Tag: city government

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Portland is the Model

It had been a long flight. I dropped my bags on the floor, walked into the hotel bathroom, and snapped on the lights. There was a brief flicker, and then the room was illuminated. I looked at the lightbulbs. They were the curly-cue energy-saving kind. Hmmm, I thought, nice touch.

I relieved myself and flushed the potty. There was a small, quick gurgle that lasted about a second. Ah, I thought, water-saving loos. I sat on the bed and opened my laptop to check my e-mail. The little wireless icon popped and asked me if I wanted to connect to the Internet via the city’s free wi-fi system. Yes, I did. How convenient and simple, I thought.

I spent four days in Portland, Oregon, at a newspaper conference last week, and each day I saw clear evidence of what a difference in a city’s quality of life an enlightened and progressive government can make.

I took light-rail trains all over town. I rode in hybrid taxis. The streets were immaculate. Roses and other flowers bloomed on every corner. The downtown was booming. I saw no vacant buildings, no blighted blocks.

So how do they do it? For one thing, they started 30 years ago by forming Metro, a consolidated elected governing body that is responsible for all urban planning, county-wide. Portland has no sprawl, due to a strictly enforced “urban growth boundary” that separates urban from rural land. The idea is to encourage redevelopment of Portland’s inner core and preserve its tree-lined city neighborhoods.

The Metro consists of seven elected commissioners who oversee transit, waste and recycling, parks, the zoo, the convention center, and fish and wildlife management. There is a mayor, but his role is strictly limited and mostly ceremonial. The current mayor, Tom Potter, lobbied for a reorganization to a “strong mayor” form of government, a measure that was on the city’s May ballot. It was rejected by a three-to-one margin.

As far as I know, the mayor didn’t blame unnamed “snakes” for the defeat. Maybe he just took it as a sign from God.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Editorial Opinion

A Marshall Plan

Though Memphians at large have not yet had an opportunity to peruse the contents of the so-called Marshall Report commissioned by City Council chairman Tom Marshall and other city-government officials at the onset of the still-raging MLGW scandal, the chairman promises that its details will shortly be posted on the council’s Web site for all to see.

Meanwhile, Marshall took advantage of a speaking opportunity downtown at a Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday to offer not only a sneak preview of that report (one bottom line: utility president Joseph Lee should be ousted for specific transgressions) but a prospectus for revising the way city government is organized. As Marshall made clear on Tuesday, city government is badly in need of some restructuring.

“I believe that morality is standing very low,” Marshall said, by way of assessing the moment. He cited some of the issues: incidences of corruption that have resulted, he says, in “ongoing investigation” by various organs of law enforcement; confusion as to the roles that various officials should be playing; a vague sense of ethical obligations in city government; and a need for redistributing authority.

“We have no authority for policing ourselves,” Marshall said, reminding his audience of a recent vote to suspend or expel two council members after their indictment on corruption charges. That effort was thwarted when the two council members themselves were allowed to vote on the issue — a glaring impropriety for which no legal prohibition seemed to exist.

What is needed, in any case, is an “authority beyond ourselves,” an ethics review board, to be composed of retired judges or some other such impeccable and disinterested group of arbiters.

There needs to be a new “master plan,” the chairman said, to oversee zoning issues. Marshall recalled that after the Gray’s Creek plan for suburban expansion in the greater Cordova area was adopted in the mid-’90s, it was promptly overruled in four consecutive majority votes in cases before the council. A reconstructed master plan should require a two-thirds majority to revise or rescind such a covenant, Marshall said.

Another need was for a redefinition of lines of authority. These, the chairman concluded, were embarrassingly vague as spelled out in the current charter. Marshall noted that when members of the new city Charter Commission asked for guidance in the matter, “we couldn’t even tell them what the current charter said.”

Another recommended change involved altering the “strong mayor” formula that now governs important city issues. In particular, Marshall reminded his listeners of contractual problems both with MLGW and with the “garage-gate” aspect of FedExForum’s construction. Marshall’s proposed remedy? Reassigning all contractual authority from the mayor’s office, where it currently resides, to the City Council.

