Tag: Memphis City Council

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Opinion

Tax and End: Wharton For One-Time Assessment

City Councilman Shea Flinn’s proposal for a one-time 39-cent property tax assessment gained the support of Mayor A C Wharton Tuesday, and Wharton said that if the council goes along with it then a long-running dispute with Memphis City Schools could be settled.

The assessment on property owners in Memphis would raise about $40 million, which Wharton said MCS officials agreed to accept as full and final payment of a $57 million debt going back to 2008. The council will take up the proposal in two weeks. The city would still have to pay MCS $80 million or about 9 percent of the school system’s operating budget every year until the city and county systems are merged.

The assessment would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $180. It is likely to provoke charges that it will become permanent, like the “temporary” county wheel tax.

Wharton made the announcement during his budget speech to the council. He said one reason he accepts it as the best of some bad options is that, as an attorney, he is uncomfortable defying the ruling by three courts that Memphis must pay up.

Although Flinn has publicly said his proposal has no chance, that now seems to be a misstatement. Iin a committee meeting, Council members Joe Brown, Wanda Halbert, and Janis Fullilove said they would oppose it. Council members Kemp Conrad, Harold Collins, and Reid Hedgepeth said major fixes are needed in the budget, not one-year measures. Collins described the approach as “shoestrings, paper clips. and bubblegum.” Whether that means cuts, taxes, or some combination will be revealed in the coming weeks. The committee kept Flinn’s proposal alive without recommending it.

Jackson Baker

Wharton and Flinn compare notes before the Council meeting.

What gives the proposal a chance is the acceptance of the offer by the MCS officials, the promise that it will be a one-time assessment and not an annual tax increase, the support of the mayor, and the scarcity of other options.

Brown said he would oppose privatizing the sanitation department or additional layoffs beyond the 125 proposed by Wharton. Fullilove said she is against layoffs and holiday reductions for city employees and would like to hear discussion of a payroll tax on people who work in Memphis but live outside the city. Halbert also floated the idea of a payroll or privilege tax.

Wharton proposed that city employees not be paid for 12 of their 14 holidays, which amounts to a 4.6 percent pay cut. He also proposed $23 million in combined cuts from every division except police and fire.

“Nothing we do will generate universal praise or support,” said Wharton.

The final 2012 budget must be ready by June 6th.

Memphians can look forward to some other fees in the new economy. Wharton said charging for car inspections is one possibility. And as a counter proposal to Wharton’s suggestion that the city privatize downtown parking meters, the Center City Commission wants to “modernize” them rather than “monetize” them. “Diligent enforcement” of parking violations by an outside firm would put a little extra cash in city coffers, especially if ticket scofflaws were unable to renew their car registration, as some council members have suggested. And police, who are spared from the layoffs, can be counted on to diligently enforce speed limits and traffic violations.

Categories
Opinion

Shea Flinn Will Propose City Tax Increase

Shea Flinn

  • Shea Flinn

Memphis City Councilman Shea Flinn says he’ll propose a one-time 39-cent increase in the city property tax to raise $40 million to pay the past-due court-ordered schools payment.

Flinn is up for reelection this year, as are his colleagues on the council and Mayor A C Wharton. He said he is putting the proposal out there even though no one else is likely to support it before the election.

“People who think I wake up every morning worrying about reelection are wrong,” said Flinn, half-joking that he would start a “Kamikaze Party” to propose unpopular budget options.

Memphis already has the highest combined city-county property tax rate in Tennessee. A 39-cent increase would amount to about 12 percent higher city taxes.

“Everybody knows taxes are going up and they’re trying to get through this election year without doing it,” he said.

The tax increase would be in addition to layoffs of some 200 city employees and other measures needed to balance the budget. Flinn said he talked to Wharton about his proposal and the mayor has “no philosophical differences with it as far as one approach.”

The council meets Tuesday.

Categories
Opinion

Marriage of Necessity?

Motivational speaker Cavett Roberts once told me that one of the secrets of his trade was “Don’t change the speech, change the audience.”

Mayor Willie Herenton made his latest pitch for consolidation this week to a Memphis City Council that includes nine freshman members and a Shelby County Commission whose five most senior members were forced out in 2006 by term limits.

