“You cannot cut your way to prosperity.” — Memphis Housing and Community Development Director Robert Lipscomb.
“Our high property taxes are one reason people are leaving our city.” — Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland.
These are the two main positions on the budget talks that will play out over the next several weeks. Keep them in mind and you will miss many a pearl and many a pain but you will “get it” for the most part.
Lipscomb is right. You can’t do nothing and let Raleigh, Whitehaven, downtown, Midtown, the fairgrounds, Frayser, or Whitehaven deteriorate. You have to build on what’s there, give comfort to the community groups and residents who stayed, nurture the anchors, connect the dots, tear down the blight or build something better.
Strickland is right. You can’t raise Memphis property taxes that are already the highest in the state and lower than the surrounding suburbs that are growing at its expense. You have to turn the tide, hold the line, cut the fat, make the tough cuts in the sensitive areas. People of means will make a flight to quality and vote with their taillights.
Lipscomb is wrong. You can’t save the malls. In the era of online shopping, even Wolfchase Galleria, Collierville’s Carriage Crossing, and Oak Court Mall in East Memphis are fighting for crowds and business. You can’t say yes to every council member and neighborhood group with a sad story in a city that is full of them. You can’t say yes to a parking garage in Overton Square without saying yes to a parking garage in Cooper-Young, yes to Madison Avenue in Midtown without saying yes to Elvis Presley Boulevard in Whitehaven and Austin Peay Highway in Raleigh.
Strickland is wrong. The overall tax burden in Tennessee is one of the lowest in the nation because there is no income tax. Memphis property taxes are high but valuations are low. The property tax disproportionately hurts homeowners but the 9.25 percent sales tax disproportionately hurts poor people.
Lipscomb is right. If basic services decline there will be more flight. Public investments can be an incentive to private investments. See Uptown, or AutoZone Park or Bass Pro and the Pyramid.
Strickland is right. Public investments can be wasteful. There is no guarantee that private investors will appear, or that they will deliver the goods if they do appear. AutoZone Park is too big, Beale Street Landing is behind schedule, over budget, and even its defenders are criticizing its appearance. In the fourth month of the year it is supposed to open, Bass Pro is the quietest $200 million game-changer you ever saw, showing all the urgency of a man fishing on a lazy summer afternoon, making barely a ripple much less a splash.
And Mayor A C Wharton is right. As he said in his budget presentation Tuesday, “Sixty cents of every dollar the administration spends is for public safety, and three out of every four general fund employees works in public safety.”
There are 3,032 employees in police services and 1,830 in fire services, for a total of 4,862 of the city’s 6,290 employees. Add another 2,000 employees of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and that makes 6,862 people with salaries, benefits, and pensions in the broad category of “public safety” which is not exactly accurate when you’re talking about, say, secretaries, but very effective when you’re defending your budget to the city council and the county commission. You want to keep criminals off the streets and knock down house fires and rescue people from flooded homes and yet you say you want to cut budgets? Huh? Are you crazy? How dare you!
When I read or hear these public safety numbers I flash to two mental pictures: the daily emergency preparedness briefings for the Great Memphis Flood of 2011 and the overwhelming police response to the Ku Klux Klan rally downtown three weeks ago.
As it turned out, both non-events did not live up to their hype. Both mobilized the forces of public safety to prepare for the worst and put them on display in a sort of trade show for law enforcement. So many mobile command buses, amphibious vehicles, SUVs, Humvees, motorcycles, horses, patrol cars, chief cars, SWAT teams, weapons, shields, vests, computers, GPS systems, radios, laptops, smart phones, satellite trucks, all of it state-of-the-art or close to it because firepower, hardware, and communications technology keep getting bigger and better or smaller and better or faster and better or more powerful and better and who wants last year’s model anyway when the guys on the other side of the mall or the law have this year’s? Especially if you’re the one getting mugged or robbed or your house is flooded or burning. Plus salaries and pensions and overtime. To protect a bigger coverage area while billing it to a smaller tax-paying population.
