So where does institutionalized runaway elitism come from ? Handed down from Boss Crump himself, it comes from the leading Memphis institutions in for example Memphis Tomorrow, FedEx, AutoZone and The University of Memphis.
Institutional elitism is collectively enabled by lacking public university thought leadership, press and legislative oversight. The former results in a rigged system. Rigged systems don’t grow and evolve; they stagnate. Consequently, sheltered from anything else, other than runaway elitism, ignorance emerges in leadership and within the educated population.
Elitism is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others. But elitism has not worked in Memphis based on local outcome data.
Elitism goes unnoticed and is happening all the time in Memphis. Resident taxpayers are routinely dismissed by unmeasured taxpayer funded initiatives that fail to deliver results to include excessive corporate/ real estate incentives for the benefit of the small few in a Memphis community in need.
Elitism occurs in other forms as well to include local realtors getting beat out of commission on the FedEx Downtown project based an the false assertion that no one in Memphis is sophisticated enough to negotiate a lease with FedEx. Or, the 5 year botching of the workforce development system by Fred Smith and Pitt Hyde while locally owned small business solutions are dismissed and work is shipped off to Canada and Boston.
But anyway, now that we have elitism defined, we can show that runaway elitism has been going on unchecked for a long time in Memphis. Using public documentation accessible over the Internet, we will show leading Memphis institutions in Memphis Tomorrow, FedEx, AutoZone and The University of Memphis practicing and protecting runaway elitism. We will show the existence of elitism through the existence of excessive tax incentives and lack of public measurement.
Macroanalysis
Using the 2018 Comptroller of the State of Tennessee Report, we can determine that the use of payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) programs have been going on much longer in Memphis than in the other 3 municipalities in the State.
Based on an examination 2018 State PILOT Report, the use of PILOTs goes back in Shelby County to 1974. In Nashville Davidson County, PILOTs began in 1999, Chattanooga Hamilton County – 2002, and Knoxville Knox County -2006. As a result, Shelby County has an excessive number or parcels under PILOT contract when compared to the rest of the State. Memphis Shelby has 431 parcels under PILOT contract, Davidson – 23 parcels, Hamilton – 35 parcels and Knox – 51 parcels. What is up with that ? Runaway elitism….
Memphis Tomorrow and AutoZone
As everyone knows Pitt Hyde founded the Memphis Tomorrow CEO organization almost 20 years ago. But the problem is that Memphis Tomorrow is down in every one of their selected categories over almost 20 yrs as their initiatives use your federal, state and local tax dollars. You have probably also heard that Pitt Hyde is responsible for pioneering the rebirth of Downtown Memphis by locating AutoZone Headquarters to Downtown. So with flat property tax revenue, what is the taxpayer benefit of Hyde’s pioneering work ?
Well, according to the 2018 Shelby County Trustee Report, AutoZone was provided a 40 year PILOT that ends in 2033 where they are currently enjoying a 95% tax abatement. And just recently, under Bill Rhodes, on the AutoZone expansion, AutoZone will pay only 25% of their taxes over the next 15 years as $700K in existing taxes is abated on real property.
But that’s not all, recently, the existing 40 yr PILOT and the approved expansion PILOT were not enough for Rhodes and AutoZone where they requested and received an increase in their recently approved EDGE expansion PILOT. This resulted in a decreased $750K net impact for Memphis/Shelby taxpayers over 15 years.
And so it goes, elitist Boss Edward Hull Crump begat elitist Joseph Reeves “Pitt” Hyde III and Hyde begat elitist William Rhodes…
FedEx
As everyone knows, Fred Smith was one of the primary architects of the recent federal corporate tax cut. But that big tax cut was not enough. As soon as Smith finished the former, he sprinted back to Memphis to get $66M in state and local tax abatements for the FedEx Downtown and hub expansions. Of the $66M, Memphis-Shelby taxpayers, in a community in need, will shoulder $39M of the tax abatements. And there has been no economic impact study published to justify the $66M in tax abatements !!!
Memphis/Shelby taxpayers will participate in 0% of the FedEx Downtown real property capital investment where FedEx will get a 100% tax abatement on the new real property investment. But FedEx will pay taxes on $12M of the planned $60M in real property value resulting in a net 80% tax abatement over 22 years.
On another matter, based on a review of the 2018 Shelby County Trustee Report, FedEx is getting a 99% real property abatement for their FedEx World Trade Center property located at 60 Bailey Station originally approved for 20 years. But the PILOT appears to have been extended for at least another year beyond the original approved 2017 end date before they go on yet another new 20 yr 75% abatement PILOT.
And so it goes, elitist Boss Edward Hull Crump begat elitist Frederick Smith and Smith begat elitist Richard Smith…
The University of Memphis
Since the new local FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow University of Memphis Board of Trustees was installed, the taxpayer funded UofM has been on a successful quest of local incentives and grants racking up $26M in awards with more in the pipeline. Some of this perhaps is in order, but $26M on top of being a publicly funded university?
And to make matters worse, the public UofM has a formal partnership with EDGE. That partnership never looked quite right. And when the UofM followed up with ending their economic development measurement effort versus peer cities on their Memphis Economy project for no stated reason and the economic outlook study using select survey data – it seemed elitist institutionalization was on under the new FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow UofM Board of Trustees. This apparent institutionalization robs the local community of public university thought leadership on matters of economic and community development.
I am a UofM supporter and kudos to Dr. Rudd and team for improving athletics, holding the line on student costs and a solid public university student product. But Rudd has demonstrated the UofM is not going to practice thought leadership in questioning anti-business runaway elitism that has stagnated Memphis growth over the last 20 years. That work will be for another UofM administration, if it ever occurs.
And so it goes, the elitist Crump Machine begat the elitist FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex and the Complex begat the UofM Board of Trustees….
Conclusion
Memphis is like an organism that feeds on itself and cannot figure out why it does not grow. At the same time, you have elitist feeling entitled to botch publicly funded initiatives while not paying taxes in a nationally low business cost environment.
From the top of the Memphis ecosystem its runaway elitism and a design for ecosystem decline.
Public education and measurement are the solutions while the alternative of leaving the hack elitists unchecked will result in more of the same…..