Full Frontal Assault On SOB's Is Called For If Change Is Going To Come

Yesterday, Memphis City Council and Shelby County Board of Commissioners had one of their infrequent joint meetings to discuss a bothersome issue for Memphis – the S-O-B’s.

The news they got was B-A-D.

In this case, we’re referring to S-O-B’s as in sexually-oriented businesses. The news from the consultants hired by the Office of Planning and Development was startling: Memphis is in the top three cities in the U.S. for “anything goes” in its sex clubs.

It’s not what the local legislators were expecting to hear, judging from the grim looks and incredulous comments. But then again, it’s been one of the worst-kept secrets in Memphis that strip clubs here are famous for their uninhibited, graphic behavior.

Over the years, there’s been periodic talk about regulating SOB’s, but it always fades away as suddenly as it begins. Normally, the public’s ire about this issue is raised when a business considers a suburban location. A double standard is seen when it comes to the rest of the city, and despite the talk, there’s been very little done to control the clubs on any level.

Three-time Loser

In that regard, Memphis is a three-time loser, failing in regulation, licensing and zoning. Put simply, it should really come as no surprise that things are completely out of control.

The nationally prominent consultants, after visiting Memphis’s sex clubs, said that Memphis is in the major leagues in public obscenity. Few cities rival ours, and the consultants’ recent work in Detroit showed that the city pales in comparison to Memphis.

In the clubs here, sex is ever present and ever available -- any kind, any way, any cost.

If you want food, you go to the kitchen and order it from the cook, because the woman serving your table is delivering services, but it’s not food. There is “full body contact” between male customers and female dancers on stage, frequently moving to a back room to complete the exchange of cash and bodily fluids.

In other words, if you’re wondering what takes place in these clubs, let your imagination run wild. You’re probably not imaginative enough to compile the list of activities taking place there.

The problem is basic. There are no checks and balances and no serious consequences in the current regulatory system.

Beer Board

The Memphis Beer Board – the regulatory body over these clubs – repeatedly slaps club owners on the wrists, collects the fines that it needs for its operations and sends the club owner back to his business. To the club owner, the fine is just another routine cost of business.

Unlike some cities, in Memphis, there is no “three strikes and you’re out” regulation, but even if there were, it’s hard to see the Beer Board applying it.

Here’s the normal scenario: someone is arrested inside a club for drugs or prostitution, usually by one of the only seven vice officers with Memphis Police Department. Notification of the arrest goes to the beer board, which shows a lack of concern that is as much of its make-up as its politically appointed members.

The Beer Board is headed up by Reginald French, plugged-in political operative and Democratic candidate for Shelby County Sheriff. Past performance of the board certainly does nothing to polish his law and order credentials.

Lessons from other cities show that the ones that have been effective in handling the SOB’s rely on a combination of aggressive enforcement of criminal obscenity laws and the type of stringent regulations that the consultants have written for other locales.

National Consultants

Eric Kelly and Connie Cooper, the consultants advising city and county planners on a course of action to control these clubs, have national credentials, and their work has been instrumental in other cities successfully balancing First Amendment issues with the interest of a community to regular SOB’s.

In fact, they wrote the book on this problem. Literally. It’s titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Regulating Sex Businesses,” and it was released by the American Planning Association.

They tends to reject the term “adult entertainment,” a marketing term invented by the pornography industry, in favor of sexually oriented businesses, because it provides a useful acronym for these enterprises, which pose public health and safety hazards.

They describe activities in Memphis clubs as coming close to legalized prostitution, and it is this aspect of the clubs’ operations that are most troublesome, because two clubs are owned by rival gangs whose dancers may be coerced into working there.

They acknowledge that municipalities can’t legally prohibit sexually oriented businesses from building within their borders, but they can regulate where they are built, such as in commercial or industrial areas and away from schools, parks, playgrounds and churches.

Themes

Although recommendations from Mr. Kelly and Ms. Cooper won’t be presented until next month, several themes have already emerged in meetings discussing what could be done to help with this problem in Memphis. One, regulatory oversight should be removed from the ineffectual Beer Board and given to a public agency prepared to enforce and punish; two, existing zoning ordinances need to be fine tuned to restrict the location of these clubs and their operations; and three, clubs should be required to get a license or permit.

Surprisingly, none of the clubs is required to get a permit to get into the sex business. The required permit is to sell beer and food only, although the dancers have to get a permit. To compound enforcement efforts, if codes enforcement officials cite the businesses into court for violations, the maximum fine that can be levied against them is $50, because the Tennessee Legislature has refused to allow higher fines for code infractions.

Meanwhile, there are primary three local owners of these SOB’s, and they interchange ownership frequently with quit claim deeds so that codes regulations can’t be enforced in any meaningful way. Every time property ownership is changed, the clock starts running all over again.

Change

In other words, there are plenty of changes that need to be made if Memphis is to get serious about these problems, but the ability of cities to have some control over these businesses has widened as a result of U.S. Supreme Court rulings over the past 20 years.

Lately, the Office of Planning and Development has been showing a more aggressive side in its leadership, bringing in nationally known experts to help with issues from tax freezes to Broad Street revitalization to a new development code to sexually-oriented businesses. But high-quality information means nothing if elected officials don’t act on it.

Mr. Kelly and Ms. Cooper have exposed the ugly underbelly of Memphis to the light, and hopefully, government officials will take strong action to control the illegal activities in these clubs. Not only is it needed to address public health and safety issues, it’s needed to eradicate the ugly whispers in the halls of government about influence exerted by these club owners.

In the end, that’s the most insidious problem of all.

New Orleans' Lessons Could Have Memphis Applications

The following is the City Journal column in the May issue of Memphis magazine by Smart City Consulting's Tom Jones:

Spray painted on a New Orleans wharf warehouse near the Lower Garden District: “Next time, we vote for somebody who cares.”

Nearby, inside the 79-year-old po’ boy restaurant, Domilise’s, Karen, a petite 63-year-old with deep family roots in Louisiana, says: “Our form of government doesn’t work anymore, and it’s not worth saving. When there’s no accountability and no responsibility, what good is it?”

The room nods in agreement. No one even bothers to narrow it down to a specific government. Every one seems to agree that it applies to all of them – federal, state and city.

There’s an air of revolution in the small, cramped restaurant. It’s not that such emotions are unusual for New Orleans. Rather, it’s the sense that people aren’t going to take it any more and mean to change things.

Turnaround

It’s a dramatic turnaround for New Orleans, where the air has always been heavy with the aroma of good food and with fatalism about public corruption. The city has always been the city equivalent of an Internet chat room, where people could reinvent themselves and their past. This time, the people seem determined instead to reinvent the city and its future. Activist groups are springing up with a regularity usually reserved for new restaurants.

After initial resistance, Governor Kathleen Blanco was met with a blistering assault from the Citizens for One Greater New Orleans, and she reversed course, leading the fight to reform the levee boards that had come to symbolize all that is wrong with New Orleans government – favoritism and corruption, ineffective and short-sighted.

The “One Voice” movement also got the attention of Mayor Ray Nagin, businessman turned government reformer, who supported the group early and often. However, he was assailed by many for his clumsy political rhetoric and his lack of understanding that being mayor is more about being a leader than a manager. Many of the grassroots activists are campaigning against his reelection.

But the most intense vitriol is aimed at the federal government, and rather than ebbing over time, it seems to grow in intensity as headline after headline chronicles federal officials who are out of touch and inept, giving Congressional elections new importance. Leading the charge is the Times-Picayune, a powerful reminder of the impact that exceptional newspaper reporting and impassioned editorial writing can have.

Why does this matter to Memphis?

Because we’ve always had more in common with New Orleans than river and music. Frequently, we’ve looked to the Big Easy to glimpse into the future. Because of the strikingly similar demographics in Memphis and New Orleans, that city has always been the place where we could look to see what could happen if we didn’t deal with problems. No matter how bad poverty, teenage pregnancy, student performance, infant mortality or the disparity between white and black family incomes were in Memphis, we could always count on it being worse in New Orleans.
Now, all that has changed.

For the first time, we may be able to look to New Orleans for something other than a worst case scenario. Yes, there are the obvious lessons that apply to us, such as the need for a disaster communications system based on up-to-date, reliable technology; completion of the emergency preparedness plan that seems to be never ending and for seamless coordination between our troubled Homeland Security Office and our undermanned Emergency Management Office.

Big Picture

Beyond these kinds of lessons, however, New Orleans is a petri dish for innovations in city-building. The “big picture” issues pivotal to a 21st century New Orleans are just as pivotal to our city:

· Make its future known for smart growth, rational land use and high-quality design

· Create a shared vision for economic development that shifts the economy from low-skill to high-skill and from tourist-centric to talent-centric

· Enact a development code that binds together a city too often divided by race and that encourages density and mixed use, mixed income, walkable neighborhoods

· Capitalize better on universities as engines of economic growth and innovation and as neutral ground where unifying plans for the city can be developed

· Encourage newfound citizen involvement by formalizing a process that invites new voices and new people into the public process

· Build a wireless city where connectivity and communications – keys to the future - are omnipresent

· Anchor the future in today’s musicians by providing housing incentives, practice space and financing

· Build a “green,” environmentally sensitive ethos seen in planning, energy efficiency, construction codes, architecture and a network of parks and outdoor recreation

· Build a transportation system that emphasizes bicycles as much as streetcars and includes a light rail system

In the end, for New Orleans to succeed, it must raise the bar. Blown away with half of the city was citizen apathy, and Katrina left New Orleanians with little choice but to rethink how they want to live in their city and how to make it happen. Maybe Memphis can learn enough from its sister river city to start building a future of innovation on our own. Pre-earthquake.