To summarize:
Can’t close schools, they’re the lifeblood of communities and our children are our future.
Can’t let malls close, they’re the lifeblood of our communities and as the mall goes so goes the neighborhood and besides it’s already in the budget a year or two from now.
Can’t cut public safety because it’s public safety, stupid.
If there was a table designed exclusively for the forefathers of Memphis rap, Alphonzo “Al Kapone” Bailey would be among the artists seated at the head. With the release of several albums and compilations, he’s managed to sell thousands of units independently, and is viewed as one of the most respected artists within the underground rap movement.
Penning rhymes since the sixth grade, Al Kapone began to obtain musical notoriety as a teenager with his song, “Lyrical Drive-by.” This led to his debut album, Street Knowledge: Chapters 1-12, which secured a spot on Jet Magazine‘s Top 20 Albums chart and solidified his presence within the Memphis rap movement. Underground albums such as Pure Ghetto Anger, Sinista Funk, the compilation Memphis to tha Bombed Out Bay, and Goin’ All Out, followed soon after his debut, and expanded his fanbase from the South to the West Coast.
Aside from creating underground classics, Al Kapone is a talented songwriter and producer. He co-wrote E-40’s “U and Dat,” Lil Jon’s “Snap Yo Fingers,” (which both charted on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop section), and “Hustle & Flow (It Ain’t Over)”, the theme song to the 2005 Memphis-based film, Hustle & Flow, and more.
I got a chance to speak with Al Kapone about his music career, what attendees can expect from his performance at this year’s Beale Street Music Festival, songwriting for E-40 and Lil’ Jon, what led him to create a song that supported past Congressional candidate Republican George Flinn, rock music, and more.
I was into storytelling. It went from that to writing stories to actually writing songs from the stories. When the hip-hop craft stage kinda took off, I fell in love with it. Even though I love all forms of music, I just fell in love with hip-hop to the point that that’s what I wanted to do.
I got into just the whole hip-hop scene and the whole culture. It was more than just the rap part of it, it was the DJ-ing, the breakdancing, the graffiti, the fashion. It was really the whole culture of hip-hop, but I ended up sticking with the rap side more than anything.
What made you choose the name Ska-Face Al Kapone as your rap moniker? And why did you eventually drop the “Ska-face” part?
I was living in the Lamar Terrace projects at the time, and I was looking at this old black-and-white movie called Scarface Al (Scarface, 1932), it was basically the old version of the Al Pacino Scarface.
I remember seeing that and Scarface Al just grabbed me. It was at the time when NWA was poppin’, so the gangsta rap scene was real hot. And I knew I wanted a name that was gonna be edgy, so when I saw Scarface Al go across that screen, I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s the name.’
And actually, this was before Scarface from the Geto Boys had kinda ran with his name, because I think at the time, he was going by the name Akshun. So it was before him, but that leads to the reason I ended up dropping Ska-Face because when “Lyrical Driveby” popped off for me on a solo tip, I was still going by the name of Ska-face Al Kapone. I added the Kapone part because I began noticing that the Houston rapper Scarface was starting to get popular, and when I did out of town shows, people were starting to get me confused. They were asking me where Bushwick [Bill] was. So I thought, ‘Okay, I’m gonna go ahead and drop the Ska-face part because it’s starting to create confusion.’
At what point did you know music was something that you could fully rely on as a way to provide for you and your family?
When “Lyrical Drive-by” popped off. I was working at Red Lobster at the time. When I was going back and forth to work, I started to notice cars going by blasting that song. It was like several cars, and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh shit, people recognize me now.’ That’s when I started getting calls to do more shows. At that point, I was able to leave Red Lobster and actually start doing shows full-time, and that’s when I was able to start providing for me and my family.
In 2003, you released the album Goin’ All Out on E-40’s label, Sic Wid It Records. How did you link up with E-40?
