Month: July 2005

Categories
News The Fly-By

Spotlight

To combat violence, police create a new unit, but don’t plan to confront gang members.

A newly formed group of law enforcement officials will investigate all aggravated assaults as aggressively as homicides. The Felony Assault Unit (FAU), unveiled last week, consists of eight members from the Memphis Police Department (MPD) and three prosecutors from the attorney general’s office. The unit was established to manage the violent crime wave that has plagued the Memphis area recently. In the past month, MPD logged 10 homicides in one week.

Police admit that gangs are responsible for many of the city’s violent crimes. Two youngsters were killed during the high-homicide week when opposing gangs waged a shootout in Raleigh. An e-mail also circulated this month warning of a gang initiation involving killing a woman and child at local shopping centers. But when asked if the department considered talking with gang leaders to curb the violent incidents, police director Larry Godwin said MPD has no plans to meet with gang leaders.

Local pastor Kenneth Whalum Jr. doesn’t understand why not.

“You and I know that the police know who the gang leaders are. Why don’t we at least come to the table and talk with them?” he told the Flyer. “It may be impossible, but how can you just respond by saying ‘We don’t deal with gang members’? Well, yes, you do. You deal with the results of their activity all the time.”

Prior to the creation of FAU, aggravated assault cases were handled by the General Assignment Bureau (GAB), but overburdened caseloads meant inadequate time and resources devoted to the crimes.

“GAB usually doesn’t have time to track down witnesses and get confessions and statements from them,” said FAU lieutenant Mike Miller.

Even without the new unit, MPD boasts an 84 percent solve rate in these type crimes, but it’s the amount of violent criminal activity that has them and other community leaders worried. In the past year, the number of aggravated assaults per month has increased from 175 to more than 200. Late last year, when Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton and Congressman Harold Ford Jr. announced plans for a peace task force, Whalum was one of the first clergy members on board.

When that group failed to materialize, Whalum took his message of peace to the airwaves with a radio show and television program.

“For the second time now, I’m asking law enforcement to meet with these [gang] leaders because they want the same things out of life that we do,” he said. “Gang leaders tell me that they want their children to live in peace and have something out of life. What perpetuates the violence in this community is sheer poverty and hopelessness.” n

Categories
News The Fly-By

A Quickie with

Earlier this month, Ballet Memphis announced its 2005 – 2006 season schedule. The season includes inevitable classics such as The Nutcracker, as well as new pieces like Ellington, choreographed by company member Garrett Ammon.

But the ballet also got bad news this month when the Greater Memphis Arts Council reduced member groups’ funding by 8 percent. We got en pointe to talk to Dorothy Gunter Pugh about the ballet’s various balancing acts.

Flyer: How have the cuts affected Ballet Memphis?

Pugh: I can’t really sugarcoat it. Combined with the economic downturn we’ve experienced for a number of years, we’re struggling. I think there’s a general malaise across the country. People aren’t even buying as many tickets to movies.

[The Greater Memphis Arts Council] has cut funding to member groups 15 percent in the past three years. We pay our artists to be here all year round. I think the only other organizations that do that are the symphony and Playhouse [on the Square]. Our roster of artists is very important to us. Especially as someone trying to pay talented people, it’s very competitive. The Grizzlies coach wants to have competitive salaries and pay what he can for the best talent. It’s the same way with us.

The last few seasons you’ve held performances at some nontraditional venues such as the roof of the Gibson Guitar Factory. This season, Momentum 7 will be performed at the First Congregational Church. Why?

Part of it is that the cultural signposts in America are saying you have to take your art out where the people are. The other part is that performing in a large theater is getting more and more expensive. I’d rather put my money in people rather than in buildings. We have to have buildings and a setting that shows our work to its best advantage. It’s an incredible balancing act. I can’t justify having all our performances at The Orpheum when it costs what it costs.

Last year you started Connections, fusing dance with work by visual artists, photographers, and videographers. This year, Connections will feature food. What’s that about?

