtown – and Hickenlooper brought it to the mayor’s office. One of the first things he did was throw a party in his loft for every regional county commissioner and their spouses. “I gave a two-minute speech: ‘The history of divisiveness, and us trying to get benefit at your expense, is over. And from now on, the City of Denver will do everything we can to help the suburbs,” he recalled. “I got a huge round of applause. There was this tremendous hunger there.”
Similarly, he reached out to the Republican governor, who’d had epic battles with Hickenlooper’s Democratic predecessor, Wellington Webb. “On my first day in office I walked across the green. I spent about an hour and a half with him, and I said, ‘I guarantee you I will never embarrass you for political gain. We agree on about 90 percent of the stuff. It’s crazy for us to get in fights over these other things."
Why reach out? Because just as a successful brewpub needed a successful LoDo, a successful Denver needs a successful Colorado. “Denver doesn’t compete anymore with Seattle or San Diego,” he said. “We’re competing with metropolitan Shanghai. And metropolitan Bombay. If we don’t begin working together at a much higher level, we’ll find that not just our grandchildren’s jobs but our children’s jobs will have gone away.”
Lesson Four: Never Stop Building Your Team
Don’t ever expect to see Hickenlooper pat himself on the back. As he talks about Denver’s successes, he credits his partners, his predecessors, his employees, his advisors, his wife, his parents – everyone but himself. This is no accident. It’s part of his strategy of keeping his team together.
Restaurants depend on a team of diverse people with many backgrounds and skill sets, all of whom have particular needs if they are to get their jobs done. Cities depend on the same thing. When he came into office, Hickenlooper made sure that he brought in a staff of appointees who were not only highly qualified, but diverse and representative, with connections to all parts of the city’s social and political culture. He appointed one of his competitors for mayor as a leader in his transition. He established transition teams that could reach far beyond his personal circle to find qualified candidates for appointment in all parts of the U.S. He made a highly visible effort to put a team in place that Denver’s citizens could trust.
And he never stops building up his teammates, listening to their needs in private, and praising them in public whenever he can. He praises the city employees who helped him trim Denver’s budget. He praises the suburban officials who helped make transit reform a reality. He happily declined to put his picture up in the Denver airport, substituting pictures that celebrate regional landmarks.
“Symbolic stuff really matters,” he said. “You end up coming out better in the end. By taking your own picture down, it’s as if you had a bigger picture up there.”
LESSONS FROM A BREWPUB:
The John Hickenlooper Guide To Civic Success
We started our Profiles in Leadership: America’s Great Mayors series to answer a simple question: what does a great mayor look like?
We weren’t expecting to find out that, sometimes, a great mayor looks like a brewpub manager. But John Hickenlooper is used to surprising people.
He surprised his friends and family in Narberth by morphing from an awkward, unambitious kid into a dynamic, successful businessman. He surprised his bankers by turning a risky brewpub venture into a catalyst for a neighborhood’s development. He surprised everyone in Denver by beating the pants off of a field of well-established politicians and becoming mayor.
And he surprised our audience by explaining that restaurants and city halls aren’t that different. “I think that any candidate is greatly improved by having spent a few years running a big, popular restaurant,” he said. “Whether it’s the restaurant or a big city, you never have enough money. You have a diverse group of people you’ve got to weld into a team. And the public is always ticked off about something.”
In 2003, Hickenlooper rode a wave of ticked-off voters to victory. Public frustration with Denver’s political establishment had opened the door to an outsider candidate like him. Hickenlooper seized the opportunity not by railing against his opponents but by presenting a positive vision for the city. He emphasized the need for teamwork. He vowed to improve city services and balance the budget. He promised to end the old-school game of political insider-ism and put the best possible person in every city job.
So far, he has delivered enough that his re-election is virtually assured. He balanced the budget despite declining revenues. He passed key civil service reforms. He reached far beyond his circle of friends and supporters to find qualified, diverse appointees. He helped end years of city-suburb political warfare, paving the way for a groundbreaking regional transportation initiative. TIME Magazine has called him one of America’s top big city mayors, and he faces no significant competition for his second term.
How did he do it? He turned to the lessons he learned on the brewpub floor.
Lesson One: Listen
As a candidate, Hickenlooper listened to local businesspeople and found out that tax revenues were more likely to shrink than to grow. That allowed him to craft a smart budget that helped him win early endorsements from the local papers. He listened to leaders in the towns and suburbs surrounding Denver. That helped him end years of animosity and start money-saving, region-growing regional projects. He listened to average Janes and Joes all around Denver, and that helped him grasp the importance of improving city services and restoring faith in government.
And from the minute he launched his campaign, he listened to his own gut instincts. “At that first meeting, we’re sitting there with a bunch of political consultants,” he recalled. “There’s six other candidates- it’s almost like a made-for-TV movie – there’s the Greek former police chief, the Latino former city auditor, the African American state senator – all the way down the list. And one of the people said, ‘You’re at 3 percent in the polls. If you’re going to distinguish yourself, you’ve got to pull down one of these frontrunners.’ And my wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well that’s exactly the direction we’re not running.’
“We never did opposition research. We never did a negative ad. We never attacked. We tried to run a campaign where we said, ‘We’re going to hire the best person for the job for every single job in the city.’ We were going to focus on being transparent, inclusive, and collaborative in a way that no one in the city has seen.” The message worked: Hickenlooper won 65 percent of the final vote.
Lesson Two: Know Your Real Budget
One of the first things that candidate Hickenlooper did was make the rounds of local businesses. Based on what he heard, along with other research, he decided that instead of tax growth, Denver was about to see a significant decrease in tax revenue; so he made up a budget, took it to the newspapers, and won early endorsements.
The next thing he knew, he had jumped to 33 percent in the polls, with his nearest competition at 15. “I still remember my wife reading the details,” he said, “and she was not terribly happy about this. She lowered the newspaper so just her eyes were above it and said, ‘You never told me you were going to win.’”
But he did win, and his projections proved correct. But he arrived armed with the mandate he needed to make tough budget cuts.
Lesson Three: Know your Real Competition
When Hickenlooper opened his brewpub in a half-forgotten downtown neighborhood, his employees thought he was crazy when he put ads for other local restaurants in his restrooms. “The other restaurants couldn’t believe it. Our staff came up to me and said, what are you doing?” he recalled. “I said, they’re not our competitors. You’ve got to look at our self-interest in broader way. They’re really our allies. Our competitor is the TV set. We’ve got to work together to get people off the couch and out to enjoy life.”
That attitude helped revitalize what’s now known as LoDo – for Lower Downtown – and Hickenlooper brought it to the mayor’s office. One of the first things he did was throw a party in his loft for every regional county commissioner and their spouses. “I gave a two-minute speech: ‘The history of divisiveness, and us trying to get benefit at your expense, is over. And from now on, the City of Denver will do everything we can to help the suburbs,” he recalled. “I got a huge round of applause. There was this tremendous hunger there.”
Similarly, he reached out to the Republican governor, who’d had epic battles with Hickenlooper’s Democratic predecessor, Wellington Webb. “On my first day in office I walked across the green. I spent about an hour and a half with him, and I said, ‘I guarantee you I will never embarrass you for political gain. We agree on about 90 percent of the stuff. It’s crazy for us to get in fights over these other things."
Why reach out? Because just as a successful brewpub needed a successful LoDo, a successful Denver needs a successful Colorado. “Denver doesn’t compete anymore with Seattle or San Diego,” he said. “We’re competing with metropolitan Shanghai. And metropolitan Bombay. If we don’t begin working together at a much higher level, we’ll find that not just our grandchildren’s jobs but our children’s jobs will have gone away.”
