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The Wearing of the Green

The short-term peace on Greensward parking negotiated between the Memphis Zoo and the Citizens to Protect Overton Park (CPOP) expired late last month when the last shuttle ran from the Overton Square parking garage to the park. 

Memphis city officials say overflow parking will likely resume on the Greensward. CPOP says it will continue to encourage people to enjoy the Greensward. But continuing the “Get Off Our Lawn” campaign — the peaceful, sit-in style protest — will depend on the continued cooperation of all parties to find a way to keep cars off the grass for good.   

Brandon Dill

Tina Hamilton (left) and her Great Dane, Dominic, relax with Allison Tribo and her dog, Foxy, inside Overton Bark dog park.

The fight for the Overton Park Greensward has cooled somewhat, especially from the tense beginning that threatened the arrest of a CPOP protestor. Now, all involved seem focused on a new, more-distant horizon that promises a long-term solution to the parking problems at Overton Park and the Memphis Zoo. They await proposals for a fix from Memphis City Hall, which are expected in a couple of months. The city’s chief administrative officer, George Little, says he’s agnostic on the solution but that all sides need to have skin in the game.

“My position is when everybody feels like they’ve got something to gain and everybody feels like they’ve got something to lose, that’s when we’re going to see some movement,” Little says. “It’s not going to happen as long as one side is like ‘I’ve got mine, you’re not getting yours.'”

The Opening Salvo

The guy directing cars for parking at the Memphis Zoo pretended not to see Jessica Buttermore. He walked right across the field to her and turned his back, stopping just two feet from her blanket on the grass. He pumped his palm toward his chest until a big, whirring SUV came to a stop just four feet from where Buttermore was reading a book.  

She sat up and gave him a look, but the attendant moved on and so did the people from the SUV. None of them said a word to her or even looked her way. Buttermore remained on her blanket, sitting in bemused disbelief. Did that just happen?

More cars came as the day wore on. By the time Buttermore’s group packed their stuff, they found themselves marooned, an archipelago chain of islands in a dusty sea of parked cars. No one parking cars that day acknowledged the people on the lawn.   

This incident lit the fuse for what has now been a weeks-long fight for the Greensward in Overton Park. 

“It became really clear that the zoo … felt like it was their space,” said Buttermore, chair of CPOP. “They had ownership of it and we had no right to it as members of the public, when, in fact, it is a public space. At that point it became really clear that we have got to really amp this thing up.”

And they did. The day after she and others were ignored by the parking attendants, they showed up with warnings written on big signs: “Don’t Park on Our Park.”

Wind of a bigger, more organized protest planned for the Greensward the following weekend reached City Hall. So that next Saturday, Little rode by on his bike for a first-hand look.

“I felt like I was riding up and down the line in Braveheart,” Little said. “You know when the English and the Scots are on the opposite sides? I felt like I was riding up and down the line. All I needed was a shield to bang on. I mean, really? C’mon. We’re all Memphians.”

Two Sides and the Mayor

Like in Braveheart, people on both sides of the line Little saw that day believe in something bigger than themselves. Unlike most movies, there was no clear good guy or bad guy in the Overton Park parking war. 

Brandon Dill

Pip Borden, 9, enjoys a popsicle during a hot afternoon on the Greensward at Overton Park.

The protestors believe everyone benefits in keeping that corner of Memphis uncluttered and open to any who want a respite from urban life — as it was designed to be by George Kessler in 1901. Zoo officials believe everyone benefits if we allow parking in the Greensward because it helps a top-tier Memphis attraction that educates thousands each year and is a major tourism and economic engine for the city. 

The physical stand-off between the two sides got tense that weekend. Cops were called. But they were called off by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, who closed the Greensward to parking soon after that weekend. Shuttles were hired to take visitors from the new garage at Overton Square to the zoo, or the park, or the Brooks Museum of Art. It was going to be an uninterrupted, five-week pilot program.

But zoo officials asked Wharton to reopen the Greensward for what was going to be a busy Memorial Day weekend. He did, but only for that weekend. Then, zoo officials asked Wharton to reopen the Greensward for a major corporate event for Toyota that was going to bring in an additional 4,000 visitors to the zoo. He did, but only for that event.   

The Greensward was closed every weekend until the end of June. And Wharton’s administration has been working with all sides to forge a new short-term compromise and to find that long-term solution.

So, passionate factions with claims to the same land? Frustrations coming for all the major players? Clear victories blunted by compromise? A saga that began like Braveheart has become more like Game of Thrones

What is a Greensward?  

The word “Greensward” is foreign to many — even many native Memphians — but it’s the name for the large grassy field that surrounds Rainbow Lake and the new playground on the west side of the Old Forest. It’s 21 acres from end to end and side to side. (FedEx Forum sits on less than 14 acres.)

Brandon Dill

Brian Sanders enjoys a cold drink along with (from left) Elaina Norman, Patricia Duckett, and Kim Duckett as they watch Cedric Burnside Project perform during the free summer concert series at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park.

The Greensward is at the height of its intended use on the first warm days of spring. It’s always bustling with people walking dogs, families having picnics, couples lounging together on blankets, games of Frisbee and hacky sack, drum circles, and more. It’s a large, open, natural area, which is hard to find in Memphis.

The land technically belongs to the city of Memphis. That is, it belongs to everyone in the city and is wide open for them to use it. But the Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) manages the park for the city. So, upkeep on the Greensward falls on them. 

The Memphis Zoological Society has a similar management contract with the city for the 70-acre zoo and the 3,500 animals there. That contract says the city will provide parking, and for more than 20 years, that has meant overflow parking on the Overton Park Greensward.

Memphis Zoo CEO Chuck Brady calls it an “old problem” and says the zoo has been misunderstood on the issue for years, not just during the recent dust-up.

