 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
NEWS AND MAIL |
CITY GOVERNMENT NEWS |
CITY COUNCIL NEWS |
NEWS |
COUNTY GOVERNMENT |
US |
Page |
BRIDGE |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
NEWS AND MAIL |
CITY GOVERNMENT NEWS |
CITY COUNCIL NEWS |
NEWS |
COUNTY GOVERNMENT |
US |
Page |
BRIDGE |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
April 25, 2007 The above is the headline of the Mayor’s City Pride bulletin for April 2007. Do you believe it? I would love to see an independent poll of the Memphis taxpayers. I suggest that the review did not look at the following items that come to mind immediately. • The Linebarger contract for the collection of unpaid property taxes given to a Texas law firm at 20% commission when Bob Patterson was willing to do it for 2%. • The 283 appointed positions over and above what the City Charter allows costing $16 million dollars a year in 2005 and over $60 million in future pensions due to the stupid January 2001 pension resolutions allowing elected and appointed officials to retire after 12 years of service regardless of age. • The FedEx arena deal costing the MLGW water division over $60 million dollars through the length of the life of the bonds. Also this deal left the Pyramid and the Coliseum in limbo with no source of income due to the stupid contract with HOOPS giving away the store. • The Cannon Center, part of the new Convention Center which was supposed to cost $47 million and which ended up costing $106.5 million. $59.5 million down the drain. • Memphis Area Transportation Authority built the three trolley systems with $10.9 million in City money (plus federal and state money) and loses $3.4 million per year. $3.4 million down the drain. • Herenton and the City Council are currently building the Beale Street Landing Project which is completely unneeded and unwanted (except by downtown and beale street interests). The City portion of this is $19 million, down the drain. • The City Council with Herenton’s approval spent $6.5 million on the Whitehaven and Riverside golf courses and club houses (at the insistence of Tajuan Stout Mitchell and Edmund Ford) and now these two courses are closed and not likely to reopen. $6.5 million down the drain. • And now the real cost of retiree health care is coming home to roost due to the government requiring GASB 43 and GASB 45 to be implemented starting in the new fiscal year on July 1, 2007. This is going to put millions of dollars in unfunded liabilities on our financial statements requiring a tax increase to fund these promised health care benefits for our retirees. Current politicians have ignored this unfunded liability for years. And of course the report did not mention the ACS contract with the City of Memphis. Watchdog has investigated this contract under which the City of Memphis has been directing no bid contracts to their minority buddies for years. Watchdog noticed an RFP (Request for Proposal) due January 5, 2007 for computer software and hardware. The proposal was to pre qualify bidders for these future contracts. Guess what, only four were approved, all minority firms. They were TEL-XL, PROSYS, INC, MITCHELL TECHNOLOGY GROUP, LLC AND SOS COMPUTERS, LLC. Dell bid but did not qualify but what does Dell care because they will get the business anyway but the taxpayers will be paying a higher price. The original RFP stated that the supplier must be an authorized Dell reseller. In other words the City and the MLGW will not buy from Dell direct which they are able to do from the Tennessee State Dell contract and also from the Western State Contract Alliance. Shelby County, which previously gave the same group of buddies the computer contracts, recently broke with the past and is buying from the Tennessee State Dell Contract saving the taxpayers 30%. This whole effort to present the City of Memphis government operation as lean and efficient is a farce and is directed to lull the voters in view of the upcoming October elections. Don’t be fooled. Know the facts. See below the information about the RFP and the information about Shelby County’s recent actions to break with the past. Click here to read the way this RFP was set up to exclude any real competition and to direct the contracts to friends of the Administration (see page 6) Click here to see how Shelby County is now saving the taxpayer's money by buying computers at the lowest and best price whereas the City and MLGW are not  August 24, 2006 Here are some of the most important items that need to be addressed by the Charter Commission in the upcoming discussions with the public. There will no doubt be many more issue and questions, the following issues illustrate the most egregious problems that certainly need solutions. • TERM LIMITS- Prevent elected officials from getting the tenure that gives them the position to sell their influence to developers and other buyers of political influence exhibited by Tennessee Waltz. • NO SALE OF MLGW WITHOUT VOTER APPROVAL- Because MLGW is piling up cash at the ratepayers expense, politicians want to get their hands on the cash. As of December 31, 2005, MLGW had $167 million in unrestricted cash, up from $111 million in one year. The law says that any surplus remaining after establishment of proper reserves, shall be devoted solely to the reduction of rates. SEE HOW MUCH OF YOUR UTILITY BILL IS BEING HELD IN UNRESTRICED CASH BELOW. • THIGHTEN ETHICS RULES- No election official should be able to serve if he benefits from any contract involving City taxpayer money even if he recuses himself from voting on that particular contract or issue. • PENSION REFORM- the January 2001 pension change has cost millions of dollars to date and will go on costing millions more as these elected and appointed officials retire. Since hardly any of the taxpaying public has a defined benefit pension plan anymore, a defined contribution plan should be instituted in the future for all newly hired public employees. • OPEN RECORDS- Only by putting all important contract bids, purchase orders, personnel salaries and benefits on the internet and by making open records access easier, can we keep the sunshine on government practices which politicians like to conceal. The current no bid purchase orders given under the ACS contract shield is an example of gross abuse and lack of transparency in bidding and awarding contracts. • APPOINTEES- There were over 400 appointees whereas the charter, according to Sara Hall’s reading, only allows about 110. This needs to be defined and limited to much less. The January 2001 pension resolution allowing elected and appointed officials to collect pensions and health benefits after only 12 years regardless of age has already cost millions and has the potential to cost $60 million if all of the current eligible elected and appointed people retire under that provision. SEE BELOW A LIST OF APPOINTED CITY OFFICIALS. • RESTRICT ELECTED OFFICIALS FROM VOTING MEMBERSHIP ON CITY AND COUNTY BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS- This is where the influence peddling starts and needs to be stopped. As an example, Rickey Peete is chairman of the Center City Commission and is on the Center City Development Board and on the Pilot committee of the Industrial Development Board. Barbara Shearengen Holt is on the Center City Commission board. Scott McCormick is on the Pilot evaluation committee. There are so many boards and commissions that it is difficult to get a full picture of all of the members. • CONTRACTING AUTHORITY- Prohibit the Mayor, any Mayor, from signing any contract unless it has been approved and funded by the City Council. The Linebarger contract given to a firm charging 20% commission for the collection of delinquent taxes when the County Trustee offered to collect the same money for 2% is a good example of abuse. Click here to see how much cash from your utility bills is being held by the MLGW in unrestricted cash as of December 31, 2005. Click here to see who had been appointed by Mayor Herenton as of March 2005 and what their jobs were and how much they were making in salary. July 10, 2006 Recently watchdog reported on the ACS contract and all the no bid subcontracts embedded in the overall 533 page ACS contract. Click below to see some of the favored companies who have received over $11 million in no bid subcontracts under the cover of the outsourced ACS contract. Many of these no bid subcontractors are close supporters of the Administration. This contract along with many other outrageous City of Memphis contracts and mistakes (think Linebarger, Beale Street Development, Cannon Center, FedEx garage, Riverfront Development, January 2001 pension resolution) explains why there is no money left for raises for the police, firemen, sanitation workers and other lower paid city employees. The ACS contract and the recent Oracle contract are good examples of no bid contracts that eat up millions of dollars of taxpayer money so that at the end of the day, there is no money left for those that do the actual day to day work of providing city services. But there is always plenty left over for the top officials and their supporters. Click here to see how successful certain minority vendors were under this City/ACS contract. Now click below to read some of these actual no bid contracts given to Memphis Networx, Ewing Moving Services, Mitchell Technology, Integrate Technology, Lesure Computer Service and Oracle. Click here to read the Memphis Networx Contract under the ACS no bid umbrella. Click here to read the Ewing Moving Services Contract under the ACS no bid umbrella. Click here to read the Mitchell Technology Group Contract under the ACS no bid umbrella. Click here to read the Integrate (Reginald French) Contract under the ACS no bid umbrella. Click here to read the Lesure Contract under the ACS no bid umbrella. Click here to read the Oracle Contract under the ACS no bid umbrella. July 5, 2006 CITY AWARDS $42 MILLION CONTRACT By CHRIS PRZYBYSZEWSKI The City of Memphis awarded a $42.1 million contract for outsourcing the Division of Information Systems to Systems and Computer Technology Corporation (SCT), ending a ten-month search. Mayor Willie Herenton announced the decision to City Council members Tuesday in a session marked by unusual secrecy plus some heated remarks from Councilman Janet Hooks. SCT, a publicly traded company headquartered in Malvern, Pa., won the bid over Electonic Data Systems and Affiliated Computer Services. Herenton said a key factor was SCT’s commitment to award 10 percent of professional services contracts and 50 percent of vendor contracts to “certified minority vendors.” The seven-year contract should be finalized next month, according to City Finance and Administration Director Roland McElrath. Herenton had told the city council during a planning session in January that he planned to outsource the Division of Information Systems, which handles telephones and computers. He said Tuesday that it had already been outsourced Òfor all practical The mayor acknowledged that there has been intense interest in the contract award, which featured lots of lobbying of both the mayor and council members. He said that was one reason he took the unusual step of asking to be placed on the council agenda without specifying his reason. “It’s almost like this needed to be a secret,” complained Hooks, who said she needed more information to respond to queries from her constituents. “I’m glad to hear that,” Herenton repeated several times as Hooks continued to vent. Herenton said the contract will cost a bit more than the city had been spending in the short run but should save money in the long run. All employees in the division -- approximately 40 people -- will be hired by SCT if they desire jobs. Herenton went to unusual lengths to vouch for the integrity of the selection process. “I know the various groups (that were interested), I know the rumors going around,” he said. Originally there were 18 firms that expressed interest in the job. “Evidently there is a lot of money on the line here,” said Councilman Tom Marshall, who said the selection committee, of which he was a member, was fair. The city hired a Germantown firm, SCB Computer Technology, for $467,000 to help it evaluate the contenders. SCT, the winning firm, has nearly 3,400 employees and serves more than 2500 clients worldwide. What has actually happened to this contract of which Tom Marshall said was