vibinc

Progressive Politics from Memphis

  • AC at bat

    The whole AutoZone Park affair has shades of the baseball poem, Casey at bat. An idea, a solution for a downtown gem, that should by all rights, be a home run for a city that is trying desperately to keep the momentum going on its effort to revitalize the area. But a series of missteps…

  • I hate to say I told ya so #TennCareExpansion

    Back in March when Gov. Haslam announced the state would not be expanding Medicaid, I wrote a series of posts about the impact of this decision on rural hospitals. Seems like my early predictions are coming to fruition. In his March release, it says he’s announcing the “Tennessee Plan” which was supposed to be something…

  • Nobody Won

    Last night’s election results in the sales tax vote were surprising in the definitive margin of defeat…more than the defeat of the measure itself. It was an issue I struggled with, much like more than one of my friends. As a long time advocate of Pre-K, and someone who actually spent over a year researching…

  • Thinking about convention centers

    Twice now, in the past two weeks, Memphis City Councilman Harold Collins has publicly voiced his support for at least thinking about a new convention center here and yesterday, here. Earlier this month, Kevin Kane of the Memphis CVB told the City Council that the Cook was functionally obsolete, something I could have told you…

  • You build from the ground up…

    You may remember the legislative effort in the spring to change the makeup of the TNDP Executive Committee. I opposed that effort, at first because I saw it as a power grab, and or sour grapes…but also because I’m not a big fan of “top down” solutions to these kinds of issues. In a letter…

  • Precinct Consolidation Round 2

    It was last June…the last time the specter of precinct consolidation reared it’s ugly head. At that time I linked to a lot of things…including the intention to cut the number of precincts to 150 from 236. Last year’s precinct consolidation meant many voters didn’t get cards with their new location until the day of…