Mountains in Memphis? How Glenda Hicks Unmasked the Misleading “Terrain” Narrative Driving Doug McGowen and Pearl Walker’s Propaganda Campaign for an Excessively Priced $228 Million MLGW Contract — Government Gangsters, Part 9

By: SHELBY COUNTY OBSERVER Public Affairs Staff — November 16, 2025

MEMPHIS, TN— In a city where nearly half of all children live in poverty, where low-income residents bear the brunt of chronic outages, rising rates, and failing infrastructure, Memphis Light, Gas & Water has found a new justification for the most expensive tree-trimming contract in Tennessee history: Blame the Terrible Terrain. 

Instead, what unfolded at the November 14, 2025 MLGW  hearing was a coordinated public defense built on a materially inaccurate justification about terrain, repeated so confidently that it seemed rehearsed. A misdirection so absurd it felt like Memphis had slipped into a rerun of Fantasy Island — except instead of Tattoo shouting, “The plane! The plane! The plane!” we got McGowen and Councilwoman Pearl Walker insisting, “The terrain! The terrain! The terrain!”

It appeared politely, almost innocently, at first—introduced by Memphis City Councilwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington during the November 5, 2025 budget hearing. She asked President Doug McGowen to explain why Memphis pays “significantly more” for tree trimming than Nashville or Knoxville. McGowen seized the invitation like a lifeline.

The answer? Terrain.

Memphis, he insisted, is uniquely difficult. Its electric lines, he said, are “rear-lot line service,” buried behind homes, inaccessible to bucket trucks, requiring manual climbing and hand-carried debris.

What he did not say—and what community advocate and MLGW watchdog Glenda Hicks broke down with remarkable clarity in her detailed post to the Facebook group 21st Century Memphis or Bust! (Advocating for a Better MLGW), a community forum of more than 450 members —is that Nashville and Knoxville sit on far harsher terrain, with deeper hills and more complex elevations than the flat, ridge-less landscape of Memphis.

Yet both the Councilwoman and McGowen presented this narrative not as opinion. But as gospel.

Not as argument. But as fact.

It was Councilwoman Pearl Walker’s repeated insistence that this issue was “just common sense.” The terrain in Memphis is different from Nashville and Knoxville, so it’s “common sense” we will have to pay more. 

She said “common sense” at least three times during the hearing. 

City Councilwoman Pearl Walker kept invoking ‘common sense,’ but as Brent Taylor would say, I’d sure love to know where she bought hers—because it clearly didn’t come with batteries included.

And the facts contradict her rhetoric in every measurable way.

 

The Solution Memphis Ignored: Building an In-House Tree Division and The Quarter-Billion-Dollar Question McGowen Never Answered

Left entirely unsaid during the hearing was the most fiscally obvious option—one repeatedly raised by citizens, council member(s), and utility professionals across the country: MLGW could have created its own internal tree-trimming division instead of outsourcing an inflated $228 million to outside vendors.

Across the public-power sector, utilities with large, recurring vegetation-management needs routinely favor in-house crews because they are cheaper, more controllable, and less vulnerable to billing inflation than multi-vendor contracts. Internal staffing eliminates contractor profit margins, allows stable salaries instead of speculative per-mile rates, ensures year-round oversight, and builds institutional knowledge that cannot be outsourced.

Had MLGW pursued this path, Memphis could have invested the same funds into a permanent municipal arborist and vegetation-management division—creating local jobs, purchasing its own equipment, and saving ratepayers hundreds of millions. Over the life of the five-year contract, this approach would likely have generated savings approaching a quarter-billion dollars—money that instead flowed to three private contractors under a pricing structure the public still cannot verify line-by-line.

Yet despite the scale of the expenditure, MLGW never publicly produced a cost comparison, feasibility analysis, or benchmarking study explaining why Memphis rejected the internal-division model. No transparent analysis was offered. No side-by-side projections were shared. The public was left with only the most important unanswered question: Why did MLGW reject the cheapest, safest, and most transparent option available?

In a city already strained by high utility bills, stagnant wages, and widespread economic hardship, the refusal to even study an in-house alternative remains one of the most consequential omissions in the entire $228 million controversy.