Call me crazy. I really like seeing commonalities in things.

I went to a restaurant in Chicago that had 15 small courses. The chef had worked with a designer on the utensils so they enhanced the taste of the food. It’s very similar to what choreographers do. They have to be conscious of the set and the costumes. It all serves to enhance what the choreographer wants the audience to experience.

It’s fun to make the comparison. n

Categories
News The Fly-By

Going Uptown?

Last Friday was homecoming for Verlean Gibson.

Gibson, who lived in Hurt Village for 15 years, celebrated the grand opening of The Metropolitan, a 19-building community on the former public-housing site. The combination apartment, townhome, and loft complex is the newest project in Uptown, the city’s public-private redevelopment of the historic Greenlaw area.

Gibson called it “an amazement.” Across the way is a little park and a cove of pretty little houses in a rainbow of hues.

“The difference is that there aren’t any gunshots. You don’t have to duck,” said Gibson. “You have quietness and peace.”

Gibson, a former president of the Hurt Village Resident Association, didn’t think she’d get to come back.

“We thought they just wanted to build new stuff and put the residents out,” she said.

For Gibson, Uptown is a success story, a chance for a different, better life. But buried beneath the tidy green grass and the balconied brick apartments are some hard questions: How exactly is the city using eminent domain? And what does affordable housing mean in actual dollars, especially downtown? The Metropolitan’s opening came just days after a City Council housing and community development committee meeting attempted to address those questions.

“These rents range from $562 to $772,” said council member Barbara Swearengen Holt. “Where’s the number that’s considered affordable?”

That same day, however, Memphis was cited as a model of affordable housing by HUD’s national director. And, factoring in the cost of living in Memphis – 7 percent lower than Atlanta, 6 percent lower than Little Rock, and 2 percent lower than Dallas – we’re already at an advantage.

But part of Memphis’ challenge, says city director of housing and development Robert Lipscomb, is the gap between affordability and the actual cost, especially in places such as College Park, formerly called LeMoyne Gardens, where the average yearly income is $5,000.

“It’s almost impossible without having subsidies,” said Lipscomb. “If you make $500 a month, how do you afford food and utilities and still pay rent? Even if you use 30 percent of your income on housing, that’s about $150. It’s still nothing.”

Developing affordable housing is made more challenging because of the need to balance what may be in the public’s best interest with that of individual citizens.

James Sneed, for instance, owns property on North Third Street. A Millington resident, he recently put about $6,000 into the house and says his college-aged son would like to live there. But the city would like him to sell. And if he doesn’t, they may begin the eminent domain process.

So far, 176 properties have been acquired for the Uptown project, 66 of them through eminent domain.

“The city doesn’t have enough money to clean up all these areas,” said Lipscomb. “To do that, we have to attract the private sector to help us. … We don’t acquire a person’s property if it’s occupied, because we think, philosophically, it might not be the right thing to do. But to move the development forward, we have to eliminate slum and blight.”

But Sneed doesn’t think his property is blighted. “I told them, just tell us what we need to do. We have the means to do it,” he said. “The train just kept pushing. …I want to keep my property. I want my family, my children, to be able to enjoy what other people will be enjoying.”

With current redevelopment in the city and the recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, it’s an issue that’s not going to disappear anytime soon.

For Gibson, the redevelopment in Uptown is a dream. For Sneed, it’s a nightmare. It just goes to show that making a house into a home is hard, but sometimes, making a city into one is even harder. n

Categories
News The Fly-By

Compromise in Cordova

The fighting is finally over, and everybody’s happy – mostly.

The County Commission recently approved LaGrange Commons, a proposed development near Raleigh-LaGrange and Macon Roads in Cordova.

Residents of LaGrange Downs, a nearby subdivision, have been against the development that would place 133 residential lots in the wooded area behind their homes.

After a County Commission committee ordered the neighbors and developers to work out a compromise, the new plan called for 125 lots, a wooden fence separating the neighborhoods, and wider rear yards.