fair. • SCB Computer Technology, a Germantown Company, had a $467,000 contract to help choose the outsourcing firm but was involved in various legal problems such as its own admission of overstating earnings and lawsuits alleging stockholders were defrauded. • In late 2000, just prior to the City awarding the IT outsourcing contract, Reginald French purchased Associated Softworks (ASW) from Ronald Jung for roughly $100,000 and Jung is now suing French claiming French funneled company money to start a new IT firm called Integrate Technologies. • The City awarded Systems and Computer Technology (SCT) an IT outsourcing contract for $41 million in November 2000, which would be purchased by ACS six months later. • Due to a recent watchdog open records request the cost of the ACS contract as of May 22, 2006 was $69.4 million. This contract which was to cost $41 million over seven years has cost $69.4 million in 4-1/2 years. At this rate, the seven year cost will be $108 million. See the attached memo confirming money spent so far. click here to see the memo confirming $69.4 million spent so far on the ACS contract. Does this sound like the Memphis you know and love to pay taxes to? In addition to the above boondoggle, there is the Oracle contract on top of the ACS contract. The first part of this was purchased in 2004 and was supposed to cost $7.2 million. Click below to see the City Council resolution increasing the cost of this to $9.3 million. It is rumored that Reginald French is receiving a commission on this huge continuing contract but that is yet to be verified by Oracle. Carol Chumney was quoted as follows on this matter. Court transcripts obtained by Action News 5 suggest that Reginald French, a former city administrator and aide to Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, parlayed years of city experience and contacts into millions of dollars in city contracts. "You try not to have people making decisions on contracts who are related to somebody or who have affiliations that might taint their judgment," said City Councilwoman Carol Chumney. Chumney worries about a nine million dollar city deal to buy Oracle software that sent a two-million dollar commission to French. click here to see the beginning resolution to a very costly Oracle contract costing much more than originally planned. But what is not in doubt is that the following firms and some others were imbedded in the original ACS contract and continue to receive no bid purchase orders as shown in the attached file. Click here to see some familiar firms and supporters of the Mayor who continue to get no bid minority contracts. The question which continues to be asked and not answered is “What are these no bid contracts costing the City and the County in the name of minority purchasing.” If you have no bid contracts, how do you know how much you are paying over and above competitively bid market prices? June 28, 2006 Watchdog decided to see who in Memphis has contributed to Mayor Herenton’s campaign, how some of the money was spent and how much is left over. It is very revealing to see the same contributors come up again and again.Quickly going through the 2003 list we see the following familiar names. Boyle, Duckett, lots of Heisleys, Lenderman, Less, Getz and Lipman, Masson, Meadows, Spence, First Tennessee Bank, Wharton, Fogelman, Turley, Hyneman, Tate and on and on. Take a look at the list below. Click here to see who contributed to Herenton campaign pot. Now take a look at how some of the money was spent. It takes money to get elected. You have to pay poll workers, van drivers, travel expenses, parties, printing, billboard ads, radio and TV ads.Two names are of special interest as shown below. Reginald French • 8/11/03 Campaign Consultant Services $9,000 • 8/20/03 Supplies $181.14 • 8/20/03 Office Supplies $340.60 • 8/29/03 Various Expenses $239.79 • 9/5/03 Reimbursement $52 • 9/18/03 Reimbursement $126.10 • 9/26/03 Software/Computer Work $150 • 10/2/03 Office Supplies $150.38 • 10/23/03 Consulting Fee Campaign $9,000 Total $19,240.01 Dewey Clark: • 8/20/03 $1,000 • 8/29/03 $500 • 9/5/03 $530.96 • 9/12/03 $500 • 9/18/03 $500 • 9/25/03 $500 • 10/2/03 $500 • 10/17/03 $500 Total $4530.96 In addition to the over $19,000 above, French got $23,400 paid to his Idalis Enterprises LLC for campaign consulting in the 1999 Herenton campaign. Dewey Clark was a witness in the corruption trial of former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell and said that he gave Herenton $9,000 — in Herenton’s office. A wiretapped audiotape on which Clark said such was introduced into evidence at the Atlanta trial. Campbell was later convicted of tax evasion. Clark testified he also gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Herenton. He said he also gave $1,000 each for Reginald French, a former aide to Herenton now in private business, and French's wife, to put in their names as campaign contributions to Herenton. Click here to see who contributed to Herenton campaign pot. How much is in the pot now or as of 11-25-05. Well, how about $450,378.00. Not bad. Seems like a lot of people have a very keen interest in seeing that Mayor Herenton stays in office. Wonder why? Good Government? NAH!!! June 22, 2006 One of the readers of watchdog kindly sent us a copy of the recent raises given to city employees from January 2, 2006 to April 29, 2006. (Lick below to see the list) These raises contrast with the zero increases to the balance of the city employees. In looking through the list some are interesting due to the size of the increases. • Robert M. Knecht Mgr. Drain Maint $43,212 to $62,320 • Chandell W. Ryan Mgr. Labor Rel_EEO $58,349 to $95,516 • Thomas Earl Morris Oper.Spec Equip II $30,743 to $53,834 • Steven R. Cole Chief.Polic Svcs.Dpty $67,420 to $100,617 • Michael Lee Smith Chief.Polic Svcs.Dpty $78,772 to $100,617 In all, 170 raises were given during the first half of this year. Many were step increases, outlined in city policy. Others involved changes in job titles, a favorite ploy by politicians to reward their loyal supporters and some were given based on pay rates in other cities. The last is another favorite excuse given by politicians to inflate their salaries. Salaries should be based on merit and results and there is precious little in good results in the handling of city business. Click here to read the list of the lucky raise winners amongst city employees. June 5, 2006 Watchdog has been going through only a portion of the mountains of paper obtained in open records requests from the City of Memphis recently. Over the next several weeks we will be posting what we find on the website. We have been shocked by the extent of the effort to award minority contracts without bids. The question is “How do we know what these contracts are costing over and above the competitive market price if there are no competitive bids?” We post below two revealing items that shows the intensity of the effort to award these no bid contracts. • One is a memo from Carlee M. McCullough, Contract Compliance Officer for the City of Memphis, dated December 27, 2004 to the Mayor, Keith McGee and Sara Hall. In it she complains about Mel Scheuerman, BDC-Administrator but brags about the $8 million dollars doled out to Allan Wade, Ricky Wilkins, Banks, Finley & White, Marvell Mitchell (Mitchell Technology), Darrell K. Thomas (Thomas Consultants), Reginald French (Integrate Technologies) and others. More than half of the $8 million was through ACS and the other $4 million was through the City direct. • The other is a fax dated October 29, 2002 from Carlee McCullough to Lillie Alford of the Uniform Certification Agency (UCA) asking for an expedited review for Integrate Technologies (Reginald French) saying that they had a contract on the table and they needed the classification immediately to validate the contract. Mr. French started receiving contracts through ACS in July of 2003 and to date has received about $1.5 million total. Draw your own conclusions as to what this is costing the taxpayers and who is benefitting. Click here to read the memorandoum from Carlee McCulough to the Mayor about M/WBE Accomplishments FYE 2004. Click here to read the fax from Carlee McCullough to Lillie Alford demanding immediate approval for Integrate Technologies (Reginald French) so he could get a contract that was already approved. June 7, 2006 In a March 19th, 2006 Commercial Appeal article involving Reginald French’s contracts with the City of Memphis, French made the following statement, “This was strictly done by a fair process, who said he got no help from the mayor or anyone else in landing the city work.” Herenton was even quoted as saying about Carol Chumney, who made the inquiry, “I know what people are suggesting, who called Chumney's inquiry “crazy” and said he's never assisted French in any way to win city business. ‘This lady is a loose cannon.’” On Monday, Watchdog showed you just how much of a misstatement these two made with Carlee McCullough’s request to have Integrate Technologies’ minority application pushed through the process. Click here to read the fax from Carlee McCullough to Lillie Alford demanding immediate approval for Integrate Technologies (Reginald French) so he could get a contract that was already approved. Also there is the question of how qualified Mr. French was concerning the highly technical area of computers and programs. Click below to read parts of a deposition given by Mr. French concerning his technical qualifications. Click here to read about Reginald French's technical qualifications to handle a technical contract with the City of Memphis. Today we will show you just how much more help Integrate Technologies (among others) received. Below is page 440 of the SCT/ACS contract with the City of Memphis. In it, it shows the City of Memphis’ directive to assure purchases for minority procurement by SCT/ACS were limited to a handful of select vendors, namely: Thomas Consultants – owned by Darrell Thomas, candidate for the Charter Commission Mitchell Technologies – owned by Marvell Mitchell, director of minority development at the Regional Chamber of Commerce (the originator of the MidSouth Minority Business Council) and candidate for Harold Ford’s 9th District Congressional position. Integrate Technologies – owned by Reginald French, candidate for Shelby County Sheriff, former campaign manger for the mayor, and former city administrator. LeSure Computer Services Trinity Technologies Click here to see a provision of the City of Memphis contract with SCT (later becoming ACS) directing them to use certain minority vendors. Click here to see how successful certain minority vendors were under this City/ACS contract. Over 90% of all hardware and software purchased, over $13MM by SCT/ACS during the life of this seven year contract were made through the above vendors. The attorney who approved this contract was former city attorney Robert Spence, which a source has informed Watchdog now represents ACS regarding contracts with the City of Memphis. The City procurement code states that any monies spent in excess of $50,000 must be procured through competitive bid. In 2000, Herenton stated in a Memphis Flyer article that one reason why SCT was selected was because of their commitment of 50% of all monies spent be awarded to “certified minority vendors.” Is that the reason for French’s push for certification by Carlee McCullough? Was that also the reason why he was added to the list of the select few vendors? That seems like a considerable amount of help for someone who claims to have not been helped at all. May 31, 2006 Watchdog has been investigating this subject in order to bring out the cost of the stated policies in the various ordinances. If these policies perform the stated function of teaching minority and women firms how to compete in the business world and then graduate into the normal competitive business world, that is good. However, if it is merely a means of rewarding friends and supporters, then that should also become public information along with the cost to the rate payers and taxpayers. Recently watchdog picked up a number of papers from the MLGW and the City of Memphis in response to several open records requests. At MLGW there were several large bids for computers. For years MLGW, being a large user of computers, has been buying direct from Dell and other suppliers. However on these two contracts a different method was