From Rome to Memphis - FfOR Website the Link

She travelled the farthest to attend The Delta - Everything Southern conference at University of Memphis.

Laura Sanderson Healy was in Rome when she read about the conference on this website and flew to Memphis to attend. Healy, who grew up in Memphis, now lives in Los Angeles, but the lure of the MS River and this area are in her blood.

Healy’s parents Bob and Jane Sanderson lived in a neighborhood on the riverfront along with Shelby Foote and other artists in the 1950s. It was there that Foote wrote his novel September, September. The book was made into a 1992 TV movie "Memphis" directed by Larry McMurtry
starring Cybill Shepherd.


The Delta conference was huge success. Speakers included (pictured left to right): anthropologist Sam Brookes, attorney Bill Luckett, journalist Curtis Wilkie, and art history professor Carol Crown. Filmmaker and author Willy Bearden, Blues pianist and singer Edent Brent, and oral historian Owen Brooks rounded out the list of fascinating, entertaining speakers. Click HERE for their short bios.

It’s an annual event, so next year, whether you’re in Memphis, Clarksdale, New Orleans, or Rome, put the conference on your calendar.

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Tom Lee Park on Father's Day

The sprinkler was working, people were there to enjoy Father's Day, but Tom Lee Park wasn't in the best shape. A "friend" sent these photos as a plea for quicker park repair and better maintenance.

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Hot, but Fun & Beautiful

It was HOT, but fun and beautiful at Randolph for the Sunset Cook-Out yesterday.


Special thanks to Nancy and Tom Ream of the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group for manning the grill and making sure things ran smoothly and to TN Parks and Greenways Fdn. for sharing the site with all of us.

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Councilman Strickland e-mails Tax Warning & Request

City Councilman Jim Strickland has e-mailed a warning and request concerning the city budget and your taxes. He urges citizens to speak out and show up Tues. (6/16) after 3:30 pm at the City Council meeting (ground floor of City Hall (125 N Main)).

Click below to read the e-mail.

Neighbors,

The city's budget will be voted on tomorrow, Tuesday, sometime after 3:30 pm, and your help is needed to avoid a large tax increase.

Traditionally, the city's and school board's budget have been approved at the same time by the council, and a unified tax bill was sent to all Memphians. This year, the city's budget will be approved this week, and the school's budget will be approved in July or August. As a result, two tax bills will be sent -- one in July (city) and one in August (school).

Several months ago, the trial court ruled that the city could not reduce funding to the schools. While the case is on appeal, the trial court indicated that, if the city failed to fund for the 2009 - 2010 year, he would immediately order the city to fund up to $57 million.

As a result, it is highly likely that the city will have to fund the schools with $57million in July or August.

If the council passes the mayor's budget, you will receive a tax bill in July for approximately the same amount as last year.

But, in August, you will get a huge tax bill for up to $57 million to pay for the schools because the mayor's budget does not include the school's funding..

At least one council member is trying to agree with the mayor that the city's budget is balanced and ignore the huge bill that will come a month later.

He has written, "I believe we should let the courts resolve the school issue and deal with this at a later date." The problem is that the later date will likely be only 30 days after the city's budget is approved.

Please be on alert and know that whether we have a tax increase will be decided tomorrow; if the city's budget is approved without reductions and/or use of the reserves of $57 million, you will receive a tax increase this year.

You should let your voice be heard in person; please come to the meeting tomorrow at city hall sometime after 3:30 pm.

Jim

Councilman Strickland's e-mail is about the city operating budget, but what's in the capital improvement budget is also important. Bonds are issued for these big ticket items, and the annual debt service on those bonds has to come out of future operating budgets.
Riverfront projects in the CIP budget - click HERE.
One of the projects is the $33million boat dock facility Beale Street Landing. Debt service on bonds for this project will be approximately $1.5million annually. For info. on Beale Street Landing click HERE and HERE.

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Sunset Picnic Upriver at Historic Randolph Bluff

You're Invited!
Sat., June 20, 3 - 9 pm, at a spectacular site on our river.








Hosted by: Sierra Club/Chickasaw Group and Friends for Our Riverfront. Please RSVP by e-mail to info@friendsforourriverfront.

