It’s that special elitist holiday time of year again in public chambers. A time when your tax dollars are doled out to non-transparent elitist initiatives like the Sheraton and More for Memphis (MFM).

A potential beneficiary of MFM will be Commissioner Mick Wright’s Youth Villages. County Commissioners Wright and Erika Sugarmon are sponsoring the $1 billion publicly budgeted, non-transparent MFM initiative for Shelby County Commission consideration.

The MFM initiative sets out to outsource entire functions of public governance to nonprofit management and non-transparency. The initiative appears to be a publicly funded rerun of the 20 yr failed Memphis Tomorrow initiative, with the likely involvement of Seeding Success as fiscal agent.

Public outsourced functions include: 1) Education and Youth, 2) Economic Development, 3) Arts and Culture, 4) Community Development, 5) Health and Well Being and 6) Justice and Safety.

Many of the Memphis Tomorrow like gang are on the Seeding Success Board and include EDGE’s Al Bright, Memphis Tomorrow’s Blair Taylor and Michael Fulton. Fulton is the deposed Board Chair of the recently publicly ripped Memphis Area Transit Authority.

The $1B MFM initiative, in its it’s current legislative form, is a race baiting, fiscally liberal, unaccountable, non-transparent, corporate socialist POS. In pursuit of economic mobility (poverty remediation), the regional MFM plan mentions “Black” 183 times and “Black and brown” 72 times.

C’mon man, economic mobility is about poverty remediation, not race. Besides, “ helping black people in Memphis” can be shown to be the largest and longest running municipal public scam in contemporary American history. Can we get out of the stone age and cut the bullshit on race by focusing on serving taxpayers and remediating poverty? C'mon....

I  prefer public AND private, not the incestuous confusion that comes with public-private partnerships. Public-private partnerships are typically non-transparent while shifting financial risk to the tax paying public. But if publicly transparent, measured and properly fiscally managed, public-private partnerships (PPP) have the potential to work.

This is because PPPs, in theory, promise public transparency, collaborative funding and the efficiency of the private sector. But in practice, the former public benefits are rarely realized due to inadequate local checks and balances. To that extent, this blog will work from the currently proposed $1.4B Seeding Success More for Memphis (MFM) PPP plan to propose a methodology for how large PPP initiatives can be publicly checked to facilitate community betterment. Multiple coherent views of the entire $1.4B Seeding Success MFM budget have been published on the Taxpayer Justice Institute website.

Public concerns regarding PPPs and delegated authority are on target. After all, in the wake of Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP), Memphis/Shelby taxpayers are victims to recent public botches in the $10M Cobblestone Landing, $4M Mud Island and $7M Cossitt Library projects. The Cossitt project, yes indeed, set out to honor black people, only to leave a majority black community in need, holding the bag on completing project, while MRPP was paid in full. 

And as far as delegated authority, the failed MATA public transit system has left taxpayers holding the bag. It’s indeed probable that such a disaster could have been avoided had the City of Memphis fiscally managed transit expenditures as opposed to the lump sum annual granting of $30M. And then there are other examples of taxpayers holding the bag with, for example Millena Housing. By design PPPs shift financial risk to the public. Because of this reality, public transparency, measurement, and fiscal management are needed to decrease PPP public financial risk.

As proposed, Seeding Success proposes a non-transparent MFM plan. Non-transparent because the Seeding Success non-profit, as fiscal agent, would not be required to answer public information requests, hold public board meetings, or publish current financials. Further, Seeding Success proposes a MFM Governing Board. This proposed MFM Board unnecessarily complicates the PPP oversight structure, while distancing Seeding Success, the publicly funded entity, from direct public oversight.

At the same time, Seeding Success has professional, fundraising, and local networking capacity that should be leveraged for community betterment, coupled with their ability to navigate multiple public bureaucracies that address a chief local concern in public education. These attributes position Seeding Success with the potential to deliver community betterment. So how can Seeding Success MFM plan implementation, through joint City/County ordinance, be structured to best insure checks and balances and community betterment?

The following recommendations assume Seeding Success as the administrator for the MFM initiative. The recommendations also exclude any criticisms of MFM programming or exclusionary divisive marketing plan language while engaging the specific topics of public transparency, measurement, and fiscal management. The recommendations are as follows:

Public Transparency – All Seeding Success board meetings are open to the public while Seeding Success answers public information requests and publishes annually audited and monthly current financials within 45 days of the month end. Without transparency, annually audited and current monthly financials, the public is blind to what is happening with tax dollars on a current basis. And without public board meetings, public concerns regarding public fund use go unheard.

Public Measurement – Seeding Success public impact evaluation can only occur with publicly administered measurement systems that standardize on and leverage public data. Measurement of public funds is not an exercise that should involve collaboration with private entities. The public entity for this work would be the County as the primary public funder of education, workforce, and economic development.

Public Fiscal Management – Away from annual and lump sum granting, public government will maintain fiscal agency and release funds against appropriately priced and performed contract deliverables and will advance to Seeding Success no longer that one quarter of operational funds (Remember MATA?). Annual and lump sum granting of public funds to PPPs has not worked for Shelby County community betterment. Collection of promised private funds, would also be validated prior to the release of MFN supporting public funds.

Ideally, public funding bodies would evaluate and discuss Seeding Success/MFM financial information, public data, and contract deliverables without presentation prompts or Seeding Success/MFM quarterly reports. Public comments by Seeding Success and the public would follow, at least quarterly, at regularly scheduled Seeding Success evaluative public funding body discussions.

So yes. Public private partnerships have the potential to work for community betterment when coupled with public checks and balances.

