"It's Called Progress"*

The Citizens to Preserve Overton Park went before the City Council parks committee Tuesday to ask the council to do four things:

1. Restore 17 acres of old-growth forest, currently controlled by the Memphis Zoo, to free, public use.



2. Update the contract. Originally drafted in 1994, the contract is between the Memphis Zoological Society and the now-defunct Parks Commission.

3. Update the 1988 Overton Park master plan. Though the plan had a horizon of 20 years (and considering it's 2008, that's just about now) it looks unlikely another master plan will be drafted in the near future. Parks director Cindy Buchanan said she thought they could deal with the issue of the forest without spending the dollars needed for a master plan.

4. Create some sort of long-term legal preservation for the old-growth forest, either a conservation easement or a state natural area designation.

I won't go into it very much — if you want to read background on the issue, go here or here.

Construction at Teton Trek

New council member Wanda Halbert — fresh off the evergreen-contract friendly environment of the city schools — mentioned that she was concerned both about public input and how the city seems to be abdicating its responsibilities to quasi-governmental agencies.

"I value our partnerships, but this is city property," she said.

The irony is that the very next thing on the agenda — the very next thing — was an agreement between the city and the University of Tennessee for the school to provide maintenance, security, and other enhancements to Forrest Park.

As presented to the council, the agreement would initially run for a year, then, like the zoo's contract, be renewed each subsequent year unless terminated.

UT vice chancellor Ken Brown said the park was in the heart of their campus and they are interested in adding more lighting and video cameras.

"All improvements will be endorsed by the city," he said.

Halbert, however, wanted to add a more definite time frame to the agreement. "You always forget to terminate a contract," she said.

*"It's called progress," courtesy of Barbara Swearengen Ware. The council member said that not everyone is proud that Memphians stopped the interstate from going through Overton Park and the zoo needs to be able to continue to expand and add new amenities.

Staycation

Last weekend, I think I probably had the busiest weekend I've had in a loooong time.

It was one of those weekends that's kind of like being on vacation in your own city — okay, a staycation — where you go to places you've never been before or haven't visited in a long time. And you meet all kinds of new (sometimes crazy) people and, despite them, you remember, hey, this place is pretty cool.

With a nod to my friend Moxie over at Listwork, here's a list of my staycation destinations.

1. David Lusk Gallery for the Price is Right show. Convinced my friend to buy a painting by Dwayne Butcher that reminded her of a cupcake. Desperately wanted a piece by Carolyn Bomar that looked nothing like a cupcake.

2. L Ross Gallery. Felt equally silly for loving watercolors of animals with other animals on their heads and a watercolor of the Olsen twins.

3. Had various starchy foods at the Belmont Grill.

4. Celebrated the beginning of the tax-free weekend by closing down Macy's shoe and ladies' departments at 11 p.m.

5. Skated at Shelby Farms. I've never seen so many dragonflies in my life. I'm talking hordes of dragonflies. As I was going around Patriot Lake, it was like swimming through a cloud of them.

Don't think I wasn't worried one was going to land in my mouth. I was. One hit my friend in the head. (Update: Yesterday, one hit me in the cheek, right under my left eye. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I ran into it with my cheek. Either way, ow!)

6. The Bagel Company on Poplar. Got the lox bagel — all it was missing was some capers.

7. Lyna's Nails. Got a manicure. Somehow managed not to mess it up before it dried.

8. More tax-free weekend celebrating at DSW, TJMaxx, Saddle Creek.

9. Got a slice of New York-style pizza at a strange little building in the parking lot of Lowe's in East Memphis. Got a lecture on religion, too.

10. Second-to-None Scooter store. Was having some work done on my scooter and had to go pick it up.

11. Broad Avenue. After realizing that I couldn't find my driver's license, my friend told me she had seen something fly up from my scooter when I hit a set of train tracks on Broad Avenue. At first I thought she had probably just seen some trash — of which there was PLENTY right there — but no, she was right. I found my ID in the middle of the road, just a little worse for the wear.

12. Mollie Fontaine's. Sat in a high-backed chair that matched my shirt. I love it when that happens.

13. Mary's. Had a beer. Watched a Cheetah Girls music video, thought it was Miley Cyrus.

14. The Cove. Brought back the Shirley Temple.

15. Senses. Danced on the platform.

16. Taco Bell. When I ordered, they told us they had run out of beef, which seems sort of extraordinary. It led to all sorts of confusion with the order and the substitutions and then, wouldn't you know it, I got a taco with beef in it.

17. Late night drive around the city.

18. Ate sushi at Wild Oats. They'd taken the gigantic fruit off the top and put it in a dumpster in front of the building, where it looked like huge, rotted fruit. Wished I had a camera.

19. Hung out at my friend's pool.

20. TCBY. It was under a new owner and new management, but I could believe it was yogurt.

Age and Education

Memphis City Schools deputy superintendent of academic operations Irving Hamer calls 9,000 elementary students a "ticking bomb."