Lesson Four: Never Stop Building Your Team
Don’t ever expect to see Hickenlooper pat himself on the back. As he talks about Denver’s successes, he credits his partners, his predecessors, his employees, his advisors, his wife, his parents – everyone but himself. This is no accident. It’s part of his strategy of keeping his team together.
Restaurants depend on a team of diverse people with many backgrounds and skill sets, all of whom have particular needs if they are to get their jobs done. Cities depend on the same thing. When he came into office, Hickenlooper made sure that he brought in a staff of appointees who were not only highly qualified, but diverse and representative, with connections to all parts of the city’s social and political culture. He appointed one of his competitors for mayor as a leader in his transition. He established transition teams that could reach far beyond his personal circle to find qualified candidates for appointment in all parts of the U.S. He made a highly visible effort to put a team in place that Denver’s citizens could trust.
And he never stops building up his teammates, listening to their needs in private, and praising them in public whenever he can. He praises the city employees who helped him trim Denver’s budget. He praises the suburban officials who helped make transit reform a reality. He happily declined to put his picture up in the Denver airport, substituting pictures that celebrate regional landmarks.
“Symbolic stuff really matters,” he said. “You end up coming out better in the end. By taking your own picture down, it’s as if you had a bigger picture up there.”
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A Time For Great Mayors
It seems a good time to reprise a slightly edited post from July 5, 2006, which was also the June, 2006, City Journal column in Memphis magazine:
This is the golden age of great city mayors.
In Chicago, Richard Daley transformed “Beirut on the Lake” into one of the world’s great cities - sophisticated, vibrant, seedbed for an astonishing array of enlightened “green” programs.
In Denver and San Francisco, two restaurateurs – respectively John Hickenlooper and Gavin Newsom – transplanted their customer service credo into city services and designed revolutionary programs for the homeless. Also, Hickenlooper’s determined regional fence-mending produced a 70 percent approval rating in the metro area, and he in turn used this reservoir of good will to lead seven counties and 31 cities to pass a sales tax increase to pay for 119 miles of new light rail and commuter trains costing $5 billion.
In Atlanta, Shirley Franklin slashed 1,000 jobs as well as her own salary, convinced 75 companies to analyze city government at no cost and began a 22-mile linear park connecting 45 neighborhoods. Through force of personality, Jerry Abramson convinced Louisville citizens to approve the largest government consolidation in 40 years; New York’s Michael Bloomberg turned a projected $6.5 billion deficit into a $3 billion surplus; Baltimore’s Martin O’Malley developed a unique computerized complaint system making city departments more accountable and as governor of Maryland, he is now applying the same approach to state government; Miami’s Manny Diaz moved the city bond rating from junk to A+ while rolling out a six-year program to rebuild the infrastructure; and Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty delivered something thought impossible – stability and innovation.
Rebirth
In other words, cities are in an epic period of rebirth, and great mayors are the reason.
Memphis has had great managers, great motivators and great speakers. But there’s no argument that Memphis has had a mayor who measures up to the standards of today’s great mayors.
Mayor Willie W. Herenton, contrary to critics who tend to blame him for everything from the economic downturn to global warming, flirted with a “Nixon to China” brand of greatness, but in the end, it was not to be and now seems as elusive as his being cheered at halfcourt at FedExForum.
In truth, the concept of Willie Herenton has always been more compelling than the reality of Willie Herenton. To his political base, he has special status as the city’s first African-American mayor, and the voter loyalty attached to that milestone will not be replicated again.
With civic leaders, explanations for support have frequently begun with the sentence, “He’s better than….”
Outstripping Reality
When a political brand outstrips personal reality, it’s often a good thing for the politician. The formidable image silences critics, drives public opinion and overwhelms public discussions.
In Herenton’s case though, it’s no longer fair to him, and it’s not now fair to the city, because it has mutated into a mythology that polarizes every issue he touches. The seminal example took place just over year ago when he convened a meeting to consider his innovative proposal for merger of the two local school systems. On that day, he made the best researched and most detailed analysis by a public official of the $1 billion spent locally each year for schools, and he did it all without mentioning once that Memphis is the only major metro area in Tennessee where schools aren’t already consolidated.
And yet, none of the statistics, none of the projections and none of the historical trends were reported. Instead, the media fixated on the fact that the chairs of the city and county school boards – respectively, Wanda Halbert and David Pickler - were petulant no-shows at the meeting.
Losing The Pulpit
It was a defining moment in the Herenton Era, because it was at that moment that it became unambiguously obvious that his personality, not his positions or programs, would be the overriding factor defining the news from then on. In this way, it no longer mattered if he was right, because he was robbed of his bully pulpit.The sad truth of Memphis politics – and it is sad whether you like Herenton or not – is that the mayor no longer has the potential to be great, because the ultimate prisoner of the Herenton myth is now Willie Herenton himself.
Because of it, he was denied the chance to emulate great U.S. mayors who are creating bigger dreams for their cities that every one sees themselves being part of, reaching across political and racial boundaries and inspiring all of their citizens with the confidence to move ahead together.
This is the golden age of great city mayors.
In Chicago, Richard Daley transformed “Beirut on the Lake” into one of the world’s great cities - sophisticated, vibrant, seedbed for an astonishing array of enlightened “green” programs.
In Denver and San Francisco, two restaurateurs – respectively John Hickenlooper and Gavin Newsom – transplanted their customer service credo into city services and designed revolutionary programs for the homeless. Also, Hickenlooper’s determined regional fence-mending produced a 70 percent approval rating in the metro area, and he in turn used this reservoir of good will to lead seven counties and 31 cities to pass a sales tax increase to pay for 119 miles of new light rail and commuter trains costing $5 billion.
In Atlanta, Shirley Franklin slashed 1,000 jobs as well as her own salary, convinced 75 companies to analyze city government at no cost and began a 22-mile linear park connecting 45 neighborhoods. Through force of personality, Jerry Abramson convinced Louisville citizens to approve the largest government consolidation in 40 years; New York’s Michael Bloomberg turned a projected $6.5 billion deficit into a $3 billion surplus; Baltimore’s Martin O’Malley developed a unique computerized complaint system making city departments more accountable and as governor of Maryland, he is now applying the same approach to state government; Miami’s Manny Diaz moved the city bond rating from junk to A+ while rolling out a six-year program to rebuild the infrastructure; and Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty delivered something thought impossible – stability and innovation.
Rebirth
In other words, cities are in an epic period of rebirth, and great mayors are the reason.
Memphis has had great managers, great motivators and great speakers. But there’s no argument that Memphis has had a mayor who measures up to the standards of today’s great mayors.
Mayor Willie W. Herenton, contrary to critics who tend to blame him for everything from the economic downturn to global warming, flirted with a “Nixon to China” brand of greatness, but in the end, it was not to be and now seems as elusive as his being cheered at halfcourt at FedExForum.
In truth, the concept of Willie Herenton has always been more compelling than the reality of Willie Herenton. To his political base, he has special status as the city’s first African-American mayor, and the voter loyalty attached to that milestone will not be replicated again.
With civic leaders, explanations for support have frequently begun with the sentence, “He’s better than….”
Outstripping Reality
When a political brand outstrips personal reality, it’s often a good thing for the politician. The formidable image silences critics, drives public opinion and overwhelms public discussions.
In Herenton’s case though, it’s no longer fair to him, and it’s not now fair to the city, because it has mutated into a mythology that polarizes every issue he touches. The seminal example took place just over year ago when he convened a meeting to consider his innovative proposal for merger of the two local school systems. On that day, he made the best researched and most detailed analysis by a public official of the $1 billion spent locally each year for schools, and he did it all without mentioning once that Memphis is the only major metro area in Tennessee where schools aren’t already consolidated.