Where is Randolph Bluff?
On the 2nd Chickasaw Bluff, Randolph is an unincorporated community in a beautiful rural area about 45 minutes NW of Memphis.
For a map and directions, click HERE.

What do I need to bring?
Bring a side dish - maybe a favorite family recipe! Hot dogs, hamburgers, and soft drinks are provided by your hosts. We do need a head count, so please RSVP!

What's notable about Randolph Bluff?
In its heyday, Randolph rivaled Memphis as a river port. Until 1840 it shipped more cotton annually than Memphis did! It declined commercially due to failed railroad development, an unfavorable mail route, and the town burned twice during the Civil War. Even so, today the site itself is still so beautiful that it was recently purchased by TN Parks and Greenways Foundation, and is protected as greenspace by a conservation easement for the public similar to the Memphis Public Promenade.

To learn more about the site and the important reasons to protect it, click HERE.

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Councilman Strickland on City Budget

Councilman Jim Strickland says the City Council has the right, and the duty, to perform some drastic fiscal surgery on the City Budget. Wrap-up sessions are taking place this week. The budget goes to the Council for a vote next Tues. (6/16/09). Click below to read Strickland's article that ran in "The Flyer" and links to an interview and the website of Memphis Watchdog Joe Saino.

Time for the Knife
The City Council has the right, and the duty, to perform some drastic fiscal surgery.
By Jim Strickland

"The legislative power of the city shall be vested in the Council which shall have all legislative powers heretofore exercised by the Board of Commissioners, including but not limited to, the right to fix the tax rate and to approve and adopt all budgets." This authority over the city's purse strings, granted by the Memphis City Charter (Article 5, Section 16), is the most important power granted to the City Council.

In fact, the council has line-item authority over the budget though this authority has rarely been used by past councils. The current council has, however, broken with tradition on other issues and hopefully will decide this month to flex its authority over the proposed budget.

In Article 6, Section 40.1, the charter provides some details: "The operations and capital fund budgets of the City ... shall be prepared and submitted by the mayor with the assistance of the directors, and presented to the council, which shall approve or amend any and all budgets prior to the adoption of a tax rate as now provided, and said budgets as approved or as amended shall be the duly established budgets. The comptroller shall under no circumstances make disbursements not specifically provided for in any of the aforesaid budgets as finally approved by the council."

Again: The mayor may propose budgets, but it is the council that approves. or has the right to approve, "the duly established budgets." Consistent with the council's line-item authority, the administration cannot change any appropriation after the council establishes the budget. Traditionally, as we know, the council has waived this authority.

It is no secret that the world is in a recession. Most governments, businesses, and families in our country have less income than they did two or three years ago.

Last year, FedEx reduced the salaries of its highest earners. Earlier this year, it laid off thousands of workers. Last week, Governor Bredesen proposed 1,051 state layoffs, and Metro Nashville reduced the hours of its libraries and community centers.

By contrast, some two months ago, Mayor Herenton announced what he described as a balanced budget with no layoffs and a 3 percent raise for all city employees. In reality, this "balanced budget" ignored a court ruling to provide additional funding to the city schools next year up to $57 million.

Like the rest of the country, Memphis must make drastic reductions in spending. Many of us on the council refuse to raise taxes; our combined city and county property tax rate is already twice as high as that of Nashville, which has the state's second highest tax rate.

Besides the recent recession and the court's order on school funding (which has been appealed), Memphis is also challenged with a long-term population decrease and an economy that, even pre-recession, was static.

The City Council has been reviewing the mayor's proposed budget for six weeks and must make a decision by June 30th. The debate has ranged from a couple of council members pushing for no spending reductions to others, including me, trying to eliminate the raises and employment positions added in the last three years.

The majority of the budget committee has consistently rejected the notion of rolling back the raises. They argue that raises were withheld several years ago when the city administration grossly overestimated revenue, thereby creating a budgetary crisis.

Our current economic realities require drastic change. To date, the budget committee has reviewed about two-thirds of the proposed budget but has only reduced spending by about $6 million. We must do more.

Remembering that about 70 percent of the budget is personnel, we must reduce administrative staff. Eliminating the 3 percent raise would by itself save no less than $11 million. We can also eliminate most "company cars" and even address the issue of employment benefits.

Perhaps some city services can stand to be altered, but, importantly, no cuts must be made to public safety.