Agricenter President Could Usher In A New Era Of Communication and Cooperation

John Charles Wilson is a breath of fresh air.

In an interview with The Commercial Appeal, the president of Agricenter International admits what others there have refused to face for years. The facility’s founding vision and promises have failed.

In describing what was supposed to be a national center for agricultural technology and research, Mr. Wilson told about how much children enjoy the place today – with its pay-to-fish lake, its eight-acre corn maze, its fishing rodeo and his community outreach programs to teach forestry and farming to students.

While all of these activities sound like fun, it vividly paints the portrait of a facility that fits more into the framework of a regional park than an isolated facility commanding 1,000 acres of public land like a feudal lord.

Justification

Of course, no one at Agricenter mentions any more their 1981 justification for public funding: Agricenter International will be a “regional resource and technological center for all aspects of agriculture…a showplace for cutting edge technology and equipment…a repository for information in a state-of-the-art data bank…a prominent center for innovative research…the site for permanent and changing exhibits…and the host/sponsor/organizer for significant agricultural conferences, seminars and conventions on emerging themes.”

Now, cheerleaders for the facility have lowered their sights, pointing to its importance in giving kids a chance to experience farm life. Left unsaid is why that requires 1,000 acres of the county’s most prized land at Shelby Farms Park, or if this is the highest and best use of a building that’s received more than $20 million in public subsidies.

Once the organization was disconnected from the financial artery of county government about 10 years ago, Agricenter International could no longer count on deficit funding each year from the public sector, and in its haste to reinvent itself, it floundered for years before it arrived at its present focus anchored in youth activities.

A Mixed Bag

It still has its mixed bag of events held in the building. Most have only tenuous connections to its agricultural mission. Lately, one of its biggest events was the Southern Women’s Show, and the newspaper coverage said that 22,000 people in three days attended the show. What it failed to mention is that Agricenter International stole the event from the Memphis Cook Convention Center, where it had previously been held. This in turn reduced revenues at the convention center, a building where the city and county governments are still responsible for deficit funding.

We are told that events rentals account for about 33 percent of the facility’s revenues; office rent accounts for about 20 percent; 10 percent from crops and the remainder from miscellaneous activities.

In its Valentine to the Agricenter, The Commercial Appeal quoted the economic impact study by Younger and Associates that the Agricenter generates $527 million in economic spin-offs. It makes that same firm’s prediction that the NBA would produce more than $1 billion in economic impact almost seem reasonable.

Based on the facility’s annual revenues of roughly $2.5 million, it would mean more than a 250:1 return on investment. Besides demonstrating once again how utterly meaningless these economic impact studies are, the report is merely a distraction from key decisions that need to be made about Agricenter’s future.

Over the years, Agricenter has shown an institutional inclination to stonewall any questions about accountability, shift in mission, iron-gripped control over the 1,000 acres or even modest proposals for greater coordination between the operations of the park and the facility.

Staying Alive

But our intent is not to beat up Agricenter International. That’s much too easy. Our purpose is to acknowledge that it is in fact an organization trying to stay alive despite the failure of its original mission. That happens to a lot of organizations, and even critics of the facility have to admire Wilson’s dogged determination to find a niche and his enthusiasm for his job.

However, it does seem time to address some critical questions about Agricenter International.

For example, it’s time for Shelby County Government to re-visit the resolution which turned over 1,000 acres to the organization. The fruits of that resolution -- a hodgepodge of buildings creating an eyesore along Germantown Road, a desolate RV park, a decrepit old farmer’s market building, an architecturally jarring ShowPlace Arena, and a series of buildings whose who look no more permanent that the trailers parked nearby – call out for a fresh look at the relationship between county government and Agricenter and a more logical allotment of public land.

Mr. Wilson exhibits rare honesty in explaining Agricenter’s activities, so perhaps, his leadership can usher in a new era of openness in considering these issues.

Memphis' Best Future Begins With A Dose Of Reality

Memphis is in trouble.

There, we’ve said it. Please tell us we’re wrong.

We have traditionally been dependable cheerleaders for Memphis, but right now, we’re hard-pressed to feel like our team is even in the major leagues, much less competing there.

This jolt of reality slapped us in the face when we read Forbes’ always influential rankings of the “Best Places: 200 Places Rated For Business.”

It wasn’t pretty.

Sometimes in Memphis, it’s as if we’re the city equivalent of the frog sitting in the pot on the stove as the water gets warmer and warmer until it’s boiled to death.

We rationalize away the low Milken ranking or a poor showing on another competitive list. We justify our lack of impact on the “Places Rated” types of rankings. We dismiss a negative Tennessee study or a national Brookings report.

All the while, we’re slowly boiling to death.

The Forbes magazine jolted us off the stove.

Of the 200 largest metro areas, Memphis ranks 98th on the list of “the best metros,” according to Forbes. As a wake-up call, just consider that Nashville is in the top 10 – ranked at # 7.

Span of Success

But it’s not just our natural competitiveness when it comes to Nashville. It’s the impressive performance by a number of places located roughly between the 34th and 36th latitudes.

Besides Nashville, there’s Raleigh at # 2, Durham at # 8, Charlotte at # 24, Asheville at # 24, Knoxville at # 5, Fayetteville at # 9, Little Rock at # 22. Tulsa at # 43 and Oklahoma City at # 13. Albuquerque ranks # 1.

Yet, as your eyes sweep eastward to westward along this “span of success,” there is Memphis, mired down in 98th place. A non-player. A no-show in the big leagues. A non-factor in business decision-making.

And yet, Memphis is not mired down in the bottom rungs in all categories. We’re in the top 10 in one. Unfortunately, it’s the list of the most crime-ridden cities. Only one other metro area in the entire U.S. has more crime. We are # 2.

In the past, I admit that I’ve tried to justify the impact of these devastating crime statistics by pointing at Atlanta, which has always been a hub for economy vibrancy and a magnet for talent, although it’s had one of the highest crime rates in the country for years. Yet, I realize that I’m only whistling in the graveyard.

The difference between Atlanta and Memphis is in national positioning. Atlanta has a news network broadcasting from its headquarters there, it’s constantly held up for the lessons of its economic boom, it has the nation’s most impressive park project under way and it never seems to rest on its laurels.

Information about Memphis comes largely from articles and lists like the one in Forbes. There is little countervailing information about Memphis, so our city becomes defined by the negative, defined by others.

We know it’s not all bad news. Memphis Bioworks Foundation is doing impressive things. St. Jude’s is known for its breakthrough research. FedEx is well, FedEx, and thank God it’s located here (although it has boosted operations in other cities because of workforce issues here). There are some nationally significant innovations on public issues inspired by the philanthropic community. The Memphis Regional Chamber’s new leadership grasps the importance of our city having strategies to attract talent.

Fundamental Problems

That said, the mayor is essentially invisible, emerging periodically to announce that he’s running for reelection and talking about his legacy. Sadly, it seems that the more he talks about his legacy, the worst it gets.

Rather than investing taxes to strengthen our urban core, our elected officials made the choice to take these taxes and use them to pay for sprawl that is financially and socially devastating. In other words, Memphians have been made to pay for the policies that led to the deterioration of their own neighborhoods.

We worry about the infrastructure for a distribution economy when we need to create infrastructure for a knowledge economy at a global scale. We have a propensity for chasing low-wage, low-skill jobs and even rewarding them with tax freezes in an age when cities competing globally are doing it with high-skill workers. We are obsessed with competing with DeSoto County when we need to be considering ways to compete with regions on other continents.

We have no over-arching public policy vision, complete with action steps and measurements. Crime is a good example, where we’re lulled to sleep by the barrage of press releases out of the state attorney general’s office and the lack of leadership from the director of police. No one seems to care that the birthright for young black boys in this city is jail, not college, and that there are ways to deal with the symptoms, not just the causes. Through it all, there’s no demand for action or attention from City Hall.

List after list of urban indicators paints the picture of Memphis as a troubled city, and we continue to drop in key benchmarks.

Boiling Water

So, why did we feel the water beginning to boil?

We just attended a national meeting of urban leaders for about two dozen cities. They talk of innovation, they talk of new public policy, they talk about new thinking and they describe bold, new actions that they’re taking.

They look blankly when Memphis comes up in conversation. It’s as if either Memphis doesn’t exist on their landscape of progressive cities, or they’ve already given us up for dead.

And yet, there much that can be done to turn things around.

But the first thing we have to do is to realize that the water is boiling.

Need For Coalition For A Better Memphis Extends Beyond Election Season

Primary elections are about a candidate identifying a base and talking about the red meat issues that its members care about. The general election is about broadening the base to appeal to more than the true believers.

Unfortunately, in county elections here, we rarely have the second phase, because districts are so carefully drawn to preordain them to one political party or the other. As a result, there’s normally not even a challenger from the other political party in places like the Republican suburban district or the Democratic urban district.

This is why while there are 13 county commissioners, only three have opposition on the August general county ballot, and political insiders only see a serious contest in one of them.

As a result of the party interests institutionalized by the partisan county elections, candidates normally are frozen in the first phase of a campaign, the part known for its partisan rhetoric, such as every Democrat railing against privatization or every Republican promising to lower taxes.

Unfortunately, because there’s normally no general election where candidates from both parties compete to sell their differing viewpoints, there’s little pressure for most candidates to move beyond the partisan rhetoric to develop substantive plans for Shelby County Government.

We never learn how the Democrat plans to hold down the costs of government if an operational option like privatization is summarily taken off the table. We never learn how the Republican is going to vote against every tax increase while encouraging suburban sprawl.