At the Commission meeting, the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development recommended the commission amend the proposal to include a barricade at the corner of LaGrange Circle North and LaGrange Downs for safety issues. It would be left in place until a traffic signal is installed at Macon and Raleigh-LaGrange roads.

“We got what we wanted in a way,” said LaGrange Downs resident Joby Dion. “It’s not really a victory. They’re still tearing down our woods, but that’s why it’s called a compromise.” n

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Eats Yer Spinach

At the salad bar these days, I forgo lettuce entirely. Nothing against lettuce, but where else do you have to pay $5 to $8 a pound for it? On the other hand, a plate full of Baco-Bits represents quite a savings over what it would cost to make bacon at home.

But alas, even I might find a full plate of bacon too much. So I build my salad around a whopping pile of the baby green that eats like a meal­ – spinach.

And I’m not the only one wolfing down spinach. In my lifetime, U.S. consumption has quintupled. Americans haven’t eaten this much spinach (2.4 pounds per year per capita, according to the USDA) since the 1950s, when Popeye gave the industry a boost.

Back then, spinach was usually eaten from cans. Today, Americans like their spinach fresh and young – although not necessarily in that order. Baby spinach is the nation’s new green darling, according to a recent Bon Appetit survey of diners’ favorite vegetables. People are buying pre-washed baby spinach by the bag, mostly grown in the Southwest. Me, I like my baby spinach. But it doesn’t compare to a succulent, dinnerplate-sized leaf, fresh straight from the ground.

In the same family as beet and chard, spinach is thought to have originated in ancient Persia (now Iran). Spinach arrived, via Nepal, in seventh-century China, where it is still called “Persian Greens.” Spinach didn’t hit Europe until the 11th century, when the Moors brought it to Spain. Known for a while in England as “the Spanish vegetable,” the name was shortened and modified to “spinach,” before Popeye lengthened it to “spinachk.”

Spinach’s list of nutritional qualities stretches longer than Olive Oyl’s legs. Vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, folic acid, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, iron, you name it – but if iron is what you are after, make sure to cook the spinach with lemon or some other acid, which makes that rust-prone nutrient more accessible.

Spinach does have one downside. According to the Environmental Working Group, spinach is one of the 12 common food crops most likely to be contaminated by pesticide residue. The most common pesticides found on spinach are Permethrin, Dimethoate, and – get this – DDT, which is known to cause cancer, birth defects, and reproductive damage.

Wait a minute … Wasn’t Dichlorodiphenyltri-chloroethane (DDT) banned in 1972? Banned for use in the U.S., yes. But we continue to manufacture and export it by the ton to developing nations. One of the reasons, arguably a good one, is DDT’s mosquito-killing power, which is a big help in the global fight against malaria. But it’s no secret that farmers in developing nations still use DDT on their crops, and the joke is on us when some imported spinach is found to contain significant traces of DDT. The other reason DDT is found on spinach is that it persists in the environment for years. Domestic spinach can still contain traces of DDT that was sprayed before 1972. Pesticides, so the saying goes, don’t know when to stop killing. Thus, more than almost any other item of produce, spinach should be purchased in organic form.

While most of the nation’s spinach is grown in California, Texas, and Arizona, this time of year it shouldn’t be hard to find organic spinach locally. The Farmer’s Market is the most obvious place, followed by stores that make an effort to market organic produce.

When heated, spinach cooks down remarkably. If you want to cook it at all, baby spinach can be tossed onto a dish as it’s leaving the stove, and the heat of the food will wilt it. But if you have a nice quantity of spinach, you might want to try the following Indian dish called saag paneer, which means “spinach and cheese” in Hindi. Fry half a cup of chopped onion or shallots in two tablespoons of butter. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of garam masala, an Indian spice mixture available at many stores and online. Let this cook together for a few minutes, then add the equivalent of two bunches of spinach to the pan and half a cup of cheese curds. Season with salt to taste. Cook with the lid on until the curds are soft.