used. One was a 36 month contract for Rackmount Servers in accordance with MLGW specifications dated January 12, 2004. Another was a 60 month contract for laptop and mini-tower personal computers also in 2004. The details are listed below and you can read about the results. Dell Marketing L. P. bid as did Thomas Consultants, Inc. (Darrell K. Thomas, owner). Dell was low at $1,356,357 with Thomas at $1,420,812. However Thomas Consultants was awarded the job for the same Dell computers at an additional cost of $64,455. The other contract was more interesting for 1725 computers. Trinity Technologies, Inc was awarded the contract at $2,468,215 whereas Dell was the lowest of the complete bids at $2,398,005. However in February 2006 Trinity Technology advised that there were unable to furnish the computers in accordance with MLGW specifications and the job was given to Thomas Consultants for $1,974,572. They in turn are furnishing Dell computers with apparently a 5% (about $100,000) markup for Thomas Consultants. The interesting thing here is that the MWBEC City Code states that if a minority subcontracts 50% or more of the work, the minority contractor shall be presumed not to be performing a commercially useful function. See the code below. Click here to read the part of the City Code concerning subcontracts. Click here to read about the Thomas and Dell bids on contract 122510. Click here to read about the Thomas and Dell bids on contract 127120. As the headline indicates, this is only the tip of the minority contracting iceberg. Click on the two items below and see what watchdog has received from the City of Memphis. We have the ACS (Affiliated Computer Services) Summary Reports for Minority/Women Enterprise Participation from July 2002 through March 2006. It reports on all the minority purchasing done through ACS during this period. We assume most if not all of these contracts were non competitive bids given to these firms. We have asked for the details of these contracts and are awaiting the information. Look at the spreadsheet shown below. We have concentrated on those firms whose owners are good friends of the Mayor and who ended up with a large amount of contracts. This is only the City of Memphis through ACS. The MLGW, MATA, The Airport Authority, the Memphis City Schools, Shelby County and others are also involved. On the spreadsheet we have concentrated on Lesure Computer Services, Integrate Technologies, Mitchell Technology Group, Thomas Consultants, Trinity Technologies and Small Planet Works. There are many others. Click here to see how much each of these firms received in contracts under the City of Memphis ACS program. Click here to see the full ACS monthly reports and how much each of these firms received in contracts under the City of Memphis ACS program. What is the cost to the taxpayers and rate payers. Frankly we do not know because there are no competitive free and open bidders. We need to make this process transparent and open so that we know what this process is costing.  THE PORK BARREL REVISITED
May 30, 2006 It is good to look back on some watchdog articles which still apply. This week we were witness to the antics of the City council as they argued about which piece of pork they would get. Here are two comments from a Commercial Appeal editorial. "In my district, it looks like they cut everything out," Councilman Edmund Ford said. "We need to find some money -- I don't care where you get it from." Councilman Joe Brown, another of the malcontents, suggested that certain neighborhoods in his district were being targeted for cutbacks. Here are two comments from John Malmo, a lifelong Memphis resident and business leader. • Memphis is in dire financial condition. The primary reason is because all city council members are elected by district. No longer does any council member have to run city-wide. No longer does any councilman or woman have to answer to the entire city. • So we’ve had a couple decades of pork barrel spending. This year you get a community center, and I get a swimming pool. Next year your district gets a golf course, and I get a community center. That’s why the city’s so deep in debt. That’s why your taxes keep going up. That’s why people are fleeing Memphis. Here is a January 17, 2006 article concerning the results of this pork barrel attitude spending and budgeting. Add to these two, the recent closing of the Davy Crockett golf course. January 17, 2006 In view of the Mayor saying that the budget deficit of the last three years was an aberration, I decided to go out and look at two projects that the pork loving City Council and the City did in the last few years, the Whitehaven golf course and the Riverside golf course. I have reprinted below an earlier article posted on the park department portion of this website along with the pictures taken last Friday. Both of these courses are closed and not likely to reopen and we have $6 milliion dollars down the drain due to the City Council, the Mayor and particularly Tajuan Stout Mitchell and Edmund Ford. City Council Pork Barrel Since no city council seats are elected city-wide any more, each council member concerns himself/herself primarily with what is good for the district in which each is elected. It makes it easier for them to get re-elected. As a result, council members divvy up pork barrel projects for each one’s district with little regard to real city needs. Here are some recent examples of poor use of taxpayer money to benefit individual council members. • Whitehaven Golf Center $4 million for a golf course nobody will play plus $700,000 a year to maintain it. When the city council eliminated the Memphis Park Commission they said it was because the citizen-board disregarded the council priority list for park projects. One such project was the board’s refusal to rebuild the recently purchased Whitehaven Country Club property into a city golf course, as desired by council woman Tajuan Stout Mitchell. The board refused to do so because the $200,000 master plan for Memphis parks submitted by the park board (and approved earlier by the city council) called for that property to be turned into a multi-use, neighborhood park to replace McKellar Park, which had been sold to the airport authority. Outside experts who prepared the master plan recommended against any new city-owned golf facilities. The council approved the golf center in Ms. Mitchell’s district and allocated more than $4 million for a nine-hole golf course and community building. The parks division has included $700,000 in next year’s operating budget for maintenance and operation of the facility. After revenue from operations, this new center should place an additional half-million dollars a year burden on the city’s operating budget. When one former councilman was asked why it was approved, he answered, “Oh, we just had to give Tajuan her four million dollars.” • Riverside Golf Clubhouse $1.5 million for a “Taj Mahal” at a little-played golf facility After Mitchell got “her $4 million” for Whitehaven Golf Center, Councilman Edmund Ford then demanded a new clubhouse for Riverside Golf Course in his district, and the council, of course, approved. A new $1.5 million, 5,000-square-foot club house and snack bar will open soon at Riverside.That is more than twice the size of the clubhouse at the 18-hole golf course of the most expensive private country club in Memphis. Maintenance and operating costs, which already exceed revenue at Riverside, will now go up annually for taxpayers.   May 25, 2006 As we approach Memorial day it is a good time to sit back and think about what is going on in the City of Memphis. • The City of Memphis is in bad financial shape with the bond ratings being lowered which raises our costs for capital improvement projects. • The City Council is going over the budget for 2007 and is fighting over park budgets but ignoring the funding of GASB 43 and 45 requirements choosing to put it off until after elections. • The only thing that is in relatively good financial shape is the MLGW. As of November 2005 they were sitting on $236 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents as shown below. To date they have not published the final 2005 financial report after almost 150 days from the end of the year. But you have to ask yourself why are they in such good shape? The obvious answer is that they are a monopoly and they can charge whatever they and the City Council choose. They always look good in their statements because they have ghost positions in their budget which they do not fill and therefore they come in under budget. If they make a mistake in gas purchases, they simply pass the mistake along in their purchased gas adjustment (PGA). According to the law they are supposed to operate at a break even position with any profits returned to the rate payers in lower rates. However at the end of November 2005, they showed an increase in net working capital in the electric division of $41 million, in the gas division of $15 million and in the water division of $3.3 million. Their unrestricted cash went from $126 million to $236 million. It is no wonder why Mayor Herenton has his eyes on the honeypot. He wants the honey. Click here to see the financial position of the MLGW at the end of November 2005. They have yet to publish their 2005 financial report and have never put on the website their annual budgets which the City and the County do. Why? May 22, 2006 In looking through the 2007 proposed budget, we looked to see if there was any money to meet the above standards which are required during this budget year. Here is the explanation and schedule for the implementation of these federal standards. From watchdog which we posted some time ago, here are the standards. The Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued Statement No. 43 of the GASB (GASB 43) entitled "Financial Reporting for Postemployment Benefit Plans Other Than Pension Plans" in April, 2004. GASB issued GASB 45 entitled "Accounting and Financial Reporting by Employers for Postemployment Benefits Other Than Pensions" in June, 2004. GASB 43/45 Overview GASB 43/45 is the governmental sector counterpart of FAS 106. GASB has determined that “Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) is accruing cost, similar to pensions that should be reflected in a governmental unit’s financial statements. Retiree health care benefits represent the largest component of OPEB and when promised in the form of a defined benefit , OPEB includes post employment health care benefits. According to a 1998 GFOA Study, the vast majority of state and local governments provide some form of retiree health care benefits. Governments with over 100 million in annual revenues are required to implement GASB 43 for the fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2005, and for governments with annual revenues of 10-100 million the deadline is December 15, 2006. GASB 45 must be implemented one year later. GASB 43: Describes financial reporting for OPEB Plans that are pre-funded or administered through a separate trust. In brief, the plan needs to calculate the Annual Required Contribution (ARC) and include a schedule in the financial report that shows whether or not it is receiving contributions at that level. GASB 45: Describes financial reporting for sponsors of OPEB Plans. In brief, the sponsor needs to report a record of the cumulative under funding or over funding with respect to the ARC in its financial statements. Governments that do not follow GASB standards will have this noted in the auditor’s opinion that is included with their annual financial reports. Impact of GASB 43/45 Of the governments that provide retiree health care benefits, the financial impact of GASB 43/45 is likely to be significant. No longer will a government entity be able to fund only the current year’s cost for retiree coverage without causing a negative effect on their financial statements. Bond rating agencies have already indicated that attention will be paid to the mismatch between liabilities and assets. This comes at a time when many local governments are experiencing difficulty in retaining their ratings. Few government employers have calculated their OPEB costs and have yet to determine the impact of GASB 43/45 on their financial operations. For many, the unfunded annual required contribution will pose additional stress for already strained budgets. The advent of GASB 43/45 will force government