These are not necessarily the only changes that should be considered by the currently sitting Charter Commission, but they belong on that body’s agenda as matters to be considered. Chairman Marshall is to be commended for having thought through some of these problems in so specific a manner.

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News The Fly-By

Black, White, and Red

Last week, I was surprised to hear Councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware say she was embarrassed by the way the City Council was acting. Actually, I was surprised to hear her say that she was a member of an honorable body, too, but that she was embarrassed about it was the real shocker.

Why? Well, it was her reasoning. Ware wasn’t embarrassed about members of the council being indicted on federal bribery charges or a very public investigation into one council member’s $16,000 delinquent utility bill. She was embarrassed that members of the council were still concerning themselves with the employment of beleaguered Memphis Light, Gas and Water president Joseph Lee.

Naturally. It’s not like MLGW is a city division or anything and that the council might have an interest in how it is operating.

In a heated committee meeting last week that split along racial lines, the council once again talked about what it could, and should, do about Lee. At issue were two proposals: a resolution by Carol Chumney accepting Lee’s March 1st letter of resignation and one put forth by Jack Sammons asking Lee to resign.

But in reality, everything seemed to be at issue.

Brent Taylor told Chumney he might agree with her resolution, but he didn’t like the way she presented it. She responded tartly, “If I’m out of order, so be it.”

Ware reminded council chair Tom Marshall that he asked for the independent investigation into MLGW’s special treatment of Edmund Ford, not the full council.

Dedrick Brittenum told Marshall that the proposals were being handled in the wrong committee.

Joe Brown told Chumney, a popular mayoral candidate, that she was using her council position for political gain.

“You can’t use your elected office to promote yourself. You’re in a gray area, and at times, you do violate that gray area,” he said. “You can’t even have the staff send out faxes about ‘Coffee with Carol.'”

And that was all before things got really ugly.

Ford, looking throughout the meeting like the cat who ate the canary, said to Marshall, “I don’t have a prejudice bone in my body, but I know you do” before making a reference to white sheets and saying he was going to draft a resolution to remove Marshall from his position as chair.

“It’s a personal issue. It’s a black and white issue,” said Ford. “I don’t know what you’ve been promised, but I want you to leave me alone. I’m not the one.”

And, in a typically long-winded speech, Brown said that the council discussion was setting race relations in Memphis back 50 years. He referenced the recent sentencing of Dale Mardis, the white car-lot owner who pleaded no contest to second-degree manslaughter for killing black code-enforcement officer Mickey Wright. When Mardis was sentenced to 15 years, family and friends of Wright were outraged.

“There’s something coming,” said Brown. “We wouldn’t want a civil disturbance.”

And people wonder why Memphis has a hard time keeping up with its sister cities. This isn’t a time to see black and white; if anything, it’s a time to see red.

The issue is possible malfeasance and a lack of public trust in the utility’s leadership, not race. But by making it a question of color, the council continues to damage its own credibility.

And for what purpose?

To remove Lee, the council would have to draft charges against him and essentially hold court proceedings to establish cause. Even then, however, there is no certainty that it is within the council’s authority to fire Lee.

The council approves the mayor’s appointees; it doesn’t generally remove them.

But in the monthlong brouhaha that surrounded the scandal, there simply wasn’t enough political will to even try to fire Lee, leaving the council in a surreal tug-of-war last week between asking a man who has already resigned to resign or accepting a resignation that isn’t the council’s to accept.

When it came right down to it, neither resolution passed in full council. Lee is still working at MLGW, the council never resolved anything, and the city stuck debating between what’s black and white and what’s right and wrong.

And to me, that’s just downright embarrassing.

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News The Fly-By

A Lot of Lots

Land is often considered a smart investment. After all, they’re not making any more of it.

But Shelby County government has about 3,000 parcels of ground that it can’t give away.

“We have a huge inventory,” says county deputy CAO Sybille Noble, “but there’s nothing you can accomplish with it.”

