New York City – Memphis Flyer

About 11 months ago, my wife and I became grandparents to twin boys. It was a joyous occasion, and we flew up to Brooklyn, where they live, just after their birth, last September. In the subsequent months, we flew back to Brooklyn twice, and the parents and their boys have made the trek to Memphis a couple of times.

That was mostly in the Before Times — before New York went through its horrendous bout with the coronavirus, and in the process, became the model for how states should handle the disease: Shut down non-essential businesses, issue a mask mandate, test relentlessly, trace infections to their source, and provide daily — honest — briefings from the chief executive.

A patio in Brooklyn

Once the epicenter for COVID-19 in this country, New York has now gotten its infection rate under control to a remarkable degree, and it’s obvious that the state has no intention of going back to the horrible days of late winter and early spring, when its hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed and bodies were being kept in refrigerated trucks. The state of New York has mandated that visitors from states with rising infection rates register with the state before they come and, once they get there, quarantine for 14 days or until they leave the state — whichever comes first. That would include visitors from Tennessee.

My wife and I had basically resigned ourselves to not seeing the newbies for a while. We didn’t want to chance flying, and taking a road trip, staying at motels, eating fast food, and then quarantining once we got there didn’t sound like much fun. Then, last week, there was a bit of a crisis: My step-daughter had just taken a new job with another law firm, and almost simultaneously their in-home daycare provider had a bike accident and couldn’t come to work for a few days. After hearing about how her daughter sat in her first Zoom meeting at her new firm with a squirming, crying baby on her lap, my wife went into Mama Lion mode: “We have to go up there and take over childcare for a week!” Yes, ma’am.

This was last Thursday. Fortunately, we’d both recently tested negative for the virus. The plan was to hit the road very early Saturday, drive all day, park in a rest stop in Virginia to sleep for a few hours, then drive into New York on Sunday. No fast food, no going into gas stations, no human contact. Friday evening, we packed a couple of suitcases, filled a large cooler with fizzy water, juice, fruit, sandwiches, cookies, chips, etc. and put it all in the back of the Subaru.

“We should probably try to go to sleep really early, so we can get up at the butt-crack of dawn,” I said. There was a moment of silence, then: “I’m too excited,” Tatine said. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Let’s just leave now.”

Realizing that this was no time for common sense, I just said “okay,” and we hit the road at 7 o’clock Friday night, not a particularly logical time to leave on an 18-hour road trip. But we found some great podcasts and drank a lot of coffee and energy drinks, and before we knew it, it was 3 a.m. and we were pulling into a rest stop parking lot in Bristol, Virginia. After three hours of restless sleep in reclined seats, we hit the road again.

We had it down to an art: If we needed a “rest stop,” we looked for exits with no signs for gas or food and drove to a farm road or quiet spot. If we got hungry or thirsty, we hit the cooler. We were road warriors. By Saturday morning, I was driving like water through a garden hose, sluicing through the hills of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and finally, the Holland Tunnel into the city.

New York City has changed. While working our way through modest traffic across Manhattan, we saw maybe two people without masks. Pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, sidewalk cafe diners, skateboarders, scooter-riders, cops, taxi drivers, dog-walkers, baby buggy pushers — everyone was masked. It was the same in Brooklyn. New Yorkers aren’t messing around with this thing. There’s a lesson here, and we need to pay attention.

I’m writing this from the sunny back patio of my step-daughter’s ground floor apartment. I can hear the sounds of the city around me, but because of the patio walls, I can’t see much … except maybe the future.

I think I have to go change a diaper now.

Bruce VanWyngarden brucev@memphisflyer.com

Does the city of Memphis Charter need a modern overhaul?

That’s what one group, Ranked Choice Tennessee (RCT), is looking to determine with the help of the public.

The city of Memphis Charter operates like the city’s constitution, creating a framework for the government. It influences how the city operates, makes decisions, and spends money.

The charter, which was established in 1968 and later modified in 2008, consists of 81 articles, ranging in topic from public amusement to public health.

On Friday, RCT will hold a public meeting, where Carlos Ochoa, communication director of the group, said context about what the charter is and why it should be reviewed will be discussed.

“The charter is like our city’s constitution,” Ochoa said. “It tells us how our tax dollars are spent, how decisions about changes to our neighborhoods are made and the power of our elected officials. Our charter was written in 1968 and many people believe it’s time to review it for opportunities to modernize it.”

Ochoa noted that the need to review the charter “doesn’t mean anything is wrong with it. We might have the best, up-to-date charter in the world, but if we don’t, the people of Memphis should have the right to know what could be changed.”

Those are interested in seeing the charter reviewed will be invited to sign a petition to create a Charter Review Commission, who would review the charter for a year before recommending amendments. If a commission is formed, RCV anticipates that any amendments proposed by the group would be on the 2022 ballot for citizens to vote on.

Ochoa said Friday’s meeting will touch on the “potentials and limits” of that process. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Wonder Cowork Create (340 B Monroe Avenue).

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New York City is currently in the process of amending its charter. Last summer, the New York City Council voted to create the Charter Revision Commission to review and propose changes to the city’s charter.

After sixteen months of reviewing the charter with input from the public, the commission’s five proposed amendments to the charter were left up to voters during the city election last week.

The questions on the ballot related to ranked choice voting, the city’s civilian complaint review board, ethics and governance, the city budget, and land use. Each of the five items were approved by voters, based on unofficial election results.

The commission said these changes will be the “most comprehensive revisions” to the charter since 1989.