My main connection to the Bay Area was initially with this magazine called Murder Dog. They featured me in a lot of their publications, and from that, as an independent artists, I started networking with a lot of the independent artists out there. And from that, E-40 took notice, and then, he reached out to me. From the independent artists to E-40, I really established a strong Bay Area connection.
My connection with 40 came in the late ’90s. Like I said, he’s originally from Murder Dog. He just started noticing my name a lot through Murder Dog and the independent scene. He reached out to me to be apart of a compilation that he was working on at the time called Southwest Riders. It was a lot of independent artists from the West and independent artists from the South.
How did you end up signing with Sic Wid It?
After I ended up doing that compilation with [E-40], just through my connections with independent Bay Area artists, I did my own compilation called Memphis to tha Bombed Out Bay. What I did was, I took a Greyhound to the Bay. I had a cousin who was staying in Sacramento, and I still had my Murder Dog connection. So I took a Greyhound out there with all my product. I just went out there promoting blindly, didn’t know, all I had was straight ambition. I rented a car and was getting directions from people and literally driving from Vallejo to Oakland to Frisco to Sac Town [Sacramento] to even smaller towns in between, from Richmond…it was crazy. It was before GPS. I was strictly going off people’s directions from the highway, and I was actually getting there.
I ended up running into E-40 in Vallejo. It was a picnic that he was having, and again, I was out there promoting Memphis to tha Bombed Out Bay, and he just noticed, ‘Damn, dude just came all the way from Memphis and he actually has a line of people he’s signing autographs for at my picnic.’ He sent his brother over to let me know that they were going to pick me up and bring me to his house. I was staying at the Murder Dog house at the time.
His brother came and picked me up. I went to 40’s house. He was working on some music, and he said, ‘You feel like you can jump on this song?’ I was like, ‘Holy shit, he wants me to jump on a song!’ I immediately wrote a verse like in 10 minutes and jumped on the song and at that point, he was like ‘I’m gonna be reaching out to you. How you feel about signing to Sic Wid It?’ And after I came back to Memphis, he reached out to me and we made it official. He sent me a contract and we sealed the deal.
You did some writing on E-40’s album, My Ghetto Report Card. How did that come about?
That was one of those amazing times. Not burning bridges allowed me to. I wasn’t signed to him at the time. This was like some years after the contract had ended, but we kept a good enough relationship that he reached out to me when he was working with Lil’ Jon and wanted me to come to Atlanta and [work] with them on some music. It was kind of a blessing to be in that particular space and time to offer some of my writing skills, which out of that spawned the “Snap Yo Fingers” song that Lil’ Jon had.
When you’re songwriting, are you actually writing verses for artists, or are you contributing ideas?
It’s more of contributing ideas. Coming up with ideas and concepts and writing hooks to give the song the direction that it needs to go into.
What are some other albums you’ve had a hand in that people may not know about?
Off the top of my head, I know I did something on the Stomp the Yard soundtrack. I did something on the Cadillac Records soundtrack. That’s a couple I can think of off the top of my head.
You also wrote a couple songs on the Hustle & Flow soundtrack.
Most definitely. That was another one of those space and time blessings that you don’t see coming. It was all again, not burning bridges, because I knew Craig [Brewer] way before. He was doing independent films and having them distributed through Select-o-Hits whereas we were doing the independent CDs, so we knew each other from that time. And I always kept in touch with him.
I just so happened to randomly call like I normally do, and it doesn’t have to be about no business, just to reach out to people on a personal level. So I was just reaching out to him one day and seeing how he was doing, and that’s when he informed me about what was going on, that John Singleton was going to get behind the project and John was going to be in town the next day. They were looking for a particular song. John really had his mind set that he was going to let Three 6 [Mafia] do everything, but they were going to give me a chance to present something. It was almost like, ‘He’ll just check it out’ but his mind was pretty set.