It was in response to this parallel universe that The Coalition for a Better Memphis was created and why it is such a welcome development. This year, as promised, the Coalition “qualified” candidates running for county commissioners and announced their “grades.”

But, perhaps, The Coalition for a Better Memphis would serve the community’s interests best if it did more than just weigh in at election time. Rather, it could seriously elevate the political debate if it stayed engaged after the election, pressing winners for detailed plans of action.

So far, in the interview process, some candidates have gotten away with offering up the normal hyperboles and vague (if sometimes conflicting) promises. It happens when the questions are general and the grading process isn’t precisely spelled out. (In some races, it was arguable that candidates got the highest grades when they said the least.)

Backers of the Coalition concede that the organization has some work to do before its next entry into the election process, however, it was a promising first step that the Coalition took with the county commissioners’ elections.

Yes, in truth, its impact was probably limited, and there are deep suspicions by some political activists that the endorsements were predetermined. But such complaints were also heard when the Committee for a Better Atlanta – the prototype for the Memphis group – began its work there. The complaints were expected as a byproduct of a political scene that breeds conspiracies by the hour.

That said, for the most impact, the Coalition should make the interviewing and grading process as transparent as it can so candidates and voters understand the context that it’s using to determine if a candidate is answering “right” or not.

Back to our point about the Coalition staying engaged after the election, let it be said that whatever the Coalition can do to stimulate greater interest in local elections and increase understanding of what’s at stake is good. It’s clear that Memphis has a cancerous voter confidence problem. In the county primary elections, the turnout didn’t even manage to break into double digits.

Perhaps, if we want to engage the voters, accountability must become more than just an election cycle issue. Perhaps, the Coalition could truly transform the civic discussion by reporting back to the voters on a regular basis about whether politicians are doing what they promised.

The upside to this is that it would require every candidate who becomes an elected official to offer up specific, measurable plans for the future. It’s would no longer be enough for a candidate to answer a question about economic development by saying that he’s for more economic growth, fine turning tax freezes and looking closely at smart growth. Instead, he would have to say what he would precisely do to improve the use of tax freezes and to make growth financially sustainable.

There are no serious accountability in the process now, and the media do not seem inclined to play this role in a structured way. Here's a vacuum that the Coalition could fill, and in doing it, it would fulfill the full potential of its founding vision.

Libertyland And Coliseum Futures Must Hit Civic Targets

Everybody’s all for government acting more businesslike until it affects their special cause. This comes to mind when we listen to some of the arguments from grassroots leaders who insist that Libertyland and the Mid-South Coliseum must remain open.

We applaud their willingness and their determination to have a voice in the public decision-making process. It’s just hard to see how they end up on the “winning” end of this debate.

First of all, there is the deliberate, inexorable movement by city government to cut expenses. The current budget woes demand it, but in addition, that’s what we voters kept telling city officials like Chief Financial Officer Robert Lipscomb that we wanted.

The city owns 60 percent of the Coliseum and apparently most of Libertyland, and it leans toward closing both and using the land for development that would be an anchor for rebirth of the area.

With the neighborhood redevelopment plans of the University of Memphis on the east and the Fairgrounds redevelopment on the west, this critical section of Memphis could then get the economic shot in the arm that it deserves. When you consider the growing strength of Cooper-Young, it is not hard to imagine a completely new set of uses for the Fairgrounds property that could bridge Cooper-Young and the neighborhoods just to the east of the Fairgrounds all the way to the U of M.

Fairgrounds Redevelopment

Redevelopment of the Fairgrounds creates a 365-day-a-year force for improvement, rather than the intermittent bursts of activity at the Coliseum and Libertyland, the deteriorating buildings whose highest and best use seems to be as sites for flea markets, and the expansive (and empty) asphalt parking lots that stretch for blocks.

In the end, discussions about future uses of the Fairground property, including Libertyland and Coliseum, need to centered on identifying the uses that can strengthen the adjacent neighborhoods, spark new investments in the area, spur economic growth and stabilize and increase property taxes.

The current uses just don’t hit the mark on any of these.

If the current uses are to remain, it seems to mean that government must throw good money after bad at the Coliseum, where the deficit now is about $400,000, and it must adopt Libertyland from the Mid-South Fair, which has been paying the thumbnail theme park’s deficits for years.

City of Memphis officials have been driving these key decisions, but a sense of urgency has developed around the Coliseum when county government announced that it wouldn’t pay its 40 percent of the deficit, causing the city to announce that the building would be closed. However, since that announcement, Mayor A C Wharton, after a meeting with renters of the building yesterday, now seems to be reconsidering. It has all the appearances of the classic political dilemma in these joint city-county projects. In truth, none of the staff on either side of Main Street thinks that it makes any sense to keep the Coliseum open, but neither side wants to be the ones that take responsibility for locking its doors.

Bring A Check

And yet, the problem seems simple. If all these tenants, who are imploring Mayor Wharton to keep the building open, want to make it happen, they need only come up with a plan for the rents to be raised to cover the $400,000. That of course isn’t practical, but then again, there are no practical options for the building’s future in the first place.

Consultants told the city and county six years ago that the building should be shuttered, unless there is someone who wants to buy it, operate it and pay all expenses. Nothing has changed, and if that recommendation had been followed, city and county governments would already have saved several millions of dollars.

Keep in mind that the city and county governments don’t pay the operating deficit at FedEx Forum, and it seems to be a prevailing trend in city governments around the country to get out of the building management business. It’s just not something government is good at.

If proponents for keeping the Coliseum open are to gain any traction in their arguments, they need to develop a more persuasive case. The justifications that the city needs the Coliseum because some renters need fewer seats or can’t afford more rent doesn’t really move opinion on this issue. After all, government – more precisely, we taxpayers - doesn’t have the obligation to operate venues of various sizes solely to satisfy the particular needs of a specific tenant, whether it is the jury commissioner or the Liberty Bowl’s pregame buffet.

In the end, like most things, it comes down to money. The public has been telling government for years that it should act more like a business. The balance sheet is bleeding red ink, and unless someone can submit a funding plan along with their petitions, this discussion is actually over.

We’re just going through the motions until the inevitable (and logical) choice is made by city government – to redevelop the property in a way that creates more stability and economic growth for this key section of the city.

Headline-making Events At Memphis City Schools

They won’t get headlines in the newspaper or be tonight’s “big story” on television news, but nonetheless, some national programs recruited to Memphis and transplanted into Memphis City Schools are producing “stop the presses” kinds of results.

Of course, anything that can be filed under a heading as portentous as “cultural transformation” discourages media interest from the get-go. They take longer than 20 seconds to explain, they have no red meat conflict and no emblematic event that’s a compelling visual image.

It’s a shame, because wonkish as they may seem, these are marquee programs with a singular focus – to improve students’ grades and change the culture of the large bureaucratic organization that is the nation’s 18th largest school district.

That’s precisely what’s being done by a triumvirate of programs recruited to Memphis in the past 24 months after national competitions – New Leaders for New Schools, The New Teacher Project and Teach For America. They are supplemented by other influential initiatives like the Harvard University Public Education Leadership Project and University of Memphis New Teacher Center.

Taken together, they form one of the nation’s most interesting, most closely watched school reform programs. They also symbolize everything that Superintendent Carol Johnson is trying to accomplish in her vision of Memphis City Schools as an innovator for U.S. urban school districts.

Already, New Leaders for New Schools has turned out 18 graduates who are uniquely qualified to become principals and assistant principals. In a nutshell, the program is producing a new breed of principals who are trained to be leaders, not managers. Instead of being trained to make sure the buses arrive and leave on time, their success is graded on their ability to improve the academic performance of students.

The principal leadership program chose Memphis in early 2004 after a national competition, and Memphis joined Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago as part of the New Leaders program. With more than half of all Memphis City Schools’ principals eligible for retirement in the next five years, this program has a historic opportunity to change the school district school by school.

As part of the agreement to get New Leaders for New Schools to Memphis, these specially-trained principals are given greater autonomy over school decision-making. The selection process is national in scope, and it is as rigorous as one conducted by FedEx for a key executive position. Selection is followed by six weeks of intense training and a year’s residency with a high-performing principal.

In addition to leadership in the principals’ offices, The New Teacher Project and Teach For America are meanwhile improving the quality of teachers recruited and hired for the classrooms of Memphis City Schools.

The New Teacher Project began its work in December, 2004, and Teach For America was announced a few weeks ago and will place its first teachers in city schools this fall.

Teach For America, the national corps of top college graduates who commit to two years as a teacher in high-poverty public schools, will start with 50 teachers. But by next fall, it will have 100 teachers in under-performing schools where they can make the most difference and create a culture of reform.

The program recruits nationally and selects recent college graduates from major universities. Last year, 17,000 applicants vied for 2,000 teaching spots, with 12 percent of Yale’s senior class and eight percent of Harvard’s and Princeton’s. Locally, Rhodes College has always been an active partner in the program. The 2005 profile of incoming teachers showed an average GPA of 3.5, and in addition, 93 percent held leadership positions in their schools or communities.

Teach For America builds on the momentum created by The New Teacher Project, which is proving that the conventional wisdom that Memphis City Schools can’t recruit high-quality teachers is just dead wrong. Building on its report, Missed Opportunities, The New Teacher Project believes that with good recruiting, up-to-date technology, efficient human resources system and better data, urban school districts can successfully recruit better teachers.

