Reporter
50 recent articles by Bill Dries:
Retiring TVA president Bill Johnson told a Memphis group Tuesday that the federal power provider is the best value for MLGW, its largest customer, beyond the electricity the utility buys from TVA.
Alan Curtis, president of the Eisenhower Foundation, was in Memphis last week to talk about an update of the landmark Kerner Commission report on 1968 riots.
State Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris became federal judge Mark Norris at a formal ceremony Friday Downtown -- part of a larger season of transition in politics.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander wants to ditch border wall talks between the president and Democratic leaders and instead start moving toward a Senate vote with amendments. That's provided President Donald Trump agrees to reopen the federal government for three weeks while such a bill would be amended and discussed.
The city has plans to add a median strip, bike lanes and landscaping on the block of Union Avenue between Marshall and Manassas streets. The changes will connect with a longer stretch of road on Manassas that is something of a proving ground for lots of similar features.
Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk Heidi Kuhn is reviewing the idea of an expungement court docket to speed the process of wiping clean the criminal records of offenders who have stayed out of trouble for five years.
The federal government is shutdown but plans continue by local transportation agencies for new federal funding starting in 2020. The projects range from repaving the roads most used by the city's heaviest truck traffic to better pedestrian crossings.
Memphis City Council members back the general plan for sports betting on Beale Street, but they want to see what kind of split of revenue is proposed when it comes down to a specific bill in Nashville.
Almost four months after it closed because of a rat infestation, Kirby High School reopens Monday to students who spent most of their first semester spread across three other campuses. The school returns with some new features and technology it didn't have before.
The first election of 2019 is for an open state Senate seat in the suburbs and early voting begins Friday.
Former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton is the independent monitor who will report to U.S. District Judge Jon P. McCalla on steps the Memphis Police Department is taking to end surveillance of protesters after violating a 1978 consent decree barring such surveillance.
The Memphis City Council has three empty council seats to fill Tuesday. And if the 10 council members can’t break the gridlock that has delayed the appointment to the first of those vacancies, there will be more calls for special elections to fill all three.
The Tennessee Building Commission's executive committee has approved an expansion of the Downtown Tourism Development Zone for a second convention center hotel in Memphis.
The River Garden at Mississippi River Park has a few unexpected additions. Since the park at the Wolf River Harbor was revamped as a more active setting about a month ago, a hawk and a bobcat have taken up residence.
Charles Burson began with the certainty that he was taking pictures of what would be Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign march to the presidency. That belief and his political experience influenced how and where the Memphis attorney and former Tennessee attorney general framed what he shot.
Joris Ray, Shelby County Schools' chief of academic operations and school support, is the school system’s interim superintendent starting with the departure of SCS superintendent Dorsey Hopson next month.
On the fourth consecutive day of what Memphis City Council chairman Berlin Boyd calls “the situation,” the council again could not muster a quorum of seven members to transact business.
One of the contenders for the appointment to the open District 1 Memphis City Council seat withdrew from consideration Wednesday, opening the possibility for a compromise among council members on the deadlocked appointment process and a return of a quorum for the council to transact other city business.
Germantown alderman John Barzizza is contesting the results of the Germantown mayoral race he lost to incumbent Mike Palazzolo by 120 votes in the certified election results the Shelby County Election Commission approved last week.
Former president George H.W. Bush was a frequent point man in Memphis for Reagan administration policies during his two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Bush began his “thousand points of light” volunteerism initiative in Memphis less than a year into his presidency.
Just under 1,000 provisional ballots cast on Nov. 6 but not counted until almost three weeks later will be the center of attention on Monday, Nov. 26, as the Shelby County Election Commission certifies the results of the last election of 2018 in Shelby County.
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.
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.
Polling places at 166 Shelby County precincts are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
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 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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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