VOL. 132 | NO. 42 | Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Last Word
Bill Dries
Last Word: Gas Tax Conflict, Redbirds Changes and Hidden Office Space
By Bill Dries
The CEO of Memphis-based AutoZone, Bill Rhodes, among the corporate leaders meeting with President Donald Trump recently to urge him to abandon plans for a border tax. This is the tax on goods imported to the U.S. from other countries that U.S. Rep. David Kustoff says also has some opposition among Republicans in D.C.
Meanwhile, former AutoZone CEO Steve Odland saying corporate America is becoming too much of a prisoner of short term results reflected in quarterly earnings statements and conference calls with analysts. Odland says in a new book that business leaders have a role to play in sustaining economic growth in America.
In the Tennessee Legislature, our Nashville correspondent, Sam Stockard, reports more conflict in the House Transportation Committee likely to continue this week around Gov. Bill Haslam’s gas tax bill. Some Democrats are likening the Republican opposition to Haslam’s bill to what happened to his Medicaid expansion bill, which was crushed. Lt. Governor Randy McNally calls the House opposition a bump in the road.
Sometimes you can forget who got elected when in this business of covering politics. And that is what happened in our Monday story about the candidates for Tennessee Gov. in 2018 who are already lining up and coming to town.
Specifically we said Gov. Phil Bredesen got re-elected in 2008 as Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney took the state. The election of our governors does not coincide with presidential elections. Bredesen was re-elected in 2006 and not 2008. So there is our correction, hopefully not to be necessary again.
With that correction made, we expanded a bit on some of the themes from the weekend that saw the Lincoln Day Gala and the Obama Day dinner at the same time in different places.
As promised over the weekend, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean made his entry into the governor’s race official Monday.
Just about a month from opening day at AutoZone Park and the Memphis Redbirds make some front office changes.
A recap of our Women & Business Seminar last week at the Brooks including this quote from Keri Wright of Universal Asset Management Inc.: “I see more women in this room today than I will in my industry in the next year.”
In our Commercial Real Estate Emphasis:
The mixed-use development boon locally is also a national phenomenon. And the local part of that has been spearheaded by local investors.
Another kind of mixed use is what amounts to hidden office space in a city where logistics and warehouse space is everywhere. And lots of times, those companies don’t build a separate headquarters or at least one that is on some far away site.
The Curb Market spot in Cooper-Young won’t have much downtime between the move of Curb Market to Crosstown Concourse and the opening of Hattie B’s Hot Chicken.
Arkansas State University prepares to open a campus in Mexico after several years of other agreements failed to reach fruition.
AT&T and Time Warner change the structure of their proposed merger and the FCC is reportedly saying it won’t get involved in the acquisition by AT&T.