Month: December 2018

Categories
News The Fly-By

River Threat

CREDIT: Joe Royer

States and cities along the Mississippi River will see billions of dollars worth of climate-related impacts unless “major changes” are made in the near term, according to a group of 85 mayors in cities and towns up and down the river.

The Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) issued last week paints a bleak picture for the Mississippi River Valley and the entire Mississippi River Basin with rising temperatures and rising waters.

Joe Royer

The Outdoors Inc. Canoe and Kayak Race.

Mayors with the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) said that “infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture, and vulnerability are all implicated in this new report with effects alarming to even mayors that have been dealing with these impacts for a number of years already.” The group has pushed for changes to fight climate-related catastrophes in the region since 2012.

“The first duty of government is to help ensure the safety and health of the people it represents, so leaders should heed the report’s calls for action,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in a statement. “Minneapolis is already charting a course toward 100 percent renewable electricity.

“To better protect the Mississippi River — a major force for economic justice and a key source for drinking water — we need to partner with communities, neighboring jurisdictions, and states by following the data and taking meaningful steps to curb climate change.”

The Mississippi River Corridor has already sustained over $200 billion in disaster impacts since 2005, according to the MRCTI, with six of the 10 Mississippi River states incurring more than $10 billion in losses for each state. Bettendorf, Iowa, Mayor Bob Gallagher said, though he thought he was prepared, “I was taken aback by some of the findings in the report.”

“The NCA states the annual cost of adapting urban storm water systems to more frequent and severe storms is projected to exceed $500 billion for the Midwest by the end of the century,” Gallagher said. “More important to my state of Iowa, the assessment says projected changes in precipitation, coupled with rising extreme temperatures before mid-century, will reduce Midwest agricultural productivity to levels of the 1980s without major technological advances.”

Like Memphis, other cities in the Southeast are experiencing more and longer summer heat waves, according to the NCA. Of the five cities already reporting more extreme heat waves, three of them are in the South — Birmingham, Raleigh, and New Orleans.

“The urban heat island effect [cities that are warmer than surrounding rural areas, especially at night] adds to the impact of heat waves in cities,” reads the report. “Southeastern cities including Memphis and Raleigh have a particularly high future heat risk.”

Transportation infrastructure is particularly at risk in Memphis, according to the NCA.

“An extreme weather vulnerability assessment conducted by the Tennessee Department of Transportation found that the urban areas of Memphis and Nashville had the most at-risk transportation infrastructure in the state,” reads the report. “Increasing precipitation and extreme weather events will likely impact roads, freight rail, and passenger rail, especially in Memphis, which will likely have cascading effects across the region.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

21 Voices: Forcing Change at CMOM

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

They don’t want to talk about it. They say they can’t talk about it, in fact. Leaders with the Children’s Museum of Memphis (CMOM) say a non-disclosure agreement prevents them from talking about how and why Richard “Dick” Hackett, the museum’s former executive director and former mayor of Memphis, left the organization in June 2017. In an off-the-record meeting with leaders last week, they said they have nothing to hide but refused to talk about a formal investigation at the museum last year or that non-disclosure agreement.   

“The board of directors and leadership at CMOM are excited about our future and have no interest in revisiting the departure of prior CEO Dick Hackett two years after the event,” interim CMOM executive director Reed Cochran said in a statement written on behalf of the museum’s board.

Leaders said they “would be more than happy to discuss” the one-year anniversary of the carousel restoration, new board members, new programming, and the museum’s upcoming search for a new, permanent executive director. The future seems bright, inviting, and brimming with promise, like the museum itself. 

Justin Fox Burks

But a group of former CMOM employees formed an organization called “21 Voices,” and described turmoil behind the scenes, particularly during Hackett’s years. They cite nepotism, casual racism, and sexism — a good-ole-boy’s club with frat-house rules, bloated paychecks, and random bonuses. They claim Hackett made adversarial employees “sweat” if they crossed the boss or his friends. They complain that long-time staffers who had just helped CMOM win an important, national accreditation were fired for seemingly little cause. 

Members of the 21 Voices group say they petitioned the CMOM board, but the board didn’t listen. Group members said only when they threatened to launch a formal complaint to the national accreditation group did the board hire an external investigator, get some facts, and, eventually, part ways with Hackett. 

It’s a much different story than Hackett told at the time. In an interview with the Memphis Daily News‘ Bill Dries in May 2017, Hackett said he was stepping aside and simply shifting his focus to fund-raising.

“I’ll shift my emphasis to, on my own, raising money for the Carousel building,” Hackett told Dries. “It’s two businesses and there’s no way one person could do both.”

Scroll to the bottom of that story online, though, and you’ll find comments pointing at that other, darker narrative. (The Daily News only allowed comments through a Facebook plug-in, so, the names and people are who they say they are, on Facebook, at least.)

“He [was] nothing but a leech off the museum,” wrote Loni Wellman. “You should really be thanking the staff — who he has forced out. Look at the 990s.”

Wellman’s LinkedIn profile says she was the program manager at CMOM from 2007 to 2011. 

“Evidently he will continue to leech and plunder as a ‘consultant,'” wrote Amanda McEachran LaMountain. “And, yes, please look at the 990s, although they only paint an incomplete picture of the racism, nepotism, and general incompetence that Hackett’s ‘leadership’ represented.”

LaMountain’s father was Angus McEachran, former editor of The Commercial Appeal and also a former board chairman of CMOM.

“He claims to have made the decision to resign on his own,” wrote Jim Hyde. “Strangely, it was made just after the organization, 21 Voices, forced the board of trustees at CMOM to conduct an investigation into their claims of racism, nepotism, sexual discrimination, and workplace bullying. 

