City’s housing mix could take hard hit in pandemic
The city’s mix of housing has flipped in recent years, with renters now making up the majority as investors continue to buy single-family homes.
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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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The city’s mix of housing has flipped in recent years, with renters now making up the majority as investors continue to buy single-family homes.
During an appearance on “Behind The Headlines,” Shelby County Schools Superintendent Joris Ray also pushed back against the narrative that no high school football games for the state’s largest school system could limit the path to higher education for student athletes.
Martavius Jones, the Memphis City Council budget committee chairman who oversaw pitches by more than 150 nonprofits seeking a share of $1.95 million, has problems with the way grants are awarded.
Tennessee’s senior Senator ended a Sunday of speculation about where he would stand on the move to fill the vacancy with a written statement Sunday afternoon.
Three police reform measures cleared the Shelby County Commission on the first of three readings this week. But it amounted to a test vote with more votes in play than were committed. Our commission scorecard shows where the division is on the specific issues.
On “Behind The Headlines,” Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. also said he sees an “appetite” for reform among law enforcement in general but has some hesitation about trying to codify reform measures he’s taken to apply to future sheriffs.
Tentative plans for a 2-mile stretch between Front and Cleveland include better pedestrian crossings, protected bike lanes and landscaping. A public meeting Thursday resumes a process that was paused in March for the pandemic.
GDS Associates, a Georgia company whose report in February 2019 kicked off MLGW’s examination of cutting ties to the Tennessee Valley Authority, is recommended for the $520,000 contract.
MLGW branch offices remain closed to the public, but have drive-thru service to pay bills. But the drive-thru service doesn’t include working out a payment plan.
MLGW declared a moratorium on utility cutoffs in mid-March as the worldwide pandemic was declared. This month, when the moratorium was lifted, the utility received an overwhelming number of calls to work out payment plans and avoid cutoffs.
The trio of ordinances affecting the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and corrections officers advanced automatically in Monday’s first of three votes on the measures. A second reading will be held in two weeks and a third is tentatively set in October.
A total of 78 positions in various parts of county government are the latest exceptions to a hiring freeze. But as they approved the waivers Monday, county commissioners signaled they are about to make a decision on the hiring freeze’s viability possibly by the end of this month.
The payday loan resolution is not binding on the Tennessee Legislature and is the latest discussion by a local elected body about the impact such businesses have on citizens’ financial health.
Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner has seen first hand the impact of violent crime on his commission district which includes Hickory Hill. But Turner says it’s possible to back law enforcement and be opposed to a militarization of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and Memphis Police Department.
The three ordinances are scheduled for the first of three votes on Monday. And still to weigh in on the proposals is Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner.
The latest edition of our City Council scorecard finds a healthy council majority in favor of changing street names as part of a slate of Black Lives Matter proposals. Plus, the Council held a unanimous vote to begin changing the business streetscape along a stretch of Lamar Avenue.
Former Republican state Senator and Juvenile Court Judge Curtis Person Jr. died Friday at the age of 85. He began his political career as a Democratic state Representative and ended it 48 years later with a single term as one of only three elected Juvenile Court Judges in Shelby County over the past 55 years.
Here are some of the key dates in the MLGW-TVA saga over the last eight decades, starting with Nov. 6, 1934.
The political boss believed in public ownership of utilities from the dawn of his considerable influence over the city when he was a city commissioner. And Crump saw private owners of such utilities as political adversaries.
Memphis has left the Tennessee Valley Authority before, for a period that included the city building its own electric power plant. There are a lot of similarities between various turbulent chapters in the city's relationship with TVA as MLGW leaders again consider an exit from the federal agency.
The pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church thinks the first part of Mayor Jim Strickland’s effort to reform the Memphis Police Department didn’t go far enough.
The seven public school systems in Shelby County opened in one way or another before the Labor Day weekend with plans that vary to some degree.
The proposal would ban the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office from getting camouflage uniforms and bayonets from surplus federal military stocks as well as militarized and weaponized vehicles or aircraft.
The state's changes are in line with changing guidance from federal health officials. And they have already been adopted by the independent county health departments in the state's major cities, including Memphis.
Mayor Jim Strickland rolled out a 13-member group Wednesday, Sept. 2, to make what he termed “substantive, realistic and measurable” recommendations on police reform. It's the second phase of the administration's effort and includes some critics of City Hall's response thus far.