I went straight to the house and wrote the Hustle & Flow theme song. When John came in town, he came to the Cotton Row studios. Me and Niko [Lyras] had just finished producing the music and I dropped all the lyrics and everything. When he came, he heard it, he said it was on point…the whole subject was on point with what they were looking for, and I was in.
From that, he wanted to hear some other songs that I had been working on personally. That’s how he ended up hearing “Whoop that Trick” and “Get Crunk, Get Buck.” He was like, ‘damn, we need to work with those songs too.”
Over the last few years, you’ve incorporated more of a guitar-infused style into your music, especially with your album Guitar Bump. You’ve also branched out and collaborated with different bands and musicians. What influenced you to take a different lane with your music after creating that more gangsta, buck sound for so many years?
My initial reason [for] going into the live zone of music rather than staying in the crunk zone was because the rest of the country made up in their mind that Atlanta was known for crunk. Even though we had the proof, nobody was going to dig into the truth enough to give us credit for it. The rest of the country saw it as we would be the followers, even though we weren’t. We were the originators. So instead of fighting against it, I wanted to do something that was uniquely a Memphis thing. I started thinking about the live sound of Memphis as far as Al Green, the rock side and everything. I started thinking, let me go more into that direction and see if I can incorporate live music with the Memphis sound and see how that would be received.
My main thing was to show the hip-hop culture of Memphis. Even though y’all don’t want to give us our credit for the sound, give us credit for at least our musical roots, and that’s really why I started going in that direction. But in the process of recording that type of music, I ended up having to perform it live, and I actually fell in love with having that band on stage. It was an amazing feeling to have all that live music. It was like another level of performing, so I kinda ran with it. There’s nothing like performing with that live instrumentation on stage.
Have you always been interested in guitars and the rock genre?
Even though I was into hip-hop earlier on, I was always into soul and rock. From Ozzy Osborne to the Black Sabbath, I was always into it. When Nirvana hit at the time, I was heavy into that. I was heavy into Metallica. If anybody really followed my music career and they listened to some of those old songs, you would actually hear songs that had the rock element or the soul element to them. It was always there but when I went with the band, it kinda stood out more.
You’re performing at this year’s Beale Street Music Festival. What can attendees expect from your performance? I read you’re working with some live guitarists for the show.
If you’ve never seen a live performance from a Memphis rap act, my goal is to always give you a concert. Not just go up there and rap the songs, I want to truly entertain you with the whole spectrum of the music—from my performance to the musicians adding the instrumentation. My goal is to give you an experience where you can walk away and say, ‘You know, I don’t really listen to rap but I enjoyed that show. That was a good show.’
An eye opener for a lot of people was when you created the song “George Flinn” that encouraged Memphians to vote for Republican George Flinn as Congressman for the state’s 9th district last year. What persuaded you to endorse Flinn?
I did it because I felt like he supported not just me, but through his station [George Flinn owns several radio stations that cater to such genres as hip-hop, classic rock, Christian, and country], he supported the Memphis rap scene.
When I go to different places, I notice that a lot of radio stations do not support their local music scene. For us to have a station here that really supports and plays local music at times when the rest of the country had kind of stopped supporting Memphis hip-hop, I just felt the need to show support to someone who was supporting the music scene that I came from.
Did you worry about receiving any backlash from endorsing Flinn?
I did think about [receiving backlash] before I did it. I didn’t feel like the black community would embrace that I was supporting a Republican. The way I saw it was, if I don’t do it, it’s not because I don’t wanna do it, it would be because of what other people think. And at that point, I realized that I didn’t want to look back years later and say, ‘I shoulda did that and the only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to be worried about what somebody else thought.’ When it’s all said and done, I can’t live by what other people think. And at that point, I felt like I was supporting him regardless.
You’ve released all of your albums independently. What has caused you to avoid going mainstream for so many years?