“The board at CMOM chose to tell 21 Voices that Hackett would resign due to money problems and refused to address the issues that were investigated nor will they discuss the investigation conducted by [Burch], Porter and Johnson,” wrote Hyde. “Sounds like 21 Voices were correct in their beliefs. Hey CMOM, how about some transparency?”

CMOM leaders say they are transparent, and a Charity Navigator document provided to the Flyer last week gives the museum a four-star ranking (its highest) on accountability and transparency and a score of 100 out of 100. 

Hackett retired from CMOM in June 2017. By September, he was the new executive director at Catholic Charities of West Tennessee, the service arm of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, which serves 21 counties in West Tennessee. In a guest column in The Commercial Appeal in October 2017, Hackett said, “I feel closer to God every day I walk into our building or deliver a meal to a disabled Veteran or senior.”

Hackett said he is “proud of my body of work at CMOM” and “with the help of employees, board members, and generous donors, we were able to bring CMOM from the brink of closing its doors to a thriving, nationally accredited museum.

“All of the changes that I made, my personnel decisions, and my management approach were approved by the numerous members of the board of directors, respected members of our community,” Hackett added. “I am well aware of the false allegations made by a group of former employees and I am aware of some of their criticisms that sound [word missing] in reality but are misunderstood by the group.”

Back to the Beginning

Planning for the Children’s Museum of Memphis began in 1985, led by a group of three women — Mars Child, Polly Glotzbach, and Harriet McFadden.

The  Boston-grown and Harvard-educated Child moved to Memphis in 1984 and wanted to see a children’s museum reflecting her childhood here. About the same time, Memphis native McFadden read about Boston’s children’s museum in an in-flight magazine, flew north to see it herself, and decided she wanted a similar museum in Memphis. 

“It was there that a Boston museum trustee told Harriet about Mars’ interest in the same idea and that Mars was in Memphis,” reads a section about the women on the Women of Achievement website. “Was it fate? Coincidence? Magic?”

Others pointed the two women to Glotzbach, a Vanderbilt graduate and former Junior League of Memphis president who had toured the children’s museum in St. Louis. 

In 1987, the three incorporated the Children’s Museum of Memphis as a private nonprofit organization. The next year, the three “found a friend in [then-Memphis Mayor Dick Hackett] who helped them find the old [National Guard Armory]” complex on the MidSouth Fairgrounds, according to the Historic Memphis website.

In 1988, the museum signed a 25-year lease with the city of Memphis on the complex, paying $1 a year. Tax documents show the lease was renewed in 2000 for $1 a year for the next 37 years. Another CMOM tax document puts the worth of the buildings at $10.1 million. A 2016 audit document put the annual fair value of the $1 rent at $324,378. 

The three founders raised $3 million for construction, and the museum opened to the public on Saturday, June 16, 1990. Eleven years later, CMOM had raised $7.2 million for an expansion project that added 16,000 square feet to the museum. The expanded museum opened on August 3, 2001.

In 2013, the museum opened its H2Oh! Splash Park. In 2014, it opened the Outdoor PlaySpace.” In 2015, the museum agreed to restore the 1909 Dentzel Grand Carousel and opened the $4.5-million Grand Carousel Pavillion in 2017. 

Richard “Dick” Hackett

Hackett History

Hackett looms large in Memphis history. Elected mayor at age 33 in 1982, he was the youngest mayor of a major U.S. city. He was elected three times by Memphis voters. He made history again in his incredibly narrow loss (by only 172 votes) to the city’s first African-American mayor, W.W. Herenton, in 1991. 

Hackett reduced the city’s debt and only raised taxes once during his term in office. He appointed African Americans to some of the city’s highest offices, including James Ivey as Memphis Police Department’s first African-American director, and Greg Duckett as chief administrative officer.

Hackett also founded Wonders: The Memphis International Cultural Series. He served as senior vice president at the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), the fund-raising arm of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Hackett served on the board for Christian Brothers High School, the Wesley School for Children, and more.

In July 2006, Hackett was named CMOM’s chief executive officer, the third in the organization’s history. As mayor, he’d helped the museum secure the $1-per-year lease deal on the old Armory buildings. 

“It is great to again have Dick as an important part of the museum,” Angus McEachran, CMOM board of trustees president, said in a statement at the time. “He brings a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and contacts to catapult the museum to an even higher level of excellence.”

By the Numbers

Maybe the first public red flag of Hackett’s turn at the CMOM helm came in a regular, annual financial audit of the museum in 2014 by Zoccola Kaplan, PLLC. 

“The museum routinely utilizes a vendor who is a relative of the Chief Executive Officer for various repairs, maintenance, and capital projects,” reads the audit. “For the year ended June 30, 2014, the vendor was paid a total of $46,581 by the museum.” That same line is in audits for 2015, 2016, and 2017. 

CMOM’s 990 for that year explains the payment was made to Mark Hackett, the CEO’s brother. The next year, Mark Hackett was paid $69,022 for “improvements to exhibits.” The next year, Mark Hackett was paid $106,031, a figure higher than the salary of the museum’s Chief Operating Officer.

That year, too, Jason Hackett, Dick Hackett’s son, was paid $23,600 for “improvements to exhibits.” In 2016, Mark Hackett was paid $81,567, and Jason Hackett was paid $19,739. For all of this, the tax documents say “the conflict of interest disclosures are updated annually and monitored by the board of directors.”

“Those who criticize this decision fail to recognize, or perhaps do not even know, that my brother’s value was his ability to get most of his building materials donated in-kind by his supplier contacts,” Hackett said. “I feel the decision to hire him was because this benefit outweighed any appearance of nepotism.”

Further, Hackett said knowing his brother offered “additional assurance of character and decency over and above background checks and references.”

“You can never be too careful about who is around children,” he said. “Safety and protection of our child patrons was my No. 1 priority.” 

