The Memphis City Council meets Tuesday, May 10, at 3:30 p.m. Committee sessions begin at 8 a.m. Watch a livestream of the day’s proceedings at City Hall, starting with committees. Here is the agenda for the committee sessions. Here is the agenda for the afternoon council meeting. You can find documents here offering more detail on some of the items on both agendas. Follow @bdriesdm for live coverage of the council day at City Hall.

Because of the rise in COVID cases locally, the council has moved committee sessions from the 5th floor committee room at City Hall to council chambers in the lobby.

The Memphis City Council takes the first of three votes Tuesday, May 10, on setting a new and lower city property tax rate of $2.70 as hearings move to Mayor Jim Strickland’s $750 million proposed operating budget Wednesday.

The council’s budget committee began work on the $95 million capital budget proposal last week.

The city tax rate of $2.71 is dropping a penny by order of the Tennessee Comptroller’s office after the allowance built into the tax rate for successful appeals of increases in property values created a windfall for the city.

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By state law, a new property tax rate based on the reappraisal for tax purposes cannot create more revenue than the old tax rate and the old values created.

The city council could vote to go above the new $2.70 mark but it would have to take a separate vote on what would amount to a tax hike.

The council also takes a second reading vote Tuesday on a referendum ordinance to extend term limits on council members from two consecutive terms of four years each to three consecutive terms.

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In a 2:45 p.m. committee session, council member Worth Morgan is expected to propose amendments to the ballot question proposed by council member Martavius Jones.

Three weeks ago, Morgan indicated he might propose an amendment to bar current council members from benefitting from the extension of terms if voters approve the change to the city charter.

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Such an amendment would have the three-term limit apply to future council members.

A companion referendum ordinance by Jones that would allow partisan primaries in city elections is up for first reading on Tuesday’s agenda.

Jones is timing the votes on the ordinances to have the ballot questions on the August ballot for Memphis voters to decide.

The council takes the second of three votes Tuesday on an ordinance creating a tax increment finance – or TIF – district for the Soulsville area.

The joint city county ordinance was approved Monday by the Shelby County Commission on the first of three readings.

The district, administered by the County Redevelopment Agency, has drawn criticism by some on the council for being an area much smaller than two other versions of the TIF district drawn by two separate groups.

It would create an estimated $13 million in incremental property tax revenue over 30 years to be reinvested in the area around Stax Records and LeMoyne-Owen College.

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But Strickland defended the smaller area for the TIF this week.

“The size is not the problem. They can make it eight times the size,” he told The Daily Memphian. “The challenge is you need new investment to generate increment. The size does not generate increment.”

“Frankly both groups that were pursuing a TIF -- neither one of them proposed specific investment,” he said. “That’s what is missing. I would urge do not expand the size of it until you see that its working and the best way for it to work is to have a private investment.”