Turning a Farm Into a Park
Proposal could change Shelby Farms into Shelby Park.
By Mary Cashiola
After all the “Save Shelby Farms” bumper stickers
that adorned nearly every car in Memphis, it might be a park that really saves Shelby Farms.
“It all started with an argument about a road going through Shelby Farms,”
says Ron Terry, former CEO of First Tennessee Bank, about a proposal to change
the county-funded Shelby Farms to a privately endowed park.
Terry, the person behind the proposal, says that “after the construction of
Walnut Grove was suitable to satisfy the traffic needs of the county and the
conservation needs of the people about a year ago, [county] mayor [Jim] Rout asked me to
do some dreaming about what could be done with Shelby Farms.”
What he dreamed up was a conservancy much like the one New York’s
Central Park operates under; what he found was that there was substantial private
funding available to make that dream a reality.
On Monday, Mayor Rout asked that the presentation of the new Shelby Park
Conservancy proposal be deferred until May, when all the documentation will be ready.
But with so many people loving the way the park is now, why change it?
“Quite simply,” says Terry, “in 20 years, that piece of ground will be situated
in the middle of 2 million people, either chopped up or as the major park for
this community. We can be proactive and make it the major park it could be or we
can wait and see what happens. We choose to be proactive.”
It won’t be exactly like Central Park, says Terry, but there will be similarities.
“[New Yorkers] have 840 acres between 10 million people; we have 4,000
acres situated between 1 million people,” he says. “We are looking for what’s going
to happen in 20 to 30 years; we’re taking the long view of the development of the
park. What the Central Park Conservatory has done has really influenced our thinking.”
What will be similar to Central Park is the diverse activities available to the public.
“In what we hope to call Shelby Park, people will find a variety of things
they enjoy doing,” says Terry, whose vision includes lakes, wetlands, and pastoral
open spaces; paths for hiking, running, biking, skating, and horseback riding; and
internal public roads and other appropriate amenities.
Except for the uncertainty of county employees’ jobs after the switch to a private
foundation, interim superintendent of Shelby Farms Steve Satterfield is in favor of the plan.
“This could be the premier park not only in the region but the nation,”
says Satterfield. “In 20 years, the demands on the park will be so great. We have to
ask ourselves, do we continue to let the county crisis-manage those demands in
competition with schools or jails for funding or do we put in place
a private funding mechanism?”
“People will not give to county government. The money
disappears into a black hole. They will give money to a private organization
because they know it goes directly to their cause,” says Satterfield.
For the plan to work, the county commission has to
dissolve the Shelby Farms board and the state legislature has
to dissolve the Agricenter Commission.
Neither move, says Terry, is intended to be critical of those
boards as they are right now. “If the land is going to be developed as a park,
it has to be developed as one piece rather than several pieces.”
“I think he’s right,” says Satterfield. “In the long term,
I think this is the only way to make that piece of ground
into what it could be.” n
Arresting Behavior?
Two musicians claim police harassment after park festival.
By Mary Cashiola
After jamming at the Earth Day FESTIVAL at the
Overton park Shell on Sunday night, two Midtown musicians were walking the few blocks back
to the house where they were staying. While they walked, they talked about how
much fun the event had been.
That’s when, at the entrance to Overton Park, Shane Hutcheson and Chris
Sawyer say they were caught in the beam of a police spotlight.
“We hadn’t done anything,” says Hutcheson, “so I just kept on walking, to
be straight-up honest.”
Comparing the incident to “watching
COPS from the very front row,”
Hutcheson says two officers asked them where they thought they were going before
pushing them against the police car and frisking them.
“They kept asking, ‘What do you have on you?’ ” says Hutcheson. “I had a
drink about four hours before, but that was it.”
Sawyer and Hutcheson both say they asked repeatedly what they had done to be
detained. When the officers wouldn’t answer, Sawyer asked one for his badge number.
“When I asked for his badge number,” says Sawyer, “he kicked me down to the curb.”
“[The officer] kicked his legs out from under him,” says Hutcheson. “He hit the curb
when he fell, so he’s got a pretty deep cut in his lower back. He’s got two fractured lumbar.”