employers to re-evaluate how they are reserving, and more importantly, how they are funding their OPEB liabilities. Although the financial impact of GASB 43/45 will be a gradual one, advanced funding of retiree health care benefits will become critical in the future. Astute issuers will want to be in front of this curve. The purpose of GASB 43 and GASB 45 is to require the accrual of liabilities of other postemployment benefits (OPEB) generally over the working career of plan members rather than on a pay-as-you-go basis which is the current practice for most government sponsored plans. The purpose of GASB 45 is to require the accrual of the OPEB expense over the same period of time. Apparently the City of Memphis budget 2006 and 2007 did not account for this increased liability. They should be including money in the budget to account for the increased post retirement health care benefits rather than just the actual projected annual costs? If they do not start putting money aside to cover this future liability then they are violating the law and building in a future train wreck just as many other cities around the county. Click below to read a recent article from USA today and look at the example of Duluth versus Minneapolis. It is scary. Click here to read the USA Today article concerning the cost of future health care benefits for public employees. Also read a local very forward looking warning article by Andy Meek in the February 3, 2006 issue of the Daily News. Click here to read Andy Meek's article. The past MLGW administration did recognize this future liability and in 1995 set up the MLGW TRUST FOR RETIREE MEDICAL AND LIFE INSURANCE BENEFITS with a $48 million dollar fund. Watchdog posted this information in the past. Whether this is enough to cover future liabilities is for actuaries to figure out. However, the City of Memphis and the MLGW are not doing anything about this requirement. Click below to see what the City and the MLGW say about this subject. Note that the MLGW still has not published their 2005 annual financial report 140 days after the end of the 2005 year. Click here to see what the MLGW says about this situation. Click here to see what the City of Memphis says about this situation. Could it be because there is an election coming up in August 2006 and October 2007 and they do not want this information to come out sooner than necessary. The schedule clearly states "Governments with over 100 million in annual revenues are required to implement GASB 43 for the fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2005". May 18, 2006 Watchdog has become interested in this subject since the Mid-South Minority Business Council has claimed that they are not subject to the Tennessee Open Records laws even though they have received substantial public money as pointed out previously. Also they are sitting on over half a million dollars in cash as per their 990 tax report previously published on this website. We have asked for a lot of information on minority contracting from the City and the MLGW but to date we have not received any information per our requests. What are the rules for Minority contracting? If you will click below, you will see the details of the M/WBE (Minority and Women Business Enterprises) City Code from the City of Memphis Website. Click here to see the rules for the City Ordinance on Minority and women business enterprise procurement programs for the City's website. If you will go to page 6 you will see the initial annual M/WBE goals and the statement that “On individual contracts or projects, there is no requirement that the above annual M/WBE goals be met. Also on page 9, section (b) (1) [Regulations on Brokering Services] M/WBEs are required to perform a commercially useful function on contracts let or made pursuant to this chapter. Also in section (3), it states that if a M/WBE subcontracts 50% or more of the work, the M/WBE shall be presumed not to be performing a commercially useful function. Watchdog has been informed, for instance, that MLGW used to buy computers direct from Dell and Gateway in the past but that now there is a company in between these suppliers who makes a commission on these purchases. Watchdog has asked for information on these purchases but as of this date has not received any information. Two additional points. Click below and hear the City’s Chief Information Officer, Darryl D. Anderson, talk about his program and also about the Mayor’s requirement that 30% of procurement be minority purchases. The video piece is from the Oracle website.What watchdog wants to know is the details of this procurement and wants the process to be open and transparent and to know what this requirement is costing the taxpayers and who specifically is getting the benefits. Then we can judge whether the goals as stated in the City ordinance are being achieved. Also click below to see a posting from a Mr. Irv Brownstein posted on the Oracle Public Sector ROI (Return on Investment) IT Toolbox Groups where he apparently is asking for information on how to fulfill a request by the City of Memphis to determine their return on investment. Remember that the City of Memphis has $6.25 million in their 2007 CIP budget for the implementation of Phase III of the Oracle software. Also remember that Darryl D. Anderson is being paid $123,000 salary, the second highest paid appointee next to Keith McGee and a deputy CIO (Rodney Crenshaw) makes $94,000. If these two are qualified, why do they need to job out work that they should be able to do themselves. Are they not qualified? The City Council needs to be asking questions about Oracle and the IT department. Click here to see a posting from a Mr. Irv Brownstein posted on the Oracle Public Sector ROI (Return on Investment) IT Toolbox Groups Click here to read about Mr. Brownstein who apparently is working for the City of Memphis IT department. Click here to hear the City of Memphis policy concerning minority contracting. May 10, 2006 Watchdog has sent the following open records letter to the Mid-South Minority Business Council. April 28, 2006 Mr. Luke Yancy III President & Chief Executive Officer Mid-South Minority Business Council 158 Madison Avenue, Suite 300 Memphis, TN 38103 Dear Mr. Yancey, Since the Mid-South Minority Business Council receives public rate payer and tax payer monies and as a taxpayer of the City of Memphis and Shelby County I would like to inspect the municipal documents and records in accordance with the Tennessee Open Records Law that contain the following specific information. 1. The records and documents that show the names, yearly salaries, birth dates, job titles, years of completed creditable service towards retirement for all employees of the Mid-South Minority Business Council including the Board Members. 2. The records and documents that show which of the above employees listed in item 1 receive car allowances and which receive cell phone services and the cost of car allowances and cell phone services (whether paid for by Memphis or Shelby County or by some third party other than the employee) for each person who receive these benefits. 3. The records and documents that show the benefits and perks, including life and medical insurance, that you and the employees and board members receive. 4. The records and documents that show the operating budget for the Mid-South Minority Business Council for the fiscal years 2004 and 2005. 5. The records and documents that show all legal fees paid for the above fiscal years showing who they were paid to and the purpose of the legal expense. 6. The records and documents that show how companies apply for certification, and that show for 2004 and 2005 those that applied and those that were approved and those that were not approved. Also I want to see the list of those currently approved for minority business participation. I trust that you will inform promptly whatever department and personnel are necessary to make these documents ready for my inspection. In accordance with the open records laws I may want copies of some or all of the documents after inspection. Since I assume also that the documents containing the information requested should be available readily in file or on a computer, I should like to inspect the documents on Monday, May 8, 2006 at a time on that date at your convenience. If you need additional information or have questions about this request, I am available during working hours at 754-0699. Sincerely yours, We received the following reply by courier within a few days.  May 16, 2006 In the 2006 City of Memphis CIP budget there was the below listed item for a $700,000 expenditure for imaging technology. Watchdog is all for this expenditure and it was in fact bought as shown below in City Council minutes dated August 2, 2005, item 19. This will allow many if not all paper records and computer records to be shared with the various divisions of local government. ALSO IT WILL ALLOW THIS INFORMATION TO BE SHARED WITH THE PEOPLE WHO PAID THIS $700,000, THE TAXPAYERS. The Tennessee open records laws are good but they have a defect. It does not require the information to be furnished in an electronic form. In most cases the information comes off a computer and is printed out and then given to the person requesting the information. That person has to come to the office and review the material. He then can have copies at generally 25 cents per copy. This is wasteful of the public servants time and the requester’s time. This information could have been sent in an email which would save both parties time and effort. Why do they not do this? The reason in most cases is that the public servants want to discourage open records requests. I will give you a recent example which shows how idiotic this process is. Watchdog asked the MLGW for a list of donation and contributions made to various organizations and events such as the Black Mayors Conference. When I showed up at the MLGW headquarters and went through security I went to a conference room with the person designated as the Coordinator of Access to Public Records. However for the first time there was another person there, Mr. Anderson Williams, executive analyst, and he sat there and read a book while I went through a large stack of documents picking out some that I wanted at 25 cents per copy. It took me one hour to decide what I wanted and this cost the MLGW one hour of Anderson Williams time at a rate of about $78/hour including benefits plus the time of the coordinator. And all of this could have been done electronically. The point of all this is that if a reform group of candidates are elected to the charter commission on August 3 of this year, then hopefully open records reform will be part of their agenda for proposed City of Memphis Charter changes. Click here to see what you as a taxpayer spent $700,000 on and then they won't even post the minutes of the City Council meetings on the City website. Click here to see the minutes of the City Council meeting (item 18) where they agreed to spend $700,000 on an imaging system and yet they do not even publish on their website the minutes of this meeting. Through previous open records requests to the MLGW, watchdog has the following invoices (click below)showing that $75,000 had been paid to MMBC using taxpayer and ratepayer money. The Tennessee open records laws are quite clear on this subject that any organization receiving public money is subject to the sunshine laws. Also we show below the IRS form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax) for 2004 for the MMBC. In it you will see on page 2 the compensation of the officers and directors, salaries and other benefits and on page 3 the net assets of $684,301 (cash and cash equivalents) which increased by $59,318 in 2004. Click here to see the payments to MMBC from MLGW with rate payer money. Click here to see the IRS form 990 for 2004 for MMBC. Now watchdog has no objection to the stated purpose of minority contract assistance to help previously discriminated minority and women firms come up to speed in learning business practices and becoming able to compete in the business world for both public and private business contracts. What watchdog does object to is the lack of transparency and openness in the approval of certified minority and women firms and the contract bid process. The taxpayers and ratepayers have a right to know what this program for minority and women firm aid costs and to