Comment Archives: Stories: Opinion
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
@barf @jrgolden
-----why are you making the decision to stay in this area, but pushing your kids to leave? If it's not good enough for your children, wouldn't it be safe to assume that it is not good enough for you as well? What keeps you here?
Re: “Letter From the Editor”
And you all laugh when we bring up the how it doesn't matter WHO is in the WhiteHouse, the same gang is running the show. Conspiracy Fact.
Re: “Beale's Club 152: "We'll take care of it," says Kevin Kane”
Kevin Kane is about as corrupt and conflict of interest entangled as it gets. What a great ambassador for Memphis.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
jrgolden-
Great comment- I agree on all your points. Doing the same with our little one. Hoping for Seattle or Boston.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
@GR
Yeah, what areas they chose to de-annex makes no difference to me, either.
Have at it, Memphis.
BTW, does appear that Germantown is wilting? I just got back from a drive around Arlington and Lakeland and can't see any wilting out here.
Re: “Schools Budget "best we could do" says Superintendent”
Look, get the MSD's up and running for 2013-2014 academic year. Plan for the Shelby County School District or whatever the name will be to be about the same as the former MCS minus the ASD. Suburbs set your tax rates. Memphians, we need to impress upon the council to prepare to restart the MOE after the suburbs declare their intentions by electing school boards and structuring their central offices. At that point, reconstitute MCS, annex the areas around the Southwind High and Elementary schools and move on.
Memphis residents need to be aware that every penny spent outside of the city is a penny that goes from a Memphis student to a student who's family and community want nothing to do with us, and act in our best interest. County commission, I want the payment of MOE to stay where it is, and not a farthing more for anyone (well, adjustments for inflation). We all know where we stand so lets get on with it.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
@progressive,
It makes no difference to me what areas Memphis chooses to deannex.
I'm sure the residents would be happy with the reduced tax burden. The burden of serving those areas would be shared by all. The city would have a smaller area to serve, and some of those deannexed areas may see their property values increase, which would bring more money to the entire county.
I don't think any of that will happen, but it wouldn't matter to me which neighborhood Memphis released or didn't release.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
Ok, let’s say Memphis decided to go down the de-annexation road. Many of you seem to think that would mean Memphis withdrawing to some previous line with the city boundary following roughly the Wolf River, East Parkway or Highland and something like the Nonconnah Creek. However, financially the city cannot afford to de-annex those areas where the taxes collected are in excess of the cost of service rendered. Financially the most advantageous footprint would likely follow the “rich wedge” - an area along an east-west axis running between downtown and Cordova and bounded (roughly) by Jackson on the north and Lamar/ I-240/ 385 on the south.
If you think that Frayser, Hickory Ridge and Whitehaven are exhibiting a negative trend right now, just wait until those areas lose urban police and fire coverage.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
Both clarion and OTP’s analysis are so simplistic regarding cause and effect they are rendered absurd.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
@ progressive: Your point is well stated. The vast majority of the initial movement from Memphis to the suburbs commenced in the early to mid 70's. Westwood's white flight went to Southaven. Whitehaven decamped to Collierville. Raleigh and Frayser to Bartlett and then Arlington with some going to Millington and Tipton County.
Beside the elephant of race, the other elephant is that the city has deindustrialized and is now a knowledge driven economy, that is short of drones. As we import more workers (see St. Jude, FedEx, IP) the scales tip even more against native Memphians (who tend to be African-Americans). The more insidious trend is the export of our best and brightest young African-American and Caucasian graduates. In essence, the sins of the fathers have been visited upon the children in this area. Everyone is at each others throats (and it's so tempting and easy), while the ENTIRE metroplex slowly wilts.
Meanwhile, I continue to educate and prepare another child to leave the area to seek life elsewhere.
Re: “Schools Budget "best we could do" says Superintendent”
Julius
BTW, any remaining debt on those buildings will remain with Shelby County as a whole, and not be passed to the Munis.
State law.
Those are public buildings, the debt issued by the SCC. It stays with the SCC as long as those buildings are used for the purpose for which they were built.
The muns will not "own" the buildings in the ussal sense, just like the Shelby County BOE does not own the buildings in the usual sense. The buildings are ADMINISTERED by the local LEA for the ducation of the children they serve. That will be us.
Common law says so:
Prescott v. Town of Lennox
Baker v. East Baton Rouge
There are NO court cases that say otherwise, and the Tennessee Supreme Court decision in Prescott is still the law in Tennessee. Opponets might try to make the case that the facts of both these cases are so different that these laws do not apply here, but that is a lost cause. Read them and decide for yourself.
Re: “Schools Budget "best we could do" says Superintendent”
No Julius, there is nothing wrong with it.
There is nothing wrong with an incorporated city taxing itself to pay for whatever service level they want, and in many cases, that'll mean that city will have better service than the cities nearby.
That's why people have freedom of mobility. You can pick your city based on the taxes oh want to pay and the service you want to receive. There is nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
Re: “Schools Budget "best we could do" says Superintendent”
@OTP
Has that constitutional challenge to the new law been filed yet?
Seems like the Supreme Court ruling in Martinez settled that issue of disparate impact.