My final suggestion is something I call “Scrambled Spinach Omelet.” If you don’t eat meat, you can skip the pork belly and use oil instead. Otherwise, begin by preparing the pan with a strip of chopped bacon. While it’s cooking, add chopped onion and peppers, if you like those things. Meanwhile, beat as many eggs as you want to eat, beating in salt, pepper, and mashed or pressed garlic. When the stuff in the pan is almost ready, pour in the eggs. While the eggs begin to cook, drop little dollops of cheese (I like Brie, chevre, and/or Parmesan) on top of the gently cooking egg pancake. Add a whopping handful of baby or chopped spinach. When you smell the eggs starting to cook, stir the contents of the pan until the eggs are to your liking. n

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Female Aficionados

As a woman, I get especially proud when I meet a dynamic, talented female winemaker. It means she’s not afraid of the good ol’ boy wine industry. Women have made considerable advancement in the wine ranks, thanks to the commitment of many stalwart individuals. Still, there’s room for improvement. I recently Googled “female winemakers,” and three of the first four sites extolled the sex appeal of these ladies rather than their abilities. In a land that reveres fake boobs and facelifts, it’s kind of expected, but come on. It would be nice if kudos for female winemakers came for verve not va-voom.

Like many other industries, the turnaround began during the women’s movement in the early 1970s. In 1973, MaryAnn Graf, the first female graduate of University of California at Davis’ viticulture and enology program, became head winemaker at Napa Valley’s Simi Winery, a business with a tradition of employing female managers. Then Zelma Long, considered the most important woman in California wine history, started her career in the labs of Robert Mondavi Winery, moving to Simi as winemaker and eventually becoming the executive vice president of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s California wineries, which includes Simi.

Inspiring many others were additional trailblazers such as Merry Edwards and Helen Turley, two women who also made it on their own. Edwards got her start in the early ’70s when, even armed with a Master’s degree in enology, she kept getting rejected after interviewers learned “Merry” equaled female. Undeterred, she eventually landed a position at Mount Eden Vineyards and is now one of California’s foremost vintners – male or female – producing unbelievable Pinot Noirs in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley.

Turley, the genius behind super-venerated, super-concentrated cabernets from Pahlmeyer, Colgin, and Marcassin, has been called the best winemaker in California by many writers and winemakers alike. She started at Sonoma’s BR Cohn, one of my favorite Cabernet producers, in the mid ’80s. After wowing everyone, she began an illustrious consulting career.

In Europe, gender equality in the wine world still hovers in the Middle Ages, but strong-willed females have made progress. In 1975, Maria Martinez, a warmhearted yet tough survivor, began her wine career in Spain’s Rioja region. After only four years of working in the cellars, she earned her spot among the esteemed winemaker ranks and has since been crowned “the Queen of Rioja” as the head winemaker at highly respected, 130-year-old Bodegas Montecillo.

When asked about her role as a high-profile female in this business, Martinez quietly replied, “I am in love with this profession … and I’m a fighter.” She sadly admits, though, that there are no other “respected” female winemakers in Rioja. (At a recent luncheon I attended in Tampa, Florida, honoring Martinez, only two of the 14 wine industry attendees were women.)

The rise of women shouldn’t surprise anyone. Research has shown that women possess a better sense of smell than men, and more “supertasters” – those with more tastebuds and thus more sensitive palates – are female. And chicks drink. A 2003 study from the Wine Market Council found that 60 percent of Americans who consumed wine once or more a week were women. In that same year, Simmons Market Research Bureau reported that women consumed more than half of all wine.

And females continue to grow into the profession. Today, women make up almost 50 percent of the undergraduates at the winemaking program at UC Davis. Get ready world. Chicks have arrived.

Recommended Wines

Montecillo 2003 Bianco – Smells like summer, with fragrant lime and fresh, clean sheets. Tart lemon-lime and creamy vanilla in the mouth, with an acidic finish. Excellent value. $6.