During that time, Dick Hackett saw his salary and benefits package increase, too. In 2014, he had a pay package worth $268,495. The museum employed 61 people that year and ended the year $132,120 in the red, according to tax documents. 

Revenues in 2015 remained largely flat over the previous year ($2.6 million in 2014 to $2.7 million in 2015) though the museum had shed 18 employees. Hackett’s pay and benefits package rose to $305,521, including a $20,000 bonus from the board. The museum ended 2015 in the red by $234,762, according to tax documents.

In 2016, revenues were slightly down ($2.6 million), and the museum added one employee for a total of 44. Hackett’s pay package swelled to $328,569, which included a $45,000 bonus from the board. 

CMOM explained in tax documents that “the board of directors annually reviews CEO compensation paid within the industry and inside and outside the area.” Hackett’s pay was approved by a CMOM compensation committee and the full board of directors.

In 2016, Jackson’s Mississippi Children’s Museum, with revenues of $4.7 million and 92 employees, paid its president and CEO Susan Garrard $129,288. In 2015, Thinkery, the Austin Children’s Museum, with 80 employees and revenues of about $5 million, paid its CEO, Troy Livingston, $108, 446. In 2015, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, with 135 employees and about $5 million in revenues, paid its president and CEO, Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, $204, 711. All of this is according to these organizations’ 990s.

Another, non-Hackett-related anomaly found in tax records is on a form CMOM filed with the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis’ nonprofit search site, wheretogivemidsouth.org. The document has warning asterisks emblazoned around the words “Do Not File” and “Not Open to Public Inspection.”

But CMOM officials did file them with the Community Foundation, and one document in the latest 990s shows payments to the museum from what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls “disqualified” people, “any person who was in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the [nonprofit organization] at any time during” the reporting period.

These documents show John Dobbs made payments to the museum of $10,775 in 2014, $320,000 in 2015, and $10,000 in 2016, while his wife Katherine Dobbs was listed as a CMOM trustee. Another CMOM trustee, Dick Tillman, made a $19,870 payment to the museum in 2016, according to tax documents.

Justin Fox Burks

21 Voices

Public numbers tell one part of the story. For the day-to-day, we’ll turn to interviews with three former CMOM employees who said they left or were forced to quit during the time after the museum won its national accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Twenty-one of those employees formed 21 Voices to draw attention to Hackett’s behavior.

In a January 2017 letter to the CMOM board, the 21 former employees said “Hackett repeatedly engaged in behavior with staff and visitors that is unacceptable to a man in his role as CEO.

“The behavior has also been witnessed by museum visitors, donors, and others who  have had to deal with him,” reads the letter, noting the complaints are backed by documents and recordings. “The complaints include sexual harassment by other staff members, unprofessional behavior, intimidation, verbal abuse, gender, racial, and age discrimination, conflicts of interests, and nepotism (hiring friends and family members — all white males).” 

CMOM leaders discounted this narrative last week. But when asked for their side of the story, they would not comment, pointing to the terms of the investigation and the non-disclosure agreement.

But in May 2017, 21 Voices received a letter from then-CMOM board chairman Jon Bascom. It said Hackett would retire on June 15th and “will cease being an employee of the museum.” However, the museum had taken on a debt load of $4.5 million for the Carousel building. So, the museum would keep Hackett as an independent consultant, given his “significant experience in fund raising.”

“We appreciate your desire not to harm the museum and that is a top goal of the board as well as paying for the expansion,” Bascom said in his letter. “Due to confidentiality and attorney-client privilege, I am not at liberty to discuss any details of the investigation or the resulting actions. I hope you understand.”

Bascom said it had been a “trying year so far for the museum” and that “this begins a new chapter for CMOM on the road to being ever bigger and better.”

“For years and years, we’d see [Hackett] doing something dirty but he might do something dirty to one person at a time,” said one former employee. “It was in 2016, he really messed up. He built an army against himself. I knew we were the last bit of defense for the museum. So, I started organizing all the people he got rid of.”

One employee was told not to come out of the basement. But the person worked with the exhibits, which were, well, upstairs.  

“I was forced to quit,” the employee said. “I was called up out of the basement and they said, ‘Are you ready to sign a deal?’ What was I supposed to do, wait until they fired me and there was no deal?”

As the employee tells it, the banishment came because the person helped a fellow employee (one whose English wasn’t very good) to write a resume to get a new job. The employee had been a CMOM employee for nine years without a raise, the person said.

“Once I got him that job, they really came down hard on me,” the former employee said.

That was a classic Hackett move, according to another former CMOM employee. 

“He’d strip away your job duties and say, ‘we’re not doing this anymore,'” another former employee said. “Then, you’re just sort of sitting there. Then, he tells the board you’re not doing anything.”

The employees also told of Hackett’s practice of hiring his fellow Mississippians for jobs at the museum, people he “knew from the gym” or knew from restaurants. They described a team of cronies built around Hackett who felt they could not be fired, “because of their relationship with Dick.”

It created a work atmosphere that the employees said allowed for racist remarks to go unchecked. One employee recalled a Martin Luther King Day event in which Hackett proclaimed the museum didn’t “have enough black people working here” and offered the employee $250 “for every black person you find and we hire.”

Another employee recalled Hackett and the museum’s senior staff gathered around a security monitor waiting to watch a gag. A male employee was to wait until a specific female employee stood close to him and he’d make a show of pulling down his pants in front of her, an an attempt to make the woman feel uncomfortable and to delight his buddies watching on the monitor.

Another female employee lodged a sexual harassment complaint at a Hackett-hired employee. The woman was sent home. Later, she was told she could some back to work, but Hackett said to “make her sweat,” according to another former employee.

