Month: June 2017

The City’s Office of Business Diversity and Compliance (OBDC) will present a day of procurement-related events on Thursday, June 15— the day Mayor Jim Strickland has declared as “We Mean Business” Day in Memphis.

These events are planned at a time when the City is aiming to increase certified vendors and contracts awarded to small, minority and women-owned businesses.



“The City of Memphis means business and plans to continue being intentional about doing business with the Small, Minority, and Women Business Enterprise community,” director of OBDC Joann Massey said.


Designed for business owners, resource providers, and policymakers, the two events are both open and free to the public with registration.

The first of the two is the Strategic Sourcing Summit, which will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday at the Crossitt Library.

Hosted by the City in partnership with U.S. Communities and U.S. Conference of Mayors, the summit will cover topics related to innovative procurement solutions on a national scale, and provide policy makers and government officials the chance to network with local agencies using cooperative purchasing.

Scheduled for noon at the Memphis Cook Convention Center, the second of the two events will be the City’s bi-annual We Mean Business Symposium.

The Symposium will feature speakers from the Small Business Administration and U.S. Communities, as well as a matchmaking forum in which potential vendors can meet with procurement officials from each of the City’s divisions, quasi-government agencies, and City partners.

A statue of Johnny Cash got one step closer to standing in Cooper-Young Monday as a local non-profit organization secured a contract for the marker with artist Mike McCarthy.

Fundraising efforts for the life-sized bronze statue have been underway for years. An ioby page for the project recently raised $26,429, meeting its May deadline.

Legacy Memphis Inc., a nonprofit “dedicated to erecting statues and monuments to Memphis’ musical and cultural icons,” said the recently wrapped campaign was for Phase I funding and that another round of funding will be necessary to complete the project with site preparation and landscaping.

The statue’s exact location is still being determined, though organizers said it will be somewhere in the Cooper-Young neighborhood.

Legacy Memphis said it has secured all the rights “from all necessary estates” for the project. The statue will be modeled from a photograph of Cash in 1962. Local historians will work together to create the historical marker describing Cash’s first performance at the church.

Here’s what Legacy Memphis has to say about McCarthy:

“While better known for his films and graphic novel work, McCarthy, a resident of Cooper-Young for 18 years, studied under sculptor John McIntyre at the Memphis Art Academy (now the Memphis College of Art).”

The statue will be cast at the Lugar Bronze Foundry in Eads. Also cast at the foundry were the statues of Elvis Presley on Beale and Little Milton and Bobby Blue Bland on South Main.

A federal lawsuit against the City for the alleged unlawful surveying by members of the Memphis Police Department (MPD) at Fight for $15 events was dismissed, according to a statement issued today by the City’s chief legal officer Bruce McMullen.

Plaintiffs, Antonio Cathey and the Mid-South Organizing Committee (MSOC) voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit against the City of Memphis, along with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and MPD director Michael Rallings— both in their official capacity only.

MPD denies any engagement in unlawful surveillance of Fight for $15 events nor were any unlawful tactics ever proven.

As a term of the dismissal, MPD has agreed to appoint a liaison that Fight for $15 can contact directly with concerns pertaining to permitted protests and public assemblies.

The liaison position is meant to create a clear line of communication between MPD and Fight for $15, as well as other groups like it.

“We feel the dismissal is a win for the City of Memphis,” said McMullen. “The lawsuit gave us an opportunity to address how law enforcement and advocacy groups communicate.”

Other terms of the dismissal, provide MSOC with a six-month extension to the one-year statute of limitation to refile its lawsuit.

Newspaper Guild of Memphis

The Guild has hung ‘shame on Gannett’ posters around the office at the newspaper’s headquarters at 495 Union.

The Memphis Newspaper Guild said Monday it is still trying to get Gannett Co., the new owner of The Commercial Appeal, to pay severance packages to 23 former employees.

In a statement issued Monday afternoon, Guild president Daniel Connolly said those employees have gone 63 days without severance and the Guild has hung “shame on Gannett” posters around the newspaper office at 495 Union.

