A minority-owned firm is closing and says the city is to blame
A minority-owned public relations agency is closing its doors in Memphis. The reason, they say, is because of the city’s “lack of commitment to work with minority-owned businesses.”
In an emailed statement, the City of Memphis said the news from elittle Communications is unfortunate and that they hate to see any business leave.
The announcement from elittle Communications Group comes just a day after the Memphis Business Journal reported that the city has been using incorrect data to tout an increase in city spending with minority and womanowned businesses.
“It is disheartening that a city that touts the importance of minority spending is using false data on the percentage of city contracting dollars spent with minority and woman-owned businesses,” wrote Johnny Little, Jr., owner and founder of St. Louis, Missouri-based elittle Communications Group.
The company was hired in 2016 to perform public relations work around the introduction of body cameras to Memphis communities, but the work was never completed.
City representatives aid that the rollout of body cameras generated enough press on its own, negating the need for public relations efforts.
Communications group cites 'appalling' lack of city follow-through
Little said in his letter to the city that he was never paid for work that was done preparing for the public relations campaign, including “hundreds of hours” designing a community engagement plan for the cameras or submitting designs to “spruce up the hallways of the Police Department.”
Ursula Madden, chief communications officer for the City of Memphis, said that the city isn't responsible for those payments, since it does not have a contract with elittle Communications. Rather, elittle's contract is with Axon, formerly known as Taser International, which contracted with the city.
"Their contract, as a sub, is with Axon," Madden said. "The funds for the PR campaign were not built into the contract. Therefore, Axon would have billed the City for any work that was done by their subs.”
An Axon representative said they had no record of making payment to elittle Communications.
"Our Accounts Receivable team has not been billed by the City of Memphis for work done by elittle Communications nor has it received an invoice directly from elittle Communications," they wrote.
Little said he has not been contacted by Axon since the contract was signed in August 2016.
In his email to the city, Little linked to a letter from the city that asked elittle Communications to submit a final invoice for any services performed, and said that the city will remit payments.
Little told The Commercial Appeal that when he tried to contact the city to ask how to submit such an invoice, he was met with silence. The work they did was worth between $40,000 and $50,000, he said.
“The lack of commitment and follow through from city officials and employees is appalling,” Little wrote.
The City of Memphis said the letter from Madden referred "to incidental expenses they might have incurred from any face-to-face meetings held with the city not contract expenses."
Katherine Burgess covers county government and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.