During this period, one former employee decided to speak directly to the board. The person remembered that, according to the CMOM employees’ handbook, employees were covered under the federal Whistleblower Act. The person said they made the request to speak and the request for protection to Cliff Drake, then the museum’s COO. While Drake said he’d get back to the person, he never did, the person said.

“That’s the whole thing,” the former employee said. “We didn’t really have human resources because Dick controlled [Drake], and he controlled [now Chief Financial Officer Randall McKeel], and [current COO Art Davis]. He controlled them to where they did whatever he wanted them to do.”

Hackett said he is a “reformer” and his employers, including the people of Memphis, “hired me to make necessary changes for the greater good.” He said it’s not “an enviable job” and one that often “draws the ire of those who wish to maintain the status quo.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that I am not easy to work for,” Hackett said. “I ask for a level of dedication and hard work that some cannot give. I can be harsh.  

“In our society today, too often our leaders refuse to admit their humanity. I am human. I am not perfect. I hope that someday those who have criticized me will come to realize that my intentions were always good and with the aim of bettering the lives of the children that we served.”

21 Voices went somewhat public recently in an attempt to block McKeel from becoming CMOM’s new CEO in an undated petition at change.org. In it, Jim Hyde says, “our organization, 21 Voices, has helped remove the former CEO of CMOM, Dick Hackett, and we’re glad to see this necessary change.”

To get there, a former employee said they contacted the AAM, the group that had awarded CMOM its national accreditation, to lodge a formal complaint. The person was told by an official at AAM that many times change could happen by just simply letting board members know that the accrediting agency had been contacted with a complaint. 

“We hold the future of your accreditation in our hands and we’re watching you,” described the employee. “Just to give them a warning shot.”

That move spawned an investigation by Lisa Krupicka, an attorney with Birch, Porter and Johnson, a former employee said. Krupicka said she could not share a copy of her investigation. Sometime after that, Hackett and CMOM parted ways. When asked for an interview about this story, CMOM’s current interim director Cochran said “an interview is unlikely due to the non-disclosure agreement related to the separation.” 

Justin Fox Burks

Looking to the Future

In March 2018, the CMOM board hired Stephanie Butler, a graduate of Rhodes College and Columbia University who had been the Chief Strategy Officer with the United Way of the MidSouth, as its new executive director. 

Butler told Daily News reporter Don Wade in March that her vision was to “… open the museum up to the community” and that she wanted the museum “to be a town square for early childhood education.” Butler left nine months later, in November.

In her time there, Butler expanded the educational programming offerings at CMOM, including bi-weekly story times, movement classes and sensory play opportunities for toddlers, created a new “Night at the Museum” evening event, and created the “Experience Wakanda” day, featuring Marvel’s Black Panther.

Executive Director Reed Cochran will lead the museum until a new, permanent director can be found. A national search is expected to commence in spring 2019.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Green Book

Here’s a conundrum for you: How do you make a person less racist?

Screaming “You’re racist!” at them doesn’t seem to help. But there’s one thing that does seem to help reduce hatred and bigotry of all kind: exposure. The more people you meet who are different from you, the less likely you are to hate them for the color of their skin or their language or religion or sexual orientation or whatever. Travel, in other words, helps bring us together.

That’s more or less the theme of Green Book. It’s 1962 in New York City, and Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) has a pretty good gig as a bouncer (“I’m in public relations”) at the legendary Copacabana night club. It’s a beautiful and elegant place populated by the rich and famous — and also a bunch of mobsters. That means Tony has to occasionally mix it up it with a well-heeled but rowdy Italian guy in order to keep the peace. But after an incident with a don’s hat goes a little sideways, the club gets shut down for the last two months of the year, so Tony’s got to find a new job.

Viggo Mortensen (left) and Mahershala Ali take to the road in Peter Farrelly’s Green Book.

He makes a few bucks betting fat guys he can eat more hot dogs than they can, but with the holidays coming up, underground competitive eating contests aren’t going to cut it. Then he gets a job interview with a doctor who needs a driver.

Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) couldn’t be more different than Tony, who has lived his whole life in the same Bronx neighborhood where his father and grandfather also lived. Dr. Shirley’s got three PhDs, none of which are in medicine.

“He’s a doctor of piano playing,” Tony says later.

“Can you be that?” asks his wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini).

Yes, you can. But it was not common in 1963 for a black man to have a PhD in the arts; to have studied in Russia, Germany, and Italy; or to have a comfortable career playing his own neoclassical jazz compositions for the rich and powerful. Dr. Shirley needs a driver because he’s embarking on a two-month tour, where he and his trio will play both cavernous concert halls and intimate chamber recitals. The catch is, the tour will swing through the deep South, and Dr. Shirley knows at some point there’s going to be the kind of trouble where a beefy, mobbed-up Italian from the Bronx is going to come in handy. After some negotiation, Dr. Shirley meets Tony’s price, and they’re off. But not before Tony is forced to become acquainted with the Green Book, a publication from the Jim Crow era that listed black-friendly hospitality establishments all through the segregated South. Once they’re on the road, however, the odd couple will discover that just sticking to the book is not enough to avoid bigotry, discrimination, and outright violence.

The obvious and easy comparison for Green Book is Driving Miss Daisy, only with a white guy behind the wheel and a black guy playing the part of the patrician passenger. In practice, however, it’s not that simple. Directed by Peter Farrelly, half of the Farrelly Brothers, who brought us such carefully crafted social experiments as There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber, this film is not precious or preachy — or at least, not too preachy.