And yet, none of the statistics, none of the projections and none of the historical trends were reported. Instead, the media fixated on the fact that the chairs of the city and county school boards – respectively, Wanda Halbert and David Pickler - were petulant no-shows at the meeting.
Losing The Pulpit
It was a defining moment in the Herenton Era, because it was at that moment that it became unambiguously obvious that his personality, not his positions or programs, would be the overriding factor defining the news from then on. In this way, it no longer mattered if he was right, because he was robbed of his bully pulpit.The sad truth of Memphis politics – and it is sad whether you like Herenton or not – is that the mayor no longer has the potential to be great, because the ultimate prisoner of the Herenton myth is now Willie Herenton himself.
Because of it, he was denied the chance to emulate great U.S. mayors who are creating bigger dreams for their cities that every one sees themselves being part of, reaching across political and racial boundaries and inspiring all of their citizens with the confidence to move ahead together.
Remembering What's Important
Kerry Hayes, always a wise observer of the Memphis scene, wrote some sound advice on his Facebook page about the post-Herenton era:
Remember: Mayor Herenton's departure is an opportunity, not a solution.
Remember: the leadership that comes next is vastly more important than the leader who's leaving.
Remember: the Mayor should not blamed for every bad thing that happens in the city no more than he (or she) should accept credit for every good thing that happens.
Remember: leadership starts in tiny, almost imperceptible ways. It starts by keeping your lawn cut and your sidewalk swept. It starts by arguing with people who say hurtful, misleading, untrue things about our community. It starts by not being afraid of certain neighborhoods. Or certain people.
Remember: we are a beautiful, fascinating, terrific city filled with beautiful, fascinating, terrific people doing all kinds of wonderful things. We deserve nothing but the absolute best at all levels of government. In order to get, we must expect the best.
Remember: July 10 is a beginning, not an end.
Remember: Mayor Herenton's departure is an opportunity, not a solution.
Remember: the leadership that comes next is vastly more important than the leader who's leaving.
Remember: the Mayor should not blamed for every bad thing that happens in the city no more than he (or she) should accept credit for every good thing that happens.
Remember: leadership starts in tiny, almost imperceptible ways. It starts by keeping your lawn cut and your sidewalk swept. It starts by arguing with people who say hurtful, misleading, untrue things about our community. It starts by not being afraid of certain neighborhoods. Or certain people.
Remember: we are a beautiful, fascinating, terrific city filled with beautiful, fascinating, terrific people doing all kinds of wonderful things. We deserve nothing but the absolute best at all levels of government. In order to get, we must expect the best.
Remember: July 10 is a beginning, not an end.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Memphians Show Why Our Destination Is King
There're many reasons that we respect Cindy and Kevin Brewer. They are the kind of talented people that we need in this city – young, entreprenuerial, positive. In their work and in their civic activities, they are committed to creating a better city that builds on its unique authenticity.
They are spreading the word about Memphis with their professional peers this week, and they are showing them the “real” Memphis. That’s a tour all of us should take to remember why we love this city so much.
Mrs. Brewer is founder and president of Destination King, award-winning event planning and management group and the Mid-South’s only Destination Management Company (DMC). Cindy, along with her husband Kevin, manages a full-time staff of eight and a part-time staff of 35. Destination King plans more than 250 events, both large and small, a year in Memphis and the Mid-South. Destination King has been in business since 2001.
Here’s a guest post by her that reminds us why Memphis is so special:
At Destination King, we make our living by showcasing everything that is wonderful and unique about Memphis, usually through the planning and execution of conventions, corporate events and other meetings. Most of our clients are from outside the Mid-South but also have many here in town. We are often their most direct contact with the dynamic Memphis community, and we work hard to make sure all of our clients and their guests have a wonderful, repeat-worthy experience.
This week, Destination King, The Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau and The Peabody Hotel are hosting the Global Events Partners (GEP) Executive Summit. This meeting is for 250 of the top executive-level corporate meeting planners in the world. Considering that everyone attending this Summit plans meetings and events for a living, this is a tremendous opportunity for Memphis.
The potential estimated ROI to the host city is $2M – per client – within two years of hosting the Summit. We hope that, due to economic conditions around the globe, Memphis will have an even greater appeal to these planners who are looking for “under the radar” locations for their meetings and events. Corporations represented at the Summit this year include Volkswagen, Sealy, Liberty Mutual, Monsanto, MasterCard Worldwide, GMAC, NAPA AutoParts , American Express and more.
Mythic Memphis
After several years of being held at international locations (Paris, The Bahamas, Madrid and Salzburg), the Summit is returning to the States. One planner told me that she couldn’t wait to visit Memphis, a place she’d heard about her entire life. For our part, we’ve planned some exciting events that will showcase the best of Memphis, including a community giveback teambuilding event that involves 11 area nonprofits. We’re excited for the Summit, and we’re hopeful for the ROI for years to come.
But as we put the final touches on the Summit, we are reminded almost daily of the challenges Memphis faces, in part because so any of our friends and neighbors succumb to accentuating the negative and forgetting the positive. As we know well, sometimes it takes outsiders to remind us of all that is upbeat and unique about this city we love.
I wish some of those naysayers heard what Kevin and I did on March 28th at the Corner Bar in The Peabody. We sat at a little table surrounded by fans from Gonzaga, Oklahoma and North Carolina who were in town for the Sweet 16 tournament. We heard one couple talking on their cell phone to their kids back in Seattle and telling them how impressed they were with the National Civil Rights Museum. A family of six from Oklahoma had been to Graceland and were still amazed that Elvis won more Grammys for Gospel than any other genre. And then we heard a few men grumbling that they needed to take a break that evening from their revelry on Beale Street.
The Economic Importance Of Pride
It was one of those many moments where I am proud to be a Memphian and consider myself very fortunate to help sell our city on a daily basis.
But there are days that I feel somewhat alone in that thought. I often find that the people who are the most negative about Memphis are Memphians. We recently played host to a statewide association meeting that rotates every year to a different city in Tennessee. Destination King had planned a wonderful event at Handy Park for the attendees. Being a weeknight, we had exclusive use of the park, had lined up stellar entertainment, great food and secured Beale Street VIP cards for all. Three weeks before the event, one of the association’s Memphis-based board members called the meeting planner to complain about the venue. Her exact words to me were “he says it’s very dangerous and that we might get shot.” His words were louder than ours, and the event was ultimately moved inside a hotel.
That was unfortunate but not everyday. Several years ago, a group was looking at both Memphis and Orlando for its annual meeting. They came to Memphis first. We met them at the airport and gave them the VIP treatment from start to finish. Then they went to Orlando where they had to take a cab to the hotel, as no one thought they were important enough to pick up at the airport personally.
In the cab, they asked the taxi driver what was great about Orlando and that they were thinking of holding a meeting there next July. His response? “Why on earth would anyone want to meet in Orlando in July? It’s so miserable and hot here.” Unfortunately for Orlando, this group’s first impression was their last.
Walking The Walk
Don’t get me wrong: This can certainly happen in Memphis. But thanks to the Leadership Academy, they have plans with the MCVB and the Chamber to work with local cab companies to empower drivers with positive information and dialogue.
We know it to be true but sometimes it bears repeating: We don’t always put into action what’s best.