“I am not on an ego trip,” he said. “Consolidation of the governments is more important than any of our political aspirations.”

Herenton said he isn’t basing his pitch strictly on savings but believes “in the long term it is a more efficient government and will cost the taxpayers less.”

The fifth-term mayor has made the pitch several times, and he has the newspaper clippings to prove it. In 1993, two years after he was elected, he gave an interview to New York Times reporter Ronald Smothers in which he proposed that Memphis merge with Shelby County by surrendering its charter. He presented a different path to consolidation in 2002, suggesting that a vote could be held in 2004. Six years and two city elections later, Herenton again plugged consolidation in his speech to the Memphis Rotary Club in January. This time, consolidation was one of several New Year’s proposals, including a new convention center.

Most recently, in a Flyer interview in September, the mayor said he and business leaders will work for consolidation in 2009 with an eye toward creating a referendum in 2010 and a metro mayoral election — thereby bumping his own retirement ahead by one year, since he would not seek the job.

In this scenario, the presumptive metro mayor would be the current county mayor, A C Wharton. He is restricted by term limits from running again for that office. He could, however, run for city or metro mayor, and he recently formed a fund-raising committee.

Wharton is as popular as Herenton is unpopular. He was in Nashville Tuesday when Herenton spoke to the council and commission, but he has spoken in favor of consolidation at other public meetings. Popular he may be, but if he can’t persuade the County Commission to give up the Pyramid for $5 million, then how will anyone get them to give up their jobs?

Candidate Wharton would have opponents such as Carol Chumney, who got 35 percent of the vote in the city mayor’s race in 2007, and probably others running as anti-consolidation candidates. A referendum on consolidation would bring them out in droves.

Herenton has always predicted that consolidation would occur when there was a financial crisis in local government. Now we have a crisis on the horizon, and at least one longtime Herenton critic agrees with him.

“He can’t sell it, but it will get done,” said suburban developer Jackie Welch. “We’d be better off if we had one mayor and one council. If they freeze the school system boundaries, then I think everything else would work out.”

Walter Bailey, who was a county commissioner for three decades, disagrees.

“The anti-consolidation forces are locked in their position,” he said. “Their justification doesn’t hinge so much on the economy as wanting to keep themselves separate from the city.”

A case can be made that a crisis would divide voters rather than unite them — witness the tenor of the presidential campaign and the rough passage of the bailout bill.

A consolidation plan might well look sort of like a bailout bill in reverse. The bailout bill was loaded up with pork-barrel inclusions to satisfy reluctant congressmen. A consolidation proposal would be loaded up with exclusions for schools, unions, and law enforcement. Savings and efficiencies, if any, would be years in the future, while the crisis festered.

Government and real estate are right up there with FedEx as engines of the local economy. Real estate is broken, and the tax base is threatened. Welch says builders can’t even get people to come to open houses, much less buy a new house. Government jobs are patronage plums and safe harbors in this economy. In 17 years as mayor, Herenton has not proposed cutting a significant number of them.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Mall Walkers

CREDIT: hickoryridge.com

Like many Americans right now, Memphis City Council members are a little wary of the mall.

Especially when it could cost them more than $60 million over the next few years.

The city is considering purchasing the Hickory Ridge Mall concourse and renovating it for the new Fire and Police Dispatch Center, among other things. The close-out price of the building — damaged in a tornado last February — is $1.25 million, but renovations could be much more costly.

The City Council is expected to vote on the allocation at its next meeting. The city administration, however, thinks the mall is a bargain.

According to CAO Keith McGee, the cost of building a new fire and police dispatch facility would be between $25 and $40 million.

“When we look at the cost of building a new facility and compare — even on land that we own — we believe it’s a good investment and, in the long term, we’ll save money,” McGee said.

The city would purchase the mall concourse and an Applebee’s restaurant, with an eye toward acquiring the former Dillard’s and Macy’s spaces at the mall, as well. The city hopes the still-functioning Sears will remain open.

But City Council members aren’t quite ready to head to the cash register.