Merry Edwards 2002 Pinot Noir Russian River – Oh my, how I love her wine. Earthy cherry, raspberry and blueberry home in on that one special spot in your mouth that ignites such pleasure. Elegant, classy, and sophisticated. $34. n

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

1. An audit reveals that city school warehouse workers have allegedly stolen half a million dollars of mechanical equipment. Among other things, the employees ordered more air-conditioning fans than needed and possibly sold the extras. See? If we hadn’t air-conditioned the schools, this never would have happened.

2. The Center City Commission approves a resolution to “consider and evaluate” renaming Confederate, Forrest, and Jefferson Davis Parks. We guess the only way to make everyone happy is to give these places completely innocuous names: “That Park By UT,” “That Park Down by the River,” and “That Park On Front Street by the Post Office.”

3. After a week on eBay, the boarding-house bathtub where James Earl Ray stood while shooting Dr. Martin Luther King has drawn no bids. Meanwhile, the owner of one of the few remaining Merrymobiles has put it up for auction on eBay. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before someone decides eBay is the best place to sell that statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

4. George Howard Putt, who terrorized Memphis during a killing spree in the summer of 1969, was originally sentenced to 497 years in prison. Yet Putt faces a parole hearing next month. What’s the point of handing down the longest sentence in Shelby County history if you’re eligible for parole with – let’s see – 461 years left to go? n

Categories
News News Feature

Power Failures?

A day after the Fourth of July, fireworks were still flying at City Council, as council member and utilities committee chair Joe Brown exploded at MLGW president Joseph Lee. Brown denounced Lee’s leadership in no uncertain terms, saying that the utility chief was “circumventing the council” in various hiring and operational practices. Brown also cited numerous MLGW employee complaints that accused the utility of harassment.

Brown told the Flyer that complaints about intimidation had been made by employees in the customer accounts department against that department’s three-member leadership team – Sonja Chandler, Brenda Chism, and Eliza King. Council member Carol Chumney also heard from those employees. The customer accounts department has more than 200 employees and is charged with sending out utility bills.

“I’ve been told by [these employees] that MLGW has become a hostile work environment,” said Brown. “And the leadership over there has done nothing to help these people. It’s nothing new; this has been going on a long time.”

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union business manager Rick Thompson agrees. As the union representative for many MLGW employees, Thompson has been involved with ongoing employee grievances. “One of the main concerns the employees have is they feel that they are not being heard, and their complaints are not being dealt with in a timely manner,” he said.

“I would say there is an overall management problem at MLGW, because proper procedures are not being followed,” said union steward and 31-year MLGW employee Ruth Taylor. Taylor alledged that employee complaints have become backlogged, violating the timeline outlined in the union’s memorandum of understanding with the company. She added that after complaints are filed, employees face retaliation.

As the union steward for the account services department, Taylor registers complaints for unhappy employees. “When a complaint is filed, the same person handles grievances and EEC (equal employment compliance). It’s like facing the judge and jury at the same time. How can [MLGW] do that?”

MLGW officials said grievances and EEC compliance are handled by the same person because they are the responsibilities of the vice-president of human resources. Responding to Brown’s charges, utility spokesperson Mark Heuberger said that only one person had filed a grievance in the customer accounts department in the previous 30 days. “Eleven people signed on to that grievance, but it was not about harassment, it was about the work standards that were raised by the supervisory group,” he said.

Heuberger acknowledged that some of the complaints could have been filed directly with the federal EEOC office and bypassed the MLGW’s EEC office. Grievance information filed with the federal EEOC is kept confidential.

“I am shocked by that,” said Taylor about Heuberger’s explanation of a single filing. “At last count, a total of 33 grievances had been filed since May 2004, and that’s just in my department. I can’t even speak for any other area.” Taylor’s records indicate three grievances filed within the last 30 days, including a complaint on July 1st about a strict new disciplinary action rule.