So far, in Memphis, it’s proving to be true. Already, The New Teacher Project has:

1) Restructured Memphis City Schools’ human resources department
2) Created the first online application and computerized tracking
3) Created the first teacher recruitment website - Teach Memphis, Change Memphis
4) Doubled the number of applications – from 1,519 to 3,464
5) Increased the grade point average of applicants from 2.87 to 3.10
6) Increased applicants with previous experience to 60 percent, reducing the reliance on new, inexperienced teachers
7) Quadrupled the percentage of applicants with advanced degrees from 10 percent to 41 percent

To us, that last statistic is most dramatic of all. Research and common sense tell us that the single most critical factor affecting a student’s academic performance is the quality of his teacher. Last year, The New Teacher Project recruited and selected just under 400 new teachers for Memphis City Schools, and with current attrition rates in city schools, the program has the opportunity to have impact in the short-term by hiring a cadre of better educated, smarter, more experienced teachers for our city classrooms.

The reason all of this came to mind was because of an op-ed column by Nicholas D. Kristof in Sunday’s New York Times. He wrote about the need to remove obstacles for people who want to teach, but who do not have a teaching diploma. As the column pointed out, Colin Powell and Meryl Streep are considered “unqualified” today if they wanted to teach social studies or drama, because of the archaic teaching certification program that lies at the heart of our system of public education.

The columnist said that just to keep student-teacher ratios where they are now, the U.S. needs a 35 percent increase in the number of people entering teaching. He also emphasized that between 1971-74, 24 percent of teachers scored in the top 10 percent on their high school achievement tests, but now, only 11 percent do.

To complicate things even more, not only are there fewer 25-34 year-olds now than 15 years ago – three million fewer – but women are the most-educated, most entrepreneurial demographic group. As a result, there are fewer women choosing to enter a profession that has been historically dominated by them.

In other words, the U.S. faces a critical shortage of teachers, and districts across the country are waging recruiting wars for applicants. Who would have ever believed that Memphis City Schools wouldn’t be the district to come up empty-handed?

It just proves once more that many times the really important progress being made in this city doesn’t even hit the media radar, but nonetheless, these are milestones that shouldn’t just be reported, but celebrated.

Transportation Breaks Don't Build Great Cities Like They Once Did

The following column is from Otis White's Urban Notebook. Otis is a regular contributor on Smart City each week, and his daily missives are instructive to anyone who cares about cities. This one on multi-modal centers and the changes that make them less attractive as economic engines has special importance to Memphis.

New Breaks in Transportation

Transfer Points for the Global Economy

There are several academic theories about why big cities are where they are. One is called the break-in-transportation theory. It's easy to grasp: Where large volumes of goods come in on one form of transportation and are transferred to another, cities grow. In past centuries, these transportation breaks gave us Chicago (lake steamers to trains), New York (ocean ships to trains, river barges and coastal vessels), and New Orleans (river barges to ocean ships). Interestingly, these shipping breaks are still building cities, though not as powerfully as they once did, and now they tend to be on the edges of metropolitan areas.

The great growth in freight these days is in containerized shipping. A manufacturer in Thailand places TVs for the American Midwest in a 40-foot metal container. The container is loaded on a freighter bound for Oakland, Calif. There, it's plucked off the ship and loaded on a truck that takes it through the city to an outlying rail hub like Stockton, Calif., where it's placed on a freight train, which hauls it across the country to a rail hub in the Midwest like Rochelle, Ill. In Rochelle, it's again placed on a truck, which drives it to a distribution center, where the container is opened and the TVs routed on smaller trucks to individual stores.

Two things stand out in this journey: First, the breathtaking efficiency of it. Except for a possible customs inspection or security scan, the container goes straight from Bangkok to a distribution center in suburban Chicago without ever being opened. This is how the global economy works these days. Second, there are at least three breaks in transportation inside the U.S. (ship to truck in Oakland, truck to rail in Stockton, rail to truck in Rochelle). Hence, three opportunities for urban growth.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at one of these transfer points recently, the small city of Rochelle, where three years ago the Union Pacific railroad built a giant rail-to-truck complex (transportation professionals call these "intermodal inland yards"). The Rochelle yards are hardly a thing of beauty. Set on two square miles, the complex is surrounded by earthen berms that shield 23 rail tracks. Big cranes lift containers off the trains and plop them on the back of trucks. This is not an industry every city could accommodate (requirements: a major freight line or two and direct access to an interstate highway; nice to have: proximity to a major metro area).

Nor is it the kind of industry some cities would welcome. Union Pacific approached two cities closer to Chicago in the late 1990s; they said no thanks. (Perhaps they feared the traffic and noise. The yards are at only 18 percent capacity and already 500 trucks a week roll in.) So the company built in Rochelle, 80 miles from the city.

Rochelle's business leaders are delighted with the growth the yards are bringing. Big distribution centers are popping up nearby, people are moving in (population, which grew very little in the 1990s, is up 3,000 since 2000 to 54,000) and restaurants are thriving, the Journal said. And there's almost certainly more growth ahead. "The rock is just penetrating the pond, so to speak, to start the ripples," one civic leader told the newspaper. Land prices are rising; so is the city's tax base.

And yet there's a difference between these transportation breaks and the ones that created great cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The real value then was the manufacturing that sprang up nearby. Goods were expensive to ship in those days, so most shipping was raw materials - rubber from the Far East, cotton from the American South, grain from the Midwest and so on. When these materials reached a place like Chicago or New York, they were used to make tires, clothes and refined wheat, which were then placed on the final leg of the trip to the consumer.

Transportation costs have dropped precipitously in the last 50 years, so now it's cheaper to make TVs in Bangkok and ship them to the other side of the world than to import the parts to Rochelle and make TVs there. Hence, there's growth near these transfer points, but it's not the kind that creates large and prosperous communities anymore. "Distribution isn't a high-labor activity," one logistics consultant told the Journal. "It's not a manufacturing plant."

Spirit of '76

Memphis Magazine, in its 30th anniversary issue in April, began a new monthly column, City Journal. Here's the inaugural installment by our colleague Tom Jones:

City Journal

It was 1976, and the decline of Memphis had ended. Unfortunately, it was because we had hit bottom.

The economy languished; the Chamber of Commerce flirted with bankruptcy and its last campaign, Believe in Memphis, had fallen flat; Beale Street was boarded up; downtown was on life support; Stax Records was shut down; and the closed Peabody Hotel was a potent reminder of Memphis’ flagging confidence in itself.

And yet, there’s nothing like a crisis to inspire new thinking.

As a result, young Turks conceived a new festival called Memphis in May. Other Memphians laid the groundwork for what became the Center City Commission. A small group began to talk about creating a new generation of leaders, giving birth to Leadership Memphis. City Hall fleshed out plans to buy and revive Beale Street. A new, improved Shelby County Government launched, complete with its own mayor. A fledgling company called Federal Express picked up momentum after erecting its first drop box. Some civic-minded Memphians published the inaugural issue of City of Memphis.

Back then, Memphis was all about survival, and that’s why the most important milestone wasn’t a new program, project, or political office. Rather, it was an obsessive determination - equal parts faith and desperation - to fight for Memphis’ future.

It was a sense of urgency that is all too rare in the life of Memphis. Today, there’s less of a feeling that we are facing history-altering choices, but it remains no less true.

Here’s a half dozen issues we could begin to address today in the name of Memphians 30 years from now:

Reinvent the local tax structure. In a survey of 51 cities – Washington, D.C., and the largest city in each state – Memphis has the third most regressive tax structure in the nation. That’s why the ultimate answer to current government budget catastrophes lies in an overhauled tax structure (such as requiring the 88,000 non-residents who work in Shelby County to contribute to the public services they benefit from), not in patching up revenue shortfalls with new taxes that perpetuate the existing reality of families earning $25,000 a year paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than families earning $150,000.

Stake the future on quality, not cheapness. To compete in the global economy, Memphis can’t sell itself at a discount – cheap workers, cheap land, and cheap costs. The city-county tax freezes program, which is waiving more than $50 million in taxes, is more entitlement than incentive, given even to companies paying food stamp wages. In the global economy, strategies to “out cheap” Bangladesh or India are a race to the bottom. Memphis’ competitive advantage has to be quality – research universities, highly-skilled workforce, efficient government, and attention to design.

Develop a greenprint. More and more, the future is shaped by a heightened environmental consciousness, and knowledge economy workers are drawn to cities with a “green” ethos. Few cities could compete with Memphis if it created a seamless system linking Wolf River Greenway, Shelby Farms Park, Memphis Greenline, and a reinvigorated downtown riverfront.

Develop an anti-sprawl plan. If words were money, rhetoric about sprawl could pay off the county debt. With the opening of Highway 385 – a worthy test case for the state transportation department’s toll road concept – sprawl is poised to get a $450 million boost. It’s not too late to do something about sprawl, but it’s perilously close. Doing nothing will bankrupt county government, create a disposable community, and hollow out urban neighborhoods and first ring suburbs.

Rationalize local government. Local governments’ current division of labor is schizophrenic, because there is no sense of what is always a city service and what is always a regional, or county, service. This confusion prevents accountability and results in Memphis taxpayers paying a disincentive to live inside the city limits. Countywide services should be shifted to the countywide tax base, more equalizing the tax rates of Memphians with their neighbors in Bartlett, Germantown, and Collierville, and allowing Memphis to compete on a level playing field.

Think and act like a region. Regions are the competitive units of the global economy, and although Memphis is now competing against regions in India and Europe, we’re still focused on competing with Northern Mississippi. This balkanizes a regional economy that is larger than nine states and dozens of Third World nations. New alliances aimed at a cooperative vision of the future begin with interests every one in the region has in common – water and air protection, an integrated communications and transportation grid, smart growth, and economic growth.