“We don’t know what construction [to renovate] the building is going to cost,” said Reid Hedgepeth. “What’s it going to cost over the next three or four years? This is a huge, huge space.”

And with Hickory Ridge Mall sustaining massive damage during the February tornado — a part of Sears’ wall was torn off — council members wondered how much structural damage the city would have to contend with.

That wasn’t the only sticking point. The city’s current budget already included more than $8 million for a police and fire dispatch center. Previous plans were to house the facility at the Lamar Commerce Center. But McGee said the mall site would give the city more square footage for its money, as well as having plenty of parking and room for other city services and community groups.

“All the things we’re being told about the Hickory Ridge Mall and how wonderful it would be are the same things we were told about Lamar,” said council member Barbara Swearengen Ware. “We have property sitting in Raleigh that was purchased some years ago that is still sitting there with a fence around it.”

The Lamar Commerce Center was expected to cost the city $7.25 million, and $8.8 million already was allocated in the current year’s budget for that purchase.

Councilman Jim Strickland asked why — if the mall’s price point was $1.25 million — the council was being asked to transfer $6.25 million. He was told the extra money would be used to purchase the Macy’s and Dillard’s spaces if the city thought the prices were reasonable.

“We’re trying to compare apples to apples, but actually, the prices are about the same because you want Dillard’s and Macy’s,” he said.

Council members also were concerned about taking the mall off the city’s tax rolls. Currently, the property generates $400,000 for the county and $300,000 in taxes for the city each year.

“Looking at taking $700,000 off of the tax base, plus the construction expense, would it not be better to take a vacant piece of land that is city-owned and develop it and build something new?” Hedgepeth asked.

Members also suggested other locations, including the Fairgrounds.

“I’d be willing to bet, if we looked around town, we could find vacancies where we could lease [property] and probably get landlord participation with retrofitting it while we’re in these uncertain times,” said Shea Flinn.

I’m always interested in adaptive re-use, especially when it comes to big, empty buildings such as the Mall of Memphis or The Pyramid. It’s not like any mom-and-pop store can take over these spaces.

And with so much of the city’s population shifted east, having a satellite office for renewing car tags and driver’s licenses, among other municipal services, could make sense.

But the over-all cost has the council thinking one thing: Caveat emptor.

“If we end up with Dillard’s and Macy’s at $100 a square foot in renovations, that’s a lot more than Lamar,” Strickland said. “There are so many open-ended questions. … We’re being asked to allocate $8 million, and we don’t know how much the back-end cost will be.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q&A with Scott McCormick,

Last week, Memphis City Council chair Scott McCormick announced he’d be leaving his post at the end of the month to take a job as executive director of the philanthropic Plough Foundation.

Elected in 2004 as a replacement for Pat Vander Schaaf, McCormick says he is most proud of his role in brokering a deal to abolish the city’s 12-year retirement plan. In 2006, he also led the effort to censure fellow council members Rickey Peete and Edmund Ford after they were indicted for bribery in Operation Main Street Sweeper.

When he isn’t busy with council matters, McCormick runs Central Imaging and Printing, a local printing company. But beginning next month, McCormick will take the reins of the Plough Foundation, which issues grants for nonprofit organizations in Memphis and Shelby County.

The Flyer asked McCormick to reflect on the past four years on the council. — Bianca Phillips

Flyer: What five lessons did you learn during your time with the Memphis City Council?

McCormick:

1. With seven votes, you can move City Hall to Mud Island.

2. If you find an extra million dollars, don’t worry. Someone will find a way to spend it.

3. Never commit to something before you hear all the facts.

4. Never worry how another council member just voted. Focus on how they will vote on the next issue.

5. You don’t need a watch.

Do you have any regrets? Anything you wish would have been accomplished while you were on the council?

I wish we could have found a use for the Pyramid.

What was the most challenging issue you dealt with as a council member?

The budget crisis of 2005.

What will you miss the most about the City Council?

Cedric Young, the council’s police officer. He is truly one of Memphis’ finest.

Why did you take the job at the Plough Foundation?

The Plough Foundation is a wonderful organization committed to improving the quality of life in Shelby County. I viewed moving to the foundation as a way to continue to help the community.

