VOL. TMN-6 | NO. 11 | Saturday, March 9, 2013
Officials seek new approach in battle against organized crime
Cecil Dotson was a gang member until the day he died violently five years ago this month.
The idea of “safety zones” to combat the problems posed by street gangs is a sea change in tactics. Less than 30 years ago, Memphis Police Department brass took the official position that gangs did not exist in Memphis.
The Memphis News Almanac
2012: E. Hunter Harrison, the former CEO of Canadian National Railway Co. spoke to the first class of the leadership academy of the University of Memphis Intermodal Freight Transportation Institute. A month later, Harrison was named CEO of rival Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., sparking a legal battle between the two rail giants for the next year over Harrison’s no-compete agreement. The battle ended last month with CP agreeing not to hire a group of more than 100 CN employees until the end of 2016.
Bass Pro Shops’ exterior building and site improvements for repurposing the city-owned Pyramid as a destination retailer were approved by the Design Review Board Wednesday, March 6, but the board asked for more time to digest the company’s controversial signage requests.
The first formal notices of 2013 Shelby County property values in the once-every-four-years reappraisal for taxation purposes were mailed Monday, March 4, to owners of commercial and industrial cost properties as well as homeowners in Hickory Hill, Whitehaven and parts of Southwest Memphis.
Orpheum leaders rethink expansion due to lack of donor dollars
The Orpheum Theatre Memphis’ expansion of its iconic South Main campus is being “re-energized” due to an unanticipated lack of donor dollars.
The Memphis-based investment firm opposing Dell Inc.’s proposed $24.4 billion buyout because it says the amount undervalues the company is continuing to press its case, sending a letter this week to Dell’s board at the same time Dell’s share price was climbing higher.
The special master appointed by U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee Judge Samuel “Hardy” Mays to oversee the schools merger knows the political and fiscal dealings of large local government entities.
The state of Tennessee has told the city of Memphis it will probably take two years for it to take over auto inspection duties in Shelby County.
City’s homeless transform their lives through Baptist project
Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. has been nationally recognized for its work providing health care services for the homeless population of the Mid-South, helping people like Grace Hilton-Young transform their lives.
Patterson Warehouses Inc. is boosting its longtime local presence with a new lease in DeSoto County.
The 37th annual Memphis in May International Festival is a salute to Sweden, a country whose climate differs greatly from the host town but perhaps has some parallels in its rich history.
The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law and its Public Action Law Society are sponsoring the fourth annual alternative spring break next week.
Food truck owners eye bountiful spring months
The winter months can be tougher on food truck vendors as cold temperatures often keep paying customers inside. But as spring approaches and nicer weather resumes, many local operators are getting set to ramp up operations.
The MetLife Foundation and Partners for Livable Communities recently selected the Plough Foundation and Memphis to participate in the City Leaders Institute on Aging in Place, a national pilot project striving to help people aged 65 years and older to live independently in their homes.
A pair of admen from Memphis will be in Austin, Texas, presenting at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival that starts later this week.
The Shelby County Commission and the county’s suburban mayors agree in writing and in a court proceeding on something related to schools.
Loeb incorporates art projects into Overton Square redevelopment
The firm redeveloping Overton Square considers its task at hand to be playing to its Midtown audience – not only in building construction, but also in incorporating art.
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is regarded as one of the country’s most accomplished and high-profile women in business, and she has a new book coming out later this month on issues women face in the workplace.
Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis capped off its month-long celebration of American Heart Month by hosting a seminar by Dr. Basil Paulus titled “Getting Heart Smart … What You Need to Know.”
On Saturday, March 9, the Tigers finish out the regular season at FedExForum against UAB. We know if they win this game, they will have a perfect 16-0 record in the last season in Conference USA. We also know it will be the last time Tigers fans get to see senior D.J. Stephens play – dunk – in a home Tigers game.
Decades ago, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart summed up the definition of obscenity with these words: “I know it when I see it.”
MEMPHIS STANDOUT
Heather Baugus Koury has been executive director of the American Institute of Architects Memphis chapter for more than a decade, and although she was just named to the distinguished status of Honorary AIA, she’s never considered becoming a practitioner.
MEMPHIS LAW TALK
Clay Purdom, director and shareholder with Martin, Tate, Morrow & Marston PC, says he comes from a “numbers family.”
MEMPHIS NEWSMAKERS
Justin Fink has joined Diamond Cos., an International truck dealership holding company, as senior vice president, truck sales. In the new role, Fink oversees new and used truck sales, and helps develop programs and processes to grow customer relationships, sales and profits.
828 E. Holmes Road Memphis, TN 38116
LOCAL COLUMNISTS
FAILING TO DECIDE. I once heard advertising legend and certifiable-one-of-a-kind Jerry Della Femina give the keynote address at an Ad Age Creative Workshop in San Francisco. He was bemoaning the loss of creativity in American advertising at the time and the homogenizing of our colorful national character into a colorless blob. As I remember it, he said he’d had a dream that sometime in the late 60s all the radicals, revolutionaries, hippies, dropouts, turn-ons and turn-offs all got together in a field somewhere to figure out what to do next to take over the country.
Will a new logo raise money? Will it attract a new donors and volunteers? Can it transform your nonprofit’s relationship to the community? Maybe. The answer depends on the amount of work completed prior to bringing on a graphic designer. Let us start at the end: If you invest in a logo instead of asking hard organizational questions, your logo may not deliver what you want it to. There really are no shortcuts to raising money.
Ray’s Take In my 30 years of investment management, I’ve found there is always someone predicting another market downturn. Eventually they’ll be right. After all, historically, there’s been a bear market about every three years. Should you be concerned? Not overly, unless your decisions make a market downturn even more painful.
The due date was Feb. 7. First child. The expectant couple declined all invitations, exhortations and overt begging from friends and relatives to disclose, or even hint at, the name they planned to give their daughter.
Countless studies have proven that it’s generally six to eight times more expensive to attract a new customer than to sell more product or service to an existing customer. Why, then, do so many view sales as a linear process, which ends when the sale is closed?
The “final” privacy regulations (Final Rule) under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) apply to certain medical data held by health care providers, insurance companies and health plans.
Brainstorming sessions can easily devolve into a contest of strong egos or a parade of old, tired ideas and their accompanying resentments. Worse, meetings around ideation or innovation sour when there is lack of good manners.
Last week we discussed BRIDGES, which is an organization working to unite and inspire diverse young people to become confident and courageous leaders committed to community transformation. This week, let us highlight an organization focused on keeping homeless families together by providing free, temporary housing and the means to re-establish their independence: the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality (DDHH).
When it comes to an annual property tax and operating expense pass-through, it may really cost you to let an invoice for this simply slide through to your accounts payable department without a second glance.
The worldwide adoption of competition and capitalistic principles has unlocked tremendous prosperity growth. At the core of this prosperity movement are the unique advantages created by urbanizing the world’s population. Urban populations are more productive, more innovative and more efficient than their rural peers.
So you have tried all the subtle ways to get a subordinate to start doing something that needs to be done to make things better in your business, or stop doing something that is causing problems. What do you do now? Maybe it’s time to turn up the intensity a bit. Maybe it’s time for the “serious consequences” conversation.
“We’re making our community, by disagreement and discord, a very unattractive place to live, visit and locate businesses.”