Written by: Joe B Kent

The Memphis City Council should reconsider MLGW’s $27M Spectrum band purchase and reject MLGW’s proposed $178M 12% rate increase. In this way, the City Council must check poor decision making by the MLGW Board of Commissioners. The MLGW Board is behaving much like an extension of the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow (FMT) public-private complex. It’s a complex that promises much, while delivering very little and taking from the public.  

The FMT complex consists of the rotating band of corporations, represented locally on public-private and quasi-governmental boards. Decisions by such boards are ones that, over time, have decimated the Memphis ecosystem.  

Such examples include: The South Memphis $10M Depot public rip off, the $40M public Tom Lee Park contribution as opposed to the $30M promised, $20M in locally Downtown Memphis Commission funded low interest, long term and commercially unavailable loans, to affluent private developers for parking garages, $80M in corporate tax incentives per year, $10M Cobblestone rip off disaster, $40M Garage Mahal mobility center and there is more, as such public rip offs are a local enterprise for the benefit of just a small local few.   

The FMT complex often promises the public a grand tomorrow, while corporations reap benefits today. That is why the recent $27M Spectrum decision approved by the MLGW Board is so FMT. The Spectrum purchase was brought to the Board by MLGW CEO Doug McGowen as a “rare opportunity” that must be executed by the end of the year. Yeah right… 

MLGW sells the $27M communication band purchase, as opposed to leasing for $8M for 20 yrs, as being beneficial to ratepayers. Problem is, after reviewing MLGW’s FOIA response, the investor seller benefits today with $27M, while ratepayers, wander in the desert, and won’t benefit from the purchase for another 40 yrs. So FMT ! 

Job #1 of a board like MLGW is to protect the interests of its ratepayers. That is why, when a new CEO brought an entirely asinine $27M proposal to the Board, they should have rejected it. But the MLGW Board of Commissioners failed at job #1.  

There are a bunch of other asinine McGowen proposals that have been adopted by the MLGW Board, without due diligence, to include $228M for tree trimming, $16M for paving, $18M for outsourced customer service and $200M for power generation, instead or purchasing power from TVA. These decisions put MLGW into altogether new businesses to include telecommunications, paving and power generation, that all drive a lofty budget and a massive 12% rate increase. 

MLGW needs to stick to their core businesses and the Memphis City Council needs to right size the budget by reconsidering the $27M Spectrum purchase, rejecting the $178M 12% rate increase and protecting the interests of ratepayers.  

CHECK THE FACTS 

• MLGW FOIA Response - https://1drv.ms/b/s!AiNXRWm6KZQigpgnldCSZdCcanHuFg?e=ffHYYq 
• JustMyMemphis 11/13/23 - https://www.justmymemphis.com/view-post/2111  
• JustMyMemphis, 10/30/23  - https://www.justmymemphis.com/view-post/2080