Admittedly, this is easier said than done. But if 1976 teaches us anything, it is that it can indeed be done, and maybe this time, it won’t take a crisis to make it happen.

Roadbuilders Continue To Flex Political Muscle In Nashville

When we try to “Imagine” a better future, our ambitions are much more down-to-earth than John Lennon’s. We could be content with a world where Tennessee taxpayers are as powerful as roadbuilders.

Over the years, no special interest group has had more free rein over a state budget than the Tennessee Roadbuilders Association has had over the Department of Transportation. No group is more powerful nor more responsible for the sprawl that characterizes the state’s metro areas.

We thought of this again as we read accounts of State Senator Mark Norris’ shots across the bow at Governor Phil Bredesen because the governor had the gall to shift money from the sacred coffers of the state highway fund to pay for other state services.

While Senator Norris is widely known for his thin skin and the perceived personal offenses and personal attacks that result from it, it’s discouraging to see someone who knows better engaging in such obvious political cleverness, acting as if he truly believes that the public is enraged because roadbuilding interests have seen $44 million taken out of TDOT’s budget of $1.7 billion.

It’s reminiscent of his days as a Shelby County commissioner when he, with great fanfare and a dependable façade of gravity, voted against every property tax increase and every new revenue source such as adequate facilities taxes and impact fees. The fact that this was done in spite of the fact that it was his own district, the unincorporated area and towns of Shelby County, which was largely responsible for the fiscal crisis created by sprawl and schools.

Déjà vu

It was always seen as political gamesmanship by Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout – who shared a political party but little else with then-Commissioner Norris – and it was the mayor who told anyone who would listen that Norris was the consummate political opportunist. There was no love lost by Norris either and eventually, the breach became personal, deep and wide.

That’s why Senator Norris’ defense of the powerful roadbuilders lobby in his dispute with Governor Bredesen has such a “déjà vu all over again” feel to it. At both the county and state levels, he has staunchly defended the forces of sprawl and ignored the tax burdens caused by them, all the while standing four square as a proponent for fiscal restraint.

So, what exactly is Governor Bredesen’s sin, in Senator Norris’ view? He’s had the audacity to shift $44 million in highway funds from TDOT’s budget to pay for pre-K and health care programs.

Senator Norris is the latest object lesson in the strange occurrences that take place when someone takes their seat in a state legislator’s chair. Elected to represent constituents from a specific district, so many times, a state legislator then becomes head of a committee and their primary allegiance is to the lobbyists and the industry for which they are supposed to be providing oversight.

For example, Senator Norris is chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, and suddenly, it’s as if roadbuilding is the most important function of state government, not whether his constituents are better with the services funded by the $44 million shifted in the governor’s budget.

Steaks and Bourbon

But Senator Norris shouldn’t shoulder all the blame. For decades, the Tennessee Roadbuilders Association has been buying steak dinners and copious rivers of bourbon for legislators, and even in today’s more careful environment, the lobbying group has power that is exceeds any group that more precisely represents the interests of average Tennesseeans.

In truth, this controversy isn’t about the money at all. It’s about the real currency of Nashville politics – power and control.

The shift of the money from the highway fund to other services was the first crack in the roadbuilders’ invincibility, and they are working hard to make sure it never happens again and to prove that they are still a power to be reckoned with.

Meanwhile, in Senator Norris’ district, apparently, asphalt is king, as more and more green space is covered over, as Hacks Cross Road becomes the newest incarnation of Germantown Road’s misery and as Tennessee Highway 385 spawns a new burst of sprawl that gobbles up land, duplicates infrastructure costs and increases county taxes.

To underscore the single-minded focus of the Roadbuilders Association – to line their own pockets - its iron grip on Nashville politics has made sure that state transportation policy means building more roads, never making investments in mass transit nor alternative modes of travel. Bills to make substantial investments in mass transit have routinely been choken to death by the roadbuilders association without raising a sweat.

Road Rage

This obsession with roads by one of our local senators is even more puzzling in light of the report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group that Memphis is 6th in the U.S. in the number of lanes of highways per capita, contributing to our city’s ranking as the 17th worst city for air pollution from vehicles.

Meanwhile, Shelby County was cited by the Federal Highway Administration for lack of safe alternative forms of transportation such as bike and pedestrian lanes and light rail. Also, the Federal Highway Administration’s recent report on the country’s major bottlenecks doesn’t mention Memphis even once. Rather, it points to I-24 at 440N in Chattanooga and I-40 at I-24 in Nashville as major problem areas.

It would seem to suggest that Memphis has all the roads that it needs. At the same time, we have serious needs in pre-K and health care, so if Governor Bredesen could earmark the $44 million for our community, it would be the best use of highway money we’ve gotten lately.

Some Hopeful New Energy Behind PILOT Reform

Memphis Councilman Tom Marshall's comments about changes in the PILOT program elicited an immediate response here: "Amen."

Like only a few members of our local legislative bodies, he has seemed to understood from the beginning the importance of acting on recommendations by consultants to reform the programs giving away tax freezes in a number unprecedented in the rest of the state.

Councilman Marshall rightfully observed that the City Council and County Commission members must have a voice in decisions that affect budgets, tax revenues and tax policies, all of which are in their purview. Most of all, he should be applauded for ignoring the perpetual bogeyman conjured up by real estate developers - the unverifiable notion that Memphis will be bypassed altogether by companies unless we sell ourselves at a discount.

The fact that other cities don't have to give away the store to get new companies to locate and expand there seems to be inconsequential to many of the PILOT proponents. The fact that our obsession on DeSoto County is disproportional to the problem caused by it since Memphis remains one of the most solid centers for metro jobs in the country. The fact that if we are going to talk like a region, we should walk like one, too, and quit treating adjacent counties as enemies. The fact that real estate development is far different than economic development.

As Councilman Marshall breathes a breath of fresh thinking into the PILOT deliberations, here's a quote by the widely-revered David Birch, former Harvard and MIT academician and now president of a company that advises companies on where to locate:

"The cities growing fastest right now have the highest taxes, most expensive workers, most expensive land...To say you want the cheapest worker is an old way of thinking. What you really want is a talented labor force, not the least expensive labor force." Birch says the days are over when companies selected locations for new factories or offices on the basis of where business costs are cheapest.

Or as Professor John Eger puts it: "The effort to create a 21st century city is not so much about technology as it is about jobs, dollars and quality of life. In short, it is about organizing one's community to reinvent itself for the new, knowledge-based economy and society; preparing its citizens to take ownership of their community; and educating the next generation of leaders and workers to meet these global challenges...At the heart of this effort is ultimately defining a 'creative community.'"

In the end, it seems logical that the overriding question about current tax freeze policies is whether they are encouraging the reinvention of Memphis into a creative community known for its quality and innovation. The answer seems obvious, and so then is the rationale for changes to the PILOT program.

Dylan Lyrics Are Just As Relevant Today...Unfortunately

I went to another Bob Dylan concert last night, this time, in Memphis at the Orpheum Theatre. It’s been 40 years since the first one – February 10, 1966 at the old Ellis Auditorium on the other end of downtown – when I took my new girl friend, now wife, to see him on our first date.

He came down from Nashville while recording the seminal rock music record, Blonde on Blonde, with a little-known back-up band that would become “The Band.” Those were simpler times, in an era before every movement, every set list and every word by Dylan were documented by acolytes convinced that he was singing for them. It was so early in his career that it’s impossible to find a bootleg, unlike every concert in the recent decades.

As a result, I’m not sure what Dylan sang that night, but it was in the days when he broke the concert in half – one half was acoustic, and after a break, it became the electrified half that provoked the boos and the cry of “Judas” memorialized as a defining moment in rock music history.

One of the acoustic songs on that night long ago could easily have been “Masters of War,” but when he burst into last night’s version of the classic anti-war anthem, it produced no feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality. It only provoked angst and sense of disquieting foreboding that the song remains as relevant today as he prepares for his 65th birthday next month as when he wrote it as a promising 21-year-old songwriter.

Masters of War

Come you masters of war, you that build all the guns,
You that build the death planes, you that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls, you that hide behind desk.
I just want you to know I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin' but build to destroy.
You play with my world like it's your little toy.
You put a gun in my hand and you hide from my eyes,
And you turn and run faster when the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old, you lie and deceive.
A world war can be won; you want me to believe.
But I see through your eyes and I see through your brain
Like I see through the water that runs down my drain.

You fasten the triggers for the others to fire.
Then you set back and watch when the death count gets higher.
You hide in your mansion as young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled --
Fear to bring children into the world.
For threatening my baby, unborn and unnamed,
You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins.

How much do I know to talk out of turn?
You might say that I'm young; you might say I'm unlearned,
But there's one thing I know though I'm younger than you.
Even Jesus would never forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question: Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could?
I think you will find when your death takes its toll
All the money you made will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die and your death'll come soon.
I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon,
And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave ‘til I'm sure that you're dead.

What Dylan brings to my life is something that my children’s generation will not experience, because of the realities of today’s music industry. I’ve had a single musician who has verbalized the passages through life. It’s been despairing, hopeful and joyful. It’s been poetic, personal and prophetic.

But last night, with the depth of feeling that he brought to his words, “Masters of War” was a punch in the gut.

Tax Freezes Should Have Requirements To Eliminate Hidden Costs To The Public

The interests that oppose any serious reform to local policies on tax freezes are positioned to win. At this point, all they may need to do is run out the clock.