oversee the bid process to assure that all minority and women firms are treated fairly. Also they have a right to know the details of the successful bids, the names and associations of the successful bidders and the names and associations of the losing bidders. Also the names of the certified minority and women firms should be made public and also the names of those applicants for certified and women firms who were not approved as well as those firms that have graduated from the program and put on an independent basis. As an example of this hidden process, we show below a copy of an ACS (Affiliated Computer Services) report on Minority/Women Business Enterprise Participation for only the one month of January 2006. You can see from the scale of the money spent for this one month that we are talking about big numbers. Also take note of some familiar names and companies. • Integrate Technologies-Reginald French • Thomas Consultants-Darrell K. Thomas • Mitchell Technology Group-Marvell Mitchell • Ewing Moving Service-Charles Ewing • The City's phone bill and cellular phone bill are paid by ACS. Click here to see the ACS January 06 Summary Minority/Women Business Enterprise Participation Detail Report. In addition to asking MMBC to open its records, watchdog is asking the City of Memphis and the MLGW for information on these various contracts which were let under this minority contract arrangement. As we understand the rules, the Mayor has the right to give professional contracts without bids and without City Council approval. Therefore, the $1,074,689.40 in January 2006 should have been competitively bid since they were for non-professional services and goods. The balance for January ($124,711.00) is professional services which the Mayor can give out as he sees fit. We really do not know if these non-professional contracts were bid publicly with public requests for proposals but we feel the public has a right to know exactly what is going on and what is the bid and award process for these millions of tax and rate dollars being spent without public transparency. Watchdog intends to keep digging and make this process transparent, fair and open. May 2, 2006 Ah, there you are hiding in the City Attorney’s budget. A good friend of watchdog has been searching the 2007 Herenton budget to find out where the disastrous overpriced unnecessary Linebarger contract has been hidden and he thinks he has found it in the City Attorney’s 2007 budget. Remember this is the contract that pays 20% commission for the collection of unpaid property taxes rather than paying Bob Patterson 2% to do the same thing. Here is his analysis. After reviewing the 2007 proposed budgets for General Fund Revenues, the Finance Division and the City Attorney's office, it became very apparent the city is planning to continue the waste of taxpayer funds by utilizing the very high priced services of the Linebarger law firm to collect delinquent taxes. You can infer from the information shown below, obtained from the 2007 city Budget Proposals and the 2005 audited Financial report, that Linebarger does not perform as well as the "in house" collection effort the city utilized up till April 2004. The General Fund Revenue Projections for 2007 are for less delinquent tax collections than occurred in 2005, which was less than was collected in 2004 ... in spite of an increased tax rate! These reduced collections for 2007 are projected to cost an additional ~$6.4MM in "Linebarger" fees (see comment below). Looks to me, using Linebarger is actually costing the city money as opposed to how the collection operation was handled "pre Linebarger". HUH ... go figure??? Makes one wonder why there is this insistence by the mayor to continue using the Linebarger firm to collect delinquent taxes in spite of all the evidence indicating it is a very bad deal for the taxpayers. It's also a very bad deal for the "delinquent" taxpayers, as Linebarger dings them with a 20% collection fee as opposed to the pre Linebarger 10% collection fee assessment. Do not forget, the County Assessor has offered to collect these taxes for a small fraction of what Linebarger is charging. It should also be noted that there has been no staff reduction in the city Treasurer's Collection department as a result of using the Linebarger law firm as the collection agent??? Looks like the only winner in this situation is the Linebarger law firm, I think.   May 1, 2006 Take a look above. This is from the City of Memphis own website. It is absolutely amazing that the city Finance Department would include this nonsense in the 2007 Annual Budget. Do they not look at this stuff? The Court Clerk is showing a reduction in fines collected of $4.1MM from the 2005 actual collections. The Court Clerk had a 2006 Budget for fine collections of $10.3MM and is now forecasting collections of $7.5MM for 2006. All this going on while he is stating he is increasing the percentage collected from 70% to 75%. ... Also, he is projecting an increase in the number of traffic citations entered!!! In addition he is also projecting adding 11 employees to produce much less in results. Duh??? Will someone on the City Council please question some of these ridiculous numbers .... please! This is a classic example of incompetence in your Finance Division! I'm afraid to look at another department but I will. (PUBLIC WORKS DIVISION) Just as expected, the new Drainage Tax (in essence a property tax increase) is being used to reduce General fund expenses. $14MM increase in property taxes to reward the ongoing inefficiency of your city government. Looks like more cronies are headed for the city payrolls! Real easy to balance a budget when you just keep increasing taxes! As you can see below, again information taken from the City website, expenses that traditionally have been in the Public Works Division of the General Fund are now in the Storm Water Enterprise Fund ($10MM). In addition to that ... they have used $2.3MM of those revenues to contribute to the Debt Service Fund and are ending up with $1.7MM in "profits" (change in net assets). By the way, they couldn't even get the amount correct in the Debt Service Fund ... they only show $2.0MM being transferred in. Wonder if any of the financial "whiz kids" has found the $300k problem yet??? What a sham, or shell game, if you will! Just for a laugh ... please notice the "head count" is reduced by 68 employees in Public Works and increased by 130 employees in the Storm Water Enterprise Fund. I have to wonder what that is all about???? Next question, where did they hide the Linebarger deal in the budget. Also, what is the total IT cost after all the no bid contracts with friends of the Mayor? Please stay tuned for later in the week. We have the answers.  April 24, 2006 If you want a good example of what is interesting about the Herenton Administration, you need to go no further than the contract awards given to companies represented by close associates of the Mayor, Reginald French and Darrell K. Thomas. By the way, both are running for public office in the August 3, 2006 elections, French for the job of Sheriff and Thomas for the Charter Commission. While all these contracts and dealings may be perfectly legal, the taxpayers need to know the facts of the cases. These kinds of contracts need to be posted on the internet before they are bid, then publicly bid, bids opened in public and awards made to the best and lowest without fear or favor. The charter commission, with the proper people elected, could institute just such a provision insuring public integrity. It all started in the fall of 2000 when the City decided to outsource their computer and telecommunications services. This could involve as much as $70 million or more so naturally the friends of the Mayor got interested. There were three companies chosen from an initial field of 17 which were • ACS (Affiliated Computer Services, Dallas Texas) • EDS (Electronic Data Systems, Dallas, Texas) • SCT (Systems and Computer Technology, Malvern, Pa.) The length of the contract was estimated to be from 5 to 7 years by Roland McElrath, then Director of Division of Finance and Administration. The story twists and turns due to a number of factors. • SCB Computer Technology, a Germantown Company, had a $468,000 contract to help choose the outsourcing firm but was involved in various legal problems such as its own admission of overstating earnings and lawsuits alleging stockholders were defrauded. • A new evaluation committee was selected including McElrath, CAO Rick Masson (now chairman of the MLGW board and the Riverfront Development Board), City Councilman Tom Marshall and several other current and former employees of the Mayor. Click here to read all about this in a Memphis Flyer article In late 2000, just prior to the City awarding the IT outsourcing contract, Reginald French purchased Associated Softworks (ASW) from Ronald Jung for roughly $100,000 and Jung is now suing French claiming French funneled company money to start a new IT firm called Integrate Technologies. • The City awarded Systems and Computer Technology (SCT) an IT outsourcing contract for $41 million in November 2000, which would be purchased by ACS six months later. • Four months after the contract award to SCT, ASW was awarded a subcontract to the City through SCT. Since then Associated Softworks has been changed to Integrate Technologies. • Reginald French’s company (ASW) landed the subcontract only six months after he originally purchased the company, not bad for a former City employee with little computer training. • Integrate Technologies currently does “professional services” business with the City of Memphis through ACS. Professional service contracts under the city procurement policy is not required to be bid. Another interesting fact is that recently, ACS was awarded a lucrative ambulance billing contract with the City, however the Company is currently under investigation for bribery charges regarding a traffic camera system in Canada. Click here to read the traffic camera story. While there have been several figures thrown out as to how much the City is truly spending on this contract, Watchdog has discovered an article where Harvey Braswell, ACS’s president of government outsourcing stated the contract is worth about $16 million annually over a period of 7 years for a grand total of $112 million. That is $50 million more than the most liberal estimate by the City. This was shortly after ACS purchased SCT in mid 2001. Click here to read the article. Another close associate of the Mayor is Darrell K. Thomas. Thomas, who is running for the Charter Commission, was recently the beneficiary of several contracts with the MLGW and the MLGW associated Memphis Networx. Click here to read about the $1.4 million MLGW contract for Thomas,item 21. Click here to read about the $1.9 million MLGW contract for Thomas, item 22. Click here to read about Thomas and MLGW associated Networx and Nextel products. Click here to read about the Thomas contract worth $1 million with Shelby County, item 11. These associations and dealings raise lots of questions and the voting public and the taxpaying public should be very wary of all these interconnected relationships where friends of the Mayor get very lucrative contracts. Our advice is hold on to your wallets and purses. March 21, 2006 My name is Joe Saino and I have been active in open records requests in Memphis and Shelby County. After filing a suit in Chancery Court in February of 2005 as a result of a refusal to open the records of the City of Memphis, I have been able to get many records that needed to be reported to the public. I have been regularly reporting the results of these open records requests on memphiswatchdog.org. In my opinion, nothing is more important in keeping politicians and governmental bodies honest than good ethics laws and open records laws. I hope that local and state governments will propose strong ethics laws that apply statewide and also apply to local governments such as Memphis and Shelby County. However politicians hate tough ethics standards and tough sunshine laws. Concerning open records laws I have some proposals based on real world experience that I think should be part of any ethics and open records proposals. a) Local government units and boards should be required to post on the internet the following basic information and be required to keep it up to date. These postings will cut down on the