Story and Pictures by Dr. Yvonne D. Nelson, Dr. Carnita Atwater held a meeting on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, regarding the Memphis 3.0 Plan, a comprehensive set of recommended developments designed, among other things, to grow Memphis up instead of out. The meeting was held at the Dave Community Center, 915 Chelsea Avenue in the north Memphis community. The parking lot began to fill up and by the start of the 6 o’clock meeting, there weren’t any parking spaces available. Attendees signed in upon entering the location and everyone was given the opportunity to speak towards the end of the meeting. On hand for the event were city of Memphis employees John Zeanah, Director of the Office of Planning and Development (OPD) and the Comprehensive Planning Administrator Ashley Cash. Both tried to assure the crowd that they were open to suggestions all of which fell on deaf ears. The lengthy list of speakers began to discuss issues pertinent to their varied areas of town to no avail and several City Council District 7 candidates including Jerred Price spoke. “Your communication and marketing could be a lot better,” said Price, who currently volunteers as a Commissioner with Memphis City Beautiful. “I can post all the time on Facebook, but that doesn’t reach the voters. We’ve got a lot of voters. You’ve got to put flyers on doorknobs and door handles. I would encourage you to maybe reconsider your marketing plan.” Another meeting was held at the Hickory Hill Community Center, 3910 Ridgeway Road, on Monday, April 29, 2019. Comments from social media sites seemed to mirror those of the meeting held on the 17th. It appears as if the city of Memphis, OPD needs to scratch the current plan and go back to the drawing board or the community needs to be allowed to draw up the plans for their own neighborhoods. My point is that I have been actively involved with the McCorkle Road Neighborhood Development Association, Inc. of Memphis since its inception in 1994 when we were given street signs by the Memphis Police Department and officially considered to be a registered neighborhood watch group, a designation they reneged on April 16, 2019, because the Raines Station precinct couldn’t find any records on the association in their files. A quick look at the neighborhood listing of the 1,170 active neighborhood associations that the Memphis 3.0 Plan representatives sent letters to omits my association as well. I do not know if it is proper to say that only those who the plan, as written, and currently benefits were the only one’s contacted, but surely one would think that my 25-year old neighborhood association should have been properly notified when these 1,170 letters were mailed. In closing I just want to say that I’ve been trying to obtain information from several city departments, but I never get a response. I can pull up documents requesting a neighborhood association listing, but what I received was a listing with mostly affluent neighborhood associations in it. When I complained that none of the associations listed were in the predominantly black areas, I was informed that a neighborhood directory no longer existed, so how did the (Continued on next page) (Above) Dr. Carnita Atwater (standing) addressed a room full of Memphis 3.0 Plan opponents during a meeting she held on April 17, 2019, at the Dave Wells Community Center, 912 Chelsea Avenue. (Below) 26
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