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News News Blog

City: Committee Has Final Say in Pension Investments, Not Mayor

After being advised not to invest a portion the city’s $2.4 billion pension money in a local nonprofit’s investment fund, the city said the final decision will be up to the city’s pension investment committee.

The city was asked in December by the nonprofit Epicenter to allocate a portion of Memphis’ pension fund to a pool of money used to invest in entrepreneurs here.

Epicenter’s aim is to aid 1,000 entrepreneurs, including 500 new firms by 2025, while the nonprofit’s ultimate goal is to raise $100 million to fuel a 10-year strategy generating resources in and access to capital, talent, local customers, and technology commercialization.

The request by Epicenter for $10 million from both the city and county funds was reviewed by each administration’s respective adviser.

After a preliminary review, the city’s Atlanta-based pension consultant, Segal Marco Advisors, recommended on Friday that the city not invest the money into Epicenter’s fund, as the nonprofit doesn’t meet the city’s rules requiring that money be handled by organizations with “demonstrable financial stability” and a “competitive record of performance.”

In a letter to the city, the consultant agency’s vice president Rosemary Guillette also said that per city rules, the city’s pension fund is to be “invested for the exclusive benefit of the plan participants and solely in their interest.”

“Our preliminary assessment is that the Epicenter Fund does not meet either of the guidelines listed above and does not meet the fiduciary standards of care needed for a pension fund investment,” Guillette said. “Therefore, Segal Marco Advisors cannot recommend this investment opportunity for the pension fund.”


In response to a Tuesday story in The Commercial Appeal entitled “Should city pension funds finance Memphis’ economic ambitions?,” which reported that “it’s too soon to say whether Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland will follow Atlanta-based pension consultant Segal Marco Advisors recommendation,” the city said on its Facebook page Wednesday that the decision is not the mayor’s:

“As this reporter was told, the mayor has no input in any pension investment,” the post reads. “The reporter was also informed the pension investment committee has the sole authority regarding investment of pension funds, and that the mayor is not on the committee.

“In addition, based on the advice of the adviser, the chief financial officer will not present investment to the committee. End of story.”

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News News Blog

Council Recap: Public Art, Second Vice Chair, & Union Row Parking

The Memphis City Council extended a public art moratorium for the second time Tuesday.

The moratorium inhibits any new public art projects — with the exception of a few pre-approved projects — from going up in the city without council approval.

Councilman Berlin Boyd said he’s been working to integrate new language into the guidelines for public artwork in the city that will “help curtail future issues.”

“It just needs to be clear and concise as to what can be drawn and painted on public structures and in public community [spaces],” Boyd said.

Justin Fox Burks

Karen Golightly, director of Paint Memphis with zombie mural city council members called ‘satanic.’

The first 120-day moratorium was implemented in March 2018 after the council publicly criticized one organization’s murals. The council deemed a handful of murals sanctioned by the nonprofit Paint Memphis as offensive and, in some cases, “satanic.” Some of the less popular murals featured Elvis Presley with a snake coming from his orifices, a cow skull, a dancing skeleton, and a zombie.

The hold was originally implemented to establish a “road map” or legislation that regulates art in public spaces done by outside entities, Boyd said at the time.

Now, nearly a year after the first moratorium was approved, Boyd said the new language is close to completion.

The council also began discussion in its executive session of adding a second vice-chairperson — an idea proposed by newly appointed chair Kemp Conrad. Conrad said it’s something that’s been talked about before in past years, but never been implemented.

“If the chairman’s out of town and the vice chair is running the meeting, then who is the vice chair and what happens if that person is incapacitated?” Conrad said.

The committee recommended the proposal for approval and the full council will vote on it at its February 5th meeting.

The council also approved a $50 million loan for a 2,000-space garage — a piece of the Union Row project.

Funding the garage is vital step in moving forward with the near $1 billion project, developers said Tuesday. The funds will be from a $100 million pool of money set aside for projects that is set to be replenished with 3 percent interest payments over a 45-year period.

