Council members make case for exempting city from state residency bill
Memphis City Council member J.B. Smiley Jr., seen here in 2019, wants state Sen. Brian Kelsey to exempt Memphis from his proposal to drop all residency requirements everywhere in the state for police and firefighters. (Jim Weber/Daily Memphian file)
Council member J.B. Smiley argues that if the city accepts police and fire applications from outside the city, more effort will have to be put into screening candidates.
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Memphis City Council residency rule JB Smiley Jr. Brian KelseyBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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