Memphis Mayor A C Wharton has one of the toughest jobs in politics – managing expectations.
Following his landslide election, expectations ran sky high.
Following eight years of neglect by the Herenton Administration, the demand for change was higher.
Following years of inattention, the need for a more livable Memphis had become a crisis.
All of it converged to create a political vise for the new city mayor. On one hand, people wanted dramatic change, while on the other, they just wanted Memphis to get the basics right. On one hand, they had renewed hope, and on the other, they are pessimistic that anybody can change things.
Second Chances
All of these public attitudes were on display when Mayor Wharton announced that he is reappointing most of the division directors from former Mayor Willie W. Herenton’s team. There were the expected howls that nothing has really changed and disappointment that he did not take bolder action to send a message that the times are changing.
There’s little question that the politically expedient thing to do would have been to jettison most of the directors and to put his testosterone on display in pronouncing City Hall as his turf. It is within that context that his actual decision on the directors was pretty gutsy.
It was also characteristically Wharton, advisors said, using adjectives like open-minded and fair. Although these appointees serve at the will and pleasure of Mayor Wharton – with the confirmation of Memphis City Council – the new mayor is loathe to judge the directors’ abilities and performance based on years of a rudderless city mayor’s office.
That does not mean that these directors now have a free ride. The debate about some of them is reported to have been animated and blunt. In effect, their reappointments mean that they now have roughly 20 months to prove themselves – the time before the next mayoral election.
Marching Orders
As head of county government, Mayor Wharton proved on most occasions that he was committed to process and to giving people time to correct deficiencies before letting them go. In that way, some people close to him say, his reappointment of most city directors wasn’t out of character. He will give them a chance to prove that they can accomplish his agenda for city government, and if they don’t, they have made the decision about their futures.
In the coming months, there’s little doubt that Chief Administrative Officer George Little will repeatedly and clearly lay out the mayor’s expectations to the entire management team. Mr. Little is described as a capable public sector administrator by former colleagues in the Bredesen Administration, where he served as Commissioner of Corrections, and they predict that he will require more than lip service to the Wharton agenda from the people who answer to him.
More to the point, if he does not see the results he wants, they say Mr. Little will show little reluctance to recommend a change to Mayor Wharton, but like his boss, he does little precipitously and without careful deliberation. As someone in state government said of him, he is slow to anger but that shouldn’t be interpreted as being reluctant to make the hard choices.
His challenge as Chief Administrative Officer is to retool a management team that was part of a previous administration that represents the antithesis of Mayor Wharton’s ambitions and aspirations for city government. After all, in the past eight years, the economic indicators for Memphis went from troubling to precipitous to crisis, but taking the long view, the mayor thinks with a clearer agenda and stronger management, the directors can deliver new momentum and the dramatic results he will demand.
Sustaining Change
Some of his political friends acknowledge that it could be a high-risk approach, but their concern is modulated by the fact that Mayor Wharton isn’t putting directors in place for four years but until the end of next year.
From the sound of things, their success will be measured in implementing the Wharton agenda of smart growth, talent and human capital development, a City Hall culture of innovation, entrepreneurial leadership, and a sustainable and livable Memphis. To this end, a good way to evaluate whether directors are succeeding is to measure their performance against the Wharton platform, Sustainable Shelby and the report of his transition team.
Speaking of Sustainable Shelby, there is good news. The Shelby County Board of Commissioners accepted the federal funding that will allow the opening of the Office of Sustainability – the engine for the far-ranging Sustainable Shelby recommendations. It’s an exciting milestone for all of us who care about a livable, sustainable and successful city, and the new office will incubate in the Division of Planning and Development, which was the driving force behind Sustainable Shelby.
Not as well-known is that the idea for the process that produced our region’s first sustainability agenda was Mayor Wharton’s, an outgrowth of his emphasis on smart growth following his 2002 election as county mayor, and as a result, he will continue to be crucial to implementation of the recommendations, most of which fall within the purview of city government.
