The 2019-23 Memphis City Council was the worst Council ever. The former Council with the help of this Historic Council now has taxpayers on the hook for $3.8M per year, for a declining Sheraton Hotel owned by private investors. And if that is not enough, the dilapidated Sheraton continues to further stifle local convention economic impact.

The 2019-23 Council consisted of the current sitting Councilor members in Chase Carlisle, Ford Canale, Edmund Ford Sr., JB Smiley, Michalyn Easter Thomas, Rhonda Logan and Jeff Warren. Can you believe the worst ever were re-elected?

Councilor Carlisle claims to know more about real estate development than the other Councilors, but in practice has turned out to be an absolute civic idiot. This 2019-23 Council managed to botch MATA, Downtown and shut down the Trolley, while running Memphis in May out of Tom Lee Park and sending our tourism development zone (TDZ) tax dollars to Kansas City.

Other 2019-23 Councilors include Frank Colvett, Martavius Jones, Patrice Robinson, Worth Morgan and Cheyenne Johnson.

The 2019-23 members resulted in a COCKBLOCK Council. This Council, who was supposed to oversee the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), where all the tax incentives are doled out, managed to cockblock the commonsense renovation of the Sheraton Hotel. The Sheraton Hotel is physically connected to the $250M renovated Renasant Convention Center.

How did the Council cockblock the Sheraton? By not having a “get it done” mentality and being distracted by brands like Loews proposing all kinds of stuff. Loews should have been told to get in line but was not. At the same time, Loews ultimately pulled out of Memphis along with other proven international investors in Starwood, Schulte and Hard Rock.

Had the Council not listened to local punk family of Memphis elitists and had a sense of urgency, 2 new or renovated full-service hotels would be operational today in Downtown Memphis. Those Hotels would be the Sheraton and the Hard Rock. Former Memphis baseball great and World Championship Wing Festival founder, Paul Gagliano wrote about the failure of the Hard Rock Hotel on Beale Street. The Hard Rock Hotel was rejected in the shadows of Carlisle Corp’s proposed Grand Hyatt.

Meanwhile, the Cockblock Council managed to spend $40M on a mostly empty garage in the Downtown Mobility Center, that was to serve a hotel never built in Carlisle Corp’s Grand Hyatt. Let’s review Council Economic Development Committee testimony from 8/5/25.

The holdup of the Sheraton closing, now costing taxpayers $3.8M per year for a $30M hotel, while also stifling local convention business, is related to legal matters.  Apparently, The Young Administration is consumed with contractually herding cats in the form of up to 12 total entities associated with Carlisle Corp’s proposed operational management and renovation of the Sheraton.

Council testimony on 8/5/25 featured representatives from the Renasant Convention Center. While losing convention business in the current year, Renasant representatives testified that they cannot build a convention sales pipeline to support future rentals without a renovation plan for the Sheraton. According to Renasant and before future years, in FY25 alone, $6.4M in convention economic impact has been lost due to the dilapidated Sheraton Hotel (see document for above table).

This document presented to Council also lists entities that will NOT consider Memphis for their future convention without a Sheraton Hotel renovation: Presbyterian Church of America, Zeta Phi Beta, American Contract Compliance Association, Communication Infrastructure Contractors Association (aka. National Tower Erectors), National Foundation for Unemployment and Workers Compensation, Association of Zoo’s & Aquariums, COGIC, International Society of Arboriculture.

Renasant testimony was backed by friends of Memphis references like, locally headquartered Ducks Unlimited citing Sheraton concerns. COGIC, another locally headquartered friend of Memphis, has located their annual convention elsewhere.

But there’s more…..

Yesterday’s Council session was made more horrifying with the Historic Council, consisting of mostly strong black women along with Council mean ole white men, fully grown black men and a watch me roar white woman honoring the Greater Memphis Chamber.

Invited by Council Chair Ford Canale, while flanked by Chamber staff, each Historic Council member engaged in the repulsive exercise of reading parts of a resolution honoring the Chamber from the public speaking podium. Sickening to say the least.

Keep in mind, The Greater Memphis Chamber effectively represents the elitist punk families of Memphis, about 10 corporations and downtown developers while ignoring the large majority of their very own membership in small business.  

And know any credible Chamber would have historically lobbied for expeditious renovation of their connected convention center hotel, as well as the preservation of their most successful national festival which in Memphis was Memphis in May. The Greater Memphis Chamber SUCKS and is a proven loser being in close proximity to just about every public botch in the City to include workforce, education, MATA, the Riverfront and Downtown as a whole.

And speaking of the twat boy punk families of Memphis, they all seem to expect the taxpayer to fund a building to house the business operations of their hobby or retail business pursuits, even if it brings the local economy to a screeching halt. In this case, with Carlisle Corp running the convention center hotel…..