number of open records requests. • Names, job titles, salaries, benefits, job descriptions, pension information such as years of completed pension service. • All contracts and bidding results on those contracts should be posted and payments based on those contracts should be posted. This would include HCD and MHA contracts and personal service contracts. • Audits of governmental units and pension plans should be posted. • Personnel policies, pension rules and job postings should be posted. • Pilots granted should be posted and all active Pilots and dates that they end should be posted. • All studies and outside governmental recommendations should be posted. • All agendas, minutes and ordinances should be posted. b) The person requesting the information should have the option to get the information in an electronic form (on a disc or email) if the documents that are presented to be reviewed came from a computer. If the documents are not in an electronic form, then the cost of the copy should be the same as any office supply shop (currently 6 to 8 cents per copy for an 8-1/2 x 11 black single sided copy) and the governmental unit should not be able to set any price they choose. (They are currently charging 25 cents to 1.25 per copy). They currently refuse to furnish it in an electronic form even though it is obvious that the offered copies come from a computer printout. The disc cost, if offered, should be the raw cost of the disc and not include labor and research. (See a recent email from Brian Kuhn, the Shelby County Attorney to see their attitude concerning this subject). c) Email records are increasingly important and should be made available on a disc with the same cost provision as above. Rules should be set to prevent destruction of email. d) Police records are a problem in Memphis and Shelby County as the police department is very hostile to records requests and require a front end fee before they will do anything. They should be subject to the same rules as any other unit of government. e) The requested records should be provided in a timely manner and this should be made specific with a maximum of one month from the date of request. f) Penalties should be harsh for a refusal to provide the records if the refusal requires the person asking for the records to file suit. It is apparent today that newspapers and TV media do not have the resources to do the research necessary to turn up governmental waste and fraud and it is up to the citizens through strong open records laws to take up the slack and to prevent further Tennessee Waltz type incidents. Governments generally like to operate in darkness. Taxpaying citizens want sunshine and transparency. Click here to read emails back and forth in order to get public records from Shelby County Government and they are one of the best in this regard. March 17, 2006 There is a new hotel and parking garage going in between Beale Street and the FedEx Arena and guess who is in the middle of the deal. You guessed it, John Elkington. And the taxpayers and the City of Memphis still have not received one cent from Performa (Elkington’s company) and we still have not received one complete quarterly or annual report since the original contract (1982) or one cent in revenue from Beale Street. Also no copies of independent audits on Performa. Elkington obviously continues to prosper as shown by these contracts. We post below parts of two contracts covering the hotel and the garage. The hotel contract is between Performa Entertainment Real Estate Inc, a Tennessee corporation (“Performa”), Senate Hotel Partners Memphis, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“Senate”), and the City of Memphis, Tennessee (the “City”. Beale Street Development Corporation (“Beale”) joins in this Sublease for the purposes set forth in the contract. The hotel is to be a Westin Hotel. The garage contract is between Performa Entertainment Real Estate, Inc, a Tennessee corporation (“Performa”), Lee’s Landing Garage, LLC, a Tennessee limited liability company (“Garage Owner”), and the City of Memphis, Tennessee (the “City”). We have on file the full contracts on these deals but to recap here are the essential parts. On the Hotel contract, Performa/Elkington will receive a brokerage commission as set forth in the contract in section 68 shown below. They get a cut of the monthly gross sales. On the garage contract Performa/Elkington will receive a Developer’s Fee that is contractual in nature exclusively between Performa/Elkington and the owner of the leasehold interest in the garage. Presumably Elkington will be a developer and co-owner of the garage. All of this flows from the 1982 sublease agreement between Beale Street Development Corporation and Elkington. Some deal for the taxpayers. Also shown below are two interesting documents uncovered by watchdog. One is an internal audit by the City’s internal auditor in 1992. It points out the many failings of BSDC. Nothing was done about these failings. The other document is a 1993 letter from a law firm to the Accounting Department of the City of Memphis and two accounting firms hired by the City of Memphis. Note the hand written memos on the covering letter to Ricky Wilkins. Also note that it includes a financial report dated 12/31/92 showing a profit of $235,000 but still no payment to the City. The only recent financial report we have seen shows a loss after nine months in 2005 after Elkington said that things were going very well on Beale Street. They are going well, for Elkington. Click here to see parts of the terms of the hotel agreement. Click here to see parts of the terms of the garage agreement. Click here to see the internal City of Memphis audit about beale street development corp. Click here to see the Ricky Wilkins letter and hand written notes about the beale street profit and how it will be used. March 1, 2006 Recently I was sent a copy of a memo from the Memphis Area Career Center Staff that was addressed to just about everybody including Harold Ford Jr., the Memphis City Council, the Mayor and everybody else they could think of. It was a very confusing complaint about the management of WIN/MACC. Confused? Me too. It took me awhile to figure out what WIN/MACC was. Workforce Investment Network/Memphis Area Career Center. I am just getting into this bureaucratic mess but I want to know what it costs and what are the results. It sounds like a typical scheme to create jobs for bureaucrats and cronies but lets give them the benefit of doubt. I will ask for the information in an open records request. In the meantime, look at the complaint shown below and if you can understand what is going on, you are better than I am. And what are we paying these people? • Isaac Garrett, Director Executive/WIN $91,729.04 • Alice Poston, Mgr-Career Ctr Systems/WIN 64,252.24 Listed right next to Mr. Garrett on the City of Memphis salary sheet we obtained earlier last year is Marie Milan, at $91,729.04. She is Director-Executive/YO (youth opportunity) Now we know where some of the workforce development specialists are working. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. Here is what their website says. It sounds like remedial services for stuff that should have been taught in our failed school system. The center was established as a result of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 passed by Congress. Previously, customers wanting services from programs such as Unemployment Insurance, Title1, Job Service, Veteran Services, Adult Basic Education, Vocational Rehab, Department of Human Services, and Title V had to seek those services from several providers at multiple locations. The Memphis Area Career Center integrates the resources and activities of these programs into a streamlined system. The Center is a way of reinventing government services so that employers and job seekers an get better, more comprehensive service in one place, without having to navigate a bureaucratic maze of programs and services. The purpose of MACC is to provide a comprehensive Career Center system that offers a variety of services to individuals and employers throughout the greater Memphis area and Fayette County. Customers who benefit are employers seeking employees and anyone interested in finding a job or upgrading to another job. Click here to see the complaint concerning deviant workplace behavior and work ethics of the executive director. Click here to go to the Memphis Area Career Center website and look at the board. Click here to see the bureaucratic plan to justify this activity. January 24, 2006 Here is another email from our financial guru commenting on the recent proclamation from Roland McElrath (the director of finance for Memphis) that he has a solution for our financial problems. Thanks,Bill, for this incisive analysis. There was a recent CA article headlined “City reveals plan to cut debt”. This shows how inept and incapable they are in addressing financial matters. The City should have been constantly monitoring their debt, and "swapping" it out as rates and conditions indicate. I have no idea why this was considered "newsworthy"??? It is, or should be, "business as usual" balance sheet management. This has absolutely nothing to do with "balancing the budget" and the budget deficits, excepting of course any (relatively minor) interest expense savings. The budget deficits are the result of the continuing mismanagement of the City's financial affairs which causes operating expenses to regularly exceed revenues. The only way to balance the budget is to increase revenues or reduce expenses. This "event" qualifies as neither. I notice the article touted a $521,000 "savings" to the city as a result of the refinancing. Although a relatively minor point, I doubt if that is the case ... maybe interest expense will be lower next year, BUT they also extended the life of the debt from six to nine years. Total interest for the bonds likely increased. I like the term "cash flow relief" .... just indicates a financial crisis, and a temporary deferral of principal payments. Again, has nothing to do with the recurring operating budget deficits. I have no idea why the City Council doesn't push hard for some answers to the many outstanding issues that memphiswatchdog.org has raised that would easily eliminate the deficit situation. (400 appointed, underpowered cronies in "make work" jobs; Linebarger contract; PILOT program; Elkington / Performa contract; etc, ... etc). The inaction is absolutely disgusting! Watchdog has provided the Mayor and the City Council with a "punchlist" on the website, on how to eliminate the budget problem ... and, they continue to sit around scratching their heads wondering what to do. WFF January 23, 2006 Recently I heard the Mayor present his state of the City speech at the Rotary Club. It excelled in platitudes and promises but this it what you have come to expect the year before an election. Remember 2002? What he did not touch on and no one asked in the two allowed questions were the following subjects. • The lunch was held in the Cannon Center, part of the new Convention Center which was supposed to cost $47 million and which ended up costing $106.5 million. $59.5 million down the drain. • Memphis Area Transportation Authority built the three trolley systems with $10.9 million in City money (plus federal and state money) and loses $3.4 million per year. $3.4 million down the drain. • Herenton gave his buddies at Linebarger law firm the contract to collect unpaid taxes at 20% commission when Bob Patterson offered to do it for 2%. $5 million down the drain. • Herenton and the City Council are currently building the Beale Street Landing Project which is completely unneeded and unwanted (except by downtown and beale street interests). The City portion of this is $19 million, down the drain. • The City Council with Herenton’s approval spent $6.5 million on the Whitehaven and Riverside golf courses and club houses (at the insistence of Tajuan Stout Mitchell and Edmund Ford) and now these two courses are closed and not likely to reopen. $6.5 million down the drain. • Herenton has 281 appointed positions more than is allowed by the City Charter but the City Council has approved this excess. 