The decision to use the Greensward for overflow parking was made when the city — not the Memphis Zoological Society — managed the Memphis Zoo decades ago, Brady says. A new master plan for the zoo in 1986 called for 1,000 parking spaces to be built in front of the zoo. Neighbors complained, and that number was shrunk to 655, which the zoo has in its front lot now, Brady says. The idea then was that any overflow parking would be put on the Greensward.      

Permanent parking solutions have been proposed twice by the new zoo management, Brady says. One was a new parking deck slated for the east side of the zoo. It was scrapped because it would not best perform its secondary purpose as a floodwater retention basin. 

After that, Brady says zoo officials proposed building a parking lot on the strip of land on the southeast corner of East Parkway and Sam Cooper. The zoo planned to use a tram to cross the street into the park and then into the zoo. Brady said that plan was axed as city officials said they had other plans for the land. 

“I bring these things up because we’ve heard a lot of criticism that we haven’t tried anything,” Brady says. “But we have been trying — not successfully, we can say that — but we’ve definitely been trying to find a permanent solution that’s doable.” 

That’s part of what frustrated Brady when the latest parking controversy began a few weeks ago. But he was more frustrated because he said the zoo and the Overton Park Conservancy were “very close” on a new agreement on parking, an agreement that was scrapped in the wake of protests, shuttles, and the promised new way forward. 

The basics of the agreement would have allowed the zoo to use the Greensward while they work together with OPC to find a long-term solution that would eventually yield the Greensward completely back to the park.  

“The [memorandum of understanding] really outlined how we would work together over the next few years to achieve some short-term and long-term parking solutions,” says OPC Executive Director Tina Sullivan. “There was tacit understanding that OPC needed to work with the zoo on a long-term solution before we took any actions to try to remove them from the Greensward.”

Brandon Dill

Citizens to Preserve Overton Park members (from left) Naomi Van Tol, Stacey Greenberg, and Roy Barnes stand on part of the contested area of the park’s Greensward used for overflow parking by the Memphis Zoo.

Brady says he was taken completely by surprise when Wharton kiboshed Greensward parking in the beginning of the dust-up. It stung to be so close to an agreement and have it dashed and supplanted with ideas that zoo officials thought wouldn’t work.

So, the zoo issued a lengthy news release that shocked many. It accused Wharton of joining with the “protesters’ mission” and said his proposals for a fix would “lead to the demise of the zoo as we know it.”

CPOP’s Buttermore says she couldn’t believe the release made it past the zoo’s public relations department, but she’s glad it did.

“We always tell people we’re not anti-zoo,” she says. “Then this statement went out and — wow — you just did a really big favor for our campaign. We don’t have to go around really being anti-zoo because you just made a bunch of people really mad.”

And it did. Wharton issued a formal statement saying the “tone of the press release was disrespectful and inappropriate,” but he committed to continue working with the zoo and park officials to find a common solution.

“It was a strong response, and I apologized to the mayor that it was personal,” Brady says. “We’re passionate about this zoo. We built this zoo to what it is today. I don’t mean me. I mean this whole organization. We work hard every day.”

New Solutions?

Wading into the land of parking solutions for the park is much like wading into Rainbow Lake to look for something you lost. You know it’s in there somewhere but you can’t see it from the surface. You know finding it will be hard, dirty work. You’re not exactly sure where it is. And you’re not sure what you’ll bump into while you look. 

Wharton outlined three solutions in May. Those solutions are the ones that drew the ire of the zoo officials. 

One idea was the short-term shuttle trial. Depending on who you talk to, the experiment had limited to moderate success. Ridership was lower than expected but some thought the program wasn’t promoted enough or given enough time to catch on. Even Brady agrees that shuttles might be a part of a long-term parking solution for the zoo.

Wharton also opened up the General Services area for free parking to zoo visitors willing to walk through the Old Forest to the zoo. It was originally panned by zoo officials because the 1.2-mile round trip would make the option prohibitive for children, the elderly, or disabled. But zoo employees are now parking in the General Services area, which has freed up about 100 parking spots in zoo lots.

The final idea that came from Wharton in May is the one that likely has the most long-term traction. It’s the most expensive, most permanent, and probably toughest to execute. But it’s the one that has the most support from the city, the zoo, and the conservancy. 

Wharton proposed a $5 million, 400-space parking deck to be built somewhere on zoo property or near the zoo. Zoo officials quickly said a garage needed to be 600 spaces and the cost was likely closer to $12 million. But how big it should be and how much it will cost are almost secondary questions.

Brandon Dill

Childbirth educator Sarah Stockwell (left) talks with Mary Beth Best of Birth Works Doula Services during an event at Overton Park benefiting Postpartum Progress, a nonprofit that supports new mothers with mood or anxiety disorders.

City and zoo officials agree the toughest questions for a garage are: Where will it be built? Who will pay for it?

The easiest and quickest location seems to be the city’s General Services area that fronts East Parkway. But that land has been promised to the backers of a museum devoted to the works of photographer William Eggleston. Little says the city is now in a development deal with that group and that the negotiations pretty much lock up the property. Messing with part of that deal could mess it up completely, Little said, especially when it comes to luring private investors. 

A parking deck could also be located where the zoo’s maintenance facilities now stand. But where would those facilities go? Again, the General Services area could easily stand in but that puts the Eggleston deal at risk.     

A deck could even be built on top of existing zoo parking but that would, of course, take away valuable parking spots. And the deck would have to pass some pretty high design standards to blend into the zoo, the park, and the surrounding neighborhood.

But if a proper site was found and if a design was approved, Little and Brady both balked at financing a garage.

“There’s no way on God’s green earth that this mayor can come in and pledge general obligation bonds to build a zoo garage,” Little says. “You could make a case for the Cooper-Young [garage] deal that there is business activity and yadda, yadda, yadda, But the zoo? Heck, I don’t know if you’d even get five votes [from the Memphis City Council] for that.”