Sprawling Problems
While Mayor Wharton’s attention on smart growth was spurred by the threat of bankruptcy if county government’s debt remains unchecked, he is able to show just as much passion about reducing daily commuting mileage, increasing and improving public transit, creating neighborhood-based green jobs, complete streets, bike/walk plans and healthy, walkable neighborhoods.
We’ve proven how badly we can degrade our quality of life with unbridled sprawl, with developers calling the shots, with traffic engineers given the power to shape our city’s character and with an inequitable tax structure subsidizing the unsustainable lifestyle choices of residents in far-flung reaches of Shelby County.
That’s why it was encouraging to us that the #1 recommendation dealt with the public realm. We would never have predicted it, but there it was – “Create/reinvest in a great public realm that includes parks, schools, streets, plazas that are appropriately scaled – one size does not fit all.” Coupled with it in our mind is the #2 recommendation, which said: “Create/reinvest in great neighborhoods – not merely subdivisions – that are “complete, walkable, and provide a sense of neighborhood.”
Too often, in Shelby County, we’re not having the right conversation about the right issues. It feels like for the first time in almost a decade, it seems like we actually have the chance for a number of the right conversations that are fundamental to the kind of city that we want and deserve.
YAY!
See, there is a list of things Memphis is DOING right.
You all thought I was all down on Memphis because I wasn’t joining in the backslapping party.
Great article.
YAY!
See, there is a list of things Memphis is DOING right.
You all thought I was all down on Memphis because I wasn’t joining in the backslapping party.
Great article.
Do we have deadlines on when we will see?
Comprehensive safe streets:
Local Police chiefs,
Rehab with stats of 80% effectiveness or better, 20% is not good,
In my old neighborhood Police took home cars right next to crackhouses they never reported, that has to change,
Office of Talent and Human Capital:
“College grads” are not the only human capital that is worth preserving and in cities where business thrives there are many non-college grad “Entrepeneurs” which college grads usually don’t do, they are usually “employees” , Small business is the biggest contributor to the economy and to employment, even the president recognizes this. THAT needs nourishing here badly!
Maybe more than just—–
Stepped-up Memphis Minority Business Development:
Maybe should concentrate on Business Development and let the minority take care of itself in the process, don’t ignore, but, it doesn’t need to be a main thrust, it just needs as much attention as other development and doesn’t need shunting down.
City Hall Efficiency Program:
This really needs to be done at MCS! BUT,
Biracial won’t be good enough, open it to all “races” and don’t think so small, Hispanics have a MAJOR stake here and need representation, Chinese and Phillipinos do too.
Customer Service Culture:
This really needs to be done at MLGW.
Anecdotal: I went in to MLGW because of a HUGE ($2000) discrepancy on my house that had one energy star fridge, energy star dishwasher, energy star window unit, energy star laundry units. I had three meter readers come out in 1 week to read the meter, two were managers in the meter reading department, I opened the gate for the reader every month, they said there was no way the bill could be right because it stated that he meter was guestimated since it was turned on two years earlier! MLGW denied it happened, threatened the meter reader’s job while I was there, then (after someone in the office sneaked me my entire account history) they wanted me too leave when I asked what the heck they were threatening the worker or.
THAT is NOT a culture of “Customer Service”. That will need to be addressed. TOP TO BOTTOM.
Better Parks and Trails:
Bathrooms and stray dog removal would help that.
Functional Consolidation of City -County Services:
Oh, how I would love to see this. I think we need to follow the money on how antagonists are receiving benefit of blocking this to make it happen.
Ethical Government:
Biggest Stray Dog in the city. We need to ungrandfather Barbara and Joe, remove “dynasty” officials and prevent “families” from over engaging in politics to the point that their “drunk relatives who inhabit political office” can’t be removed. Really, do we need representation for alcoholics and drug abusers as a group? NO! This makes Memphis look like a bunch of morons, no offense to real morons.