112 of these people make a total of $5 million per year and have 8 years or less of service. By laying them off, we could save the $5 million and keep them for getting on the January 2001 pension retirement program for elected and appointed positions, saving over time another $43 million. • The Herenton Administration has not collected 1 cent from John Elkington and Performa Entertainment (Beale Street Development Corporation) since 1982 and no satisfactory explanation or audits have been done and no required full quarterly and annual reports have been made public. Add another $10 to $20 million down the drain. We could go on and on with the failures of the Herenton Administration but I think you get the point. We desperately need a change starting with the Charter Commission in August of 2006 and voting the Mayor and the majority of the City Council out in October of 2007. Don’t believe the Mayor’s phony promises given just before elections.  January 11, 2006 THIS MUST BE THE YEAR BEFORE AN ELECTION AS THE MAYOR IS PROMISING NO TAX INCREASE Yesterday I heard the Mayor present his state of the City speech at the Rotary Club. It excelled in platitudes and promises but this it what you have come to expect the year before an election. Remember 2002? What he did not touch on and no one asked in the two allowed questions were the following subjects. • The lunch was held in the Cannon Center, part of the new Convention Center which was supposed to cost $47 million and which ended up costing $106.5 million. $59.5 million down the drain. • Memphis Area Transportation Authority (MATA) built the three trolley systems with $10.9 million in City money (plus federal and state money) and loses $3.4 million per year. $3.4 million down the drain. • Herenton gave his buddies at Linebarger law firm the contract to collect unpaid taxes at 20% commission when Bob Patterson offered to do it for 2%. $5 million down the drain. • Herenton and the City Council are currently building the Beale Street Landing Project which is completely unneeded and unwanted (except by downtown and beale street interests). The City portion of this is $19 million, down the drain. • The City Council with Herenton’s approval spent $6.5 million on the Whitehaven and Riverside golf courses and club houses (at the insistence of Tajuan Stout Mitchell and Edmund Ford) and now these two courses are closed and not likely to reopen. $6.5 million down the drain. • Herenton has 281 appointed positions more than is allowed by the City Charter but the City Council has approved this excess. 112 of these people make a total of $5 million per year and have 8 years or less of service. By laying them off we could save the $5 million and keep them for getting on the January 2001 pension retirement program for elected and appointed officials, saving over time another $43 million. • The Herenton Administration has not collected 1 cent from John Elkington and Performa Entertainment (Beale Street Development Corporation) since 1982 and no satisfactory explanation or audits have been done and no required full quarterly and annual reports have been made public. Add another $10 to $20 million loss as a guess since they will not pursue this lease. We could go on and on with the failures of the Herenton Administration but I think you get the point. We desperately need a change starting with the Charter Commission in August of 2006 and voting the Mayor and the majority of the City Council out in October of 2007. Don’t believe these phony promises given just before elections. December 13, 2005 MAYOR'S CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER SUED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT In a startling development, memphiswatchdog has been furnished public documents that show that Robert Lipscomb, Mayor Herenton’s selection for his chief financial officer to bail the Mayor out of his worsening financial situation and head of the Memphis Housing Authority, has been sued in Federal Court for sex discrimination and harassment, oppression and retaliation charges to the tune of $2 million dollars. We have provided below the complaint and the time line of the various filings. We make no judgment as to the validity of the charges, but this is something that the public needs to know and to consider along with all the other ethical failings of the Herenton administration. It is something to consider who would pay if the plaintiff was successful in his suit. Would the taxpayers of Memphis be responsible for this charge and its consequences? Click here to read the complaint against Robert Lipscomb and the Memphis Housing Authority. Click here to read the time line document of the suit against Robert Lipscomb and the Memphis Housing Authority. November 7, 2005 The story of Ricky Wilkins get more bizarre and the irresponsibility of our political leadership become more apparent as we get more information due to open records requests. We just received a correction letter from Sara Hall, the City Attorney, as shown below. In the letter she states that Ricky Wilkins, a close political associate of Mayor Herenton and a favorite lawyer used by the City, has received over $1 million dollars to represent the City and the County concerning the law suit about the Cook Convention Center. In addition to this, Less, Getz and Lipman, another Herenton favorite law firm, received at least $390,000 from September 1, 2004 to October 2005 in the Cook Convention Center matter. At the end of this the City and County agreed to pay Clark Construction over $10 million to settle. What a deal. Click here to see how much it pays to know and help support Mayor Herenton and what it is costing you in taxes. October 25, 2005 We keep harping on why the City has received not one cent from Beale Street and John Elkington since 1982 when the lease was signed. Where are the quarterly and annual reports and where is the $265,000 City authorized audit that the Mayor does not think we should see? Here is what we know to date. Two open records requests have been filed, one by Mr. Will Gotten to Sara Hall, the City Attorney, and one by memphiswatchdog.org to Mr. John Elkington. Mr. Gotten has heard from Ms. Hall that some of the reports were in the hands of an attorney, Ricky Wilkins and he was out of town. Mr. Saino first heard from Mr. Elkington that he filed all the reports required with the City and that I was free to come down to his office and see the reports even though he said that he was not subject to the open records law. I took him up on his invitation to visit and he said that he needed a few days to get the information from his accountant. Within a few days I got a letter from his attorney which is shown in an attached pdf file. There can be no doubt that since Beale has received millions of public dollars, that they are subject to the open records law. Also the City is dragging its feet on responding to Mr. Gotten’s requests. The question is WHY? What are they hiding? Here is a sample of past statements from articles in the Commercial Appeal concerning Beale Street and Elkington and Keltner (now Performa Entertainment Real Estate, Inc.). In a 1985 article in the CA, it was reported that some restaurants and shops in the Beale Street Historic District have been unable to repay loans from a special fund set up with public money. Six businesses have received loans totaling $490,000. A seventh loan for $150,000 has been approved for a company that isn’t sure yet what kind of business it will have on Beale Street or who will operate it. The loan fund is administered by the Tennessee Valley Center for Minority Economic Development which got $1 million in deferral money. Also in a 1985 article it was reported that the $12 million Phase I development is nearing completion. In 1986 John Willingham said that he will open a World’s Champion Bar-B-Que restaurant on Beale Street. Willingham is now a county commissioner. In a 1988 article in the CA, here are some of the financial dealings that were listed. Leader Federal sued the company for defaulting on a $75,000 promissory note. It has been paid off. Citibank was seeking $369,000 it claims was unpaid on a $1.35 million loan. The suit was still pending at the time of the article. The Department of Housing and Urban Development helped Elkington get a $2.89 million loan in 1986 for development of Hidden Woods, a 98-acre tract on Covington Pike. Advertising executive John Malmo sued for $81,642 filing in 1986. A countersuit was filed. And there were many other actions at that time. In March of 1992, Herenton hired Ricky Wilkins, attorney Charles Newman and two accounting firms to review Beale Street operations and suggest strategies for its future. In October of 1994 Herenton said that he had no audit to share after the City spent $276,123.00 dollars and 2-1/2 years on audits. Herenton said he was satisfied that nothing was amiss financially. Relations are said to be cordial on both sides now, and Elkington says he informs the mayor directly about the Beale Street plans and operation. In a 1993 Ca article, the following was stated. “Elkington’s company, Beale Street Management, has a 52 year contract to manage the city owned district and lease space to tenants. The management company is entitled to 10.5% of the gross rental income, 5% leasing commission, a fee to administer the common area maintenance and a portion of the parking revenue. According to the 1992 budget submitted by the management company to the city, those fees amounted to $113,606. After 19 years, Beale Street manager John Elkington is ready to pay the city its share of profits from clubs, shops and restaurants in the popular downtown entertainment district. The amount for 2001 could reach $400,000, Elkington said, based on the $240,000 collected so far this year. Despite the long wait for income from Beale Street, city officials have let Elkington hold onto the dough for six months while matters remain unsettled with the third party owed money - the Beale Street Development Corp. On Wednesday, General Services deputy director Darrell Eldred said he will be instructing Elkington by letter to put money into an escrow account, where it will wait until BSDC's future is clear. "Funds he has identified as the excess profits from the street will be transferred to that account pending our resolution of the Beale Street Development leadership dispute," Eldred said. Private developer John Elkington, who sublet the management rights from Beale Street Development Corp., keeps the profits once he pays expenses connected to his company's management of the district. Last year, the profits totaled $131,486. We demand that the missing reports and the withheld audit be made public and we demand that the City collect the money due the taxpayers of the City of Memphis. Click here to see Will Gotten's open records request to the City concerning Beale Street information. Click here to see the letter from Elkington's lawyer in response to an open records request. October 13, 2005 As you pick up your morning paper or possibly you heard it on the news last night, Janet Hooks has resigned from the City Council and is taking the position of Director of Multicultural and Religious Affairs. Talk about a useless high paid job, this is the posterboy of jobs that goes throughout the Herenton administration. Narquenta Sims used to have this job and we have not heard where she is now going. The Mayor raised this job substantially last year and it is currently paying $74,263 annually. To this you can add 40 to 50 percent benefits. Please note that Ms. Sims, since she is in an appointed position, can retire based on the current salary under the January 2001 pension resolution and so can Ms. Hooks if she serves a year in the slot. This is what you current City Council voted for and it is costing millions, millions that we do not have. Ms. Hooks can be long remembered for her saying in City Council meetings that we do not have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem. This is further evidence that we need to replace the Mayor and the majority of the City Council before we can bring any semblance of fiscal discipline to this City. Also read below a recent article written by Carol Chumney. Click here to see what Carol Chumney has to say about the fiscal incompetence of the Herenton administration. October 17, 2005 Recently in an open records request to the City Attorney we asked for the following information. I want to inspect the documents and records that show the amount of payments from 1992 to the present time from the City of Memphis for legal services or for other services to Mr. Ricky Wilkins and Mr. Robert Spence. This would