Memphians can be our own worst enemy in promoting our city. Most of us don’t know or don’t believe all of the positive things it has to offer: unique things like 13 James Beard honored chefs; a Mobil Travel Guide four-star hotel and restaurant; the tripadvisor.com number one ranked zoo in the country; world class ballet, symphony, opera, art museums and theatre companies; Ben Cauley, an original BarKay who survived Otis Redding’s fatal plane crash, plays guitar at the Corky’s in the Memphis International Airport; and speaking of music, there’s Elvis, Stax, Sun Records and Ardent Studios. Plus, Memphis has the distinction of being mentioned in the lyrics of more songs than any other city in the world…899 songs, in fact, and that just goes to 2008.
This week’s GEP Summit allows us to introduce Memphis to a new audience, and in return, we believe this will bring even more meetings and event business to our city. We know that the city we love continues to grapple with challenges that must be surmounted but we’ll keep preaching the gospel about all of the things we believe make Memphis one of the most unique and remarkable places on the planet.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Memphis Neighborhoods Among Most Dangerous
Memphis made a top 25 list, but unfortunately, it wasn’t one we wanted to be on.
We had two neighborhoods in the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in the U.S. - #11 (Bellevue Boulevard/Lamar Avenue) and # 7 (Warford St/Mount Olive Road.
The rankings were compiled by WalletPop based on the exclusive neighborhood crime information from NeighborhoodScout.com. NeighborhoodScout.com said it collects data from all 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
Based on that data, the two Memphis neighborhoods cracked the top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods. Dallas and Kansas City also had two neighborhoods on the list and Chicago had four.
The most dangerous neighborhood, according to the listing, is in a Cincinnati where people have a 1 in 4 chance of being a victim of crime.
In Memphis, the Bellevue area has a 1 in 8 chance of becoming a victim of crime, and in the Warford area, it is 1 in 7.
That compares with a 1 in 64 chance in our entire city. According to NeighborhoodScout, Memphis is safer than 2% of the cities in the U.S. (with more than 25,000 population). In the city rankings, Memphis is #41 behind cities like Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Tampa and Salt Lake City with 218 crimes per square mile, compared to 323 per square mile in Atlanta. The U.S. average is 49.6.
Nashville was not in the top 100 most dangerous cities.
Closer to home, West Memphis is the 74th most dangerous city in the U.S. where there is a 1 in 57 chance of becoming a crime victim.
While there has been some marginally good news on the crime-fighting front lately, it’s unlikely to get significantly better any time soon. The unemployment rate for Shelby County is 9.6%, but in Memphis, 1 out of 3 people in the labor force is either unemployed or not looking for work any longer.
We had two neighborhoods in the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in the U.S. - #11 (Bellevue Boulevard/Lamar Avenue) and # 7 (Warford St/Mount Olive Road.
The rankings were compiled by WalletPop based on the exclusive neighborhood crime information from NeighborhoodScout.com. NeighborhoodScout.com said it collects data from all 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
Based on that data, the two Memphis neighborhoods cracked the top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods. Dallas and Kansas City also had two neighborhoods on the list and Chicago had four.
The most dangerous neighborhood, according to the listing, is in a Cincinnati where people have a 1 in 4 chance of being a victim of crime.
In Memphis, the Bellevue area has a 1 in 8 chance of becoming a victim of crime, and in the Warford area, it is 1 in 7.
That compares with a 1 in 64 chance in our entire city. According to NeighborhoodScout, Memphis is safer than 2% of the cities in the U.S. (with more than 25,000 population). In the city rankings, Memphis is #41 behind cities like Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Tampa and Salt Lake City with 218 crimes per square mile, compared to 323 per square mile in Atlanta. The U.S. average is 49.6.
Nashville was not in the top 100 most dangerous cities.
Closer to home, West Memphis is the 74th most dangerous city in the U.S. where there is a 1 in 57 chance of becoming a crime victim.
While there has been some marginally good news on the crime-fighting front lately, it’s unlikely to get significantly better any time soon. The unemployment rate for Shelby County is 9.6%, but in Memphis, 1 out of 3 people in the labor force is either unemployed or not looking for work any longer.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Herenton Resignation Ushers In Political Junkie Heaven
It seems that a lot of people won’t believe Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton is really leaving City Hall until he turns in his keys July 10.
Such is the mystique of unpredictability that surrounds him. Although reports of a resignation have circulated and sounded firm for weeks, there were still people at the City Hall press conference who half expected him to announce that he was appointing a new chief administrative officer.
Because of his dominating presence over the city he has served, it is almost impossible to imagine a post-Herenton Memphis, and passions for and against him are so strong that it will probably rest ultimately with historians to sort out his record time in the mayor’s office.
There are those who think that his political base suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, and there are those who are equally convinced that his critics refuse to recognize that he is truly a fighter for people who have shared his life experience, particularly his hard scrabble upbringing, and his overachieving career.
No Time For Eulogies
There’s little time for reflecting on the Herenton legacy any way, since the line forms on the right for the covey of candidates quequing up for an October election that has a timeline that seems more akin to Great Britain politics.
The mayor’s announcement was reminiscent of the funeral of a county elected official where his potential successors solicited votes in the shadow of the casket. The difference today is that Mayor Herenton is no political corpse, and absent action by the never ending federal investigation, his odds for taking the oath of office as a freshman Congressman are awfully good.
His resignation has produced the political equivalent of a dam bursting. With the pressure soon unleashed, candidates seemed to come out of the woodwork – a couple of them serious candidates, more of them engaged in wishful thinking and even more floating trial balloons that will soon float to the ground.
There are two things you can never have enough of in a campaign - time and money. This time around, candidates will find themselves without enough of either. The candidates who have the power to raise the kinds of money that will be needed to mount a serious campaign – particularly against the popular favorite, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton – can be counted on one hand (with several fingers left over).
Tag Team Match
In a normal election, before ramping up the media saturation in the last couple of months, candidates take a year (or more) to raise money and set up their ground campaigns. This time around, they will need to out fund raise Mayor Wharton, a considerable hurdle to clear.
With such an abbreviated schedule, the combination of Mayor Wharton’s fundraising abilities and his high approval ratings presents a formidable challenge, because it means that an opponent needs to raise more money than he does if that person is going to position himself/herself and to compete in the air wars.
Because of the short fuse for this election, the advantage goes to candidates who can raise money, who have an existing citywide campaign structure, a strong base and high favorability. Those are tough objectives in campaigns four times longer than the upcoming mayor’s race.
Put simply, the overall campaign objective will be for opponents of Mayor Wharton to bring down his favorable ratings, and to this end, he is said to be preparing for the cadre of contenders to alternate between acting as a tag team attacking him and a Greek chorus describing what they want the audience to believe the drama means.
The Fun Begins
They are counting on Mayor Wharton’s reputation as measured and cautious to keep him off balance, but the Wharton team say they relish the chance for him to show “the real A C.” “People underestimate him because they think he’s dispassionate. We can’t wait.”
It promises to be the most interesting six months in modern Memphis political history. We can’t wait. This is going to be so much fun.
Here’s our post from a couple of weeks ago about the selection process:
Reports about an imminent resignation by Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton are rumbling again, and this time around, they seem to have more credence than before.
But with Mayor Herenton, we’ve learned to believe it when we see it, but if he steps aside, it will have far-reaching ramifications – for not just who follows him as city mayor but who gets elected county mayor.
His political friends report that the lack of passion in City Hall is quickly being replaced with the energy triggered by a potential race for U.S. Congress against two-term incumbent Steve Cohen.
The Contest
Despite the breathless coverage by the media, we are a long way from having any idea how that race is likely to shake out. The poll headlined by Channel 5 showing Rep. Cohen trouncing Mayor Herenton was specious and has little connection with the reality of the situation.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Mayor Herenton still has a strong base, and the race for Congress between two political veterans – one who’s a master of the sound bite and another whose mastery runs more to biting when least expected – is likely to be a street fight to the death.