LRK

Rendering Union Row

The council voted 8-1 in favor of the loan. Martavius Jones voted no and Joe Brown abstained. Jones expressed concern over using that much of the $100 million for one project.

“I’m in total support of the Union Row project, but I do have some concerns,” Jones said. “If we have a total of $100 million for parking projects, we are essentially tying up what would be 50 percent of our available funding for this one particular project.”

However, Jennifer Oswalt, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) said the DMC has already accounted for five or six tentative projects that could be off the ground soon.

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News News Blog

Report: Memphis Among Top 20 Most Dangerous Cities for Pedestrians

BLDG

Memphis is the 11th most dangerous city in the country for pedestrians, according to a report released Wednesday.

Produced by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Street Coalition, the report called Dangerous by Design ranks states and big cities using a Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI). The PDI measures how deadly it is for people to walk in a certain place based on the number of people struck and killed by drivers while walking.

The number of people living in an area and the number of people who walk to work there are used to calculate the PDI. Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System used for the report dates from 2008 to 2017.

Tennessee comes in at the 12th most dangerous state for pedestrians, but Memphis is the state’s only city to make the list of cities. With 297 pedestrian deaths between 2008 and 2017, Memphis’ PDI is 184, up about 31 points from the number reported in the 2016 Dangerous by Design.

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Other cities on the list include Jackson, Mississippi at number 10, North Little Rock in 19th place, and Orlando, which comes in at the most dangerous city for pedestrians in the United States and has a PDI of 313. The report shows that the majority of the most dangerous cities for pedestrians are in the South, concentrated in Florida. Cities on the list outside the South include Detroit, Albuquerque, and Bakersfield.

Across the country, drivers struck and killed a total of 49,340 pedestrians between 2008 and 2017, which is the equivalent of a large jet of people crashing and dying every single month during the nine-year period, according to the report.

Of the nearly 50,000 pedestrians who were killed nationwide between 2008 and 2017, the report cites that older adults, people of color, and people in low-income communities represent a disproportionate number.

It is almost twice as dangerous for people over 75 years old than it is for the general population to walk, the report says. While, people of color, specifically American-Indian and African-American pedestrians, have a PDI of 33 and 18.3 respectively, compared to the general population with a PDI of just under 15.

Finally, analyzing where pedestrian fatalities occur relative to the median household income of the surrounding area, the report found that people die while walking at much higher rates in lower-income communities compared to higher-income ones.

2019 Dangerous by Design

“This is unsurprising, given that low-income communities are significantly less likely than higher income communities to have sidewalks, marked crosswalks, and street design to support safer, slower speeds, also known as traffic calming,” the report says.

Since 2009, pedestrian deaths have risen steadily. Meanwhile, traffic fatalities for those in cars decreased during those years.

The report concludes that people aren’t walking more, but people are driving slightly — or 8.1 percent — more than in 2008.

2019 Dangerous by Design


The report suggests that instead of allowing streets that are dangerous for pedestrians to continue to be built that the federal government should prioritize creating safer streets by implementing performance measures, producing more high-quality data on street conditions where fatalities occur, and dedicating more funding to projects that support walking, biking, transit, and other modes of transportation.

“This year, Congress has a major opportunity to reshape our mobility future as they begin the work of reauthorizing our federal transportation bill in 2020,” the report reads. “To address our continuing safety problems, they must create policies that change the way we fund, design, and measure the success of our streets nationwide to make sure the safety of all people who use the street including people walking, is our highest priority.

“It is our hope that this report will inspire communities across the country to take action. Policymakers at the federal, state, and local level can and should do more to ensure streets are designed and operated to protect the safety of all people who use them regardless of age, ability, income, race, ethnicity, or mode of transportation.”