Heuberger said the new disciplinary policy is part of Lee’s performance standards. But Taylor said the new penalties for “minor infractions” are more like retaliation. “As part of the strategic plan and balanced score card, this [management] team has been developing and implementing performance measures, and apparently there is some resistance to some standards,” said Heuberger.

Although union grievances at a company the size of MLGW are not unusual, it is unusual for them to come before the City Council. “We tried to handle them through proper protocol,” said Taylor, “but after a year of nothing being done, the employees were frustrated and that’s when they made their concerns public.”

In addition to complaining to City Council members, employees have taken their concerns to a contingent of local pastors.

“[Joseph Lee] is a guy I went to bat for, the guy I voted for,” said Brown. “He has really let me down. He’s got to help these people.” n

Categories
News The Fly-By

Eye-Catching News

Television news is a visual medium, but not all news is particularly visual. What does a reporter do if the story they’re working on is all about numbers, facts, or figures? If they work for WHBQ, chances are they call David Stotts, Fox 13’s award-winning promotions director.

Stotts may not be able to make a news segment as exciting as a game show, but he can certainly convince viewers that it might be. In fact, he recently received critical accolades for promoting “What They Make,” a story about government employees’ salaries, like it was an episode of Wheel of Fortune.

Stotts has won 17 regional Emmy awards for his work, 15 of them while working for WHBQ. He snagged an additional pair while working for WKNO-TV, the local public broadcasting affiliate. Over the past two years, he’s also taken home an unprecedented number of PROMAX awards: seven gold and two silver. These awards, considered to be the Oscars of news promotion, are internationally recognized as the highest award in electronic media for design, marketing, and promotion.

After receiving his undergraduate degree from Middle Tennessee State University, Stotts attended grad school at the University of Memphis, where he studied to be a filmmaker. He never intended to work in television promotions.

“I had been into short fiction. I didn’t get into documentaries until I started working for WKNO,” says Stotts. He served as co-director for the locally shot Intersections, a Robert Altman/Jim Jarmush-esque film on the life of a Memphis cab driver. “Once I started working at WKNO, I said, Forget this fiction stuff. You can have much more of an impact making documentaries.”

It was while producing and editing documentaries at WKNO that Stotts started making his own promos, the short commercial spots designed to tease the projects he was developing.

“Nobody told me what to do or how to do it,” Stotts says. “I just did it.”

And he did it very well. Paul Sloan, WHBQ’s creative director, says, “When our last promotions director left to take a job in San Francisco, she told me, There’s this guy you need to hire because he’s so much better than me.” The person was Stotts.

“First and foremost, we are in charge of promoting our television station and promoting our news,” Sloan explains. “Fifty to 75 percent is what we call topical promotion – you know, Tonight at nine on Fox 13 News. That’s where you have your greatest chance of getting somebody to watch your news. But that’s only part of what we do.”

In addition to promoting daily stories, Stotts worked to create Rightly Seasoned, WHBQ’s documentary about the 1973 U of M Tigers basketball team. While Stotts may prefer to make documentaries, he and Sloan agree that developing public-service announcements is the most rewarding work they do.

“I won’t say that [other stations] don’t try to make good spots, but you won’t see a lot of effort put into public-service announcements by most stations,” says Stotts. He approaches PSA’s with a filmmaker’s eye and an ear for good storytelling.

“When I was working on a campaign for the Memphis Homeless Coalition, the number one thought I had is that everyone sees them and everybody ignores them,” Stotts says. “Then we talked to them and found out that their slogan was, ‘Homelessness isn’t a crime; ignoring it is.'”

It was a perfect fit. Stotts also wanted to show that most homeless people were normal people who had landed on hard times.

“We’d show a woman holding up a cardboard sign that said Teacher. Another guy held up a sign reading Construction foreman,” Sloan says.

Stotts and Sloan hope to take the work they did developing the homeless campaign and turn it into a documentary when time and funding permit, but in the meantime they have their hands full promoting the nightly news.

