Memphis De-Annexation – Memphis Flyer

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland will present plans to de-annex two East Memphis areas to the Memphis City Council on Tuesday.

The proposal to de-annex Southwind/Windyke and Rocky Point are in step with the mayor’s stated goal of next “right-sizing” the city.

“As we look to a thriving third century, it’s important to increase our density so we can better deliver services,” Strickland said. “By right-sizing Memphis, we’re making significant steps toward a more efficient city government. This has been a locally-controlled, data-driven process from the start, and we continue to keep our word about what we’ll do.

“Memphis may well be the first city in the country to voluntarily explore and propose de-annexation. For too long, Memphis grew only by annexation. We must change that, and we must grow from our core and our neighborhoods. Right-sizing our city by this process helps us do that.”

[pullquote-1]

The areas proposed for de-annexation are two of the seven identified last year by the Strategic Footprint Review Task Force as potential de-annexation candidates.

To identify areas for de-annexation, the task force and the administration focused on “areas that were low density, were challenging to deliver municipal services, and specifically asked for de-annexation.”

Also among the seven, are Riverbottoms and Eads, which the council voted to de-annex last month. Additionally, areas in Frayser, Raleigh, and South Cordova were also indicated.

While city officials have decided not to proceed with de-annexing the areas in Frayser and Raleigh, de-annexation of South Cordova is slated for the future.

The ordinance to de-annex Southwind/Windyke and Rocky Point is sponsored by Councilman Bill Morrison, who chaired the Strategic Footprint task force.

In order for the areas to be officially de-annexed, the council must approve the ordinance in three readings. If passed, de-annexation is set for January 2021.

Greg Cravens

It is not quite a year after Memphis was able to extricate itself from what had seemed an inescapable fate, the Carter-Watson bill in the Tennessee General Assembly. It seemed to come out of nowhere, passing the House in a jet-propelled jiffy and seemingly destined, on the strength of rural members’ and suburbanites’ resolve, to sail through the state Senate, saddling the city with what looked to many like a death sentence.

The bill’s authors, both from the outskirts of Chattanooga, had already succeeded in passing a measure that abolished the former prerogatives of Tennessee cities to annex new territories at will, giving the residents of the state’s unincorporated areas what amounted to a veto over their possible annexation by adjacent municipalities. In the process, they had rendered virtually null and void a compromise agreement of 1998, which had provided significant brakes on the cities’ ambitions for growth but had acknowledged their right to certain areas as potential annexation reserves.

The measure proposed by the Hamilton County duo last year was designed not just to stall or hamper or regulate the growth pattern of cities. It was clearly and plainly meant to cut the cities down to size — literally — and Memphis had been a fairly blatant offender by the standards of the two sponsors, whose bill would have allowed any area annexed since that pivotal year of 1998 to escape its encompassing municipality with a petition signed by 10 percent of its residents, followed by a majority vote in a referendum.

It was only by the most heroic exertions by Mayor Jim Strickland and other city officials, in emergency collaboration with the local Chamber of Commerce and sympathetic allies in other Tennessee municipalities, that the bill was blocked in a state Senate committee and remanded off to summer study. The “study,” such as it was, is over, and, with the General Assembly back in session, the word is that Carter and Watson could bring their bill up again, as Draconian as ever.

An implicit condition of the bill’s tabling last year was a gentlemen’s agreement of sorts: The city of Memphis, which had from time to time considered the principle of de-annexation as a useful option and a means of conserving its resources, might submit an alternative proposal. Last week, a city/county task force presented a plan that would divest the city of several relatively uninhabited areas that are expensive to service, as well as two recently annexed areas — Southwind/Windyke and South Cordova — that have been champing at the bit to be de-annexed. According to the report’s authors, the bill would shrink the city’s population by only 1.2 percent and its annual operating revenue by a mere 1.1 percent, while allowing a “right-sizing” that would benefit the city now and in its future planning.

Among other things, the task force’s plan is a reminder of reality, a rebuff to escapism, a dose of brass tacks. It may, in fact, be the best option facing Memphis at the moment. It is, in any case, worth careful study by the city council, which can adopt and enact it this spring — perhaps pre-empting the legislature in the process.

Sometimes victory can be gained — and loss forestalled — through a judicious compromise.