The zoo raised a total of $35 million from private sources for Teton Trek and the coming Zambezi River Hippo Camp exhibits, Brady says.

“But raising money for a parking garage is almost impossible,” he says. “People don’t give dollars for parking garages. Our donors want to see what their gifts do in the community. For example, there will be 60 million to 80 million visitors in the 50-year life of the hippo [exhibit].”  

The Nuclear Option

Little offered up one other solution in a conversation last week. He says it was maybe only one wrung down from a “nuclear option” and to avoid it, park advocates could be spurred toward a compromise: trams running through the Old Forest to shuttle zoo visitors from satellite parking lots. 

“We’ve checked and there’s nothing that precludes it,” Little says. “Is it inconsistent with the [1989] master plan? Maybe. But there’s no prohibition to doing the trams.” 

The idea was abhorrent to Buttermore. CPOP’s biggest recent victory was getting the Old Forest designated as a state natural area, which offers it special protections (against motorized vehicle traffic, among other things, Buttermore says). To them, the Old Forest is the hallowed sanctuary in the park they love, and running a tram through it would, indeed, be the nuclear option, Buttermore says.

“If the city and the zoo are upset about people going out and sitting on the grass on the weekends, people are going to throw a fit [if trams are allowed],” Buttermore says. “So many people run and walk their dogs [in the Old Forest]. The daily users of the road in the Old Forest is probably like 110 times that of the daily users of the Greensward. [The Get Off Our Lawn group] was a small group of protestors. If they ran trams through the Forest, they’d really see a protest.”

Brandon Dill

Poppy Belue, 9, stands up on her father Michael Belue for a better view as they watch Cedric Burnside Project perform during the free summer concert series at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park.

Show Me Yours? 

No matter what happens at Overton Park, it’s pretty clear that all of its residents — the zoo, the park, the Memphis College of Art, The Memphis Brooks Museum — are going to be neighbors for a long time. And as those venues get more popular (as they have in the past few years) then they all need to show each other plans on where they’re headed, says Sullivan.

“I feel we need to consider how we’ll accommodate new visitors as we make improvements to the park and to the zoo as it continues to grow in popularity and it will,” Sullivan says. “We need to be looking ahead,  years down the road, and making sure any improvements we make or plans that we make now are flexible enough to accommodate that future usage.”

Buttemore says it would be as easy as getting all those neighbors together and sharing master plans. 

 

Conserving on Conservancies

The fight for the Greensward is not done, but it has impressed Little with another idea that could affect parks across the city in the future. 

He says conservancies are great on the surface, and he likes the idea of private citizens rallying behind a park to make it better for everyone. But he’s afraid the structure of these public-private partnerships have maybe been too loose and given too much power to the private managers such as OPC. He’s also afraid private groups could end up cherry picking the city’s nicer parks.

“We could turn around one day and all of the prime city assets are under some kind of conservancy,” Little says. “The fact is, these [partnerships] reinforce the idea that ‘this is my park’ as opposed to something that belongs to everybody.”

Sullivan, the OPC’s director, says Little’s idea was “interesting.”

“I would absolutely say that we don’t consider ourselves owners of the park,” Sullivan says. “This is very much a city park and we manage it on behalf of the city and behalf of the citizens of Memphis. So, we’re trying to deliver what those citizens want.” 

Conservancy deals are coming together now for Audubon Park in East Memphis, Little says, and also for Downtown’s Morris Park at the corner of Poplar and Manassas. Decisions on those deals, he says, will be informed by what’s been learned at Overton Park, including the fight for the Greensward. 

Game of Parks, anyone?

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1322

Great Location!

There’s nothing quite like that moment when you open up a little red Apartment Guide box to discover that, instead of being full of housing opportunities, it’s actually full of somebody’s pants. And somebody’s shirt. And the rest of somebody’s outfit. Is this where superheroes ditch their secret identities now that phone booths are scarce?

Animal Crackers?

Your Pesky Fly would be remiss should he fail to mention that an unidentified woman was permanently ejected from the Memphis Zoo this week for getting a little too close to the animals. On Monday, June 23rd, a woman wearing brown scrubs crossed a barrier in Cat Country in order to serenade the lions and feed them cookies. Nobody seems to have recorded what types of cookies she thought a 250-pound carnivore might enjoy. Lady Fingers, perhaps?

Cover Girl

With Judge Joe Brown being a clear exception to the rule, there has been a trend toward smiling in mug shots since Just Busted became a convenience-store staple. Even embattled Shelby County Commissioner Henri Brooks smiled for her close-up. Brooks, who was arrested for assault, is pictured next to Krystal “texting while driving” Sharp and Katerina “domestic violence” Walthall.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

About Jackson Baker’s post, “Putting the Clamps On” …

Excluding the networks from any control over the GOP presidential primary debates is controversial? The networks might actually have to report the news rather than make it.

When the presidential debates were going to finally include a Libertarian candidate, the Democan/Republicrats decided the League of Women Voters would no longer make the rules. The Republicrats decided to make the rules and chose to NOT include the Libertarian candidate. Guess they can’t handle the competition.

FYI, the Libertarians are the only political party that actually believes the national government (we haven’t had a federal government in many decades, but that is another subject) should follow the U.S. Constitution. Harry Taylor

About the Flyer‘s editorial, “The New Politics of Black, White, and Brown” …

If by magic or unbridled lust, we become a perfectly dun society, who are we gonna get to do the shit jobs for sub-poverty wages? People who are in more desperate circumstances than our own huddled masses, that’s who. And if they and we all look alike, then will the liberal guilt be assuaged?

CL Mullins

CL, I think that’s the point. If we could get past the race issue, maybe we could actually focus on the real issues driving things like poverty and not waste so much energy on race debates.

GroveReb84

About Toby Sells’ cover story, “$outh Main”…

I moved downtown two years ago and the front doors of my apartment building open onto South Main.