The thing about being independent, you’re pretty much in control of what you want to do [and] release. That’s the biggest thing. You have total control. As long as you know how to budget and try to keep some consistent releases out there. You can kinda maintain some pretty decent cash flow to come in. But your main thing is your freedom to record what you want and release when you want to. You’re able to design your own artwork. But it does require work. Being independent is not just the freedom. It’s a serious work ethic that goes along with it. And I always had that drive to grind. I actually love the hustle of promoting and working on that level. I also love to write and produce, so it works out for me because I enjoy that whole hustle.
I had situations where I could’ve signed some major deals here and there but it was never in my favor. The thing is, you can lose a lot signing the wrong type of contract. You can sign away your rights. Right now, I own pretty much all of my catalog, so I can release it whenever I want to. I have a whole catalog of music that I haven’t even released digitally yet that I’m in the process of releasing. If I would have signed to a particular major [label], I wouldn’t have had any rights to release none of my previous music.
What’s next for Al Kapone?
I’m finishing up this album. It’s back to the roots of that straight underground Memphis rap. I did a song called “Memphis Pride” that pretty much represented the whole Memphis rap scene. So basically re-representing the original Memphis rap sound. That early Memphis sound. I got a project representing that sound but it’s today, but it’s still that sound at the same time. That’s the next project I’m [about] to drop. I’m thinking I’m going to drop that some time in May, so look out for that.
So, how do you like it? Out of town? On the ground? Near a boat? With a goat? William Shakespeare wants to know. And, he wants to accommodate.
Guest Director Nick Hutchison has staged a beautiful production of Shakespeare’s somewhat naughty As You Like It at Rhodes College. But I have to admit, the Wednesday night preview occasionally left me scratching my head and thinking decidedly un-Shakesperean thoughts. “WTF,” for example.
Hutchison’s previous production of Twelfth Night at Rhodes was top notch, and, as I have already reported, I had an absolute blast sitting in on a team-taught Hamlet class that the RSC-bred actor/director helped to lead. So, I was more than a little surprised to find myself occasionally struggling to stay engaged with the first of Shakespeare’s comedies that (thanks to a no-holds- barred 80’s- era production by a young Nashville Shakespeare Festival) I ever truly fell in love with. This production, like Hutchison’s Twelfth Night, delights in the meaning of the words, rather than the words themselves, but unlike the earlier effort, there are some odd character choices, and the words and actions aren’t always fairly matched.
If you need a synopsis, that’s what the internet’s for. Intermission Impossible attracts a fairly literate crew and I expect most readers know the story of Orlando, Rosalind, an exiled Duke, and a variety of clowns that journey from the city to the country and discover love in its infinite variety.
Many of Hutchison’s more theatrical choices— the sort of non-literal choices I usually revel in— seemed like the stubs of interesting ideas, barely realized. I was especially confounded by the stylized finish to the wrestling match. Did young Orlando win his match or did Charles the wrestler have an aneurysm? Also, confetti boxes exploding as if at Orlando’s command, had no precedent, or ensuing rhyme. So they stood out as an odd gimmick. Although, for those willing to stoop at intermission, it was nice to see the name “Rosalind” — Orlando’s love — written on the tiny slivers of paper.
In many ways Hutchison’s As You Like It resembles his Twelfth Night. There are scenic resonances, and cast members returning in similar roles. Steven Brown, whose Malvolio, is among the best I’ve seen, has returned, and is a convincing Jaques, if not as colorful as the grumbly former libertine might be. Likewise, Donald Jellerson, a brilliant Feste in Twelfth Night, showed real promise, but often seemed unsure of himself as Touchstone, the syllogism-spouting clown, who’s in love with a shepherdess, but not the idea of settling down.
The student work was uniformly solid, though some character choices were questionable. I’m never comfortable laughing at a character someone has randomly designated as a fop, merely for the sake of the comic potential found in broad stereotypes. That happened. And there was a strong sense — at least on the night I attended — that everyone needed more run-throughs. Obviously, time has passed since the night I dropped by, and I would be very interested to see how the show has grown in a week.