That’s because, as one of them said in his normal, matter-of-fact candor, on September 1, two anti-tax freeze voices will leave the Shelby County Board of Commissioners – Julian Bolton and John Willingham. Both have been strong advocates for changes in the program, and at times, their frustration has even led them to suggest the abolition of the tax freezes altogether.

Meanwhile, the committee convened by the two mayors seems to be letting the air out of the ball, and its input seems to be moving closer and closer to a time when real estate developers have friendlier faces on the county’s legislative body.

As a result, the ultimate arbiter on whether there will be changes in the PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) program is Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton. In the past, he’s called for changes that inject more common sense and strategic thinking into the tax freezes, which now waive between $60-80 million in taxes a year, but if events since the consultants called for sweeping reform of tax freezes policy teaches us anything, it is that there will be a great deal of pressure exerted on him to keep the status quo. Privately, real estate developers already predict that there will no substantive changes in the policies.

But Mayor Wharton is one of those unusual elected officials who actually seems to care about policy, so look for him to take a more studied approach to the recommendations of the consultants’ report. So far, he’s managed to stay above the political fray through the appointment of the study committee and because of the focus has been on comments from the City Council and Shelby County Board of Commissioners, but his time is running out.

Setting Standards

So, while it seems increasingly certain that the final recommendations of the consultants will be watered down because of the political clout of the real estate development industry, as Mayor Wharton considers his next steps, we submit a recommendation of our own – tying incentives to wage and health benefits standards.

At least in this way we can be certain that our tax freezes aren’t going to companies who pay so poorly that we then have to subsidize their employees through public services, such as medical care and social services. This link between tax freezes and standards alone could shift the local mindset from “jobs, any kind of jobs” to “good jobs.”

While on the surface this doesn’t sound like anything drastic, it in fact would produce a sea change in our economic development strategies. After all, it’s only been a few months since the Industrial Development Board gave an eight-year tax freeze to a company paying so little that a family of three would still quality for food stamps. Under the IDB matrix, a company can now pay salaries that are only 70 percent of the per capita income for Shelby County and still get points for a tax freeze. It’s bad enough when we give our taxes away for low-wage companies, but when they don’t even hit rise to the per capita income, there’s should be a serious question about whether there is any public benefit in the public investment.

The trend toward governments setting standards that require “quality jobs” in return for business incentives is expanding. There are more than 120 governments that have attached standards to their incentives, including almost every state and about 50 local governments.

Wage and Health Care Standards

These standards are attached to every conceivable type of incentives, from tax credits to training, from industrial revenue bonds to loan programs, from enterprise zones to tax increment financing. The most common standard is on wages, but the requirement that companies must also have employer-provided health care benefits is also gaining in popularity.

Generally, wage requirements aim at more than poverty thresholds. More and more jurisdictions are requiring a living wage or requiring companies to at least pay the statewide average hourly wage plus health benefits.

While most states cite the hidden public costs as a motivator for the standards, some also say that chasing any kind of job actually contributes to a weaker community economy, because low-wage jobs routinely don’t offer training that qualifies employees for advancement. In this way, the workforce of these low-paying employers often is characterized by large-scale turnover, leading the employer to complain about the need for subsidies because of the unreliability and presence of a quality workforce.

In other words, it’s a vicious cycle, fed by incentives that are given to companies who salaries that are so low that their employees rely on the public health department and The Med for health care. In this way, while taxes are being given away on one hand, on the other hand, taxpayers are paying for public services that are essentially subsidies (rather than incentives) to the company’s bottom line.

If a company is not viable enough to pay decent salaries and provide basic benefits, why is in the public interest of Memphis and Shelby County taxpayers to subsidize them in the first place? Are these really the companies on which we want to rest the future of our economy?

In effect, these low-wage jobs have hidden costs, and as we’ve suggested before, the evaluation for all tax freezes should include a tally of all public costs, not only of roads and interchanges, but public health care costs, utility subsidies and housing assistance caused by low-wage jobs.

For example, in Minneapolis, companies seeking business incentives must provide the names of all programs to which they are applying, profiles of their workforce, projections of future wages and the total cost of public assistance for their workers. There are some who say that government shouldn’t get involved in setting standards for the paychecks of company employees. But then again, they don’t have to. All it takes is for the company not to ask for the tax freeze.

We should be well past a day when we are too embarrassed to ask companies for information to justify their requests for public subsidies or to set standards that make subsidies more palatable as public policy.

The heart of economic development is in increased opportunity, better jobs and bigger paychecks. Tax incentives should be aimed at achieving all three objectives, because if government is a party to a process that puts its own citizens in low-wage, dead end jobs, it is not just bad public policy. It is unconscionable public policy.

"Commodities' Economic Development" Limits Memphis' Future

There are times when it just seems that Memphis can’t get its economic development strategies into the 21st century. It’s as if we just don't want to compete in a knowledge economy in a global marketplace.

Our economic development strategies are caught in the commodity trap, stemming from our background as an agricultural center and continuing with our pride in being a distribution center. Our experience is in selling products that tend to be seen as commodities, to a consumer making a decision based on the lowest price.

Commodity economic development is premised on the same thing – appealing to companies who make their decisions based on the lowest prices. This kind of economic development is forever in a race to the bottom to offer the cheapest land, and the cheapest workers.

Selling Cheapness

Because our tradition is in businesses with thin profit margins, our economic development culture is one with an aversion to risk-taking, which in turns undercuts innovation and entrepreneurship. Cities with commodity mentalities think they can grow their economies with low wages, low land costs, low utilities, low taxes.

In a commodities world, these are seen as the factors that must be controlled to keep prices down. They are often cited as justification for the tax abatements that we hand out to any company that can complete the forms.

Unfortunately, when we are competing with workers in Southeast Asia, Mexico and Bangladesh, commodities economic development is doomed to failure.

Most devastating of all is that cities that are accustomed to a commodity approach to economic development are at a huge disadvantage in attracting and retaining knowledge economy workers. It is not merely a coincidence that companies like FedEx report constant problems in attracting young, mobile, highly-educated workers to Memphis and convincing executives of International Paper to move from the Northeast to Memphis has met with similar hurdles.

Rather than make the investments in the intellectual infrastructure that we need to complete for knowledge-based companies, Memphis continues to sell the infrastructure of the industrial age, at the same time that its last remnants are vanishing before our very eyes.

New Approaches

What is needed are new approaches to economic growth – approaches like economic gardening which focuses on existing entrepreneurs rather than corporate relocations, on biological models of business and entrepreneurial policy and new economic theories and philosophies.

The words of a specialist in economic gardening seem especially especially pertinent to Memphis:

“There was another, darker side of recruiting that bothered us. It seemed to be a certain type of business activity – the branch plant of industries that competed primarily on low price and thus needed low cost factors of production…cheap land, free buildings, tax abatements and especially low wage labor. Our experience indicated that these types of expansions stayed around as long as costs stayed low. If the standard of living started to rise, the company pulled up stakes and headed for locations where the costs were even lower. This was the world when we proposed another approach to economic develompent: building the economy from inside out, relying primarily on entrepreneurs.”

Survey after survey concludes that tax incentives are far down on the list of critical elements that influence companies’ decisions on locations and expansions. Much higher is the presence of a high quality of life – vibrant downtown, outdoor recreational options, rich cultural and intellectual scene and research universities.

For Memphis to succeed in today’s economy (and more importantly, tomorrow’s), it needs to base its economic development strategies on quality rather than cheapness. After all, in selling our city for its cheapness only cheapens what we have to offer in the first place.

Memphis' Creativity Gets Its Headlines

Several unique Memphis assets received coverage in national magazines that hit the stands this week. The National Ornamental Metal Museum gets the attention that it deserves in Smithsonian, while Three 6 Mafia - called instant stars - are shown in Vanity Fair at its Oscar party.

Sunday's New York Times gave prominent coverage to movie director Craig Brewer's latest, "Black Snake Moan." It's at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/movies/23john.html.

Like It Or Not, City Council And County Board Of Commissioners Have Seats At The Table In Decisions About Tax Freezes

While we’re on the subject of tax freezes (as we were yesterday), it sure looks like most of the candidates in the races for county commissioners are using the real estate developers’ talking points.

One of the questions put to candidates by the Coalition for a Better Memphis asked about their strategies to improve the county’s economic development, and it was eery how similar some of the answers were to the mantra of the real estate development community fighting any changes in the PILOT program.

For example, take Mike Carpenter, running as a candidate for Board of Commissioners’ District 1, Position 3:

“Next, the County Commission must avoid politicizing PILOTS, while balancing the need for accountability…County Commissioners, nor City Councilmen, should review and approve PILOTS. This should be left to the economic development experts on the Industrial Development Board. The County Commission could play a role in revamping the PILOT formula to give preference to economic development targets such as Biotech and Corporate Headquarters.”

Isn't that the current system, the same one that's waiving about $60 million a year?

Let’s say a couple of things for the record one more time.

One, there is no way to politicize PILOTs. They are political to their core. They exist as part and parcel of a political system. They eat and breathe politics. The notion that there are IDB officials sitting in some pristinely nonpolitical conclave making decisions on tax freezes is humorous in its naivete.

Two, it’s City Council members and County Commissioners who are charged with the power over tax freezes, not the mayors. That’s because Tennessee Law gives the power to the legislative bodies, and they in turn delegated that power to the Industrial Development Board and Center City Revenue Finance Corporation.

Legal Responsibilities

Put simply, the legal responsibility for tax freezes rests with the legislative branch. And yet, there’s this persistent belief – cultivated by well-connected political insiders - that City Council members and County Commissioners are meddling where they have no business.