As part of the County Commission’s core city initiatives ad hoc committee, county government

is exploring ways to fight blight and, starting in New Chicago, give small lots back to the community.

Under state law, the county is required to bid on and receive tax-delinquent properties at auction. Developers, community housing corporations (CDCs), and the city of Memphis Housing and Community Development division usually take the properties that have potential for renovation or redevelopment.

“What is left for the county are undesirable lots,” says Noble. “A lot of times they are in undesirable neighborhoods or it will be a single lot on one street. No developer wants to come in and develop one lot.”

But what starts as a tax problem for one property owner remains a tax problem for the surrounding community. The county isn’t earning any property taxes from it — and actually is expending money to maintain it — and the vacant land may contribute to a decline in property values neighborhood-wide.

At an ad hoc committee meeting last week, a real estate services department plan recommended creating a county land bank, budgeting $3 million for a housing trust fund, and a side lot disposition policy that transfers property to surrounding homeowners.

The county owns various small, unbuildable lots, usually slivers left over from road construction projects, and hopes to give them to the adjoining property owners. (The county is required to transfer the lots at fair market value, but as Noble says, “If the fair market value is zero, then that’s what it is.”)

Many times, however, the neighbors aren’t interested in owning the extra land because of the extra taxes they anticipate — rightly — that are attached.

Starting with the New Chicago area, the county is testing a new approach. The assessor’s office will determine how much each parcel will cost in property taxes each year. Noble hopes that figure, which she says is often minimal, will help adjoining property owners decide to take the slivers.

The plan also creates a functioning land bank, something that city leaders have been talking about for the last few years.

“We essentially have a land bank because we have an inventory of property, but the only thing our land bank does is retain the property until it’s sold,” says Noble. “While we have it, though, we have to maintain it.”

Instead of simply mowing the grass or cleaning up debris, the ideal land bank would be able to purchase HUD foreclosures and assemble chunks of land it would then be able to transfer to CDCs or private builders for redevelopment.

“Right now, there’s a lot here and a house here. If we could go in and assemble several parcels on a block, I think we could transform the neighborhood,” says Noble. “Building or rehabbing one house on a block doesn’t change the block.”

The real estate plan proposed an initial budget of $3 million for a housing trust fund. In addition to assembling parcels, the money would pay to demolish existing structures on otherwise desirable property and for beautification projects. A more specific proposal on fees and funding sources is expected for the next core city initiatives ad hoc meeting.

“You’re not going to transform neighborhoods without investing the money,” says Noble. “You can do little things, but you cannot transform a neighborhood.”

Memphis city government has ongoing efforts to revitalize its older neighborhoods in combination with local CDCs and federal programs. But there is more than enough work to go around.

For instance, the city does about 700 demolitions a year. While there are currently about 1,200 properties on the city’s condemnation list, city officials estimate there may be as many as 10,000 properties citywide that need to be demolished.

The county is quick to say that it wants to supplement the city’s efforts, not supplant them.

But, as those who own real estate know, you either maintain it or watch it deteriorate.

“If we really want to make a difference in some of our declining neighborhoods, at some point we have to invest in them,” says Noble. “For a long time, Memphis and Shelby County have depended on private investment. Private developers do a lot in neighborhoods, but some [neighborhoods] are in such decline, they just can’t go in there.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

After a Local Bank of America noticed it was missing more than $850,000, it discovers the culprit is one of its own employees. Agents soon pick up the vault operations manager while she is “on vacation” in Florida. Probably a pretty long vacation at that. Just one question: We know accommodations around DisneyWorld are expensive, but with 850 grand, was the Gator Motel outside Orlando the best she could do?

Let’s see if we got this straight: Gale Jones Carson, the former aide to Mayor Willie Herenton, has returned to work at Memphis Light, Gas & Water. But because she previously worked at MLGW for six years, and then worked for the mayor for six years, she met the 12-year requirement to collect a generous city pension — even though she is still employed? Okay, this is Memphis government, after all, so now it makes perfect sense.

