Posted on September - 24 - 2010
In meeting with transportation secretary, mayors make the case for Memphis
WASHINGTON — The mayors of Memphis and Shelby County made their case today for increased federal funding in a meeting with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The mayors, joined by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked LaHood for, among other things, a favorable decision on an application for major improvements to the Main Street corridor downtown.
The larger message, however, was that local governments are well-managed and ready to work together to achieve solid results, said Memphis Mayor A C Wharton.
“I am fully pleased,” said Memphis Mayor A C Wharton. “It was not so much about making a case for a particular item as it was laying a broad and solid foundation and showing there’s going to be a solid and, to use the secretary’s word, ‘collaborative’ — he used the term ‘collaboration’ — between the city, county and the region.”
It was the first time city and county mayors have traveled together to Washington since Dick Hackett and Bill Morris were in office.
“I walked away with a good feeling,” said Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell. “We didn’t go into it expecting any promises and we didn’t get any promises, but I think we got off to a good start.”
Wharton added that they were “able to impress upon him that we’ve got a good record of managing large grants,” noting that Memphis is the only city in the country to have received five HOPE VI federal housing grants. They also noted that all transportation funding through the Metropolitan Planning Organization is fully allocated.
“The point we kept driving home is that, when dollars come to Memphis, we know how to manage them and will manage them and can serve as a model for other cities and counties and regions throughout the country,” Wharton said.
Cohen said the meeting was “excellent” and “really tremendous,” and made LaHood more familiar with Memphis’ role as distribution hub. Cohen said he pointed out to LaHood — a former Republican Congressman from Illinois serving in a Democratic administration — that Luttrell is a Republican and former sheriff and that Wharton is a Democrat and former public defender, and yet they work well together.
Luttrell said the mayors told LaHood about Memphis’ recent successes with the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Education Department’s Race to the Top initiative, as well as Shelby County’s receipt of Operation Safe Community grants.
Both Cohen and Wharton mentioned that they talked to LaHood about FedEx CEO Frederick W. Smith’s concept for concentrating electric car recharging infrastructure in the region. LaHood knew about the FedEx hub but was evidently unaware that Smith calls Memphis home.
They also talked about the role the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) II discretionary grant to revitalize the three-mile Main Street corridor would play in the heart of Downtown.
Cohen said he planned to take Luttrell to lunch in the Members Dining Room this afternoon, which Luttrell told him he hadn’t been in since he served as a House page when Robert A. “Fats” Everett represented Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District. Everett served from 1958 to 1969. Luttrell, who was a page when he was 16 years old, called Everett a “marvelous Old South politician.”
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