Dear Dr. David Rudd,
As The University of Memphis (U of M) pursues Carnegie Research 1 status, it is disappointing to see the U of M Memphis Economy project abandon its 15 peer city economic development research parameters. Such a platform could have provided the Memphis community with an objective and authoritative economic development measurement tool to support community evolution.
What you have done at the U of M in effect, through the abandonment of your research parameters, is removed the local economic development establishment’s peer competitors from the football field, while setting the score back to zero in the 4th quarter. As you know, your former measurement platform smartly identified 15 peer competitors like Little Rock, Nashville, Indianapolis, St Louis and etc. This platform provided the community with a means of comparing economic growth against peer cities which goes to measure the effectiveness of economic policy and incentives.
The removal of the goal posts works well for your partner in EDGE who has approved some $200M in excessive corporate/real estate abatements for the benefit of the small few while at the same time falling significantly behind their peer competitors in economic development performance. But in typical rigged system fashion, we as a community now have REMOVED goal posts, which unfortunately, culturally sits well locally with missing records and mistaken data within a decline by design framework.
All too often, through a lack of institutional vitality, Memphians are robbed of real facts and news that confronts the status quo of a rigged system that occurs through deficient corporate community leadership. It seems, always in close proximity to you and others, at the board level, are company representatives from the highly deficient and embarrassing FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex. It’s a complex that is down in all categories over 20 years while using Federal, State and Local tax dollars.
Recently in a Mayor Strickland Weekly Update, Strickland attempted to make the case for momentum while disconnecting the community from reality when comparing Memphis to 6 cities. Upon an independent review of the BLS data, its a failed case. Houston showed some weakness, explained through a slow down in the energy sector but still had greater percentage total wage growth than Memphis. Unfortunately, if elected officials and public institutions like the U of M choose to drink the Kool-Aid of a hack FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex, it does not bode well for the Memphis ecosystem. Its a complex that has managed to accomplish the following as confirmed by data without an explainable external event:
- Botched Workforce Development System
- Stifled Small Business Sector
- Deficient Total Wage Production
- No Proposed Funding Solution to Support Adequate Public Transit
- Excessive Corporate/Real Estate PILOTs for the Benefit of the Small Few
- Depleted Tax Revenues Required to Attract Economic Investment
- No Completed Plan or Defined Measurement for Economic Development
We Bought In Too….
It was never a plan of mine to send you an open letter or to publicly confront FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow. This is because I and other community “outcasts” from Memphis Raise Your Expectations (MRYE) believed in the transformational promise of a U of M with their own Board of Trustees. It’s a U of M that came with promises of investigative journalism partnerships through the hire of Marc Perrusquia and transformational economic development work through Ted Townsend. And, we also have the annual Poverty report issued by Dr. Elena Delavega and journalist Otis L. Sanford on staff at the U of M.
We, the “outcasts” believed and bought in to the promise of a transformational U of M. We did this while conducting surveys around and advocating for, in legislative chambers, the brilliantly written Dr. John Gnuschke’s , Amazon Road Map policy pronouncement . But unfortunately, we only saw the U of M in legislative chambers when they were lobbying for local taxpayer funding involving their pet U of M projects and not for community economic transformation.
All of which brings us to where we are today. We in Memphis have no completed plan or measurable definition for economic development as excessive corporate/real estate tax incentives roar while being justified with bogus EDGE projection accounting. Many of the corporate recipients of excessive incentives sit on your board.
The former occurs as true economic drivers in workforce and small business development have been botched over 8 years while funding solutions for public transit are nonexistent. Given these realities, as a result, total wage growth lags the Memphis/Shelby peer growth average and needed local government revenues required to attract economic development are depleted. Depleted and deficient local tax revenue growth since 2010 approaches $500M as a result of failed FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow economic development efforts.
The momentum we have in Memphis concerns subsidized corporate/real estate development for the benefit of the small few and not community economic development. To that extent, if you are listening exclusively to the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex, the U of M is robbing the community of needed growth vitality and will not be a transformational force; but instead just a cog in the wheel of a rigged system that has stifled economic evolution for the last 20 years.
So, congrats on falling in line with the cultural norm of missing records, moving goal posts, mistaken data and now totally removing the goal posts with the abandonment of a peer city economic measurement platform.
It all comes with an incestuous partnership, which I questioned but overlooked early on between EDGE and The U of M Memphis Economy project. An incestuous partnership, that is just typical of a rigged system within a FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow authored decline by design framework.
In the end, if there is not needed institutional vitality to check the corporate socialists, they will run themselves out of town, blaming public institutions like yourself for an inferior Memphis product. And the U of M, who is going nowhere, will be holding the bag. Better speak up U of M….
PS. Oh, Good luck with your Carnegie R1 designation approval. And tell Richard Smith regarding his concerns for credible measurement, the U of M with the support of the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex just completely mangled objective measurement….
Sincerely,
Joe B. Kent
MCCLM and MRYE