If Herenton had resigned, as chairman of the council, you would have become mayor. What would you have done?

I was willing to serve for the 20 days the charter requires. I planned to keep the city running and encourage the council to quickly vote for a new mayor.

Categories
News

All’s Well that Ends (sort of) Well for MCS

Members of the Memphis City Council and Memphis school
board hugged each other Tuesday and said a schools funding “crisis” has been
averted for a year, but it is not clear exactly how and by whose math.

After Monday’s dire warning by Mayor Willie Herenton of a
possible $450 million state funding cut for MCS, Tuesday’s developments, vague
as they were, promised better things.

Before the start of the regularly scheduled city council
meeting, councilmen Bill Morrison and Harold Collins, joined by several school
board members, came to the podium and announced, “We will work this thing out
and have a positive resolution in the near future.”

Collins said there would be no property tax increase for
city residents. In fact, the tax rate will fall from $3.43 to $3.25. MCS will be
“fully funded,” Collins said, even though the council is sticking by its
decision to cut the city school payment from $93 million to about $22 million
this year.

Interim superintendent Dan Ward, one of scores of school
system employees who came to City Hall for the council meeting, said the school
system would dip into its reserves for $38 million, leaving a balance of $55
million. Additional “savings” will result from the school system officially
recognizing that its enrollment has declined to 113,000 students, down from
widely reported but never verified enrollment figures of 118,000 and 120,000 in
the last five years or so.

The enrollment decline is significant because state funds
are awarded on a per-pupil basis. School board member Jeff Warren said declining
enrollment enables a city to legally cut its funding. Warren says the city
council cut money from schools so members could claim to be tax cutters even
though taxes for non-school public services went up. By the same token, school
board members can say they fought fiercely against funding reductions even
though the net result appears likely to be a funding reduction.

Both sides said their attorneys are continuing to work on
the funding issue. How much posturing and face-saving are involved in dodging
the “crisis” is not clear. A $450 million state funding cut, which is nearly
half the operating budget, would have practically shut down the school system. A
cut of $50 million, or roughly five-percent, would be in line with what other
city and county divisions are undergoing.

What is known is that Memphis homeowners will get a
property tax decrease on their city tax bill for at least one year. New
superintendent Kriner Cash will have to deal with Herenton, who more or less
stood by his low assessment of Cash as the survivor of a flawed search process.
And the elected school board will remain in place despite Herenton’s call for an
appointed board and a referendum on that issue.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Mayor Coaxes Council to Support “Dramatic School Reform”

CREDIT: jb

Making a deceptively brief and low-key pitch to members of
the city council Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Willie Herenton solicited their help
in arranging a referendum on the November ballot to determine whether the city
school board should henceforth “be appointed or elected.”

Herenton further suggested to council members Myron Lowery
and Janis Fullilove, who double as members of the city Charter Commission, that
they might consider authorizing such a referendum as part of their own
forthcoming ballot initiative in November.

Absent from his presentation to the council was any hint of
the slight edge with which the mayor had first broached his proposal for
“dramatic school reform” at a press conference in the Hall of Mayors on Monday. At the heart of it was a variation on a vintage Herenton proposal, a five-member board to be appointed by the mayor and ratified, in effect, by the council.

And Herenton seemed intent Tuesday on being as ingratiating as
possible to the current council, beginning by complimenting it for having “demonstrated that
it could really make a difference in this community on some very important
fronts.” As he would put it, contrasting the current 13-member body, nine of
whose members are in their first year, with previous ones, “This is not a status
quo council. I see a different mix here.”

The mayor drew an implicit contrast, too, between the council and
the school board, which had just rejected him as a prospect for the school
superintendency and whose existence as an elected body he now proposes to
abolish. The council, on the other hand, “as that body that takes the heat for
the tax rate, ought to have greater authority and accountability for the
schools.”

Insisting that the plan he was broaching was “not about
me,” Herenton said it should be structured so as not to take effect until 2012.
“That’s when Willie Herenton is history. You follow me?”

The mayor credited a “different climate” of opinion in the
state and the nation, and factors like the No Child Left Behind Act, for his
sense that now was the time to “make these changes while we can.”