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Intermission Impossible Theater

Eternity on Stage: Tuck Everlasting is Lush & Lovely

Carla McDonald

Tuck Everlasting at Playhouse on the Square

Tuck Everlasting‘s never going to be my cup of magical realism, but I’ve got to admit, it’s an awfully pretty thing. And it’s also nice to see a story about regular people struggling with the ups and downs of eternal life for a change instead of another bunch of hot vampires. Here’s how it all plays out: A long time ago every member of the Tuck family drank from a hidden forest spring and became immortal, but each one is forever stuck with all the tropes of their frozen age. The parents manage middle-aged ruts and middle-aged spread and snoring marital monotony. Lost love burns like it only can in youth. Teen angst and pimples also last forever. Neighbors also tend to notice when you never age, so be careful what you wish for, and all that.

Life gets even harder if you’re essentially decent folk who  know what could happen if people who aren’t decent folk ever get their hands on a spring of eternal life. People like the mysterious Man in Yellow who blows into town with the carnival, chasing rumors of magic and mystery. So what’s an unkillable clan to do when a charming young runaway like Winnie Foster stumbles into the family’s life and onto its secrets? 

Tuck Everlasting is too much like Playhouse on the Square’s favorite and most frequently revived show, Peter Pan — with actor Curtis C’s flamboyantly malevolent Man in Yellow filling in for Pan‘s flamboyantly sinister Captain Hook. Both musicals tell the story of strong young women who ultimately reject immortality and a magical life outside of time and decay. Only Tuck abandons all of Pan‘s high flying fairy mayhem, swashbuckling pirates, and general sense of deviltry for mundane concerns and long conversations about the meaning of life and death, with lyrical dance passages illustrating the same.

Is Tuck Everlasting magical enough to make a good fairy tale? Maybe not. Nobody flies or spins flax into gold. A deep sincerity undercuts the story’s Twilight Zone-like ironies, and conflicts never test the play’s subjects enough to pass for allegory. The musical’s songs are almost instantly forgettable, and the book’s more sweet than convincing. But director Dave Landis has assembled a  terrific cast and his design team has outdone themselves, building a world of green parsley stalk trees and purple “magic hour” skies, where a big round sun is eternally stuck in the rising position. Or the setting position, hard to say. 
Carla McDonald

Tuck Everlasting at Playhouse on the Square

Gia Welch’s voice has never sounded as rich or full or uniquely hers as it does in this show. If you’ve read previous previous reviews of the young artist, you’ll know that’s no small compliment. Even though she’s a little too old to convincingly pass for an 11-year-old, her performance as Winnie is never anything short of winning. Welch leads a tight, talented ensemble of local favorites, including Michael Gravois, Lorraine Cotton, and Kent Fleshman. Even if you don’t emerge from the theater able to remember the words to any of Tuck’s songs — a distinct possibility — these voices follow you home.

This is the part of the review where I remind readers that I’m not not the target audience for most family musicals, and Tuck Everlasting‘s no big exception. The show presents like a philosophical meditation on the meaning of life then opens and closes like a Hallmark card with no personal inscription. Thankfully, POTS’ creative team has built a production so lush and lovely it’s easy to watch and listen to even if you can’t bring yourself to care about any of the characters or what they choose to do with their time, magic water, and pet toads. 

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News News Blog

Memphis Tops TripSavvy’s Travel Ranking

TripSavvy

Memphis is TripSavvy’s best overall travel destination for 2019.

The travel site named Memphis the best overall travel site among other categories aimed at certain kinds of travelers, like outdoor enthusiasts (Rapid City South Dakota), history buffs (San Antonio, Texas), and geeks (Los Angeles).

TripSavvy based its results on information from its first-ever Editors’ Choice Awards, an analysis of 60,000 hotels, restaurants, and attractions around the world. Memphis, the site says, is a “hotbed of activity.”

“Formerly abandoned lots and buildings are now fun spots for tourists and locals,” reads the post. “In an old Sears distribution warehouse you can dine in a dozen just-opened restaurants including one that taps refugees to do the cooking.