 

The “Common Sense” Claim That Defied Actual Geography

Councilwoman Walker publicly affirmed President McGowen’s assertion that Memphis terrain makes trimming trees more expensive than in Nashville or Knoxville. She confidently suggested that comparisons with Nashville were unfair because of Memphis’ unique conditions, and she framed the entire debate as a matter of “common sense.”

But here are the actual, verifiable facts:

• Memphis is geographically flat—essentially a low-relief plain.
• Nashville’s terrain is significantly more hilly, uneven, and challenging.
• Knoxville sits in Appalachian foothills with slopes, gradients, and real access hazards. 

If terrain were a legitimate cost driver, Nashville and Knoxville should be paying more than Memphis. They are not.

Pearl Walker’s repeated invocation of “common sense” did not illuminate truth; it substituted confidence for accuracy and provided political cover for a contract price three to four times higher than peer utilities.

 

Misrepresentation Under Color of Authority

Replacing evidence with rhetoric—even well-delivered rhetoric—is not harmless.

It carries legal consequences.

When public officials make statements during formal proceedings that materially misrepresent facts, and those statements influence contract approval or budget allocations, they cross into potential violations of:

• T.C.A. § 39-16-402 — Official Misconduct
• T.C.A. § 39-16-403 — Official Oppression
• 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
• T.C.A. § 12-4-106 — Fraud & Misrepresentation in Public Contracting

Common sense is not a legal defense when the statements are demonstrably false.

 

Poverty, Not Partisanship, Is the Real Victim

This is not a racial story.

This is a poverty story.

Whether in Whitehaven, Frayser, Raleigh, Hickory Hill, or Berclair, the burden falls heaviest on:

• the senior on a fixed income choosing between lights and medication,
• the single mother juggling utilities and rent,
• The working families paying surcharges for tree trimming they cannot verify,
• the neighborhoods—Black and white—whose lights flicker and fail despite record spending. 

Memphis poverty is multiracial. Memphis pain is universal.

And Memphis families—regardless of color—are being told to accept a narrative that simply does not align with geography, math, or good governance.

 

Councilwoman Walker’s Public Posture

Beyond the hearing, Walker’s public comments on social media echoed the same theme:

trust MLGW, trust leadership, trust the narrative.

Yet the community she serves is not asking for political loyalty.

They are asking for:

• accountability,
• clarity,
• transparency,
• and truthful justification of costs that directly impact household budgets. 

Her eagerness to defend the administration—while avoiding the obvious truth about terrain—exposes a troubling dissonance between what citizens experience and what officials claim.

 

The Misdirection

The Terrain Narrative functions as a pivot—a rhetorical detour designed to steer attention away from:

• $28 million unaccounted for in this year alone,
• Wild per-mile variances compared to peer cities,
• MLGW’s claim of being “ahead of schedule” while simultaneously justifying increased costs,
• Council hearings attended by only 3 of 13 members,
• and repeated internal contradictions. 

In a city with the highest poverty rate of any major metropolitan area in America, misdirection is not merely a political failing—it is economic cruelty.

 

What the Public Deserves

Citizens of Memphis deserve:

• Accurate facts about why costs are higher
• Clear accounting of where the money has gone
• Transparent and verifiable performance data
• Leaders willing to question—not repeat—administrative narratives
• A utility that prioritizes ratepayers over rhetoric

If Memphis leadership will misrepresent something as simple and measurable as terrain, what confidence should residents have in their explanations of outages, rates, budgets, or vendor relationships?

Common sense—real common sense—demands scrutiny, not blind acceptance.

And Memphians deserve far better than a narrative that collapses the moment it meets a topographic map.

 

The Real Question

If MLGW and Memphis City Council leadership will mislead the city about something as simple and verifiable as terrain, then what won’t they mislead the public about?

This is not a conspiracy theory.

This is not defamation.

This is not speculation.

This is public misrepresentation of material facts, caught on video, delivered at a hearing, meant to justify a contract that Memphians were never allowed to scrutinize.

Memphis deserves better than excuses.

It deserves the truth.

It deserves accountability.

And it deserves leadership that does not weaponize geography to conceal a financial scheme buried under leaves, limbs, and layers of bureaucratic misdirection.