In a brief give-and-take with reporters following his
session with the council, Herenton was asked about his current opposition to the
council’s decision last week to withhold funding from Memphis City Schools. A
reporter reminded him that he had proposed just such an expedient several years
ago as a means of forcing the issue of consolidation.

“Somehow or another, you have to send a shockwave,” said
Herenton, who said, “Nobody heard me then.” Now, however, there was a different
council and a different attitude toward change in Nashville. The mayor seemed to
be inviting a different idea – that of state intervention, reminding the
reporters of what he had also mentioned to the council, that state government
under the Bredesen administration had begun to intervene directly in the
Nashville school system.

Had the mayor been functioning then, or was he functioning
now, s as a “puppetmaster?” the newsman wanted to know. “I’m not going to let
you personalize the issue. We’re trying to change the culture,” the mayor said.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Passing the Exam

The Memphis City Council, composed overwhelmingly of new members after last year’s city elections, has acquitted itself well in most respects — never more so than when it dared last week, by a convincing 10-3 majority, to begin a radical reversal of course in the matter of school funding. By voting to withhold almost $70 million of its expected $93 million annual contribution to Memphis City Schools, the council made two statements at once: 1) As noted implicitly in the budget resolution introduced by newcomer Bill Morrison, a teacher himself, and explicitly in the comments of several council members, MCS has long gone without anything resembling adequate accountability in its allocation of resources. 2) Hard-pressed Memphis taxpayers, long forced by our two-headed local government system to pay two tax bills at once, were due for a modest break and got one.

Add a third statement: This council affirmed that it will not roll over and be taken for granted by MCS, to whose coffers it has been making voluntary, not mandated, contributions all these years. Even one of the three nay votes, that of freshman member Jim Strickland, was based not on disagreement with the majority’s essential premise but on Strickland’s feeling that school cuts should be phased in and supplemented by more stringent reductions in the city’s administrative budget.

Admittedly, there are serious and concerned people in the community who disagree with the council’s action. Operation P.U.S.H., which sought an injunction against the budget resolution last week, was rebuffed in Chancery Court but will press forward with litigation. Whatever the outcome of that, the council has taken a resolute and overdue step in the rehauling of local education, one which may ultimately have positive pedagogical, as well as financial, results.

All’s Well That Ends Well

Bishop William Graves of Memphis, the first African American to serve on the governing board of the TVA, is due for another term on the board as the result of Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander’s apparent victory late last week in a political contest with Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Reid had long blocked President Bush’s reappointment of Graves, whose prior partial term expired last year, on the ground that congressional Republicans had earlier purged bona-fide Democrats from the board and that Graves, a nominal Democrat but a past backer of both Bush and Alexander, had insufficient party credentials. Alexander had retaliated by blocking Dr. Ikram Khan, a Reid protégé, from being confirmed to the congressionally endowed United States Institute for Peace. Both blocks were finally removed by mutual agreement, as was an impasse on most of 80 other presidential appointments.

The credentials of Bishop Graves, who represents a sprawling district of the Christ Methodist Episcopal Church, had also been pleaded for by local Democratic congressman Steve Cohen — a fact that speaks to Graves’ reputation and that took the issue somewhat beyond the contours of a political grudge match.

We are pleased by the outcome, both for Bishops Graves’ sake and for the ultimate triumph of common sense over partisanship.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Local Government 101

As the week began, the Memphis City Council — primed to take on the controversial and potentially transformative issue of school funding — stood ready to become a laboratory of sorts for political scientists, be they local or visitors from Mars. The Shelby County Commission,

which has spent the last several weeks completing proposed charter changes for the August election ballot, already has been. The commission’s deliberations were originally necessitated by an East Tennessee judicial finding that nullified the constitutional status of five local officials — sheriff, trustee, assessor, county clerk, and register — and required that these offices be redefined in the county charter.

The desire of some commissioners — and, no doubt, Mayor A C Wharton — to make these offices appointive quickly ran afoul of a prevailing feeling among both Democratic and Republican commissioners to keep them subject to election. And, for the most part, the existing prerogatives of all five offices were maintained. Where change seemed inevitable was in the realm of term limits, and it appeared for a while that the five offices would be subjected to the same two-term (eight-year) limitations imposed on the county mayor and the commissioners themselves by a 1994 referendum.