At this point, the main questions are how early will the mayor play the race card – or if he will leave it to be played by others – and how early the congressman will bedevil him with his patented barbs designed to either draw laughs or blood.
Swimming Upstream
Congressman Cohen already expects to swim against a strong political current in favor of returning an African-American to the congressional seat in a majority African-American district. In turn, Mayor Herenton should expect to confront an opponent who raises more money than he does and can point to African-American colleagues in Congress who have lauded his work.
But this election is still more than a year away – a lifetime in politics – and a great deal can change, notably Mayor Herenton’s legal status as the federal investigation continues.
More current are the dominoes that will fall if Mayor Herenton steps down within weeks to concentrate on his race for Congress and a new business arrangement with one of his sons.
Options And Plenty Of Them
But we want to talk about mayors’ elections, so consider what happens if the mayor resigns. If Mayor Herenton steps down next month or August, his successor will be chosen in a special election in October or November respectively. Immediately upon the mayor leaving office, Memphis City Council Chairman Myron Lowery would be appointed as interim mayor, and the special election scheduled within 90 days.
At this point, he’s planning to run for mayor, and the prospects of yard signs, “Keep Lowery as Mayor,” are pretty appealing, as well as the ability to leverage the city’s most important bully pulpit as he campaigned.
That said, it’s obvious that a special mayor’s election in such short order favors the person with the county’s highest approval ratings and the deepest campaign pockets – A C Wharton. He would be formidable in the best of circumstances, but in an election called with such a short fuse, it would take lightning striking for him to lose.
One Scenario
We know there is the speculation that the mayor’s race will attract a cavalry of candidates, and as the electorate is divided up like a pie with too many people at the table, Mayor Wharton’s slice will shrink, allowing former Council member Carol Chumney to ease into office. All things are possible in politics but it’s not a prediction to which we subscribe for a variety of reasons, including his ability to attract both black and white votes and that the other candidates are largely fighting for the same votes.
It’s our sense that anyone trying to undercut Mayor Wharton will need to raise at least 50% more than his campaign budget and with only 90 days to do it, the points go to the candidate with a proven ability to raise big money and with an existing war chest.
Assume we’re right: Mayor Herenton resigns and Mayor Wharton is elected city mayor in October. His victory immediately opens up the county mayor’s seat, and the chairman of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners fills in temporarily.
County Options
At this point, the next chair of the legislative body – whose term begins Sept. 1 - is expected to be Joyce Avery, now chairman pro tempore. She would serve for 45 days, upon which time an interim mayor would be elected by the board of commissioners. Commissioner Sidney Chism is interested in running for the next chairman pro tempore and using it as a springboard for the appointment as interim mayor.
All in all, a Herenton exit now is a near miss for the current chair of the board of commissioners, Deidre Malone, a leading candidate for county mayor. Filling in as the 45-day mayor with hopes to create some momentum if appointed interim mayor, her campaign would have been jump started with a head start for the mayor’s race.
It would probably have been tough since Commissioner Chism is backing former state legislator and Bartlett banker Harold Byrd, and he’d try to block her appointment. (On the other hand, it’s just as likely that she’ll work hard to block him being named to the same position.)
Post-Republican Era
Whoever is elected as interim mayor by the board of commissioners, that person will serve until September 1, 2010, when the winner in the county general election takes office as Shelby County’s fifth mayor.
Interestingly, on that same August 5, 2010, ballot will be the election that will be a magnet for large Democratic turnout – the Cohen-Herenton Congressional battle. The returns 14 months from now will ratify the proposition that if we are not in fact in a post-racial world, our community is indeed in a post-Republican world.
It could even make for a difficult race for two-term sheriff Mark Luttrell, and it makes Attorney General Bill Gibbons’ campaign as the Republican candidate for governor an even greater long shot.
And as has been the case for 17 years, everything seems to start with Mayor Herenton.
Such is the mystique of unpredictability that surrounds him. Although reports of a resignation have circulated and sounded firm for weeks, there were still people at the City Hall press conference who half expected him to announce that he was appointing a new chief administrative officer.
Because of his dominating presence over the city he has served, it is almost impossible to imagine a post-Herenton Memphis, and passions for and against him are so strong that it will probably rest ultimately with historians to sort out his record time in the mayor’s office.
There are those who think that his political base suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, and there are those who are equally convinced that his critics refuse to recognize that he is truly a fighter for people who have shared his life experience, particularly his hard scrabble upbringing, and his overachieving career.
No Time For Eulogies
There’s little time for reflecting on the Herenton legacy any way, since the line forms on the right for the covey of candidates quequing up for an October election that has a timeline that seems more akin to Great Britain politics.
The mayor’s announcement was reminiscent of the funeral of a county elected official where his potential successors solicited votes in the shadow of the casket. The difference today is that Mayor Herenton is no political corpse, and absent action by the never ending federal investigation, his odds for taking the oath of office as a freshman Congressman are awfully good.
His resignation has produced the political equivalent of a dam bursting. With the pressure soon unleashed, candidates seemed to come out of the woodwork – a couple of them serious candidates, more of them engaged in wishful thinking and even more floating trial balloons that will soon float to the ground.
There are two things you can never have enough of in a campaign - time and money. This time around, candidates will find themselves without enough of either. The candidates who have the power to raise the kinds of money that will be needed to mount a serious campaign – particularly against the popular favorite, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton – can be counted on one hand (with several fingers left over).
Tag Team Match
In a normal election, before ramping up the media saturation in the last couple of months, candidates take a year (or more) to raise money and set up their ground campaigns. This time around, they will need to out fund raise Mayor Wharton, a considerable hurdle to clear.
With such an abbreviated schedule, the combination of Mayor Wharton’s fundraising abilities and his high approval ratings presents a formidable challenge, because it means that an opponent needs to raise more money than he does if that person is going to position himself/herself and to compete in the air wars.
Because of the short fuse for this election, the advantage goes to candidates who can raise money, who have an existing citywide campaign structure, a strong base and high favorability. Those are tough objectives in campaigns four times longer than the upcoming mayor’s race.
Put simply, the overall campaign objective will be for opponents of Mayor Wharton to bring down his favorable ratings, and to this end, he is said to be preparing for the cadre of contenders to alternate between acting as a tag team attacking him and a Greek chorus describing what they want the audience to believe the drama means.
The Fun Begins
They are counting on Mayor Wharton’s reputation as measured and cautious to keep him off balance, but the Wharton team say they relish the chance for him to show “the real A C.” “People underestimate him because they think he’s dispassionate. We can’t wait.”
It promises to be the most interesting six months in modern Memphis political history. We can’t wait. This is going to be so much fun.
Here’s our post from a couple of weeks ago about the selection process:
Reports about an imminent resignation by Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton are rumbling again, and this time around, they seem to have more credence than before.
But with Mayor Herenton, we’ve learned to believe it when we see it, but if he steps aside, it will have far-reaching ramifications – for not just who follows him as city mayor but who gets elected county mayor.
His political friends report that the lack of passion in City Hall is quickly being replaced with the energy triggered by a potential race for U.S. Congress against two-term incumbent Steve Cohen.
The Contest
Despite the breathless coverage by the media, we are a long way from having any idea how that race is likely to shake out. The poll headlined by Channel 5 showing Rep. Cohen trouncing Mayor Herenton was specious and has little connection with the reality of the situation.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Mayor Herenton still has a strong base, and the race for Congress between two political veterans – one who’s a master of the sound bite and another whose mastery runs more to biting when least expected – is likely to be a street fight to the death.