”An overgrown yard has turned into Railgarten, a 1.5-acre, adult playground with a tiki bar, ping pong room, ice cream parlor, diner, sandbox, stage for live music, and much more.”

Noting that “old establishments are new again,” the city also won points for a recent renovation at the Pink Palace Museum, new exhibits at the Memphis Zoo, and The CMPLX, the gallery space and studio for The Collective.

New “must-see sites” Downtown include, The Hu Hotel and the Old Dominick distillery. Also, “nature lovers” will love the city’s network of bike paths, the site says.

“If you’ve visited Memphis before, it’s time to go back,” reads the TripSavvy site. “The city is alive with change; you might not recognize it.”

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News News Blog

County Gets Near-Record Grant to Help Customers Keep the Lights On

Shelby County has received a near-record grant from the federal government to help customers here pay their utility bills.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said Tuesday that the county has received $19 million through the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), in one of the largest such grants ever received.

The funds are available through the “Keep The Lights On” program and those applying don’t need to have received a cut-off notice to qualify. Depending on family income and household size, a family can receive up to $650 in assistance.

“It is far too easy for a family to fall behind on their utility bill,” Harris said in a statement. “The aim of this program is to alleviate the stress on families of keeping their homes lit and heated before they receive a cut-off notice.”

To qualify, Shelby County residents must complete an application and be living at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. For example, the income for a family of four would need to be $37,650 or lower.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, residents can call (901) 222-4299 on Mondays from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Seniors aged 65 years and older can also apply for utility assistance through the Shelby County Community Services Agency. The agency can be reached at (901) 222-4200. The funds were provided by a $20,000 grant from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

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News News Blog

New Plan Pushes Electric Vehicles in Tennessee

Nissan Electric/Facebook

The 2019 Nissan Leaf.

A group hopes to see thousands of new electric vehicles on Tennessee roads in the next 10 years and recently published a roadmap to guide them there.

The Drive Electric Tennessee Roadmap was devised by 30 organizations across the state, including Memphis, Light, Gas & Water. Leaders from the cities of Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga participated in the project but not Memphis, according to the report. But the report notes that being on the contributors list “does not constitute an endorsement of the roadmap.”

The report says that while Tennessee is an automobile manufacturing hub, including two companies — Nissan and Volkswagen — that do or will make electric vehicles here, consumers hear haven’t yet bought in.

The state’s electric vehicle population in 2017 was less than 5,000, the report says, less than 0.1 percent of the overall light-duty vehicle market.

“Drive Electric Tennessee aims to increase this number to at least 200,000 (electric vehicles) by 2028,” the report says. “This is an ambitious but achievable options goal based not he projections outlined in this roadmap.”

Drive Electric Tennessee Roadmap

A graph shows the projected electric vehicle consumption over the next 10 years.

To get there, the plan suggests adding to the state’s electric-vehicle-charging infrastructure, which currently includes 800 stations. “Range anxiety,” the group says, can be barrier to adoption. So, the group says charging stations should be located at homes, apartment buildings, workplaces, parking garages, restaurants, malls, and more.

“It is important for Tennessee drivers to feel comfortable when they are going about their everyday personal and business lives in an (electric vehicle), whether they are driving across Memphis or making the trip from Nashville to Knoxville,” reads the report.

The group says “most people have still never ridden in or driven” an electric vehicle. So, they want to push a public awareness campaign to change customer perceptions about them. That campaign would include “ride and drive” promotions, educating fleet owners, and consumer education. 

State and local governments, utilities, and corporations could pitch in to establish and promote electric vehicle best practices and policies across the state, reads the report.

The group also hopes Tennessee auto dealers will expand their offerings to meet customer here where they are. For example, the report says the Ford F Series truck is the top registered vehicle type in the state. However, most of the electric vehicles offered here are small-large passenger vehicles like the BMWi3, Nissan Leaf, and Tesla Model S.

The project is slated to get underway this year and continue to 2028.

