With the departure of Carol Coletta from Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP), is there reason for hope? Perhaps, but not much. Most of the architects of recent riverfront and downtown debacles are still around intimately involved in downtown public-privates and MLGW. Poor public oversight unnecessarily extended Coletta’s tenure, while public-privates have failed to work for Memphis taxpayers due to poor public oversight.

Alan Crone, now Sports Authority board chair, started the entire Tom Lee Park (TLP) renovation process with his Strickland appointed chairing of the Riverfront Task Force. Doug McGowen, MLGW CEO, soon took over for Crone as the chair of Strickland’s Riverfront Steering Committee, as later did Chandell Ryan, now Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) CEO, upon McGowen’s departure.

Meanwhile, during the TLP renovation, now Mayor Paul Young was over the $40M Downtown Mobility Center’s construction, which has somehow forgot about downtown mobility. Young spent wildly on downtown parking garages. And Dan Springer, Strickland Deputy COO, who is now with MFA, oversaw $4M in Mud Island renovations that mostly did not occur, while the City’s Cobblestone restoration project was publicly ripped off during TLP renovation.

This MRPP experience clearly states that public-privates do not work in Memphis. For the purposes of this blog, a public-private is an organization that receives upfront granted public appropriations or dedicated tax dollars, administered by an appointed unelected board.

So, has anyone from the above group learned anything and where are they now? After all, downtown has the Brooks dispute, the forced departure of one of the most successful festivals in the Country in Memphis in May, a defunct $43M Beale Street Landing, overpriced unfinished work on Mud Island, a weed infested Cut Bank Bluff, a trolley that doesn’t work for mobility while spending millions more on public parking garages and a ripped off Cobblestones restoration project.

Based on a fiscally alarming development, Mayor Paul Young has learned little. With MRPP in debt as an organization and leaving work undone on Mud Island that MRPP was paid $4M for by the Strickland Administration, on August 1, 2024, the City of Memphis paid MRPP in full and upfront $3.1M for annual park maintenance. It makes no sense to pay MRPP in full if anything at all. Dan Springer was the Strickland administrative contact for the mostly undone Mud Island repairs.

Additionally, with MRPP in debt $11M at the end of FY23, it is suspected that an estimated $750K of the $3.1M will go to pay interest, on the outstanding $11M in MRPP debt, stemming from uncollected private pledges. Sadly, Young has yet to learn. 

Alan Crone is now over the Sports Authority. The Sports Authority will administer the public funding for the 2002 built FedEx Forum renovation, which has been advertised to cost $550M. Keep in mind the University of Alabama recently announced that they would be renovating their similar to FedEx Forum size Coleman Coliseum for $59M. FedEx Forum is slated to cost 10x of Coleman. Also, another reference can be found in Wikipedia where it states the cost to build a brand-new FedEx Forum would be $403M. Crone is familiar with public overspending, while Dan Springer now with MFA, works closely with Crone and the Sports Authroity. 

FedEx Forum renovations should liberally cost no more than $120M. But given the $230M state grant and dedicated local tax inflows from hotel motel tax, car rental tax, MLGW PILOT and other taxes, the Sports Authority appears to be setting up to excessively spend, again in downtown City Council super district 8, $800M over the next 20 years. Even if the elitists decided not to spend $800M in downtown, they would not be generous, but just not as stupid as they already are. See Check the Facts below.

Where is the advocacy for downtown and mobility? No one has heard from Ryan regarding the trashed-out Mud Island garage gateway that houses the decomposing monorail. And as far as downtown mobility the DMC mobility authority seems unconcerned about the trolley, while instead electing to spend $4.2M more on public parking garages. And back to the riverfront and mobility, is Ryan concerned about Cut Bank Bluff? The DMC gave MRPP millions in funding for Cut Bank Bluff to connect parking to TLP. But whatever Cut Bank Bluff is supposed to be, it ain’t but weeds instead.

McGowen is doing well at MLGW and can perhaps be a hero for local transit with $180M in excess cash on the MLGW gas balance sheet. The former information comes as a result of McGowen and MLGW's public financial transparency through the publication of MLGW's monthly financials. This transparecny practice can potentially help to set a good example for the City of Memphis. 

At the same time, there have been significant excesses at MLGW under McGowen like the $228M 5 yr tree trimming contract, which is 2x of other peer cities, on a per mile basis and the explosion in contracts to the non-industrial commercial contractor Grinder Taber Grinder (GTG) who recently won a $44M single bid contract for water filtration replacement. GTG happens to be the contractor for other local “philanthropic” endeavors like Brooks and Liberty Bowl.

While MLGW is not perfect and has had its challenges as a quasi governmental agency, excluding MLGW, other quasis and public-privates have systemically failed the City due to grossly deficient public oversight. This trend is likely to continue until public oversight and transparency imporves.

After all, non-profit public privates are not required to answer FOIAs or open their board meetings to the public. See the problem?

City of Memphis MRPP Maintenance Disbursements - MRPPMaintDisburs-082624.pdf

City of Memphis Mud Island Disbursements - MudIslandDisburse-082624.pdf

Commercial Appeal - Strickland names task force to study Memphis riverfront (commercialappeal.com)

Mud Island Inspection Video, July 30, 2024 - https://youtu.be/ibq7iv3q41Q?si=R4UuR7CnGK30jrGT

Taxpayer Justice Institute - SPORTS AUTHORITY – Taxpayer Justice

Wikipedia - FedExForum - Wikipedia