At this point, the main questions are how early will the mayor play the race card – or if he will leave it to be played by others – and how early the congressman will bedevil him with his patented barbs designed to either draw laughs or blood.
Swimming Upstream
Congressman Cohen already expects to swim against a strong political current in favor of returning an African-American to the congressional seat in a majority African-American district. In turn, Mayor Herenton should expect to confront an opponent who raises more money than he does and can point to African-American colleagues in Congress who have lauded his work.
But this election is still more than a year away – a lifetime in politics – and a great deal can change, notably Mayor Herenton’s legal status as the federal investigation continues.
More current are the dominoes that will fall if Mayor Herenton steps down within weeks to concentrate on his race for Congress and a new business arrangement with one of his sons.
Options And Plenty Of Them
But we want to talk about mayors’ elections, so consider what happens if the mayor resigns. If Mayor Herenton steps down next month or August, his successor will be chosen in a special election in October or November respectively. Immediately upon the mayor leaving office, Memphis City Council Chairman Myron Lowery would be appointed as interim mayor, and the special election scheduled within 90 days.
At this point, he’s planning to run for mayor, and the prospects of yard signs, “Keep Lowery as Mayor,” are pretty appealing, as well as the ability to leverage the city’s most important bully pulpit as he campaigned.
That said, it’s obvious that a special mayor’s election in such short order favors the person with the county’s highest approval ratings and the deepest campaign pockets – A C Wharton. He would be formidable in the best of circumstances, but in an election called with such a short fuse, it would take lightning striking for him to lose.
One Scenario
We know there is the speculation that the mayor’s race will attract a cavalry of candidates, and as the electorate is divided up like a pie with too many people at the table, Mayor Wharton’s slice will shrink, allowing former Council member Carol Chumney to ease into office. All things are possible in politics but it’s not a prediction to which we subscribe for a variety of reasons, including his ability to attract both black and white votes and that the other candidates are largely fighting for the same votes.
It’s our sense that anyone trying to undercut Mayor Wharton will need to raise at least 50% more than his campaign budget and with only 90 days to do it, the points go to the candidate with a proven ability to raise big money and with an existing war chest.
Assume we’re right: Mayor Herenton resigns and Mayor Wharton is elected city mayor in October. His victory immediately opens up the county mayor’s seat, and the chairman of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners fills in temporarily.
County Options
At this point, the next chair of the legislative body – whose term begins Sept. 1 - is expected to be Joyce Avery, now chairman pro tempore. She would serve for 45 days, upon which time an interim mayor would be elected by the board of commissioners. Commissioner Sidney Chism is interested in running for the next chairman pro tempore and using it as a springboard for the appointment as interim mayor.
All in all, a Herenton exit now is a near miss for the current chair of the board of commissioners, Deidre Malone, a leading candidate for county mayor. Filling in as the 45-day mayor with hopes to create some momentum if appointed interim mayor, her campaign would have been jump started with a head start for the mayor’s race.
It would probably have been tough since Commissioner Chism is backing former state legislator and Bartlett banker Harold Byrd, and he’d try to block her appointment. (On the other hand, it’s just as likely that she’ll work hard to block him being named to the same position.)
Post-Republican Era
Whoever is elected as interim mayor by the board of commissioners, that person will serve until September 1, 2010, when the winner in the county general election takes office as Shelby County’s fifth mayor.
Interestingly, on that same August 5, 2010, ballot will be the election that will be a magnet for large Democratic turnout – the Cohen-Herenton Congressional battle. The returns 14 months from now will ratify the proposition that if we are not in fact in a post-racial world, our community is indeed in a post-Republican world.
It could even make for a difficult race for two-term sheriff Mark Luttrell, and it makes Attorney General Bill Gibbons’ campaign as the Republican candidate for governor an even greater long shot.
And as has been the case for 17 years, everything seems to start with Mayor Herenton.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Spinning A Webb Of Misinformation
It was a match made in heaven.
The worst Tennessee Legislature in memory advised on charter schools law by the specious superintendent of Shelby County Schools, Bobby Webb.
Fortunately, in the midst of its gun fetish exhibitionism, the Legislature found time to reverse course on a proposed amendment to Tennessee’s restrictive charter schools laws.
In keeping with the mantra of the educational bureaucrats, Mr. Webb was critical of charter schools generally and the motivations of their supporters specifically. His intemperate – not to mention uninformed – comments made their way to today’s front page of The Commercial Appeal where he dug the hole even deeper.
Red Scare
It’s hard to know exactly where to start since his remarks managed to question the integrity of charter advocates – which include all kinds of people and organizations – and the intelligence of school-age parents who overwhelmingly support charter schools.
He called charter schools a “fad” (remember when educators called pre-K the same) and said, “It’s about private entities trying to get their hands on millions and millions of public dollars. That’s all it’s about.” Not to be outdone, the county district’s board chairman David Pickler, who’s always able to spot a Communist under every bed, added for effect: “Be aware of the trend generating here.”
It would be laughable except that these are the people who are supposed to really understand public education and to be looking out for the interest of every child. However, as usual, to them, it’s all about control, authority and political advantage.
The Party Line
It’s incredible how quickly the litany can begin:
* Charter schools undermine public schools (even though charter schools are public schools)
* Charter schools “cherry pick” students (even though state law requires them to educate failing students or students from failing schools)
* Charter schools take money from public schools (even though they educate students cheaper – they’re supposed to be funded at the same level as public schools but Memphis City Schools shortchanges them)
* Our state doesn’t need more charter schools because we are doing so well on our state assessment tests (even though repeated research has shown that our TCAP and Gateway tests are a farce)
Supt. Webb vs. Secretary Duncan
And yet, Mr. Webb treats the children in our classrooms as props in his political theater where the aim is to protect teachers from more accountability, fight any innovations that aren’t invented by him and reject any solutions that come from nontraditional sources.
These days, however, people like Mr. Webb aren’t arguing with the many local people and organizations working every day to give parents options for their children’s education. More to the point, they are arguing with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who called for less restrictive charter laws.
In a column written with Tennessee Senator and former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, Secretary Duncan wrote: “We have seen the potential that charter schools can have in getting results for American students. As the debate over public charter schools moves forward across the country and in Tennessee, we must stay focused on the core issue, which is educational quality, not government.”
The question for Mr. Webb is this: if you are right about charter schools, why is Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash opening his own and why is the Democratic Secretary of Education calling for more?
Getting The Facts Right
Repeating the old apophthegm, Mr. Webb said charter schools are reducing public school resources. If he believes it, he needs to sign up for remedial math.
If there are about 3,000 charter school students in a district (as in Memphis City Schools), that means there are 3,000 fewer students in traditional schools. As we wrote 18 months ago, about $3,000 less is spent per charter school student in the city district than a traditional school student, or about $9 million a year for 3,000 students. So, actually, right now, traditional public schools here have more money, not less.
In Tennessee, charter schools are public schools. For example, the charter schools in Memphis are part of Memphis City Schools. In return for its contract, or charter, it has more autonomy than traditional schools, and because it is allowed more flexibility, it can experiment with changes that can be applied to the entire district (that is if the district would quit treating charter schools like the enemy), but along the way, it must also comply with many rules and regulations of the city schools district.
And yet, Mr. Webb suggested that charter schools are poor public policy. We are hard-pressed to understand how anything that gives parents more choices – something they clearly want, according to polling – for their children’s education is bad. It just indicates how out of touch the educational politicians are with the people who entrust them to do what is best for their children.