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Music Music Blog

Vocal Duo Jackopierce Celebrates Thirty Years of Harmonies

Jack O’Neill and Cary Pierce of Jackopierce

Jackopierce, the duo made up of equal parts Jack O’Neill and Cary Pierce, the two songwriters behind the hits “Vineyard” and “Three of Us in a Boat,” quietly celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2018. They made a big to-do over their 25th anniversary, a landmark date few bands ever hit, with a sold-out run of concerts and the release of a live album, Live 25. The 30th-anniversary celebrations were put on the back burner, though, because Jackopierce was too busy moving forward to keep an eye on the rear-view, still touring and preparing a new album, Feel This Good, released in May of last year on Foreverything Music. The duo are now on the road in support of that album, with a stop in Memphis at Lafayette’s Music Room this Thursday at 8 p.m.

Though ostensibly not an anniversary album, Feel This Good celebrates the long history of Jackopierce with tried and true elements: pristine mixes, clear harmonies, a few inside jokes, and cleanly intertwining acoustic guitars that have become the duo’s trademark. Even the album’s title track began as an inside joke between Pierce, O’Neill, and some of the staff at a venue Jackopierce performs at. “‘Every day should feel this good’ is a thing they say,” Pierce explains. “It’s a fun slogan.”

Pierce and O’Neill began tracking the album in Nashville, and Pierce did much of the preliminary mixing at his home studio in Texas. “I produced the last few studio records,” Pierce says. “In the five years we weren’t together, I produced a lot of records.” Jackopierce split, briefly, from 1997 to 2002, though both Pierce and O’Neill stayed involved in the music scene. Feel This Good includes reworkings of original tunes by both Pierce and O’Neill. Pierce reminisces about O’Neill’s contributions without a hint of ego, displaying an easy working relationship that’s been tended and grown over 30 years of
playing together. “Jack and I are like brothers,” Pierce says. “We love writing songs and telling and sharing stories.”

Jackopierce re-recorded one of Pierce’s old solo compositions, “Speed,” for the new album. A demo version of the song was a huge hit on streaming services, prompting Pierce to wonder what they could do with a fully produced version of the song. “It was a minor hit, but a hit for me, my God,” Pierce says of the demo, explaining “Speed” is a “pretty intense break-up song.” It’s about trying to find the energy and willpower to achieve escape velocity, Pierce explains, before adding that he’s not looking to wreck any healthy relationships. “I’m not saying, ‘hey, jump out,’ but I hope it’s a wake-up call.” If, he
explains, a wake-up call is what’s needed.

Also revived for the new album was “Still House Hollow,” a song from O’Neill’s 2002 release, Halfway Round the World. “I wanted to sing on it,” Pierce says, before marveling at the vocal takes co-producer John Fields got out of O’Neill — mostly by stepping back and letting O’Neill do his thing, pushing himself to reach for a higher range. “Jack is a huge Bob Dylan fan, a huge [Tom] Petty fan,” Pierce says, before taking the next logical step and mentioning the Traveling Wilburys, the supergroup made up of Dylan, Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne. Pierce says he saw Jeff Lynne perform recently and that the Wilburys, Lynne, and Electric Light Orchestra were all influences on Feel This Good.

Jack O’Neill and Cary Pierce of Jackopierce

Producer John Fields came on board when Pierce sent some of the mixes for what was to become Feel This Good to him for an opinion. “He’s a monster player and a monster L.A. producer,” Pierce says. The timing couldn’t have been better — Fields had just moved back to Minneapolis from L.A. and was happy to work on a new project with an old friend. Pierce and O’Neill decamped to Minneapolis to finish the record they had begun tracking in Nashville. “It was a treat to get away from our daily lives.”

Speaking of getting away, Jackopierce name-checks Memphis in the title track of the new album. The band has played the Bluff City before, both at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park and at Beale Street Music Festival. “One of my favorite shows of all time was Memphis in May,” Pierce says. “We were the second-to-last band, before Dave Matthews.” 