I have a wonderfully small studio apartment, am within walking distance of Beale Street, The Orpheum, the Redbirds stadium, and just about anything else interesting in Downtown Memphis. The energy level down here is awesome, the people are always friendly, local visitors and tourists have a great time, and I have a good time mingling with them.

I’ve lived in several states and cities, in the suburbs and several apartments and, all in all, Downtown Memphis is the best place I have ever lived. It’s really exciting knowing what is being done and planned for the area. At this point, I can’t even imagine wanting to live anywhere else.

RD

About Toby Sells’ Newsblog post, “Update: Memphis Zoo Apologizes to Mayor for ‘Personal Attack'” …

Where are all of these hippies when Tom Lee Park (Riverside) gets trampled and torn up every Memphis In May? It turns to a mud hole for months, and no one complains. This logically means that if we bring horrible music and lots of hot chicks and BBQ to Overton Park, it will resolve the issue.

Greg Cravens

People who support the zoo and those who support the park should be natural allies. This fight is petty, unnecessary, and probably a great source of amusement to those who support neither the park nor the zoo.

JDM

Why wasn’t extra parking/new parking lot or garage put into the equation when the zoo started expanding, many years ago. Common sense would tell you if you make something bigger and more attractive, more people will come. The zoo is now one of the city’s main attractions. There have been many times that I have skipped going due to the traffic alone and just went to the Pink Palace or the Children’s Museum.

Kimbrlyrut

As long as cars are being left in the middle of our public parks; we should treat them accordingly as public playground equipment.

Count Dracula

Me thinks it’s high time to show the zoo that opposition to parking on the greensward comes from more than just a “small group of protestors.” I’ve been silent on this issue up until now, but no more. When does the Get Off Our Lawn group plan to hold its next meeting? I’ll do my darndest to be there to lend my support. Maybe it’s time to for us to rally, picket, protest or do whatever it takes to get the message across to zoo officials.

Strait Shooter

Categories
News News Blog

Memphis Zoo extends contract for pandas

The Memphis Zoo has extended its contract with China 10 more years to keep giant pandas. The agreement, signed by the Memphis Zoo, Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens, and China’s State Forestry Administration, extends the loan for two bears at half the cost of the previous loan.

According to Abbey Dane, the communications director at the zoo, the contract isn’t negotiated on specifically keeping Ya Ya and Le Le — the two bears in the China exhibit currently — only the ability to keep pandas in the exhibit. The zoo has tried to breed the two over the past decade, but have yet to be successful.

The zoo has borrowed the pandas since 2003.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Jurassic Park

Since the dawn of modern paleontology, mankind has struggled to answer one elusive question: Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms?

A Google search on the topic revealed a variety of possible answers ranging from “God wanted to give us all something to laugh at” to “The tiny arms were used to tickle their mates like constrictor snakes do with anal spurs which are likewise the vestigial remnants of hind legs.”

The prevailing theory neatly summed up: “T-Rex had little arms because with jaws and teeth like that, who needs big guns?”

Will the Memphis Zoo’s “Dinosaurs” exhibit shed any new light on the topic?

Probably not. But it lets visitors to the park get close to a baby Tyrannosaurus and 14 other lifesized animatronic dinosaurs in prehistoric habitats. Other dinosaurs in the exhibit include Dilophosaurus, the double-crested flesh-eating nightmare; Therizinosaurus, a herbivore with long, scythe-like claws; and Styracosaurus, an animal so ridiculous looking it was probably mocked into extinction by other dinosaurs.

And if the zoo’s robotic reptiles leave you wanting to know even more, “Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice” is at the Children’s Museum of Memphis through May 13th. The CMOM exhibit introduces kids to the dirty work of a paleontologist in the field and teaches them about the relationship of different dinosaurs to their habitats.

“Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice,” the Children’s Museum of Memphis, through May 13th. Free to members, $12 nonmembers.

“Dinosaurs,” the Memphis zoo, March 10th – July 8th, $3 for members, $4 for nonmembers.

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Special Sections

Rin Tin Tin at the Memphis Zoo

RinTinTin1.jpg

I really enjoy the offbeat questions I get from readers from time to time. Such as this one, from C.A. in Corinth, Mississippi, who asked me, “Was there ever a dog statue at the Memphis Zoo?”

This puzzled me, since as far as I know, just about every creature in the world is (or has been at one time) on display at the zoo except for dogs and cats. Pet-type dogs and cats, I mean. So when I asked what made her think such a statue ever existed, she replied:

“I have the statue. Bought it from an elderly lady. She said it came from the Memphis Zoo. It is Rin Tin Tin and has it on the statue. It stands 12.5″ tall. As you can see it has some damage. It was an outside.”

Okay, by “it was an outside” I guess she means that it once stood outside, somewhere. But judging from the photos, this statue seems to be made of plaster, which wouldn’t have survived long after a Memphis rainstorm. So, assuming the “elderly lady” is telling the truth about it coming from the zoo, I can only presume it was sold years ago at the gift shop.

But why would the Memphis Zoo sell plaster statues of Rin Tin Tin, the famed German shepherd who starred in his own TV series, who — as far as I know — had no connection with Memphis?

RinTinTin2.jpg

Categories
Special Sections

The North Parkway Police Station?

Robert Harrell, one of my readers from Gadsden, Alabama — okay, he’s probably the ONLY reader from Gadsden, Alabama — always writes in with intriguing questions. In a recent epistle, prompted by my compelling and heart-warming story of the old police station on South Barksdale, he remembers a small police station that once stood on the corner of North Parkway and North McLean.

Here’s what he says:

“There was a police station located at the intersection of North Parkway and North McLean — southeast corner. We would drive past it at night and see officers inside the attractive building. The zoo fence was adjusted to provide room for the building, and today this same fence is still standing, with the location of the police building vacant, and no visible indication of a former building.