For much of its length, it’s basically a two-hander set in a tail-finned blue Thunderbird traveling on the then-new Interstate system and on the back roads of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, and finally, Alabama. The chemistry between Mortensen and Ali is critical, and the two actors spend the film elevating and occasionally transcending the material they’re given to work with. Mortensen grew a totally authentic gut for the production, and he and Farrelly can’t stop throwing food gags into the mix. (The best is when Tony eats a whole pizza like he’s hoisting a slice on the street.) Ali is all about dignity, his performance recalling Ellis Haizlip, the effortlessly classy TV host profiled in the documentary Mr. Soul!, who, like Dr. Shirley, was a gay man who found an accepting home in the New York of the ’60s. The juxtaposition of class (Tony is poor, Dr. Shirley is wealthy) and race (as an Italian Yankee, Tony is only slightly more accepted than Dr. Shirley in the hierarchy of Southern society) make for the film’s most interesting moments. But if you’re looking for a piercing critique of race and class, seek out Sorry to Bother You instead. Green Book is well-meaning and competently made, but anodyne and ultimately ephemeral entertainment.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Shelby County Commission Ponders Matters of Time

CREDIT: Reginald Milton

Toward the end of Monday’s meeting of the Shelby County Commission, second-term member Mark Billingsley, looking out from his seat on the stage of the Vasco Smith County Administration Building, swept an arm out toward the auditorium’s row of seats, all virtually empty, as Billingsley pointed out, save for a few isolated staff members.

Billingsley went on to suggest  to his colleagues that the commission’s recent decision to change the start time of its meetings from 3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. — ostensibly, on the initiative of new member Mick Wright, to enable more members of the general public to attend meetings — had failed, and that maybe the commission ought to revert to its previous start time.

A couple of things struck at least one observer as unusual: 1) that the effective half-hour difference did not seem all that consequential; and 2) that it had been Billingsley himself, at the beginning of his first term, four years ago, who had moved for a change in the body’s start time, from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. And his reasoning back then? That such a change would enable more members of the general public to attend meetings.

In one sense, given the number of reasonably significant matters that have occupied this commission in its first couple of months, the matter of starting time might have seemed relatively unimportant. But is it? Commissioner Wright, who represents Bartlett, had originally suggested an even later start time, 6 p.m., but that was shaved back during later consideration, on the grounds that, while the public might indeed be freer to attend in the evenings, staff members — whose presence on many matters is essential — would be inconvenienced by having to stick around.

There is no perfect time for a public body to meet, of course. The Memphis City Council’s start time for its Tuesday public meetings has, for several years, been 4:30 p.m., a time that strikes something of a mean between the needs of public and city government staffers, but seems mainly to be of advantage to the 10 o’clock newscasts of local television stations, by providing them with relatively fresh newsbreaks.

On Monday, Wright earned a bit of teasing from colleague Edmund Ford Jr., who noted that several of Wright’s initiatives involved clock time, including another matter up for discussion on Monday — that of Daylight Saving Time. Wright had suggested that the back-and-forth shifting — back an hour at one time of year and up again later on — creates unnecesary dislocation in people’s lives.

Wright first proposed including the state’s abandonment of Daylight Saving Time as an item in the commission’s recommended legislative package for the General Assembly but later said he’d be satisfied with the imposition of year-long Daylight Saving Time. The idea in either case, with or without DST, was to maintain a year-long consistency.

Ultimately, the commission approved an amended version of Wright’s resolution, one that would urge the General Assembly to reconsider the issue of Daylight Saving Time without recommending a particular course.

• As befits a local legislative body, perhaps, the incidence of partisan disagreements is not large, but it does exist. It showed itself on a few matters Monday.

One instance concerned the meaning of a resolution asking the General Assembly to amend the state’s Basic Education Program (BEP) “to fund additional school Resource Officers, Social Workers, and Counselors.”

A debate of sorts erupted over the meaning of the term “Resource Officers.” Amber Mills, the resolution’s original sponsor and a Republican, wanted the term construed to denote security officers. Or, at least, she accepted commission Chairman Van Turner‘s paraphrase of her intent to mean something such-like.

Other commissioners, including the body’s Democrats, wanted a looser definition, and they prevailed in a party-line vote, in which Wright, Billingsley, and Brandon Morrison, all Republicans, sided with Mills on the losing side. The final  resolution, with the looser definition intact, then passed 12-0.

Another Mills resolution asked the General Assembly “to avoid the adoption of Legislation, Policies, Rules of Regulations requiring the implementation of unfunded mandates.” This one, arguably reflecting a traditional Republican concern, was approved unanimously once it was reworded to specificy “unfunded education mandates” — which Mills accepted as expressing her basic intent.

A third matter reflected this commision’s apparent inclination to skirt possible divides in the interests of unity. This was regarding an ordinance, up for the second of three required readings, to amend the requirements of the Shelby County Minority and Women Business Enterprise Program (MWBE).

As outlined by Shep Wilbun, chief county diversity officer, the ordinance went into minute detail defining the terms, numerical and otherwise, that either permitted or encouraged the awarding of contracts in greater numbers to firms owned by women and/or African Americans. In the end, there appeared to be general agreement on the commission that the accretion of new detail was such as to make an already abstruse process even more “cumbersome” — an adjective supplied by Commissioner Morrison.

And thus the ordinance was routed back to committee to undergo a process of simplifcation.

• Last weekend saw a visit here by Tennessee Democratic Party chair Mary Mancini, one of several planned for statewide under the head, “Analyze, Organize, Mobilize,” to discuss party affairs and strategy. A group of 30 to 50 local Democrats met with Mancini at the headquarters building of U.S. Pipefitters Local 614 in Arlington.

On hand to assist in the process, in the wake of what has been a highly successful year or two for the party, was Shelby County Democratic Party chair Corey Strong, who confided that he intends to focus on his job as special project director at Shelby County Schools and does not plan to seek reelection in March, when local Democrats meet in convention.

