Reporter
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.
There are 3895 articles by Bill Dries :
The council also delayed the first of three votes on the Memphis 3.0 land use and development guidelines and approved the Poplar Arts Lofts project. And the council got a first hand look at the FedEx "same day bot" to be tested on Memphis streets this summer.
A Graceland master plan that does not include an arena tops Tuesday's Memphis City Council agenda. Also on the agenda is the Poplar Arts Lofts project and a discussion about urban art.
Memphis City Council member Berlin Boyd has amended his disclosure to include his job with FedEx Logistics on a form dated last week on the council's website.
Former Memphis City Schools board member Jeff Warren is running for a super district council seat, citing his experience as a family physician and as a school board member as terms were set for the merger of public education in Shelby County.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren drew a crowd of more than 400 in North Memphis for the first Memphis appearance by a presidential hopeful in advance of the Tennessee presidential primaries of March 2020.
The circa-1836 home of Irish immigrant Eugene Magevney is open for tours Fridays through April 12 and has plans as well as a wish list for a more active future.
After a party reorganization in 2017 and a Democratic sweep of countywide offices in the 2018 elections, Shelby County Democratic Party chairman Corey Strong says it is time for another leader of the local party.
The $11 million renovation of a Frayser apartment complex owned by The Works, a South Memphis community development corporation, is an indication that the coordinated fight against blight in the city has moved beyond one single-family home at a time.
Tennessee’s two Republican U.S. senators split Thursday in the chamber’s vote on a resolution blocking President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to fund a border wall with Mexico.
Mayor Jim Strickland's administration conceded a "clerical error" in its minority spending numbers Thursday, saying the city actually spent 17.7 percent of its money in 2018 with women- and minority-owned businesses rather than the 24 percent previously touted by Strickland.
Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren will make an early campaign stop in Memphis Sunday at Douglass High School.
Covington business owner Paul Rose claimed the district seat on both sides of the Tipton-Shelby county line with nearly 90 percent of the district-wide vote.
The city of Memphis is suing 21 opioid manufacturers and distributors in a federal lawsuit claiming “opioid addiction is ravaging Memphis.”
The race for Memphis Mayor has three front-line contenders on the way to the spring and summer heart of the 2019 campaign. And the trio of Sawyer, Herenton and Strickland shows some differences that reflect divergent views of the city's future beyond who wins and who loses.
Monday was “311 Day” at City Hall, and the city’s 311 operation and call center was open to the media to draw awareness to the call and app service that began in 2013.
Voters in eastern Shelby County and Tipton County go to the polls Tuesday to decide who will take the state Senate District 32 seat formerly held by Mark Norris.
Almost half the signatures processed so far to put a city sales tax hike on the ballot this year have been judged invalid, according to the Shelby County Election Commission.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's remarks at the University of Memphis Thursday went short on budget specifics for local projects and longer on his conservative philosophy for state government, but he stopped short of saying he would sign the "fetal heartbeat" abortion bill that cleared the state House earlier in the day.
The Mississippi River at Memphis is past its crest as of Monday, but the level is still over 40 feet on the river gauge.
The last day of early voting in state Senate District 32 is followed by the March 12 election day for the seat covering eastern Shelby County and all of Tipton County. Early voter turnout appears to be about where it was in the January special primary elections.
Memphis City Council members looked for a quick bottom line in the Memphis 3.0 plan during their first discussion of the 400-page proposal Tuesday.
The city and Graceland appear to have an agreement that allows the Graceland master plan to move ahead in some form beyond litigation over an arena that has been a part of the plan.
The bicentennial observance includes the world's longest picnic table, fireworks, skydivers, an airshow and a parachute team.
Catholics in West Tennessee have a new leader almost five months after Bishop Martin Holley was ousted after a tumultuous two years leading the Catholic Diocese of Memphis.
A review of the Memphis 3.0 plan tops Tuesday's City Council agenda, along with new residential development in Cooper-Young and a neighborhood near the Fairgrounds.