“It can be exciting,” Stotts says. “I’ve discovered that you can really be creative in a 30-second spot.” n

Categories
Opinion

Man on Horseback

The real problem with Forrest Park is neglect, not the equestrian statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest or the controversial name. Like many other city parks, it’s a mess. The grass is knee-high and littered with trash and dead tree limbs, metal benches are bent and broken, and trees and bushes haven’t been pruned in years.

Normally, few people would notice any of this because the park on Union Avenue next to the University of Tennessee Medical Center is usually empty. For the last two weeks, however, every local television station and newspaper covered the Forrest Park controversy and took pictures of the statue. The national media are likely to follow when the controversy reaches the Memphis City Council. Now suppose you are mayor of our fair city and the Memphis Park Commission answers to you. You have been a public official for 25 years and know a photo opportunity better than most television news directors. Do you make sure a crew cleans up the park? Go see.

Assuming that Willie Herenton doesn’t resign, he could be voted out for apathy, if not in a recall election in 2006 then in the regular election of 2007. After nearly 14 years, the mayor simply shows no zest for the most basic duties of the job. How can Memphians have any confidence in the mayor possibly taking over MLGW, if his park commission can’t cut the grass and pick up the trash in a park in the news on one of the busiest streets in town?

Lawyer/developer Karl Schledwitz, a member of the UT Board of Regents, has proposed moving Forrest’s monument and grave to Elmwood Cemetery and having the city turn the park over to UT. It’s about time UT asserted itself. The medical school should be allowed to develop part of the park since the park commission doesn’t maintain it. A renamed, cleaned-up, and smaller park could help revitalize both UT’s campus and Union Avenue, which is bordered by several blighted buildings and vacant lots between the old Baptist Hospital and AutoZone Park. University medical centers in Birmingham, St. Louis, Nashville, and Jackson, Mississippi, are hubs of new construction, street life, and restaurants. The only restaurant near the UT Medical Center in Memphis is a McDonald’s.

Memphis has been in national newspapers and magazines a lot this summer thanks to Nathan Bedford Forrest, Craig Brewer’s movie Hustle & Flow, International Paper’s possible headquarters relocation, and the residential growth of Harbor Town, Uptown, and South End. Not all of the news reports have been positive. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted last week, Toyota shunned pitches from Southern locales and will instead put a new plant in Ontario. Memphis and eastern Arkansas – unlike Middle Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Kentucky – have made no headway in the car chase. As Krugman wrote, “Japanese auto companies opening plants in the Southern U.S. have been unfavorably surprised by the work force’s poor level of training.” Focus groups interviewed for an upcoming Memphis Regional Chamber of Commerce report made similar comments.

Although Herenton sometimes seems as burned out as a Fourth of July firecracker, he and the chamber have a chance to close a bragging-rights deal with International Paper, which will make a decision within 30 days. More than 2,000 other IP employees relocated to Memphis or were hired here since 1987.

Dexter Muller, a former city division director and interim CEO of the chamber, said, “We have to deal with it as a competition. This is too important to take for granted.”

The incentives package is likely to include moving costs for at least some of the 134 Stamford, Connecticut, employees, which Muller said can be as much as $30,000 per employee. IP’s executive compensation has been under fire from shareholder activists. Former CEO John Dillon, who retired in 2003, got $15.2 million in his last year, or 595 times the average U.S. worker’s salary of $25,500. His successor, John Faraci, made $4,884,333 in 2004. IP’s stock has been a laggard. A $100 investment in 1999 was worth $85 five years later. Paper industry peer group stocks were worth $113.

Wonder what the IP honchos and their wives will make of the gritty scenes in Hustle & Flow, or Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority Chairman Arnold Perl’s recent crack that Memphis minus FedEx is Shreveport.

Trivia note: The president of IP when the company moved to Memphis in 1987 was Paul O’Neill, later Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush, whom he famously described in a book as being “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people.” n