“Was this a substation for the Barksdale station? It was across North Parkway from Snowden School, and has been gone since 1934.”

This is a mystery to me. I’ve never heard of such a place, but according to Mr. Harrell, it stood on the corner where the zoo now has its “Back to the Farm” complex. If anybody knows more about this, or — even better — has a photo of the building, please let me know.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Zoo Kudos

I want to thank the Flyer for the well-presented story you published (“Out of the Woods,” August 14th issue) about the forest in Overton Park. I appreciate the opportunity that you gave the zoo to share its position with your readers. There is a great deal of passion over this forest, and I hope that we can keep your readers informed about the intended Chickasaw Bluffs trail as the vision becomes fleshed out.

Brian Carter, Director of Marketing and Communications

Memphis Zoo

Dumbasses

I was saddened to read last week’s letter from editor Bruce VanWyngarden, a typical criticism of low-information voters (Letter from the Editor, August 14th issue).

Being a truly informed voter is a full-time job, but even then, the discerning voter who watches C-SPAN, reads newspapers, and knows the pundits and politicians doesn’t have all he needs. Instead, the rational voter uses heuristics — shortcuts that simplify the field.

Party affiliation mirrors one’s views on the issues. A candidate’s moral conviction hints as to how he will act at 3 a.m. A “dumbass” voter (as he put it) can also look to friends and religious leaders who share his values. Issue voting is not the only path to an intelligent vote.

As a self-proclaimed smartass, I see truth in slogans such as “He’ll raise your taxes,” “We can’t cut and run,” or “the audacity of hope.” McCain is right to ask if Obama is more than media hype.

Nikki Tinker’s ad was not shameful because it appealed to our demons. It was shameful because it was a lie. It sought to disparage a public servant’s distinguished record. Steve Cohen won because he stood on that record and let voters decide themselves.

The problem is that Watergate and Monica and Iraq have cost us more than our faith in politicians; they have destroyed our faith in each other. This country, like VanWyngarden’s letter, is bitter and skeptical. We should recognize the common man’s awesome capacity for good. Just because others vote differently or on different criteria does not make them dumb.

Drew Dickso

Memphis

I found tremendous irony in last week’s editor’s note. I agree with Bruce VanWyngarden in his assessment of Nikki Tinker’s outrageous ads (not to mention Walter Bailey lowering himself to the bottom of the barrel). However, to say that most Memphians are above the “dumbass” line is a blatant untruth.

Think about the other city and state officials who’ve been elected over the past 20 years. Explain to me how the pompous and mighty Willie Herenton continues to get reelected by the same “low-information voters” time and time again. And Rickey Peete? This guy gets caught accepting bribes, gets out of prison, gets reelected, and goes corrupt again. Need I mention John Ford, that great humanitarian and bribe-accepting king?

I could continue, but with all the corruption that has taken place over the past few years, this letter would take days to complete. In the meantime, my suggestion to Memphians would be to take your head out of the sand and do a real background check on candidates. That way, you may be able to climb out of the “dumbass” pool.

Jeff W. Compton

Memphis

Color blind?

In a recent “Rant” (August 7th issue), Tim Sampson said there would be voters who vote against Barack Obama because of his color, which is ugly but true. There are also people who will vote for Obama because of his color, which is just as ugly and just as true.

Charles Ballew

Marion, Arkansas

Georgia vs. Katrina

Recently, I watched a video of Americans off-loading relief supplies to Georgia. I found myself offended by this act of charity.

Why? Because the Bush administration sent these supplies before the smoke could clear over the rooftops, while our own citizens, trapped in floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina, couldn’t get the government to drop off a case of bottled water.

We all watched the suffering of our fellow Americans on TV. These were desperate people begging the government to help for a week. Yet, let the poor Georgians suffer 10 minutes of stress, and Bush sends every unit available to help.

That ain’t right, folks. It is truly offensive, even if there are good intentions behind it.

Joe M. Spitzer

Memphis

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Not Advertorial

According to a press release making the rounds: “Elvis Presley fans might be in love — and all shook up — by a Moon Township company’s new product” that’s slated to debut during Elvis Week. The product is a gold-colored guitar pick decorated with Elvis’ face and stamped with the King’s thumbprint “as duplicated from his military records.” For only $19.99, Elvis fans can own this special plectrum, an “interchangeable necklace or keychain holder,” and, inexplicably, a certificate of authenticity. The ad quotes “Guistar spokesman” Rich Mackey saying, “Elvis has already paid off by helping us secure new deals with Conway Twitty’s estate.”

#1 (with a Panda!)

Based on traveler response, the Memphis Zoo was ranked as America’s favorite zoo by the editors of TripAdvisor. The zoo’s popularity is due, in part, to unique exhibits such as Animals of the Night, Cat Country, Primate Canyon, and China, where the giant pandas reside. It’s a shady Zen oasis in the heart of Midtown where all the bullets are strays.

Reverend G

The 9th District democratic primary is over. Steve Cohen won. But Reverend George Brooks, a Nikki Tinker supporter and Murfreesboro, Tennessee’s most obnoxious propagandist, isn’t getting out of the gutter. On the contrary, he’s declaring all-out war.

In a comment on the NashvillePost’s political blog, Brooks threatened to have a camera trained on Steve Cohen 24/7 to discover what the congressman is doing, “sexually-speaking.” In a leaflet titled “A Brief Note To The Memphis Flyer Editors,” Brooks describes his campaign against elected Jews like Cohen and Senator Joe Lieberman as a “war that is still in its infancy.” He says they need to apologize for “their role in the death of Christ Jesus on the cross.” His note ends with the instruction: “Run and deliver the message, servants of Jewdom.”

He called us “servants of Jewdom.” We need to come up with a secret handshake.

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Cover Feature News

Out of the Woods

Walking through the shaded canopy of the old-growth forest in Overton Park, retired forestry consultant Pepper Marcus points to a huge tree.