Here’s Connolly’s statement in full:

“Sixty-three days have passed since April 11, the last official day for editorial employees terminated from The Commercial Appeal.
And 43 days have passed since May 1, the last official day for terminated advertising employees.

After all this time, we’re still trying to get Gannett to pay these former employees a severance: 23 people in all, 12 in editorial, 11 in advertising.

Last week we hung up signs throughout The Commercial Appeal building at 495 Union Avenue. They say “Shame on Gannett – Pay the severance.”

The story of how we got to this point is long and complex. Because of some quirks within our union contract, every time the company lays off workers, we have to negotiate for severance. Obviously, this is not ideal for anyone.

In this case, Gannett broke a lot of rules in the advertising department, essentially firing everyone and forcing them to compete against one another for jobs, in violation of our contract.

We wanted to settle the editorial severance matter quickly and get those workers paid while we sorted out the problems in advertising.

Gannett has refused to do this, essentially holding the editorial workers hostage until we agreed to a blanket amnesty deal forgiving the company for their rule-breaking in advertising. In response, we filed a union grievance as well as federal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.

The federal National Labor Relations Board investigation of The Commercial Appeal’s actions is ongoing. Both Guild vice-president Wayne Risher and I have given hours of sworn testimony in the federal case. Another person from our team testified on Thursday.

Even as the federal cases continue, we’ve been trying to reach a settlement.

It’s time-consuming. Every settlement offer we make has to be checked and double-checked by our attorneys. We have to discuss details with the people affected. Key people sometimes go out of town. We’ll make a settlement offer, then wait. Days go by.

We communicated with the company attorney as recently as Friday, and we might be very close to making a deal. Then again, I could be wrong about that. Back in early April, I likewise thought a settlement was right around the corner.

And here we are. Sixty-three days without severance for the former editorial workers. Forty-three days without severance for the former advertising workers. In a word, the company’s behavior is shameful.

The behavior is also self-destructive. It harms employee morale, weakens recruiting and drives off good people.

A fair settlement would help put this issue behind us. I truly hope that I’ll be able to announce a settlement of this issue sometime soon. In the meantime, please share the news about the latest developments with your friends and associates. And thank you for your support.”

Once the site of Memphis Mobile City, a community of mobile homes destroyed by flood waters in 2011, 3894 N. Thomas St., will now be 1401 Memphis Blues Ave and house a new community of manufactured rental-only mobile homes, renamed Memphis Blues.

UMH Properties held the community’s phase one grand opening Saturday, welcoming prospective tenants to tour the site’s homes and amenities, like the playground and clubhouse.

Following the devastating flood of 2011, before the community could be rebuild, City officials required that the homes be constructed to follow flood zone regulations and be redeveloped above the flood plain.  

The floors in the finished homes of Memphis Blues now sit at least two feet over the flood elevation, as
during construction UMH used fill, or dirt, to raise the streets and lots above the 100-year flood elevation.

After phase one of three, Memphis Blues has 25 installed homes with about 160 more planned.

Tenants, who have already began to move in, can rent the manufactured homes for under $800.

Tennessee insurance companies paid close to $9.4 million on dog-bite claims last year, according to  the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm.

The information was presented in a Monday news release from the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI). The release says “as the dog days of summer approach” that “leash laws can be a homeowner’s best friend when it comes to preventing costly dog bite insurance claims this year.”

Last year, insurance companies here paid on more than 300 dog-bite claims, according to the state. Nationwide, more than 18,000 dog-bite claims were paid, totaling more than $600 million.

“One way to help lower the risk of dog-bite injuries is to always obey local leash laws and be a responsible pet owner,” said TDCI Assistant Commissioner Michael Humphreys in a statement. “Such actions protect our friends, neighbors, and postal letter carriers who deliver our mail, rain or shine.”

The Postal Service’s Tennessee District noted that postal carriers report more dog bites in June than any other month. The postal district recommended that dog owners secure their pets during business hours and to put dogs in a separate room before receiving mail from mail carriers.

Finally, the postal district reminds that “children and other family members [should] not to take mail directly from the letter carrier in the presence of the family pet. The dog may view the letter carrier’s gesture as threatening.”