How Quickly They Forget

First there's this:

Efforts to bring financial closure to the FedExForum project were slowed on Tuesday by a Memphis City Council committee.

A proposal to spend unused windstorm-damage funds on financial settlements drew a 4-4 vote, meaning it will go to the full council Nov. 15 without recommendation.

The proposal is to spend $1.4 million in unused storm-damage funds for the project to settle several outstanding debts.

If I recall correctly, this money was taken from the City's rainy day fund. Why isn't it being returned there, given we only have $600,000 in it at this time?

The City plays this shell game all the time. Speaking of the FedUp Forum, MATA "contributed" somewhere between $1 and 2 million for an customer stop/office in the southeast corner of the Forum. The office is only blocks from the North Terminal, duplicating its function, and has never been opened! It just sits there gathering dust.

The City has also taken funds accumulated from the City Code Enforcement fees fund, over $10 million, to use for demolishing the Baptist Hospital complex downtown. No relation between the two; the money was just sitting there and the City wanted to bring the building down for the new Biotech Initiative.

The daily paper desultorily reports this, but never seems to catch the big picture. It's an endless string of discrete events, instead of a steadily accumulating array of pointillist dots painting a much larger canvas.

This is why the City has such money troubles -- the Mayor and City Council are promiscuous with money. It's all fungible for them, all esily convertible since it's "theirs." Doesn't matter if there are walls of intent and design; it's just one big pot o' gold.

Well, that and a City Council not doing due diligence in knowing what's going on; a Mayor who thinks openness is a dirty word; a Mayor who lavishly rewards his people; a culture of entitlement and corruption with tendrils in every office of government from top to bottom.