Mayor Strickland sends a out a recap after each meeting which is helpful and informative....
Apparently it was a quiet day which considering it is budget season is saying something. That is usually not the case. The last time I went to a Memphis City Council meeting dealing with the budget, I left at 11:30 PM and it was still going on.
Two things you should be interested in I see from his recap....
Residency Requirements: Over the next month, Council will consider an ordinance to require all employees of the city of Memphis to live within the city limits. The details of such a requirement are yet to be worked out in committee meetings over the next two sessions, so be certain to come out or call in to participate in that conversation.
Imagine Fedex with the restriction that only those who live in the City of Memphis can work there. Memphis has the highest property tax rate in all of Tn and is 13th in the nation. Nashville's is half the rate of Memphis and their economy is growing while ours is falling. Memphis has the nations highest sales tax rate. So yeah, go ahead and make it harder for employees to keep more of their hard earned money....that does sound like something Memphis would do.
Why does the Council want to hurt the working class? Memphis has a lot of problems. This is not going to help. Crime and education are the problem. Focus on that...
Resolutions approving up to $110,000,000 in general capital improvement bonds for MLGW, which at the same time today got approval to pay off its last round of bond issuances two years early for a savings of around $300,000.
Uhuh. Sounds peachy keen. A savings of 300,000. Just wait until the smart meter project consumes all of the MLGW budget which is projected to cost 240,000 million but all over the country, we are seeing the true costs be 3 to 4 times the projected costs.
Check out San francisco...PG&E Corp., a San Francisco utility, estimated the cost of its meter program at $1.74 billion in July 2006, but recently got permission to spend an additional $467 million, pushing the cost to $2.2 billion for 5.4 million electric meters.
In Chattanooga the projected costs were 170,000 million which skyrocket to 500,000 million.
So go ahead and gloat about a savings of 300,000 for now...the smart meter project is going to consume that savings or any other savings MLGW can conjure up and the ratepayer will be the one paying the piper.
Stay Tuned...