Mr. Dennis Freeland, Editor
The Memphis Flyer
460 Tennessee Street
P.O. Box 687
Memphis, Tennessee 38101-0687

Dear Mr. Freeland,

As a weekly reader of the Flyer, I am usually impressed by the high
quality of journalism in your newspaper.  That makes my sense of
profound disappointment at the flagrant misrepresentation of the
comments by State Sen. Tom Leatherwood at the University of Memphis
forum on incorporation all the more acute.  As an attendee (and
participant by proxy) I believe I have an obligation to clarify the
record of what happened at the forum.

Sen. Leatherwood did not argue in any way, shape or form that, as your
editorial alleges, "it made no difference to him whether or not
Memphis or other Tennessee cities might be killed off in the process"
of the incorporation battle.  In fact, he repeatedly stated the
opposite: that the suburban areas (whether they be separate cities or
unincorporated territory) depended on the health of Memphis to
survive, or (in his words) have a "symbiotic relationship."

His remarks, correctly quoted (though out of any semblance of
context), were in response to Dennis Huffer's comments in response to
my question about the viability of a consolidated government with
substantial powers for each community within that government.
Mr. Huffer stated that current state law does not provide for a
government of this form, and discussed the experience of the cities in
Davidson County that chose not to join the consolidated government of
Nashville-Davidson County.  He said that cities that had chosen to
stay out of the consolidated government were dying because the urban
services area had approached their communities, resulting in a shift
from residential to commercial uses.  Huffer said that the cities in
question would die because not enough people would be left to hold
elections.  It is Mr. Huffer's comments that Sen. Leatherwood was
referring to, as any member of the audience with more than a
five-minute attention span can attest.

On the philosophical point that Sen. Leatherwood is making your
editorial also seems to have missed his point.  Cities are not ends
into themselves; they only exist--as all forms of government do--with
the consent of the governed.  Where that consent does not exist,
government has no moral legitimacy.  On a more practical level: why
should a government exist if the people to whom it was supposed to
provide services are no longer there?

It would be pure conjecture on my part to state any motives Jackson
Baker might have had for misrepresenting Sen. Leatherwood's comments
so flagrantly.  I must assume that he did not have a recording of the
seminar to refer to when constructing his story for your paper, and
his omission of the true context of Sen. Leatherwood's remarks was an
oversight on his part.  Perhaps, in future, you may want to send a
reporter with any panelist at seminars that can be reasonably expected
to generate news, to avoid situations like this one in the future.

Your paper owes its readers an apology for this blatant
misrepresentation of the nature of Sen. Leatherwood's comments.
Perhaps you should run an editorial decrying your paper's own
inflammatory rhetoric.  To help you out, I'll deflate a few of your
own myths:

Myth: The people in incorporating areas hate Memphis.

Fact: The people in incorporating areas hate the government of
Memphis.  The government that builds a trolley line and four years
later says that it was a terrible mistake.  The government that gives
$5.5 million to private developers to build a parking garage without
getting anything in return.  The government that interferes in the
zoning of property in the annexation reserves of adjoining
municipalities (in this particular case, in territory that becomes
part of Bartlett on Thanskgiving).  The government that does all of
these things in a seven-day period.

Myth: The people in incorporating areas want a free ride.

Fact: The people in incorporating areas are willing to pay a fair
price for the services they receive.  They are willing to pay for
sewer service, light, gas, water, trash collection, police and fire
protection, the library system, and the schools they do use.  They
aren't willing to pay for a public transportation service they don't
use, a public health service they don't use, and schools they won't be
using.

Myth: The people in incorporating areas are racists who don't want to
be in a city with a black mayor.

Fact: The people in some incorporating areas have fought for years to
stay out of Memphis.  Dick Hackett was white, and the (predominantly
white, at the time) residents of Hickory Hill didn't want to be
governed by him either.  Neither did the residents of the portion of
Cordova that Memphis annexed.

Myth: The people in incorporating areas drive on Memphis roads without
paying Memphis taxes.

Fact: The people in incorporating areas patronize businesses in
Memphis (generating sales tax and property taxes for the city),
provide a workforce for those businesses, and spend most of their time
driving on roads that were paid for by state and federal funds.

Myth: Incorporations will "hem in" Memphis.

Fact: Memphis has the same land area as New York City, with one-tenth
the population.  Even without building skyscrapers, Memphis could
easily double its population by developing undeveloped land in
Frayser, Raleigh and Whitehaven, and it still could annex the
Capleville and Northaven-Woodstock areas, providing even more vacant
land.  Memphis is still free to annex all unincorporated territory in
Tennessee (because, as the largest municipality in the state, it has
automatic priority in all annexations, excluding areas incorporating
under Public Chapter 98).

Myth: Annexation is the only way for Memphis to grow.

Fact: As mentioned above, Memphis has vast areas of undeveloped land
in its current boundaries and areas that have not incorporated.

Myth: Annexation is the only way for the urban area to grow.

Fact: The annexation policy of Memphis has been to try to catch up
with development.  Instead of stopping urban sprawl, this policy has
resulted in more sprawl by causing a shift in development from annexed
areas to areas that aren't annexed.  This pattern is most clear in the
Cordova area, where rapid growth outside the annexed area can be
compared with little growth in the annexed areas to the west.  It is
also visible in the Hickory Hill area, where the possibility of
annexation has shifted development east and south.  The urban area can
continue to grow, in a more sensible manner, if growth is managed by a
body that doesn't have a sole interest in increasing the tax base of
the City of Memphis.

Myth: Incorporation will promote sprawl.

Fact: Incorporation will reduce sprawl, by allowing incorporated areas
to place sensible controls on development that are appropriate to
their communities.  It will also reduce sprawl by removing the
incentive for Memphis to extend sewer lines to areas it plans to
eventually annex.  Sewers will be extended to areas in the rural
incorporated towns (Bolton, Eads, Fisherville and Irene) as they
become necessary, instead of being extended to create development to
establish a tax base to annex in the future.

Thank you for your time and attention.  I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,


Chris Lawrence