Proof Positive
According to results of the Stanford 10, a nationally normed achievement test taken by KIPP DIAMOND Academy students annually, fifth graders entering KIPP in the fall of 2007 were outperforming only 18 percent of students nationally in reading. By the end of the school year, however, KIPP DIAMOND’s fifth graders were outperforming 42 percent of the national norm group in reading.
In mathematics, the scores climbed from the 21st to 49th percentile; in language arts, the scores rose from the 17th to 53rd percentile; in science, the scores jumped from the 17th to 44th percentile; and in social studies, the scores rose from the 19th to 51st percentile. Nationally, more than 80 percent of the students from KIPP schools attend college while fewer than one in five low-income students typically do.
Public charter schools have been frequent subjects for much debate over the past 15 years, and frequent objects of broad knee-jerk screeds by academicians who see everything that doesn’t originate within the hallowed halls of public education as the enemy.
Large government bureaucracies often act like organisms that see innovations as viruses they must attack. That's why so many promising ideas are suffocated in their infancies, and it’s also why Mr. Webb was caught holding the pillow over the crib.
The worst Tennessee Legislature in memory advised on charter schools law by the specious superintendent of Shelby County Schools, Bobby Webb.
Fortunately, in the midst of its gun fetish exhibitionism, the Legislature found time to reverse course on a proposed amendment to Tennessee’s restrictive charter schools laws.
In keeping with the mantra of the educational bureaucrats, Mr. Webb was critical of charter schools generally and the motivations of their supporters specifically. His intemperate – not to mention uninformed – comments made their way to today’s front page of The Commercial Appeal where he dug the hole even deeper.
Red Scare
It’s hard to know exactly where to start since his remarks managed to question the integrity of charter advocates – which include all kinds of people and organizations – and the intelligence of school-age parents who overwhelmingly support charter schools.
He called charter schools a “fad” (remember when educators called pre-K the same) and said, “It’s about private entities trying to get their hands on millions and millions of public dollars. That’s all it’s about.” Not to be outdone, the county district’s board chairman David Pickler, who’s always able to spot a Communist under every bed, added for effect: “Be aware of the trend generating here.”
It would be laughable except that these are the people who are supposed to really understand public education and to be looking out for the interest of every child. However, as usual, to them, it’s all about control, authority and political advantage.
The Party Line
It’s incredible how quickly the litany can begin:
* Charter schools undermine public schools (even though charter schools are public schools)
* Charter schools “cherry pick” students (even though state law requires them to educate failing students or students from failing schools)
* Charter schools take money from public schools (even though they educate students cheaper – they’re supposed to be funded at the same level as public schools but Memphis City Schools shortchanges them)
* Our state doesn’t need more charter schools because we are doing so well on our state assessment tests (even though repeated research has shown that our TCAP and Gateway tests are a farce)
Supt. Webb vs. Secretary Duncan
And yet, Mr. Webb treats the children in our classrooms as props in his political theater where the aim is to protect teachers from more accountability, fight any innovations that aren’t invented by him and reject any solutions that come from nontraditional sources.
These days, however, people like Mr. Webb aren’t arguing with the many local people and organizations working every day to give parents options for their children’s education. More to the point, they are arguing with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who called for less restrictive charter laws.
In a column written with Tennessee Senator and former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, Secretary Duncan wrote: “We have seen the potential that charter schools can have in getting results for American students. As the debate over public charter schools moves forward across the country and in Tennessee, we must stay focused on the core issue, which is educational quality, not government.”
The question for Mr. Webb is this: if you are right about charter schools, why is Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash opening his own and why is the Democratic Secretary of Education calling for more?
Getting The Facts Right
Repeating the old apophthegm, Mr. Webb said charter schools are reducing public school resources. If he believes it, he needs to sign up for remedial math.
If there are about 3,000 charter school students in a district (as in Memphis City Schools), that means there are 3,000 fewer students in traditional schools. As we wrote 18 months ago, about $3,000 less is spent per charter school student in the city district than a traditional school student, or about $9 million a year for 3,000 students. So, actually, right now, traditional public schools here have more money, not less.
In Tennessee, charter schools are public schools. For example, the charter schools in Memphis are part of Memphis City Schools. In return for its contract, or charter, it has more autonomy than traditional schools, and because it is allowed more flexibility, it can experiment with changes that can be applied to the entire district (that is if the district would quit treating charter schools like the enemy), but along the way, it must also comply with many rules and regulations of the city schools district.
And yet, Mr. Webb suggested that charter schools are poor public policy. We are hard-pressed to understand how anything that gives parents more choices – something they clearly want, according to polling – for their children’s education is bad. It just indicates how out of touch the educational politicians are with the people who entrust them to do what is best for their children.
Proof Positive
According to results of the Stanford 10, a nationally normed achievement test taken by KIPP DIAMOND Academy students annually, fifth graders entering KIPP in the fall of 2007 were outperforming only 18 percent of students nationally in reading. By the end of the school year, however, KIPP DIAMOND’s fifth graders were outperforming 42 percent of the national norm group in reading.
In mathematics, the scores climbed from the 21st to 49th percentile; in language arts, the scores rose from the 17th to 53rd percentile; in science, the scores jumped from the 17th to 44th percentile; and in social studies, the scores rose from the 19th to 51st percentile. Nationally, more than 80 percent of the students from KIPP schools attend college while fewer than one in five low-income students typically do.
Public charter schools have been frequent subjects for much debate over the past 15 years, and frequent objects of broad knee-jerk screeds by academicians who see everything that doesn’t originate within the hallowed halls of public education as the enemy.
Large government bureaucracies often act like organisms that see innovations as viruses they must attack. That's why so many promising ideas are suffocated in their infancies, and it’s also why Mr. Webb was caught holding the pillow over the crib.
Electing To Disclose Public Records
Anybody who can take on Wal-Mart and win is special in our books, but Brian Stephens isn’t through yet.
As a new member of the Shelby County Election Commission, he’s about to do something way too rare in local government. He’s about to make public records public.
If we had a dollar for every time someone in local government talked about transparency, we could actually afford government websites that provided it.
At this point, it’s hard to escape the feeling that the incomprehensible, clumsily navigable websites aren’t just the result of incompetency or lack of interest. They are exactly what government wants – a digital wall that discourages true citizen participation and places that so rarely offer public information that most of us just avoid them.
Whole Lot Of Shaking
For that reason, it’s worth celebrating when a significant step is taken forward. If his fellow election commissioners agree with Mr. Stephens this week, for the first time, the financial disclosure reports filed by each candidate with the Election Commission will be put online.
It will end decades-old tradition in which all of us who have been involved in campaigns trekked to the Election Commission to ask for hard copies of the disclosure reports. Yes, they were public records, but we still had to identify ourselves so that elected officials could be notified who was looking at their list of financial contributors.
In this way, the Election Commission in the past has always seemed more about the elected than the electors, and it’s also why some recent changes made by the commissioners to shake up the culture of the agency were not only welcome, but overdue.
We’re not saying that the Election Commission website will win any awards, because like all local governmental websites here, it’s pretty basic. However, if the Election Commission wanted to send a message, there isn’t one with more impact than this one, because it signals that there is a new willingness to give the public the information that they need to evaluate candidates, to see who contributes to them and to see who they are beholden to.
Obfuscation
It sounds like the posting of the financial disclosure forms may be the first of the innovations undertaken by the Commission, and that’s really good news. After all, a large part of our community questions the fairness that must be at the heart of our electoral process, so a prime responsibility of the present members of the Commission is to strengthen it.
Best of all, we hope that the Election Commission can raise the bar for all of city and county government when it comes to public records. It’s amazing to us that the public agencies waiving property taxes are not required to post a list of all tax freezes and the justifications for them.