It’s that special elitist holiday time of year again in public chambers. A time when your tax dollars are doled out to non-transparent elitist initiatives like the Sheraton and More for Memphis (MFM).

A potential beneficiary of MFM will be Commissioner Mick Wright’s Youth Villages. County Commissioners Wright and Erika Sugarmon are sponsoring the $1 billion publicly budgeted, non-transparent MFM initiative for Shelby County Commission consideration.

The MFM initiative sets out to outsource entire functions of public governance to nonprofit management and non-transparency. The initiative appears to be a publicly funded rerun of the 20 yr failed Memphis Tomorrow initiative, with the likely involvement of Seeding Success as fiscal agent.

Public outsourced functions include: 1) Education and Youth, 2) Economic Development, 3) Arts and Culture, 4) Community Development, 5) Health and Well Being and 6) Justice and Safety.

Many of the Memphis Tomorrow like gang are on the Seeding Success Board and include EDGE’s Al Bright, Memphis Tomorrow’s Blair Taylor and Michael Fulton. Fulton is the deposed Board Chair of the recently publicly ripped Memphis Area Transit Authority.

The $1B MFM initiative, in its it’s current legislative form, is a race baiting, fiscally liberal, unaccountable, non-transparent, corporate socialist POS. In pursuit of economic mobility (poverty remediation), the regional MFM plan mentions “Black” 183 times and “Black and brown” 72 times.

C’mon man, economic mobility is about poverty remediation, not race. Besides, “ helping black people in Memphis” can be shown to be the largest and longest running municipal public scam in contemporary American history. Can we get out of the stone age and cut the bullshit on race by focusing on serving taxpayers and remediating poverty? C'mon....

I  prefer public AND private, not the incestuous confusion that comes with public-private partnerships. Public-private partnerships are typically non-transparent while shifting financial risk to the tax paying public. But if publicly transparent, measured and properly fiscally managed, public-private partnerships (PPP) have the potential to work.

This is because PPPs, in theory, promise public transparency, collaborative funding and the efficiency of the private sector. But in practice, the former public benefits are rarely realized due to inadequate local checks and balances. To that extent, this blog will work from the currently proposed $1.4B Seeding Success More for Memphis (MFM) PPP plan to propose a methodology for how large PPP initiatives can be publicly checked to facilitate community betterment. Multiple coherent views of the entire $1.4B Seeding Success MFM budget have been published on the Taxpayer Justice Institute website.

Public concerns regarding PPPs and delegated authority are on target. After all, in the wake of Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP), Memphis/Shelby taxpayers are victims to recent public botches in the $10M Cobblestone Landing, $4M Mud Island and $7M Cossitt Library projects. The Cossitt project, yes indeed, set out to honor black people, only to leave a majority black community in need, holding the bag in completing the project, while MRPP was paid in full. 

And as far as delegated authority, the failed MATA public transit system has left taxpayers holding the bag. It’s indeed probable that such a disaster could have been avoided had the City of Memphis fiscally managed transit expenditures as opposed to the lump sum annual granting of $30M. And then there are other examples of taxpayers holding the bag with, for example Millena Housing.

By design PPPs shift financial risk to the public. Because of this reality, public transparency, measurement, and fiscal management are needed to decrease PPP public financial risk.

As proposed, the Seeding Success/MFM plan is nontransparent. Non-transparent because the Seeding Success non-profit, as fiscal agent, would not be required to answer public information requests, hold public board meetings, or publish current financials. Further, Seeding Success proposes a MFM Governing Board. This proposed MFM Board unnecessarily complicates the PPP oversight structure, while distancing Seeding Success, the publicly funded entity, from direct public oversight.

At the same time, Seeding Success has professional, fundraising, and local networking capacity that should be leveraged for community betterment, coupled with their ability to navigate multiple public bureaucracies that address a chief local concern in public education. These attributes position Seeding Success with the potential to deliver community betterment. So how can Seeding Success MFM plan implementation, through joint City/County ordinance, be structured to best insure checks and balances and community betterment?

The following recommendations assume Seeding Success as the administrator for the MFM initiative. The recommendations also exclude any criticisms of MFM programming or exclusionary divisive marketing plan language while engaging the specific topics of public transparency, measurement, and fiscal management. The recommendations are as follows:

Public Transparency – All Seeding Success board meetings are open to the public while Seeding Success answers public information requests and publishes annually audited and monthly current financials within 45 days of the month end. Without transparency, annually audited and current monthly financials, the public is blind to what is happening with tax dollars on a current basis. And without public board meetings, public concerns regarding public fund use go unheard.

Public Measurement – Seeding Success public impact evaluation can only occur with publicly administered measurement systems that standardize on and leverage public data. Measurement of public funds is not an exercise that should involve collaboration with private entities. The public entity for this work would be the County as the primary public funder of education, workforce, and economic development.

Public Fiscal Management – Away from annual and lump sum granting, public government will maintain fiscal agency and release funds against appropriately priced and performed contract deliverables and will advance to Seeding Success no longer that one quarter of operational funds (Remember MATA?). Annual and lump sum granting of public funds to PPPs has not worked for Shelby County community betterment. Collection of promised private funds, would also be validated prior to the release of MFN supporting public funds.

Ideally, public funding bodies would evaluate and discuss Seeding Success/MFM financial information, public data, and contract deliverables without presentation prompts or Seeding Success/MFM quarterly reports. Public comments by Seeding Success and the public would follow, at least quarterly, at regularly scheduled Seeding Success evaluative public funding body discussions.

So yes. Public private partnerships have the potential to work for community betterment when coupled with public checks and balances.

Here is some proposed amending legislative language to help provide adequate PPP Seeding Success/MFM checks and balances.