As Wanda Halbert makes her way back into the press there are 5 major scams unfolding with the Greater Memphis Chamber in close proximity. The scams are getting little if any coverage. The Chamber is a business association that masquerades as an economic and workforce development agency, deeply engaged in non-transparent public-private partnerships.

These public-private partnerships have systemically failed the City over 20 yrs under the Chamber’s loser affiliate the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex. The failure is enabled by elected officials culturally invested in failed oversight.

Just this week, Ford Canale was awarded for his hands on MATA oversight botch as Chair of the Council Transportation Committee by being elected as Chair of the Memphis City Council. Others have also been handsomely awarded to include former Mayor Jim Strickland as Dean of the University of Memphis Law School and Al Bright sustained as EDGE Board chair after the South Memphis Depot ripoff. Anyway, here are the scams:

Workforce Development – As fiscal agent of the Greater Memphis Workforce Development Board (GMWDB), Chamber is involved in another workforce development botch. The Chamber’s touted Accelerated Skills Center is greatly delayed and in a long line of workforce development professionals, yet another has been oddly deposed with only 6 votes of a 24-member board. Really 6 votes of a 24-member public board and a measure passes? This does not add up for the Chamber and GMWDB.

Workforce Development has been a sustained 10yr Chamber botch. Why? They are idiots. Commissioner Henri Brooks referred to the sustained local workforce development botch in Committee on 10/13/24. There has never been reporting on the sustained botching of the workforce development system that includes these failed initiatives in WIN, GMACW, UpSkill901, Workforce Mid-South and now GMWDB.

More for Memphis (MFM) – Chamber support for a redundant, expensive, and non-transparent $100M per year branch of local government. The Daily Memphian recently published a  one-sided infomercial article by Laura Testino and the Chamber has connections with the Memphis Tomorrow like MFM.  More on that in the next section.

Sports Authority – With all the money spent and ripped off downtown, and in addition to the $230M from the State for FedEx Forum, more local taxpayer money is going to be spent downtown as in $814M over 25 yrs consisting of money that should be coming back to local tax coffers for tourism related public expenditures. Such expenditures would include in part, public transit, when issues at MATA get sorted out. The funding sources wrongly dedicated to the Sports Authority consist of rental car tax, hotel/motel tax and MLGW PILOT. All total an estimated $1.2B more scheduled to be spent downtown, over 25 yrs.

MATA Coverup – MATA is covering up what caused the $70M public transit agency to implode by not answering public information requests. Chamber has been a cheerleader for MATA while not asking the tough questions on what happened with public funds. So much for government efficiency.

MLGW Capital Spend Scam – MLGWs capital spend costs have exploded under CEO Doug McGowen from $1.2B to $2.3B for their Way Forward capital upgrade plan. It’s $500M, adjusted for inflation increase of more than 33%. All with the Chamber in close proximity.

Like all the above, the More for Memphis (MFM) public-private partnership is really more taxes for Memphis. While philanthropic dollars are touted, MFM is a proposed non-transparent publicly funded redundancy to what local public government is already supposed to be doing in 1) community development 2) economic development 3) youth and education 4) health and well-being and 5) Safety and Justice.

The 5yr MFM program promises to spend $1.4B on the above, while the public portion is $1B. That is $200M from federal, state, and local government across 5 yrs, totaling $1B. That likely translates into $100M in local funding. As far as the local tax contribution from residents and businesses, the $100M is captured in the above table with a resident with a $200K house paying $278  per year, a small business with appraised property value of $1M paying $2,057 and a corporation or developer with a 75% PILOT paying $514 per year on $1M of appraised value.

For analysis, just blow off the philanthropy, much of it is hot air. Memphis “philanthropists” have consistently shown they want your local tax dollars. Think Riverfront and all the ripoffs.

Do taxpayers really need to spend $1B on public redundancy while public transactions are not transparent through the availability of current financials, open public board meetings and FOIA requests? This is nuts and nothing more than a formalization of the failed non-transparent Memphis Tomorrow integrated into local government.

All the above local excesses add up to $1.8B. And that does not include the cost of botching the workforce development system for years. The Greater Memphis Chamber is a joke and to make matters worse, they want more of your local tax dollars.