The forthcoming convention will re-inaugurate a cycle that was interrupted when the Shelby County party, having fallen into disunity and ineffectiveness, was dissolved by Mancini in 2016.

Categories
News News Blog

Treadaway Withdraws Bid for District 1 Council Seat

Lonnie Treadaway, Rhonda Logan

Lonnie Treadaway withdrew his bid for the vacant Memphis City Council District 1 seat Wednesday at the council’s first daily standing meeting, called as an attempt to reach a quorum.

This comes a day after four council members supporting candidate Rhonda Logan staged a walkout during Tuesday’s meeting. That meeting was a continuation of the council’s November 20th meeting that ended in a deadlock after nine hours of voting.

The council’s Wednesday meeting was the first of an indefinite number of standing meetings scheduled until there is a quorum, or at least seven of the 10 members. Council members Kemp Conrad, Ford Canale, Worth Morgan, Frank Colvett, and Chairman Berlin Boyd were in attendance, while the four who walked out Tuesday — Patrice Robinson, Martavious Jones, Jamita Swearengen, and Joe Brown — didn’t show.

Council Attorney Allen Wade read a statement on behalf of absent council member Reid Hedgepeth, who withdrew his support for Treadaway. Wade followed by announcing that Treadaway would be withdrawing as he doesn’t feel the council would reach a consensus between Logan and himself.

“There was a deadlock and neither one of us was going to get the seven votes,” Treadaway said. “The city couldn’t move forward, so I thought it would be best to withdraw my name. Hopefully, they can come up with a candidate that can lead the city forward. I got in this to help the city, so far be it from me to hold the city back.”

Wade advised the council that Conrad should withdraw the motion opening the floor back up to all six candidates, which prompted the walkout Tuesday, saying that it will “clear the air” and “put the burden on the others.” This would give the supporters of Treadaway a chance to change their minds and potentially vote for Logan. Conrad agreed.

“I’m a pragmatic kind of person,” Conrad said. “It was obvious there wasn’t going to be a consensus. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do. None of it is personal to me.”

[pullquote-1]

Canale said he was “disappointed” in the meeting’s turnout Wednesday.

“We’re here to do the city’s business,” Canale said. “I’m disappointed and I’m a little sad. We have a lot of stuff on our agenda from yesterday we haven’t even heard.”

The council began voting on a District 1 appointee in November, narrowing it down to the two top vote-getters: Logan, executive director of the Raleigh Community Development Corp., and Treadaway, sales manager for Flinn Broadcasting Corp.

After the walkout and almost an hour of delay, the council discussed requesting attorneys for the city and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) to file action in Chancery Court compelling the four members to attend the meeting so that business could continue. However, Wade said that’s not in the council’s purview, but that the respective attorneys could independently decide to take legal action.

“We’re trying to reach a compromise,” Wade said. “Nobody’s trying to make anybody be dragged to jail. I prefer they come back and we have a robust conversation.”

Now, the council will return to the vote for the District 1 seat at its December 18th meeting, in which it is also scheduled to fill the vacant Super District 8-2 and District 6 seats left vacant by Janis Fullilove and Edmund Ford Jr. in November.

Categories
News News Blog

Novel Begins Book Delivery

CREDIT: Novel

Novel

Santa isn’t the only one in the delivery business. Novel will begin delivering books with same-day delivery beginning December 5th.

“Christy Yarbro, one of the managing partners, came up with the idea,” says John Vergos, who, along with Matt Crowe, also is a managing partner. “And instead of buying our own van and trying it on a trial basis, we’re partnering with Blue Sky couriers of Memphis.

“If somebody wants, say, four copies of Michelle Obama’s book wrapped and delivered to their house, they’ll call us and the charge will be $7. Our area will extend from the Medical Center to Germantown.

‘“We’re trying this through January 15th to see if it works. Then we’ll sit down and re-evaluate.”


They’ve talked about doing this for some time, Vergos says. “We wrapped up our first year at the end of August. So, it’s something we finally decided, ‘Let’s do it.’ Especially with Blue Sky here, we can do it without a major investment and see how it goes.”

For more information, 901-922-5526.

[location-1]  

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Once & Future: Tennessee Shakespeare Returns to the Forest of Arden

Joey Miller.

“All the world’s  a stage…” — As You Like It

“Also I know what thou arte, and who was thy fadir, and of whom thou were begotyn.” — Le Morte D’Arthur 

I swear, this review is all about Shakespeare and sheep, but it may take me a minute to get there.

See, last night one of my teenage twins randomly started talking about King Arthur. It was a fun, speculative monologue about how different, sometimes contradictory pieces of the legend appear at different points in British history, and how all these shifts in emphasis are difficult reconcile into a cohesive story.

“Maybe this is what’s really meant by Arthur living in a kind of suspended animation on the Isle of Avalon,” I suggested, when it was my turn to talk again. “Maybe we resurrect him — and change the story — whenever ‘England’ is questioning or needing to affirm certain core values.”

I share this super nerdy anecdote about my family’s weird dinner conversations, because the stories we tell over and over again always serve this rhetorical need, whether they’re fact or fantasy. We’re always refining our past and measuring new values against convention and, for better or worse, nothing’s more persuasive than old blades that cut true. Except for an old, rusty blade wielded by a wild-eyed nut who thinks it’s Excalibur. Either way, the metaphor holds up well enough when applied to Shakespeare’s pliable, popular, gender-wise comedy, As You Like It. 

As You Like It almost always lives up to its name. Memphians have often followed the misadventures of Rosalind, Orlando, and the exiled Duke, as well as various clowns, poets, farmers and professional wrestlers as they’ve journeyed from urban to rural environments looking for sanctuary or satisfaction only to discover love in its infinite variety. In recent decades we’ve been treated to a folksy version of the story set in the Old West and accompanied by melancholy string bands. We’ve seen it in a few surreal dreamscapes with accordions and jug bands. We’ve even seen it outdoors in suburban Shelby County.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s (TSC) revival is a charming affair with period music and costumes, and a lively atmosphere designed to conjure a romantic Elizabethan spirit. What it might lack in a unique point of view, it makes up in in clarity and accomplishment.

