IT’S WEIRD

Having worked in communities across the country with a range of dysfunctions and inefficiencies, I find the following over and above the former weird in Memphis:

It’s weird that a public transit emergency is being addressed with a “2050” titled initiative.

It’s weird that it took Dr. Elena Delavega 5 years to get an audience with public officials on her poverty research.

It’s weird that the Memphis Chamber denies access to their bylaws, membership rights to annual review and denial of membership renewal without explanation.

It’s weird that after the failure of the former Greater Alliance of Competitive Workforce Board the new Board goes into hibernation and had only 1 public board meeting in the 2017-18 fiscal year.

It’s weird that EDGE guts public comment from public meeting minutes.

Its weird that a government funded program like EDGE does not undergo formal regularly scheduled reviews from the funding legislative bodies.

Its weird that business leaders on the EDGE Board for some reason do not fully account for “Total New Tax Revenue Generated” for retention PILOTs in their economic impact analyses which results in an approximate $900M overstatement of $1.2B in  “Total New Tax Revenue Generated” on the EDGE Scorecard.

It’s weird that the local press does not attempt to monitor the progress of largely taxpayer funded community development initiatives of Memphis Corporate Community Leadership.

It’s weird that community development leadership seems to be overly concentrated outside of boards preventing more healthy nonprofit board deliberation and getting things done with a greater sense of urgency.