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49 recent articles by Bill Dries:
Memphis City Council members took more than 100 separate votes on an interim council member Tuesday in a meeting that stretched past midnight before chairman Berlin Boyd recessed the meeting and the decision until the Dec. 4 council session.
Memphis City Council members will fill a vacancy at their Tuesday session and elect a new chairman and vice chairman for 2019.
For all of the planning and man-made features that went into the new Mississippi River Park and its River Garden, including people-sized bird nests, there is another new feature that park planners didn’t anticipate.
Three Memphis nonprofits will be part of a two-year trial program to make up the gap between what it costs to build or rehab a house in some parts of the city and what the appraised value is.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland told 120 hospitality industry leaders Wednesday he would like to see more agreement among them before he commits to anything like an increase in the city hotel-motel tax to fund Memphis Cook Convention Center improvements beyond its coming $175 million overhaul.
The head of Latino Memphis and the former Shelby County Probate Court clerk top a list of eight citizens who have applied to fill a vacancy on the Memphis City Council.
At his next-to-last campaign stop in his bid for the U.S. Senate Monday evening, former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen had trouble getting in the door of Jim Neely’s Interstate Barbecue in South Memphis.
Polling places at 166 Shelby County precincts are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The Memphis City Council will be down two members when it meets Tuesday in an Election Day session.
The last election of 2018 will decide winners and losers in numerous local, state and federal offices and three city referendums.
A total of 188,668 Shelby Countians cast early ballots during the early voting period that ended Nov. 1. The largest turnout day was the last – 20,332 – the only day that topped 20,000.
The remade Mississippi River Park with its own “River Garden” opens in a week. The River Line trail running along the east side of Wolf River Harbor to Big River Crossing will debut the same day. Mud Island River Park is closed until the spring after a season of experiment and minor tweaks.
A group working on changes to the local approach to economic development is recommending a larger role for the Greater Memphis Chamber.
The Memphis City Council cannot spend any money publicizing the three city charter referendums on the November ballot until Chancellor Jim Kyle holds a hearing Tuesday on a lawsuit filed Friday by members of the group Save IRV, which is among those campaigning for the defeat of all three amendments.
The day after Chancery Court ordered the Shelby County Election Commission to continue verifying incomplete voter registration applications so eligible people can vote by Election Day Nov. 6, NAACP leaders said they were prepared to begin contacting those prospective voters.
The Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union wants a review of voters purged from the Shelby County election rolls and possible restoration of any voters who may have been purged since May 2017 solely for missing several elections.
Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins ruled Thursday in favor of the Memphis Branch NAACP and the Tennessee Black Voters Project in a lawsuit that will require the Shelby County Election Commission to give potential voters a chance to fix their voter registration applications so they can cast ballots on the Nov. 6 election day.
The third lawsuit filed this month over elections in Shelby County goes before Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins Thursday morning in Chancery Court.
After years of preparation, the city of Memphis on Thursday, Oct. 25, will formally open the new city maintenance yard it has been planning through two administrations.
It’s not just that Phil Bredesen and Marsha Blackburn have different views on many issues. The Democratic and Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate seat on the Nov. 6 ballot differ on what’s at stake in the statewide race.
Early voting in advance of the Nov. 6 election day continues through Nov. 1 at 27 locations across Shelby County. You can find those locations and hours at www.shelbyvote.com, the website of the Shelby County Election Commission, along with a sample ballot. Here are some other basics about early voting in Shelby County.
Here are the three city charter amendment referendums on the Nov. 6 ballot in Memphis in the order that they appear on the ballot.
Public policy and competition in the business world can co-exist with business taking the lead in creating new jobs, says one of the new set of leaders of the Greater Memphis Chamber.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland's administration will take its Tourism Development Zone plan for the Fairgrounds to the Tennessee Building Commission for approval next month.
Shelby County voters begin casting ballots in the last election of 2018 Wednesday, Oct. 17, as early voting opens before the Nov. 6 election day. The 27 early voting sites across Shelby County are all open from Wednesday through Nov. 1. The midterm general election cycle typically sees a higher turnout than the August county general and state and federal primary elections.