Tennessee Shakespeare is still settling into its new Trinity-Road home — a custom-built hall of glass and steel that wasn’t custom built for them. It previously housed Ballet Memphis before the dance company packed up camp and moved to Overton Square. The building was, as TSC’s founder Dan McCleary noted in a teary curtain speech, designed for bodies, not for the voice. But that’s all one. TSC is completely at home and comfortable in its identity as a classically oriented company doing the classics classically. The converted dance studio, a modest and intimate echo of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, provides this long peripatetic group, with a sense of stability and ownership it’s only occasionally found performing in borrowed spaces.

As You Like It doesn’t need a unique point of view to say its piece about attraction, gender identity/politics, other kinds of politics, religion, pedantry, or the urban/rural divide. It does those things on its own, if you let it. A bit of non-traditional casting only reenforces what’s already there without calling too much attention to itself. 

For all of its wise fooling, and keen commentary on urban affairs, it’s often noted that As You Like It is also the closest Shakespeare ever came to writing a musical. The structure is all star-crossed love stories, melodrama, comedy routines, sports entertainment, and song.  Tennessee Shakespeare’s never hesitated to stop any of its shows with an ancient melody or jig, and if the inescapable sounds of Christmas haven’t already worn you out on “Greensleeves,” the song and dance aspect’s covered well enough. 

Sara Malinowski and Nicolas Durreaux Picou lead the tight and versatile ensemble and make a fine couple both as Orlando and Rosalind and Orlando and Ganymede. They are strongly supported by Stuart Heyman, Merit Koch, Marlon Finnie, Claire Hayner, Caley Milliken, Gabriel Vaughn, and a large ensemble of seasoned Shakespeareans.  Joey Miller.

Of all the great clowns, Touchstone’s probably my favorite. He shifts fluidly between so many classic comic types — the lawyer, the minister, the lover, the pedant, the poet, the brawler, and he’s an ever attentive servant to none but his own appetites. Paul Kiernan’s improvisations are forced, sometimes, but he’s keen to the funnyman’s word games and quick with a bit of classic fooling, and even a bit of sleight of hand. Touchstone’s misguided love affair with Audrey, the shepherdess, is an especially fun lampoon of the central story that speaks many silly, sad truths about affairs of the heart and affairs of the pants. 

I haven’t forgotten the promise of sheep. Though, it seldom appears in any serious commentary about the text, subtext, metatext etc., there can be little doubt that an As You Like It without sheep jokes isn’t an As You Like It worth sitting through. Whether one chooses to go blue and bawdy or green and wholesome, the opportunities presented by a pastoral (read “poop-mined”) environment are too good to pass up, though a surprising number of productions do just that. TSC’s given us a free-range affair where the wooly critters sometimes populate the entire stage, bleating, chewing their cud, and staring down the audience as only sheep can — Delivering an entire monologue’s worth of editorial content with a well placed “baa.” It’s the most lighthearted piece in a tightly wound show made of air and imagination.

Tennessee Shakespeare’s newest As You Like It may not be one for the ages. Though set in the present on a makeshift stage full of actors wearing antique and anachronistic fashion, it’s certainly not one for the moment. But it is both literally and figuratively one for all seasons, and for each of the seven ages of man — suitable for all weather and ACA compliant to boot. What’s not to like?

As You Liked It — Some past productions of Shakespeare’s comedy show just how flexible it can be. Theatre Memphis, Tennessee Shakespeare’s first production, Rhodes College, and Rhodes College.

Categories
News News Blog

Leaders Unveil a New Manassas, Safe for Bikes and Pedestrians

CREDIT: Memphis Medical District Collaborative

MMDC Streetscape from Allworld Media Group on Vimeo.

Leaders Unveil a New Manassas, Safe for Bikes and Pedestrians

Drive there today, and you’ll find a whole new Manassas.

The Medical-District street between Martin Luther King Jr. and Poplar has been completely changed after it was re-paved by the city in April. The re-imagining and renovation of the street is thanks to the city of Memphis and the Memphis Medical District Collaborative (MMDC).

The new street improvements were formally unveiled in a ceremony Wednesday morning.

The re-paving project shrank the former five-lane street to three “to better accommodate traffic flow from Poplar to MLK Avenues and added dedicated bike lanes to connect existing and future bicycle routes in the city.”

Memphis Medical District Collaborative

MMDC said the streetscape improvements to Manassas brought:
• Pedestrian bump-outs and crosswalks to provide additional visual cues to drivers to reduce speeds and watch for pedestrians and reduces crossing time and distance for pedestrians

• Concrete traffic domes further calm traffic and protect pedestrians

• Bike lane protections including wheel stops and posts to keep cyclists safe

• 70 self-watering planters to buffer traffic and beautify the landscape

• Trash and recycling cans

• High-visibility crosswalks

• Artistic crosswalk designed by Cat Peña in partnership with Anthony Lee and Kaleob Elkins

“Our priority was to create a safer street for all users – pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles — and we’re very proud of the results,” Susannah Barton, MMDC’s quality public spaces manager, said in a statement. “We hope that Manassas will serve as an example for street re-design projects throughout our city and help put Memphis on the map of cities making huge strides in creating great, safe streets.”

Nicholas Oyler, the city’s Bikeway and Pedestrian Program Manager, said Manassas “now boasts some of the most attractive and safest facilities for walking and bicycling of any street in Memphis.”

