For quite
some time, the Shelby County Commission, spurred on by the “smart growth’
rhetoric of county mayor A C Wharton and by Commissioner Deidre Malone’s
proposal for an outright moratorium, has been inching its way toward the
imposition of fair and reasonable standards to govern new development in Shelby
County. Almost despite itself, the commission took something of a leap in that
regard on Monday.
Late in the
debate on a resolution to provide a “model” to identify locations where
development should be either “encouraged or discouraged,” Commissioner Julian
Bolton successfully proposed that the commission adopt a color-coding system to
map prospective development sites. The color red would be used to indicate
those areas where development would be most ill-advised, because of such
factors as inadequate infrastructure, the prospect of school overcrowding, or
insufficient projected property-tax revenues. Orange would indicate a somewhat
lesser degree of caution, and so on through the color spectrum.
Bolton was
asked later on: How would such non-binding distinctions be an improvement over
the current system whereby negative recommendations by the Land Use &
Control Board and the Office of Planning and Development are frequently ignored
by the commission? It’s a matter of
imagery, Bolton answered. “How can somebody run for relection if you’ve got a
public record of his voting over and over for projects that had red flags on
them? People can understand something like that.”
The
commissioner, who used frank language on Monday concerning the need to put the
interests of taxpayers ahead of those he called “capitalists” and “profiteers,”
may have something there. Meanwhile, chairman Tom Moss, who expressed some
measured doubts about the resolution on Monday, is on hand to provide necessary
contrasts as the debate continues to unfold.
“This project is going forward,”
said Governor Phil Bredesen to
tumultuous applause Thursday night. The
subject was a proposal for state funding to begin the process of transplanting
the law school of the University of Memphis
to a downtown location, upgrading it in the process.
The
audience which heard this happy news, at a fundraising event for Bredesen at
the East Memphis residence of city councilman Jack Sammons, included many
representatives of the University of Memphis, who hatched the relocation
project earlier this year in an effort to shore up the school’s long-term
accreditation.
The
American Bar Association had put the university on notice that its present law
school facilities on Central Avenue were considered inadequate. Among other
problems, a rainy day would cause New Orleans-style flooding in the building’s
basement, where the law school library is housed.
The
move, into the landmark Post Office building on Front St., which would be
extensively renovated for the purpose, would ultimately cost some $41 million,
said Law School dean Jim Smoot, one of several university officials
to have lobbied the governor on the point.
It
would be money well spent, and we congratulate the budget-minded governor for
making the project a priority.
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