by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Shelby County government, Uncategorized | April 9th, 2013 12:53am CDT | 15 Comments
It’s hard to think of anyone who has more strongly supported Beale Street Landing than us. But these days, we look at the project and mostly think of what might have been as a result of a series of decisions that have weakened Beale Street Landing’s impact and destroyed its urban design integrity. It’s hard [...]
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, 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 SCM (RSS) Education, Shelby County government | February 18th, 2013 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
Our friend and fellow blogger, Steve Ross, regularly shines light so people can find their own way (remember when Scripps-Howard said that was what its newspaper did), and today was no exception as he turned his attention to the budget kerfuffle of the unified school district. You can check out his must-read insights at his [...]
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, 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 Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Neighborhoods, Shelby County government | December 4th, 2012 12:52am CDT | 8 Comments
In neighborhoods struggling to stay alive, there’s nothing more painful than cuts in public services and closing of public facilities. In education, every dollar spent on inefficient and redundant facilities is a dollar that can’t be spent in the classroom. It is the truth of these two realities that makes the potential of closing schools [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Shelby County government | November 16th, 2012 3:16pm CDT | 1 Comment
From Governing: We’ve grown weary of debates about privatization, especially those where commentators tell us that it is always good or that it is never good. This simplistic argument is troubling as it leaves out an alternative: managed competition. Instead of simply preselecting private- or public-sector employees, projects can be put out for bid with [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Economic Development, Shelby County government | October 18th, 2012 12:37am CDT | 11 Comments
The verdict is out on EDGE. The new Memphis and Shelby County economic development umbrella agency has been in the organizational phase for the past year, so maybe it’s too soon to get a complete sense of its ultimate effectiveness. That said, some of its work so far have created concern about its focus, [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Economic Development, Shelby County government | September 24th, 2012 12:09am CDT | 1 Comment
Four months ago, we created a new Facebook group called Delta Does Memphis. Back at the creation of Delta Does Memphis, we envisioned three phases to the campaign: 1) it would give voice to our frustrations and complaints and bring us together to call for change; [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Politics and Government, Shelby County government | August 24th, 2012 12:41am CDT | 4 Comments
Hannah Sayle’s cover story in this week’s Memphis Flyer confirmed the worst fears we had when Shelby County Government politicized family planning last year and added an overlay of religiosity. For no factual reason, county government removed funding from Planned Parenthood and gave it to Christ Community Health Services despite reports that women had been [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Shelby County government, Taxation | August 20th, 2012 12:14am CDT | 8 Comments
Municipal school districts are the educational equivalent of I-269, and that’s why the Shelby County Board of Commissioners is right to be deeply concerned about them. Both promise to have a parasitic effect on the urban host that feeds them, exacerbating problems, economic segregation, and realities that will [...]
by Jimmie Covington (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Education, Shelby County government | August 15th, 2012 3:16pm CDT | Comments Off
In response to a question from us about the battle about sales tax increases, our favorite authority on school funding, Jimmie Covington, former Commercial Appeal reporter and now freelance journalist, offered his view of the taxes, the strategies, the law, and the possibility that Memphis children will have less spent on them. Here’s what he [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Education, Shelby County government | August 15th, 2012 12:09am CDT | 1 Comment
Some Memphis officials can be forgiven for feeling like the guy at the bar whose drunk friend tries to defend him, throws a roundhouse punch, and knocks him flat. That’s the prevailing feeling about the 7-5 vote by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners to [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Shelby County government, Taxation | August 10th, 2012 12:44am CDT | 5 Comments
Memphis City Council rarely gets any respect, but it has produced the most significant public policy improvement in decades. It’s done it by shifting regional services where they belong – to the regional tax base of Shelby County Government. City Council has done it with the Health [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Shelby County government | July 31st, 2012 12:13am CDT | 4 Comments
It’s been a tough few days for the First Amendment. Between our university and our county government, it’s hard to figure out which is the most ham-handed and well, in the interest of complete accuracy, stupid. Most of all, both institutions have lost any sense of proportionality, and [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Shelby County government | July 25th, 2012 12:10am CDT | Comments Off
Our friend, blogger Steve Ross, also a candidate for Shelby County Board of Commissioners, continues his public service reporting on the troubling issues at the Shelby County Election Commission. His investigation has spotlighted problems and priorities that require the Election Commission’s immediate attention. We posted a commentary by him last week, and he continues to [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Shelby County government | July 20th, 2012 12:18am CDT | 1 Comment
Maybe The Commercial Appeal should keep this week’s headline handy so it can be cut and pasted for each election cycle: Shelby County election officials say they’ve corrected voting problems. Of course, it’s rarely the case that the Shelby County Election Commission actually fixes the problems, and as a result, we see headlines about “voting [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Shelby County government | July 16th, 2012 12:49am CDT | 3 Comments
U.S. District Court Judge Samuel (Hardy) Mays said that there is no irreparable harm to Shelby County in allowing the municipal school referendums to be held August 2. He must not have been thinking about Shelby County Assessor Cheyenne Johnson and Interim General Sessions Court Clerk Ed Stanton Jr. [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Politics and Government, Shelby County government | May 29th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Government Technology: By Colin Wood, Government Technology Staff Writer “If you want to know the truth of a city, you need look no further than its infrastructure.” This quotation is not an excerpt from a book by the influential urban planner Kevin Lynch; it’s dialog from Diablo III, a hugely popular computer game released [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Education, Politics and Government, Shelby County government | March 12th, 2012 12:26am CDT | 12 Comments
The two most impactful public processes in recent history aren’t judged as complete successes, but it’s hard to think of any citizen-driven processes that have yielded results with more impact. One of the committees doesn’t get much respect, and it’s largely considered a failure, but it [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Shelby County government | June 16th, 2011 12:08am CDT | 5 Comments
Yes, we agree with Tea Partiers that government needs to return to its historical underpinnings. No, we don’t mean the historical fictions advanced by the Tea Party to justify policies that often seem un-American in a modern context. After all, if we take the admonitions literally about returning to the governmental world of our [...]
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.