It’s probably easy to read this as a review filled with complaints. And I suppose that’s what it is. But it’s really more of a review full of questions in the form of statements and disagreements that are more quibble than qualm. Others may be un-bothered by the inconsistencies, and happy to play along. For me, what’s proving to be special about a Nick Hutchison production, is the rare, and wonderful opportunity to see actors— especially young actors— playing Shakespeare’s characters, not acting Shakespeare. It’s a quality that smooths over imperfections, and difficult to quantify. It’s also why you might want to see this show whether my review makes it sound appealing or not.
There are a full 15 games on this last night of the NBA regular season, but only three are relevant to the Grizzlies’ still unsettled postseason assignment:
Jazz vs. Grizzlies (7 p.m.) Suns at Nuggets (7 p.m.) Clippers at Kings (9:30 p.m.)
Here — because, why not? — is every possible three-game outcome and what it would mean:
Grizzlies win Nuggets win Clippers win Playoffs: Grizzlies at Clippers (this is the most likely outcome)
Grizzlies win Nuggets win Clippers lose Playoffs: Clippers at Grizzlies
Grizzlies win Nuggets lose Clippers win Playoffs: Grizzlies at Nuggets
Grizzlies win Nuggets lose Clippers lose Playoffs: Clippers at Grizzlies
Grizzlies lose Nuggets win Clippers win Playoffs: Grizzlies at Clippers
Grizzlies lose Nuggets win Clippers lose Playoffs: Grizzlies at Clippers
Grizzlies lose Nuggets lose Clippers win Playoffs: Grizzlies at Nuggets
Grizzlies lose Nuggets lose Clippers lose Playoffs: Grizzlies at Clippers
By the time the Clippers game starts, these scenarios will be down to two. If the Nuggets win, as is heavily expected, it will lock the Grizzlies into a match-up with the Clippers. A Nuggets win paired with a Grizzlies loss, which is a very possible outcome, renders the late game irrelevant. If Grizzlies and Nuggets both win the early game — the most likely scenario — then fans will be waiting it out to see where a Grizzles-Clippers series would start.
The question of the night: How much fight will the Kings muster in what could be — yet again — the final Kings game in Sacramento.
As for the Grizzlies’ game, the Jazz come to FedExForum on a 9-2 closing run and need a win to keep their playoff hopes alive — though even that would need to be paired with a Lakers loss in their late game with the Houston Rockets.
I won’t be doing a full Postgame Notebook for tonight’s game, but will be tweeting from the game and will offer a shorter recap and updates on the playoff picture as things are settled.
As the city’s Parks Naming Committee gets ready to resume its deliberations (next Monday, April 22), its members could do worse than consider for honors a onetime resident of some distinction. I mean, as long as generals on horseback are in fashion….
Here was the man, a modest, regular-fellow sort with a bit of blues in his soul, in 1861: “I’ve tried to reenter service in vain. I must live, and my family must live. Perhaps I could serve the army by providing good bread for them. You remember my success at baking bread in Mexico.”
These words were from a desperate U.S. Grant, in a letter to childhood friend Chilton White mid-way of that first year of conflict, as war was beginning and the former captain, who had served in the Mexican War and at various peacetime posts, tried to find a role for himself. The future four-star General and two-term President had been forced to resign his commission in 1854 after being caught drunk on post and had endured seven lean years of unbroken ill luck at a variety of makeshift civilian jobs.
At the time he wrote this letter, he had already made three abortive efforts to reenter the military and most recently, had been forced to cool his heels as a supplicant in the outer office of the Army’s then rising star, the somewhat self-enamored General George B. McClellan, who had made a point, as several other potential saviors had, of ducking this apparently used-up hard-luck case. As Grant described the last of his several attempts to see McClellan, “Next day I came in. The same story. The General had just gone out, might be in at any moment.”
