Jacksonville, Florida, consolidated in 1968 after a period of widespread public corruption, problems with the school system, and an inferiority complex.

Sound familiar?

And in the 40 plus years since then, Jacksonville has thrived. They now have an NFL team; their citizens have fewer taxes than in other large Florida cities; and they're not dependent on tourism.

"Our darkest hour became our finest," Richard Mullaney, Jacksonville's general counsel, told the metro charter commission Thursday afternoon. "In my opinion, some forms are local government are better than others. Some provide a competitive structural advantage over others."

With charter commission members in attendance, as well as sheriff Mark Luttrell, County Commissioner Mike Carpenter, MLGW head Jerry Collins, and Memphis City Council member Shea Flinn, Mullaney gave an overview of Jacksonville before the merger and after.

"What we've seen ... is a remarkable change in Jacksonville over the past 40 years, and that change has been consolidated government," he said.

Pre-1968, for instance, different branches of government each had their own legal counsel.

"That model was good for lawyers," Mullaney said. "It slowed things down, it was very expensive, and it was very difficult to get anything done."

But getting rid of lawyers isn't the only reason to consolidate. Mullaney laid out six benefits of the transition for the commission:

Don't know if y'all saw this but the General Services Administration Building in Portland is apparently getting a green makeover. One that includes fins.

From a NYTimes story:

As part of a $133 million renovation, the General Services Administration is planning to cultivate “vegetated fins” that will grow more than 200 feet high on the western facade of the main federal building here, a vertical garden that changes with the seasons and nurtures plants that yield energy savings.

The architects are still trying to figure out all the logistics, such as irrigation and pruning, but the GSA estimates a savings of $280,000 annually in energy costs.

But it's not without controversy.

The city of Memphis announced today that it was willing to negotiate with the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the Zippin Pippin roller coaster.

"Given the obvious budgetary pressures we're under, any opportunity for the city of Memphis to monetize one of its major assets needs to be looked at very carefully," said city CAO George Little. "It's been clear for some time that renovating and reconstituting the Zippin Pippin is simply beyond our capacity."

The coaster, known to be Elvis' favorite, was part of the former Libertyland amusement park at the Mid-South fairgrounds. Demolition began at the fairgrounds in December to make room for new, as yet un-named, development.

Green Bay is interested in installing the Pippin in its Beach Bay Amusement Park.

This year, I've decided to turn some of my focus to MATA and public transportation. (You may have noticed.)

For the last few months, I've been going to their meetings and I *assumed* the MATA board had five members.

Because that is how many board members I've seen at the meetings.

But I recently ran across some information on the city's boards and it turns out MATA has a nine-member board.

According to that information, MATA has three vacancies on its board, along with members Karl Birkholz, M.P. Carter, Fred Johnson, Dale McClendon, Cliffie Pugh, and John Vergos.

One of those board members I've never seen. Two of them have terms that expired two years ago. Two of them have been on the board for more than 15 years.

Maybe no one wants to be on the MATA board, but if someone out there does, there seem to be plenty of openings. And I would daresay they need the people.

Right now, they barely have enough board members to get a quorum. Compare that to Memphis City Beautiful, which has a 35 member board and two vacancies.

UPDATE: I just talked to the vice chair of Memphis City Beautiful and apparently, they have seven vacancies instead of two. He said they were looking for more good people, so if you're interested in that board, they are interested in you.

The Memphis City Council's planning and zoning committee moved forward today on a plan for a Midtown Overlay District.

The council directed the Office of Planning and Development to work with the Memphis Regional Design Center and the Midtown Development Corporation to develop the overlay, a way of setting design and development guidelines for an area.

At least one of the council members, however, had concerns about the overlay.

"I'm not sure that's always the answer: to redo a whole area because of one project," said councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware. "The feedback I'm getting from some people in Midtown is that they want to see development. They're tired of buildings sitting there closed."

Flinn said he had discussion with the owner of the Overton Square property and he was in favor of an overlay.