“That is one of the biggest wild cherry trees you’ll ever see in your life. It’s probably been here 500 to 700 years,” he says, admiring its grandeur. “There are very few cherry trees of that size anymore. They’ve all been cut for furniture.”

Eighteen years ago, Marcus led a fight to stop the Memphis City Zoo from developing land in the old-growth forest.

The zoo wanted to create a 20-foot-wide pathway through 17 of Overton Park’s 200 acres of virgin, thousands-of-years-old forest. The zoo also considered releasing deer and other animals into the exhibit.

“It became a big debate,” Marcus says. “We even took City Council people to the park and showed them the trees and the forest. We did a forestry study, and we countered all of the stuff that was done by the Park Commission and the zoo to support their case.”

Marcus argued that foot traffic and manmade pathways could kill rare, endangered plant and animal species in the old-growth forest and eventually the zoo scrapped the plan.

Now Marcus and others find themselves fighting an eerily similar battle.

In a controversial move earlier this year, the zoo bulldozed four acres of old-growth forest under its control to make way for its new Teton Trek exhibit, featuring the landscape and wildlife of Greater Yellowstone Park.

Many local forest advocates were outraged at the zoo’s actions, and in response, grassroots advocacy group Citizens to Preserve Overton Park (CPOP) reformed to stop further development in the zoo’s fenced area of the forest.

The group, which currently boasts 300 members, recently asked the City Council to restore 17 acres of Overton Park’s old-growth forest, currently controlled by the zoo and separated from the rest of the forest by a chain-link fence, to free and open public use. They also asked the council to update the zoo’s 1994 management contract with the now-defunct Park Commission; update the 1988 Overton Park master plan; and create long-term legal protection for the old-growth forest, such as a conservation easement or a state natural area designation.

“I think we’ve lost sight of the value of the forest,” says Naomi Van Tol, one of CPOP’s new leaders. “The zoo is the latest threat to the old forest, but there were other threats in the past and there will be other threats in the future.”

*

Flyer reporters recently walked through the area that will become Teton Trek with zoo spokesperson Brian Carter. The exhibit will include a geyser, a large log cabin called the Great Lodge — a tribute to Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Lodge — a place where zoo patrons can watch bears fish, a waterfall, as well as elk and timber wolves. Carter explained the exhibit will be like “a hike through Yellowstone.”

“It’s a little unlike anything we’ve done before,” he says. “The entire time you’re in the exhibit you have this open field of all the animals.”

In February, the zoo removed 139 trees from the Teton Trek construction site and saved 78 trees. They also plan to include 574 new plants and trees in the area.

Despite that, the zoo has encountered criticism for the deforestation and not being open enough about its plans for the future. In the spring, someone spray painted “4 acres, 10,000 years in the making, gone 4ever” on the fence outside Teton Trek. In July, a group of college students protested at the zoo, handing out flyers that asked, “How much zoo can we afford?”

CPOP originally formed in 1957, when the federal government attempted to build Interstate 40 through Overton Park. The group spent 14 years fighting the interstate, and in 1971, with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, finally claimed victory.

Under its current incarnation, Van Tol says, “[We are] paying tribute to the people who worked so hard to protect what we have today.”

Van Tol takes her 2-year-old daughter to the zoo and to the park regularly.

“I want to expose her to the entertainment of the zoo and the old beauty of the old forest,” Van Tol says. “It’s all we have left [of] the Chickasaw Bluffs. When the first humans came here, that’s what they saw — ivory-billed woodpeckers, passenger pigeons. Humans are never going to see that again.”

Since the four acres for Teton Trek was cleared, CPOP’s focus is on urging the zoo to take down the fence surrounding the 17 acres of old-growth forest slated to be used for the Chickasaw Bluffs exhibit. Since the group felt that what happened in the Teton area was done without public input, they are concerned about the fate of the other 17 acres of old-growth forest the zoo controls.

Van Tol’s view is that the zoo already has acres of outdated infrastructure and exhibits, and that they should improve and expand within their current footprint.

“When you look at these older exhibits, some of them really need help. We encourage them to focus on their core,” Van Tol says. “And [the forest] is such an amazing symbol of our natural history as a city. It’s something that should not be closed off.”

*

Zoo representatives have been quick to maintain that the zoo is not expanding.

“We’ve had people ask us, ‘Is the zoo taking up more parkland?’ and we’re like, ‘no, no, just that 17 acres that had always been there,'” says Carter.

In 1986, planners and landscape architects Ritchie Smith Associates were hired to prepare a master plan for Overton Park. At the time, the park had about 10 vehicular entrances and routine gridlock.

“You had a lot of cut-through traffic,” Smith says. “People would cut through the park to save half a minute.”

Much of the park was also in a state of disrepair. At the same time, the Zoo, the Memphis Brooks Museum, and the Memphis College of Art wanted to expand.

The zoo was thinking of enlarging its parking lot into the greensward, the large swathe of meadow near Rainbow Lake. They also wanted their main entrance to be where veteran’s plaza is now, which would bring all zoo traffic through the heart of the park.

“The biggest challenge was the zoo expansion, because they were on about 36 acres and they actually were looking at a very significant expansion that would approach 100 acres total,” Smith says. “We convinced [former Memphis Parks director] Allie Prescott that the zoo should not expand in a vacuum, that they needed to be coordinated with the greater park effort.”

by Regis Lawson

CPOP member Naomi Van Tol often takes her daughter to the Memphis Zoo and Overton Park.

As part of the process, Smith and his associate Lissa Thompson estimate they held roughly 100 meetings with community members.

The landscape architects convinced zoo administrators that having their main entrance through the greensward would ruin the park and make getting to the zoo nearly impossible.

“There was a lot of give and take with these institutions,” Smith says. “The greensward is where people gravitate and there was a sense that the zoo was edging too far into the greensward.”

by Regis Lawson

Construction continues at the Memphis Zoo’s new Teton Trek exhibit.