include but not necessarily be limited to the Lottery, the Convention Center, MLGW bonds or FedEx bonds and other matters. The answer gives great encouragement to struggling young lawyers. The partial answer I received is Spence received $310,912.44 from 4/1/04 to 7/1/05. Ricky Wilkins received $472,703.03 from 9/16/03 to 8/31/05. They are still compiling what was paid to the law firm of Burch, Porter when he worked there. In addition to this, look at what he got on the convention center dispute. Here is a portion of a letter from Sara Hall, the City Attorney. “Beginning July 1, 2004, the City and County entered into a flat monthly legal fee arrangement as to defense of the City in the Cook Convention Center litigation and all payments were made to Less, Getz & Lipman. Under this arrangement, Ricky Wilkins received $30,000 monthly from the flat amount paid to Less, Getz & Lipman for his representation of the City and County in this case.” Do the math. $30,000/month times 12 months equals $360,000/year. What a deal. Mr. Spence was the former City Attorney. Let us not forget that Spence, in his capacity as city attorney, signed off on the FedExForum deal, non-compete clause and all. Wilkins has close ties to the Mayor as his former campaign manager. We have earlier reported on Allan Wade, the attorney for the City Council and his additional private practice. They are all doing very well at the tax payer’s expense. Click here to see what legal services are costing the tax payers and who gets the benefits. Also check out the sweet deal Robert Lipscomb is getting in his dual jobs. October 4, 2005 There was a recent editorial in the Commercial Appeal (September 20, 2005) which asked questions about the proposed light rail system which has been proposed by the Herenton Administration and the current City Council. The 2006 Capital Improvement Budget has $280 million dollars between 2007 and 2010 already listed for the light rail system. Whether a light rail system is right for Memphis and Shelby County is something that needs to be discussed in light of the high gas prices that the USA is currently experiencing and is likely to continue in the future. But there can be little doubt that a light rail system between the airport and downtown Memphis makes no sense at all. A light rail system between Germantown and/or Collierville and downtown might or might not make sense. But no one could make a reasonable case for a system between the airport and downtown except the downtown interests who own property there. I would make a guess that 80% or more of the people going to and from the airport do not come to or from downtown. And then there is the question of the cost of running and maintaining the system after it is installed and we have gotten all those Federal and State dollars that the City Council loves to tout. Well just look at the MATA trolley system which cost the City over $10 million dollars (and an overall cost of $104.5 million dollars) and is currently losing $3.5 million dollars each year. It is time we take the Herenton Administration and the current City Council to task and make them see the light of day and where their CIP projects are leading this financially strapped City. Joseph N. Saino September 27, 2005 We received a call from the City Attorney last Thursday and we appreciate the call. The City Attorney is honest and competent and is following the law to the best of her ability. She has been courteous and prompt in reply to our open records requests. She called to inform memphiswatchdog about the new revision to the Linebarger contract for the collection of delinquent taxes. We initially got a copy of the Linebarger contract and published it. We published the fact that the City of Memphis paid or owed Linebarger $5.5 million dollars in commissions (19% to 20% of the money collected) whereas Bob Patterson, the County Trustee, was willing to do the job for 2% or about $500,000 on the same amount collected. Then Ms. Hall, the City Attorney, renegotiated the contract and got Linebarger to kick back $1.5 million and make some other concessions. She tried to explain to us that is was a win/win situation. Frankly I listened politely but we were not convinced. She said that it is still possible that Mr. Patterson may be given the contract in the future. But then we went on to question her about the Beale Street Development Contract and the supposedly missing quarterly and annual reports. As you may remember her words in item 4 to Mr. Will Gotten’s open records request were as follows. 4. Question. All annual, semi-annual or quarterly accountings of gross funds received and/or expenses deducted, which is determinative of the rent the city has received or is currently receiving for the rental of the demised property. Answer: Since the City has not received any funds, there are no accountings of funds received. We assumed that that answer meant that they had not received any quarterly or annual reports. WRONG!! The City has received some, if not all of the reports, and she is checking to see if they have all of them and also the Audit that the Mayor has withheld and will provide them ASAP. But that still begs the question of why the City has not received any money and have all of these reports been audited by an independent auditor. The biggest failing of the Herenton administration is the lack of oversight and independent auditing of the millions of dollars flowing through their sticky hands. There are still many answers to come. September 22, 2005 Pilots and Exempt Property in Memphis Mayor Herenton has come up with yet another financial plan to save Memphis. He has brought in some of his financial wizards, Robert Lipscomb from Housing and Community Development and Roland McElrath from the Memphis Housing Authority. Mr. Lipscomb heads a department that somehow put Councilman Ricky Peete's Grandmother at the head of a very crowded H.A.R.P. program and is building her a new house at the taxpayers expense. Mr. McElrath retired from the City finance department under the January 2001 pension resolution and went to the Memphis School System where he participated in the infamous SchoolTran contract and then left there after several years and went to the Memphis Housing Authority. Now the Mayor has come up with a familiar basket of solutions, one of which is to establish committees to review the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) program. Well we have plenty of information on this program and we will show you below everything you need to know about this outrageous and unfair program. What it amounts to is this. The homeowners pay and almost everyone else gets a pass. We have done extensive investigations and we show below the facts on this program. We list below four spreadsheets. The first one is from the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasurer, State Board of Equalization of the State of Tennessee. The report is called IDB/H&ED Report, 2004 Summary. This shows the PILOTS for each county in Tennessee for 2004. What it shows for Shelby is that we gave away in 2004 $54.5 millions dollars in PILOTS in Memphis and Shelby County. Nashville and Davidson County gave away $675,000 dollars. When you look at the list you will see who is getting the benefit of this largess. Maybe some of it is justified but not this huge giveaway to the well connected and the powerful who back the current local politicians. We have also posted information from 2003 supplied by Bob Patterson, the Shelby County Trustee. One shows the Shelby County PILOTS listed alphabetically and the other shows the same information listed from those receiving the highest tax exemption to those receiving lesser amounts. This only shows the tax payments and taxes not paid for Shelby County. If the property is in the City of Memphis, then there are similar but somewhat smaller figures based on the City property tax rate. Then finally we have posted all the exempt properties for 2003. These pay zero taxes and there are over 15000 pieces totaling $3.5 billion dollars in appraised value. We need to consider why Shelby County is giving away over $54 million dollars each year in tax money we desperately need whereas Nashville and Davidson County gives away less than $1 million. Click here to see the 2004 Memphis and Shelby County tax giveaways under the PILOT program. Click here to see the 2003 Shelby County PILOT giveaways from top recipients to bottom. Click here to see the 2003 Shelby County PILOT giveaways listed alphabetically. Click here to see the over 15000 tax exempt(zero taxes)properties in Memphis and Shelby County. September 19, 2005 Recently an outstanding Memphis citizen sent an open records request to Ms. Sara Hall, the City Attorney, asking for information about Beale Street Development Corporation. His name is Will Gotten and he is a retired lawyer. Here is his request. From: William Gotten >To: >Subject: Beale Street Development Corp. >Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:52:28 -0500 > >Dear Mr. Jefferson: In November, 1982, the City of Memphis entered into a >lease of Beale Street property to Beale Street Development Corp. (BSDC), a >non-profit corporation, which then, with the approval and knowledge of the >City, subleased to Elkington & Keltner and its successor in interest, >Performa, Inc. The lease and sublease provide that rental payments are to >be made to the city based on rental income received from the demised >property during its term. > >As a taxpayer and citizen of Memphis, I would like to inspect the municipal >documents, records, letters and communications, both written and in >electronic form, that contain information relevant to the following >subjects: > > >1. The amount of money that the City of Memphis has received each year as >rent of the demised property directly from BSDC since 1982 to the present >date. > >2. Any written agreements that provide for payment of rent for the demised >premises to be made directly to the City of Memphis by an entity or person >other than BSDC. > >3. The amount of money that the City of Memphis has received or is receiving >currently by an entity or person other than BSDC, since the inception of >such payments to the present date. > >4. All annual, semi-annual or quarterly accountings of gross funds received >and/or expenses deducted, which is determinative of the rent the city has >received or is currently receiving for the rental of the demised property. > > >Please provide promptly a date, time and place for the inspection of >documents and personnel for making copies if desired. The reasonable cost >of such copies will be paid at that time in accordance with City of Memphis >policy concerning furnishing copies of city documents. > >Thanking you for your cooperation, I remain > >Sincerely yours, > > > >William M. Gotten After almost three months and repeated requests for an answer he finally sent a communication saying that he was filing suit to obtain the information. The next day he got a call and an answer. Here is the answer from Ms. Hall. VIA E-MAIL AND U.S. MAIL September 14, 2005 Mr. William Gotten 6426 Kirby Oaks Drive Memphis, TN 38119 Re: Open Records Request Dear Mr. Gotten: I am writing in response to your August 31, 2005 letter to me and as a follow-up to our telephone conversation this morning. As I stated at the outset of my call, I called you this morning to personally apologize for the amount of time it has taken to answer your open records request. Also, during that telephone conversation, I gave you the answers to the questions you asked in your open records request and stated that I would follow-up with a letter to you, which I am doing now. Your inquiries and the City's preliminary responses are as follows: 1. The amount of money that the City of Memphis has received each year as rent of the demised property directly from BSDC since 1982 to the present date. Answer: I have checked with the General Services and Finance Divisions and have been advised that the City has not received rent from BSDC since 1982 to the present date. 2. Any written agreements that provide for payment of rent for the demised premises to be made directly to the City of Memphis by an entity or person other than BSDC. Answer: I have checked with the General Services and Finance Divisions and have been advised that there are no written agreements that provide for the payment of rent to be made directly to the City of Memphis by an entity o |