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies, Memphis, and MLK Day: Still a Long Way to Go

The Memphis Grizzlies do a phenomenal job with their annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration. In what I consider the crown jewel of the Grizzlies’ operations side’s achievements, the team pulls out all the stops to recognize and celebrate the legacy that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left behind in this country for all who suffered racial and economic injustices. The team traditionally honors former athletes who have been examples of Dr. King’s legacy, and hosts a captivating symposium that allows the honorees to share stories of adversity and inspiration. 

A recent Grizzlies MLK Day uniform

The celebration, of course, also surrounds an actual NBA game. The Grizzlies were the first organization in the NBA to place an intentional emphasis on the day, which is fitting, considering Memphis’ history as a key city during the civil rights movement and Dr. King’s tragic assassination here in 1968.

The NBA has since hitched their wagon to the Grizzlies’ innovation and made MLK Day a major event league-wide. This also resulted in the Grizzlies being bumped from the prime-time nationally televised game to the earlier afternoon game (and even being moved to the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day in 2017). The NBA eventually made things right by returning the Grizzlies to the Monday game last season. In 2017 and 2018 the team wore uniforms inspired by Dr. King and the civil rights movement.

The Grizzlies and the NBA have done an excellent job of capturing the essence of Dr. King on a surface level, but there is so much more that needs to be done, especially in the city where Dr. King took his final breath. I was born and raised in Memphis and I love this city with everything I have. I love its soul, its attitude, its hospitality, its culture. There’s isn’t much about this city that I won’t defend to its core — except for the fact that now, 50-plus years after Dr. King’s assassination, Memphis still has a long way to go as far as achieving the actual essence of his dream.

The difference between schools in the inner city and the suburbs is appalling. As someone who has a background in working hands-on with the city’s youth, and alongside its school system’s employees, I can tell you that a visit inside of some of the inner-city schools can bring you to tears. There are no rules or laws that separate us but there is a lot of “that’s just how it is.”

The racism is veiled, but still alive and well. There are parts of town that people avoid, either because of perceived danger or just plain ignorance. From another viewpoint, there are also parts of town that people stay away from to avoid unfair treatment, stares, and racial profiling.

But the show must go on. The games and the festivities around them must still be played. There’s a cliché that gets a lot of notoriety here in Memphis: Namely, that the Grizzlies bring the city together. This is a cliché to which I will never subscribe. Sports don’t bring a city together. They are a temporary escape from reality — a coping mechanism. If a person has disdain or prejudice towards someone of another race or social class, it doesn’t magically disappear when you both see the upside in Jaren Jackson Jr.

Maybe the Grizzlies cause you to cheer together against a common enemy or to join together in the joys of victory, but all of that can quickly fade away when you see the guy that you just gave a high-five to pull his wife closer as she clutches her purse in the parking lot while passing you. I’ve been a part of this scenario enough to know that it’s a real thing. I’ve lived in this city long enough to know that it needs work to achieve all that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned. Has there been progress? Yes, but there is little to actually celebrate about.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: John Kilzer

Get moony over Music Video Monday.

Last Saturday night, John Kilzer played a sold-out show at the new Crosstown Arts Theater to celebrate the release of his new album Scars. The show opened with the Memphis debut of the video for “Hello Heart”.

“I wanted to do something abstract and dreamlike rather than a narrative piece,” says director Laura Jean Hocking, who has created three videos for Kilzer.

The star of the video is Shannon Walton, who can soon be seen in Theater Memphis’ production of Little Women. Plans to have Walton dive into the pool for the video were canceled after a thermometer reading of 45 degrees F.

“I dig the video ,” says Kilzer. “I think it is visually ambiguous in a way that allows one to fill in the creative spaces of both shadow and translucence. In a way it invites one to enter the song and dream out loud.”

Music Video Monday: John Kilzer

If you would like to see your music video appear on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.