When negotiations ended, the zoo doubled in size to 75 acres. It didn’t get the Rainbow Lake area — one of its early plans included a café near the lake — but it did get 16.5 acres of forest to the east, dubbed phase II, and 17.5 acres of forest to the southeast, dubbed phase III.

“We discussed that if they ever expanded to the phase III area, they should revise their plans for an exhibit that would be compatible with the old-growth forest,” Smith says. “The early plans called for a savanna exhibit and you don’t have to be an ecologist to know that you’ll be cutting down trees, so we didn’t like that.”

*

According to zoo officials, the 17 acres known as phase III will eventually be home to Chickasaw Bluffs, an exhibit with a low-impact boardwalk snaking through the forest.

by Regis Lawson

“We’re looking at doing construction … where you don’t bulldoze paths beside your boardwalk to build it,” says the zoo’s Carter. “You build it progressively, so as you lay a board down, you lay another one down in front of you.”

Each year, roughly a million people visit the Memphis Zoo. In addition, last week travel site TripAdvisor rated the Memphis institution as the top zoo in the country.

Adult tickets — for people ages 12 to 59 — are $13 each. Tickets for children ages 2 to 11 cost $8.

Zoo president Chuck Brady contends that the zoo offers the best opportunity for the broader Memphis community to experience the old-growth forest in Overton Park.

About 100,000 students visit the zoo each year on school trips, most at a drastically reduced admission fee. Brady says the Chickasaw Bluffs exhibit will give kids from some of the poorest parts of town a chance to learn about the forest.

“It’s a broad section of the community who have access to the zoo: wealthy, poor, young, old,” Brady says. “If we’re to show these people the forest, then it has to be through a visit to the zoo. There’s 160 acres of parkland that is only walk-in access, but those people will never see it. Our 17 acres is for the entire community.

“If you took down the fence, you’d have less access by the broad community and more neighborhood access.”

Brady came to the zoo in 1979 as its curator of mammals. He succeeded Roger Knox as president in 2003.

by Regis Lawson

In 1989, the city and Memphis Zoo, Inc., formed a public/private partnership where MZI would be the zoo’s fund-raiser and the Memphis Park Commission would run zoo operations. In 1994, the day-to-day management of the zoo was contracted out by the Park Commission to the Memphis Zoological Society.

Under that contract, the city pays the nonprofit Memphis Zoological Society $100,000 a month, or $1.2 million a year, to manage the zoo. Any zoo property — land, buildings, exhibits — is considered a city asset.

The zoo’s total operating budget is about $12.5 million each year, however, meaning that most of the funds used to operate the zoo come from admission fees, fund-raisers, and donations.

For Teton Trek, FedEx founder Fred Smith and his wife Diane gave the zoo $10 million, the largest gift from any single private donor, a fact that seemed to make the idea more palatable to council members, despite after-the-fact arguments against the clear-cutting by CPOP and others.

“It was a hundred percent privately funded. This exhibit is open [land] … so we can’t have big trees in this exhibit. I think if we take into consideration that we’re getting a $16 million private investment and it’s an out West scene,” says council member Reid Hedgepeth, “I don’t know how you can do that without clear-cutting.”

by Regis Lawson

Eighteen years ago, Pepper

Before work on Teton Trek began, the zoo met with Overton Park advocacy group Park Friends and showed them plans for the exhibit.

“Although we failed to get everybody to know what we were doing at Teton Trek, many, many people did know,” Brady says. “We did get the word out.”

The zoo’s 2006 summer newsletter, Exzooberance, featured a story on Teton Trek, reporting that construction was to begin in May 2007 and the exhibit would be finished in spring 2009.

In light of the Teton Trek criticism, however, zoo officials have pledged to be more open about zoo happenings and put more information on the zoo’s website.

Brady says that the 80 trees saved in the Teton Trek exhibit were saved “at a pretty significant cost” to the zoo, though he didn’t have an exact dollar amount.

“We had an arborist, and still have him, in order to keep the trees alive, not only during the construction process, but after the construction process,” Brady says.

As for the trees felled to make way for Teton Trek, Brady is not sure whether they were sold for lumber or scrapped.

“The contractor has control of that, but it was my understanding that they weren’t of value to be sold,” Brady says. He adds that some of the trees will probably be placed into the wolf or grizzly bear exhibits to create the effect of fallen logs.

When it comes to the old-growth forest, members of CPOP and Park Friends both want some sort of binding, legal protection for the forest. There is concern that once the zoo establishes a footprint on the 17 acres for one of their exhibits, it could easily decide to use that land for something else in the future.

The 1988 Overton Park master plam more than doubled the size of the zoo.

Brady says the zoo has no intention of changing its plans.

“If we were to do that — which we won’t because we’ve said from the beginning that we were going to develop the forest into a low-impact trail — it would be broadly disseminated to the community,” he says. “And I’m sure the community would scream and rightly so.”

When asked about CPOP’s request to remove the fence around the zoo’s phase III area, Brady says it’s not doable.

“All zoos have to be protected by fenced barriers,” he says. “The United States Department of Agriculture regulates us and one of their requirements is a secure perimeter.”

Brady also casts doubt on protecting the area with a conservation easement.

“We don’t own the land. We’re a management authority for the city,” Brady says. “It would be like promising somebody else’s land into a conservation easement.”

Brady does say, however, that he would be willing to write a letter to the city, formalizing the zoo’s intent to keep the land as a low-impact boardwalk and “preserve the ecology of the forest forever.”

Even though the exhibit will be low impact, Brady thinks Chickasaw Bluffs will be appealing to zoo visitors.

by Regis Lawson

Overton Park planner Ritchie Smith

“I think it will be a wonderful addition for everyone who is strongly in favor of the forest,” he says. “It’s a way of showcasing the forest to many, many more visitors while at the same time keeping it pristine.”