All we have to do to meet the challenges of this budget, while maintaining essential city services and avoiding a tax increase, is to make the kinds of tough decisions that most businesses and families have already made.

Memphis Watchdog Joe Saino agrees.
Click HERE for a news interview and HERE for his website.

There are 3 riverfront projects in the City's CIP budget.
Click HERE and HERE for budget info. on these projects.

City Councilmembers's e-mail addresses if you have concerns and/or suggestions about spending, projects, budget and would like to contact them:

Bill.Boyd@memphistn.gov
Harold.Collins@memphistn.gov
Wanda.Halbert@memphistn.gov
Edmund.Fordjr@memphistn.gov
Swearengen.Ware@memphistn.gov
Janis.Fullilove@memphistn.gov
myron.lowery@memphistn.gov
Reid.Hedgepeth@memphistn.gov
kemp.conrad@memphistn.gov
shea.flinn@memphistn.gov
bill.morrison@memphistn.gov
jim.strickland@memphistn.gov

Councilman Joe Brown does not accept e-mail.

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The Delta – Everything Southern!

If you’re interested in history, music, art, and literature, you won’t want to miss “The Delta - Everything Southern!” on Thursday June 18th. It’s a daylong look at the region that brings leading authorities to the University of Memphis’s Fogelman Center. To see presenters and a schedule, catch a sneak preview of Eden Brent on the piano, and register, click HERE. The cost for the day is $75/adults, $25/students, which includes lunch and parking.

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Solstice Hike Along River

Sat., June 13, 6:45 pm
Yes, the hike is a few days before the solstice this year, so be sure that doesn’t throw you off.

Join Sue Williams for the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group’s walk on the Chickasaw Bluff Trail. The Trail was saved for the public by the Chickasaw Bluffs Conservancy, the Sierra Club, and other organizations. There will be information about: their successful effort, effluent being discharged from the wastewater treatment plan, and the effect on air quality of electricity production at the TVA steam plan, visible from this area.

It’s an easy 2.5 mile walk on paved surface with a spectacular view of the Mississippi River - a great location for sunset photos. Meet at the Butler Park entrance on TN Street at the intersection with Butler Ave. next to the old Tennessee Brewery. For a map, click HERE.

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High Line Preserved, Transformed, and Open

The High Line project is a dream come true – an abandoned elevated rail line rediscovered by a neighborhood writer and painter, saved from demolition by community advocates, and preserved and transformed into what’s being called New York City’s great new park - "a space borrowed from early generations, cleaned-up in ours, and handed to the one that follows".

It’s the success story we seek for the Public Promenade on the Memphis riverfront and for greenways and parks city and county-wide.

Click below for the New York Times article, some FAQs, and a link to the High Line website.

Renovated High Line Now Open for Strolling
By ROBIN POGREBIN
New York Times; Published: June 8, 2009

Standing on a newly renovated stretch of an elevated promenade that was once a railway line for delivering cattle — surrounded by advocates, elected officials and architects who made the transformation happen — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut a red ribbon on Monday morning to signify that the first phase of the High Line is finished and ready for strolling.

Calling the High Line, which opens to the public on Tuesday, “an extraordinary gift to our city’s future,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “Today we’re about to unwrap that gift.” He added, “It really does live up to its highest expectations.”

The first portion of the three-section High Line, which runs near the Hudson River from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. There are entrances at Gansevoort Street (stairs) and at 16th Street (elevator); exits are located every few blocks.

The second phase, which extends to 30th Street, is under construction and expected to be completed by fall 2010. The third phase, up to 34th Street, has yet to be approved.

The High Line project is something of a New York fairy tale, given that it started with a couple of guys who met at a community board meeting in 1999 — Joshua David, a writer, and Robert Hammond, a painter — and discovered they shared a fervent interest in saving the abandoned railroad trestle, which had been out of commission since 1980 and was slated for demolition during the Giuliani administration. That began a decade-long endeavor that involved rescuing the structure and enlisting the Bloomberg administration in its preservation and renovation.

Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, called the project “a great West Side story.”