Next, the two men were put in the squad car, but Sawyer was bleeding and it
was apparent that he was hurt. He was taken out of the car and says that the officer
who kicked him told him he didn’t mean to hurt him.
“He said, ‘I think I need to arrest you and take you to the Med.’ I said, ‘No,
sir, just let me go. I won’t say anything.’ That’s when he let me go, when I said I
wouldn’t say anything,” says Sawyer. The officer then gave him a cigarette.
Sawyer never got the officer’s badge number or name, but after spending
the night at Methodist Hospital, he filed a report Monday morning with the
Memphis Police Department.
“I had drank a little bit,” says Sawyer, “but it had been at
least two hours. I wasn’t being loud or obnoxious.The only thing we
were doing was that we were in the park after it was closed. But
there were other people still there.”
“Honestly, it was uncalled for,” says Hutcheson. “Yeah, I had on
bell- bottoms and an old KISS T-shirt. My friend had long hair. … I could
understand it if we were walking through the park with a 40, but we were
just walking. They could have asked what we were doing first before
they slammed us on the car and frisked us.”
They say that during the entire incident, the
officers never told them why they had been stopped. And it
still doesn’t make much sense to them.
“There were two police officers, so if there had been
a really bad problem, one of them could have called
for backup,” says Hutcheson.
The police department’s public information
officer, LaTonya Able, confirmed Monday that the MPD is
looking into allegations of excessive force by an officer in this
incident but could not release information relating to the matter.
However, Able did say, “We have zero tolerance in regard
to any criminal activity or misconduct.” n
A Happy Ending
Runaway teen finally returns home okay.
By Rebekah Gleaves
Hazel Morgan sleeps a little bit easier these days. Last week, her
17-year-old daughter, Erica Morgan-Shoemake,
returned home. Morgan now reports that Erica is
receiving counseling and that the two are in the
process of putting their lives back together.
“I’m still a little confused,” says Morgan.
“She hasn’t opened up and said where she was
staying, but I’m just glad to see that she’s okay.”
The Flyer reported on March 15th that
Erica, a Central High School student, had
disappeared on November 20th without leaving any
indication where she had gone. After talking with
several of Erica’s friends, Morgan learned that
Erica had been dating an older man and might be
staying with him and several other adults in a
Tipton County home. Morgan reported Erica to the
police department for vagrancy and told officers
that she might be staying in the Tipton County
home. Police were dispatched to the home several
times but were unable to find Erica.
“The police have not dropped the case,
but they can’t do anything unless Erica tells them
who she was with,” says Morgan. “Right now,
they haven’t talked with Erica about anything.”
n
A Smart Start
Early-childhood plan reports positive beginning.
By Janel Davis
Since getting a $650,000 grant from Le Bonheur Health Services, Inc., the Early Childhood Collaborative
Alliance (ECCA) is on its way to attacking the root causes that affect the
well-being of young children.
Phase I, or the assessment phase, of the program has developed
a Web-based Shelby County health directory, identified best-practice
intervention models, and encouraged the interest of the local
community in an early-intervention collaborative.
According to ECCA executive director Barbara Holden, those
goals have been reached.
“The directory will be posted on the Le Bonheur Web site in the
next few weeks,” she says, “listing daycares and other services for parents.”
ECCA also reviewed the national best practices for children
prenatal through 5 years of age. Programs like visitations by
health-care workers to new mothers were researched to determine
their effectiveness. To reach communities, focus groups were
formed, headed by representatives from area organizations, including
the University of Memphis, Girls Club, Inc., and the UT Health
Science Center.
“We conducted clinics at 40 locations to determine what
services community residents were receiving and what services they would
like to see,” says Pamela Coleman, a focus-group facilitator and
associate executive director of Porter Leath Children’s Center. “Interestingly,
results of the clinics were the same wherever we were. People
reported that they wanted and needed the same services.”
From the findings, a preliminary recommendation for a
community institute for early childhood was proposed. The institute
would facilitate efforts for children through their preschool years. Its
board would include representatives from hospitals, county and city
governments, and school systems.
The collaborative’s next step is coordinating efforts with the
Smart Start Initiative in North Carolina and working with local
community and religious leaders to communicate its
efforts.