We are waiting for all those legal challenges from the Department of Education and the Justice Department, or from parents, or the SCC, or whoever.
If we need to litigate the buildings and equipment issue, we will. But I think we will not have to do that.
Waiting...............
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
@Progressive
Alas and alack, Memphians cannot just vote and dissolve their city. State law will not permit that.
I don't know what the response would be from the suburbs if you de-annex, why don't you give it a try and see? OTP says the majority in Memphis can do anything lawfully they want, so do it.
Do it for the long term health of your city, for your own welfare if for no other reason. By all means, start with Whitehaven, Raleigh or Hickory Hill if you want. OK with us.
I do agree that the health of Memphis should be concern to all and that the suburbs have a huge stake in that. So when are your leaders going to stop fighting us?
You want cooperation? Show us some. You want consolidation? Try making your self worth consolidating with.
Might start by asking the SCC to stop calling us racists. That is not the way to help your cause.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
Jeff
Got it. We need some kind of sarcasm indicator on the board. Hard to read that intent in the written word. I am certainly open to some sort of standard if you got one in mind.
i am also a bit unsure what is meant by Anglo-Saxon. I appreciate the term is generally used to describe England, the Scots,I rish and Welsh usually being described as Celtic. As far as I know, the Angles, Jutes and Saxons had all migrated to southern England by the 5th or 6th century and the only modern country properly described as "Anglo-Saxon" is England.
But the term appears to be often applied to northwestern Europe as a whole, excluding France and Germany.
So I don't know. I found it curious that our ignorant friend claimed that the Jews had been expelled fron seven Anglo Saxon countries. I don't know of seven such "Anglo Saxon"countries that did that, nor when.
As far as I know, all new immigrants are treated with some suspicion and distrust when they arrive in a new country. It passes as they integrate into the community, so I just don't think there is any evidence that the English, who were here first, engaged in some sort of systematic discrimination against other national groups. Whcih would have been a bit silly since the French helped us win our revolution and the Dutch loaned us large sums to keep the county solvent. Not to speak of the Germans, Dutch and free Blacks who filled the ranks. No need to speak of Von Steuben and Kosciusko
either.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
Understandable, considering how difficullt it is to mock the stupidity around here sometimes. There's is nothing I can say in jest that some idiot won't double-down in complete seriousness.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
@Jeff
Got it. We need some kind of sarcasm indicator on the board. Hard to read that intent in the written word. I am certainly open to some sort of standard if you got one in mind.
Re: “The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again”
If Memphis deannexed everything outside the I-240 loop, I can imagine the hue and cry from county government and the suburbs on how Memphis is "abandoning their responsibility." Then they would go to their homies in the state legislature and get them to pass some law forbidding Memphis from deannexing the areas because of the unfair burden of services it would place on county government. They might consent to the deannexation of Cordova (at least while it is still predominantly white and suburban), but they wouldn't accept the rest of Frayser, Whitehaven, Westwood, Raleigh and Hickory Hill. Ultimately, because suburban residents are so unalterably opposed to consolidation, they have a responsibility to work together with Memphis to come up with a comprehensive plan for making Memphis sustainable. Otherwise, the inevitable day is coming when Memphis' leaders will propose disincorporation, stating "We simply do not have the funds to continue." And as we have already seen with the schools, the voters of Memphis might well decide in a referendum to dissolve their city.
Re: “Schools Budget "best we could do" says Superintendent”
First off, OTP, ... many of the buildings will follow the students to the MSD's, along with the associated debt. Those are likely the newer buildings which will have the most debt attached to them.
It's far past time that the feasibility of every event should revolve around the "alleged" impact it will have on "minority" students. It's far past time the
"big majority minority" take responsibility for themselves and quit whining and depending on someone else to do for them what they should be doing for themselves, ... like, raising their kids properly.
One of the major reasons people decide to purchase property and reside in a certain area is the quality of the schools their kids will be attending. They are prepared to shoulder that cost when they make that decision. In most cases, it will cost them much more than if they had remained in the urban municipality. That's ok with them, as long as it's reflected in the level of service they receive.
Most states do not have the counties responsible for the education function, it is a municipal responsibility. In New York, for instance, your municipal property taxes can vary dramatically for adjacent municipalities depending on the level of service the citizens in each have decided to fund for themselves, ... including the schools.
In other words, you pay for what you receive.
This is what the proposed munis want also. Is there something wrong with this?
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Re: “Schools Budget "best we could do" says Superintendent”
@ JR
You must be a bit confused about how this works.
First, the whole idea about MCS surrendering its charter was for Memphis to get out from under its MOE obligation. I wish you luck pursuading them they should turn around and support the formation of a new municipal system and start that MOE back again.
Every penny spent outside the city is spent on educating your fellow children who live in Shelby County. All the money comes out of the same pot.
I think you are going to find that the suburban schools will work with the Shelby County System to educate all the children. That is why our leaders have approached the Unified BOE and suggested talks to figure out how we can do it. I do notice it was us who had to make the approach. The common interest in education should override any local interest, but if you think you must close your borders, and you want to go it alone, we can't do much to stop you.
I am suprised that an educator would encourage the SCC to not fully fund the budget request by your own school system. Any particular reason you want your children to make do with less?