By John Branston
The line forms this week outside the door of Mayor Paul Young’s office on the sixth floor of City Hall. Better get there early because it will be a long one in celebration of the Era of Yes!
Thirteen Council members, police and fire union leaders, city employees, AFSCME, MLGW, school system employees and board members with strong opinions about the fired superintendent, MATA, colleges, hospitals, scores of nonprofits and “quasi-government” outfits of all descriptions, sports boosters, beautifiers, visionaries, guaranteed game-changers, lobbyists with favors, lawyers with attitude, pension supplicants, with tear-jerkers.
They represent . . . the people . . . dedicated public servants struggling to make ends meet. They put their lives on the line every day . . . work for pennies on behalf of widows and orphans and the unfortunate . . . the children who are our most precious resource. It is Black History Month. Inflation and automation threaten our future. We ain’t all Elon Musk. Eds and meds are the future. Don’t vote with your taillights.
Nobody needs no stinking naysayers! So say YES!!!!!!!
A mayor, of course, also has to say NO. Even Hell No. Never has there been a mayor who was in favor of red tape, inefficiency, crime, lower wages, garbage and litter, animal cruelty, or blight.
Legacy of Yes! Stretches back to “Power of Positive Thinking” Norman Vincent Peale in the Sixties, Wallace Johnson (“Work Is My Play” partner of Kemmons Wilson), the successors of MLK in the “decaying river city” aftermath, and every motivational speaker and head of the Chamber of Commerce since the invention of the microphone.
Mayor Young comes from a SAY YES! background in the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the Downtown Memphis Commission (formerly the Center City Commission). HCD, under the leadership of the reclusive Robert Lipscomb, rebuilt public housing – arguably the greatest visual and quality of life improvement in Memphis in half a century. The downtown agency is a booster organization that hands out tax freezes (aka PILOTS) to developers without the scrutiny of the City Council or school board. Memphis, stuck in the corner of the state and competing with Nashville, Shelby County and DeSoto County, hands out more than any city in Tennessee.
A couple of suggestions on that score: any nonprofit asking for public donations and city funds should produce its most recent federal tax return, list of salaries over $100,000 a year, a mission statement no longer than 25 words, and disclosure of any relatives holding public office. The word nonprofit connotes soup kitchens for widows and orphans, but there are dozens of them in Memphis that pay more than the mayor’s salary and more than a few that pay over $1 million a year.
All of this is hiding in plain view but rarely reported. Guidestar.org discloses everything. Veteran reporters working at The University of Memphis and their journalism students should fix this.
The can-do mayor should fix the potholed main streets like Poplar, Summer, and North Parkway along with the trickier stuff. Then deal with that line outside the door.
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John Branston covered Memphis as a reporter and columnist for 35 years.
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