Besides their legal authority, there’s an even more compelling reason that legislators should have a voice in these decisions. They are the ones charged with balancing the budgets although about $60 million has been taken off the table in the form of tax freezes before they even start.

Since 1987 – when power to grant tax freezes was shifted from the local legislative bodies to the IDB and CCRFC – City Council and Shelby County Commissioners have been directly dealt out of decision-making on tax freezes.

Some philosopher said that the definition of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting different results. It’s becoming clear out on the hustings that taxpayers are not insane and the pressure for sanity within the PILOT program will only build.

It’s a high stakes game that some real estate developers are playing, because eventually, the public will get the action it demands. The greatest risk for developers is that tired of being belittled and ignored, the City Council and County Commissioners take back control of the tax freezes. It can happen on any day that the stars align and the votes come together.

As the Shelby County Attorney’s office said in an opinion a decade ago, if the local legislative bodies giveth, they can also taketh away.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to develop the best solution --a tax freeze system known for its accountability, its transparency and its objectivity, three qualities in short supply in the present system.

As for the Coalition for a Better Memphis, it’s encouraging whenever leaders and organizations – grassroots and prominent – are willing to get their hands dirty by getting directly involved in the political process. Dean Deyo, former head of Time Warner here, deserves a lot of credit for putting together this new program.

We admit that we are perplexed by some of the evaluations and the framework used by the Coalition members to reach the grades announced this week, but those are expected first year growing pains. Regardless, the Coalition’s a welcome voice in the political process if it can improve the quality and qualifications of candidates for public office in this community.

"But For" Test For PILOTs Could End Tax Freeze Controversy

City Councilman Scott McCormick, during the recent questioning about the proposed eight-year, $2.6 million tax break for Harrah’s Entertainment, was quoted by the Memphis Flyer as saying: “They might have $7 billion in revenues each year, but we don’t know what their profits are. I know they comp a lot of steak dinners.”

Well, for the record, its profits were $236 million (in a bad year, by the way), and it remains the second largest company listed in Fortune’s “Hotels, Casinos and Resorts” category, only exceeded by Marriott Hotels, but comfortably ahead of MGM Mirage, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and Hilton. In the past 10 months, the company's been on a buying spree, purchasing the largest casino company, Caesar's Palace, and a Las Vegas casino, Imperial Palace, for more than $9 billion.

While McCormick’s question might sound innocuous enough, it actually points up a familiar question about the present PILOT process: who represents the people? It frequently seems that Council members have these issues dropped on their desks with no background information, with no one to explain the big picture to them and with no one serving their interests alone.

There are those who complain that we don’t criticize the Memphis Regional Chamber for its strong advocacy of tax freezes in these Council meetings. But to us, the criticism seems misplaced. That’s what the Chamber gets paid to do – sell business on locating and expanding in Memphis.

In that process, Chamber officials – who have proven themselves extremely adept in sealing deals – have a number of cards they can play (excuse the Harrah’s pun) but PILOTs are essentially the trump card. So, they have PILOTs to sell to clients, and they do. No mystery there.

The challenge is for the public sector to develop an arsenal of incentives that are balanced, reasonable and fair - not just to the company, but to taxpayers.

Checks and Balances

What’s missing in the process now are the checks and balances that undergird almost every other part of government. There seems no one in the process, as demonstrated in last week’s City Council hearing, representing the public’s interest and balancing public policy so that tax freezes aren’t used as indiscriminately as they have been in the past and that they make sense within the context of other public services and investments.

That’s why it’s so disheartening that the common sense recommendations of the consultants who issued a thorough, pragmatic report last December continue to languish as business as usual continues.

One of those recommendations is for companies asking for tax freezes to prove that they need the public investment (and that’s what it is) to make their projects work. Council members seem especially confused on this point and rely on generalities from real estate developers and others as the basis for determining if the companies really need the tax freezes.

So, let’s revisit what the consultants wrote in their report: “The current matrix approach (the score sheet now being used to award tax freezes and set their terms) for awarding PILOTs should be abandoned and replaced by a ‘but for’ test or the true economic need of the project.”

This is what’s always been missing from the PILOT process. Instead of an emphasis on facts, there is now an emphasis on rhetoric: “This company will move to Mississippi if it doesn’t get the PILOT,” “This company is looking at locations in Indianapolis right now,” or “This company wants a sign from government that Memphis values its presence.”

In truth, this “but for” test is straightforward. The consultants define it as a private investment that isn’t reasonably expected without the public tax freezes, and it can be proven by a “gap analysis, a competitive cost analysis for competing sites, or a combination of the two,” the report states.

“The current evaluation process is very decentralized and based upon esoteric criteria and lend themselves toward approval of projects which do not necessarily merit a public investment.”

It’s hard to say it any clearer than that.

It’s hard to say it any better than that.

That’s because it puts the emphasis where it belongs – back on the public’s money and the need for it to be invested wisely and in a more targeted way.

“There currently is not a ‘but for’ test established or considered when approving or disapproving specific projects for a PILOT. This, for all practical purposes, means that the city/county or other approving bodies may very well have been giving away tax revenue unnecessarily as opposed to gaining taxes, albeit, a smaller portion than the total,” said the consultants’ report.

Gap Analysis

That’s why it recommends strongly that companies asking for PILOTs submit this “gap analysis” showing the financial return with and without the public investment, typically in leveraged and unleveraged rates of return.

“The establishment of a ‘but for’ test is the whole premise of any public investment or the need for it from a logical, moral and legislative standpoint,” the report said. “Most, if not all, business incentive programs across the country imply a ‘but for’ test in their intent and enabling legislation.”

Previously, we’ve expressed our concern about the pervasive feeling of unworthiness that is found in Memphis, and which is mirrored in public policy like the PILOT program. It embodies the attitude that we aren’t worthy to have new business and business expansions without bribing them. Is it at all possible that unlike the other cities who ask for justification, we come off looking less businesslike and less professional, and a result, we give more than necessary?

Somehow, consideration of tax freezes needs to quit being a poker game. As Harrah’s proves (with its considerable experience in casinos), government almost always folds.

The sad part of the controversy about the Harrah’s tax freeze is that it’s a premier company, and it deserves better than being the poster child for tax freezes. There is a simple way to make sure it doesn’t happen again: add the “but for” provisions to the PILOT program beginning immediately.

If it takes someone paying for the consultants to come back and explain this to City Council so it can be resolved once and for all, we're willing to chip in.

Broad Avenue Plan Cries Out For TIF

If there’s ever been a justification to create another TIF (tax increment financing) district in Memphis, we need wait no more. The Broad Avenue Corridor Planning Initiative gives us a powerful reason to act.

This seems especially timely to us, because a couple of weeks ago, we advocated that Memphis and Shelby County use the TIF as a way to decrease the overreliance on tax freezes by the Industrial Development Board and Center City Revenue Finance Corporation.

Like most taxpayers, we have been impatiently waiting on city and county governments to implement the recommendations from the well-reasoned consultant’s report about the current PIILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) program. The consultants made a compelling case that should have created a sense of urgency by our public leaders, but it was not to be, because of the powerful real estate interests arrayed in opposition to some of the key recommendations of the report.

In a presentation some weeks ago by the consultants, one comment went unreported, but has special meaning for Broad Avenue. At that time, the consultants said that downtown Memphis seemed to have the momentum for a sustained recovery, and perhaps it is time to shift the focus of tax freezes from downtown to neighborhoods where they are more needed.

Broad Avenue would certainly head that list. The planning initiative to be unveiled tomorrow night (Tuesday) is the most impressive in recent history.

The plan paints the portrait of an entirely new Binghamton, one that becomes an anchor for redevelopment and a model for the principles embraced in the new unified development code being written by the Office of Planning and Development.

And that’s why the Broad Avenue plan has even more importance than first meets the eye.

The same consultants writing the unified development code developed the plan for Binghamton, continuing the progressive thinking that has characterized their work so far.

They wrote in the Broad Avenue report: “The current development regulations in place today reflect a previous desire to ‘suburbanize’ the city and county with larger lot sizes, and development standards that reflect an auto-dominated environment. As part of the unified development code process, a set of more urban, mixed use, pedestrian-friendly development standards has been developed. The Broad Avenue Corridor area was selected to test the ability of the new regulations to effectively implement these improved standards. The lessons learned from the planning process will be incorporated into the larger Unified Development Code.”

Well-said.

From the beginning, the consultants writing the unified code have laid a foundation that can make the code a model for the country, shifting our community from a sprawl at any cost community to a more environmentally sensitive, more walkable, more mixed use view of the future.

Even without the ties to the unified code, the Broad Avenue Planning Initiative would be historic in its own right. Directed by Louise Mercuro of OPD, who always manages to inject innovation and aspiration into city/county planning projects, the initiative should mark the rebirth of the neighborhood destroyed by the highway (then intended as the I-40 route through Memphis and now Sam Cooper Boulevard) that carved it into two pieces and ripped its soul into even more.

To see the area now, it’s hard to believe that in 1956, it had three grocery stores, three dry goods stores, three doctors, a dentist, a civil engineer’s office, a lawyer’s office, several restaurants, a shoe repair shop, a barbershop and a handful of light industries. In other words, it was a functioning neighborhood. That ended in the late 1960s when the road construction displaced more than 200 residents.

So, how does the plan seek to solve this problem?

The plan intends 1) To reconnect the surrounding neighborhoods; 2) To promote diversity, mix uses, and mix incomes; 3) To make the streets more walkable; 4) To make it easy to built the right thing; and 5) To control the scale of new development.