But that’s where the fun began. In essence, the commission’s Democrats, led by longtime political broker Sidney Chism, began to coalesce around the idea that limitations on tenure for the five offices, if they had to exist at all, should be extended to three full terms, or 12 years. Not all Democrats were on board to begin with, but as Chism — who originally wanted no term limits at all — kept persisting, he developed some momentum for the three-term concept. Meanwhile, Republicans tried to hold firm to the two-term limit. The showdown was a classic illustration of the two parties’ divergent points of view on the role of government. As deliberations wore on, the commission considered and rejected an endless series of variations and compromises, with Republican Mike Carpenter and Democrat Steve Mulroy performing in what has become their accepted role as devisers of compromise.

In the end, during a marathon session last week, it was two Republican commissioners, George Flinn and Joyce Avery, and one hold-out Democrat, J.W. Gibson, who came off their support of the two-term limit for the express purpose of ensuring there could be a ballot initiative in August. As things stand, not only — pending voter approval — are the five redefined offices to get a three-term limit; so are the mayor and the commissioners. Score one for Chism. But he may have overreached himself when, during the third reading of the ballot resolution on Monday, he voiced an animated objection to a proviso for recalling officials. The battle lines hardened again, and, for a long while, it appeared that the ballot resolution might be in jeopardy. But this time it was Chism who had to yield, as a bipartisan consensus emerged in favor of the status quo.

It was more complicated than that, of course, and we recommend that students of horse-trading secure copies of Monday’s rather busy transcript. In the end, the commission debate was a textbook case of how government should work, and we recommend it as a model for the Memphis City Council in its own deliberations this week and thereafter.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Football Stadium as Political Football

At his New Year’s Day prayer breakfast, Mayor Willie Herenton proposed that Memphis tear down Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium and replace it with a new stadium at the Fairgrounds. Last Tuesday, the Memphis City Council received a consultant’s report on the feasibility of a new stadium and promptly voted to delay further discussion of it until December. Two days later, the University of Memphis announced that it would do its own feasibility study of an on-campus stadium.

Here is a “progress report” on the stadium proposal for the last nine months.

Date: January 1, 2007

Theme: “On the Wall,” the title of the mayor’s breakfast speech.

Venue: Press conference after breakfast at Memphis Cook Convention Center.

Handout: Six stapled pages of color pictures of pro and college football stadiums in Charlotte, Detroit, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Louisville.

Cost estimate: $63 million (Louisville) to $300 million (Detroit).

Research/professionalism: College student hoping for a C grade.

Supporting cast: University of Memphis’ R.C. Johnson and Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Kevin Kane.

Big idea: Replace rather than refurbish the Liberty Bowl.

Reaction: Say what?

Date: February 20, 2007

Theme: “Project Nexus: Fairgrounds Master Plan and New Stadium Proposal.”

Venue: Lobby of City Hall.

Handout: Four-page press release and 40-page report.

Cost estimate: $150 million to $185 million.

Research/professionalism: Five-figure consulting job, with PowerPoint style.

Supporting cast: Various directors and mayoral staff.

Big idea: Economic development with fiscal restraint. No property taxes.

Reaction: In the Flyer, U of M booster Harold Byrd pushes for on-campus stadium.

Date: September 18, 2007

Theme: “Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium Development Options.”

Venue: City Council committee room.

Handout: 136-page report.

Cost estimate: $21 million for renovation to $217 million for new stadium.

Research/professionalism: Six-figure consulting job, with footnotes.

Supporting cast: Chief financial officer Robert Lipscomb.

Big idea: Report covers all the bases but was “edited” before release.

Reaction: Put it away until December, two months after election.

Meanwhile, on September 15th, the Tigers defeated Jacksonville State before an estimated 28,000 fans at the 62,000-seat Liberty Bowl Stadium. Last Saturday, the Tigers traveled to Orlando to play Central Florida, which has a new on-campus 45,000-seat stadium with no public drinking fountains. Memphis lost 56-20 before a full house.