Baking bread! This last-straw reference was to a skill Grant, a West Point graduate, had developed while serving as a unit quartermaster in Mexico along with the aforesaid White during a war of conquest — one which, as he clearly recognized at the time, was both unjust and ominously created an opportunity for the wholesale expansion of slavery. In his Memoirs, Grant would pinpoint the Mexican War as the event which made later civil war inevitable.
“For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure [the precipitating annexation of Texas], and to this day regard the war as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” The American government was “following the bad example of European monarchies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”
Quite obviously, the down-and-out Grant of 1861 would get lucky, not long after writing the above-mentioned letter, fluking into a modest regimental command of a volunteer unit in Illinois when the previously appointed commander proved unable to maintain discipline. There happened to be a surfeit of such commands in Illinois because the then President of the United States, one Abraham Lincoln, had made sure that his native state had more than its share.
History has amply recorded that Grant was able to properly avail himself of his unexpected good fortune.
Later, after a celebrated run of victories in the Western theater, from Fort Donelson to Shiloh to Vicksburg, and with command in the decisive eastern theater still in his future,the serially promoted Grant made Memphis his interim headquarters for extended periods of time and conducted himself with studious benevolence toward the inhabitants.
Of this period, historian Jean Edward Smith (whose biographies of Grant and FDR are both must-reads) records: “Grant’s sympathetic approach helped to turn the tide of public opinion in Memphis, a city that had been among the most devoted to the Confederacy. On August 25 [1863] the board of trade hosted a dinner in his honor, and on the next night the mayor and city council followed suit. Grant was presented to the 200 guests with the toast, ‘Your Grant and my Grant,’ in which his reopening of the Mississippi to commerce was compared to the exploits of two other local heroes, Hernando deSoto and Robert Fulton.
“…At the second banquet, General Stephen Hurlburt, the Memphis commander, read a brief statement Grant had written thanking the citizens for their kindness and expressing his pleasure at the public exhibition of loyalty to the United States. “The stability of the Government and the unity of this nation depend solely on the cordial support and the earnest loyalty of the people…I am profoundly gratified at this public recognition, in the city of Memphis, of the power and authority of the Government of the United States.” When Hurlburt concluded, the audience gave Grant a prolonged standing ovation.”
Grant was a tiger at warfare. As we might say, apropos a certain basketball team we admire, he was all grit and grind. But, as we know from the way he treated Lee at Appomattox, he was possessed of a certain grace and generosity as well and was a man worth commemorating as a part of Memphis history.
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton presented a proposed general fund operating budget of $622.5 million to the City Council Tuesday. The council received it without comment, and will begin hearings later this month that will last several weeks.
The proposed budget is notable for three things.
It covers the first year in which Memphis is not obligated to support schools. It is the first time in modern history that overall property values have dropped. And it restores half of the 4.6 percent pay cut city employees took in 2011.
The current fiscal year budget is $648.9 million. The city operating budget is only part of the Memphis financial picture. Still to come are the capital improvements budget and the Shelby County budget.
Wharton said there will be no net savings from getting out from under the school funding obligation because the funds, averaging about $60 million in recent years, came from non-recurring sources.
“These funds must now be restored,” he said. “For example, $22 million must be returned to the budget to pay for Pensioner’s Insurance costs this coming fiscal year. Additionally, the police department budget has increased by more than $43 million since fiscal year 2008. Also in FY 2008 the property tax rate was reduced, resulting in a revenue loss of $33.6 million.”
The city currently has 6,290 employees but proposes to cut that to 6,170. The greatest number of employees are in police (3032) and fire (1830.).
“The drop in assessed property values will not generate the same amount of revenue necessary to cover the operations outlined in this budget,” said Wharton. “Not at the current tax rate. I mention these things because it better frames the existing options. While the administration is open to alternatives to this budget, I ask that you be mindful that we cannot meet ongoing financial demands by drawing on non-recurring revenue as we’ve done in previous years.”