To achieve these goals, the planning initiative proposed, among other things, a grand pedestrian gateway into Overton Park, public gardens and common spaces for the neighborhood, landscaping to make the area more walkable, diagonal parking to support businesses, new at-grade intersections crossing Sam Cooper Blvd., a shift from high-speed thoroughfares to walkable boulevards, and sidewalks safely located a distance from the road.

There are recommendations for retail and service businesses (such as a 40,000 square foot grocery store), lofts, senior housing and new housing.

Back to our original point about tax increment financing, there’s no better place for TIF district than in pursuit of this vision for Broad Avenue. In fact, it’s almost a textbook justification – it has a clear plan, it has mixed use with every type of land use and person, it is in dire need of infrastructure improvements such as sidewalks and streetscapes, it has right-of-way that can be sold to create new taxes for the TIF district, and it has some solid civic anchors such as the new school and new police precinct.

TIFs are now authorized in 47 states, and although they’re regulated by the state, they’re actually controlled by city governments to help redevelop areas that are deemed “blighted.” When an area is redeveloped, it creates new property taxes. From these taxes, the original property taxes (based on the unimproved values) are paid to the city and county, and the balance (the tax increment) goes into a special fund to pay debt service on bonds for the infrastructure. Usually, TIF pays for streets, sewers, parking facilities, land acquisition, planning expenses, job training, demolition and clean-up costs.

Tax increment financing is not perfect. No business incentive is, but it’s time to look beyond PILOTs to a time when we have a more balanced, diverse mix of business incentives in Memphis and Shelby County. Tax increment financing didn’t get anywhere last time it was discussed by local legislative bodies, but perhaps, with some much-needed controls put in place on the PILOT program, it’s time to revisit it.

To read the Broad Avenue plan, go to www.dpd.duncanplan.com/fbc.

Vietnamese Calls To Prosecutor Await Answer

Following yesterday’s post about the use of Memphis versus Nashville crime statistics as political fodder, we received a call from two members of the Midtown Vietnamese community. Their question: how do they get Attorney General Bill Gibbons to return telephone calls to his office?

So, we pass it on to you in the event that you see General Gibbons on the campaign trail in the coming days. Ask him to please return the phone calls from some constituents asking for help.

Here’s the problem: in recent weeks, more than 40 Vietnamese people have been robbed, and because of cultural factors, they refuse to talk to the television media although they have been asked and are afraid of retaliation if they go the police. As a result, they decided to call Atty. Gen. Gibbons, who frequents their restaurants and was considered a friend of theirs.

Distrustful of the media, wary of the police and fearful of being targeted again if they report the crimes, they want to talk to the chief prosecutor as someone they know, but also, because they’ve been told of his anti-gang initiatives, and it is their belief that these crimes are the work of gangs.

Much of the Cleveland area between Madison and Poplar became home to the waves of hard-working Vietnamese families who came to Memphis following the war in their homeland. Because of the language barriers and the misgivings about reporting crime, they are frequent and tempting targets of thugs.

Little Vietnam is a tough part of town on its good days, but on its bad days, it’s unbearable. Right now, with the crime spree, people are afraid of leaving their houses.

They’ve called the attorney general’s office and asked to speak to Bill Gibbons. They haven’t heard anything and their concern grows.

As we said, if you see the attorney general on the campaign trail, ask him to please return this call. These people need his help.

In fact, based on comments posted to previous commentaries on the blog, citizens of the entire area need his help. In the end, the results from attacking crime in this area is much more powerful than comparisons of Memphis and Nashville crime statistics.

Nashville Crime Hits Five-Year Low

This article in the Nashville Tennessean this morning was made even more potent by the counterpoint on Memphis television of police officers expressed dismay over climbing crime here, especially the disturbing increase in murders.

It was also made interesting because in recent years, some politicians, notably Attorney General Bill Gibbons, has contended that crime statistics show that Memphis is safer than Nashville. It's been the kind of political rhetoric whose primary response is incredulity, but regardless, since these comparisons were being tossed around for their political impact, it would prove interesting to hear what he and others have to say now.

We know that crime is not a problem unique to our urban area. After all, Atlanta has consistently ranked higher than Memphis for years, and yet, its economic boom continues. However, what is disturbing here is the general resignation that all of us have that we will be victims of some kind of crime, most likely property-related, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Sometimes, you feel that crime is something that happens to other people, but the other day, we were talking about the crimes we'd experienced, and we quit counting when the number went above 20 for the three of us in the conversation. Yes, they were multiple car thefts (apparently, now our birthright as Memphis citizens), stolen purses, house break-ins and similar crimes, but the fact that we just accepted them as part of life in this community was telling and sad.

Here's betting that crime will rear its head as a potential political issue in this year's elections, especially for the county prosecutor.

From the Tennessean:

Crime in Nashville fell to a five-year low for the first three months of the year, paced by steep declines in the number of homicides and auto thefts, according to figures released yesterday by Metro police.

Robbery was the only major crime category to increase during the first quarter, rising 1.1% to a five-year high of 530.

Police Chief Ronal Serpas yesterday celebrated the decline after a year in which Nashville's murders soared more than 67% and all violent crime rose nearly 2%. Thus far, overall crime is down about 13% in 2006, police figures show.

"It is a good healthy sign showing that our community, our employees, and every part of this police department are continuing to work hard to help reduce reported crime," Serpas said.

Individual Metro police officers should get the credit for the drop in crime, said Jack Byrd, attorney for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that represents Metro police officers.

"This shows that the police officers are doing a good job, considering the fact that they are undermanned, overworked, and working in adverse conditions," Byrd said.

The Teamsters, who recently won a contentious election to become the officers' union, have been critical of Serpas' policies, such as an initiative that dramatically increased the amount of time officers spend enforcing traffic laws.

Union officials have said the changes have resulted in lower morale and contributed to last year's increases in some major crime categories.

In recent weeks, the Davidson County Grand Jury also issued a report that criticized Serpas' public safety agenda, saying his policies place too much priority on traffic enforcement and not enough on combating illegal drugs and curtailing violent crime.

Serpas has said that much of Nashville's crime problem is driven by juvenile offenders and called for the involvement of parents, clergy and other sectors of the community to help keep youth on the right track.

The figures released yesterday offer hope that the rise in crime, which has led some to criticize the chief's methods, could be headed down.

But Serpas was quick to caution yesterday that crime in Nashville typically rises during the summer months.

"Last year and this year, and the year before, we continue to plan for that," Serpas said. "The important message to our community is we are aggressive and proactive in trying to solve problems in neighborhoods."

Police and juvenile probation officers have stepped up monitoring at the homes of juvenile offenders to ensure they are complying with court orders, Serpas said. Officers are averaging about 70 home checks per week, he said.

In 2005, at least 100 homicides occurred in Davidson County, up from 58 the year before. It was the third highest homicide total since Nashville and Davidson County became a consolidated Metro government in 1963.

It was also the sharpest year-over-year increase in killings last year among the 35 largest U.S. cities.

During the first three months of 2006, Nashville recorded 16 killings, down from 20 during the same time last year.

Earl Jordan, whose group Partners in the Struggle, organizes anti-violence rallies and other events, said he was most encouraged by the decline in killings.

"That's good that we're down four from last year," he said.

"The community is tired of a lot of the senseless homicides that are going on." •

Spring Hill Proposes Doubling Its Impact Fees For Developers

As Shelby County officials grapple with their limited options to reduce the burden on local property taxpayers, it's worth remembering that the Tennessee Legislature has allowed other places to enact impact fees.

For about six years, impact fees have been a priority on the county's legislative agenda in Nashville, but they never get a fair hearing, primarily because of the opposition by some of our own East Shelby County legislators who represent the districts being gobbled up by new sprawling development.

The beauty of impact fees, and adequate facilities taxes, for that matter, are that they shift the cost of the new infrastructure needed for these new developments from taxpayers to developers. After all, most taxpayers live inside Memphis, where they have already paid for the roads, bridges, parks, libraries and infrastructure that they need.

Of course, the funding of infrastructure is a curiosity at its core. For example, Shelby County Government has been willing for decades to fund half or more of the costs of road projects within the smaller cities, while at the same time refusing to consider the same policy for Memphis. But that's another subject.

It's dispiriting that county government must go to Nashville with hat in hand to ask for the taxes that it needs for its own operations. There are times when you have to wonder what really improved when county government got home rule.

The political irony is that the politicians who talk so much about smaller government and government closer to the people are also the ones who refuse to give Shelby County Government more autonony to chart its own destiny. There is the added irony that many of the same politicians propose user fees to raise revenues, but then oppose fees for developers whose profits are given to them through governmental largesse.

It's discouraging to think about it, but perhaps if average taxpayers could band together and hire lobbyists in Nashville, our interests would receive greater priority.

From the Nashville Tennessean:

SPRING HILL — Developers who are turning farmland into subdivisions may soon pay more for the impact those developments are having on the city.

Doubling the city’s impact fees from 25 cents to 50 cents was a topic discussed at Spring Hill’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen work session last night - and aldermen expressed support for the idea.

“I feel comfortable going to 50 cents,’’ said Mayor Danny Leverette. “We all know there are needs coming our way, some are already here - like roadways, infrastructure and the city will need to hire more employees.’’

City Administrator Ken York agreed.

“This is something whose time has come,’’ he said.
In other action, board members discussed raising the base pay of the fire chief, allowing non-resident property owners to vote in city elections and setting standard penalties for businesses caught selling alcohol to minors.

The board meets in its regular voting session at 7 p.m. Monday.
For more on Spring Hill development, see tomorrow's Williamson A.M.