"He thinks this would be helpful on the front end. It lets the property owner know what residents want," Flinn said. "It's not anti-development; it's smart development. Everyone wants development in the Midtown area, but they don't want to destroy the Midtown character."

The resolution is scheduled to go before the full council for discussion at its next meeting, Tuesday, February 6th.

Yesterday, at its regular January meeting, the MATA board talked about its upcoming budget, including possible cuts from city hall and the need for a new headquarters.

The transit authority's current headquarters on Levee Road in North Memphis were built on a landfill.

"We've incurred quite a bit of costs we didn't budget for: breaking of pipes, the building settling," said MATA general manager Will Hudson. "We're trying to maintain budget."

MATA officials hope to one day relocate to the Army Depot.

There was also concern that the city, in the midst of a financial crisis, would cut MATA's funding. The city of Memphis is MATA's only local funding body. In response to a recent court ruling, the city has been trying to cut $10 million from the current year budget.

"It the city reduces our budget, the state will reduce it as well, because of an agreement between the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the city," Hudson said. "If we have to reduce service any more, it's going to be devastating to MATA and its customers."

MATA cut routes last year, and Hudson says the transit authority had twice the number of buses in 1980 than they have right now. He also explained low ridership as a function of having fewer buses.

They are also looking at other ways, including online, to purchase the new FastPass.

A friend of mine sent me this link today: estimates of where state unemployment benefit funds will be in six months.

The verdict for Tennessee's system? Insolvent.

ProPublica says:

Low taxes and benefits kept Tennessee's unemployment fund afloat before the recession — albeit with just six months' worth of reserves. We project that Tennessee's fund will be insolvent within six months. To slow the depletion, the state has imposed a business tax increase from $197 to $293 per employee, on average, for 2010.

The good news is, I suppose, that 25 states have already had to start borrowing money from the federal government or cutting benefits and Tennessee isn't among them.

Next week, the city of Memphis will be doing a count of the area homeless population. But this year, they're doing things a little differently.

First, the count will happen during the day in an effort to survey more of the homeless.

It also will include a small survey to learn demographic data about the population so that "services can be better tailored and coordinated to fit the greatest need areas and better address gaps in services," according to the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center's Brad Watkins.

And, finally, it will not include members of the police department.

But that means they need volunteers to help in the process.

Good news ... This comes to you from another guest blogger, our new intern Natalie. And, yes, I'm totally loving this out-sourcing thing.

Naomi Van Tol’s goal is straightforward: To save the Old Forest section of Overton Park.

As president of the Citizens to Preserve Overton Park (CPOP), Van Tol feels obligated to protect the beloved forest she remembers as a child. The natural arboretum, home to a plethora bird and plant species and trees older than Memphis itself, has already been decreased to fewer than 150 acres today.

State Senator Beverly Marrero and Representative Jeanne Richardson — the two Tennessee state legislators whose districts cover Overton Park — recently filed a bill to create an Old Forest State Natural Area in the park.

In the last few years, CPOP has been concerned about the Memphis Zoo's expansion plans, specifically its plans for a Chickasaw Bluffs exhibit. If the bill passes, the forest would be protected by the state from inappropriate development.

The next stop will be for Van Tol and CPOP to make their case in Nashville.

For the first time ever, we have a guest blogger: VWDan. Thanks, Dan! I owe ya.

Last Saturday's meeting at the Memphis College of Art — initially to cover Sooner Investment's plan to redevelop Overton Square — evolved into a chance to discuss Midtown zoning, as well as allow citizens and interested parties a chance to voice their opinion about the hotly debated, controversial plan to raze Overton Square and replace it with a grocery store and strip development.

The meeting began with Charles "Chooch" Pickard of the Memphis Regional Design Center explaining the purpose of creating a zoning overlay plan for Midtown to the 200+ audience.