They are students who, during K-5, have already been held back by at least one grade.

"I can practically say categorically that these students do not graduate," Hamer told the MCS board at its most recent meeting.

Add to that the almost 7,000 students who get held back during middle school, and the almost 10,000 that get held back in high school, and the district is looking at 22 percent of its students being overage by the time they reach 12th grade.

Hamer, who arrived at the district 10 days ago, has a plan to recruit 2,000 college students to improve literacy among overage students. Once reading skills improve, the district would follow up with a summer reading clinic for those same students.

They didn't go into it last night, but I assume those same overage children also pose a challenge to school safety and security.

MCS might be looking at students who have been held back because of academic achievement but, across the nation, the age of children in schools has gotten older, mostly because they are starting school later. A recently released study by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that 40 years ago, 96 percent of six-year-olds were in first grade or above. In 2005, only 84 percent of those children were in first grade or above.

Conventional wisdom tells parents to hold younger students back in kindergarten, especially if they are small for their age or are boys. Some schools, with a nod to high stakes testing, think the extra year gives students a better chance to meet federal benchmarks.

But that might not be the case. From the study's abstract:

"The relatively late start of boys in primary school explains a small but significant portion of the rising gender gaps in high school graduation and college completion. Increases in the age of legal school entry intensify socioeconomic differences in educational attainment, since lower-income children are at greater risk of dropping out of school when they reach the legal age of school exit."

Power Struggle

Last week, the Charter Commission held their third-to-last meeting and, though they didn't vote on anything, power — and who should have it — seemed to be the question of the day.

The commission discussed whether they needed the City Council to approve their recommendations. Commission members were concerned that there was not enough time to do so and that the City Council might not approve their recommendations.

"There's no reason to suggest that the council will challenge our actions," said charter commission chair and city council member Myron Lowery. "You're giving hypotheticals I don't see any reason for."

Former judge George Brown also wanted to restrict future charter commission members from holding other elected offices. Brown said that Lowery's knowledge and expertise was invaluable on certain issues, but seemed to suggest there could be a conflict of interest by serving on the two bodies.

For instance, Brown also wanted to discuss a provision that would prevent the City Council from altering the powers of the mayor.

"We spent a lot of time on the contracting authority of the mayor, only to have at their next meeting a City Council ordinance that would have undone what we put before the voters," Brown said.

There is currently a move by the City Council to require council approval for mayoral appointments to deputy directorships. The council has to approve division directors, but both types of positions are appointed by the mayor.

"Explain the matter presently before the council," Brown told Lowery. "You can take Poplar or Union to Germantown, but it seems to me the council is trying to get to Germantown one way or the other.

"The charter should determine the office of the mayor as well as the other two branches of government. Of the three branches, your branch is the only one that has the power to put anything before the public for a vote."

Lowery held that the council does not have the authority to alter the powers of the mayor and that restricting the powers of the council would be unconstitutional.

Saturday at Mollie Fontaine's

Girls Night Out makes my feet hurt ... but in a good way.

Photo courtesy of Stephanie Chockley

Broadside

This week, the UrbanArt Commission moved its office from Madison and 3rd Street downtown to Broad Avenue, and I'm wondering what, if anything, that means for the neighborhood.

Here's a pic from Weeden Arts Watch.

I've been really interested in Broad Avenue and Binghamton ever since it was chosen as the laboratory for the new unified development code a few years ago.

A friend of mine and I were standing on the street last week, just chatting, and she looked at the buildings and suddenly said, this would be a cool place to live.

On the one hand, there's a new elementary school in Binghamton, a nice parcel of vacant land for redevelopment near East Parkway, and, perhaps most appealing, really good bones.

Broad Avenue has a distinct feel to it, one that seems to me to be pseudo-nostalgic. The scale between the height of the buildings, the width of the sidewalk, and the street seems just about right.

On the other hand, there's the Lester Street murders, last week's gangland shoot-out, and tons of car break-ins (including, but certainly not limited to, at last year's hottie biscotti party for the Flyer's annual Hotties issue).

Vote Early and Often

It's time again for the Flyer's Best of Memphis readers' poll!

And I hear that there are even prizes involved.

Now, every year, after the Besties come out, I hear complaints about the results. Like, why is Target the best gift store? Or, how come McDonalds won best burger?

Well, let me just tell you, it's not because I think McDonalds has the best burger or even because they advertise with us — it's because the majority of the ballots voted for them. (This example has never actually happened, as far as I know, and McDonalds doesn't advertise with us, but you get the picture.)

So if you want to see someone (read: yourself) win something, it might be worth doing some campaigning. You know, buttons, cupcakes with your face on them, television commercials that end with you saying, "I approve this message."


And if you want to vote for me for something, well, that's fine, too.

(I was just kidding about voting early and often. You should really only vote once — we've been doing this a long time and there are people here that can smell fraudulent triple, quadruple and googaluple votes from a mile away. They won't tell me how, tho.)