Faking an Outrage

Sheesh. This is just stupid. No other word for it.

In a story today, the Commercial Appeal looks at the Beale Street Landing project. Here are the headlines and opening:

Beale project starts

$500,000 earmarked for landing

Despite grim Memphis budget forecasts and a recent moratorium on new capital projects, construction of the $27.3 million Beale Street Landing got under way this week as crews began widening the entrance to the Wolf River Harbor.

Using an initial appropriation of $500,000, the Riverfront Development Corp. is excavating and dredging parts of Mud Island and the harbor to make way for the riverboat landing planned for the foot of Beale.

Wow! That sounds outrageous, doesn't it? How dare they sneak around so brazenly! In defiance of the moratorium, no less.

Ah, but wait:

The council approved the $500,000 appropriation three weeks prior to the Nov. 1 decision to halt capital projects.

Oops. Kinda undercuts the implications of the opening, doesn't it?

It does, however, give a forum to City Councillor Carol Chumney for her polish her "plain-speaking truth dealer" image. And for the reporter to wave around a lot of impressive numbers.

Rigging the reporting is unfair. I'm no supporter -- I'm a vehement critic in fact -- of the undue emphasis being placed on downtown versus the other 95% of Memphis, and of the whole project being planned for the Promenade area, but you shouldn't fake an outrage to make the point. The facts of the situation speak for themselves.

Note that the reporter doesn't seem to have contacted the RDC to ask a simple question: When were the contracts to do the job signed?