A zoning overlay is a designation to a specific area that lies atop and supercedes any one individual lot's zoning. Both the medical center and the University of Memphis area have found success with creating zoning overlays to protect their neighborhoods’ character and promote consistency in development within their boundaries. The development in these areas are bound by more strict guidelines involving how the land can be used, the number of parking spaces, the materials used to construct the buildings, what uses are deemed "offensive" to the community (such as industrial space), as well as how far away the buildings are from the curb.

Mary Baker, deputy director of the Office of Planning and Development, said the medical center’s overlay dictated the way Le Bonheur’s new facility on Poplar Avenue relates to the neighborhood via its wide sidewalks and landscaping.

But most people in attendance wanted to discuss the status of Sooner’s project in Overton Square. Baker said she received a call from Sooner on January 8th to request a hold to the application. While the application is on hold, however, it has not been formally withdrawn and could still move forward in the future.

The other day I noticed the sign below V when I went to drop off some recycling.

Am I the only one that thinks this sign maybe doesn't strike exactly the right tone?

I mean, it doesn't quite say Thanks for recycling. You obviously don't have recycling pick-up at home and are talking time out of your busy day to do the right thing, and we appreciate it. And please keep it neat.

No, I read it more like: Recycling is a privilege, not a right. If you don't keep this area clean and tidy, the city of Memphis will punish you by taking these recycling bins away. And then what will you do with all your garbage? You'll have to throw it all away! Bwahaha!

Okay, that may be something of an exaggeration, but really — "WARNING"?

My colleague Bianca Phillips said that people probably leave stuff on the ground on the time, and I guess my question is why? If you go to the trouble of driving your recycling somewhere, why would you then throw it on the ground? And if the answer is because the bins are full, well, then maybe there need to be more city collection days ...

If memory serves, the City Council appropriated $440,000 for a skatepark last year. (Or it might have been the year before?)

At any rate, last August, the city selected Glenview Park as the site for its first skatepark.

"We were trying to find a central location," Mike Flowers with park services said at the time. "Overton Park is full. We just can't cram any more in there. It would have been a great location, but it's full."

But it appears that some council members are wary of putting a skatepark in Glenview.

National Endowment for the Arts chairman Rocco Landesman will be in Memphis today as part of the last stop on the "Art Works" tour across America.

As well as meeting with representatives from ArtsMemphis, the Hyde Family Foundation, and Playhouse on the Square, and taking tours of Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum, and Stax, Landesman will also take part in a roundtable discussion re: music as an economic engine for cities.

In addition, he'll also be part of a discussion about the Memphis Music Magnet Project, a U of M initiative I've written about here that seeks to encourage musicians to live in the Stax neighborhood.

The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment also is the largest annual national funder of the arts.

This week in our print edition, I wrote about MATA.

The public transportation authority is looking at several changes, including new "Smart Bus" technology, a study of the routes and service areas, and a new FastPass program, which lets people pay for a daily, weekly, or monthly pass.

All things I think they should be doing and congratulate them for taking on.

But in a world where public transportation makes good economic sense for both localities and their citizens, not to mention the health and environmental benefits, I urged MATA to try to make riding the bus more convenient and more efficient.

For the record, I like MATA general manager Will Hudson. He’s a nice guy; he’s been inducted into some state transportation hall of fame, and his story — working his way from bus driver to MATA head — is very impressive.

But I think they could help themselves — and the county — by growing a larger ridership base.

If you consider $57,162 spare change, that is.

Council chair Harold Collins reported today that last month's Tire Redemption Program collected more than 57,000 tires, or 675 tons, from area citizens. The city and county paid citizens $1 per tire, many of them from vacant lots and so-called illegal "tire dumps."

Both the county and the city allocated $50,000 for the program, but almost half of the funding went to company contracted to dispose of the tires.

The county has already allocated another $50,000 to do a second round of the tire redemption program, and the City Council's executive committee today voted to do likewise.

"We don't know how many tires are out there in this county, causing environmental hazards," Collins said. "Heaven forbid if one of these tire dumps catches fire."