Convicted of drug charges in Miami, a man named Felix Ortiz evades the law for some 31 years, living the last 10 of them in Memphis — under the name of Felix Ortiz-Pulley. We can see how such a clever subterfuge would stump the nation’s best detectives.

Black Snake Moan Greg Cravens

premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. Controversy erupts — sort of — over the description of Christina Ricci’s character as a “nymphomaniac.” Nobody has any problem, it seems, with the film’s promotional posters that show her half-naked and in chains.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Race Matters

This week’s special-election Democratic primary in state Senate District 30 has engendered much more than the normal quota of divisiveness in party ranks.

Both former city attorney Robert Spence and state representative Beverly Marrero have significant support from established political and civic figures; both also have highly animated opposition, and some Democrats privately worry that enduring hostilities will hobble the winner in the March 13 showdown with Republican Larry Parrish.

The battle is for the Midtown-based seat given up by new 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, and Cohen is on record as endorsing Marrero, a longtime political ally. But Cohen aide Randy Wade has made a series of statements tempering that endorsement as more pro forma than active — perhaps in acknowledgement of a potentially combustible racial issue.

So far, there is no such fire, but there was enough smoke that activist Jerry Hall, upon learning of Cohen’s endorsement plans on New Year’s Day, made a point of saying to the then congressman-elect, “I hope this doesn’t become racial.”

Neither Marrero, who is white, nor Spence, an African American, has encouraged any such split, and both have both white and black backers, but the fact remains that the cores of their respective support bases are somewhat racially divergent.

Besides Cohen, other leading supporters of Marrero are City Council member Carol Chumney, Shelby County commissioner Steve Mulroy, and Memphis school board member Jeff Warren, all of whom are white. Marrero, however, has also been endorsed by black legislative colleagues John DeBerry, Joe Towns, and Larry Turner.

For his part, Spence is supported by city councilman Myron Lowery, county commissioners Deidre Malone and Sidney Chism, and other prominent African Americans close to Mayor Willie Herenton.

Race has become a serious factor on the Shelby County Commission, where Democrat Steve Mulroy and Republican Mike Carpenter, both new members elected last August, have emerged as potential swing voters.

Carpenter’s role was showcased late last year when he was the only Republican voting with the commission’s seven Democrats to establish a second Juvenile Court judgeship. As of this week, he still favors that move — delayed by legal and procedural obstacles and requiring at some point a re-vote — but he shifted back into the company of his fellow Republicans Monday during a party-line committee vote deferring approval of a formal study of Juvenile Court procedures.

The Democrats won that vote, 7-6, after a stormy discussion that had racial overtones (as one example, Commissioner Sidney Chism charged that disproportionate incarceration of blacks might be related to the issue of “making money”) and focused on whether Juvenile Court judge Curtis Person should appear before the commission to answer questions.

Afterward, Carpenter made it clear that he regarded the demand, made chiefly by Chism and fellow Democrats Henri Brooks and Deidre Malone, as bordering on uncivil.

Mulroy, the lone white among the commission’s majority Democrats, took the lead Monday in several black-white matters, voicing his concern over an issue that is normally Brooks’ province and forcing a party-line roll-call vote overturning what had earlier been a unanimous committee vote approving a minor contract. The issue? Whether the company receiving the contract employed a proportionate number of African Americans.

Up to this point, the commission, eight of whose members are new, has experienced an unusual degree of comity. But both the current raging matter of reorganizing Juvenile Court (see Editorial, page 14) and various Title VI issues raised by Brooks relating to (equal-employment) clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, have brought the potentially divisive question of racial inequity to the fore. Said Chism: “Whether we like it or not, it does exist.” Brooks: “I’ll go further. … It’s on this commission.”

It seems to be a factor as well in the current session of Congress. Congressman Cohen got some more this week with the debut issue of a much-heralded new online publication.

Politico.com reported that “several current and former members” of the Congressional Black Caucus had “made it clear that a white lawmaker was not welcome” in its ranks, and that Cohen, accordingly, had dropped whatever plans he had to seek membership. Cohen was quoted as saying that attempting to join the caucus would be a “social faux pas.”