*

Though a low-impact boardwalk might not seem very controversial on its own, the sticking point seems to be whether the zoo can be trusted after Teton Trek.

“Obviously, those four acres are gone forever,” Van Tol told the City Council’s park committee. “I’m not here to cry about the Teton Trek clear-cutting. I’m here because the zoo plans to develop an additional 17 acres.

“If we allow the zoo to develop 17 more acres without public input, government oversight, and no written plan, we have only ourselves to blame if it happens again.”

Glenn Cox has been a member of Park Friends since the mid-’90s and its president since 1998. The park advocacy group hosts at least two clean-ups at the park each year and has developed a map of trails through the public parts of the old-growth forest. Most recently, Park Friends installed two information boards.

They plan to survey their 200-plus membership before taking a position on the Chickasaw Bluffs exhibit, but Cox says they were caught off guard with the deforestation at the Teton Trek site.

“We actually met with [the zoo] the month before. They brought schematics and architectural renderings and every one of them showed massive trees,” he says. “I think they avoided the issue by simply showing us pictures with lots of tree canopy, so we assumed the majority was staying put.”

Once they saw the deforestation at the site, Park Friends met with the zoo again to express their concerns. “They tore down a lot, and they’re going to plant three times more than they tore down, but you’re not going to get back old-growth trees,” Cox says.

Cox thinks the Chickasaw Bluffs boardwalk is probably the best method for the zoo to interact with the old forest. Park Friends has talked to community members who are scared to venture into the old-growth forest as it exists now and welcome the controlled access the zoo will provide.

Park Friends has a good working relationship with Brady and recently added a representative from the zoo to the Park Friends board. But the group doesn’t have any formal power over what the zoo can and cannot do.

Last year, the zoo began using part of Overton Park’s greensward for its overflow parking. The zoo charges visitors $3 a car for parking.

“Finally, we said, enough’s enough, and Melanie White, who’s been on the board longer than me, and I went over there and met with Chuck [Brady],” Cox says.

The two groups compromised — the zoo agreed to only park cars up to a certain line on the greensward and to not do it on rainy days.

And when the zoo crossed the imaginary line early this year, Park Friends had to remind them of the agreement.

“So they are back to their word, staying where they belong,” Cox says. “It’s not what we want. We don’t want them parking on the greensward at all, but it’s almost a matter of they don’t have any choice — where are these people going to go? — and we do recognize that.”

If the zoo hadn’t agreed to stay off the majority of the greensward, Park Friends’ only recourse would have been appealing to the city parks department and the City Council.

In another instance, the zoo constructed a building too close to the border fence. When Park Friends complained that park users didn’t want to see the back of a building and that the building was too close to the fence for green cover, the zoo moved the fence outward.

“We said, ‘no, you don’t have the right to move your fence,’ so they went back in and moved the fence back to where it was,” Cox says. “That’s like you taking the fence on your property and moving it back 10 feet on your neighbor’s [yard]. It’s not your property.”

Cox says the two groups have also had long discussions about a swathe of 15 to 20 feet of underbrush that the zoo has been clearing out along the back fence line. Zoo representatives told them the clearing is because coyotes have been digging under the fence and killing zoo gazelles.

“Part of our issues, with the tearing down of trees for Teton, for example, is you create new boundaries to the forest. When you create new edges to the forest, you change the dynamics of the plant and [animal] life. That’s another thing they’re not recognizing — their impact, how negatively it can impact the forest outside the fence.

“It’s another approach we’re trying to take with them, getting them to understand that the fence does not block the ecosystem. It just blocks human traffic.”

Park Friends would like to see some binding agreement that secures phase III as old-growth forest in perpetuity. Cox says he doesn’t think the zoo will change its plans for the area, but “I don’t want to get burned again.”

*

In the long run, the controversy might be good for both the park and the forest.

CPOP hopes council members will consider the group’s suggestions.

“We’re losing [the forest] acre by acre,” Van Tol says. “It’s being nibbled away and when you’re taking it out of a small forest, it adds up fairly quickly.”

Lissa Thompson, who helped draft Overton Park’s 1998 master plan, also cautions against overbuilding at the park.

“There is a history of passionate interest in Overton Park,” she says. “If you keep expanding, if you keep putting monuments in, it ceases to be open space and it ceases to be the park that people so loved.”

The controversy has also brought up the fact that perhaps the old Park Commission was a better system for public involvement. In 2000, the City Council and Mayor Willie Herenton disbanded the Parks Commission and brought city parks in-house.

“The Park Commission used to meet once a month and citizens could come in and say, ‘you need to clean up my park.’ We don’t have that opportunity now,” says Scott Banbury, founder of Midtown Logging and Lumber Company. “Where do people go to make a complaint? It’s very unfortunate we lost that forum.”

In 1990, with money from the Audubon Society and the local Sierra Club, Banbury hired a team of ecologists to do species assessments in the old-growth forest.

“More than 50 [bird species] have their nests and their babies there. There’s nowhere else around here where you can see that type of diversity,” he says. “Whatever happens with the 17 acres, I hope the rest of the forest will be protected in perpetuity somehow.”

Landscape architect Smith would like to see a more immediate change: “Maybe this will shine a light back on the forest,” he says. “It would be good for the city to have an urban forester on staff again.”

And though it doesn’t appear the city is ready to do another master plan for Overton Park, the zoo says it’s nearing the end of its current plan and will soon begin work on a new 10-year plan.

“I think in the next couple of months we’ll start to see some of this homework that we’re doing — the site surveys and other stuff — come to fruition, and we’ll have more to communicate,” says the zoo’s Carter. “I don’t think this is the end of the story. We’ve got a long way before we, or anyone else, comes to any conclusions about the future of that space.”

by Justin Fox Burks

Memphis Zoo president Chuck Brady