“What’s more, come spring the bike lanes on Manassas will connect with new bike lanes scheduled for installation on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, establishing a seamless connection by bike between Downtown, the Medical District, and Midtown.”

Categories
News News Blog

Responding to Allegations, XPO Announces New Policies, Investigation

In response to concern from House members about the company’s working conditions, XPO Logistics announced there will be an independent investigation into the allegations made and new policy for pregnant employees.

Shortly after 97 House members sent a letter to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce urging an investigation of the many allegations of “disturbing treatment” of employees at XPO’s warehouses around the country, including one here, the company responded in a Tuesday statement, saying it has “an absolute commitment to providing a safe workplace for all of our employees.”

“We take seriously recent allegations concerning one of our warehouses and have launched an independent investigation,” the statement said.

The investigation will be led by Tina Tchen of Buckley Sandler’s, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in unique litigation, counseling, and crisis management skills. Tchen, an expert in gender equity and workplace cultural compliance, will investigate the workplace conditions of the warehouse and make recommendations for improvement, according to XPO.

Meanwhile, the company said they are taking “proactive steps to enhance our policies” with more accommodations for expecting mothers.

“As a woman, and as part of the XPO family, you’re entitled to special consideration if you’re expecting a baby,” the beginning of the company’s new policy reads. “Instead of wondering how you’ll balance pregnancy and work, you can feel secure in your job”

[pullquote-1]

The new policies and benefits will provide increased support for pregnant employees, paid family leave, and 30 new types of wellness benefits for women and families. XPO said its new Pregnancy Care Policy is “among the most progressive in the industry,” and exceeds requirements set by federal, state, and local laws.

“Our new approach is tailor-made to provide the kind of support pregnant women need, without impact for any temporary change in the nature of their work,” XPO’s statement reads. “We look forward to sharing more details about the work we do to foster a culture of respect and information regarding the enhanced policies and benefits we are launching to support women and families with these representatives.”

Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen, one of the 97 House members who sent a letter to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Tuesday urging an investigation into claims against XPO, said he’s “encouraged” by XPO’s commitment to reform.

“I’m encouraged that XPO Logistics has made good on its commitment to me when we met in Memphis to make substantive reforms,” said Congressman Cohen. “I believe this is a step in the right direction, but we must continue to ensure that all workers are treated fairly, that the law reflects that and that companies across the country adhere to these core American values.”

XPO, which operates in 23 states, has faced several allegations of harassment, discrimination, and unsafe workplace conditions at its Verizon warehouse here in the past. In the last year, more than a dozen XPO employees around the country have filed Equal Employment Opportunity claims against the company relating to unsafe conditions.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Tigers 88, South Dakota State 80

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

If you remain curious about the Penny Hardaway Experiment with Memphis Tiger basketball, you had 13,583 reasons Tuesday night to believe it’s heading in the right direction. With South Dakota State in town — not so much a rival as an exotic outpost on the college basketball landscape — on a Tuesday night in early December, FedExForum welcomed more fans than attended any Tiger game during the 2017-18 season. The big crowd left happy, too, as the Tigers beat the Jackrabbits to end a two game losing streak and improve to 4-4 on the season.
Larry Kuzniewski

Alex Lomax

Freshman guard Tyler Harris hit four three-pointers and led the Tigers in scoring (along with senior guard Jeremiah Martin) with 22 points. Harris also drew three charges, defensive stops that energized his new coach as a young team seeks cohesiveness and a playing style that, Hardaway believes, will yield more wins than losses.

“It’s a huge win for us,” said Hardaway after the game. “You gotta get the first one coming off the road. A three-headed monster: Mike Daum [18 points], David Jenkins [35], and Skyler Flatten [13]. We knew what they were going to be, and they were as advertised. I’m proud of the guys for hanging in there. Guys got uncomfortable today and did things they weren’t used to doing, and we came away with a great team victory.”

As distant as South Dakota State may seem, the Jackrabbits have played longer seasons of late than Memphis, appearing in the NCAA tournament each of the last three years. They entered Tuesday’s contest with a 7-2 record and riding a four-game winning streak. Daum is an All-America candidate who carried averages of 24.1 points and 11.2 rebounds to tip-off. The Tigers held him to 18 and 4, respectively, primarily by getting him into early foul trouble, an objective Hardaway acknowledged following the game. “To keep him below his averages, we had to get him out of the game,” said Hardaway. “We planned to go at him on the post, and continue to put pressure on him.”

Isaiah Maurice came off the Memphis bench and scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and blocked four shots in 20 minutes to counter Daum’s presence.
Larry Kuzniewski

Penny Hardaway

The Tigers fell behind early (10-5), but took the lead on a Kyvon Davenport three-pointer six minutes into the game. They extended the lead to eight points (40-32) by halftime and never trailed in the second half. South Dakota State committed 23 turnovers and shot 45 percent from the field (more than half the Jackrabbits’ shots were from three-point range). The Tigers shot 51 percent from the field and matched their own 17 turnovers with 17 assists (that ratio being an early-season concern).

“Coach Penny is never going to scoot down to our level,” said freshman guard Alex Lomax, who contributed 12 points in 29 minutes. “People are getting on the same page, even changing their games [to improve].”

“The teams we’ve played have helped point us in the right direction,” said Hardaway. Eight games in, Memphis has already faced a pair of Top 25 teams and multiple programs that played in the NCAA tournament last March. The Tigers’ next six games will be at FedExForum, starting with an old Conference USA rival — UAB — Saturday afternoon. (The Blazers beat Memphis last year in Birmingham.)

Their regular season having already reached the quarter pole, the Tigers have big-picture goals, but within a more narrow frame, one where progress can be more easily measured and quantified. Lomax summarized it nicely late Tuesday night: “We’re trying to win the month of December.”