Digital Government:
Sounds like fun, but, what about recourse for city errors?
Children’s impact Program:
The problem here is unqualified teachers and instructors in at risk areas and it always has been. It’s a way to make sure there are enough box packers. That needs to end, every kid in a public school payed for by tax payers should be excellent, in bad neighborhoods especially, like data driven stat based policing,
HOW ABOUT “stat based teaching too”!
Targeted Tax Incentives:
Can’t lose with that.
Transportation and connectivity Planning:
How is that going?
Has MATA improved? Are busses on time now consistently enough to depend on them to get to work? How about those stupid neighborhoods that have a “one way in and out” design?
Model Public Realm:
Any bike lanes yet?
Where’s the “Green Center”? I want to see that!
Public Building Authority, should concentrate on building and retrofitting buildings so that heir utilities are not on the public’s back so much. Our city buildings utilities are one of the largest bills we pay every month and that could be changed into a model for the entire country if we got rid of that bill. Government is supposed to be for the people, but, ours HAS BEEN against the people for decades and the utility bill is a blinkered example of government sloth sucking the life out of the city!
Neighborhood planners would be good and they need to start in the inner city, it’s not brain surgery to know that mud Island and Uptown NEED a grocery store and DON”T need to be treated as a dumping ground for section 8 tenants. That whole section 8 business needs to stop here, that is the biggest RACKET I’ve seen.
Putting thugs in Uptown, it’s just not a—-
Good Neighborhood Initiative:
new 911 Center:
And a better screening process for the operators. In my neighborhood, gang members were answering 911 calls and some of the stuff they would say to you if you called them was pretty bad. The really helped ruin the inner city by stunting any policing.
Year up program should train older people too.
City Year needs screening.
Memphis needs to be a place you’d want to have a business in first, and that is going to take a lot of background checks and screening, a lot of acknowledgment of failures without beating ourselves up, a lot of POLICING.
Commerce relies on a bedrock of order and lawful behavior to conduct trade unimpeded. With out a lawful atmosphere, businesses and people will continue to leave Memphis. Even if they are convinced to come here, if there is no law they will leave and this will become Braddocc Pennsylvania #2.
I think AC Wharton’s got a big job, lots of support, knows what to do and isn’t afraid of doing it from what I’ve seen.
Sound impossible?
There is always a way.
I bet he gets it all done.
Wharton’s style is a radical departure,not just from the previous mayor but most of the mayors in the last half century.
It’s the reason I voted for him and very refreshing to see.
Respect AC Wharton
It was on the day of these awful reappointments that I lost faith in Wharton as a mayor for change. More of the same. All of Herenton’s folks.
Keeping Wain Gaskins was an affront to everybody working to hard to make great neighborhoods in Memphis.
If Wharton is this out of touch, he’ll be no better than WW.
Keep up the great work AC. Being the city government “surgeon” is a tough job and you are thoughtfully and carefully executing your vision. You make us proud.
Director Godwin has to retire in April of 2011 since he is in the City’s DROP so it makes sense for Wharton to keep him in place until at least the end of this year. It will give him time to find his own police director as well as assess the current command staff for Godwin’s replacement. I would imagine Wharton will have a big say in who the new deputy director will be for the MPD – and that person might just be the next police director. Fill the deputy director slot now since it has been vacant for several months and let the new deputy director learn the ropes from Godwin making for a fairly easy transition when Godwin retires. Godwin has done a good job and Wharton was smart to keep him as well as a few of the other directors.
Well, with that “real time crime center”, additional webcams, etc. he did make a stellar last stand.
The new guy needs to keep something in mind:
How do you get the crooks out of Memphis?
Make it a place that doesn’t cater to them at the expense of hard working Memphians that want to live in a nice town and don’t look for ways to break or flout the law.