The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, described it as “a miracle of perseverance,” and said, “The idea could easily have gone into a file, ‘great ideas that will never happen.’ ”

With all the bureaucratic hurdles that the project had to overcome, it was fitting that so many representatives of different arms of local government were there for Monday’s celebratory news conference, including Amanda M. Burden, the city planning commissioner; Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner; Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York; and Seth W. Pinsky, the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Also present were two couples who have been the project’s major benefactors — Diane von Furstenberg, the fashion designer, and her husband, the media mogul Barry Diller, and Philip Falcone, a hedge fund billionaire, and his wife, Lisa Maria Falcone.

The walkway, designed by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio & Renfro, includes more than 100 species of plants that were inspired by the wild seeded landscape left after the trains stopped running, Mr. Bloomberg said. He added that the High Line has helped to further something of a renaissance in the neighborhood; more than 30 new projects are planned or under construction nearby.

One of those projects includes a new satellite for the Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by Renzo Piano, which will anchor the base of the High Line at Gansevoort. The mayor announced on Monday that the city was finalizing a land sale contract with the museum.

The first two sections of the High Line cost $152 million, Mr. Bloomberg said, $44 million of which was raised by Friends of the High Line, the group that led the project.

All of the speakers’ comments echoed the triumphal subject line of an e-mail message sent out by Friends of the High Line right after the festivities had concluded: “We did it.”

FAQs:
What’s the High Line? The High Line, a 1.45-mile-long elevated rail line has become New York currently runs from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking District, through the West Chelsea gallery neighborhood, ending at 34th Street, next to the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The last train ran on it in 1980.

Who owns the High Line?South of 30th Street, the High Line is owned by the City of New York and is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Parks & Recreation. This section was donated to the City by CSX Transportation, Inc.,

How did it Happen?Friends of the High Line, founded in 1999, is a community-based 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line. Friends of the High Line began as an advocacy group and is currently undergoing a transition to a conservancy, working to raise funds and help operate the park through a partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

Friends of the High Line successfully worked with the mayoral administration of Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council to reverse a City policy favoring demolition to one ensuring the High Line's preservation through the federal Railbanking program. Friends of the High Line also spearheaded the design process for the High Line's transformation to a public park, partnering with the City of New York on an international design competition that eventually selected the team of James Corner Field Operations (landscape architecture) and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (architecture).

Construction began in April 2006. Section 1 (Gansevoort Street to 20th Street) is projected to open in June, 2009. Section 2 (20th Street to 30th Street) is projected to open in 2010.

Has an elevated rail structure been made into a park before?The city of Paris successfully converted a similar rail viaduct into an elevated park called the Promenade Plantée. It is lavishly planted and offers both stairs and elevators for access. Projects similar to the High Line are in early stages in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Jersey City, Chicago, and Rotterdam, among others.

High Line Website
The official High Line website tells the story: history, photos, videos.

[Click here to read more...]

Facelift at the Cossitt

The Cossitt is looking much brighter these days with new carpet, renovated restrooms, a fresh coat of paint, and soon new landscaping. Inger Upchurch and her excellent staff are thrilled and invite all of us to come take a look, check-out a book, reserve the meeting room for an event, and use the computers. During June and July they will have a mother/son folk art exhibit of work by Mattie and Michael Williams.

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Celebrate at the Cotton Museum

Join the fun and take a look at what Cotton Row means to Memphis.

Update: Congratulations to Cotton Museum on a Blockbuster Event:
Several blocks on Front Street were filled morning and afternoon with almost 200 people from all over the city and suburbs to learn about our city's history as a center of the cotton industry.

"Of course, we had tourists, but the real thrill was having so many Memphians at our event," said Director Carol Perel. "Our grant from TV History Channel made it possible, and we're hoping to do it again in October."

The museum is the site of the original Cotton Exchange, where the movie "The Firm" was filmed, and only a block from Cobblestone Landing where cotton was hauled up the cobblestones to the Front Street cotton merchants.

Sat. June 6 from 10am-4pm.

* Walking tours of Front Street’s Cotton Row at 11:30 am and 2 pm.

* Lectures throughout the day at the Cotton Museum (SE corner Front & Union) on topics ranging from the “Civil War Battle of Memphis” to “New Music Spawned by the New Deal” and “Civil Rights and the Cotton Culture.”

* Discount coupons for lunch at Front Street Deli and Orleans Restaurant.
Admission: $6/adults; $5.50/seniors; $5/students; $4/children 6 - 12.

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