by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Criminal Justice | May 7th, 2013 3:30pm CDT | 2 Comments
It appears that Memphis police officers are nearing success in their crusade to get their 4.6% pay cut restored by Memphis City Council. Now, with some help by the Council, perhaps, Memphis taxpayers might find success in the right-sizing of Memphis Police Department budget. In fact, it seems even more essential now if the money [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Planning and Urban Design | April 17th, 2013 12:12am CDT | 4 Comments
In light of recent conversations and media coverage about ending City of Memphis’ long-standing policy of aggressive annexations, we’re reprising a post from June 16, 2009 that was a continuation of a discussion about shrinking cities and deannexation that was raised first on this blog: We can cure you but we may have to kill [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | April 15th, 2013 12:54am CDT | 11 Comments
Forget the conventional wisdom, forget the talking points, and forget the comments on newspaper websites. The real question is this: What if City of Memphis government is efficient and productive? Yes, we know that it’s more accepted to presume that city budgets are expanding wildly, that city government is bloated, and that money is wasted [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government | April 10th, 2013 3:17pm CDT | No Comments
From Governing: Few people see government as “fun,” especially during tax-filing season. But governments–especially local governments–do sponsor plenty of fun for their citizens, providing venues ranging from sports stadiums to recreation centers to parks, libraries and continuing-education classes. How can local governments extend that spirit of fun to other, more serious arenas important to the [...]
by Jimmie Covington (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | April 8th, 2013 3:13pm CDT | Comments Off
Do you think City Council and County Commission members really understand reappraisal programs and how they affect taxpayers? I doubt it. Basically under whatever tax rate is set after a reappraisal, some people will pay higher taxes, some will pay lower taxes and some will pay the same. Of course, a higher rate means more [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | April 4th, 2013 12:16am CDT | Comments Off
More often than not, local government budgeting has become all about hitting a target. It’s about forcing budgets to conform to a property tax rate that is often agreed upon before budget hearings even begin. As a result, budget meetings are about hitting the property tax target rather than discussing what kind of city Memphis [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Tennessee Legislature | April 1st, 2013 12:09am CDT | 1 Comment
In Tennessee, county governments are legal extensions of state government. However, you’d think it’s the City of Memphis government, based on the continued interference by the Tennessee Legislature into its affairs. Nashville legislators have produced a level of legislative intrusion that’s been unseen in a century in Tennessee, and there’s little hope that it will [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | March 27th, 2013 3:24pm CDT | Comments Off
From Next City: Last week, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter delivered his budget for the 2013 fiscal year in the form of a prepared speech. But the speech wasn’t given to City Council and the public, as usual; it was delivered to a press corps. And the story they took away wasn’t the minutiae of how [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government | March 22nd, 2013 3:18pm CDT | Comments Off
From governing.com: Citizen engagement has traditionally been viewed as citizens participating in community activities such as testifying on policy proposals, budgets and strategic plans. But government does more than policy and budgets. And citizens want to do more than testify or volunteer at the local food bank. How can state and local governments engage their [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government | March 22nd, 2013 12:01am CDT | 1 Comment
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland have waded into the renaming of three Memphis parks who were stripped of their Confederate provenances. Regardless of their good intentions, they should leave well enough alone. Rather than listening to a few Civil War-obsessed people, they should talk to young people and visitors [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | March 7th, 2013 12:25am CDT | 18 Comments
We can only hope that members of the Memphis Police union are more accurate on the shooting range than they are in their lobbying. Once again this year, the union is passing out pamphlets criticizing the City of Memphis budget before it’s even been completed. It’s one thing to make your case for why your [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government | February 28th, 2013 3:10pm CDT | 4 Comments
It was inevitable that the Confederate parks controversy would attract national attention, but the best news of all for us is that after the Klan marches around while, we won’t have to ever worry about the faux history about Nathan Bedford Forrest as the great benefactor of African-Americans in the Brownlow era. As for City [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Shelby County government | February 28th, 2013 3:00pm CDT | 1 Comment