Additional parking along Riverside Drive, better access to the riverfront and improved safety are more important than keeping the Downtown thoroughfare at four lanes, a new survey for the Memphis River Parks Partnership shows.
The Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club says a proposal to end Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division’s ties to the Tennessee Valley Authority and instead buy electricity from a renovated Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama is “pie in the sky.”
Memphis City Council members never got a chance to see the video made by backers of a move to make a renewed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant the major supplier of electrical power to Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division.
A group of 50 protesters and a few dissenters outside the Peabody Place office building Downtown Monday evening played out the ongoing national debate over the Senate confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And it came with a brief tug of war over a megaphone at the rally organized by Ama Ehrmann that drew leaders of the Indivisible Memphis organization.
Memphis City Council members could discuss the process of filling three upcoming vacancies on the body when they meet Tuesday, Oct. 9.
Memphis City Council member and Shelby County Probate Court Clerk Bill Morrison will resign his seat on the council effective Nov. 1.
Treehouses taking shape in Mississippi River Park by the Wolf River Harbor will get signs before the park’s Nov. 9 opening saying they are suitable for children ages 5-12.
The crime prevention nonprofit group SafeWays is partnering with the Memphis Housing Authority to work in eight public housing high rises and communities as well as mixed-income communities on what were once MHA developments.
The path to end the city’s large public housing projects was a 20-year journey that brought city leaders to a tent last week near the corner of Vance and Lauderdale.
Memphis police brass were about four minutes into Power Point slides at a Tuesday, Sept. 25, City Council committee session before council members shut down the presentation that tallied the hours of police camera recordings and number of cameras in patrol cars.
The leader of the city-county Economic Development Growth Engine says EDGE is willing to change, but Reid Dulberger was quick to add that changes to the formal approach to growing the Memphis economy won’t address the dominant challenges.
All of Shelby County’s 27 early-voting sites will open on Oct. 17, the first day of the early-voting period before the Nov. 6 election. Early voting runs through Nov. 1.
The city’s working group on economic development is about to compare notes on the attributes of a “perfect” economic development organization.
Antonio Burt, principal at one of Shelby County Schools’ first Innovation Zone schools and leader of priority and I-Zone schools, is the new chief academic officer for SCS.
Facebook has deactivated six fake accounts connected to the Memphis Police Department, according to the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, and sent a letter to police brass last week warning them that the fake accounts violate Facebook's terms of service.
The first weekend the Downtown Memphis Commission and Memphis Police Department considered reinstituting a cover charge on Beale Street did not occur.
Three of the four voting systems certified by the state of Tennessee for use in elections would enable voters to get a printed copy of their choices and then complete the voting process by running that printed copy through a scanner.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland addressed the city Friday morning, saying there have been 40 incidents in which the Memphis Police Department investigated and disciplined officers for violating policies surrounding the use of body and vehicle cameras, vowing to get “to the bottom of this” shooting of 25-year-old Martavious Banks.
Two months into his job as superintendent of Millington Municipal Schools, James “Bo” Griffin goes into all four schools in the system at least once a week.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris is making a change in who runs the county’s memorandum of agreement with the U.S. Justice Department for changes in Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court.
Republican Senate nominee Marsha Blackburn removed a picture Monday, Sept. 17, of her with the University of Memphis Spirit Squad posted on her campaign Facebook page.
Democratic U.S. Senate contender Phil Bredesen met a crowd of 500 at Rhodes College Thursday, Sept. 13, that consisted mostly of supporters on what was originally planned as a debate with Republican rival Marsha Blackburn. Blackburn would not commit to the debate.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Memphian, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland recently discussed a variety of topics, including police surveillance of protesters, economic development and his “brilliant at the basics” strategy.
As the city of Memphis prepares to mark its 200th anniversary, the Chickasaw Nation is finding the story of its origins in a part of the city Native Americans left 500 years ago.
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