It’s confounding that there is no simple-to-understand, easy-to-use budget for either government on-line. Apparently, someone in the respective finance offices believes that the average Memphian has the knowledge of a CPA. They would call on us to plow through the hundreds and hundreds of pages in the budgets of city and county governments.
It’s easy to see that the websites do much more obfuscation than education.
So Old School
At a time when some governments have added blogs and twitter to their digital arsenal, it’s as if Memphis and Shelby County are still living in the 1980s. The dead giveaway is that the websites seem more designed to satisfy political egos than to serve the public.
Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as the economic stimulus program, it’s fairly easy these days to see which governments possess the talents and the platform for communicating effectively with their citizens.
Some cities like Cincinnati have created websites that track its ARRA funding and provide the details about the projects. This level of transparency is in keeping with the mandate of the Obama Administration’s directives to state and local governments for ARRA transparency.
Here, the stimulus program seems as clear as the Mississippi River. No one seems able to tell us how much money our community has received, where it’s going to be spent, what are the objectives that are trying to be achieved and when will the projects be completed.
Misspent
This historic funding from the federal government offered us a chance to catapult ahead of our peer cities if we could be strategic in the investment of the money. Instead, there is the pervasive fear that the money is being spent with little overall philosophy or strategic goal.
Then, there are the normal sources of frustration, such as the city engineer, who could actually use some of the money to ramp up the bike lane plans for Memphis but instead is expected to give little attention to the need for walkable, bikable neighborhoods.
But back to transparency. In an April 30 letter to the city and county mayors, officials with the state comptroller’s office fired a warning shot about governments that treat ARRA as a blank check. “Local governments should recognize that the accountability and transparency requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not allow for business as usual,” the letter said. “Governments that do not comply with ARRA provisions may be required to repay ARRA grants.”
More pointedly, the letter cautioned: “ARRA is not the answer to local government budget problems.” We have heard reports that some local agencies are treating ARRA as “found” money, substituting it for capital funding already in their budgets. This too is a short-signed approach, because ARRA is intended to give local governments a chance to pursue bolder, more strategic projects, say, for example, here, it could be to launch a serious sustainability effort.
Online
As for the websites of local government, federal law requires for them to have specific information and to be “transparent.” So far, things here have been perfunctory but if local government is going to get a handle on stimulus funding, they better do it soon.
As the federal law states clearly, failure to comply with the law’s requirements will result in the repayment of the federal money. Already, federal officials have made it clear that this is no idle threat.
Maybe, our local officials should see if there’s any federal money to upgrade our public websites so that we can do online anything we can do in a government office and that all public records are put online where we can see them.
The days of going to the Election Commission to get financial disclosure forms is likely to come to a close shortly. If we’re lucky, perhaps, soon to follow is the rule of the city and county attorneys’ offices that we have to write letters requesting copies of public records. Instead, they should just be put online.
As a new member of the Shelby County Election Commission, he’s about to do something way too rare in local government. He’s about to make public records public.
If we had a dollar for every time someone in local government talked about transparency, we could actually afford government websites that provided it.
At this point, it’s hard to escape the feeling that the incomprehensible, clumsily navigable websites aren’t just the result of incompetency or lack of interest. They are exactly what government wants – a digital wall that discourages true citizen participation and places that so rarely offer public information that most of us just avoid them.
Whole Lot Of Shaking
For that reason, it’s worth celebrating when a significant step is taken forward. If his fellow election commissioners agree with Mr. Stephens this week, for the first time, the financial disclosure reports filed by each candidate with the Election Commission will be put online.
It will end decades-old tradition in which all of us who have been involved in campaigns trekked to the Election Commission to ask for hard copies of the disclosure reports. Yes, they were public records, but we still had to identify ourselves so that elected officials could be notified who was looking at their list of financial contributors.
In this way, the Election Commission in the past has always seemed more about the elected than the electors, and it’s also why some recent changes made by the commissioners to shake up the culture of the agency were not only welcome, but overdue.
We’re not saying that the Election Commission website will win any awards, because like all local governmental websites here, it’s pretty basic. However, if the Election Commission wanted to send a message, there isn’t one with more impact than this one, because it signals that there is a new willingness to give the public the information that they need to evaluate candidates, to see who contributes to them and to see who they are beholden to.
Obfuscation
It sounds like the posting of the financial disclosure forms may be the first of the innovations undertaken by the Commission, and that’s really good news. After all, a large part of our community questions the fairness that must be at the heart of our electoral process, so a prime responsibility of the present members of the Commission is to strengthen it.
Best of all, we hope that the Election Commission can raise the bar for all of city and county government when it comes to public records. It’s amazing to us that the public agencies waiving property taxes are not required to post a list of all tax freezes and the justifications for them.
It’s confounding that there is no simple-to-understand, easy-to-use budget for either government on-line. Apparently, someone in the respective finance offices believes that the average Memphian has the knowledge of a CPA. They would call on us to plow through the hundreds and hundreds of pages in the budgets of city and county governments.
It’s easy to see that the websites do much more obfuscation than education.
So Old School
At a time when some governments have added blogs and twitter to their digital arsenal, it’s as if Memphis and Shelby County are still living in the 1980s. The dead giveaway is that the websites seem more designed to satisfy political egos than to serve the public.
Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as the economic stimulus program, it’s fairly easy these days to see which governments possess the talents and the platform for communicating effectively with their citizens.
Some cities like Cincinnati have created websites that track its ARRA funding and provide the details about the projects. This level of transparency is in keeping with the mandate of the Obama Administration’s directives to state and local governments for ARRA transparency.
Here, the stimulus program seems as clear as the Mississippi River. No one seems able to tell us how much money our community has received, where it’s going to be spent, what are the objectives that are trying to be achieved and when will the projects be completed.
Misspent
This historic funding from the federal government offered us a chance to catapult ahead of our peer cities if we could be strategic in the investment of the money. Instead, there is the pervasive fear that the money is being spent with little overall philosophy or strategic goal.
Then, there are the normal sources of frustration, such as the city engineer, who could actually use some of the money to ramp up the bike lane plans for Memphis but instead is expected to give little attention to the need for walkable, bikable neighborhoods.
But back to transparency. In an April 30 letter to the city and county mayors, officials with the state comptroller’s office fired a warning shot about governments that treat ARRA as a blank check. “Local governments should recognize that the accountability and transparency requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not allow for business as usual,” the letter said. “Governments that do not comply with ARRA provisions may be required to repay ARRA grants.”
More pointedly, the letter cautioned: “ARRA is not the answer to local government budget problems.” We have heard reports that some local agencies are treating ARRA as “found” money, substituting it for capital funding already in their budgets. This too is a short-signed approach, because ARRA is intended to give local governments a chance to pursue bolder, more strategic projects, say, for example, here, it could be to launch a serious sustainability effort.
Online
As for the websites of local government, federal law requires for them to have specific information and to be “transparent.” So far, things here have been perfunctory but if local government is going to get a handle on stimulus funding, they better do it soon.
As the federal law states clearly, failure to comply with the law’s requirements will result in the repayment of the federal money. Already, federal officials have made it clear that this is no idle threat.
Maybe, our local officials should see if there’s any federal money to upgrade our public websites so that we can do online anything we can do in a government office and that all public records are put online where we can see them.
The days of going to the Election Commission to get financial disclosure forms is likely to come to a close shortly. If we’re lucky, perhaps, soon to follow is the rule of the city and county attorneys’ offices that we have to write letters requesting copies of public records. Instead, they should just be put online.
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