From Governing: What began in the 1990s as a trend evolved toward a movement that has become commonplace in government organizations: the adoption and implementation of so-called “best practices” as a method for improving organizational performance. The problem with best practices is that they often merely masquerade as innovation. In the wrong hands, they become [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Economic Development, Talent, Taxation | February 25th, 2013 12:55am CDT | 1 Comment
We’ve written often about the dangers of Memphis blindly pursuing cheapness as our chief competitive strategy for the future. We’ve seen it play out in our economic development behavior for two decades as we watched cities boom that invested in quality. Meanwhile, the chase here for cheapness produced almost $100 million in city and county [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Shelby County government, Taxation | February 21st, 2013 12:57am CDT | 5 Comments
It has been just over six years ago that former Shelby County Commissioner John Willingham laid out a plan for a payroll privilege tax that would eliminate the 2.25% local option sales tax, eliminate the wheel tax, slice the county property tax rate by 25%, and reduce the Memphis property tax rate dramatically. With a [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | February 18th, 2013 12:56am CDT | Comments Off
Although it’s not the most politically palatable talking point for elected officials, it is nevertheless inarguable that there is a point at which budget cuts and tax reductions become enemies of the government’s mission itself: to provide services that are needed by the public and in a way that ensure their maximum positive impact on [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Economic Development, Shelby County government | February 15th, 2013 12:17am CDT | 11 Comments
So why do multi-national corporations taking in tens of billions of dollars a year in revenues demand incentives that shift their tax burdens over to homeowners? Because they can. That’s being proven out yet again as International Paper asks for $56.9 million in tax breaks over the next 15 years. Just think about it this [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Trends and Issues | February 11th, 2013 12:42am CDT | 51 Comments
Defenders of the Confederacy and the parks honoring it criticize Memphis City Council for trying to change history. It’s laughable, considering Memphis’s Civil War history. It took two votes before Memphis sided with secession. They voted eight to one to remain in the Union in the first balloting in 1860, and it was only after [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government | February 8th, 2013 12:14am CDT | 2 Comments
As budget hearings get ready to start and there is talk about another referendum to increase the local option sales tax, we are reprising this post from November: After years of lethargy and self-doubt, Memphis is getting its rhetoric right and activities taking place below the radar and away from the usual suspects are [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Parks and Greening | January 9th, 2013 12:16am CDT | 18 Comments
Maybe the Sons of the Confederacy are right. Taking the names of their heroes off Memphis parks is rewriting history. Instead of rewriting history, maybe we just need to write it right. To do this, there is already precedent for our simple compromise – add the names of African-American civil rights heroes to the names [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Livability, Planning and Urban Design, Transportation | December 18th, 2012 12:15am CDT | 5 Comments
Unfortunately, it seems that concerns about Elvis Presley Boulevard “improvements” were well-placed. As it stands, the $43 million, three-mile project is marginally better than when it was first announced, but it still fails to deliver its place-making potential because in the end, it still ended up being about cars rather than about creating a livable [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Civil Rights, Shelby County government | December 14th, 2012 12:27am CDT | 15 Comments
There’s something really unseemly about local restaurant and hotel leaders fighting a proposal that guarantees that low-wage workers aren’t cheated or underpaid. The Shelby County Board of Commissioners’ resolution to fight wage theft is a laudatory – and much-needed – piece of local legislation now opposed by our local restaurant and hotel associations. It’s a [...]
by Bill Day. Memphian Bill Day is two-time winner of the RFK Journalism Award in Cartooning. His cartoons are syndicated internationally by Cagle Cartoons. Cartoons Archive →
Photograph by Amie Vanderford
This ongoing series of photographs is intended to show the daily lives of these single mothers in order to invoke recognition of their similarities to all mothers, along with understanding and empathy from the viewer of the strengths that these single mothers possess within the challenging situations they face. My hope is that newfound empathy with these mothers’ lives will give people some pause before they condemn single mothers when discussing issues such as welfare and other politically charged hot buttons.
